Hervey 06 - Rumours Of War

by Allan Mallinson

  It had been a bitter order indeed to turn back at Sahagun. Especially bitter since it had been so brilliant an affair of Paget’s, economical and decisive, for all that ‘Black Jack’ Slade had missed his entrance. In General Orders the next day Sir John Moore praised them for their ’address and spirit’ and for gaining ‘a superiority which does them credit’. And in his own journal he declared it was ‘a handsome thing, well done’.

  Hervey smiled drowsily at the remembrance. As the trumpeters sounded ‘recall’ they had begun collecting the prisoners in the little chapel of Nuestra Señora de la Puente, and Lord Paget heard the first returns – the French, fifty, at least, killed among the truncated vines and ditches between Sahagun and the bridge; one hundred and fifty taken prisoner, including two colonels. Debelle himself had been unhorsed and ridden over, though he had managed to escape. Lord Paget railed furiously over the number that had got across the little bridge and bolted home to Carrion – three hundred more perhaps. But he brightened at the news of his own casualties – not more than a couple of dozen, and a handful only who would not see the sun rise. And if the town of Sahagun itself was a poor billet in the days that followed, a poor billet was, as the sweats said, better than a good bivouac. Compared with what was to come, it would seem like a palace.

  The day after the next, Sir John Moore himself came up with the rest of the army. Hervey, cornet of the outlying picket, saw him riding at their head, for all the world like a Roman general. He took out his telescope, discreetly, to see him better. The commander-in-chief rode a cream-coloured gelding, striking among so many blacks and bays, clipped out full like a hunter, its coat very near the colour of the general’s own hair. Word was that he intended falling on Marshal Soult at dawn the following morning, with the Spanish under the Marqués La Romana assailing the French at the same hour from the north-west.

  Hervey would not have exchanged his cold picket post for a warm bed that morning, for the sight that followed the commander-in-chief came rarely, he supposed, to one of his rank. First, the King’s Germans, General Alten’s light brigade, its two green-jacketed battalions indistinguishable at a distance from British riflemen. These were seasoned soldiers, Hanoverians who had chosen exile rather than Bonaparte’s terms, but with more than a handful of men from other parts who had found themselves exiled so: Poles, Italians, Danes, Greeks even. They said that in a bivouac of the King’s German Legion, besides being the place for good meat and plentiful drink, there was a story to hear in any language a man cared to name.

  Then came the British light brigade, Major-General Craufurd’s – ‘Black Bob’. It was strange how his men liked the name, bandied it with a certain grudging pride, whereas ‘Black Jack’ was breathed invariably with spit and dismay.

  Everyone knew Sir John Moore himself had trained the light brigade – two battalions of redcoats, the 43rd (Monmouthshire) and the second battalion of the 52nd (Oxfordshire), and one of green, the second battalion of the 95th Rifles, the ‘Sweeps’ as the rest of the army called them, for their facings and equipment were black as soot.

  These men thought themselves special, reckoned Hervey. He could see it in the way they marched. The redcoats carried the musket like the Guards and the Line, but they browned the barrels so as not to have the sun glint on them. And the Rifles insisted on calling their bayonets swords. But anything novel gained a certain fashion, and the notion of light infantry, and especially rifle troops, was novel enough. Or rather, as Daniel Coates used to have it, it was not so much novel as learned late: they had had lessons enough from riflemen in America. But Hervey did at least know about the rifle. He had stalked deer with Dan Coates often enough. Coates had brought his home from America, a trophy whose exact provenance he had always been loath to detail. The rifle that the Ninety-fifth and the King’s Germans carried was a British pattern, however. Indeed, it had been chosen in a competition against allcomers from America and Germany. There was nothing that England could not do when she put her mind to it, Coates used to say.

  And then, if Sir John Moore marched with these praetorians close by him, it was the turn of the legionaries, the regiments of the Line, the backbone of the army. For the rest of the morning and into the afternoon they came tramping, some in decidedly better condition than others, though none had seen much fighting yet.

