Earlier, when the witnesses arrived, there had been a commotion. The gate of the courtyard unbarred, the witnesses—two men and a woman carrying a child—prodded towards a bench that was in the partial shade of a creeper that had grown thickly up the wall and was studded with blue flowers. Then the gate was closed and barred again, shutting out the ragged, curious children and returning the courtyard to its former stillness.
As always in this city, it was sun or shade, each as intense as the other. In one, your whole skull was packed with light, in the other you seemed only half born, a spirit or ghost whose real form was uncertain.
Close to where the witnesses were sitting—close enough to share the flies—four horses were tethered to rings in the wall. Three were English horses with docked tails; the fourth, a palomino, was smaller and fatter, and looked as if its main work in life was carrying its master out to supper and back. The horse that interested Calley was one of the English horses, a stallion of obvious beauty and strength, tethered where the shade was deepest. He was no horseman himself, did not care for the way horses looked at men and seemed to know them, but the stallion was something remarkable and he knew you would not find more than two or three such horses in the whole of the British army.
Across the city bells rang. Doves rose from the roof of the house overlooking the courtyard, wheeled and returned. It was somewhere near the middle of the day. A smell of frying fish drifted over the walls. The only other smell—other than the horses and horse dung—was the smoke from the cigar the Spanish officer was smoking as he leaned against a pillar on the other side of the courtyard. He and Calley had arrived at almost the same moment, though from different ends of the street. Coming in, each had silently chosen which side of the courtyard to wait on, had eyed each other, briefly, across the sheer fall of light between them, then ignored the other’s existence. Time crawled, the hours passed. There was nowhere in the world, perhaps, where nothing could happen in quite the way it could in Lisbon.
Then, from above, came the sound of a door opening and the head and shoulders of a man looked at them from over the white parapet at the top of the steps. He came down the steps to the courtyard. When he arrived he looked suddenly lost, as though he had entered some new element, had slid into water or from water into air. He was wearing a black coat thick enough for the cool of an English April. He moved forward, cautiously, peering through his glasses at the figures on the bench under the blue flowers.
“Are these people the witnesses?” he asked. An English voice and a voice fresh from England. It was not clear who he was addressing. Perhaps he did not see very much through his glasses, was not yet accustomed to seeing life in the shadows.
The Spanish officer pushed himself away from his pillar. “Yes,” he said. “These are the witnesses.”
The man stared at him, this figure, half gorgeous, half absurd in the canary-yellow uniform of a Spanish cavalry regiment. He nodded, then hurried back to the stairs and hurried up them. At the top he paused to catch his breath, then disappeared through the double doors into the upper apartments.
The Spanish officer returned to his pillar, his smoking. Now that Calley had heard his voice he felt a new interest in him, and turning himself a little, shifting on the block of dressed stone he was using for a seat, he observed the man without seeming to. It was his habit, when looking at any stranger, to think first of how, in a fight, he would overcome him. His own build was slight—you do not grow tall, do not grow broad shoulders living as he had lived as a boy. Despite this, there were very few he thought he could not take, if only because of his willingness to start at a pitch most had no stomach for. He was not a fantasist. He had put himself to the test many times. The Spaniard, he was sure, would give him no trouble. But that voice. He had liked that voice. An accent, though not a strong one, not like those among them you could make no sense of even when they were speaking fluent English. He wondered if he might ask him for a cigar. Not wise, of course, to ask a British officer for a smoke, not wise at all, but Spanish officers were men in fancy dress. They did not need to be treated with the same care.
He was pondering this, picking his words, when he felt himself observed in turn, and flicking his gaze to the side he saw that it was the woman with the child. She looked down the moment he caught her, stared at the ground from beneath thick black brows. It did not trouble him, or it did not trouble him greatly. To her, surely, one English soldier was very like another. Even so. He stood up and walked to where, in the wall by the steps, water trickled into a basin. On the tiles above the basin there were images of birds in a kind of paradise. A tin scoop hung from a peg. He filled the scoop with water and walked over to the bench where the woman was sitting. Her head was covered with a cloth, a scarf, but from under its folds flowed a heavy plait of black hair that lay like a fish tail across her right breast. Only when he stood above her, did she look up at him. He offered her the scoop. He even leaned down a little so she could look hard into his face, so that she could not avoid it.
“Go on,” he said. Then a word they all knew, “Agua.”
She took the scoop, held it stupidly for a moment, as though she had no idea what it was, then gave some of the water to the child and took some for herself. Calley indicated that she should pass it to the men. The men drank from the scoop in turn. They had long, serious faces, like the faces of horses or mules. They uttered their thanks to Calley, spoke out of their chests. After a few seconds the woman added her own quiet “Gracias.”
