An Infamous Army Read online

  ‘What about ourselves? How do we go on?’

  ‘Well, we can put 70,000 men into the field now, which is something.’

  ‘Too many 2nd Battalions,’ said Lord Robert. ‘Under strength, aren’t they?’

  ‘Some of them. You know how it is. We’re hoping to get some of the troops back from America. But God knows whether they’ll arrive in time! We miss Murray badly—but we hear we’re to have De Lancey in his place, which will answer pretty well. By the by, he’s married now, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes: charming girl, I believe. What are the Dutch and Belgian troops like? We don’t hear very comfortable reports of them. Disaffected, are they?’

  ‘They’re thought to be. It wouldn’t be surprising: half of them have fought under the Eagles. I suppose the Duke will try to mix them with our own people as much as possible, as he did with the Portuguese. Then there will be the Brunswick Oels Jägers: they ought to do well, though they aren’t what they were when we first had them with us.’

  ‘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