Hervey 06 - Rumours Of War

by Allan Mallinson

  The square fell silent again.

  The drum-major nodded to the firing party. Sixteen guardsmen filed in front of their target at a distance of ten yards.

  There were no chaplain’s prayers this time, perhaps, thought Hervey, because the man had committed no crime against God; only the drum-major’s presiding over ceremonies.

  Silent presiding; the muskets were loaded ready. There would be no awful clattering of ramrods. And all the words of command, which as a rule were barked out, the drum-major gave by hand. It was a gesture of mercy towards the condemned man, for Leechman was of previous good character and his offence was military rather than the common felon’s. This, then, marked Hervey, was General Paget’s clemency. His discipline was harsh, but not cruel.

  The drum-major lifted his hand, as if beckoning someone to rise. Up to the aim came a dozen muskets.

  Hervey felt his every muscle tense.

  The hand fell.

  The volley was as near perfect as might be. Smoke rolled back over the firing party, leaving Private Leechman’s bulleted body to the parade’s view. Half a dozen balls had struck, throwing him heavily onto his back, but his arms, pinioned by the serjeant’s cord, quivered like the fins of a fish before the gaff’s merciful release.

  The drum-major, silent yet, summoned forward the other four guardsmen. It looked a well-practised drill. They placed their muskets to Leechman’s head and fired, at last putting the man from his agonies.

  There was the sound of retching from all sides of the square. Hervey felt a tear in his eye. Only a passing bell could have made the moment sadder.

  Afterwards, a full hour later, for Sir John Moore had all his regiments march past the salutary display of mutilation and death, Hervey went quietly to his duties. For once there was no idle talk about the horse lines.

  ‘There are always bad ’uns, Mr Hervey, sir,’ said Corporal Armstrong, finding him to one side, and sensing perhaps his preoccupations.

  Hervey was drawing-through the barrel of one of his pistols. ‘I beg your pardon, Corporal Armstrong, I did not quite hear.’

  ‘There are always bad ’uns, sir. Anywhere. Any rank. I reckon it’s a mercy yon serjeant was found out now. No knowing what he might’ve done.’

  Daniel Coates would have said the same. Hervey could hear the old dragoon’s certainty, learned the hard way in so many years’ campaigning. ‘Let us hope there are not too many, Corporal Armstrong.’

  He did not add ‘and with rank’, though Armstrong might well have imagined the sentiment. To Hervey, the notion of being failed by a man on whom he was meant to rely was peculiarly repugnant, contrary to every instinct and to what he understood was the tradition not just of the regiment but of the service. The Ellis business put him on his guard. In what lay ahead – and there could be no doubt now what a trial it would be – he meant to maintain that guard, for Sir Edward Lankester’s words rang in his ears: ‘Do not become close.’

  It had been a hard lesson of late. But not too late.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  LETTERS OF INTENT

  Elvas, 1 November 1826

  ‘A terrible thing, Hervey,’ said Dom Mateo as they returned to the Ordnance store later in the afternoon, frowning and shaking his head as if he had witnessed the execution himself. ‘I cannot but admire your Sir John Moore and those Pagets for their strength of mind. It was the want of it in so many of the other regiments, by your account, that served them so ill in the end. I pray that I would myself have such iron when the moment of testing came.’

  The storekeeper was ready with his scissors by a bale of red cloth.

  ‘Your regiment, at least, retained its good order.’

  ‘It did. But our getting away from Corunna was a sad affair. I don’t think I ever saw a sadder one.’

  The smell of camphor was almost overpowering. Major Coa nodded, and the storekeeper cut through the thick twine. He unfolded a jacket and held it up proudly. It looked as good as new, for all its years’ unintended conservation.

  ‘Excellent!’ Dom Mateo slapped the storekeeper’s back boisterously. ‘We need only buttons, I think,’ he added, turning to Hervey.

  Hervey allowed himself a momentary expression of uncertainty: ‘And luck.’

  But Dom Mateo did not recognize the difficulty. To him, luck was an everyday requirement, which he called instead God’s providence, and for which he prayed faithfully. He rattled off more orders to Major Coa and the garrison officers accompanying them, then left them to the work of the ruse.

