A Call to Arms mh-4

by Allan Mallinson

  A Call to Arms

  ( Matthew Hervey - 4 )

  Allan Mallinson

  1817 and 1818 have not been good years for Matthew Hervey. His beloved wife Henrietta is dead and he is no longer in the Sixth regiment. Now he is kicking his heels in a corrupt and unruly England far removed from its once glorious past. 1819 sees Hervey in Rome with his sister Elizabeth where a chance meeting with man of letters Percy Bysshe Shelley leads him to rethink his future. Realizing just how much he misses the excitement of military action and the camaraderie of his regiment, Hervey hurriedly purchases a new commission and is refitted for the uniform of the 6th Light Dragoons. Hervey’s most immediate task is to raise a new troop and to organize transport, for his men and horses are to set sail for India with immediate effect.

  What Hervey and his greenhorn soldiers cannot know is that in India they will face one of their toughest trials. A large number of Burmese warboats are being assembled near the headwaters of the river leading to Chittagong, and the only way to thwart their advance involves an arduous and hazardous march through jungle territory. What begins as a relatively simple operation becomes a journey into the heart of darkness, as Hervey and his troop find themselves in the midst of hot and bloody action once more.

  From the Hardcover edition.

  ALLAN MALLINSON

  A CALL TO ARMS

  FOREWORD

  In 1819 some 64,000 officers and men — all regulars — were stationed in Britain for domestic security, which meant, since the possibility of invasion had receded beyond imagination, for law and order. But after 1819 the threat of major disorder — of revolution, even — receded too, and by 1825 the number of troops in Britain had fallen to 44,000. Financial retrenchment generally was the order of the day. The army estimates in 1815 had been £43 million; in 1829 they were less than a quarter of that, and by the end of the decade they had fallen even further, for by then the army was less than half the size of its high point at the time of Waterloo. And yet, as today, the army found itself called on to do more, not less, as imperial commitments began to mount.

  I have been surprised by remarks by otherwise kind reviewers on the question of what Captain Matthew Hervey and the 6th Light Dragoons would find to do after Waterloo, the inference being that the world was at peace. The answer, then as today, is that the British army is never at peace. Not one year has gone by since that great battle without a British soldier dying by hostile hand. No other army in the world, save perhaps that of India, can claim such a testimony. The army of today has been shaped over a long age, and some of the most important shapers have been small wars in distant places. They gave British officers and NCOs the habit — the unrivalled habit — of decision-making and responsibility at junior level; in other words, of command.

  But the lessons were sometimes learned hard. The memory of victory over the French was like a dead hand at the Horse Guards as far as reform and innovation were concerned. In the colonial engagements of the three decades after Waterloo, superior British discipline and firepower — the same musket volleys as at Waterloo — were enough to see off the enemy. In the one arena that might have tested the army’s readiness for large-scale war — India — jealousies and assumptions of innate superiority led to a general despising of Indian experience, for which the army was to pay dearly in the Crimea, and, indeed, in India itself at times.

  So where did Hervey and his brother officers of the post-Waterloo army blood their swords, or at least draw them? In A Regimental Affair we saw the Sixth at police work in the Midlands to counter Luddite and nascent Chartist violence, and then in British North America in the wake of the War of 1812, where fear of territorial aggrandizement by the United States tied down 5,000 troops for years to come and saw a costly programme of fortifications and canals. And although Anglo-American relations developed harmoniously for the most part, there were periodic disputes and indeed the occasional rebellion in Canada itself. The settlements in Africa, at the Cape and the Gold Coast, drew the army into action in the 1820s and 30s; there were flare-ups throughout the Caribbean; expanding trade led to conflict with China; the troubles between settlers and Maoris in New Zealand were to occupy 18,000 troops at one point. Small wars in distant places. The sun never set on the British army.

