The Sabre's Edge mh-5

by Allan Mallinson

  Not for the first time did Hervey find himself making unfavourable comparisons between the wooden world and the ranks of red. And he had no doubt that Peto was at this very moment doing likewise.

  CHAPTER TWO

  AGAINST THE TIDE

  That evening

  Flowerdew poured two glasses of Madeira. He offered the silver tray first to Hervey and then to his captain before Peto dismissed him with his customary nod.

  'Well, a damned sorry start to a campaign!' said the commodore when his steward had gone. 'Half the men ashore drunk and incapable of standing to their posts, and all the signs of a country as hostile as any other that's invaded.' 'Hardly half the men, Peto!' 'I grant you the native troops may be in good order, but I've a thousand hands and marines ashore doing others' duty. There'll be no relief for those in the guard boats tonight.'

  'It's certainly dark enough for the Burmans to get alongside,' agreed Hervey.

  'It's not the war boats that trouble me but fire boats. The tide's still running out. They could run them down all too easily, and it'll be the best part of tomorrow before we have the boom finished.' Hervey grimaced. There was no doubting the

  havoc that fire boats would wreak, for a topman could very nearly climb from ship to ship. cThe general's sent pickets for a mile upstream. They ought to be able to raise the alarm, at least.'

  Peto took another sip of his Madeira. 'We must believe it. But I am already uneasy about what Campbell intends next. I assume the native provision will remain elusive but that he will march on Ava nevertheless. In which case how does he expect me to supply him, with both banks of the river in hostile hands? How may I risk a merchantman up or down without escorts? And I have not the ships.'

  Hervey thought Peto uncommonly downcast. After all, here was the man who, but six or seven years ago, had sailed the frigate Nisus up the Godavari until there was nothing beneath her keel, and had then dismounted her guns and sent them in boats to the aid of his friend. 'You have the ships to force the river to Ava, though, have you not?'

  'Four hundred miles, Hervey; four hundred! And I have but one steamer. Just imagine it.'

  Hervey could. Memories of the Peninsula had not faded with the years. 'I don't suppose it would be any easier to stretch a line of communication here than the French found in Spain. And there, at least to begin with, the people supported them.'

  Peto nodded. 'There should have been warning enough in what was learned these twenty years past in Holland. Folly to embark on an expedition in the hope of a country turning its coat.'

  cBut now we are come, I don't see that the general has any choice but to go to Ava.'

  Peto refilled their glasses and shook his head. 'Nor I. But as soon as the Burmans learn what we're about, they're bound to bring back every last man from Arakan and Assam. There'd be the very devil of a job fighting through them all. Campbell's only course is to make lightning work of the advance. Do you see any prospect of that?'

  Hervey frowned. 'It has been an inauspicious beginning, let us say. But in fairness, these are early days.'

  'We wasted enough of them at Andaman looking for beef and water. I've never heard of an army that marched without provisions before.'

  'You know,' began Hervey, measuring what he had to say as if not completely certain of it himself, 'Eyre Somervile told me the commander-in-chief and the Governor-General had disagreed very profoundly over the campaign.'

  'I had not heard, but then why should I? I've met with Paget only once, and that was to present my compliments. The Governor-General I have never set eyes on.'

  Hervey looked surprised. This was their first opportunity for intimacy since the expedition had got under way, and he had imagined Peto might have had at least some say in events. 'It seems the reason for our expecting the populace to rise is that Lord Amherst had intelligence from Ava to the effect that King Bagyidaw would at once lose heart if we took Rangoon. It would appear that Bagyidaw knows all too well that his officials so oppress the people they would see us as come to lift their yoke, so to speak.'

  'Perhaps they believe their yoke is easy compared with what a foreigner might bring on them. What was Paget's opinion?'

  'General Paget was convinced that operations should be directed principally towards securing Chittagong. He believed the Burmans were best punished then by striking from the sea.'

