On His Majesty's Service mh-11

by Allan Mallinson

  Not that he had done other than help himself in that ambition by his conduct with the Cossacks. General Wachten now treated him as one of his own officers. Indeed, he had asked him to continue in command of the sotnia (though cavalry in a siege were little use except in the sally), which Hervey had been able to decline without too great an affront. For before transferring to the Danube, he explained, he wanted to see the infantry at their work (at this Fairbrother had ribbed him that it was in anticipation of defending the Rock of Gibraltar), and he had begged a laissez-passer for the defence-works.

  As the tender came up to the quay he leapt out purposefully. There was just time, before visiting the outworks again, to hear the day’s intelligence. He had to all intents and purposes now a laissezpasser for the headquarters too.

  Here, Wachten received him as before, but, observing the prize at his belt, he did so with even greater assurance. ‘So now you wear the insignia of the Cossack!’

  Hervey glanced at the sashka, the guardless sabre which the Cossacks alone carried. ‘The esaul gave it to me. You have no objection? I think it handsome, though in truth I would think it more use on foot than in the saddle.’

  Wachten smiled. ‘Colonel Hervey, I should be glad if you put on the cherkesska too. Be that as it may, the Cossacks brought in another prisoner this morning, and if he’s to be believed, there are now five thousand laying siege to our fortress. I consider it an additional feat to have drawn the Seraskier and so many of the Turk’s best troops on to my own, and yet not excess of them.’

  ‘Did you not suppose they would come in that strength, General?’ asked Hervey.

  ‘In several times that strength, or not at all. My orders were not to hazard a defeat if the numbers were overwhelming, and to withdraw whence we’d come. But these odds are not overwhelming – merely formidable.’

  Formidable though not overwhelming – it would have been the conclusion of any who had attended sieges in the Peninsula, except that Siseboli was not Badajoz: the defences were earthworks, and the walls of the town were those that the Greeks had first built – well-made, but hardly bastions. ‘Did the Turk prisoner say anything of guns, General?’

  ‘He said, apparently, that he has seen none – no siege guns, that is. But by all accounts Hussein Pasha commands in person, and so I conclude that he does not intend merely investing the garrison and waiting for us to sail away. There’ll be siege guns coming up, all right; and in their wake an assault.’

  ‘What is your assessment of our situation therefore?’

  ‘It is on this point I would engage your assistance, Colonel Hervey. I am already greatly in your debt, and I appreciate your orders forbid you to take up arms, but I’d deem it the greatest favour if you were to make an inspection of the defences and report your findings to me. My officers will make their dispositions according to the regulations – of that I am confident – but your eyes are not so regulated, and it may be that you observe some weakness that the enemy, being also not drilled in our regulations, sees also.’

  Hervey hesitated. He might be able to persuade Lord Hill that his actions in the reconnaissance had been dictated by necessity, but what Wachten asked was for calculated assistance.

  ‘General, my mission requires that I observe what I can of your methods of war,’ he said slowly. ‘It would be greatly to the advantage of my mission, therefore, if I were to inspect the defences, and it is only gentlemanlike that I tell you what I write to the commander-in-chief.’

  Wachten smiled. It was a bold as well as subtle line of reasoning. ‘Colonel Hervey, your conduct as a gentleman has never been in doubt.’

  Whoever had chosen Siseboli for the coup de main had chosen well. Bourgas, with its stronger garrison, would have been a harder place to capture in the first instance, and although it offered a better anchorage, it was closer to the Balkan forts and would almost certainly have brought swifter and stronger retribution (though why the Seraskier had delayed for so long before marching on Siseboli was everyone’s question). Siseboli also had the advantage of being on a promontory, a peninsula, which could be covered by the fire of Russian warships from either side. Even were the Turks to overcome the defensive outworks to the landward end, the isthmus was too narrow a defile for them to exploit their strength. Unless Turk warships could drive off those of the Russians, the town itself ought to be able to withstand attack. Cornet Agar began speaking of Spartans and Thermopylae as, half an hour later in their billet, Hervey readied himself for his survey of the defence-works.