  And throughout, there was India, where an increasing number of King’s (and later Queen’s) regiments was needed to supplement the largely native army of the Honourable East India Company. And if it is true that, for the most part, all these distant imperial commitments were those of, in the Duke of Wellington’s words, ‘the best of all instruments, British infantry’ (in the 1820s and 30s up to seventy-five per cent of the British infantry were stationed abroad or were in transit), nowhere was the mounted arm more valuable than in the presidencies of Bombay, Madras and Bengal, where speed of response could pay dividends out of all proportion. I commend the essay on soldiery in this period by Professor Peter Burroughs, co-editor of the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, in the Oxford Illustrated History of the British Army. It gives a sobering picture of the conditions of service for the men whom, later, Kipling would call ‘beggars in red’.

  I am as usual indebted to several people in this, the fourth of my cavalry tales, and I am very fortunate that they remain the same people as before. I record here my continuing and sincere appreciation of their enthusiasm, patience and wisdom. I would make particular mention, this time, of Anthony Turner, who has worked on each of the manuscripts in the series. I am especially grateful for his keen and questioning eye.

  And so, after the simple certainties of the Napoleonic Wars, and the year or two that it took for the Congress of Vienna to establish the new world order, we begin to observe how officers young and old had to settle to the new reality, just as they had to do in the decade that followed the end of the Cold War. Prospects for promotion were blighted, they knew; the army was not the place it was. Yet somehow these men carried the day in battles around the globe. But then, as in the aftermath of the Cold War, it was not so much the army that pulled them through as that ‘accidental act of genius’, the regiment: in 1817, Captain Matthew Hervey had left the army not by submitting his resignation to the Horse Guards, but by writing to the colonel of the 6th Light Dragoons, and then by sending his regimental commission to the Sixth’s agents to be sold on. That was the regimental system.

  CURSE GOD, AND DIE

  He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage: neither believeth he that it is the sound of the trumpet.

  He saith among the trumpets, Ha ha; and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.

  The Book of Job

  PART ONE. ENGLAND

  An old, mad, blind, despised and dying king;

  Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow

  Through public scorn, — mud from a muddy spring;

  Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,

  But leech-like to their fainting country cling,

  Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow;

  A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field;

  An army, which liberticide and prey

  Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield;

  Religion, Christless, Godless — a book sealed;

  A Senate, — Time’s worst statute unrepealed;

  Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may

  Burst to illumine our tempestuous day.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  ‘Sonnet: England in 1819’

  CHAPTER ONE. CONDUCT UNBECOMING

  The cavalry barracks, Hounslow, October 1818

  ‘The regiment will form hollow square! First and Third Squadrons, at the halt, left and right form!’


  A hundred and eighty dragoons in double rank began the manoeuvre that would transform the parade from extended line into a military amphitheatre. The time-beaters of the regimental band, and all the brass and woodwind, could not muffle the crunch of gravel and the ringing of spurs. ‘Bonnie Nell’, the Sixth marched to this morning. Herr Hamper’s choice of music was always enigmatic: a year ago they had paraded for Private Hopwood’s flogging to the strains of ‘Seventeen Come Sunday’. Indeed, there were many on parade this fine autumn morning who were minded of that day, the last time the regiment had formed hollow square.

  ‘Standfast Number Two Squadron. Remainder, inwa-a-ards, dress!’ The regimental serjeant-major’s voice echoed about the barracks as if he were shouting from a dozen places at once.

  Heads and eyes in the flank squadrons shot right or left, boots shuffled forwards and rear, until the ranks were straight and aligned with the left and right markers of Second Squadron.

  The RSM turned right about, advanced ten paces and halted in front of the major, saluting sharply with his right hand. ‘Sir, there are two hundred and eighty-five men on parade, sir!’

  The major made no reply. The RSM turned to his right, saluted, and marched towards the right marker and thence for the rear of the centre squadron.

