On His Majesty's Service mh-11

by Allan Mallinson

  ‘I did not believe for a moment you acted as one.’

  ‘Have you written to Princess Lieven?’

  ‘As a matter of fact I have decided to write this evening.’

  Fairbrother raised an eyebrow. ‘May I ask why?’

  ‘Courtesy, in part.’

  ‘Mm.’ He leaned back. ‘If you asked my counsel it would be that first you should sleep on the matter. It has been a hot-blooded sort of day.’

  ‘I can’t sleep on it: a courier leaves for St Petersburg in the morning.’

  ‘There’ll be others.’

  ‘I judge it best not to delay.’

  Fairbrother kept silence a while. ‘So deuced difficult to tell if a ball’s fused or not, sometimes.’

  Hervey perfectly understood his meaning. But there was nothing to say.

  Fairbrother let him off the hook by changing the subject, ostensibly. ‘By the by, what would you have decided had I said that I could not accompany you to Gibraltar?’

  Hervey sat up. ‘In truth I don’t know, for I had not then made up my mind – as I had with Johnson.’

  ‘Well, I make my acceptance now conditional,’ said Fairbrother gravely.

  ‘Oh?’

  He smiled. ‘I have found Hazlitt’s account of his time in Rome so intriguing that I am intent on seeing the city as soon as may be, and since you are fully acquainted with it, and Gibraltar is so near, I would claim you as guide.’

  Hervey returned the smile. ‘You know, Fairbrother, I do believe I should find that the most agreeable thing – quite the most agreeable thing indeed.’ It was only the strictest self-mastery that would not let him admit his friend as indispensable too.

  After dinner, Hervey took candles to his room, resolved to have his letters ready for the Ordnance courier. The first was easily done – a single sheet to Colonel Youell, telling him of his decision to accept the lieutenant-colonelcy of the Fifty-third. As soon as he had sealed it he felt a weight rise from his shoulders; all else now was but a consequence of that decision. He wrote equally briefly to his agents, Messrs Greenwood, Cox and Hammersley of Craig’s Court, instructing them to take the necessary action in the disposal of his regimental majority. He wrote at greater, more respectful length to Lord George Irvine, a most difficult letter expressing his regret in not being able to take command of his regiment. He toyed with the idea of explaining himself more fully (for what of the regiment was there left to command?), but in the end he could not find words of the appropriate substance, and he closed the letter in the confidence that his erstwhile commanding officer would understand his reasons – or that no acceptable reasons could in any case be advanced. Next he wrote to Elizabeth with the briefest summary of his movements to date, an equally brief announcement of his decision, and an enclosure for Georgiana telling her that soon she would be able to join him in Gibraltar, which she would surely like a good deal. He then began a letter to Kezia. He wrote the salutation easily enough, but then his pen froze in his hand. No words would come to him. He even thought to unseal the letter to Elizabeth to copy its lines, but he could not do so, for it scarcely seemed meet, and the recipients were so unalike that the same words could hardly be apt. In the end he decided he would rise early and write with the courier’s posthorn to hasten him.

  It was now late; he felt drowsy. But with the mere act of taking a fresh sheet and writing ‘Dear Princess Lieven’ it was as if he had been touched by an electric arc. So great in fact that he stopped momentarily to ponder the cause. None that came to mind was wholesome, however, and he shut them out very determinedly in order to write on. But at the end – seven whole sides in his compact hand – he shuddered with distaste at the thought that he had not been able to manage a single page for his wife. And try as he might, he could not shake off the sense of perfidy. He found it infinitely easier to scruple less about corresponding with the ambassadress of a foreign power, for he would tell the Horse Guards of what he wrote, and Princess Lieven was a woman of experience and discretion in diplomatic affairs, and besides he told her nothing that was detrimental to His Majesty’s interests (or so he very much trusted).

