Hervey 07 - An Act Of Courage

by Allan Mallinson

  More dragoons began tumbling from the wood – the Fourteenth’s. Many were bloodied, others bewildered-looking. It was plain to him: they had had a mauling. He was not surprised; none of the Sixth was. To plunge into a wood, mounted, was to give the advantage to the man on foot. Surely the Fourteenth had seen that, even without the benefit of high ground?

  At last, General Stewart came galloping out, his two aides-de-camp hatless and blood-spattered. He looked like a man who knew things had gone ill. He sought to congratulate someone. ‘Sir Edward! Splendid work! Capital! The French are driven back. We shall push them across the river just as soon as the infantry come up!’

  Sir Edward Lankester returned his sword after dropping it to the salute. ‘When the Fourteenth are all out of the wood, General, I propose we retire so that the guns have a clear line.’

  ‘Just so, Sir Edward,’ replied Stewart, looking over his shoulder at the Fourteenth’s disordered squadron. ‘And, I might say, one of your corporals deserves promotion as soon as may be!’ He looked along the front rank. ‘There, the right marker! He cut down a sharpshooter who’d have put a bullet in me for certain. Admirable address! Admirable!’

  Sir Edward knew who was his right marker well enough, but he turned to see the object of the general’s favour. With a nod, and in a voice just loud enough to carry to each flank, he announced, ‘Corporal Armstrong, by desire of General Stewart, you are promoted local serjeant herewith!’

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE KING’S COMMISSION

  Badajoz, late afternoon, Christmas Day, 1826

  Hervey began peeling his last orange. They had been cork oaks at the affair of the Douro, good for voltigeurs to take cover behind, and low branches to entangle the unwary dragoon, Absalom-like. But when they had got to the other side – when the infantry had come up and swept through the wood – there had been orange trees; and what a feast they had had! Stewart had far exceeded his authority in promoting Armstrong, but that had been the least of his faults. The Fourteenth had lost half their men in that bungled affair. If the French had counter-attacked before the straggling squadron had cleared the gunners’ line, there was no knowing how things would have gone. But they hadn’t, and the infantry had come up, and the day had ended well. And not least for General Stewart, who had already botched things on the march north; another reverse might have proved fatal.

  Hervey sighed. No, it would not have been fatal for Lord Castlereagh’s kin, not for the brother of Sir Arthur Wellesley’s supporter in London. There had been many, and greater, names in the pantheon of incompetence, secure in their positions in spite of any calamity because of some influence at the Horse Guards. In any case, Sir Arthur Wellesley had known how to deal with the problem of the Honourable Charles Stewart: he had checked his impetuous confidence by hobbling him to the duties of the staff (and even there, Hervey learned years later, Stewart had been more hindrance than help). But checking Stewart had not been the end of it: there had been others who had sent brave men needlessly to their deaths. Slade, for one. What had Slade ever done but bungle things? And with a streak of malevolent cowardice that singled him out as being in a special category. Now he was lieutenant-general, with the rank to make war on his own, to dissemble and bungle on a campaign scale, to send men to their deaths in thousands.

  Hervey angered, even as he sat confined. Would it be always thus? Would advancement in the army forever depend on this rotten system of purchase and patronage? Parliament couldn’t care less: the nation won its wars, eventually; did it matter at what cost? Evidently not, for neither house showed any appetite for demanding generals’ heads in return for soldiers’ bodies – legions of bodies. Unless, of course, the general was known as a party man: there had been baying enough as the army stumbled back to Corunna, for Sir John Moore had been a Whig. The Tory Wellesley had heard party baying too, on occasion.

  How different it had been at regimental duty in those early days in Portugal, with Armstrong promoted serjeant. There was scarce a man that had not lifted a glass to him – not because Armstrong had especially deserved it in the confusion of the cork grove (there was nothing singular in saving a comrade, except that Stewart was Stewart), but because of the aptitude he had shown on countless occasions since their first footing in the Peninsula.

