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THE SNARE
THE SNARE RAFAEL SABATINI CONTENTS
I. THE AFFAIR AT TAVORA
II. THE ULTIMATUM
III. LADY O'MOY
IV. COUNT SAMOVAL
V. THE FUGITIVE
VI. MISS ARMYTAGE'S PEARLS
VII. THE ALLY
VIII. THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICER
IX. THE GENERAL ORDER
X. THE STIFLED QUARREL
XI. THE CHALLENGE
XII. THE DUEL
XIII. POLICHINELLE
XIV. THE CHAMPION
XV. THE WALLET
XVI. THE EVIDENCE
XVII. BITTER WATER
XVIII. FOOL'S MATE
XIX. THE TRUTH
XX. THE RESIGNATION
XXI. SANCTUARY
POSTSCRIPTUM
THE SNARE
CHAPTER I
THE AFFAIR AT TAVORA
It is established beyond doubt that Mr. Butler was drunk at the time.
This rests upon the evidence of Sergeant Flanagan and the troopers
who accompanied him and it rests upon Mr. Butler's own word as we
shall see. And let me add here and now that however wild and
irresponsible a rascal he may have been yet by his own lights he
was a man of honour incapable of falsehood even though it were
calculated to save his skin. I do not deny that Sir Thomas Picton
has described him as a "thieving blackguard." But I am sure that
this was merely the downright rather extravagant manner of
censure peculiar to that distinguished general and that those who
have taken the expression at its purely literal value have been
lacking at once in charity and in knowledge of the caustic
uncompromising terms of speech of General Picton whom Lord
Wellington you will remember called a rough foulmouthed devil.
In further extenuation it may truthfully be urged that the whole
hideous and odious affair was the result of a misapprehension;
although I cannot go so far as one of Lieutenant Butler's apologists
and accept the view that he was the victim of a deliberate plot on
the part of his too-genial host at Regoa. That is a misconception
easily explained. This host's name happened to be Souza and the
apologist in question has very rashly leapt at the conclusion that
he was a member of that notoriously intriguing family of which the
chief members were the Principal Souza of the Council of Regency
at Lisbon and the Chevalier Souza Portuguese minister to the
Court of St. James's. Unacquainted with Portugal our apologist
was evidently in ignorance of the fact that the name of Souza is
almost as common in that country as the name of Smith in this. He
may also have been misled by the fact that Principal Souza did not
neglect to make the utmost capital out of the affair thereby
increasing the difficulties with which Lord Wellington was already
contending as a result of incompetence and deliberate malice on
the part both of the ministry at home and of the administration in
Lisbon.
Indeed but for these factors it is unlikely that the affair could
ever have taken place at all. If there had been more energy on the
part of Mr. Perceval and the members of the Cabinet if there had
been less bad faith and self-seeking on the part of the Opposition
Lord Wellington's campaign would not have been starved as it was;
and if there had been less bad faith and self-seeking of an even
more stupid and flagrant kind on the part of the Portuguese Council
of Regency the British Expeditionary Force would not have been
left without the stipulated supplies and otherwise hindered at
every step.
Lord Wellington might have experienced the mental agony of Sir John
Moore under similar circumstances fifteen months earlier. That he
did suffer and was to suffer yet more his correspondence shows.
But his iron will prevented that suffering from disturbing the
equanimity of his mind. The Council of Regency in its concern to
court popularity with the aristocracy of Portugal might balk his
measures by its deliberate supineness; echoes might reach him of
the voices at St. Stephen's that loudly dubbed his dispositions rash
presumptuous and silly; catch-halfpenny journalists at home and men
of the stamp of Lord Grey might exploit their abysmal military
ignorance in reckless criticism and censure of his operations; he
knew what a passionate storm of anger and denunciation had arisen
from the Opposition when he had been raised to the peerage some
months earlier after the glorious victory of Talavera and how
that victory notwithstanding it had been proclaimed that his
conduct of the campaign was so incompetent as to deserve not reward
but punishment; and he was aware of the growing unpopularity of the
war in England knew that the Government - ignorant of what he was
so laboriously preparing - was chafing at his inactivity of the
past few months so that a member of the Cabinet wrote to him
exasperatedly incredibly and fatuously -- "for God's sake do
something -- anything so that blood be spilt."
A heart less stout might have been broken a genius less mighty
stifled in this evil tangle of stupidity incompetence and
malignity that sprang up and flourished about him can every hand.
A man less single-minded must have succumbed to exasperation thrown
up his command and taken ship for home inviting some of his
innumerable critics to take his place at the head of the troops
and give free rein to the military genius that inspired their
critical dissertations. Wellington however has been rightly
termed of iron and never did he show himself more of iron than in
those trying days of 1810. Stern but with a passionless sternness
he pursued his way towards the goal he had set himself allowing no
criticism no censure no invective so much as to give him pause in
his majestic progress.
Unfortunately the lofty calm of the Commander-in-Chief was not
shared by his lieutenants. The Light Division was quartered along
the River Agueda watching the Spanish frontier beyond which
Marshal Ney was demonstrating against Ciudad Rodrigo and for lack
of funds its fiery-tempered commander Sir Robert Craufurd found
himself at last unable to feed his troops. Exasperated by these
circumstances Sir Robert was betrayed into an act of rashness. He
seized some church plate at Pinhel that he might convert it into
rations. It was an act which considering the general state of
public feeling in the country at the time might have had the
gravest consequences and Sir Robert was subsequently forced to do
penance and afford redress. That however is another story. I
but mention the incident here because the affair of Tavora with
which I am concerned may be taken to have arisen directly out of
it and Sir Robert's behaviour may be construed as setting an
example and thus as affording yet another extenuation of Lieutenant
Butler's offence.
Our lieutenant was sent upon a foraging expedition into the valley
of the Upper Douro at the head of a half-troop of the 8th Dragoons
two squadrons of which were attached at the time to the Light
Division. To be more precise he was to purchase and bring into
Pinhel a hundred head of cattle intended some for slaughter and
some for draught. His instructions were to proceed as far as Regoa
and there report himself to one Bartholomew Bearsley a prosperous
and influential English wine-grower whose father had acquired
considerable vineyards in the Douro. He was reminded of the almost
hostile disposition of the peasantry in certain districts; warned
to handle them with tact and to suffer no straggling on the part
of his troopers; and advised to place himself in the hands of Mr.
Bearsley for all that related to the purchase of the cattle. Let
it be admitted at once that had Sir Robert Craufurd been acquainted
with Mr. Butler's feather-brained irresponsible nature he would
have selected any officer rather than our lieutenant to command that
expedition. But the Irish Dragoons had only lately come to Pinhel
and the general himself was not immediately concerned.
Lieutenant Butler set out on a blustering day of March at the head
of his troopers accompanied by Cornet O.'Rourke and two sergeants
and at Pesqueira he was further reinforced by a Portuguese guide.
They found quarters that night at Ervedoza and early on the morrow
they were in the saddle again riding along the heights above the
Cachao da Valleria through which the yellow swollen river swirled
and foamed along its rocky way. The prospect formidable even in
the full bloom of fruitful and luxuriant summer was forbidding and
menacing now as some imagined gorge of the nether regions. The
towering granite heights across the turgid stream were shrouded in
mist and sweeping rain and from the leaden heavens overhead the
downpour was of a sullen and merciless steadiness starting at
every step a miniature torrent to go swell the roaring waters in
the gorge and drenching the troop alike in body and in spirit.
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