  They wanted to, though. That a good number of them would be sent to their maker or horribly mangled, they did not care. They had drilled for it day in day out – hours of drill, back-breaking, bruising, deafening. Drill imparted by NCOs and their crude aids to instruction – foul mouths and the musket-butt or the half-pike. And how they longed to turn it on the French! They loathed them. Few had ever seen a Frenchman closer than a mile, but Bonaparte was ‘the Great Disturber’, and every Englishman had a loathing for a foreigner threatening the sceptred isle, no matter how mean a corner of it he called his own. And there was always the promise of a little drink and loot at the end of the fight. The Irish regiments had not the same loathing perhaps, simply a natural impulse to fight. Hervey had seen them in Lisbon: they would fight among themselves as readily. And the Scotch were always a merry sight, whether kilted or not, for they all wore feathered bonnets of some description. Then, after the Line the Guards, two battalions of the First; they stood out a mile, though at a distance they were otherwise indistinguishable, since in the field they wore the shako rather than the fur grenadier cap. They marched at attention; were they always on parade, he wondered.

  Hervey shook his head as he contemplated all the savage ranks of red.

  But whether it was a star or a number on the trotter, these men were beasts of burden when it came to the march. They carried sixty pounds of issue this morning, so that even the best of them leaned forward like poplars in the wind. Many a man would have blisters on his back and shoulders as well as his feet, and a good number would be pack palsied. Hervey shook his head again: poor devils.

  But it was a merry sound the army made for all that. Each regiment had its band, and fifes or bagpipes to lead them, to try to put a spring into leaden steps or to take the mind from chafing pains with tunes the men whistled about camp. Many a corps had claimed its own march (it was how Hervey recognized some of them), but the drummers, mere boys many of them, all beat the same time, so that however weary a man was he did not have to think about the step, and the corporals could save their voices for when they were needed. Hervey smiled; it was surprising what a jaunty tune could do.

  Later, when the rest of the Sixth arrived, Cornet Peach relieved him of picket duty, and Hervey rejoined his troop.

  ‘You had a sharp affair of it here yesterday, by all accounts,’ said Sir Edward Lankester, checking feet again in the horse lines.

  Hervey smiled. It was a singular confidence that came with a furlong’s charge and a cut or two with the sabre. ‘Yes, sir. And they were big men too, the dragoons especially, though they fell all the harder for it.’

  ‘What did you make of Paget?’

  Hervey knew the question did him credit, but he did not dwell on it. ‘I think he could take us to Paris!’

  Lankester nodded. ‘He is an extraordinarily fine fellow. Without him, frankly, I would fear for the cavalry. Stewart is not bad, but Slade is an abomination. I hear he got lost?’

  Hervey was only momentarily troubled by propriety; it was, after all, his commanding officer who asked him. ‘I think not so much lost as slow to come up.’

  ‘Did you see anything of Edmonds?’

  ‘Yes. His troop came onto the field when Lord Paget charged. They penned up the French very nicely. Hirsch says they had the very devil of it too, coming round the town and through the forest.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it. I expect Edmonds led them every inch of the way. I hope he has some recognition. And all Slade had to do was ride through the town. Not a place you’d imagine a man could fail to find!’

  Hervey remained silent. It was one thing for Sir Edward Lankester to give his opinion of a general officer so de
cidedly; it was quite another for him to do so, no matter how much blood there was on his sabre.

  ‘Well, Hervey, do you feel fatigued?’

  Hervey was surprised by the apparent solicitude. ‘Not greatly, sir.’

  ‘And your chargers?’

  ‘Well rested, I would say.’

  ‘Good. The brigadier has need of a galloper for a day or so.’

  Hervey looked unsure.

  ‘Well, what is it? Saddle sores?’

  ‘No, sir, nothing the like. Just that General Stewart’s gallopers ride bloods, and neither of mine is.’

