Words of Command (Hervey 12) (Matthew Hervey)

by Allan Mallinson

  Yet Bylandt would not be moved – except to enquire whether Hervey would place his own regiment at his disposal, to which he replied that he would, but that he must of course send notice at once of his having done so to the ambassador in The Hague, at the risk of his orders then being countermanded. Bylandt thanked him and said that he understood perfectly, but showed no sign of any great determination to take up the offer.

  Kuyff, the chief of police, added that he believed the events of last night to be the work of considerable organization, by no means spontaneous, and therefore likely to be repeated. So far no leader had declared himself or stated any demands, but the tenor of the demonstrations, leaving aside the ‘mercenaries’, the roughs from the Borinage, and the usual criminal opportunism, had been in the separatist cause – autonomy, independence even. Tonight, he said, would either be wholly quiet – the ‘political’ point having been made by last evening’s violence – or else more violent still.

  A considerable silence followed, and then Baron van der Fosse brought the council to a close, saying that when they reassembled tomorrow they would have a far clearer idea of what it was they faced, and the actions to be taken, but meanwhile that he hoped General Bylandt would send for more troops and muster all that were immediately available and place them on alert.

  Hervey left in some dismay. Laying aside all questions of justification (in truth he’d formed some sympathy for the Walloons, whom the Dutch seemed to consider not so much different as inferior), he abhorred la foule, de menigte, the mob. Was it necessary to look further than Paris thirty years ago, and now, it seemed, once more? He went back to the Caserne hardly speaking a word to Malet, sat down at once to write to the ambassador, then changed into plain clothes, put the letter in his pocket and took himself off to see at first hand how things stood.

  Rarely, he imagined, did personal reconnaissance prove its worth greater than now. In the space of two hours he came to conclude that the authorities faced a problem that would only get worse. The streets were full of people with ribbons – red, white and blue, or else red, yellow and black, the colours of the first Brabant revolution forty years before. On street corners and in the public squares were armed pickets at bonfires kept burning high despite the August heat. Others were handing out leaflets with calls for the Dutch to leave the country. And up and down the main thoroughfares bands of Borains, many in the clothes of the coalface, ranged ominously, with the look of ‘wait until dark’. Serjeant Acton said he’d take his pick of them for a ‘forlorn hope’, but wouldn’t want to have to disperse them with just the flat of the sword. Hervey agreed. He had a high regard for men who hewed coal, for besides aught else, Armstrong himself was from that stock. But they won their coal under regulation; heaven only knew what unregulated men from the infernal regions were capable of.

  He then sought out Fairbrother in his rooms in the Grande Place, and found him in unusually solemn mood. He too had had his evening rudely curtailed, having been dining with an old acquaintance of his father’s near the Place Royale when the noise of breaking glass had put the patron in a fright, and he’d closed up hastily.

  Hervey had a particular favour to ask, one that he might trust to any of his officers, but which he could trust to his good friend even better – not least for his capacity for robust advocacy. He explained all that had gone before – the opera and then this morning’s meeting – and asked if he would take a letter to Sir Charles Bagot in The Hague. It was necessary that someone from the embassy come at once to Brussels.

  Fairbrother, far from deeming it granting a favour, accepted the errand at once with gratitude, for he confessed he was becoming bored. And in view of the urgent necessity of bringing some plenipotentiary of His Majesty to Brussels, he declined the offer of a carriage and said he would ride post instead. It was, by all accounts, about a hundred miles, but there would be numerous ferries to engage, and a carriage would take him twice as long. If the post-houses were alert and the roads well signed, he could, he believed, if he set off at once, make The Hague by midday tomorrow.

  Hervey was much relieved. ‘I’ve thought long since the meeting this morning. I’ve no notion why Bylandt’s so supine, nor indeed Baron van der Fosse, who, I believe, is in a position to overrule him, or at least appeal to The Hague to do so, but two possibilities occur to me – that they act in good faith but wholly mistakenly, or else they’re in sympathy with the cause of the separatists. With which I’m not concerned, only to the extent that they let in the French, either by invitation or neglect.’

