Absolute Honour (38 page)

Jack had only figured out two things and neither really helped. Firstly, that since there were two ‘L’s’ in the second line,
what he’d taken to be a small ‘l’ was actually the number ‘one’. Secondly, he could only hope Spanish was like English in
the order of its most common letters because then ‘2 dot’ that appeared five times would be the letter ‘E’.

Numbers one to four were repeated, as were the same four letters: H, L, R, N. He’d tried separating them out, remixing them
in a different order, scattering them at random over a page. Nothing leapt out at him. He’d found three handkerchiefs in the
room where he’d found the code, a different
shape cut out of each of them – a wine bottle, a cross, an hourglass – but these masks, laid upon the charred paper, illuminated
nothing.

He tried one again, just in case, then threw it aside. Temptation arose. The Spanish officer who he’d caught trying to burn
this
page first – thus testifying to its primary importance, Jack felt – was their prisoner. He could not speak because Jack’s
blow had broken his jaw, but some felt – Major Gonzalo prominent among them – that he could be ‘coerced’ into writing answers
to questions. Burgoyne, supported by Jack, had disagreed. Leaving distaste aside, the man was obviously a proud Castilian
and would probably be hard to break down. He was also clever enough, presumably, to give answers that would appear to elucidate
but would, in fact, confuse.

No, it was down to him. He laid out a fresh sheet of paper. Four numbers. Four winds? Horsemen of the Apocalypse? Seasons?
Four corners, as on a billiard table? He wrote them as corners of a square. Then he copied the four letters in a line in the
middle and stared at the result. What was it about the letters that seemed odd? ‘H’ was number eight in the alphabet, ‘L’
number twelve, a gap of four. ‘N’ was just two away, ‘R’ four on again.

Did they have to be written on the same line?

He drew them in a cross instead …

He leaned in, his face flushing, another idea occurring. Swiftly, he drew a grid, filled in the letters of the alphabet beside
the ones he had and suddenly the whole alphabet was
there before him in five rows of five, only the ‘Z’ missing. Then he placed the numbers at each of the grid’s corners.

He looked again at the coded message.

What did the dots mean?

It was luck, when he saw it; or perhaps the patterns were just clearer now in his head. But, having decided that 2 . must
be ‘E’, he put one dot in the E box – corner 2 – then a single dot in each of the other corner boxes. Then he began a frantic
dotting, counting down from the top numbers, up from the bottom ones, until all the boxes had both letters and one, two or
three dots in them, all except the ones that could not be reached directly from a number, vertically, horizontally or diagonally
– H, L, N, R:

He looked at the grid again, then took another single number and dot that occurred in the code – 1. – which had to be ‘A’,
and, taking the ‘l’ diagonal he saw that 1.. would be ‘I’. So if a single number led to a diagonal, a double digit would give
the horizontal or vertical …

By God, he had it! Chuckling, he matched the code on the burnt paper to his grid and wrote out the words:

Hijo de Hibern

Galilee

Velha

‘Hijo’ he knew meant ‘son’ because he had asked Major Gonzalo what he’d been called by the Spanish officer just before he’d
hit him – ‘Hijo de puta’ or ‘Son of a whore’. So this was ‘Son of Hibern?’ A place in Spain? Like Galilee was a place in the
Holy Land and Velha sounded like a place in Portugal?

Then he saw it, at first in complete shock, then with a slowly widening smile. He picked up his almost untouched wine glass,
drained it in one, then reached for his red coat.

Burgoyne was not asleep, but he had company. It took some minutes after his most reluctant adjutant went in before his door
opened and a large, dark-haired lady of middling years scurried out, a dressing gown clutched at the neck and, without looking
at Jack, went into a room opposite. It seemed that his commander had not merely commandeered the largest house in Castelo
de Vide but its owner as well.

The Colonel sat at a small writing table. He wore a shirt and breeches though Jack noticed that the latter were not fully
buttoned up. ‘Is this vengeance, young man, for keeping you from the celebrations?’ he said, an eyebrow raised.

‘Not at all, sir.’ Jack was careful not to smile. ‘But your orders were to inform you the first moment I cracked the code.’

‘I believe I said first thing in the morning,’ came the muttered reply. ‘Very well, show me.’

Jack took both the original, singed page and his reworking, and laid them on the table. ‘I believe, sir,’ he said eagerly,
‘that this type of code is known as a “pigpen”. I was able to deduce that it all fitted on a grid and that letters, numbers
and dots combined to—’

‘Absolute!’ Burgoyne put a hand to his head. ‘One of the reasons I bought my promotions so swiftly was precisely so I would
not have to learn about such things but could instead
assign to them bright young fellows like yourself.’ He smiled.
‘Précis,
sir.
Précis.’

‘Sir.’ Jack pointed to his decoding. ‘Perhaps you would just read it.’

‘ “Hijo”,
I know, means “son”. Lady of the house has three, apparently, and she’d be so
grateful
if I’d take one on my staff.’ He looked up. ‘Gratitude’s a marvellous thing. So’s hope.’ He looked down, mumbled the other
words. ‘Not much other sense. Biblical reference, you think? What the devil’s “Hibern”?

‘Short for “Hibernia”, perhaps?’

‘Ireland. So, “son of Ireland”.’ But “Velha” and “Galilee”?’

‘The first I can tell you, sir. I ran into Major Gonzalo,’ “Ran into” was not quite right. Stumbled over his legs where he
lay drunk in a doorway, ‘and he said that Velha was probably Villa Velha, an area to the west.’