  Outside, he took Hervey by the arm. The question of luck was one thing, but he had another concern. ‘Tell me, my friend. This is a bold stratagem, and one not without its hazards. Political hazards, I mean. Should you not seek the permission of your Colonel Norris?’

  Dom Mateo’s solicitude did him credit, thought Hervey. But he knew his King’s intent, and Mr Canning’s; he fancied he even knew the Duke of Wellington’s. And he considered that his colonel was but another General Slade. ‘Dom Mateo, I care not a fico for Norris!’

  He meant it. But he knew he must hope that Norris’s vindictiveness and reach were not a match for Slade’s in those months in Ireland before Waterloo.

  A letter came for him later as they stood with the camphor and the red bales. He had an hour in which to read it and pen a reply, for after that the courier would be obliged to return to Lisbon, and he would have to engage another at twice the price. Recognizing the handwriting, Hervey excused himself and retired to his quarters, and there sat by a window, broke the seal and began to read. He knew it was sent from the Rua dos Condes, and the date told him the courier had travelled post, but the salutation disturbed him nevertheless, for despite both their physical and vocal intimacy, seeing the evidence of it on the page was a different matter.

  My Darling Matthew,

  I write to put you on your guard in the case of Colonel Norris, who is speaking very intemperately about your going to Elvas without his leave, or without at least first speaking directly with him. He makes trouble for you with Mr Forbes, though I do not believe that is of any moment. I am doing what I can to humour the colonel, and I believe I may know if he intends writing ill of you to the Horse Guards, in which case I shall go and see Mr Forbes and enjoin him as best I may to write on your behalf to London. Meanwhile I myself shall write to the Duke of Wellington, for I am overdue in that regard, and shall mention your services. I trust this will all meet with your approval, for I do it only from the very greatest concern for your wellbeing and happiness, and if you should want that I did not exert myself in any or all of these directions then I shall await only the return of the messenger by which this is sent.

  Matthew, my love, I do so long for your return to me. I have engaged a very pretty place in the hills near Sintra, shut away from sight by lemon trees and laurels, with a little stream at the door, where we may be by ourselves . . .

  There were two more pages. Hervey read them with a growing sense of despair. He wondered how it had come to this. The physical process he knew very well, but somehow the train of events, the promises and understandings that had made him so . . . beholden, was of very uncertain memory. He even grew alarmed. Here, too, was another man’s wife; he might push that fact to the back of his mind, but fact it still was. One day he would be brought to account. And in that he ought to have especial regard for what would be the consequences with his family, his daughter in particular. Georgiana needed a mother, not a father with a mistress who was wife of another.

  He looked over the letter again. Colonel Norris was in a dangerous frame of mind, and only Kat was in a position to do anything. Should he reply saying he wished her to do nothing on his account, that he would stand trial on his own record? Had he not, after all, said to Dom Mateo that very hour that he cared not what Norris thought or did? He went to his writing table and snatched up a pen.

  My dear Kat,

  This must needs be a very rapid and incomplete communication in order to have the courier bri
ng it you by return, and because also I am so very engaged upon business here that every minute might be of the essence in achieving our design.

  I am ever grateful for your solicitude on my behalf. If you believe Colonel Norris to be engaged in activity that would subvert what I am about here (and you know the principles upon which he and I disagree) then I beg you would take what action you think fit, for I am ever of the opinion that the King’s will is not to be done by sitting in Torres Vedras as Norris imagines.

  I am not able to say more, for so very pressing are the circumstances, except to assure you of my great affection, always.

  Yours most sincerely,

  Matthew Hervey.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  ‘GROYNE’

  Corunna, 12 January 1809

  ‘And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Command the children of Israel, and say to them, When ye come into the land of Canaan, this is the land that shall fall unto you for an inheritance, even the land of Canaan with the coasts thereof.’

  The regiment had crested yet another hill that promised a view of their deliverance, but this time it did not prove false, and Hervey was moved to quote Scripture.