They were all watching him now. He had created a piece of theatre. He had shaped their thinking. He returned the scoop to its nail and went back to his stone in the shade, sat there, brushing the white dust from his boots with the side of his hand.
The doors to the apartments were opened again, and again the man in the black coat peered over the wall at them before descending on his errand. What was he? Some sort of lawyer’s clerk? A scrivener? He stood on the bottom step. “The inquiry,” he said, looking left and right as if Bonaparte himself might be lurking behind one of the potted lemon trees, “calls Lieutenant Medina, Corporal Calley and the witnesses. If you please. Gentlemen.”
When Medina stepped out of the shade his uniform caught the light and for a moment he had no edges. He gestured to the witnesses. They stood. “No tengan miedo,” he said. Don’t be afraid. Then he turned to Calley. There was, perhaps, a year or two between them in age, neither yet the far side of thirty. “They have kept us waiting so long,” he said. “Let us hope they will be brief.”
They went up—the black coat, Medina, the witnesses, Calley. At the top of the stairs both doors to the apartments were open. They filed inside. The man in the black coat pulled the doors shut.
It was a long room with a low, carved ceiling. A wooden floor, dark and old and polished. Three windows with shutters that let in small, complicated geometries of brightness. Between the windows were paintings. In one of them a woman held out a human heart or some version of a human heart.
The new arrivals stood by their chairs. Facing them—at a distance of three or four strides—was a table, and sitting behind it were three men, two in British army uniforms, the third in civilian dress. One of the army men Calley knew already, a captain called Henderson who had interviewed him a week ago at the barracks. A list of questions, Calley playing the respectful halfwit, the honest veteran recovering from his hardships, until he had begun to see what it was they wanted and that it wasn’t him. After that they went on more quickly.
The man in the centre spoke first. “I am Colonel Riviere. This is Captain Henderson. And this gentleman is Don Ignacio Alvarez, who is here to represent the interests of Junta Suprema. No one is on trial. This is an inquiry, not a court martial. There will be no written record. Our single intention”—he paused, as though the single intention had momentarily escaped him—“is to know the truth, as far as we are able, of the events that took place at the village of Los Morales during the recent retreat of the British army to Corunna. We will hear from the witnesses. We will hear the testimony of Corporal Calley. Lieutenant Medina, who has served as a liaison officer with the British army, will act as our translator. Perhaps you would begin now, Lieutenant, by giving the witnesses the sense of what I have just said. Tell them please they should speak freely. They have nothing to fear from us. Be seated, all of you.”
They sat. Calley was nearest the door; next to him were the witnesses, then Medina, who leaned in towards the witnesses and spoke to them rapidly in a low voice. Calley sat with his right side turned a little towards the table to display his corporal’s chevrons and the merit badge above them he had sewn on with meticulous care the previous evening.
The colonel was studying his papers, though the light must have made reading them difficult. He did not have the appearance of a man who revelled in his part. Henderson was impassive, a soldier waiting for orders. Don Ignacio examined his watch, then shut the watch and shut his eyes. It was only when Medina finished speaking that Calley noticed what he should have noticed the moment he entered the room. There was a door behind the table. It was part open, and though the place it led to was dark as night, why—in a matter where all were much concerned with secrecy—should the door be open at all?
The colonel looked up at Medina. “Yes?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” said Medina.
And so it began. Questions from the table to the witnesses, the questions translated by Medina and answered by one or other of the male witnesses. Then the process in reverse, a cumbersome business made less so by Medina’s quickness, his fluency. Now and then his English had an old-world feel to it as if he had learned it from a speaker of the last century rather than the present one but there was no confusion and not once was he asked to repeat himself. Most tellingly, it seemed he made no attempt to alter or refine what the witnesses said, and as a consequence, as the questioning continued, those who spoke from behind the table, and those who answered from the chairs, no longer looked at Medina but only at each other.
There was an attempt by the colonel to establish a date. The best that could be managed was that the events took place at some point during the first week of January. Not a Sunday.
“It was still light when they arrived?”
“It was the time between the light and the dark.”
“It was dusk?”
“Yes.”
“And how many did you see? Did you count them?”
“No. But it looked like twenty.”
“Twenty?”
“Maybe more, maybe less.”
“They came on horses?”
A shake of the head. “Only one with a horse.”
“Very well. We will come to that, the horseman, in due course. What was the first thing the men did in the village?”
“They shot Vitor Ramirez.”
“Why did they shoot him?”
“He would not give them bread.”
“He refused?”
“He had no bread.”
“What happened after the man was shot?”
“They burned his house.”
