An Infamous Army (Alastair-Audley Tetralogy 4)

‘Well, no more is the Legion,’ said Lord Robert.

‘No: they began to recruit too many foreigners. But they’re good troops, for all that, and they’ve good generals. I don’t know what the other Hanoverians are like: there’s a large contingent of them, but mostly Landwehr battalions.’

‘It sounds to me,’ said Lord Robert, draining his glass, ‘like a devilish mixed bag. What are the Prussians like?’

‘We don’t see much of them. Hardinge’s with them: says they’re a queer set, according to our notions. When Blücher has a plan of campaign, he holds conferences with all his generals, and they discuss it, and argue over it, under his very nose. I should like to see old Hookey inviting Hill, and Alten, and Picton, and the rest, to discuss his plans with him!’

Lord Robert laughed; Mr Creevey peeped into the room, and seeing the two officers, came in, rubbing his hands together, and smiling like one who was sure of his welcome. There might be news to be gleaned from Audley, not the news that was being bandied from lip to lip, but titbits of private information, such as an officer on the Duke’s staff would be bound to hear. He had buttonholed the Duke a little earlier in the evening, but had not been able to get anything out of him but nonsense. He talked the same stuff as ever, laughing a great deal, pooh-poohing the gravity of the political situation, giving it as his opinion that Boney’s return would come to nothing. Carnot and Lucien Bonaparte would get up a Republic in Paris; there would never be any fighting with the Allies; the Republicans would beat Bonaparte in a very few months. He was in a joking mood, and Mr Creevey had met jest with jest, but thought his lordship cut a sorry figure. He allowed him to be very natural and good humoured, but could not perceive the least indication of him of superior talents. He was not reserved; quite the reverse: he was communicative; but his conversation was not that of a sensible man.

‘Well? What’s the news?’ asked Mr Creevey cheerily. ‘How d’ye do, Lord Robert?’

‘Oh, come, sir! It’s you who always have the latest news,’ said Colonel Audley. ‘Will you drink a glass of champagne with us?’

‘Oho, so that’s what you are up to! You’re a most complete hand, Colonel! Well, just one then. What’s the latest intelligence from France, eh?’

‘Why, that Boney’s summoning everyone to an assembly, or some such thing, in the Champ du Mars.’

‘I know that,’ said Mr Creevey. ‘I have been talking about it to the Duke. We have had quite a chat together, I can tell you, and some capital jokes too. He believes it won’t answer, this Champ de Mai affair; that there will be an explosion; and the whole house of cards will come tumbling about Boney’s ears.’

‘Ah, I daresay,’ responded the Colonel vaguely. ‘Don’t know much about these matters, myself.’

Mr Creevey drank up his wine, and went away in search of better company. He found it presently in the group about Barbara Childe. She had gathered a numbered of distinguished persons about her, just the sort of people Mr Creevey liked to be with. He joined the group, noticing with satisfaction that it included General Don Miguel de Alava, a short, sallow-faced Spaniard, with a rather simian cast of countenance, quick-glancing eyes, and a tongue for ever on the wag. Alava had lately become the Spanish Ambassador at The Hague, but was at present acting as military commissioner to the Allied Army. He had been commissar at Wellington’s Headquarters in Spain, and was known to be on intimate terms with the Duke. Mr Creevey edged nearer to him his ears on the prick.

‘But your wife, Alava! Is she not with you?’ Sir William Ponsonby was demanding.

Up went the expressive hands; a droll look came into Alava’s face. ‘Ah non, par exemple!’ he exclaimed. ‘She stays in Spain. Excellente femme!—mais forte ennuyeuse!’

Caroline Lamb’s voice broke through the shout of laughter. ‘General Alava, what’s the news? You know it all! Now tell us! Do tell us!’

‘Mais, madame, je n’en sais rien! Rien, rien, rien!’

Decidedly, Mr Creevey was out of luck tonight.

