The Sabre's Edge mh-5

by Allan Mallinson

  Hervey winced at his own crassness. It was the loss of father and brothers - and indirectly his mother - that had sent young Armstrong to the recruiting serjeant. 'No, I hadn't meant to—'

  'And in any case, there's no firedamp here in 'Indoostan.'

  That, too, was true. 'Very well,' said Hervey, with a smile that spoke volumes for his admiration of his old friend's spirit. 'I'll speak to the major, and if he agrees I'll speak then to the sappers.'

  Later that morning, after watering, an orderly arrived at the Sixth's headquarters with a most imperative request from Brigadier Anburey, the chief engineer. Joynson at once sent for Hervey.

  'What is E Troop about now, Hervey?' The major's tone was just a fraction weary, but a request from a senior officer, even of engineers, was not a thing to be brushed off lightly.

  'I'm sorry, sir. I had meant to speak with you about it at orders today, but it seems Armstrong's assistance is more pressing than I'd thought.'

  'Just so. You'd better sit down and tell me of it.'

  Hervey hardly thought it a long enough story to require comfort, but he obliged the major nevertheless. Then he told him all he knew.

  Joynson listened with especial attention, removing and polishing his spectacles several times in the brief course of the explanation - a sure sign of his interest, as well, perhaps, of his anxiety. 'Well,' he said at length, firmly placing the spectacles high on the bridge of his nose. 'Anburey wants to speak to Armstrong in person. You'd better go with him.' His tone was as incredulous as had been Hervey's earlier.

  'I think I should.'

  Joynson nodded several times, slowly, as if contemplating something of real moment. 'You know, if Armstrong's little scheme works, we should think about making him . . .'

  Hervey's ears pricked. He looked keenly at Joynson, now polishing his spectacles for the third time.

  'There again,' said the major, now shaking his head from side to side, and as slowly as before. 'Tunnels and powder and the like . . . it's not the thing I myself would choose. I imagine there to be a great degree of hazard?'

  Hervey nodded, but grimly. 'I fear so. But Armstrong will have it.'

  When they reached Brigadier Anburey's headquarters, a mile or so from the Sixth's lines, Hervey and Armstrong found a dozen engineer officers in hot debate. They saluted as they entered the marquee, and Anburey shook them both by the hand. The faces of some of the officers, however, indicated a distinct disdain; perhaps a collier in their midst was not something easily to be borne.

  But Armstrong was sure of his ground, even though it had not been his for twenty years. He ought indeed to be sure of it: his father and his brothers had died in a split second for the want of good method in Hebburn pit.

  'Serjeant-Major, Captain Cowie has told me of the system by which you say that a tunnel may be dug beyond the normal distance without recourse to ventilating shafts. To five hundred feet, you say?'

  'Ay, sir. But as I recall, there was no saying a tunnel couldn't go even further. It's just a matter of keeping the draught strong.'

  Heads were shaking disbelievingly, though not Anburey's. 'If it were possible to dig such a tunnel here, the question would be whether there would be sufficient combustive air for an explosion,' he said. Then he paused, appearing to think on it the more. 'But that is not a matter to trouble you with, Serjeant-Major. Now, the officers here are all engineers skilled in surveying, bridge-building, the development of the siege and such like. None of us have practical experience of underground working comparable with yours. I want you therefore to explain in as great a detail as possible the system which you have witnessed, and then we shall decide if there is justification to put that system into effect here.’

  Armstrong looked not in the slightest degree perturbed as he took the stick of chalk from the brigadier and advanced to the blackboard. Hervey wondered what recognition his scheme would bring, for it was certain that Armstrong's name would come to the attention of the commander-in-chief. He could only pray that it should not come before Combermere for posthumous honour.

  The mood at the major's orders, two days later, was beginning to reflect the coming season. The Sixth had always looked to stand down on the day itself, and for all ranks to share a good dinner, even in the late French war - although more than once they had found themselves horsed, with sabres drawn. But here the siege was well settled into its routine, the chance of alarms diminished; and supply, on short lines from Agra, was for once excellent. There was every prospect of a good Christmas dinner and sport.