“And then?”
“They killed his son, Lino.”
“How old was he?”
The male witnesses conferred. “Twelve years old.”
“And then?”
“They brought the people out of their houses. The men they killed. The women they took away.”
“How many men did they kill?”
“We have buried nineteen.”
“They were all shot?”
“Some they hanged.”
“Hanged? Where?”
“The tree in the plaza.”
“Were any of the women killed?”
“They were not killed.”
“Where were they taken?”
“Into the houses.”
“Their own houses?”
“To whatever house was near.”
“And they were attacked? They were outraged?”
Here Lieutenant Medina paused, or rather he held the gaze of the colonel half a second longer as if to be quite sure of what he meant. To the witnesses they heard him use the word violar. The men nodded.
“And how long,” asked the colonel, “did the men, the soldiers, stay at the village?”
“They left two hours before it was light.”
“And before they left did they burn any more of the houses?”
“Nearly every one.”
“Is there a church in the village?”
“There is.”
“Did they burn the church?”
“Yes.”
“Then they left?”
“They left. Yes.”
“And how did you survive? The three of you?”
“We were hiding on the hill.”
“You could see the village clearly from the hill?”
“Yes.”
“Can you speak French?”
“No.”
“Can you tell the English language from the French language?”
“Yes.”
“You are certain?”
“Yes.”
“And the soldiers spoke English?”
“Yes.”
The colonel nodded. He ran a finger up the centre of his brow, smoothing it. He looked at Captain Henderson, then back to the witnesses. “Was there a man who commanded the soldiers? One who led them?”
“There was.”
“He arrived on horseback?”
“Yes.”
“What colour was his coat?”
The men turned to each other. No one had explained what their relationship was or their relationship to the woman and child. “A grey coat or a black coat. Brown perhaps.”
“And on his head?”
“A hat of fur.”
“Fur? You are sure? You could see that from the hill?”
“We were not on the hill when they arrived.”
“Can you describe this man? The commander?”
“He had a moustache.”
“Light? Dark? As light as Captain Henderson’s hair?”
It was not, they thought, as light as the captain’s hair. Nor as dark as their own.
“Did you see him attack anyone? Did the officer shoot at anyone or strike them with his sword?”
“We did not see that.”
“When the others were being killed, where was he?”
“He went into Benito’s house.”
“And where was this Benito?”
“With us. On the hill.”
“His house was burned too?”
“It was not.”
“Did you at any time see the commander attempt to stop the killing of the men and the burning of the houses?”
“No.”
“He remained in the house? In Benito’s house?”
“Yes.”
“From the house he would have heard the shooting?”
“Yes.”
“How long did he stay in the house?”
A shrug. “Perhaps one hour.”
“And then he came out?”
“A soldier came to fetch him.”
“And he came out then?”
“Not the first time. The soldier called for him but he did not come out.”
“So the soldier went away?”
“Yes.”
“And came back later?”
“Yes.”
“And this time he came out? The officer?”
“He did.”
“And what did he do?”
“He went with the soldier to the priest’s house.”
“The priest was there?”
“The priest left long ago.”
“Who lives in the house now?”
“A widow and her daughter.”
“And the officer went into this house? The priest’s house?”
“He did.”
“He stayed there a long time?”
“A little time.”
“A minute? Five minutes? Ten?”
Here the witnesses seemed at a loss, as though minutes were a measure of time they had few dealings with. They began a discussion between themselves. It had a thoughtful, almost philosophical air.
“Lieutenant Medina,” said the colonel. “All we are looking for is an estimate. Something to guide our thinking as to what may or may not have happened in the house.”
One of the witnesses, the younger man, held up a hand, thumb folded, fingers spread. Five minutes.
“And these women,” said the colonel. “Where are these women? The widow and her daughter? I should like to hear what they have to say.”
“The widow,” said Henderson, “is bedridden. Her daughter looks after her.”
“And the daughter. Has she made an accusation? Concerning the officer?”
“She has,” answered Henderson, “said nothing at all.”
“Nothing?”
“Apparently not.”
“Well, let us move on.” The colonel looked across at the witnesses again. It was hard to say what his view of them was, how far he trusted them. It was hard to say what his view of any of it was, except that perhaps he wished himself elsewhere.
“So the officer was in the house for five minutes and then came out. Came out alone?”
“He came out with the one he went in with. Later the others came out.”
“There were other soldiers in the widow’s house?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Ten. Twelve.”
“And then they left?”
“Yes.”
“Did the officer seem to give orders to the men? Did the men obey him?”
The witnesses shrugged.
“Were the soldiers drunk?”
“Those who could find wine.”