  ‘I confess I’ve been expecting to see them any day now.’

  ‘Quite. Now, I’ve said nothing of it in the letter, for seen from so distant a place as The Hague the situation may look different, the view all too sanguine, but I’ve resolved to take the regiment to observe the border – tomorrow or the day after. Those damned French tricolores – an invitation to the dance.’

  Fairbrother looked wary. ‘Is that entirely wise? On whose authority?’

  Hervey nodded. His friend’s question was entirely apt. ‘Not whose authority, but by what authority.’

  ‘Explain?’

  ‘Before we left Hounslow I asked Malet to get a copy of the “Articles of London”, for it seemed only courtesy that I was acquainted with them – little knowing of course that they would become of such moment. The first of them – there are eight – which the Congress at Vienna took into its treaty, is of the essence, and unequivocal: “The union shall be intimate and complete, so that the two countries shall form but one state”. And I must tell you, Fairbrother, that that day fifteen years ago, at Waterloo, a good many Englishmen, many friends of mine, fell astride the road to Brussels to keep the French – Bonaparte – out of here. And if all that’s to be set aside now, what purpose was served that day? If there’s no one else in Brabant who can or will place the interests of His Majesty – His Britannic Majesty – foremost in their actions in the coming days, then I for one will not shrink from doing so.’

  That night General Wauthier’s troops remained inactive, guarded by the walls of the buildings they were meant to be guarding. And Bylandt, despite the parting request of the provincial governor at the morning’s meeting, moved no others to his support, so that by dawn on the twenty-seventh Brussels had the appearance of a city occupied by a hostile force – ‘hostile’ rather than ‘liberating’ because the destruction of property, a good deal of it belonging to private citizens, was so widespread. Only by private enterprise indeed would the destruction be checked once daylight came, when the remnants of the Garde Civile were taken in hand by Baron D’Hoogvoort, one of the city’s more active magistrates, and joined by an impromptu militia of tradesmen and those of property who feared not only for their lives but for their livelihoods.

  But though the violence abated, its true purpose revealed itself: the Brabant tricolore, its horizontal stripes even more striking than those of the French, now flew everywhere, and royal insignia on those buildings not guarded by troops were torn down.

  Meanwhile, news – reliable or not – that reinforcements from Ghent were marching on the city brought a deputation to Bylandt, threatening that no troops would be allowed to enter the city without the utmost resistance. Bylandt at once sought out Baron van der Fosse, who summoned General Wauthier. But the city commandant protested that it was all he could do to guard himself, and that he could spare not a man from the defences of the royal palace to act against the agitateurs. Bylandt therefore agreed to have the reinforcements halt, and to keep his own troops in their encampment at Vilvoorde, ten miles north, until he received orders from The Hague.

  The concession, whether prudent or not, at once emboldened the agitators in deeds and words alike. The press gave free vent to emotion, the Catholique of Ghent thundering:

  There is no salvation for the throne, but in an ample concession of our rights. The essential points to be accorded are royal inviolability and ministerial responsibility; the dismissal of Van Maanen; liberty of ed
ucation and the press; a diminution of taxation … in short, justice and liberty in all and for all, in strict conformity with the fundamental law.

  The Coursier des Pays Bas was perhaps more circumspect regarding actual independence, but was nevertheless uncompromising in its demands, including the dismissal of Van Maanen, and adamant The Hague must act to save the union:

  We repeat that we are neither in a state of insurrection nor revolution; all we want is a mitigation of the grievances we have so long endured, and some guarantees for a better future.

  And some of the gentry of the uprising, believing themselves now to be masters of events, sought to dress the violence in more humble clothes. Next day, the twenty-eighth, a rally at the Hôtel de Ville appointed a deputation of five, led by Alexandre de Gendebien, a prominent lawyer from Mons, and the comte de Mérode, to bear to the king a loyal address setting out these grievances, and asking respectfully for their removal.