  The isthmus was two furlongs at most in length, and one and a half wide – rocky ground, short, scrubby grass. When he had first seen it, he had been surprised that with so many orchards, market gardens and shanties at its landward end there had been no encroachment. Guarding the approaches to the isthmus, at a distance of seven hundred yards (easy cannon range) from the walls of the town itself, were two redoubts which Wachten’s engineers had built. Covering these, as well as the isthmus, were two gunboats moored either side of the peninsula. It was an admirable disposition, he reckoned; by night or in fog the Turks might be able to slip past the redoubts, and even across the isthmus, but it would take prodigious skill (the like of which he had not so far witnessed). And as soon as the alarm were raised the gunboats could fire blind and the isthmus would be barely tenable. Even if a sufficient number of Turks were able to cross, they would have to force the gates or storm the walls – almost certainly without artillery, which they could scarce bring up under fire from the gunboats – and even if they succeeded in that, the buildings within the walls were solid affairs and would make formidable strongpoints. Fire would be a danger, of course; though the lower floors were stone-built, the houses were half-timbered; but setting the town alight would be perilous for the Turks, too. Except that, Hervey supposed, they might have no compunction in razing Siseboli if it fired out the invader.

  But what if the Seraskier did not intend attacking, only laying siege? He would know, probably, that the Russians were not landed in strength enough to drive his force off. Would it matter if they were penned in here? But the Russians’ purpose in taking Siseboli was to use it as the point of entry for supplies once General Diebitsch had marched south through the Balkan; the Turks could scarcely maintain a siege with a Russian army approaching from the rear. Since the garrison could always be reinforced by sea, the fate of Siseboli lay therefore in action to the north, in the Balkan. Hervey recognized that meanwhile, all that Wachten had to do was avoid defeat rather than take the offensive. Fairbrother might have been sporting with him when he compared Siseboli with Gibraltar, but Hervey was of a mind that the two had indeed much in common.

  ‘Sir?’

  He had been too deep in thought, even while readying himself. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I have finished the Pliny and Herodotus,’ said Agar, as one who was not about to impart good news.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Herodotus has nothing to reveal, as I expected. He frequently conflates myth and truth. Pliny’s more agreeable to read, but not instructive. Indeed, I was at times uncertain which Apollonia he was writing of; there are so many places of that name between Sicily and Palestine.’

  Hervey checked his stride as he made for the door: ‘Mr Agar, I am content to take your scholarship as read, else I should not have troubled the general with expectations. Pray tell me what you have learned, or nothing at all.’

  Agar looked rather abashed; he was all too aware he could sometimes detach himself from the here and now. ‘He speaks of bitumen in the water hereabout, that it is injurious to horses.’

  Hervey nodded. ‘But that much we may suppose the people of the town know after so many years drinking it. I shall inform the general nevertheless.’ He smiled. ‘It will show him that we have not been idle. Thank you, Agar.’ In truth, he supposed that Wachten had only given him the books as a test of his resource rather than in serious expectation of discovering anything of use.

  Agar was warmed by the thanks, nevertheless. He
had received high praise for the rescue of the fallen Cossack and did not wish to lose the smallest part of his future commanding officer’s esteem.

  The sudden whoosh of a mortar bomb overhead and then the crash of tiles in the street behind recalled them both to the present. There was no explosion, though. Was it solid shot, or a fuse not ignited on firing? Deuced tricky things, fuses; like the Turkish cannon – the slightest fanning of an all-but dead ember, and … A mistake, of course, to allow the enemy’s mortars to come up so close,’ said Hervey, lengthening step.

  ‘Enemy mortars, Hervey?’ said Fairbrother.

  ‘I was speaking from the point of view of the Russians, no more.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. We might otherwise feel obliged to do something to distance the mortars.’

  Hervey smiled, knowingly. ‘I might yet be persuaded – for our own safety.’

  There was a huge explosion from the direction of the gates.