“Do you think the officer was drunk?”
“He drank wine in Benito’s house.”
“You know this?”
“He found Benito’s wine.”
“It was hidden?”
“Yes.”
“What else was hidden in the village? Was food hidden?”
It was the younger man’s answer that Medina translated. “What we do not hide will be taken from us. Then we will have nothing. We will starve.”
“Thank you,” said the colonel, sitting back in his chair. “I have no more questions. Don Ignacio. You wish to question the witnesses?”
Don Ignacio unlaced his long fingers. He had beautiful boots. Where the light fell on them you could see the leather was almost red. “I am trying to imagine,” he said, “how these people have suffered.”
“Indeed,” said the colonel. He waited, as though he assumed Don Ignacio’s words were the preface to something. When nothing came he turned back to the witnesses. “If you go with this gentleman”—he pointed to the man in the black coat—“he will take you to where you can eat. I would like to thank you for the long journey you have made to answer our questions. And my thanks to you, Lieutenant. A most disagreeable task for all of us.”
He picked up the papers from the table but as Medina began the translation the woman interrupted him. It was a single sentence, vehement, and aimed at Don Ignacio, who visibly flinched.
The colonel looked at Medina. “Lieutenant?”
“One moment, please . . . ” said Medina. He spoke to the woman who answered him in a quieter voice. The child, who had been sleeping throughout the story of the massacre, had woken. It stared up at the carved ceiling, an expression of panic on its face.
“She says,” said Medina, “that they cut her hair.”
“Her hair?” said the colonel. “Her hair does not look to have been cut in years.”
“No,” said Medina. “The girl in the priest’s house. After she was violated they cut off her hair.”
“In God’s name, why?” asked the colonel.
Medina glanced at the woman, then back to the colonel. “To insult her,” he said.
When the witnesses had been led from the room, when those still in the room could no longer hear the child’s crying and had endured together a full minute of silence, the heat pooling like oil on the wood of the floor, the colonel straightened himself in his chair.
“Corporal Calley?”
“Sir.”
“Stay seated. You are ready to give your testimony?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You were interviewed by Captain Henderson at the Convento barracks last . . . ” He looked at Henderson.
“Six days ago,” said Henderson. “The 5th of the month.”
“I’m afraid, Corporal, you will need to repeat yourself somewhat for the benefit of those of us who were not present. Now then. You told Captain Henderson you had become detached from your unit some forty-eight hours before you came upon the village. Morales, I mean.”
“Yes, sir. I had gone foraging with Private Withrington. We had gone a mile or more when we found a farm and made arrangements with the farmer to have some potatoes.”
“What sort of arrangement was that I wonder?”
“Well, sir, I had a clay pipe to give him, and Withrington had a handkerchief.”
“Very proper. So you obtained your potatoes.”
“Yes, sir. But when we set off back we met with the enemy who started sniping us from the woods. We returned fire and kept moving as best we could but we hadn’t much in the way of cover and after a while Private Withrington was shot in the belly. Down here, on the right. I did what I could for him but I doubt the surgeon could have saved him and he was gone soon enough.”
“I am very sorry to hear it. How did you escape?”
“It was coming on dark, sir. I stayed where I was and kept my head down. I shot at any of the enemy who showed themselves. When it was properly dark I set off again to find the others but finding no sign of them and knowing the enemy was about I decided I should make my way as best I could.”
“And how did you know which way to go?”
“It was a clear night, sir. I found the North Star. I made that my guide.”
“And that was well done, Calley. Now let us come to the village.”
“That was the next night, sir. I saw the light of the fires.”
“You were still alone?”
“I was, sir.”
“You must have been wary. It could have been the enemy in the village.”
“I was wary, sir. I found a place I could look down on them without risk of being seen.”
“You were perhaps on the same hill as the witnesses.”
“It may be, sir. But I didn’t see anyone else there.”
“What did you see?”
“Houses on fire. Men running to and fro.”
“The men were soldiers?”
“Yes, sir.”
“They were ours?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you speak to any?”
“No, sir.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t know how they would take to me.”
“So how did you know they were ours?”
“By their oaths, sir.”
“You could hear that from where you were?”
“I could.”
“And could you identify them? What were their uniforms?”
“With respect, sir, by this time men were wearing whatever they could find to keep them warm. There wasn’t much red and white left. Long coats if they had them. Scarves round their heads. I’d say it was men from different regiments.”
“Men who had become lost like you?”
“I suppose so, sir.”
“Did you see them shooting the villagers?”
“I did hear shots, sir.”
“Did you see the hanged men?”
“I did, sir.”
“What did the village look like to you?”
“A place in hell, sir.”
