Hervey 05 - The Sabre's Edge

by Allan Mallinson

  Hervey looked again at the ground. Three hundred yards they proposed to dig. 'Geordie, seven or eight feet every hour? How are you going to keep that up? How are you going to bring out all the spoil?'

  Armstrong looked assured. 'That's them engineers' worry. It'd be the same if they were sapping rather than mining. A good gang of colliers'd clear that in a ten-hour shift.'

  'What is it exactly that you'll do?'

  Armstrong shrugged his shoulders. 'There's no need of me at all, sir. It's just that some of the officers don't believe it'll work, and Brigadier Anburey wants me to make certain it does.' He gestured to where, covered from view by half a dozen tamarisk trees, the sappers were beginning the drift down to the level at which they would drive the tunnel to the bastion's foundations. 'See, they know what they're about right enough.'

  Hervey thought they looked as though they did. 'The major's asked that I keep an eye on things, but there's no use my being here, not to begin with anyway. I'll come each morning and evening. Where will you sleep - here?'

  'Ay, sir. Stray's going to need a hand too. I'd like Harkness an' all if I can. He were a cooper, if I remember right. He'll be handy with hammer and nails. And a couple of others in a day or so.'

  It was a growing bill, but better, thought Hervey, than the endless fatigues and working parties. He told Armstrong he could have Harkness, and any other he thought had a particular skill. It seemed the least he could do when the regiment were otherwise so cosily set up, and safely, in their distant lines. Then he set off back through the workings to find Gilbert, and quickly, for he had arranged with Johnson for his bath to be drawn by seven. He had to watch his step, though: the paraphernalia of the sappers' siege park - and the activity, so different from that of cavalry lines, could be hazardous for an outsider.

  He slept little and fitfully that night. Both sides had kept up a harassing artillery fire well into the early hours, and soon after midnight there had been an alarm which saw them stood to their horses until two o'clock. It was the routine of the siege he had first come to know a dozen years before, first standing on the defensive at Torres Vedras, and then, the boot on the other foot, at Ciudad Rodrigo. Long days of boredom, occasional danger, with little opportunity for action - only the tumultuous climax, the breaching of the walls and the rushing-in of brave men bent on promotion, the 'forlorn hope', more often than not aptly named, and then the fight through the streets until the heart of the fortress struck and its flag was hauled down. It was the business of the artillery, the engineers and the infantry, the cavalry at best onlookers, at worst an appendage of the wagon train. It was true that volunteers were called for throughout the army for the forlorn hopes

  - and if Combermere did indeed want to dismount the cavalry they might all be in red coats soon -but as a rule a dragoon might as well be astride a screw as a blood. They had been luckier this time for sure, with the dash for the Motee Jheel and the skirmishes with Durjan Sal's cavalry, but it had been momentary and, in the greater scheme of the siege, would be quickly forgotten. Only the brigadier's ruse de guerre offered them sport, the chance of fighting en masse from the saddle in the old way.

  After stand-down, Hervey shaved in plentiful hot water and then breakfasted on eggs and bacon, and very good toast. The coffee, too, was quite excellent, hot and without bitterness. There were even newspapers. They were out of range of cannon fire and it was as if they were at camp for the winter manoeuvres. It was the sole advantage of the siege over a campaign of movement, he considered. The only vexing aspect of these otherwise most congenial arrangements was the presence of Cornet Green. Hervey could barely bring himself to speak civilly to him, if at all. Besides his constant maladroitness with the dragoons, and - present to Hervey's mind still

  - the abominable affair of the night battle, the cornet's bearing in the mess was chafing him more and more. Green seemed unable to enter the marquee with any ease, usually bumping into something or stammering to a khitmagar. And his table manners . . . Once he had picked up his knife and fork he seemed unable to lay them down again until his plate was empty. It was perhaps of no great hazard to good order and military discipline (Green was hardly likely to be seated next to the Governor-General, ever), but for some reason this morning it gave Hervey increasing distress.

  'Mr Green!' he said suddenly, making the unfortunate cornet cough up a part of his breakfast. 'I shall want you to do duty with the sar'nt-major today.'

  'Yes, Hervey,' replied Green, his face the colour of a beetroot, though whether by way of the coughing or because of his troop-leader's attention was uncertain.