  Joynson, allowing himself a cheroot, most unusually, now came to General Orders. 'And today there's rather a good story, gentlemen:

  'Head-Quarters,

  Camp before Bhurtpore,

  23rd Dec. 1825.

  'The Commander-in-Chief has received with much pleasure, the report of the excellent conduct of a Jemadar of the 4th Light Cavalry, Sheik Rangaun Ally, who was sent out with twenty Troopers to protect the Foraging Party on the 19th instant, and who, by his steady soldier-like example, and the judicious arrangement of his small force, kept off a very large body of the Enemy's Horse, saved the Foragers he was sent to protect, and brought off his Detachment in the face of the Enemy for a considerable distance, with no other loss than two men and three horses wounded. His Lordship, in consideration of the foregoing service, as well as of the high character borne by this Native Officer, is pleased to promote Jemadar Sheik Rangaun Ally to the rank of Subadar. His Lordship further directs, that his approbation may be communicated to the whole of the Party, for their steady conduct on this occasion. Officers will perceive from this occurrence, the propriety of not detaching any weak parties to a distance from Camp. The above to be explained to the several regiments in Camp, on the first Grand Parade that takes place.'

  Joynson looked over his spectacles at the assembled officers. 'Well, gentlemen, as I said, a good story. And I think the latter point is clear enough, too.'

  It could hardly have been made more heavily, thought Hervey.

  'I wonder if Stray will be promoted jemadar?' said Rose, blowing a great deal of cigar smoke towards the roof of the marquee.

  There was an equal deal of laughter.

  Joynson looked wryly over his spectacles. 'Well, the Eleventh are ruing their distance from camp these past couple of days. They were cut about in the outlying picket the day before last. No one killed, but the Jhauts drove them in. Not good.'

  'I just wish the beggars would come out and face us instead of all this chopping at foraging parties and pickets, and feinting on our part.’

  'So that we can send them all to hell, Rose?' said Joynson, peering over his spectacles again. 'And why should Durjan Sal be so obliging when he's got solid walls between him and us?'

  'By the way, sir,' said Hervey, wanting to bring the conference back to its muttons. 'Armstrong is to begin today.'

  Joynson looked grateful. 'Indeed, yes. Gentlemen, for those who do not know, Sar'nt-Major Armstrong is attached forthwith to the engineers to render assistance in their excavations.'

  Hervey noted the final noun. It was entirely accurate without giving away the precise nature of the work.

  'Serjeant Collins shall stand in his place, and E Troop shall stand ready to provide assistance as required. Oh, and Corporal Stray is forthwith posted to E Troop.'

  Nicely done, thought Hervey. No one would be likely to deduce anything. Indeed, the odd smile and coarse comment suggested that the others pitied E Troop as having been made a fatigue party.

  Joynson pressed on, modulating his voice just sufficiently to suggest that what he now relayed was unconnected with what had gone before. 'I am very glad to report that last night, it seems, there was an operation, entirely successful, to take the gardens before the long-necked bastion - known on our maps as Buldeo Singh's garden - and the nearby village of Kuddum Kundee. The heavy cannonade we heard this morning was directed on the two prizes, but, I am given to understand, to little effect. The engineers will now begin th
e planned parallel, and this will materially assist the sapping operations in that direction.'

  There followed more routine information, lists of escorts and patrols, and orders for the night's pickets.

  'Does anyone have a question?' asked Joynson finally.

  No one admitted to it.

  'Very well, gentlemen. I think there will soon be rapid progress. You know what is his lordship's general design; you must act on your own cognizance when it is called for.'

  The assembly began to break up.

  'Oh, and I have some further excellent news, gentlemen. Sir Ivo is proceeding at this time from Calcutta to rejoin us. He is expected, Deo volente within the seven days following.'

  This latter news displaced all else. Hervey was full of admiration for the obvious ploy - and not a little disappointed for Joynson, who would thereby be deprived of the honour of command in the hour of victory. But that was the way of things.