“In hell?”
“Yes, sir.”
The colonel conferred in whispers with Captain Henderson. Henderson turned over a sheet of paper from among the small pile in front of the colonel and indicated a place about halfway down the page. The colonel nodded. Don Ignacio kept his gaze on Calley and for a moment Calley allowed himself to lock eyes with him.
The colonel cleared his throat. “Very well. Let us come to the officer. You told Captain Henderson you saw an officer at the village. May we assume this was the same man the witnesses have just described to us?”
“It sounded right, sir.”
“The witnesses spoke of him wearing a fur hat.”
“Yes, sir. A busby.”
“So you identified him as a hussar.”
“From the busby, sir.”
“Though you have already stated that men wore whatever they could find that might defend them from the cold. This applied to officers too?”
“All, sir.”
“So this busby might have been acquired at some point on the retreat?”
“It’s possible, sir.”
“Captain Henderson asked you if you had heard the officer addressed by name. You said you had.”
“Yes, sir. By rank and name.”
“From the hill?”
“I was not so far away, sir. And the man was shouting for him.”
“Very well. We have examined the army list, the relevant parts. We have a name that would seem to match the one you gave to Captain Henderson. Can you read, Corporal?”
“The Lord’s Prayer, sir. The regiment’s name. My own.”
“Then you will step outside this room with Captain Henderson. He will speak the name we have found and you will tell him if it is, to the best of your belief, the name you heard at Morales. You understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
The colonel turned to Don Ignacio. “You will not take it amiss, I hope, if the name of this officer remains for the moment a matter exclusively for the army? It is a very delicate thing. The man may be entirely innocent.”
Don Ignacio moved a shoulder, a strangely expressive gesture that seemed to suggest he found the idea of an innocent British officer almost incredible.
“Thank you,” said the colonel. Then, “Go ahead, Henderson.”
Calley and Henderson went outside. Henderson closed the doors and both men crossed the terrace to the top of the stairs, out of earshot. They stood in columns of heat, the light from the white walls dazzling them.
“Am I doing all right then, sir?”
“All right?”
“In there. With the colonel.”
“All we want from you is the name of the officer responsible for the massacre.”
“And that’s all you want.”
“That is all.”
“And with this officer, whose name you want. I’ve been thinking, sir. What if it came down to his word against mine?”
“It won’t.”
“It’s just that I know the army, sir. I’ve been in uniform since I was fifteen. I know sometimes people get mashed up in the machine.”
“You have nothing to fear, Calley. I thought I made all this clear last time we spoke.”
“You did, sir. I just wanted to be sure I’d understood right.”
“The colonel is waiting for us. Are you ready?”
Calley nodded. From up here, between the tilting of red roofs you could see the blue-black mirror of the harbour. Henderson glanced at the paper in his hand, though the name there must have been in his head for days. He spoke it, carefully, twice.
“That sounds about right,” said Calley.
“About right?”
“That’s the name I heard, sir.”
“You are sure?”
“Never been more so, sir.”
The inquiry was a drama that had reached its last act. The colonel asked Calley about his escape from Spain, the long walk with a detachment of stragglers to the Portuguese border, a place marked by nothing. Calley had commanded. He was the only one with rank. They walked with their feet wrapped in strips of blanket or they walked in bare feet, each step a print of red on the road. They ate grass, berries. Once they caught and ate a bird of a kind none of them had seen before. They had stones in their mouths. They crossed the empty hills like the last men left on earth and those who prayed at the beginning did not pray at the end. Once they realised they were across the border and no longer had to fear French patrols or Spanish guerrillas they entered settlements and begged from people who had almost as little as they did but who offered water or milk, a bite of bread.
The first British troops they met were a squadron of heavy cavalry outside the Torres Vedras lines. To begin with the troopers stared at them with hard, frightened faces, as if they had come across a company of the risen dead, then changed (high up on their shifting horses) and looked as if they might laugh at the sight of men so reduced. Calley took the stone from his mouth. He spoke to them and they listened like children. He could, he knew, have said anything then, that they would have believed him. I am Christ and these are my apostles. He could have tried that, it had been done before, and to good effect. A cart was found. They went to Lisbon on the back of it, sleeping, stinking, nearer to death than they had been on the walk. In the week that followed two of them died in the British military hospital. One, a sapper called Lower, was declared insane and sent back to an asylum in England. To this story, or those parts of it Calley chose to tell, even Don Ignacio paid close attention.
