And so he stood now at the mouth of the gallery in the knowledge that all he could do he had done, yet still uncertain that it was enough. The lives of so many men depended on that powder. He had emptied the Company's arsenals in Hindoostan of the coarsest, and he had put bellows into the middle of the pile of kegs - and he had doubled the quantity first calculated in order to make up for any slowness in the burn, whether through damp or poor air. But he remained as fearful in his way as the ensign in command of the storming party.
He looked at his watch. It was time to seek cover. He had lit the quick match fifteen minutes ago and it was timed for twenty. Its accuracy he was in no doubt of, for he had made it himself, sending to Calcutta for isinglass, and he had tested two others in the tunnel before they had brought in the powder.
In the sap, Hervey looked at his watch too - the luminescent hunter that Daniel Coates had given him. It said the time was past eight-thirty, but no watch or clock agreed with any other to within five minutes, except when the noon guns fired, and so he could not know if the mine was live or not. The sky was rapidly lightening. Now would be best, while they could still cross the hundred yards to the walls without the defenders seeing all. He made to draw his sword, but the sap was too tight-packed. He pulled the pistol from his belt instead.
'Sar'nt-Major, do you think—'
The mine went off like the crack of doom. The earth shook as if the trench sides would fall in, splinters of stone whistled overhead like bullets, rocks showered into the sap. A dragoon standing only two feet behind Johnson was felled dead instantly. Ahead there was shouting and moans. Hervey began to push forward, but he could not get past the men in front waiting to debouch from the end of the sap. The artillery had opened fire, on the signal, making it difficult to communicate any sense of what was happening. But it was clear the mine had somehow gone off ill.
'Help me up!' he barked, raising his hands to the side of the trench.
Armstrong and Johnson hoisted him high, then scrambled out themselves, followed by Rose and the covermen. He ran only a dozen yards before coming on Sir Ivo. The sap was all but blown in and covered with debris from the bastion. 'Christ!' he groaned, seeing his lieutenant-colonel a mass of blood. 'Johnson!'
One of the surgeons got to him first. The assault was nothing if not well provided for. 'I have him. On you go!' rasped the Glasgow voice.
'Stay with him, Johnson,' said Hervey, firmly.
He got up, only to see Cornet Green a few yards away, and in a worse state. 'Christ almighty!' he spat, kneeling by his head. But it did not take a practised surgeon to know there was no life whatever there.
He now saw General McCombe lying almost as bad, and Brigadier Paton. And Irvine, the faithful lieutenant of engineers. A few yards further on was Ensign Daly sitting upright, as if in a stupor. His right leg was unrecognizable as a limb, attached only by the thinnest thread of flesh and bone. 'Jesus!'
Up came Colonel Nation, commanding the 23rd Native Infantry. He took in all with one glance, drew his sword and shouted 'Forward!'
Then came General Reynell, shouting, 'Go to it, Fourteenth!' and running on with them.
Hervey cursed worse than he might remember, drew his sabre and followed.
There should have been cheering; that was the old way. But there wasn't. Or perhaps he just couldn't hear it, for his ears rang like the bells on Easter Day. He glanced behind - just a mass of men running at the crouch, mainly red-jacketed. Wainwright was with him, and Rose, and he could just make out Corporal McCarthy.
Now they were clambering over fallen masonry, the bastion no more - a great hole in the side of the Pride of Hindoostan. He looked up and saw Colonel Nation in the breach, and then he saw him fall - to what, he couldn't tell, for the artillery fire of both sides was drowning all.
The storming party was now thoroughly mixed up with the Fourteenth's assault columns. He saw their two majors urging them on. Everard knew how, thought Hervey: he'd led the forlorn hope at Monte Video. And Bisshop - he'd been at Badajoz.
He saw the first bodies of the defenders - bits of them, rather, the primitive butchery of the mine. An arm stuck out from the debris; a private of the Fourteenth, huffing and puffing as he struggled up the broken ramparts with a scaling ladder on his shoulder, took the hand and shook it before plodding on.