  It was, after all, a very tame account – a summary of their itinerary with not a mention of St Petersburg, the briefest explanation of the purpose of the landing at Siseboli, the defence-works about the town, the bearing of the Pavlovsk Grenadiers, his patrol with the Black Sea Cossacks, the action by the strelki of the Azov Regiment, and the admirable arrangements for the sick (such as he had had occasion to observe). He did not write of the deficiencies or derelictions, only that ‘there are some instances where, in my judgement, the practice could be amended to advantage’ – and his intention to join the main army when it was ready to renew the offensive. There was not the remotest possibility of its falling into unfriendly (or even suspicious) hands, but even so, there was nothing, individually or severally, that could be construed as bearing allegiance to any but the King.

  He signed it quickly – I remain, yours faithfully, Matthew Hervey – and sealed it before he could have any more troubling second thoughts, and placed it with the other letters inside an oilskin envelope addressed to his agents, which he left unsealed to await the morning letter to Kezia. By now he was feeling the hour keenly (it was past two o’clock and the candles were beginning to gutter). He rose from the table at which he had sat for two hours, and without even recourse to the nightstand lay down on his bed and closed his eyes.

  There was no easy repose, however. At once Kat appeared – so vividly as to make him open his eyes and sit up. He shook his head, willing her away. She had visited him daily before they reached St Petersburg, then less frequently during the journey south, and hardly at all since coming to Siseboli. He had hoped that time and distance would work its usual cure. But such confusion as were the circumstances with Kat could not be resolved by the mere passing of hours and the accumulation of miles. He cursed himself for the weakness of will that had brought those circumstances about, and shivered with the shame of it. It pained him to think how Fairbrother and Johnson (and Agar and all the others) looked to him for his assured command, for his certainty in what to do, and yet he was so in error in his private affairs as to render himself unfit to exercise any authority. Or so it would be thought were his affairs to cease being private. Not that there was immediate danger of that; not if he kept his head. And therefore he would exercise his authority in pretence, deceit – the ‘mask of command’ writ large.

  Would it matter? He didn’t know. There was in the Prayer Book, in the ‘Articles of Religion’, an affirmation concerning the unworthiness of some ministers of religion that might equally apply to the exercise of military command: ‘Neither is the effect of Christ’s ordinance taken away by their wickedness’. He had always found it curiously fortifying, upheld, as it had been, by his father, who would always quote it in adversity, when some wickedness of the diocese oppressed him. But for all that the article gave comfort, it contained a rider: ‘Nevertheless it appertaineth to the discipline of the Church that inquiry be made of evil ministers, and that they be accused by those that have knowledge of their offences; and finally, being found guilty by just judgement, be deposed.’ There was no assured refuge from reckoning, therefore. He could go to Gibraltar, wear the badges of rank, exercise the power of command – but ruin lurked, perhaps even stalked.

  He lay down again, sick in his stomach, and closed his eyes. He gave desperate thanks for the fellowship of his good friend and his much older one; what a barren office would any command be without their company.

  XII

  THE BOOT AND THE BAYONET

  Early next morning

  The signal gun in ‘B’ Redoubt – unshotted, twice as loud – woke Siseboli an hour before its expected reveille. Hervey sat bolt upright, full awake, the instinct of twenty years’ campaigning, which many a time had saved his skin. The nightlight by his bed was still burning. He reached for his hunter – ten minutes before two o’clock. Bugles sounded ‘Alarm’ a
bove the distant rattle of musketry. He was up, buckling on his sword, reaching for his pistols, grabbing telescope, spurs, crossbelt, cap, and making for the door. The first thing that mattered was speed.

  Corporal Acton was at the foot of the stairs. ‘Signal rockets from the redoubts, sir – red ’ns. The Turks are attacking.’

  ‘You saw the rockets?’

  ‘I did, sir. I were gone to the groyne for a see if they’d caught any fish, when the gun went off.’

  Fairbrother came hurrying downstairs, booted and spurred (Hervey was always intrigued how his friend could rise with alacrity when the occasion required, yet otherwise remain abed all morning). ‘It might be a false alarm,’ he said, as if to excuse his promptitude, ‘but I take no chance. I’d wager your Colonel Vedeniapine knows his business.’

  Johnson now appeared, barelegged but in his greatcoat, shielding a candle. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Captain Fairbrother and I are going to see what’s the alarm. Stay here and make ready. Have Brayshaw and Green help.’