Twelve

May came in, bringing trouble. There seemed to be no end to the difficulties for ever springing up round his lordship. Now it was Major-General Hinüber, querulously demanding leave to resign his staff, and to retire to some German spa, because he was not to command the Legion as a separate division: he might go with the Duke’s goodwill, but it meant more letter writing, more trouble; now it was news from his brother William, in London: the Peace party was attacking his lordship in Parliament, accusing him of being little better than a murderer, because he had set his name to the declaration that made Napoleon hors la loi: he did not really care, he had never cared for public opinion, but it annoyed him. To attack a public servant absent on public service seemed to him ‘extraordinary and unprecedented’. Then there was the constant fret of being obliged to deal with the Dutch King, a jealous man, continually raising difficulties, or turning obstinate over petty issues. He could be managed, in the end he would generally give way, but it took time to handle him, and time was what his lordship could least spare.

The question of the Hanoverian subsidy had become acute; King William should have shared the payment with Great Britain, but he was wriggling out of that obligation, on the score that he had only been bound to pay it while he had no troops of his own. His lordship had had an interview with the M. de Nagel over the business, but in the end he supposed the whole charge of the Hanoverian subsidy would fall upon Great Britain.

Trouble sprang up in the Prussian camp. The Saxon troops at Liége mutinied over some question of an oath of allegiance to the King of Prussia, and poor old Blücher was obliged to quit the town. The Saxons would have been willing enough to have come over to the British camp, but his lordship did not want such fellows, and knew that the Prussians would never agree to his having them if he did. They would have to be got rid of before they spread disaffection through the Army, but the question was how to get them out of the country. Blücher wanted them to be embarked on British ships, but his lordship had no transports; his troops were sent out to him on hired vessels, which returned to England as soon as their cargoes were landed. If they were to be escorted through the Netherlands, King William’s permission must be obtained, but there was no inducing Blücher to realise the propriety of referring to the King. It would fall on his lordship’s shoulders to arrange matters, writing to Hardinge, to Blücher, to King William.

And, like a running accompaniment to the rest, the bickering correspondence with Torrens over staff appointments dragged on, until his lordship dashed off one of his hasty, biting notes, requesting that it should cease. ‘The Commander-in-Chief has a right to appoint whom he chooses, and those whom he appoints shall be employed,’ he wrote in a stiff rage. ‘It cannot be expected that I should declare myself satisfied with these appointments till I shall find the persons as fit for their situations as those whom I should have recommended to his Royal Highness.’

On May 6th his lordship was able to tell Lord Bathurst that King William

had placed the Dutch-Belgian Army under his command. The appointment had been delayed on various unconvincing pretexts, but at last, and when his lordship had reached the end of his patience, it had been made. Things should go better now; he could begin to pull the whole Allied Army into shape, drafting the troops where he thought proper without the hindrance of having to make formal application for permission to His Majesty.

The month wore on; the weather grew warmer; no more friendly logfires in the grates, no more fur-lined pelisses for the ladies. Out came the cambrics and the muslins: lilac, pomona green, and pale puce, made into wispy round dresses figured with rosebuds, with row upon row of frills round the ankles. Knots of jaunty ribbons adorned low corsages, and gauze scarves floated from plump shoulders in a light breeze. The feathered velvet bonnets and the sealskin caps were put up in camphor. Hats were the rage; chip hats, hats of satin straw, of silk, of leghorn, and of willow: high-crowned, flat-crowned, with full-poke fronts, and with curtailed poke fronts: hats trimmed with clusters of flowers, or bunches of bobbing cherries, with puffs of satin ribbons, drapings of thread net, and frills of lace. Winter half boots of orange jean or sober black kid were discarded: the ladies tripped over cobbled streets in sandals and slippers. Red morocco twinkled under rushed skirts; Villager hats and Angoulême bonnets framed faces old or young, pretty or plain; silk openwork mittens covered rounded arms; frivolous little parasols on long beribboned handles shaded delicate complexions from the sun’s glare. Denmark Lotion was in constant demand, and Distilled Water of Pineapples; strawberries were wanted for sunburnt cheeks; Chervil Water, for bathing a freckled skin.