At the top an ensign was triumphantly planting the Fourteenth's colours. But the regiment was not intent on consolidation. Without seeming to check, a company set off at once along the wall to the left, and two more under Major Bisshop to the right. And Bisshop's were almost at once hurling themselves at a bastion whose guns the Jhauts were desperately trying to re-lay for enfilade instead of sweeping the ramparts.
Hervey glanced left and right as if trying to choose, but Major Everard was even now mustering the rest of the regiment to press into the fortress. Hervey looked about him to rally any of the Sixth who had made it to the top: Rose looked game, Armstrong was with him, and Wainwright; McCarthy, his instincts still a foot soldier's, had picked up a musket.
They set off after Everard's men, half-tumbling down the shattered ramparts. Bodies and pieces of bodies lay thicker than before, scattered like winnowed chaff, the harvest of Armstrong's method. Even as they slid and stumbled over rock and flesh, brick and bone, Hervey hoped the army would indeed remember its debt.
Now there was the rattle of musketry, and to the smell of powder which had hung in their nostrils since the springing of the mine came that other stench of battle, of ordure and evisceration. Always it nauseated some men and excited others.
Soon they were doubling. There seemed no resistance despite the musketry. They were soon into the streets of the town, mean though it was. Hervey had his bearings now: the citadel lay straight ahead. An easy affair this was, his pistol and sabre as clean as a whistle.
They debouched suddenly into the maidan before the citadel. Hervey at last got a clear view ahead as the Fourteenth's companies spread left and right. He saw the great gates swinging closed, and he groaned. What an opportunity was gone!
Then he saw what the gates had also shut out - hundreds, four or five perhaps, of Durjan Sal's legionaries, who now turned back in desperation.
Everard had his men ready in the space of two words of command: 'Extend! Present!'
One hundred muskets levelled at the host not fifty yards in front.
‘Fire!’
The citadel and all before it was at once masked by a wall of black smoke.
‘On guard! Charge!’
It was not his fight, this, but Hervey would not hold back - not when the citadel itself stood within their grasp. He raced forward, barging ahead of the bayonets even, sabre thrust out like a lance.
He saw only a mass of limbs and faces in the seconds before they clashed - no 'pick your man, recover sabre, ride through, rally'. The infantry had their science too, but it didn't amount to much when it came to steel on steel. Only brute strength and will atop a certain skill. He felt the sabre jump in his hand as the point found a mark. But his grip was tight, and in deep went the blade. Then up came the pistol, the flash and the smoke, and the ball striking the same chest as the sabre, point-blank, throwing the man from off it, freeing the sabre to begin its proper work - the cutting and slicing and blooding of its razor edge. In seconds, red ran the length of the blade.
He was gasping for breath. There were only bodies now within reach of him. Wainwright closed to his side, Armstrong was already reloading a pistol next to him, McCarthy stood on-guard with the bayonet. Only Rose was still fighting, determined to force his way past friend and foe alike to get to the citadel gates. 'Hold hard,’ said Hervey to the three of them. It made no sense to press forward when there were formed ranks of redcoats doing their work so efficiently.
At first it had been a fight. Now it was merely slaughter. The Jhauts who had not fallen to the Fourteenth's volley had stood their ground until the first clash, but without order they had soon collapsed, while those in the ranks behind soug
ht in vain to escape. There had been no time for quarter, either to beg it or to give it. The Fourteenth -and the Sixth's men - had gone at their quarry with brute strength and a will. Some of the Fourteenth's bayonets had run two men through at once, and some had broken with their wielders' ardour. Not a Jhaut was spared in the maidan that hour. Not one.
Hervey had not stood back, but he was ever thankful for the infantry's skill at execution. These men were now so heated they could surely escalade the walls of the citadel! But that was asking too much, for there was increasing musketry from the high walls, and they had but a few scaling ladders, and those inadequate. Instead, Major Edwards coolly retired with his company to the cover of the havelis across the maidan and sent word back to General Reynell for the engineers to bring up longer ladders, and powder to blow in the gates.