  Hervey smiled as he took the last of the peel from the orange. It had been a short-lived celebration, Armstrong’s third stripe. Three days later, before the local rank could even be confirmed, he had been reduced to corporal again. A dispute in a Porto tasca over who was more use, infantry or cavalry, had come to blows, the sort of pointless debate in which no speaker could entirely believe his own proposition, yet each would submit to trial by combat to settle the question of honour. A serjeant of the 29th Foot (Worcestershire) had been chastened by a bloody nose, and the town commandant, charged by Sir Arthur Wellesley to maintain the strictest discipline, had insisted on condign punishment. Sir Edward Lankester had only been able to spare Armstrong from a regimental court martial by summarily removing the unsubstantiated chevron. Hervey smiled again, and wryly. That, he reminded himself, was regimental duty.

  As to his own fortunes in the aftermath of the Buffs’ brilliant and economic victory at Oporto, they had run no better than Armstrong’s, for soon after entering the city, Colonel Shaw had been killed by the explosion of an ammunition tumbril. There had been no despatch commending him to Sir Arthur Wellesley, therefore. ‘Here is your command. You will never have another like it!’ – how the words had haunted him in the months that followed. The opportunity to display came rarely for the cavalry officer, just as Sir Edward Lankester had warned him. Poor Shaw: the commander-in-chief had lost a brave and resourceful observing officer; but he, Hervey, had lost the best opportunity he would have for the rest of the war!

  He sighed a third time, cursed almost. He let events take him, that was his trouble. No, that was absurd: he had never waited for orders, and he had seized the moment to good purpose often enough. He frowned: that was why he was here now, was it not? Only in part. It was true that he would not be here if he had not opposed Colonel Norris’s design, but, he told himself, no selfrespecting officer of his arm could have done any other than press his case as he had. That was the purpose of the reconnaissance, was it not? Was he supposed to advance in rank by saying, instead, only what was welcome to the hearer? He knew some who believed it – until such time as they achieved a position of importance, they explained, whereupon they could exercise their independence of judgement to true advantage. But how did the independent mind not atrophy meanwhile? That was what he would know. And would the moment ever come when they judged the exercise of an independent mind more important than even further advancement, however remote it might seem? With such men, did not the sole purpose of advancement become advancement? Why did he not play their game, though? For nine times out of ten his judgement would be superior to any promoted in his place; and the tenth time – the tenth part – was a very small fraction of the whole business of command. Did he dissemble if he only did so one part in ten?

  He shivered; the fire was getting low. It was Christmas Day and there was no chaplain, no company whatsoever. He had never spent Christmas Day alone; he found it remarkably discouraging. Were there any but felons confined as he was? None, he felt sure, who wore the King’s uniform. And it was not entirely self-pity. He felt abhorrence at letting himself become a prisoner of the King’s enemies (was enemy not too strong a word for the men who kept him here?). He felt shame, indeed, and he dare not let his thoughts drift to home, to which in any case he had been stranger for so many Christmases.

  How did Isabella Delgado spend this day? Warming by a great fire in Belem, in her father’s easy and loyal company; mass at the Jerónimos; a walk in the royal gardens; a drive, perhaps, to Cintra; and dinner in agreeable company? He would have been glad to be with her at any of those diversions. Glad, to be sure, simply to be with her. He shivered again. Lady Katherine Greville – did she spend a good Christm
as in Madeira? Would that he could picture it! Would that he were there, too! Did she curse him, now? He had treated her less than gentlemanly, he knew it. But alarm had suddenly seized him in Lisbon, when he feared himself drawn in excessively deep, and it had been all too easy to send her that dismissive letter – what was it, three weeks ago? Now, he half prayed she was thinking it . . . ambiguous. Had she ever intended going to Madeira in the first place, as she told everyone? Or had his coolness driven her there? He would never know, most likely. And he had such need of her capability now.