  'It doesn't seem to amount to any great difference as far as we are concerned at this moment.' There was a distinct note of disdain in Peto's voice. 'I do despair of our great men at times. They show so little propensity to think a matter through. They seem always to think it somehow sufficient for the navy to put ashore redcoats, and that by that very act there will be fearful trembling at the heart of the enemy's enterprise. I blame Pitt - he was forever breaking windows with guineas.'

  Hervey merely raised his eyebrows (Peto knew his mind in these matters without need of words). 'I should say that it is, too, Somervile's opinion. And he, I think, sees the whole very well.'

  Peto shook his head despairingly. 'So it seems we have embarked on a strategy which may already be turning turtle.' He rose to fetch a chart from the table, then sat down again and began peering at it. 'We descend upon Ava from the sea, so to speak, because we cannot do so from land. And we bring no provisions or transport with us because, consequent on the taking of Rangoon, the populace will not only desist from interfering with our progress upstream but supply us with all our material needs as my ships take the army to gain its object.'

  Hervey raised his eyebrows again. The course of Peto's logic was evident.

  'Rangoon is burned and the populace driven off, and the Irawadi will need clearing with the bayonet to enable my ships to reach Ava. I count that a major reverse in design.'

  Hervey could only nod.

  'And of course, to give us every facility in the venture, the expedition is timed so that the rains which begin any day will swell the Irawadi to enable my ships to make easy progress.' Peto laid down the map, shaking his head and looking as sad as he was angry. 'You and I know those same rains will fix the army here in Rangoon. The country'll be turned to swamp. I'll warrant even Amherst would want to rethink his stratagem if he were to think through these little matters.' He smiled, but wryly. 'I concede, however, that these are early days still!'

  Hervey found himself in an unusual position: he was a mere observer of events. However, all his instincts demanded still that he took his commander's view. And that required that he forgo too much criticism and look for advantage instead. 'Let us see what the day brings. Rain will at least make the country equally impassable to the Burmans.'

  'You must hope so’ said Peto. He sipped his Madeira in a way that spoke to Hervey of the chalk-and-cheese difference in their fighting milieus. 'But I shall want the general to take the offensive upstream tomorrow, for we have to have all the Burman boats burned within a league. I cannot sit here beyond another day. You may take that message ashore with you, if you will.'

  'It might be best if you were to impress it upon Campbell in person.'

  Peto shook his head again. 'No. I'll not go ashore when there's the threat of fire boats. I'll see him early in the morning and we can agree on what support I can lend him. I take it he'll want the rest of the divisions landed?'

  'I'm sure of it.' Hervey made to rise.

  Peto rose with him and clapped a hand on his arm. 'I'm sorry you will not stay longer. It is very good to see you, though I could wish for better circumstances.'

  Hervey smiled. 'Ours are not professions that would prosper in better circumstances!'

  'Indeed, no. And I had at one time thought I should never get a command again once Bonaparte was put in his box.'

  'Should we not still be saying "God rest his soul" then?'

  Peto returned the smile. 'Perhaps. It will be an unquiet one otherwise, for sure.'

  'Thank you for my dinner. I have a premonition of its being the last of any substance or quality for some time.'

  'Not if y
ou can find reason to come aboard my ship, I assure you!'

  Flowerdew brought Hervey his cape.

  'By the way,' said Peto, his smile turning wry again. 'I did not say how very active and smart your corporal seems. A considerable improvement on your Private Johnson.'

  Hervey remembered the first time his groom had presented himself to Peto's ship, almost ten years ago. No one would have declared him a model of military bearing. 'I could not bring the two of them, and Johnson's place is properly with the chargers. But I suspect I shall miss his resource.'