  Cornet Laming shook his head. ‘I confess the children of Israel cannot have felt greater relieved than I at this moment.’

  Both of them knew the sentiment was shared by every man in the Sixth, and would in turn be shared by every man in the army. It seemed an age since Sahagun: the high-water mark of their sojourn in the Peninsula, Sir Edward Lankester had called it. Everything after Sahagun had been on the ebb, a tide that at times had run so fast it threatened to leave them high and dry.

  And the sense of deliverance was made greater by Nature’s change. It had, perhaps, been more gradual than they supposed, but suddenly there was no longer the rain and the snow, the mud and the barren fields, the fatigue and the numbing cold. Before and below them, on Corunna’s plain, were orange trees already in blossom, rye in ear, and everywhere wildflowers. But for the orange trees they might be in a country lane in England. And as if to welcome them the more, the clouds had blown away, and the sun was warm on their backs.

  Lieutenant Martyn peered through his telescope at the distant sail. ‘Our ships, no mistake.’

  There could have been no doubt of it. The Royal Navy had every Frenchman blockaded in his port, and after Trafalgar they had not been keen to force the issue again. The important thing was that there were ships. The navy had never let them down, that was for sure, but January was a stormy month: they might have been blown west, and away from Spain. It had played on many a man’s mind as they got nearer the promised haven, even Hervey’s, for he did not yet know that His Majesty’s ships could keep station or make headway as they pleased in the worst of weather – or so it seemed.

  Hervey and Laming took out their own telescopes. ‘Not so many as I had imagined,’ said Laming. ‘There were many more, I think, when we sailed here.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Martyn. ‘But ships enough I’ll warrant. I expect we shall be away tomorrow.’

  ‘How shall we have the horses aboard do you think?’

  ‘Tricky,’ said Martyn, closing his glass. ‘Lighters, for certain. But yon ships’ll have to stand in a bit closer, else the swell will make it a deal too hazardous.’

  Hervey supposed that Martyn knew of these things. But for the meantime there was the prospect of food and rest, and making and mending, with Sir John Moore’s army between them and the French. Although the Sixth might have fretted for action when ordered to make straight for Corunna, they had conducted themselves honourably, enduring long night-watches, freezing pickets and lonely videttes, fighting when they had the opportunity, and standing ready at any time to rush this way or that, as the roads permitted (and often as they did not) to some alarm or other. It had been scrappy work, never more than a troop at most, and often as not the business of a cornet or a corporal. By its very nature, no one saw the work of outposts and patrolling; there were no laurels to be garnered. But the regiment’s appearance this morning spoke all that Lord Paget or Sir John Moore could require: the Sixth were well found, as well found as any in that army might be, and a good deal better than most. Colonel Reynell thanked God the regiment had done its duty.

  Duty: Reynell had not spared himself in making sure the Sixth could be weighed in the balance and not found wanting. Not a man would begrudge him his ease now, or his reward on the judgement day. His comfort was short-lived, however. The officer in charge of embarkation, an assistant quartermaster-general, shook his head: ‘I’m sorry, Reynell, those are hospital and store ships only. By all accounts the transports are still trying to double round Finisterre. And there’ll be no room for the horses.’

  Colonel Reynell’s face fell. ‘You mean we’re just to leave ’em here, after all we’ve just—’ He checked himself, sensing he betrayed a sentiment that belonged within the Sixth only. ‘It has taken a pretty few pennies to mount the regiment, and a good deal more time. We shall be in no state to go at Bonaparte again inside of twelve months!’

  ‘Colonel,’ began the AQMG wearily, though not without sympathy, ‘there are horses enough in England to mount the entire army. There are not, however, so many stout hearts in red coats!’

  ‘And who is to take my horses?’

  The AQMG hesitated. ‘I am very much afraid, Colonel, that the orders are that they be shot.’

  ‘Shot? All of them?’ Reynell’s face looked like a man’s suddenly bereaved.

  ‘I am very much afraid so. To save the French having them. The Tenth are to make a start with theirs this afternoon.’