Rose now rejoined them. He agreed it was an affair of redcoats, with little they themselves could do. Instead they would explore: if the other breaches and escalades had been successful, there ought now to be attempts on the stronghold from a number of directions.
'South, I think, towards the Agra gate,' said Hervey. 'That's where General Adams's brigade should enter.'
Armstrong shouted for McCarthy and a couple of the volunteers from B Troop to join them, and they slipped away down one of the narrow streets running parallel to the citadel, not quite at the double, but breaking into a jog-trot here and there when it seemed right.
They saw no one at first, either alive or dead. The havelis must be empty, thought Hervey - and thank God, too, knowing what might happen. And then, round a corner, they ran into the pitiful flotsam of any siege. Half a dozen women, children in hand, some with babes in arm, were evidently trying to flee the place that had sheltered them during the bombardment. They were young women - girls, some of them - handsome, dressed well. Their fate in even the best-regulated siege would be uncertain.
'Christ!' spluttered Hervey. 'What in God's name do they think they're doing? Get inside!' he shouted, gesturing with his sword.
They were now terror-struck.
Armstrong and McCarthy ran forward, taking off their shakos and making a show of courtesy. It seemed to work. The party started back indoors. Armstrong made a sign to them to draw the bolts and hide themselves.
Hervey saw their chowkidar trying to slink away, and tried to make the same reassuring gestures as Armstrong. Then he had a suspicion - just something in the man's look. He took a step towards him and the man turned to run. He followed - not long - and then it was out. There was the Khombeer gate, and before it was Durjan Sal - there could be no doubt. He had just paused long enough to collect his zenana, and now he would make his escape. Hervey could have spat with contempt as he thought of the men left to fight and die, ignorant of their prince's craven course.
One of the spearmen turned his horse and ran at him. Hervey raised his pistol and waited for the certainty of hitting, but a shot from behind brought his adversary down instead. He glanced round, to see Corporal Wainwright already reloading his carbine. And there were Armstrong, McCarthy and the two B-Troop men.
The carbines brought down three more before the gates swung open and Durjan Sal and his coterie - it looked like fifty - dashed for their freedom.
Hervey rushed for the nearest horse, a stallion that defied its gender by standing still. He sheathed his sabre and vaulted into the saddle, turned quickly to see how many would be with him, then kicked hard, for he wore no spurs.
The guards were too slow. They tried to close the gates and bring him down, but two well-aimed shots from the B-Troop men set them to ground, while Armstrong and Wainwright began a struggle to unseat two of the rearguard.
Hervey met a ragged fusillade outside, which stopped as quickly as it began, and then cheering as the sepoy picket realized their mistake.
He kicked on for all he was worth, the stallion flattening into an easy gallop.
He glanced behind as he began to narrow the lead. Armstrong was following, half a furlong, and he guessed the other was Wainwright.
He kicked and kicked. The stallion lengthened more and was fair eating the ground. Hervey's only thought now was to finish the business of Bhurtpore once and for all, to take the usurper himself and put an end to his insolence. But Durjan Sal had fifty horsemen about him - more, perhaps, for some were joining him from the little jungled patches that dotted this side of the plain. Hervey knew he could not overpower so many, even with Armstrong and Wainwright at his side. What could he do?
Now they changed direction, to make for the scrubby dhak half a mile in front of the Anah gate.
He would lose them there, and all hope of ending the affair decisively.
The sepoy picket before the gate volleyed as best they could, but the target was hopelessly beyond range. Durjan Sal's ardour was checked, though. The party slowed just a little, seeming to hesitate over direction, before deciding to make for the dhak after all. But half a dozen of the escort now detached themselves to form front against their pursuer.
Hervey saw he could not evade them. He glanced back again: Armstrong and Wainwright would be up with him in less than a minute. But he couldn't wait that long: Durjan Sal would escape into the dhak, and—
Three of the Jhauts sprang to a gallop and made straight for him. He drew his sabre and brought it up to the guard: he wanted nothing so much as to get by them and on to the others - Armstrong and Wainwright could deal with them as they turned after him.