“It was a first-class effort, Corporal,” said the colonel. He looked relieved, as if something had been salvaged. The honour of the army. Men’s decency. He brought the proceedings to a close. Lieutenant Medina was requested to go to the witnesses and arrange with them for their return to the village. All necessary funds, of course, would be drawn on the British commissariat. The lieutenant was thanked again. He was excused. Calley was also excused or—after a whispered exchange with Captain Henderson—he was not excused but asked to wait in the courtyard. The board would discuss the day’s findings. When that was concluded he would, no doubt, be free to return to barracks. Calley stood, saluted, and left the room. Behind him, the man in the black coat closed the doors.
In the courtyard there were only the horses for company, the horses and the flies. He settled himself in the shade, his back to the cool of the wall, his shako on his lap. The air seemed to hold the echo of voices, his own among them. Then he heard bells again, and what sounded like a woman singing. He shut his eyes. Someone, he thought, someone like that cunt Henderson, could come down now and shoot him in the face and they could throw his body in the sea tonight. He often pictured such things. Assassinations, ambushes. How to set them, how to foil them. The one you couldn’t foil. That one. He slept anyway—the walk out of the mountains was no distant memory. It had taken it out of him, drained off, he supposed, some of the vital fluids. But even in sleep he was vigilant and when he felt the weight of a man’s shadow on his face he was on his feet in an instant, nicely tensed. It was the Spanish officer, Medina. “The fuck,” said Calley.
The officer smiled. Rather than a blade he was holding out a small, fragrant box.
“Un puro?”
Calley took one, rustled it between his fingers, sniffed it. Medina let him light it from the tip of his own cigar, then they sat together, side by side, smoking.
“So where’d you learn to speak English?” asked Calley.
“My family are in the wine trade. We have sent wine to England for three generations. My grandfather was even married to an Englishwoman, Doña Anna, and when I was a small boy I would visit her and she would speak to me in English. But I learned the language from my father and from the English who work in the town. In Cordoba. It is a part of our business. We must know it.”
“So you’ve been there then?”
“England? No. I was to go for the first time in the same month General Dupont crossed the Pyrenees. I decided England must wait for a while.”
“And you joined up. Bought yourself a commission.”
“I have an uncle in the regimiento El Rey. As a favour to my father . . . ” He made a little movement with his hand. The clearing of a path, the flowing of a river.
“See much action?”
“Not, I think, as much as you.”
“But you like it, do you? Soldiering?”
“Not, I think, as much as you.”
And Calley might have said, you don’t know what I like, do you? How do you know what I like? But hearing the doors of the apartment open they fell silent and looked up. It was Don Ignacio. They watched him settle a broad-brimmed hat the colour of mouse fur on his head. He came down the steps. Medina and Calley stood as he passed them. He looked at them both. Medina made a shallow bow. Don Ignacio beckoned him and they walked together to the horses, heads together. When they had finished, Don Ignacio looked over at Calley, made the slightest of nods. Medina handed him the reins of the palomino then went to the gate, lifted the bar and pulled the gate open. A barefooted man was waiting outside, a beggar or perhaps one of Don Ignacio’s servants. Seeing Don Ignacio, he crouched down and let him mount the horse from his back. Red boots on a torn shirt. Medina swung the gate shut.
“I am free to go,” said Medina. He picked up his hat (it was at least black rather than yellow). “Though I am to remain in Lisbon at the Junta’s disposal.”
“What sort of man is he?” asked Calley.
“Don Ignacio? A powerful man. Or one who serves powerful men.”
“We all do that,” said Calley.
Medina smiled at him. “Good luck to you, Corporal Calley.”
Calley nodded. “One of those horses yours?” he asked. He knew none was.
Medina smiled again. “For the moment, the Spanish cavalry is without horses.”
He left; Calley barred the gate behind him. “Just me then,” he said softly. He sat again. He was not short of patience. He breathed upon and gently polished the brass plate on his shako; he combed out the feathers of the plume. He was in the process of retying his sash when the colonel appeared on the terrace above and some seconds later was joined by Captain Henderson and the man in the black coat. They came down together. Calley got to his feet again. As the colonel passed he glanced at Calley, made a little noise in his throat, the meaning of which was anyone’s guess, and went on to where the man in the black coat was readying his horse for him. Henderson, however, had stopped by the bottom of the steps next to the tiled basin. He gestured with his head. Calley went to him.
“When we are gone,” said Henderson, “you will return to the room and wait there until you are called.”
“Who is going to call me, sir? When you’ve all gone?”
“Just wait in the room. And see that you shut the doors behind you. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir. Perfectly clear.”
Henderson brushed past him. The gate to the courtyard stood open. The colonel and the man in the black coat had already passed through it. Calley watched Henderson free his horse, lead it around out of the shade. Only one horse remained there now.