  Peto came on deck just before dawn. The officer of the watch touched his hat but said nothing. It was not his place to extend even a greeting without invitation, and had he been sure of which side the commodore wished to stand, he would have quitted his place at once to take the other. Peto looked quickly about, searched the heavens to see what they revealed of the coming rains, then went to the starboard rail. There was the faintest glow in the sky above the jungle. The sight was not new to him, but he was fascinated still. In another ten minutes the sun would rise, and the creatures of the earth would begin the drama of another day, unseen - unseen but noisy. And here in the Indies there was no leisurely beginning, as in temperate parts; no lengthy overture in which to settle to the change to come. It was night, and then it was day, at full throat. Peto watched, wondering. He thought for a moment of the sunrise in his native Norfolk, of the times as a boy he had slipped out of his father's vicarage to run the mile or so to watch the sun come up over the grey waters of the North Sea. He had been so many years in His Majesty's navy; could he ever imagine himself on land again? He shivered, though the air was warm enough. It was not the thought of the land itself so much as the want of companionship there, for his family were few and he had never taken a wife. Indeed, he had scarcely been in the habit of speaking to a woman beyond what was necessary for courtesy -except perhaps Hervey's sister.

  He had spoken of Elizabeth with Hervey at dinner. Not much, for their preoccupations had been the here and now, but he had praised her, calling her a woman of spirit and discernment; to which Hervey had replied that she was greatly more than that, worthy though the description was. She had devoted herself wholly to familial duties, not least indeed the care of her own niece, her brother's child. She made sacrifices that were humbling to contemplate.

  And Peto had been moved to hear it, as well as, in truth, disheartened by the degree of nobility it spoke of.

  He looked over his shoulder towards the stockaded town. It was dark now where last night it had been ablaze. Fires by night always looked worse than they were. He turned to the officer of the watch. 'Has there been gunfire at all?'

  He asked so abruptly that the lieutenant half stammered his answer. 'None that I have heard these past two hours, sir. And there was none reported on my relieving Mr Afflick.'

  Peto made no reply, merely turning back to watch the eastern sky. So Hervey had had a peaceful night too. Maybe these were early days after all. Maybe the populace had taken to the forest in fear for their lives, and would return as soon as the invaders showed themselves benevolent. Maybe the Burman soldiers had no fight in them when it came to facing regular troops. Maybe they had fled the ranks. Peto sighed. There were altogether too many 'maybes'.

  Hervey too was awake. In the early hours, General Campbell had given orders for the 89th Foot to be landed and to make ready for a sortie from the stockades at first light. The general had not been idle. He had applied his mind to the situation his brigadiers had reported, and had become convinced that the Shwedagon pagoda was the rallying point for the Burman 'defenders'. Major Seagrass had not objected when Hervey had asked if he might accompany the Eighty-ninth, and so he now stood, with Corporal Wainwright, next to the two ensigns carrying the regiment's cased colours, waiting for the gates at the northern end of the stockade to be swung open. He was not greatly apprehensive, for like the Eighty-ninth he was only too glad to be unconfined at last. On the other hand he was at a loss to know why the general had not ordered a reconnaissance during the night. It was but normal practice after all. Someone had said the reason was that the fires would have lit up anyone moving outside the stockade. But the flames had been doused by three o'clock, and the pagoda was little more than a league distant.

  The commanding officer's orders had been straightforward. The battalion would advance in column of route by companies, the light leading, and in double time for the first mile or until contact with the enemy was made (in the cool of the dawn doubling would be no hardship). On meeting the enemy's pickets, the light company would deploy to skirmish and the others in column of companies would take the position with the bayonet.

  The men looked eager, even on a breakfast of biscuit and rum. Corporal Wainwright had spoken to several of them as they formed up: it seemed there were many Irish, that some had fought on the Niagara frontier a decade before, but for the most part the battalion had not been shot over.

  'I have never marched in a regular advance by infantry/ said Hervey, looking about him at the novel order.

  'I don't think I care for it much in truth, sir,' replied Corporal Wainwright, unclipping the carbine from his crossbelt. ‘You can't see anything in these ranks, just the man in front.'

  It was true, although in the dark there was little enough to see beyond the man in front. 'Yes,' said Hervey, drawing on his gloves. 'From a horse there's a good view of things. And a troop of them now would be worth their while. That is for sure.'

  The great gates at last swung open. Commanding voices front and rear animated the ranks. 'Company, atte-e-nshun!'