  Meanwhile, having learned that morning from several émigrés that the new government in Paris intended sending troops to Wallonia ‘to protect their French-speaking cousins’, Hervey set out for the border with two troops.

  XXII

  NE PLUS ULTRA

  Later

  There were conventions for choosing which troop. If it were a detached command, the senior captain’s had the privilege. But in leaving D Troop in Brussels as a depot Hervey broke no rules – since in strict law Tyrwhitt was still captain; nor, indeed, did he discompose either Vanneck or Worsley, for the prospect of getting out of the city and seeing a little action, albeit, he assured (warned) them, peaceable, was more than enough to entice them. Besides, although they would be under his direct command, they would, he explained, range so widely as to be in effect quite independent. Indeed, though he did not tell them (hardly needing to), he had chosen their troops for that very reason. In Vanneck and Worsley he had captains on whom he could rely – rely absolutely. And this would be a game in which a card played ill could cost them dearly – life, limb, reputation; perhaps even the safety of the realm.

  At least, that was how Hervey saw it. And so did Vanneck and Worsley, for when he told them his intention to go and look for the French they said it was the finest thing, if the greatest hazard. Afterwards they speculated on what in the circumstances they themselves would have done, but determined only that while as captains, even of cavalry, they would probably be spared the fate of Admiral Byng, shot for a seeming want of zeal to close with the enemy – ‘pour encourager les autres’ – perhaps a lieutenant-colonel would not be. There again, Admiral Codrington had hardly been feted for his determination to close with the Turks at Navarino.

  There was another reason, too, for choosing Vanneck and Worsley – their serjeant-majors. Armstrong and Collins had faced the French on too many occasions to be either overawed or overexcited, and this was an undertaking that needed the strongest of resolution and the coolest of heads.

  In truth, the only decision that had required much consideration was whether he should leave the quartermaster and regimental serjeant-major in Brussels. He concluded that, to begin with at least, Lincoln should come with him, for the business of provisioning was his, and in that regard Mordaunt’s troop was well provided for; while the question of shipping home was in these circumstances secondary. As for Mr Rennie, it would have been an affront to remain where there was but one troop, even though matters in Brussels would have benefited greatly from his judgement, which Hervey would have found reassuring. Moreover, was there ever a cooler head than that which had defused the bomb at the wheels of the crown princess’s carriage? His place was at the frontier.

  The march south took them across two battlefields – Waterloo and Malplaquet. It seemed more than a little portentous. Both those great contests had been towards the same purpose as theirs now – to keep the French out of the Low Countries. Of Waterloo every dragoon was now an authority to varying degrees, but Malplaquet, a century before, needed instruction in the saddle. There, England’s other great captain, the Duke of Marlborough, had defeated Marshal Villars and the following month retaken the great fortress of Mons. Yet he had suffered such losses – it was perhaps the bloodiest battle in all of that bloody century – that Villars wrote to the French king, ‘If it please God to give your majesty’s enemies another such victory, they are ruined.’ And Marlborough had received no letter of thanks afterwards from the Queen, as he had for his other victories. While the field of Waterloo was therefore somehow an inspiration to ride across, that of Malplaquet was a warning. And Hervey was most conscious of it.

  They had kept the baggage to a minimum – tentage, five days’ rations, cooking pots and twelve hundredweight of corn per troop. There would be green fodder enough – it had been a good summer for grass – and last year’s hay would not be too hard to come by perhaps, but bread and meat were already short, as well they knew from the half-starved beggars who’d been filling the streets of Brussels. They had three days’ supply of salt pork and dried peas, but he knew full well they wouldn’t be able to remain in the field long unless Lincoln were able to buy more. He certainly had the means: the imprest account saw to that, though doubtless there’d be questions to answer on return to Hounslow. Hervey reckoned they could subsist for a fortnight, at most; but, then, if the French were to make a move it would surely be sooner than later, before reinforcements from the northern provinces could be sent into Wallonia. And they’d be imprudent to do so without some reconnaissance, some probing of the border, for they couldn’t risk a clash of arms with the Dutch. No, a fortnight should be enough.