  But what was the purpose of turning over the past, or the question of dissembling, when he would in all likelihood face the discipline of the Horse Guards? He doubted any amount of purchase or patronage could restore a career thereafter. Would it come to that, to court martial? What else could it come to unless he escaped soon? He could wish himself in Belem now, or Madeira, but above all he wished he were in Wiltshire. That was where his true duty lay, was it not? Home – a cold church but a warm hearth. How many times had he heard the Christmas bells in Horningsham? His stomach twisted: only once since joining the Sixth. Yet that season was imprinted on him as if he had never left – perhaps even stronger, for the changes which must have come, year by year, had never troubled him, so that his memory was the sixteen-year-old’s, as perfect as may be. Except that there was now a dependent in that place, a daughter he was neglecting, even when he had his liberty. He could not say truly that he honoured his father and his mother, either, by his long absence. It was not so plain a commandment, perhaps, as the seventh, which he broke with astonishing ease; but break it he did. His condition, in all things, was not one in which he could take any pride.

  He opened his Prayer Book with a heavy heart. It was at least something familiar; he would be transported for half an hour, perhaps even contentedly. He began with the day’s lessons, then turned to the appointed psalm, 119 – Beati immaculati: Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes: and I shall keep it unto the end . . . O take not the word of thy truth utterly out of my mouth: for my hope is in thy judgements. So shall I always keep thy law: yea, for ever and ever. And I will walk at liberty . . .

  He smiled ironically. He could walk in liberty at this moment. It was only his parole that he would render up. But that would not be keeping the law as it fitted the soldier. He had pledged somewhere, if only in his own hearing, to keep it to the end.

  He read on, until the closing verses: It is good for me that I have been in trouble: that I may learn thy statutes. The law of thy mouth is dearer unto me: than thousands of gold and silver. He shook his head. How often was the psalmist apt!

  To Hervey’s considerable surprise, and equal joy, the physician visited him a little before six o’clock. ‘I could not bear to think of you dining alone this day, Major Hervey,’ he had said, and with such warmth that Hervey was prompted to take his hand by return.

  Indeed, after he had read the psalm, his cell had become a place of some cheer suddenly. His jailers had fetched more wood for the fire, and servants he had not seen before brought a bowl of candied fruit, and fine wine and cakes. And when the physician had said that he could not bear to think of Hervey dining alone, he had meant that he would dine with him. So Dr Sanchez and his ‘charge’ had feasted on roasted capon, beef and puddings, and Hervey had almost been able to forget his condition for an hour or two. They spoke freely, but of the past, which avoided cause for dispute or indiscretion, for Britain and Spain had been allies (in later years at least) in the long struggle against Bonaparte. The more they spoke, the more they found common ground.

  ‘Oporto was a very fine affair,’ said Hervey, taking a cigar. ‘I did not realize it at the time, but it spoke everything of the Duke of Wellington. He had a reputation for caution, but that is to misunderstand. He was – is, I suppose – a safe general, and there is much difference between the two. A general may have his reverses, but a commander-in-chief must never be beaten.’

  ‘To have the enthusiastic support of the people, in the way you had at Oporto, is greatly to be prized, Major Hervey. That was the undoing of the French in my country. You know, I hope, of the guerrilleros?’

  Hervey blew the first of his cigar smoke towards the high ceiling. ‘I do, but I confess I regard a great deal of what they did with utter revulsion. I saw unimaginable things on the way to Corunna, the most shameful things, but the butchery which followed after Oporto was an outrage. The duke begged the people not to molest the French wounded, but it had little effect. It was nothing to what we saw later in Spain, however.’

  The physician nodded thoughtfully. ‘But by Oporto, the Duke of Wellington had secured his reputation, it is true. A fine affair indeed, a brilliant affair, Marshal Soult ejected from Portugal to cower in Galicia a prey to the Spanish army. Such audacity on the duke’s part!’

  Hervey did not immediately respond. There was no doubting the duke’s right to praise, yet Soult had not been destroyed; neither was he by the Spanish. True, he had had to abandon all his supply, just as Sir John Moore had, and many of his guns, but the fact was that Soult had escaped and would recover and be a thorn in the duke’s flesh for four more years. Months after Oporto there were rumours the duke had thrown away his chance by disdaining the advice of a Portuguese officer who knew by what route the French would escape.