  ‘Fall in the officers!’ The major’s words of command were more than an invitation, but feeble compared with those of the Stentor-RSM. When the officers had taken post, the major turned about in a little circling movement, unlike the RSM’s emphatic pivot, and advanced ten paces to where the general officer commanding the London District stood with the Sixth’s adjutant at his side. ‘My lord, there are twenty-two officers and two hundred and eighty-five other ranks on parade.’

  ‘Thank you, Eustace,’ said the general quietly. He walked towards the open side of the hollow square, the major falling in beside him, and halted a few paces before it. ‘By command of the Horse Guards, it is my duty to have read before the whole regiment, on parade, the following despatch from the commander-in-chief.’

  Not a word was spoken, but there was a distinct buzz in the ranks. The adjutant took a pace forward, opened the red portfolio he was carrying under his scabbard arm and began to read. ‘His Royal Highness the Prince Regent has been pleased to confirm the findings of the court martial convened on September the fifth, eighteen hundred and eighteen, to try the evidence against Lieutenant-Colonel the Earl of Towcester of the unnecessary hazarding of his command in the Americas and for conduct unbecoming an officer, contrary to the Articles of War. The court finds that Lieutenant-Colonel the Earl of Towcester is guilty of the grossest negligence in exercising his command in the face of hostile irregulars, and of conduct on numerous occasions beforehand revolting to every proper and honourable feeling of a gentleman.’

  The buzz returned. The RSM threw his head to left and right, and though not a man could have seen him, the noise stopped abruptly.

  ‘His Royal Highness directs that Lieutenant-Colonel the Earl of Towcester be dismissed from the service—’

  The buzz returned louder than ever. The RSM maintained his eyes front, and the general waited patiently.

  ‘Be dismissed from the service … with disgrace.’

  The buzz continued, until the RSM silenced it again.

  ‘The commander-in-chief directs that these findings be read out at the head of every regiment in the King’s service.’

  This last brought so great a shock that the buzz did not recur for some moments, but louder still was the noise when it did come.

  ‘As you were!’ The RSM brought three hundred heads back to attention in an instant.

  The general would now have his say, after waiting for the silence to have its effect. ‘This is an unhappy day for a regiment. It is an unhappy day for our country when an officer fails to do his duty.

  It falls now to every man of the Sixth Light Dragoons to do his duty to the utmost, as indeed you have done it in the past, conscious that the rest of the service looks at you. Let it see not the unhappy example of an officer unfit for his position, but the regiment of Corunna, Salamanca, Albura and Orthès. And of Waterloo!’ He paused to a silent count of three. ‘God save the King!’

  ‘God save the King!’ came the reply, but none too full-throated. Major Joynson suddenly saw his duty. ‘Light Dragoons, God save the King!’ he roared, startling the RSM as much as anyone.

  ‘God save the King!’ bellowed the Sixth.

  The general saluted and turned away. ‘Carry on, Major Joynson,’ he barked.

  ‘Sir! Adjutant, carry on!’

  ‘Sir! Regiment, to your duties, di-i-ismiss!’

  At once the parade ground was a cacophony of words of command from the captains and serjeant-majors as each troop took itself off to stables, skill-at-arms or fatigues — whatever was the order of the day. A Troop more than the others could be forgiven if its collective thoughts were on what was past rather than on what lay ahead. Serjeant Collins perhaps spoke for them all as he fell in beside the troop serjeant-major. ‘There’s two men I should’ve liked to hear that.’

  ‘Ay. And it’s an empty place as well without Armstrong,’ replied the serjeant-major.

  ‘Fred, it’s going to take more than Mr Lincoln to get things as they were.’

  ‘Ay. An RSM can only do so much. I suppose Joynson’ll become colonel.’

  Collins hesitated. ‘I suppose he will.’

  CHAPTER TWO. PARADISE OF EXILES

  The Caffè Greco, Rome, six months later

  ‘Who is the severe fellow there?’