  ‘I myself would not be so fastidious, especially in this country and this time of year. But it won’t be winter for ever, and we’ll be down onto the plains soon. Annesley in C Troop will have a nice mare to sell, since he’s being invalided. You’d get her for a hundred and fifty guineas, I suppose – if you looked sharp about it.’

  Hervey was dumbstruck. A hundred and fifty guineas! Where was he to lay his hands on such a sum? The trouble was that the army had come to Portugal with not enough horses. The country could not oblige, and so prices had risen beyond all reason. The government allowed twenty-five pounds for a troop-horse, but forty was the price they were having to pay in Lisbon. An officer wanting a half-decent charger paid any amount above that, although few of the native breeds would pass muster in even this description. Jessye he would have pitted against any of the bloods, except over a four-furlong sprint (and there was more to galloping for a general than mere celerity over a short distance, he supposed), but Jessye was in England. Robert and La Belle Dame were doing him well enough; Sir Edward knew his business, however, and if he thought he had need of a blood charger then he evidently did.

  ‘There’ll be a little prize money from the affair here, of course. Paget took a hundred horses and more, I hear.’

  That was true, thought Hervey; and he could sell La Belle Dame for fifty, probably. But no matter what, he would still not have the difference. It would be another draft on his agent against an advance on pay – at a stinging rate of interest, of course.

  He thanked Sir Edward and took his leave.

  He went at once to C Troop’s lines to take a look at the mare, which he had not seen, Cornet the Honourable Charles Annesley having sailed late. He found Annesley’s groom and had him walk the mare out.

  High crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong: Shakespeare’s counsel – crude, but not a bad start. She was a good-looker, sixteen hands, he reckoned, a nice liver chestnut. She had a lean head, which spoke of the quality of her breeding, and well set on. Her eyes were kind. She had a good length of rein, so the saddle would be well placed. She hadn’t a lot of bone, but the legs did look ‘passing strong’.

  ‘Would you trot her up, please?’

  Annesley’s groom led her off.

  The mare moved cleanly, no brushing or dishing, and with a fair reach. Leading nearside, he circled left with her after twenty yards, which she managed perfectly level, and trotted her back.

  ‘And the same again, if you please, circling right this time.’

  The mare turned full circle right, as level as she had done left, trotted back straight and pulled up as obediently as before, if very gay.

  Hervey ran a hand down each leg. There were no swellings, no windgalls, no blemishes, no heat. He liked her.

  ‘Thank you. How does she do?’

  ‘Very well, sir,’ replied Annesley’s man, a youngish dragoon who, though he must know he was selling up the stock, so to speak, seemed nevertheless to be honest enough. ‘She can hot up a bit on oats, sir, but that’s all, I reckon.’

  A blood hotting up on oats was not something Hervey found too alarming. And he did like the look of her – more so by the minute. ‘Very well; thank you. You may take her back now. Has anyone else been to see her?’

  ‘Just an officer from next door, sir.’

  ‘Next door?’

  ‘The Germans, sir.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘But he didn’t say nothing, sir.’

  All the same, news would soon get about. He had better go and find Annesley at once. ‘What is her name?’

  ‘Stella, sir.’

  There was nothing in a name, but he liked it nevertheless. He nodded. ‘Thank you.’

  As he turned, he saw Serjeant Ellis approaching. There was no avoiding him (it was, he would have to admit, his first instinct), so he thanked the dragoon again and struck off.

  At five paces, Ellis threw his head and eyes right in the prescribed fashion and saluted, but without a word.

  Hervey returned the salute, adding ‘Good morning, Serjeant Ellis’ in a tone just sufficient to say he had noticed. There was nothing that contravened regulations in Ellis’s salute, but between NCOs and officers in the Sixth there was a common association which required a greeting, and a cordial one at that. With no ‘good morning’, even by return, Hervey knew that Ellis served notice on him.