  ‘There’s water on t’boil, sir. I could mash some tea, quick.’

  ‘No,’ said Hervey, pushing his spurs into a pocket, and telescope into his tunic bib. ‘If the Turks are attacking we must see it at once.’ He remembered: ‘On my desk – a letter for London. See it gets to the headquarters for the courier if I’m not back in the hour.’

  They went into the street. There was the faintest notice of coming dawn in the moonless sky, but the torches everywhere made it seem midnight still. An infantry detail doubled past, two efreytors barking time. The distant musketry swelled and then slackened like fireworks at a fête.

  ‘If the Turks have got in the trenches they’ve duped us,’ said Fairbrother, pulling his cap down. ‘They must’ve been toying with us yesterday; that musketry doesn’t sound like a picket skirmish.’

  ‘It does not,’ agreed Hervey, striding out after the grenadiers. ‘We must pray if they have got into the trenches it was more by good fortune.’

  Both men had given up any pretence at disinterest: the Turk was an intruder; he must be seen off.

  In the square behind the main gates the guard company was already drawn up in two ranks, standing easy, while others of the Pavlovsk were getting on parade. Officers of the reserve battalion of the Kozlov Regiment were gathering for orders while the men mustered outside their billets at the further end of town. A party of Cossacks – twenty or so – came clattering along the cobbles at the trot, and then General Wachten arrived with his staff and escort of grenadiers.

  Hervey kept a respectful distance. In any case, he would not be able to understand the orders, and could hardly expect Wachten to translate for him while disposing his troops. It would soon be perfectly apparent what the orders were.

  A rocket shot up from the castellation above the main gates, bursting in a bright green shower at a hundred feet. Seconds later the gunships moored either side of the isthmus opened a sweeping fire on the approaches.

  Fairbrother frowned. ‘What in God’s name do they shoot at?’

  ‘Wachten told me they’d fire blind on signal.’

  ‘It goes hard, then, with any messenger.’

  ‘The order is that messengers light a torch.’

  Fairbrother merely raised an eyebrow.

  The cannonading and musketry continued. The troops in the square stood fast.

  In a quarter of an hour the sky was lightening distinctly.

  ‘Come,’ said Hervey, no longer content to wait now that imminent daylight promised them a view. ‘Let’s get up on the walls.’

  As they crossed the square one of General Wachten’s staff officers hurried up to them. ‘Colonel Hervey, we did not know where you were,’ he began, in French. ‘The general would see you. Please, this way.’

  He took them to the door of the staircase of the gate tower, and then up to the battlements.

  Here they found the general standing tall on the parapet. ‘Colonel Hervey, I feared you had gone over to the other side!’ he declared boisterously, rolling his German with evident relish.

  ‘Had I the inclination, General, it would surely be a most perilous venture with those gunboats raking the ground so.’

  ‘I shall signal for them to cease firing as soon as I am able to see the ground. It cannot be but a false alarm. But it serves nonetheless: a little practice with powder – always good for the circulation!’

  ‘The picket, I imagine, is long called in, General, but are the Cossacks?’ Hervey was uncertain if they maintained the watch by night.

  ‘They retired after last light.’

  ‘May I ask your design, General?’

  ‘There is no yellow rocket; Vedeniapine has not signalled the redoubts cannot stand, so as soon as it is light enough to know where to direct the counter-assault, I shall do so. If the Turks are in the trenches they shall find us falling on them, and if they are not they shall have to fight us in the open.’

  He turned to one of his aides-de-camp and rattled off an order. The officer saluted and hastened away.

  ‘The Pavlovsk and Kozlov regiments will advance in ten minutes,’ he explained. ‘It should be light enough to form ranks, yet not be seen distantly.’

  He turned to a second aide-de-camp and gave the order to cease fire.

  Seconds later there was a noise like the hiss of steam from a boiler, and another of the signal rockets raced high over the isthmus, bursting red. The fire from the gunships ceased.