  Strickland lowered his copy of the Calcutta Journal and looked Hervey in the eye. The transaction of any sort of business in the mess was distasteful, most certainly at the breakfast table. But that was not entirely the purpose of the gesture.

  Hervey cleared his throat. 'Is there anything of interest in the Journal?' he asked, as matter-of-fact as he could manage.

  Strickland took a sip of his coffee. 'The bishop has given a party to the ladies left behind.'

  'That is very good of him,' said Hervey, in a mildly ironic tone.

  'He writes very fine hymns, Hervey. Even I would concede that.'

  Hervey merely frowned.

  By now, Cornet Green had finished his breakfast - or rather, had finished his attempt at it and had quit the mess, leaving just the two of them.

  'Something must be done about Green,' said Strickland, folding his paper and laying it down. 'I feel half sorry for him.'

  'I'm afraid I find not a single redeeming feature,' said Hervey decidedly.

  'Can he not be persuaded to exchange? He's not short of money, and he can hardly be happy.'

  'I imagine the subalterns have tried. I can't think for the life of me why he chose to come here.'

  'Perhaps that is his single redeeming feature, then?'

  Hervey raised his eyebrows. 'Strickland, I'm sorry to say but I think he's gun-shy.' He related once more the night affair.

  'So you want him shot over in the trenches with Armstrong?'

  'That's the idea.'

  'Then you had better have a care yourself. I gather the brigadier has something in mind for us.'

  Hervey looked at him keenly, but he had no intention of quizzing him on where he had got his intelligence. It seemed next to impossible to keep secret even an idea.

  When Hervey got to the tunnel workings, about eleven, he found Armstrong begrimed and resting, with an empty bottle of pale ale by his side. The lines that now permanently grooved his forehead seemed to have been conduits for the sweat which, even on so cold a day, had evidently run freely, so that from brow to the faintly receding line of his black hair was like veined marble - and the eyes, closed, like chips in the surface exposing the creamy unpolished stone beneath. His jaw looked squarer, even if the chin were a little fuller than in years past. His shoulders, broad yet compact like a bull terrier's, their strength outlined in the sodden shirt which clung to them as he lay, looked more powerful than ever. Once, the morning of Waterloo indeed, Hervey had told Armstrong that he believed him to be indestructible. And he half believed it still. He certainly prayed it was, for Armstrong's loss would be intolerable, and not only to Caithlin.

  'He has not stopped for more than ten minutes since you left yesterday,' said the engineer major. 'Even my artificer turned in for a couple of hours. And he is famous for not sleeping until the job is done.'

  The exchange was punctuated by three mighty explosions a hundred yards or so the other side of the clump of tamarisk trees, as the siege battery hurled a hundred pounds of iron at the long-necked bastion. Cornet Green flinched, but no more than would any man who had not expected it.

  The major shook his head. 'They may as well throw pebbles at a shuttered window. There's scarcely a mark on those walls. We'll have to get them closer.'

  'You don't think mining will breach them, then?'

  'Oh yes, indeed. If we can get to the foundations we can have it down. I'v
e no doubt that if there's enough air for a man to dig with there's enough for combustion. And once packed in we could always open a ventilator shaft by night when it was too late to do anything about it. It's just the time it will take, and if the Jhauts don't find us first.'

  Armstrong opened his eyes. 'Sorry, sir, I didn't know you were come,' he said, getting to his feet and fastening the neck of his tunic.

  'I'm sorry to disturb you, Sar'nt-Major. You've been working all night, I understand?'

  'Ay, sir. I'll give it to these little brown beggars: they can dig.'

  'How far have you got?'

  'Just behind the battery. We opened the venting shaft just an hour ago.'

  Hervey looked astonished. They had dug the drift down ten feet and driven a tunnel four feet high and as many wide for the better part of a hundred yards. 'May I see?'

  'I wouldn't, if I were you, sir. You'd only get in the way. Leave it till we've driven a bit further and got the burlap in.'

  Hervey was disappointed, but he was not going to ignore the advice. 'I'll go and have a look at the battery, then. How is Corporal Stray faring, by the way?'

  'He's doing a good job, sir, him and 'Arkness.