  He checked for an instant, feeling instinctively for the pistol at his belt, though he knew what must be the cause (he’d heard powder kegs go heavenwards in his time). ‘Pray it’s not brought down the walls,’ he said grimly as they began doubling.

  It had not, but it had brought down every horse of the ammunition train, and a good many men. As they came round the corner they saw the gate garrison (a company of the Pavlovsk) already tending the wounded.

  But not the horses. ‘Pall Mall drill,’ he called, running to the wreckage.

  Fairbrother cursed; Agar retched. It was one thing to draw blood with sabre or pistol in the heat of battle, and another to come cold upon a slaughterhouse.

  The explosion, like all explosions, had worked its own peculiar destruction. The superstructure of the leading caisson-waggon had been blown high and scattered wide, doing little damage, except that the driver, headless but still holding the reins, lay between his team, which had crumpled as if felled by a poleaxe, bloodless save for a trickle at the nose. The four horses of the caisson following were down also, but thrown apart so that they lay on their side as if sleeping. The driver had been hurled backwards from his seat and lay gorily impaled on the tarpaulin spike, while the serjeant in command of the train had been blown from the saddle with such force that his uniform was stripped from his back. He lay by the gatehouse, unrecognizable but for the remains of a sleeve with its broad white chevrons of rank, his horse lying grunting nearby – butchered meat like its rider. The corporal lay dead but unmarked beside his horse at the rear of the second caisson.

  To the flank of the lead waggon was the worst destruction: every man of the two-dozen escort had been cut down by shards from the copper hoops of the powder barrels, as if they had marched into a discharge of grape. Those not dead or close to death sat with expressions of bewilderment. Chaplains were already making the sign of the cross.

  Hervey went first to the leading waggon team. All were dead, though he could not believe it at first since they lay with their legs under them as in a close stall. He doubled back to the second team. Three were dead but a wheeler was breathing, though ill, like broken bellows. He ran a hand along the near foreleg: the cannon-bone was shattered. ‘Mr Agar, your pistol to this animal, please.’ It would have been the work of seconds for him to use his own, but some good might at least be had from the business (it was well that Agar practised his drill now rather than for the first time in front of the enemy). He nodded to Corporal Acton to keep an eye on him.

  Next he found the corporal’s horse a case for the veterinary surgeon, not the pistol – no bones of the legs broken, although there were splinters in the near shoulder. ‘Let’s get him up.’

  A pistol shot told him that Agar had done his duty (cleanly, was all he could hope).

  Fairbrother took the reins, slipped them over the gelding’s head and coaxed him up with clicking noises and soft words, while his friend ran a hand along the backbone to feel for displacement. There were men dead and dying yards away; Hervey was not immune to their cries, but it did not absolve him of dominion over the horse. For lead was too free a medicine on the battlefield – he himself had dosed it too often – and if one steadfast creature could be saved with a little attention, then the effort was worth it.

  The other two had rejoined.

  ‘Take him, if you will, Corporal Acton. Mr Agar, do you suppose you can communicate with yonder officer?’ (indicating one of the staff near the gates). ‘Find the veterinarian.’

  ‘Sir.’

  He looked about and saw there was no more to be done. ‘Captain Fairbrother and I shall carry on to “B” Redoubt. Come after us when you’ve seen to things.’

  ‘Sir.’

  Hervey was becoming accustomed to Agar’s usefulness: for all his inhabitation of the ancient world, he was by no means unpractical. If he himself were to have command of the Sixth, even – perhaps especially – if it were reduced to squadron strength, he would want him with him.

  They quit the bloody work of the explosion, and left the partial shelter of the walls for the gabion bailey, to survey the isthmus before crossing to the defence-works.

  Fairbrother looked troubled. ‘How do you suppose it happened?’ he asked, as if there might be some mystery attached. ‘The explosion – evidently not a shell that struck.’

  Hervey shrugged. ‘Powder’s a deuced hazardous thing.’

  ‘Quite. So why do they wait until the town’s invested before taking it to the trenches?’