  It was on this supposition therefore that he laid out his design to the captains on the first night – in the Château de Seneffe, seat of the Depestre family, whose wealth had come from contracts with the Austrian army in the century before, and who were perfectly happy to increase it with billeting money (and, indeed, for Lincoln to settle contracts for a good deal of fresh meat, flour and potatoes). It was a chance choosing, but one that did Hervey’s reputation for resource and luck no ill at all.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he began, presiding at the head of a vast dining table on which the captains had spread their maps, and the regimental staff their order books; ‘I shall take you now into my complete confidence, for it is only right that you understand that this enterprise is not without peril – not so much to life and limb but to our good name – and that we play for high stakes.’

  Peril, high stakes … what cavalryman worth his salt did not thrill to such words? Ears pricked like a seasoned hunter’s to the sound of the horn. Even the surgeon, who thought his lot was ever to administer pills, sat up at the words, despite the assertion that the threat was not to life and limb.

  ‘You are as aware as I of the tumultuous state of affairs in Brussels. Its local consequences we cannot foretell; nor do they concern us at this time. If, however, the French take this opportunity to make mischief then the consequences for England must be great and apparent.’

  Vanneck and Worsley nodded readily. They knew their history as well as any man: the hostile shore was ever a concern, the Scheldt, the barrel of the gun.

  But what might two troops of light dragoons accomplish?

  ‘Gentlemen, it is possible – possible, mind – that if the French come they will do so in great strength and sweep all before them. That, however, might be tantamount to a hostile act – invasion, indeed; which of course it would be, no matter how it were to advantage dressed – protection of their French-speaking cousins and such like. So it seems to me to be at least as possible – and, I would claim, more probable – that if they come they will do so guardedly. And if, finding no troops barring their way, they then advance boldly and so disperse themselves about the Walloon provinces, the Dutch would have a nigh impossible task to eject them. I am yet to discover what Dutch troops – I should say Dutch-Belgic – there are to bar the way, but I have it on some authority that those that there are in Wallonia keep only the old barrier fortresses – those of principal i
nterest to us being at Ath, Mons and Charleroi – and have none about the country but gendarmes. But since by my reckoning the French would not wish to appear to be making war on the Dutch, they would not invest those places but seek to slip by them.’

  Again Vanneck and Worsley nodded. The logic was unassailable. But Worsley was examining his map with close attention, and looking increasingly uneasy.

  Hervey sensed why. ‘Is it possible for a French force of any size to slip between the barrier forts thus? Let me answer in this way. We crossed the field of Malplaquet today, that bloody place where Marlborough lost … what – twenty thousand? But only two years later, as you’ll recall, he slipped through the lines of “Ne Plus Ultra” during the night and the French found themselves out-manoeuvred – out-generalled.’

  Worsley smiled, conceding the point.

  ‘However, gentlemen, the French must not slip through our lines of “Ne Plus Ultra”.’fn1

  And to stay the obvious protests he raised a hand.

  ‘I’m perfectly aware that two troops of light dragoons hardly constitute “lines” worthy of the name, but our advantage compared with those of Marlborough’s day is that our lines are not fixed. We may place them where we have a mind to once we’ve discovered the French route of advance. It’s possible they may cross the border in numerous places: there are good reasons for doing so. But such a dispersal would not necessarily be to their advantage, for if they are opposed in one part and their other columns continue, unknowing, the scheme therefore takes on the nature of invasion again – which, if my original supposition is correct, they would not wish. So I’m persuaded that their course will be to advance via the single best route, and that route is that which Bonaparte himself took fifteen years ago – the road down which we have ridden this day. Or else that which he also took to attack the Prussians, to the east towards Charleroi. Captain Worsley, the Mons road shall be yours, and Captain Vanneck, that from Jeumont.’