  Indeed, as he walked on, Hervey imagined there was a degree of menace in the manner of their passing. There was nothing material with which he could take issue, though, either directly with Ellis or with his quartermaster. Unlike ‘the affair of the Tantony Pig’, as it was now known. But it set him ill at ease, for an officer must count on the loyalty of the NCOs of whatever troop. Ellis had been formally reprimanded by the commanding officer, and it had been recorded in regimental orders, but it might have gone much worse for him. Did the man believe he had no further prospects, and therefore nothing to lose by taunting a cornet? It was perfectly evident that he was not of a mind to mend his fences.

  That evening, Hervey wrote home – a brief yet affectionate letter to his parents with but little detail of his adventures, save to say that he was well and that he was among good friends. And then he took up fresh paper to write at length to Daniel Coates.

  Sahagun 23

  December 1808

  My dear Dan,

  I warrant that you will never have heard of the place from which I write this letter, unless the news of our exploits here travels faster than the mails! Two days ago, at day’s break, after a long approach march through a blizzard, Lord Paget led three hundred men of the Fifteenth in a charge against twice that number of French chasseurs and dragoons, and drove them from the field . . .

  He strained by the dim light of an oil lamp to write his news. Outside, a thick fog lay like a damp blanket over the countryside, promising additional surprise to the attack on Soult’s camp at first light. The temperature had risen suddenly in the afternoon, just as the fog came down, and the snow had since been turning to a mire. Poor infantry, thought Hervey. Not that many of them, if any, would have chosen to keep their feet dry rather than go at the French now. They would have their fight soon enough, by all accounts, and they could not doubt that it would mean some desperate fighting. There were plenty for whom the bloodier the better. A man in the Seventy-sixth – a regiment as full of wild Irish as any with an Irish name to its title – told Private Sykes they would drink the cellars in Carrion dry before the next day was out. And the Ninety-second were boasting of being in Burgos for Hogmanay, their pockets filled with loot and their bellies with Spanish brandy. But all this was bravado, the stuff of the camp, not of letters home.

  . . . I believe you would approve of the charger I have today purchased from a poor fellow who is sick of a very virulent fever and is to return to England, though I had to pledge the better part of two hundred guineas of my prospects to secure her. She is as fine a blood as you would see anywhere, and I trust she will carry me fast in and out of danger should I find that to hand (I did not say that I am to do galloper duty for Genl Stewart, who commands the hussar brigade) for I believe we are about to deal a blow to the French that will greatly hasten their departure from the entire Peninsula . . .

  He would write four more pages before he retired to his bed, a palliasse, a very great luxury, in the corner of a weaver’s workshop, his fellow troop subalterns occupying the other th
ree. And he would express the same eagerness as the infantry for the offensive come at last, though in terms more measured than noble.

  In the Benedictine convent the other side of Sahagun, where Sir John Moore had made his headquarters, Lord Paget was writing too. His letter was to Lord Holland, lately the lord privy seal, and a Whig whose affection for the Spanish Paget now strained to amend:

  . . . Such ignorance, such deceit, such apathy, such pusillanimity, such cruelty was never before united. There is not one army that has fought at all. There is not one general who has exerted himself. There is not one province that has made any sacrifice whatever . . . The resources of the country are withheld from us. We are roving about the country in search of Quixotic adventures to save our honour, whilst there is not a Spaniard who does not skulk and shrink within himself at the very name of Frenchman.

  And in the library at the other end of the convent, which served as Sir John Moore’s office, the commander-in-chief himself was writing, as he had been for much of the afternoon. His letter was to the man who, beyond the French themselves, had vexed him most during the past three months – John Hookham Frere, privy councillor and British minister with the Spanish junta:

  . . . If the British army were in an Enemy’s country, it could not be more completely left to itself. If the Spaniards are enthusiasts, or much interested in their cause, their conduct is the most extraordinary that ever was exhibited.

  The movement I am making is of the most dangerous kind. I do not only risk to be surrounded every moment by superior forces, but to have my communications intercepted. I wish it to be apparent to the whole world, as it is to every individual of the army, that we have done everything in our power in support of the Spanish cause, and that we do not abandon it until long after the Spaniards had abandoned us.