  ★ ★ ★š

  Corporal Stray was a practical man, and as such he was not inclined to nod to something until convinced. 'See thee, Sar'nt-Major sir,' he replied, pushing his undersized forage cap back and scratching his head. 'I can't see that owt I can make'll do t'job.' The accent was not nearly as pronounced as Johnson's, but it was marked nevertheless. 'When I were prenticed at 'Untsman's—'

  'Corporal Stray, I couldn't give a fart about Huntsman's. Just do as you're told. I want a wooden duct, six-inch-square, that can be extended as we dig. As simple as that.'

  Stray scratched his head again. 'All right, Serjeant-Major.'

  'It'd better be. And later on I'll want a burlap partition the size of the tunnel.'

  'Where do I get t'wood, sir?'

  Armstrong checked himself. It was, looked at from one angle, a reasonable enough question. 'Corporal Stray, the engineers' entire field park is at your disposal. Just go to the artificer over there and give him your requirements.'

  'Right, Serjeant-Major.'

  'But Mick, ask him nicely.'

  Armstrong shook his head as Corporal Stray shuffled off.

  Hervey smiled. Time and place were all the same to Corporal Stray. 'How long will it take to dig?'

  'If we don't hit any rock, it shouldn't take us more than five days round the clock.'

  Hervey looked again at the ground. Three hundred yards they proposed to dig. 'Geordie, seven or eight feet every hour? How are you going to keep that up? How are you going to bring out all the spoil?'

  Armstrong looked assured. 'That's them engineers' worry. It'd be the same if they were sapping rather than mining. A good gang of colliers'd clear that in a ten-hour shift.'

  'What is it exactly that you'll do?'

  Armstrong shrugged his shoulders. 'There's no need of me at all, sir. It's just that some of the officers don't believe it'll work, and Brigadier Anburey wants me to make certain it does.' He gestured to where, covered from view by half a dozen tamarisk trees, the sappers were beginning the drift down to the level at which they would drive the tunnel to the bastion's foundations. 'See, they know what they're about right enough.'

  Hervey thought they looked as though they did. 'The major's asked that I keep an eye on things, but there's no use my being here, not to begin with anyway. I'll come each morning and evening. Where will you sleep - here?'

  'Ay, sir. Stray's going to need a hand too. I'd like Harkness an' all if I can. He were a cooper, if I remember right. He'll be handy with hammer and nails. And a couple of others in a day or so.'

  It was a growing bill, but better, thought Hervey, than the endless fatigues and working parties. He told Armstrong he could have Harkness, and any other he thought had a particular skill. It seemed the least he could do when the regiment were otherwise so cosily set up, and safely, in their distant lines. Then he set off back through the workings to find Gilbert, and quickly, for he had arranged with Johnson for his bath to be drawn by seven. He had to watch his step, though: the paraphernalia of the sappers' siege park - and the activity, so different from that of cavalry lines, could be hazardous for an outsider.

  He slept little and fitfully that night. Both sides had kept up a harassing artillery fire well into the early hours, and soon after midnight there had been an alarm which saw them stood to their horses until two o'clock. It was the routine of the siege he had first come to know a dozen years before, first standing on the defensive at Torres Vedras, and then, the boot on the other foot, at Ciudad Rodrigo. Long days of boredom, occasional danger, with little opportunity for action - only the tumultuous climax, the breaching of the walls and the rushing-in of brave men bent on promotion, the 'forlorn hope', more often than not aptly named, and then the fight through the streets until the heart of the fortress struck and its flag was hauled down. It was the business of the artillery, the engineers and the infantry, the cavalry at best onlookers, at worst an appendage of the wagon train. It was true that volunteers were called for throughout the army for the forlorn hopes

  - and if Combermere did indeed want to dismount the cavalry they might all be in red coats soon -but as a rule a dragoon might as well be astride a screw as a blood. They had been luckier this time for sure, with the dash for the Motee Jheel and the skirmishes with Durjan Sal's cavalry, but it had been momentary and, in the greater scheme of the siege, would be quickly forgotten. Only the brigadier's ruse de guerre offered them sport, the chance of fighting en masse from the saddle in the old way.