The balls, the concerts, the theatres continued, but picnics were added to the gaieties now, charming expeditions, with flowering muslins squired by hot scarlet uniforms; the ladies in open carriages; the gentlemen riding gallantly beside; hampers of cold chicken and champagne on the boxes; everyone lighthearted; flirtation the order of the day. There were reviews to watch, fêtes to attend; day after day slid by in the pursuit of pleasure; days that were not quite real, but belonged to some half-realised dream. Somewhere to the south was a Corsican ogre, who might at any moment break into the dream and shatter it, but distance shrouded him; and, meanwhile, into the Netherlands was streaming an endless procession of British troops, changing the whole face of the country, swarming in every village; lounging outside estaminets, in forage caps, with their jackets unbuttoned; trotting down the rough, dusty roads with plumes flying and accoutrements jingling; haggling with shrewd Flemish farmers in their broken French; making love to giggling girls in starched white caps and huge voluminous skirts; spreading their Flanders tents over the meadows; striding through the streets with clanking spurs and swinging sabretaches. Here might be seen a looped and tasselled infantry shako, narrow-topped and leathern-peaked; there the bell-topped shako of a Light Dragoon, with its short plume and ornamental cord; or the fur cap of a hussar; or the glitter of sunlight on a Heavy Dragoon’s brass helmet, with its jutting crest and waving plume.

Like bright colours in a kaleidoscope, merging into ever-changing patterns, the troops were being drafted over the countryside. Life Guardsmen in scarlet and gold, mounted on great black chargers, sleek as satin and splendid with polished trappings, woke dozing villages on the Dender; Liedekerke gaped at the Blues, swaggering up the street as though they owned it; Schendelbeke girls came running to see the hussars ride past with tossing pelisses, and crusted jackets; Castre and Lerbeke billet Light Dragoons in blue with silver lace, and facings of every colour; crimson, yellow, buff, scarlet; Brussels fell in love with Highland kilts and jaunty bonnets, and blinked at trim riflemen in their Jack-a-Dandy green uniforms; Enghien and Grammont swarmed with the Footguards, the Gentlemen’s Sons, with their hosts of dashing young ensigns and captains, all so smart and gay, riding in point-to-point races, hurrying off to Brussels in their best clothes to dance the night through, or entertaining bevies of lovely ladies at fêtes and picnics. But thundering and clattering along the roads that led from Ostend came the Artillery, grim troops in sombre uniforms and big black helmets, scaring the lighthearted into momentary silence as they passed, for though the Guards danced, and the cavalry made love, and line regiments scattered far and near swarmed over the country like noisy red ants, it was the sight of the guns that made the merrymakers realise how close they stood to war. All through April and the early weeks in May they landed one after another in the Netherlands: Ross, with his Chestnut Troop of 9-pounders; bearded Major Bull, with heavy howitzers; Mercer, with his artist’s eye for landscape and his crack troop; Whinyates, with his cherished Rockets; Beane; Gardiner; Webber-Smith; and the beau ideal of every artillery officer, Norman Ramsay, of Fuentes de Oñoro fame. After the troops came the field brigades: Sandham’s, Bolton’s, Lloyd’s, Sinclair’s, Rogers’; all armed with five gleaming 9-pounders and one howitzer. They were an imposing sight; ominous enough to give a pause to gaiety.

But the merrymaking went on, uneasy under the surface, sometimes a little hectic, as though while the sun continued to shine and the Ogre to remain in his den, the civilians and the soldiers and the lovely ladies were being driven on to cram into every cloudless day all the fun and the gaiety it could hold. The Duke gave ball after ball; there were Court parties at Laeken; reviews at Vilvorde; excursions to Ath, and Enghien, and Ghent; picnics in the cool Forest of Soignes.

There was a rumour of movement on the frontier; a tremor of fear ran through Brussels. Count d’Erlon was marching on Valenciennes with his whole corps; the French were massing on the Allied front, a hundred thousand strong; the Emperor had left Paris: he was at Condé; he was about to launch an attack. It was false: the Emperor was still in Paris, and had postponed his meeting of the Champ de Mai until the end of the month. The ladies and the civilians, poised for flight, could relax again: there was nothing to fear: the Duke had told Mr Creevey that it would never come to blows; and was holding another ball.

‘Pooh! Nonsense!’ said the Duke. ‘Nothing to be afraid of yet!’