He stood in the doorway, examining the room carefully. The table (cleared of papers), the chairs, the part-shuttered windows, the paintings, the woman with the heart in her hand. As if. He stepped in to the room, closed the doors, and not knowing what else to do, went to stand in front of the chair he had been sitting on during the inquiry. He waited. It was like waiting as a boy to be summoned by the overlooker. He told himself to be steady, to trust in what was reckless in himself, and lucky.
“Calley? Corporal Calley?”
The voice came from the open doorway behind the table. It was not an unexpected source but the suddenness of it, a voice reaching out for him, invisibly, in the midst of the city’s long afternoon drowse, made him almost cringe.
“Come to the door,” said the voice. “Once you have entered the room you may close the door behind you. There is nothing to fear.”
Calley placed his shako on the seat of the chair. He went around the end of the table, paused by the opening of the door, listening for sounds of breathing, for anything at all that might betray what was on the far side, if it was one man or more than one, how close they were. Then he stepped inside and shut the door. The room now glittered with its own darkness, and on that darkness images appeared, curiously, of winter apples dangling on pieces of string such as he had seen hanging from the ceiling of the kitchen where he and Private Withrington had done for the farmer and his wife.
“Three strides to me,” said the voice. “There is nothing in your way.”
Calley stepped forward. Three strides. When next the voice spoke it was just ahead of him. Ahead and below. The man was sitting!
“Here we are, Corporal. Meeting like sweethearts in the dark. You are not one of those timid souls troubled by darkness?”
“No, sir.”
“Hold out your hand.”
Calley held out his left hand; another hand met it; there was something maddening in that contact. The grip was light but it overwhelmed him, took all his strength.
“So that you know something of whom you are speaking with. So you know enough.”
The hand led Calley’s down until his fingers grazed metal, an object, cool and intricate and shaped into a kind of . . . star. The man wore it on his chest. Calley could feel the slight warmth of him, his heart-blood.
“There now,” said the voice, removing Calley’s hand. “You have my credentials. And I, of course, have yours.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We are both soldiers, you and I. Unfortunately my duties are no longer all of a purely military type. I am required to play the politician. Do you know what a politician is? It is a man who must compromise his character in the service of power. Irksome for one who has put on the king’s uniform. Would you agree?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You were on the retreat.”
“I was, sir.”
“That was a bloody mess.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The gallant Sir John described the army’s conduct as infamous beyond belief. Those were his exact words. Infamous. Beyond belief. But perhaps Sir John himself was responsible?”
“I couldn’t say, sir.”
“Forced the pace of the retreat. Pushed men beyond what they could bear. Made them strange to themselves. Wild. Well, Sir John is killed. The army, the most part of it, has escaped to lick its wounds in England. Time, you may think, to draw a veil. After all, it is not as if such things are unknown. No ancient and honourable institution without its ancient and honourable crimes. But our Spanish friends are in a dither. They are striking attitudes. They say they would be better off with the French. It is fanciful, of course, a childish rage, but the trust between us has suffered and must be recovered. There is, I can tell you, no more talk in London of peace treaties. The war will go on, must do. And because of this we must all be firm friends again. You are still following me, Corporal?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So let us come to particulars. The village of Morales belonged, before it was burned to the ground, to a certain high-strung gentleman with a seat on the great council, the Junta Suprema. He is, I fear, unimaginably offended by what became of his village. And though the village was perhaps one he rarely set foot in, the offence cannot be simply put aside. His voice in the Junta is influential and his voice in this matter has become the voice of the Junta itself. There will be gifts of money, naturally, but something more than that is required. Indeed, it has been insisted upon. They want a man. A guilty man or one who can be taken as such. Who do you think we should offer them?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“No idea?”
“No, sir.”
“Why, Calley, do I find myself wondering exactly when, during the destruction of this most unfortunate village, you arrived upon the scene?”
“You heard how it was, sir.”
“Oh yes, I heard. And you can rest easy. The Spanish do not, I fear, recognise the value of a British infantry corporal. What they require is an officer, and that is what we shall give them. For the sake of the alliance. For the sake of the war. But there cannot be a court martial. Any such affair would inevitably become public. The news of it would spill out. Imagine, please, certain of our papers, their pages full of stories of British soldiers assaulting defenceless women and dangling their menfolk from a tree. Or, in different papers, a different story, one about a British officer, doubtless a hero, being sacrificed to soothe the pride of a Spanish conde. Either way we have a scandal we cannot afford. The public are weary of the war. They feel it in their pockets. Trade falters. They lose their farm boys, their apprentices, their sons and brothers. The tale of Morales might just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Have you ever seen a camel?”
“No, sir.”