  After stand-down, Hervey shaved in plentiful hot water and then breakfasted on eggs and bacon, and very good toast. The coffee, too, was quite excellent, hot and without bitterness. There were even newspapers. They were out of range of cannon fire and it was as if they were at camp for the winter manoeuvres. It was the sole advantage of the siege over a campaign of movement, he considered. The only vexing aspect of these otherwise most congenial arrangements was the presence of Cornet Green. Hervey could barely bring himself to speak civilly to him, if at all. Besides his constant maladroitness with the dragoons, and - present to Hervey's mind still

  - the abominable affair of the night battle, the cornet's bearing in the mess was chafing him more and more. Green seemed unable to enter the marquee with any ease, usually bumping into something or stammering to a khitmagar. And his table manners . . . Once he had picked up his knife and fork he seemed unable to lay them down again until his plate was empty. It was perhaps of no great hazard to good order and military discipline (Green was hardly likely to be seated next to the Governor-General, ever), but for some reason this morning it gave Hervey increasing distress.

  'Mr Green!' he said suddenly, making the unfortunate cornet cough up a part of his breakfast. 'I shall want you to do duty with the sar'nt-major today.'

  'Yes, Hervey,' replied Green, his face the colour of a beetroot, though whether by way of the coughing or because of his troop-leader's attention was uncertain.

  Strickland lowered his copy of the Calcutta Journal and looked Hervey in the eye. The transaction of any sort of business in the mess was distasteful, most certainly at the breakfast table. But that was not entirely the purpose of the gesture.

  Hervey cleared his throat. 'Is there anything of interest in the Journal?' he asked, as matter-of-fact as he could manage.

  Strickland took a sip of his coffee. 'The bishop has given a party to the ladies left behind.'

  'That is very good of him,' said Hervey, in a mildly ironic tone.

  'He writes very fine hymns, Hervey. Even I would concede that.'

  Hervey merely frowned.

  By now, Cornet Green had finished his breakfast - or rather, had finished his attempt at it and had quit the mess, leaving just the two of them.

  'Something must be done about Green,' said Strickland, folding his paper and laying it down. 'I feel half sorry for him.'

  'I'm afraid I find not a single redeeming feature,' said Hervey decidedly.

  'Can he not be persuaded to exchange? He's not short of money, and he can hardly be happy.'

  'I imagine the subalterns h
ave tried. I can't think for the life of me why he chose to come here.'

  'Perhaps that is his single redeeming feature, then?'

  Hervey raised his eyebrows. 'Strickland, I'm sorry to say but I think he's gun-shy.' He related once more the night affair.

  'So you want him shot over in the trenches with Armstrong?'

  'That's the idea.'

  'Then you had better have a care yourself. I gather the brigadier has something in mind for us.'

  Hervey looked at him keenly, but he had no intention of quizzing him on where he had got his intelligence. It seemed next to impossible to keep secret even an idea.

  When Hervey got to the tunnel workings, about eleven, he found Armstrong begrimed and resting, with an empty bottle of pale ale by his side. The lines that now permanently grooved his forehead seemed to have been conduits for the sweat which, even on so cold a day, had evidently run freely, so that from brow to the faintly receding line of his black hair was like veined marble - and the eyes, closed, like chips in the surface exposing the creamy unpolished stone beneath. His jaw looked squarer, even if the chin were a little fuller than in years past. His shoulders, broad yet compact like a bull terrier's, their strength outlined in the sodden shirt which clung to them as he lay, looked more powerful than ever. Once, the morning of Waterloo indeed, Hervey had told Armstrong that he believed him to be indestructible. And he half believed it still. He certainly prayed it was, for Armstrong's loss would be intolerable, and not only to Caithlin.

  'He has not stopped for more than ten minutes since you left yesterday,' said the engineer major. 'Even my artificer turned in for a couple of hours. And he is famous for not sleeping until the job is done.'

  The exchange was punctuated by three mighty explosions a hundred yards or so the other side of the clump of tamarisk trees, as the siege battery hurled a hundred pounds of iron at the long-necked bastion. Cornet Green flinched, but no more than would any man who had not expected it.

  The major shook his head. 'They may as well throw pebbles at a shuttered window. There's scarcely a mark on those walls. We'll have to get them closer.'