As they closed, Hervey flattened, and screwed up his face waiting for the passing cut. The three Jhauts lost nerve, however, opened too far to let him through, and the nearest misjudged the timing of the backwards cut.
Missed by a mile, thought Hervey. Would his luck hold?
There were four now, barring his way. Another hundred yards - what would they do? Then he saw their pistols rise as one.
At a dozen lengths they volleyed. He felt the ball strike. The stallion squealed but hardly checked before Hervey himself reined him in. He couldn't afford to stumble at that speed.
Two tulwars met him, fearsome-looking blades and wielded skilfully, the other two fallen back in echelon behind. These were men who could fight as a team. Hervey knew he had but an instant to judge his manoeuvre.
He put the stallion in a line for the further two, to pass just right of the nearer pair - a desperate evasion, since they would be on him at once from the rear as the second pair engaged him. But a few strides short he pulled the reins up and left, but loose, across the stallion's neck, in the Rajpoot manner, and pressed his right leg as firmly as he could behind the girth. The native saddle, with neither tree nor flaps, gave him more leg than usual, in closer contact with the horse's flank as if riding bareback, and the stallion responded at once, passaging left extravagantly to career into the closer Jhaut's nearside.
The tulwar came too late into the guard, and instead the man took the point of Hervey's blade in the shoulder. The Jhaut's horse turned on its quarters in response to the unintentional rein and collided with the second horse, giving Hervey precious seconds to deal with the other pair.
He loosed the reins and squeezed with his legs, and the stallion leapt forward like a cat to meet the first opponent on the nearside again, the other man masked on the off. The Jhaut, surprised by the length and direction of the leap, failed to get his guard in place quickly enough, and 'Cut One’ all but severed his bridle arm.
Hervey pressed the stallion on, but the horse faltered, then stumbled, throwing him forward. He swung his sabre left and rear instinctively to 'Bridle Arm Protect’. The Jhaut cut too soon, and the tulwar struck the sabre with only a few inches of blade; but his horse had more impulsion, and the tulwar carried down from the sabre onto Hervey's shoulder. He felt the blow, but the mail stopped the blade, and he was able to slice the back of the Jhaut's neck with Cut Two as the man overran.
Then his stallion stumbled a second time, the forelegs folding, and fell dead, throwing him hard to the ground, but clear. He heard a shot -Armstrong
serving notice with his pistol at a hundred yards - and scrambled for the protection of his downed horse.
He searched the distance for his real quarry, and cursed: now Durjan Sal would make good his escape. Where was the cavalry cordon?
Armstrong and Wainwright were at last bearing down. One of the Jhauts had already made off, the two wounded had fallen from the saddle, and the fourth now threw down his tulwar. Corporal Wainwright, pulling up hard, undipped his carbine and began reloading calmly. Eight seconds - no more - and he raised it to the aim. The Jhaut was a hundred yards away, but the ball struck him square in the back and he fell dead before his horse could cover another ten. Hervey smiled grimly.
But it made no difference, Durjan Sal would give them the slip and—
'Why ay, sir, look at that!' called Armstrong suddenly, pointing. 'I thought those black buggers must be in their charpoys still. Why weren't they standing this side of the cover?'
Hervey all but gasped. He could even see who they were - the 8th Light Cavalry; the blue and the white of their Company uniforms could have been the Sixth's own. More and more of them appeared from the dhak, extending line so rapidly that it was impossible to evade them.
Durjan Sal saw it was thus, too. In a minute more the usurper of Bhurtpore, his most favoured wife and jewels, and his worst henchmen, would be prisoners.
Hervey wished he had his telescope to see the moment. Durjan Sal was as good as bagged, though - that was what mattered.
But Durjan Sal would not be put in a bag by brown faces from Calcutta! He was a Jhaut. He did not submit to effete Bengalis. He turned back and began trotting instead towards the King's men, sword held high in both hands as a gesture of submission.
Hervey 05 - The Sabre's Edge Page 33