“You were not on the campaign in Egypt?”
“No, sir.”
“We cannot fight a war without the support of the people. That is the truth of it. It did not used to matter. People did not know what went on. They did not know, they did not care. But England now is enamoured of the printed word. Gentlemen, ladies too, are all either writing or reading. We are adrift in a sea of opinions, language, ink. So we must proceed in the only way left open to us. We will give the Junta what it demands but none, other than the few of us to whom this unpleasant business falls, shall know of it. Now then, I feel you understand what I am saying but I need to hear you say so.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes?”
“I believe I do, sir.”
“What is the first rule of a soldier’s life, Calley?”
“Orders, sir.”
“The first rule of warfare?”
“Killing the enemy.”
“And?”
“Not getting killed yourself.”
“And?”
“Tidiness?”
“Well, I like a tidy soldier. A tidy soldier has not forgotten himself. But I was thinking rather of necessity. Of doing what is necessary. When were you last in England?”
“June last year, sir.”
“Then you will be pleased to see it again.”
“I’m going back?”
“You will be shipped on the first suitable transport. You will find the officer whose name you confirmed to the inquiry. Having found him you will do what your country requires of you.”
There was a silence between them. Three, four seconds.
“There are always those, Calley, who are called upon to do what others prefer not even to contemplate. Think of it like this. You will be continuing the war in a private and unofficial capacity. You will not wear a uniform but you will still be a soldier.”
Another silence. Calley shifted his weight. A board squeaked.
“He might already be dead, sir.”
“He is listed as embarking at Corunna. His ship arrived.”
“And how do I find him?”
“Captain Henderson will supply you with what is necessary. Beyond that you must use your nose. Whatever else you are I believe you are a resourceful man.”
“You will need some proof of it?”
“Of it having been done? I don’t, God forbid, need any. But the Junta will.”
“Like a ring?”
“Yes. Good. I see your practical nature at work. But the Junta trusts us so little that a ring could be one we picked off the ground. It could be one of mine. They require what you do to be witnessed. To that end you will travel with one of their own.”
“Now I don’t quite follow you, sir.”
“You will be accompanied by someone whose word they will accept.”
“Like a Spaniard?”
“I would assume so, wouldn’t you? The estimable Don Ignacio is taking care of the arrangements.”
“I’d rather go alone, sir, if it’s all the same.”
“But it is not the same. Not at all. Alone is nothing. It is useless. Alone and the whole business is entirely sordid. Witnessed, it becomes an act of statecraft. It is important you understand that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You have a question?”
“What if I’m taken? If I do as you say and I’m taken?”
“When you stand in the line waiting to receive the enemy, what are your thoughts? That you will live? That you will die? That you may be maimed? All of this, of course. Everyone the same, officer or private soldier. But all that matters is that we do our duty. The risk is something we put on with our jackets and boots. If you are taken you must do as well as you can. Reporting a conversation you had in the dark with an unnamed personage is unlikely to assist you. But the advantage will all be yours. The officer you are going to find might be wary. He might very well be expecting some call to account. What he will not be expecting is you.”
The voice. In the darkness it seemed to Calley the voice was half his own.
“You will be back inside a month. You will have served your country. And I will see to it that Captain Henderson has some appropriate reward waiting. Another stripe for your shoulder perhaps. What were your beginnings, Calley?”
“The house on Saffron Hill, sir. Near the Fleet.”
“By house you mean workhouse?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, Moses was a foundling, was he not? And there are many men who might have done better without the burden of a family. Now, about face and return to the door. Do not look back. You and I will neither meet nor speak to each other again. Not in this world.”
Calley turned. The door showed itself with outlines of grey light. He crossed to it, left the room, entered the lit shadows of the second room, collected his shako from the chair and went out into the true brightness, that glare that seemed to erase him. He stood a while at the top of the steps letting his eyes adjust. There was a great noise inside him, a clashing of voices, like the sound of a riot or the sound of men screaming in battle. Then he felt a breeze on his cheek, something blowing up from the shore, and he felt refreshed, calm. Below him, the courtyard was empty of everything but the stallion, though once he had descended and was making his way to the gate he saw that there was someone, a servant presumably, squatting in the shade by the side of the horse. For a moment he thought of asking who he waited for but that, he knew, would be a poor beginning. He put on his shako, adjusted the chin-scales, let himself out into the street. Boys followed him, impersonating his walk, his bandy legs. It did not unsettle him; he had received such attention all his life and always from those as poor as himself. He thought, those fuckers could have hanged me! Then nearly laughed out loud at the pleasure of recalling the voice in the room, the power it had given him, and to him alone. Like a secret spring drunk from in darkness.