  Escape – the word again. What might his route of escape be? Was there some secret way, ancient but unmarked on any map, as Soult’s had been, by which he might slip from these quarters and out of the castle, through the lines and across the border? Who might be his guide? He had high hopes of Sanchez, but there was a difference between hope and desperation.

  He drew on his cigar. ‘I did not speak of the horses and mules at Oporto, did I? The French abandoned them as they did everything else. As we had at Corunna – except that we destroyed all ours. Or, at least, we tried to. In truth we made a fearful thing of it. Poor creatures! But at Oporto they merely . . .’ Hervey’s French broke down.

  Dr Sanchez inclined his head.

  ‘I mean, they just cut through the . . . tendon at the back of the hock, just a sabre slice, leaving the animal to limp about. What is a man who contrives such a brute method, as if he were merely slashing a sheaf of corn?’

  ‘Or who do murder and rape?’

  Hervey shook his head. ‘They had treated the people very ill, certainly.’

  Sanchez frowned, but with a look of sadness rather than censure. ‘I was thinking of my own city, Major Hervey.’

  Hervey checked himself. Badajoz had changed hands several times in the course of five years of war, but he had no doubt what the physician meant. He lowered his eyes, and then looked back at him again. ‘I think Badajoz the most shameful thing in the whole time we were in the country. I confess I recall it often enough still. I’d seen on that march to Corunna what our soldiers were capable of when there was a reverse, if the officers were not attentive, but I’d never imagined such scenes as I witnessed here that night. Shameful, unspeakable.’

  Sanchez looked at him intently. ‘So you were, indeed, here during the siege, Major Hervey?’

  Hervey was puzzled by the manner of expression. What did he mean by ‘indeed’? ‘Yes, I was here.’

  Sanchez said nothing for a moment. Then he brightened. ‘I was at Talavera, you know.’

  Hervey brightened too. ‘Ah! There was a victory in the proper fashion! You were with General Cuesta?’

  ‘I was surgeon in the Duke of Albuquerque’s corps.’

  ‘Then we stood not half a mile distant from each other! As I recall, I confess I found it infernally hot.’

  ‘You recall it perfectly, Major Hervey,’ said Sanchez, with a most companionable smile.

  Hervey was now thoroughly warmed – the fire, the food, the wine, but above all the fellow feeling. Here with him was, if not a cavalryman, then a man who had served with cavalry. It was not necessary for him to explain everything, now: the physician would understand so much.

  Talavera! Herve
y smiled and shook his head. What a battle to have shared! There was nothing like it till Waterloo!

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHARGE, AND COUNTER-CHARGE

  Talavera, 24 July 1809

  The march to Talavera was not the happiest of times to recall, however. There had been celebrations enough after crossing the Douro – how the people of Porto had sung the praises of Sir Arthur Wellesley, and how the army had congratulated itself! But later had come reports, disappointing if not at first unsettling, that Soult’s army had not been destroyed, that it had got away into Galicia, albeit badly mauled; and then the alarming news that the Spanish were in no position to finish Soult off, so that the marshal and his army were left in the Galician fastness to lick their wounds, which, once healed, would mean they could fight another day.

  Why had the commander-in-chief let Soult escape, some asked openly. Were they going to be marching up and down Spain again at the beck and call of the French, as they had with Moore? But at least Soult was no immediate threat: Sir Arthur Wellesley was able to march south to deal with Victor’s army, confident that Soult was unable to render his fellow marshal any assistance. It was, as Lieutenant Martyn pointed out, a taste of Bonaparte’s own strategy: strike one army a blow so hard as to send it reeling, concentrate everything then on the destruction of the second, and when that was done, turn back to defeat the first in detail.

  But the march from the Douro was hard – harder than anything Hervey could recall. The army was not yet forged; these were the second battalions, the army England had never intended to send on campaign. Three leagues in the day was as much as the infantry could manage. And on ‘exterior lines’, rations were in too short supply. They were hungry all the time. They had been hungry for a month. They were losing horses at a sorry rate, and mules even.