  They've made fifty yards of ducting, and they'll be quicker once they get the extra timber.'

  'Good. I take it he's not expected to go into the tunnel with it?'

  Armstrong returned the smile. ‘No, he's not. The idea's for the air to flow, not block it with Stray's great arse!'

  The trench was full of men from the light company of the 14th (Buckinghamshire) Regiment, their green plumes bobbing as they shuffled forward at the crouch. An ensign explained they were going up to form a skirmishing line in front of the guns; it seemed the Jhaut sharpshooters had been getting bolder in their sorties.

  Hervey turned to the covermen. 'Go fetch our carbines!'

  Even in the few minutes it now took him to get to the battery parallel, a dozen roundshot from the bastion flew over with the characteristic buzz of the bigger-calibre guns. The ensign smiled. 'I am pleased to hear that at last, sir! All the Serjeants ever talk about is the queer noise of the shot at Waterloo. I never thought I might hear it for myself.'

  Hervey resisted the temptation to look behind at what Cornet Green's face revealed. CI should very much like to know why it's flying so high. They surely have the range by now.'

  The answer came soon enough. Just as they debouched into the parallel a ball plunged into the breastworks where stood artillerymen enjoying the spectacle of the overshoots. It threw up a great fountain of earth and bodies, spreading the ordure of a dozen men about the battery.

  Hervey and the ensign's men rushed at once to begin digging out the others. 'Bastards!' he cursed. 'They baited the trap good and proper.'

  Two more roundshot ploughed ineffectually into the breast-works, empty now of spectators, though earth rained down in the trench again. The ensign burrowed with his bare hands for all he was worth, as did his men. Hervey searched for the battery's captain. He found him with half his head blown away, the clever Woolwich-trained grey matter exposed like brains in a butcher's shop. But he was breathing, with an eerie sucking noise. Hervey reached for his pistol, but before he need use it the man gave up the ghost.

  Earth gushed high above them again like a geyser. 'Christ!' cursed Hervey, realizing what more it might be. The Jhauts had not yet sortied, and it was now that they ought. 'Ensign, get your men up ready!'

  The boy - Hervey thought him not eighteen -knew at once what was wanted. In an instant he and his serjeant had a dozen men in a firing line.

  Wainwright and Needham came up the sap with the carbines, followed by Johnson. Wainwright blanched at the carnage and looked about anxiously until he saw Hervey.

  'Where's Mr Green, sir?' asked Private Needham, no less anxiously; a coverman should never lose sight of his officer (the rebuke from the night affair stung his ears still).

  'I don't know’ said Hervey, trying to take stock of the damage, and looking for an artillery officer on his feet. 'He was behind me in the sap.'

  Johnson pushed his way past the confusion. 'Sir, is thee 'ead all right? Tha's covered in blood.'

  'Yes, it's all right, Johnson,' replied Hervey, gruffly. 'Not a drop of it's my own. Why have you come up?'

  'Corporal Wainwright said we was doin' a bit o' shooting.'

  Hervey wondered why he had asked. 'Ensign, can you see anything?' he called. 'No, not a thing, sir.'

  Hervey clambered over the debris of the revetments to stand next to him. 'What is your name?' 'Leveson-Gower, sir.'

  'Is it, indeed? Your father is not, by any chance. Dean of Wells?'

  'He is, sir. Do you know him?'

  'I've heard tell a good deal of him. Now, do you think you can get your men out of this trench and up to that bit of a hillock yonder?' He indicated a long, shallow rise two hundred yards to their front.

  A gun on the long-necked bastion belched yellow flame. Hervey spied the shot almost at once. 'Coming our way, I think, Mr Leveson-Gower. Down, men!'

  They slid to the bottom of the trench, and a second or so later the big iron ball clipped the forward edge, grazed the bottom and drove itself, hissing, into the earth wall behind. 'As I was saying . .

  'Yes, sir. Of course we can. At once.' The ensign turned to look for his Serjeant. 'Detail half a dozen men to stay here until the wounded are dealt with, Sarn't Docherty. Remainder in extended line prepared to advance.'

  'Sor!'

  There followed a deal of shouting, incomprehensible to any but the Fourteenth, as the men fell in.

  'I intend joining you as soon as I'm able,' said Hervey. 'But first I want to see the gunners recovered. Who gave you your orders?'