  Hervey took out his telescope to peer into the lightening darkness, trying to avoid the glare of the burning pitch barrels which the redoubts had lit. He could make out shadowy movement on the extreme right of ‘B’, the western redoubt (from which they had made yesterday’s sortie). It was rapid – darting, even – but without form. Yet what could it be but Turks, for all the Azov’s men must surely be standing to in the trenches? The flashes of musketry, besides playing the devil with his night eyes, revealed a fight of some sort, but whether it was Turk or Russian musketry, or both, he could not know.

  ‘What do you make of it all?’ he asked Fairbrother.

  ‘Quite evidently an affair of some heat, but what’s beyond it? For all we know the whole Turk force might be drawn up waiting for the storming party to take the forward trenches. Or equally possible that it’s a raid in strength, and no more.’

  ‘Just so,’ replied Hervey, lowering his glass and closing his eyes to recover from the sudden flaring of another tar barrel. ‘Yet they must know that daylight’s at hand. If it’s merely a raid they’d want to be away before it’s full light.’

  ‘I see ’orses, sir,’ said Corporal Acton, who had borrowed Cornet Agar’s telescope.

  Hervey took up his glass again. ‘You have better eyes than I, Corp’ Acton. Where?’

  Acton closed to his side, and pointed. ‘Go right, sir – furthest end of the Plough ’andle, and then below to where all that smoke’s drifted.’

  Hervey searched. Even half a mile, perhaps more, from the trenches the white smoke was reflecting the flaring light of the pitch barrels and occasional bursting shell – but he could see no horses. ‘You’re sure of it?’

  ‘Sure of it, sir. Just a dekh, and then yon smoke must’ve drifted again.’

  It was good enough. Hervey turned to his host. ‘My corporal had a glimpse of horsemen, General.’ He reckoned he did not need to say that it might mean artillery.

  ‘The devil! Clearly an attack of some weight then. Well, I am going down to accompany the regiments. You may accompany too.’

  ‘With pleasure, General.’

  Fairbrother took hold of Hervey’s arm. It was one thing to wish the Turks their congé, but quite another to become embroiled in delivering it. Had they not had scrapes enough? ‘Are you quite sure it’s the place from which best to observe?’

  ‘We can hardly stand here as if it were a race meeting,’ Hervey replied.

  ‘But we ain’t declared, either. What will it serve if you’re shot?’

  ‘The odd
s are agin it.’

  Fairbrother turned to follow his friend. ‘Who would live for ever?’ he said wearily, bracing himself to more action.

  The gates swung open and the regiments began marching out in column to the taps of the company time-beaters. It was now light enough for Hervey to make out the colour of the facings, and for the NCOs to see an errant man and bark at him to keep step – but still too dark to see with any certainty what was happening at the trenches. Not feeling bound to hang on the general’s coat tails (who was, in any case, mounted), he, Fairbrother and Corporal Acton slipped through the gates and scrambled atop the rubbled wall near which Johnson had been bowled over by the franc tireur not a week ago.

  The Pavlovsk, leading, began forming at the halt, two companies abreast, two in support, with all the regularity of the parade ground – sharp but unhurried. And then the Kozlov, with less majesty, but with no less efficiency, forming double-company front, abreast and left of the Pavlovsk. Hervey was impressed.

  Into the interval of a dozen yards between the two regiments rode General Wachten and his staff.

  Hervey sighed. ‘I suppose we’ll see no less for being on foot, though it makes it deuced awkward having any conversation with Wachten.’

  ‘Shall you need to converse with him?’ asked Fairbrother guardedly. ‘I really do counsel caution.’

  ‘You are always judicious.’ Hervey understood perfectly his friend’s reluctance, but also that Fairbrother could never run from a just fight; he was, as the saying in India went, a man to go tiger shooting with.

  There was the sound of hoofs, and then the unmistakeable jingling of Cossack bridles.

  ‘Perhaps they bring your seat at the general’s right hand,’ said Fairbrother archly as the sotnia came through the gates at a jog-trot.

  ‘I doubt it.’ But he was still inclined to excitement. It was the only way he could dismiss his friend’s caution (for he could not fault his reasoning). ‘I would see the battle as does the infantryman. I have quite a taste for it now.’