  The enquirer, a boyish-looking man of about twenty-five, stood at the bancone of the meeting place of Rome’s literati and artisti, drinking strong arabica.

  ‘I do not know,’ replied his companion. ‘Save that he is English. Or that he reads English, at least, for I saw him with an English newspaper yesterday.’

  The younger man brushed a dark curl from his forehead and took another sip of his coffee. ‘But now he is reading Goethe, so by that reckoning he might equally be German.’

  His companion gave a prolonged shrug.

  ‘I have observed him here several times this week,’ continued the younger man, draining his cup. ‘He has a decidedly melancholic air. He takes not the slightest interest in anyone around him. He seems wholly absorbed in himself. And that, my dear friend, is singular in this city, even for an Englishman.’

  ‘Then he would be dull company and not worth your regrets,’ declared his companion. ‘Giuseppe,’ he said to the cameriere on the other side of the bancone, nodding to the object of their curiosity. ‘Il penseroso lá — chiè?’ The Italian was without the accent of the country.

  The cameriere shrugged his shoulders. ‘Un’ufficiale inglese, dicono. Ma con me parla solo francese.’

  The younger man nodded. ‘Does he have any companions, Giuseppe? Ha amici?’

  The cameriere said something by reply, but fair though his Italian was, his questioner did not catch the sense.

  ‘He says that a young woman joined him yesterday,’ explained the other. ‘Handsome but not dressed with fashion.’

  ‘English too, then, certainly,’ said the younger man, raising his eyebrows.

  ‘But had she been German, she would likely as not have been neither fashionable nor handsome,’ replied the older one, smiling.

  ‘Oh, Rome is a harsh court in such matters! But in any event, an English officer reading Goethe has a sensibility I can respect.’

  ‘Dicono che ha combattuto nella battaglia di Waterloo,’ added the cameriere, helpfully.

  The boyish-looking man’s ears pricked. ‘Now that is worth my regrets,’ he declared, glancing again at the seated reader. ‘He surely has a tale to tell. But I would not disturb his engagement with Goethe for all that. We shall see him at an assembly soon, no doubt. I am surprised, indeed, that we have not done so already.’

  ‘Perhaps both he and his lady companion are of an unsocial disposition.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Th
e younger man placed a few scudi on the counter. ‘Grazie tante, Giuseppe,’ he said, with an air of a man who had learned something of advantage.

  ‘Grazie a lei, Signor Shelley,’ replied the cameriere, as the two men turned to leave.

  Matthew Hervey, for more than a year plain ‘mister’, and for more than a week an habitué of the Caffè Greco, still owned to mixed feelings at being in the city of the popes. One at least of his father’s profession — the rector of the neighbouring parish — had called the city ‘the whore of Babylon’ when Hervey and his sister had announced their intention to visit. And although there was nothing like so vehement a despising of Rome in his father’s parish, Hervey possessed the Englishman’s instincts. He did not care for the picture of black spectres pursuing temporal ambitions, especially usurping ones. His history he knew very well indeed. And yet there was no doubting that he liked the easy ways of this city. He had seen no especial excess of luxury or vice. Even in the pages of Goethe he saw little that might seriously offend an unprejudiced conscience. What he did see in Rome was gaiety in large measure, and he was most glad of it. And his sister, too, always a sure weathercock of propriety, seemed as glad as he. That he was still, himself, restrained from joining with that gaiety did not diminish his appreciation of it.

  One of the things that contrived to diminish any tendency to gaiety on his part this morning was the knowledge that he must go to the post office. The Rome post office, which stood half-way along the Via del Corso from where he now sat, was to his mind a true representation of bedlam. His two previous visits, to send letters to England and to collect others restantes, had been tedious in the extreme, and he now braced himself for another unedifying morning spent in what passed for a queue in this city. He paid for his coffee, tipped the cameriere too generously (why should someone not be pleased with his day?) and said arrivederla to the Greco’s over-starched proprietor.