  'The captain, sir. He's picketing the rest of the company and then he's coming here.'

  'Good. Go to it, then.'

  The ensign saluted, climbed out of the trench and drew his sword. 'Detachment will advance!'

  As quickly as red coats were scrambling out of the trench, blue ones were coming in from the sap - drivers and ammunition numbers keen to dig. A lieutenant looked horrified.

  'You are in command now, I fear,' said Hervey, briskly. 'Your captain's over there, under the blanket. There's a skirmish line out two hundred yards in front, and the bastion's got the range.'

  Private Needham came into the trench, with Cornet Green behind him.

  Hervey's brow furrowed deeply. 'Where in hell's name have you been, Mr Green?' 'I'm sorry, sir. I forgot my telescope.' 'Mr Green, you have a servant!' 'Yes, sir, I—'

  Corporal McCarthy now appeared, breathless. 'Sor, the major's compliments, sor, and please would you return at once. There's orders from the general, sor.'

  Hervey bit his lip. 'We'll speak later, Mr Green.'

  When Hervey got back to the Sixth's camp he was expecting to hear orders for the brigadier's ruse, but instead he found the entire regiment standing to their horses.

  'Durjan Sal's making a sortie, it seems,' said Joynson as Hervey took his place beside him. 'Or going to.'

  Hervey wondered if the business at the battery was connected. 'What are the orders?'

  'Childers' brigade's going clockwise about, and we're going the other way. The horse artillery will stage behind us and signal with rockets if there's a sortie when we've passed.'

  'A straightforward enough drive,' said Hervey, disappointed by his conclusion that they were about to embark on a wild-goose chase. 'I wonder if our birds will leave their covert, though?'

  'Well, someone has the wind up. How is Armstrong, by the way?'

  'He's doing well.'

  'Let's hope he continues doing well, then. Combermere's in the dumps well and truly, if this morning's anything to go by. He rode through and said the artillery had made not the slightest impression on the walls to date.'

  'That much was evident to a telescope in the garden just now. And the Jhauts have some deuced big guns in that bastion.'

  'Thirty-two-pounders, says Combermere.'
Joynson nodded to his front. 'Well, that looks like the Sixteenth off. Trumpet-Major, regiment will advance!'

  But the day went as Hervey feared. Round the fortress they rode - ten miles without sight or sign of the enemy save the odd impudent ball that flew their way. None fell within a hundred yards of them, but they signalled nevertheless the defender's constant surveillance of their progress. Why would anyone oblige Combermere with a sortie when his men paraded before Bhurtpore in such strength? The Jhauts had their walls, and these were serving them very well indeed. Why should they leave their shelter?

  When the Sixth rode back into camp, it was a tired and frustrated Hervey who dismounted and handed the reins of an equally weary Gilbert to his groom.

  'I said I would go see the sar'nt-major, but it's too late. We'll go tomorrow morning.' He took the pistols from the holsters on the saddle as Johnson drew up the stirrups. 'At least they are getting closer by the hour. We may as well be at Brighton for all the good we do. And I think by today's display we have put paid to Murray's ruse having the slightest chance of success.'

  'Ay, sir.' Johnson had not the-least idea what was this ruse, but evidently his ignorance was of no moment now. 'A merry Christmas, then, sir. See thee at gunfire?'

  Hervey smiled. 'Gunfire - yes, indeed.'

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE SINEWS OF WAR

  Next day

  FIELD GENERAL ORDERS.

  Head-Quarters, Camp before Bhurtpore,

  24th Dec. 1825.

  Parole - SECRORA

  General for the Day to-morrow. Brigadier Whitehead.

  Field Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Cooper. Major of Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division. Adjutant, H.M. ‘9th Regiment.

  The Advanced Posts of Buldeo Singh's Garden and Kuddum Kundee to be relieved this afternoon at three o'clock, by parties of similar strength in Infantry as directed in yesterday's Orders, from the 1st and 2nd Divisions respectively. H.M. 11th Dragoons, and 4th Light Cavalry, will relieve the two Troops at present on duty at the Posts; and the Officers commanding them, to consider themselves placed under the immediate orders of the General of the Day, to whom they will report accordingly.