STUDIES IN THE NAPOLEONIC WARS 048
The Vanished Spanish Army
7. Tales of Secret Service (9)
The Vanished Spanish Army
So as Adam Rohrauer, formerly of Bremen, a commercial traveller in a long snuff-coloured coat, the adventurer came to Hamburg, and there learned for certain what he had already been told on hearsay, that La Romana and his army had been moved many weeks back into the Danish isles and northern Jutland. For a moment this seemed to wreck his whole scheme, for while he could pass anywhere in Germany with his fluent tongue, he knew not a word of Danish, and could not get any accurate information as to where the Spaniards had gone. The banker on whom he could draw for money showed such trepidation on being questioned on military and political matters, and asked to transmit letters, that Brother James cleared out of the bank with his bag of thalers as fast as he could, fearing that he would be betrayed.
On inquiry he found that the only Spaniards left in the neighbourhood were a depot of 400 sick, at Altona, just across the Holstein border. To visit this party he accordingly went, with the plea that he wanted to find out where the various regiments of La Romana’s army had got to, as he was the representative of a firm which dealt in colonial wares (smuggled, of course), and thought that the Spanish officers must be languishing in northern solitudes for the cigars and chocolate which had been procurable in Hamburg. The first person to whom he introduced himself was the military chaplain or almoner in charge of the spiritual affairs of the hospital, and their conversation had to be in Latin, for the Spaniard knew neither German nor French. After a very few sentences Brother James discovered that he was talking to a man mad with rage at the half-known news of the treachery at Bayonne and the kidnapping of King Ferdinand—as all Spanish clergy without exception were at that time.
Taking a considerable risk, he explained that he was a priest and not a commercial traveller, and that he had come with a secret message for La Romana’s army from the patriots of Spain. The almoner embraced him, and took him to see a convalescent captain, who spoke fluent French and was a good patriot. This officer could give Robertson all the information that he required about the disposition of the various Spanish corps, since he had been sending off small parties of recovered sick to join their regiments week by week. But he said that to transmit letters to Nyborg was beyond his power.
The complete dislocation of Romana’s army struck Robertson with some dismay. However, he resolved to persevere in his errand—the mentality of the two Spaniards upon whom he had chanced was encouraging. So having purchased a consignment of chocolate and cigars, such as could conveniently be carried in two small portmanteaux, he started off—not, however, by the obvious way inland through Glückstadt. For he went to Lübeck, and there, on the strength of his Bremen-Hamburg passport, got from the Danish Consul another, covering travel as far as Copenhagen. And thence, with no trouble whatever, he went by the westward road along the Baltic to Kiel and Flensborg. His task was now to get across the Little Belt, and find La Romana in the isle of Funen. The main difficulty was to cross the strait, for English vessels were patrolling both the Belts, and the ferry-vessels had to wait their opportunity, and dodge the blockade when no hostile flag was in sight. But at last he got across to Assens, the little town in Fünen which faces the mainland.
Meanwhile what had been happening to the marooned Spanish army? In April La Romana had begun to be perturbed at the way in which the stream of dispatches and private letters from Spain, which had hitherto arrived regularly, had suddenly dried up. An officer who got through from Madrid with details of the accession of Ferdinand VII brought a complaint that the Home Government had got no dispatch from the expeditionary force for many weeks. Napoleon had stopped the post at both ends. This caused much alarm and evil surmises. They were more than fulfilled when on June 24th there was delivered to the Marquis a dispatch from Bayonne, announcing that the Bourbons had abdicated, that Joseph Bonaparte had been proclaimed King of Spain, that he had been acknowledged by the whole realm, and that he was to transmit the news to his army, and order the regiments to swear allegiance to their new sovereign. The only commentary that was forthcoming on this startling news was a bundle of copies of the Moniteur, full of fulsome articles about the “regeneration of Spain.”
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