Burgoyne reached for a map of Portugal, spread it out. ‘There,’ he pointed, ‘back towards Lisbon.’ He pursed his lips. ‘The
plain of Villa Velha’s on this side of the River Tagus. When the Spanish recover from our raid on Valencia de Alcántara and
finally invade Portugal – they are massing here, here and here,’ he jabbed his finger down three times, ‘we shall retire to
the opposite bank to hold them.’ He looked again to Jack’s scrawl. ‘I am still at a loss as to the inland sea.’

‘I, too, sir.’ Jack allowed himself a smile. ‘But I
do
know a son of Ireland.’

Burgoyne tipped his head. ‘What? Your Jacobite fellow? Wouldn’t that be too much of a coincidence?’

‘Possibly. But why would a Spanish general, poised to invade Portugal, order his adjutant to destroy this document first?
Unless it was of great import?’

‘Hmm. We could ask him if he wasn’t on his way to prison in England.’ Burgoyne was staring at the map again. ‘Well, all will
become clearer reasonably soon. Within a month
anyway. Because our line of retirement to the Tagus will take us very close to the plain of Villa Velha, if not directly across
it. And since all British forces will be doing the same, we should finally be able to contact those two Irish regiments –
Armstrong’s and Traherne’s.’ He looked up. ‘Perhaps then, young Absolute, you truly
will
have to keep your eyes swivelled in both directions.’

There had been many times on this campaign when he’d dreamed of plunging into water, but those torrid August days were long
gone. Besides, the river before him presented no cool green waves rushing to a Cornish beach, but an expanse of dullest brown,
swirling with uprooted bushes and the other detritus of autumn. Jack was sure he’d spent colder Octobers in Canada. But he’d
never been this wet for this long. The fighting retreat before the Spanish Army had admitted only the briefest of pauses,
occupied with the feeding of horses and of men. They’d had the meagrest of shelters for nearly a week now. And it had been
raining, without let-up, for three.

Jack ignored the rain that dripped from his nose, counter-pointing the flow off Lucky’s. Man and horse stared down to another
man and horse. The brown water had reached the rider’s boot soles; the horse’s legs were submerged. Then, in a sudden movement,
the beast’s footing was lost and it was swimming, the flow pushing it downstream. Pulling on the reins, the man managed to
guide the horse around, back to the shore. He didn’t pause on the little stretch of flat riverbank but tapped his heels and
rode up to where Jack waited above.

‘It’s like we thought, sir,’ Puxley said as he reined in. ‘Most of it will be a swim.’

Jack shivered. ‘Can we do that?’

The Welshman nodded. ‘Oh, aye. The horses will have no problem, so long as we keep coaxing them. But the men
might because I doubt if there’s many of them that can swim.’

‘Well, they better hang on tight, then, hadn’t they?’

‘There’s no chance of?’ Puxley nodded to the north.

‘No.’ While his sergeant had been testing the water, one of Jack’s outriders had come in. There was a ford a few miles upstream
but a regiment of Spanish cavalry now stood between them and it. They’d taken on some odds in snarling little skirmishes during
the six-week retreat across the Alentejo to the projected defensive line at the Tagus; but a regiment was too strong even
for his third troop. There’d be no going south because there were even greater concentrations of the enemy there, no going
back for the same reason. ‘It’s across here and that’s the end of it. Do you have a suggestion, Puxley?’ Jack had learned
much in the time since he’d rejoined the regiment, but deferring to his experienced sergeant had been the first lesson.

The Welshman ran his hand over his forehead, flicking water away. ‘I’d link by subdivision, sir, give each man a bit of support
from his mate.’

‘Not quarter ranks?’

‘Four men would be too awkward and if one was in trouble they all would be.’ Puxley shook his head. ‘Two’s grand.’

‘Then make it so, if you please. We’ll cross in three separate ranks to prevent bunching. You lead the first across, Stokey
will take the second. I’ll come last.’

‘Sure, sir? I’d be happy—’

‘I want to make certain everyone makes it over. And I need to bring the last outrider in.’

‘Aye, sir.’ Puxley saluted, wheeled his horse and rode over the rise to the slight hollow where the rest of the third waited,
most of them lying on the sodden grass.

Well, thought Jack, turning to look at the swirling brown water, they can’t get much wetter. He squinted. The Tagus
was less than a hundred yards wide at this point, but the downpour and the dusk rendered the far bank insubstantial. Still,
he could see the two lights Burgoyne had promised would always be lit for him, if he was forced into the option of swimming
not fording. Jack had managed to bring his troop to the exact point on the bank opposite the regiment’s camp. Now he just
had to make sure they all got across. He hadn’t lost a single man in the retreat across Portugal and he was damned if he was
going to begin now.

He rode to the edge of the rise and looked down. Puxley’s orders were being swiftly obeyed. His men were linking, one collar
extended back to meet the one behind. Each two-man subdivision was used to working as a pair. He could only hope they would
not let each other drown.

It was rapidly done, collars linked, carbines, packs and blankets strapped to shoulders. Every man there knew that the Spanish
were coming fast and, while Jack was sure that all of them shared his distaste for the plunge that lay ahead, they would also
prefer it to a Spanish gaol, though there had been times on this march when he’d missed his dry Roman one.

‘Ready, sir.’

‘If you please, Sergeant,’ Jack replied, and moved Lucky off the slight path. The first rank came up, Puxley in the lead.
Down the slope he went, did not hesitate, driving his horse straight into the flood, the first of the men following. All,
at the same point, began swimming.

With the first rank afloat, Jack called down, ‘Now, Cornet Stokey.’ Glowering Bob led the second rank up. The fellow was still
sullen, his face set in lines of discontent.