  Reynell left the AQMG’s office without another word. The adjutant, who had been speaking with the commissary officers outside, and who had learned from them of the intention for the army’s horses, noted a man who seemed confused, as if he were in another place, not the indefatigable commanding officer of the last two weeks. ‘Colonel, shall I assemble the captains?’

  Reynell seemed not to have heard.

  ‘Colonel?’

  Reynell narrowed his eyes. ‘They say we are to destroy the horses,’ he replied, as if scarcely able to believe the words.

  ‘Yes, Colonel, I heard. Shall I assemble the captains?’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘I think I shall ride over to the Tenth.’

  The adjutant could not imagine for what purpose. He had been many years in the ranks, some of them in Flanders, where he had seen things too infamous to contemplate, and he knew an unpalatable order was best executed without delay or introspection. ‘Do you wish me to accompany you, Colonel? Or shall I give the captains the orders on your behalf?’

  Reynell emerged from his thoughts. ‘Orders? No, decidedly not.’

  Without speaking, they rode to where the Tenth were bivouacked, in a meadow on the cliff tops overlooking a sandy beach. In ordinary times there would have been no pleasanter spot or happier sight. As they approached they heard the shots. Later they saw men leading the troopers to the edge of the cliff, where the farriers did their pistol work with varying degrees of skill, then heaving the animals over to the sands below, where other hussars with hammers and axes despatched those which landed alive through a badly aimed shot.

  Some of the horses had broken loose. Their heads were down, and pulling greedily at the green shoots in the stony till, their handlers making no attempt to recapture them. Others, with the smell of blood in their nostrils, bolted from the meadow towards Corunna, or down the cliff path to the blood-splashed beach, which only increased their terror. Everywhere, there were men sitting weeping.

  ‘Colonel?’ The adjutant could see no purpose in staying. There was nothing to learn by way of good practice here.

  Colonel Reynell said nothing. It had been his sole concern for a fortnight and more to preserve the reputation of the regiment, to earn not a single rebuke from Paget or Moore, knowing that when they reached England there would be recriminations enough. And it was come to this. He look
ed around at the Tenth, as proud a regiment as any in the Line: they were unhorsed, and bloodily, by their own hand. It was not to be borne.

  A trooper, a bay mare, came hobbling towards them, seeking perhaps the comfort of two animals quietly composed. Her off-fore was broken at the knee, though she made no sound in pain. Reynell looked at her, disbelieving. No regiment’s horses could be allowed to end this way.

  The adjutant reached for his pistol.

  ‘No, Frank. I’ll do it,’ said Reynell. ‘Take my reins.’

  Colonel Reynell dismounted and took his service pistols from their saddle holsters, pushing one into his swordbelt. They had been primed at first light, and the day was dry. He had no fear of misfire.

  He took the mare by the long lock of her mane, which fell full across a handsome blaze, and led her away from the chargers. He stopped, cocked the pistol and raised it to her head, she nuzzling him the while, content to be in caring hands. He pressed the barrel into the fossa above her left eye, aiming at the base of the right ear, and pulled the trigger. The mare fell before the smoke filled his nostrils. He stepped back as she lay twitching.

  The adjutant saw him take the second pistol from his swordbelt, though to him it looked a clean despatch.

  Colonel Reynell walked a dozen paces towards the sea, stopped, put the pistol to his head and fired.

  While the regiment buried its lieutenant-colonel that afternoon, Joseph Edmonds, the senior captain, was at the AQMG’s. He had taken Hervey with him, officer of the day. Hervey was still numb with the realization that a man such as Reynell was flesh and blood enough to act as he had. Somehow he had imagined that senior officers possessed a sort of invisible armour against the trials that troubled their juniors, a sort of waterdeck mantle that made them impervious to fear and the vexations of the field. How could a man like Reynell, who had spoken so eloquently of the journey before them, who had worked so tirelessly to keep the regiment together – how could such a man put a bullet in his head, and at the moment of deliverance? Was it that a man had only so much strength, and that it could seep away fatally, just as blood from a wound? He shivered at the thought of where his own measure lay at this time, and tried to concentrate instead on what was being said the other side of the door to the AQMG’s office.