  'Trail arms!'

  Hervey took up his sabre scabbard. 'Company will advance. By the front, double march!'

  The battalion company in front set off as one -an impressive feat, thought Hervey, since breaking off at the trot was always a ragged affair with cavalry.

  'Colour party, double march!' barked the senior ensign.

  The two ensigns and their serjeant-escorts took off in step with Number One Company, colours now uncased and at the slope, the commanding officer and serjeant-major to a flank, and Hervey and Wainwright to the rear.

  Hervey found it surprisingly easy to keep time. Serjeants called out continuously and with such authority that to break step would have required a marked will. He had not marched to a Serjeant's command since joining the depot troop as a new-minted cornet straight from school. There was something of a comfort in it: no need at all to think. But that was the purpose of drill, was it not, to make a man act as if he were a machine, oblivious to all else? And Hervey for one was pleased to be relieved of the need to think too much this morning. He had slept little. There had been a continual coming and going at General Campbell's headquarters during the night, and at one stage there had been a general alarm, with reports that Burman soldiers were observed creeping up on the stockade from the west. But it had proved false. And then there had been another alarm when one of the bamboo cottages near the headquarters had burst into flame, for no reason that the sentries could see. It had been past four o'clock, by his reckoning, when he had at last fallen into a good sleep, only to be woken by Corporal Wainwright at five with tea and a bowl of hot shaving water - exactly as Private Johnson had instructed.

  After five minutes the companies changed to quick time, and sloped arms - prudently, thought Hervey, for the eastern sky was now lightening. He had walked these paths before, so to speak: the affair at the river, three years ago. How determined he had been to time the moment of the attack perfectly with the appearance of the sun above the jungle canopy. Almost a ritual, it had been, like the sun rising at the stone circle on the great plain at home in Wiltshire.

  It was curious how marching freed the mind to wander. How many hours more would they have to wait in Wiltshire before this same sun rose on them? And how did it rise on his daughter? Did it fall directly on her, or did it light her room only indirectly? Did she wake to see it? Did she fear the dark when it was gone? How strange not to know the a
nswers to such simple questions. But it had been five years, almost, since last he had seen her. Her first letter he carried in the pouch of his crossbelt, along with Henrietta's likeness, though he had taken neither from their oilskin in a year.

  The sky was heavier than that day at the river. There was rain to come; they all knew it. But when? He looked back towards the town. A pall of smoke hung over the greater part of it, and, mean as the place was, he thought it as sorry a sight as at Badajoz or Vittoria, or any other of the Spanish towns that had fallen prey to the revels of the drunken soldiery in their celebration of victory. The Duke of Wellington had cursed the army often enough - the Sixth not excepted - for being too drunk to follow up victory. And usually the men had resented it; officers too. They had had to make long, wearying marches; they had had to fight desperately; they had lost friends; they thought they had earned their rowdy ease.

  Not since Waterloo had Hervey been surrounded by so many redcoats, and even that day he was first amidst his own regiment (and at the very end in their van). It felt different from being in ranks of blue. Yet their common bond was discipline, the prime requirement of an army, for without it no other quality was guaranteed. Could it really be the lash that guaranteed these men's good order? Were the Eighty-ninth, and for that matter every other battalion of infantry of the Line, so different from his own?

  The Sixth abhorred the lash. They had abhorred it since before he had joined. They took it as a point of pride that a dragoon was animated by something more noble than fear of a flogging. But the duke had always supported the lash, and his judgement had been long in the forming, and tested in the worst circumstances. He held that without it all the lesser punishments could not have effect. 'Who would bear to be billed up but for the fear of a stronger punishment?' Hervey had once heard him say. 'He would knock down the sentry and walk out!' And had he not heard many a man in the old light division say that Crauford had flogged them through the mountains to Vigo, and that had he not done so they would never have got there? But how far would men acknowledge that the lash kept them alive when the going became desperate? And did General Campbell have the determination to see the expedition through to Ava, as 'Black Bob' Crauford had seen the retreat through Galicia?