  But Hervey was not inclined to see anything untoward. ‘Well, I don’t claim knowledge of how the Ordnance works – in any army, let alone the Tsar’s – but in my experience waggons are always scuttling about. Like ants. Perhaps it’s the best way of making sure the powder keeps dry.’

  ‘I confess I’d never seen a caisson, strange as it may sound. I think of powder in cartridges. I suppose I’ve never been obliged to think of it otherwise.’

  ‘There’s no knowing that it wasn’t a fragment of mortar, glowing red still. Deuced ill luck, that’s all.’

  Fairbrother could only admire his friend’s phlegm. His own fighting had been in what the French called ‘la petite guerre’. Of organization and method when it came to large armies in the field he was wholly ignorant save from his reading – which did not extend to supply. That, indeed, was one of the attractions of this singular mission – to see what the old Peninsular hands had seen – for a start, this exchange of artillery (although his friend said it was nothing yet). The Turk field pieces had been keeping up (to his mind) a brisk fire against the redoubts since this morning, and the Russian guns, brought ashore from one of the warships and manned by bluejackets, had been answering with equal vigour. He had watched it from atop the walls while Hervey was seeing the esaul. The earth would tremble when the siege guns came up, they all said, but the distant roar of a 6-pounder and the fountains of earth thrown up were infernal enough. He was not afraid to admit that it made him tremble.

  But the mortars’ haphazard destruction was behind them in the town, and the field artillery too far away to trouble them; between the walls and the redoubts, the isthmus was empty haven. And Hervey now studied it from beside a wicker gabion which, he observed, had been woven with the skill of the seamstress.

  Wachten had chosen neither to occupy the isthmus nor to construct any obstacle to movement across it, for it was here that he intended forming up his reserve to counter-attack if the redoubts fell. And since the Turks would face a murderous fire from the gunboats if they themselves tried to cross, it made no sense to offer them shelter by throwing up earthworks. Hervey understood precisely. What Wachten had asked him, however, was to look with an ‘unregulated’ eye; and it was only from the approaches, the vantage of the attacker, that he could do so. He put away his telescope and looked at his friend. ‘Let us take a walk,’ he said, cheerily.

  To Fairbrother it felt like stepping from the wings onto a stage – and a very empty one at that – as they slipped from the bailey. And it seemed the strangest thing to be walking alone bet
ween two points of danger and yet quite safe from molestation by the enemy (or rather, the Turk). On the other hand, his friend appeared wholly unaware of anything exceptional, and he wondered, as he had done more than once, if it were the quality of every true soldier (as opposed to those like himself whom he thought dilettante) that in the face of the enemy he was not conscious of his own presence. For it seemed to him that Hervey possessed the most remarkable facility in this regard; and yet he knew him to be a not-unthinking man. On the contrary, his friend was capable of (to his mind) ruinous contemplation. Not that he counted himself as possessing excessive caution, only that in Colonel Matthew Hervey caution appeared to be but a consideration rather than an instinct.

  Such as now, as they tramped across this empty space, and all he could speak of was his surprise at the ease with which they had quit the walls and the bailey: not a sentry had required them even to halt, let alone show their laissez-passers. And he, Fairbrother, had replied that he supposed it was taken for granted that anyone passing out of the town was friend not foe, and that this did not seem unreasonable – especially since neither of them looked Turk. Yet Hervey had countered by saying that that was how many a ruse had worked. ‘Perhaps you are recognized as a Cossack, then,’ he had tried, and only half-ironically.

  The sun was due west, or he was sure he would have seen him earlier – a galloper speeding towards them from the redoubts. He shielded his eyes for a better view, but Hervey remained oblivious to the intruder on the empty boards, more absorbed in crouching to discover the extent of what he called ‘dead ground’ (Fairbrother supposed that a galloper must have been an everyday of the Peninsula).

  At a hundred yards he could make him out clearer. ‘An uhlan, Hervey.’

  The only uhlans were the general’s aides-de-camp.

  He galloped past with a touch to the peak of his czapka.

  ‘A pretty sight. The best uniform I ever saw on a post-boy,’ tried Fairbrother, hoping it might bring his friend back to the present.