Hervey 06 - Rumours Of War

by Allan Mallinson

  It was not difficult, for the voices within had been rising for some minutes. ‘I do not care if Sir John Moore himself gave the order, I will not destroy three hundred and more horses!’

  ‘Captain Edmonds, may I remind you to whom you speak! Indeed they are Sir John Moore’s orders, and they are to be carried out at once.’

  ‘Do you tell me, sir, that none of those ships there’ – he pointed at the window with its view of the harbour and beyond – ‘has space for troopers?’

  ‘I do, sir. They are store ships, or hospitals.’

  ‘And what of the transports that come. Are they empty of all space?’

  The AQMG, who was inclined to be peremptory with the obstinate captain before him, somehow managed to keep his countenance. ‘That is what I am informed.’

  ‘What is in those store ships?’

  The AQMG half smiled in astonishment. ‘Really, Captain Edmonds! It is not for you to question the arrangements for taking off the army.’

  ‘And why not? This has hardly been a model expedition. I think it reasonable to ask certain questions. What stores are deemed more valuable than the cavalry’s horses?’

  ‘I’m afraid I do not know. But the ships are not at the disposal of the army’s horses. Now, if you will, Captain Edmonds, I would be obliged if—’

  ‘Does Lord Paget know of this?’

  ‘I cannot say.’

  Edmonds grunted, gathered up his helmet and sword, and left.

  Outside, he strode angrily to where their chargers stood, cursing anything and everything. ‘It’s madness. I shan’t do it. Not till the French are about to snatch the reins from us! Not, at least, unless Paget himself gives the order. In any case, Moore will want cavalry here. The French are not going to let the army get into its boats as if we were off fishing!’

  Hervey said nothing. He was still too numb, and he sensed that Edmonds would not want a cornet’s opinion. Certainly not one that merely expressed revulsion at shooting their horses, which was all he could think of.

  Edmonds took the reins from his coverman and sprang into the saddle as nimbly as a man half his age. ‘Hervey, go and find the rearguard here and tell them the Sixth are placed under their orders. Then come back and tell me where we’re to take post.’

  Hervey tried hard to hide his surprise, gathering up his reins and saluting.

  ‘Do you think you can manage that, Mr Hervey?’ glowered Edmonds as he turned.

  ‘Yes, sir; of course.’

  ‘Then go to it. At once!’

  *

  It was the very best thing that Edmonds could have done, Hervey would confide in his journal within the day. He set off feeling empty at the thought of Colonel Reynell’s despairing act, and what faced the rest of them when the time came to put Sir John Moore’s orders into effect. Shooting a horse was not so very difficult, although it was always a sad affair; shooting three hundred horses was to destroy the very spirit of a regiment, was it not? He dared not picture the sight, for it had evidently been too much even for Colonel Reynell.

  But after a mile or so these thoughts were displaced by increasing anxiety at not finding the rearguard. He had imagined it a simple enough mission when Edmonds had instructed him: a matter of making best speed back along the high road until he found them. But the army was still making its slow way west. A commissary officer told him they had reached Betanzos, a dozen miles due east, and it seemed that Sir John Moore did not intend sending troops in advance to hold his perimeter at Corunna. Hervey rode as far as the village of Burgos, four miles east of Corunna harbour, the last bridging point of the Rio del Burgo before it opened into wide estuary and thence Corunna Bay, but he found no redcoat with any orders for the rearguard. There were Spanish pickets aplenty, but not in numbers that suggested they might fight a delaying action. In any case, the Spanish effort, as he understood it, was now concentrated on the walls of Corunna itself, and he concluded, in the absence of any evidence otherwise, that the road into Corunna was unguarded. According to his map, sparse though its detail was, the French could outflank the army at Betanzos; there was nothing to stop them marching to the very wharves of the harbour.

  ‘Good God,’ groaned Edmonds when Hervey told him. ‘You’re sure?’

  Hervey’s appearance, sweated and begrimed, did at least speak of some effort in his reconnaissance. ‘Yes, sir.’

  The adjutant looked worried. His was the responsibility for executing a regimental order, and things were getting more complicated by the minute. The serjeant-major stood impassive. He was responsible for supervising the execution of a regimental order, and it mattered not to him what the circumstances were; he would bark and harry whether it was shot and shell or wind and waves that tried to confound them.

  ‘Very well,’ said Edmonds; growled almost. ‘I see no profit in going as far as Burgos, though I will say it tempts. I recall, as we rode in, a stream and a little bridge, about a mile from here, no more. The regiment will stand rearguard there. Have the squadrons form up, please, Mr Mace.’

  The adjutant was in part content at least. He had an order to execute; the problem with the horses could stand easy for the time being. ‘Very good, sir.’

  ‘And have the veterinarian come to orderly room.’

  ‘Directly.’

  Orderly room was a part-roofed sheepfold, not long quit by its usual occupants, but that was of no moment; the regimental guidon was lodged in a corner, and that made it the Sixth’s headquarters.

  Edmonds now turned to the agent of his intelligence. ‘Thank you, Mr Hervey. Yours was a most valuable patrol. Admirable indeed. I cannot imagine the authorities here know how exposed the place is. It gives me exactly the opening we need!’

  Hervey was cheered at last. It was the first he had had of praise from Edmonds; and all the Sixth knew that Edmonds’s praise was not a common commodity.

  That night, as they bivouacked at the bridge over the Monelos, the wooded stream that ran north from the heights of San Cristobal and Monte de Mesoiro into Corunna Bay, the Sixth slept long and soundly for the first time in weeks. It was not just that the enemy was too far away to disturb them; there was good shelter among the trees and nearby cottages, and the Spanish peasants were as welcoming and generous as elsewhere they had been hostile. The commissaries, too, had distributed the stores disembarked at Corunna with uncommon liberality. Every man had meat and bread and blankets in ample measure, and so all the Sixth had to do now, supposing the French did not outflank the army, was wait on the transports and look to what they were pleased to call interior economy. No one spoke of doing what the Tenth had had to, as if not speaking of it might somehow make it not come about.

  Captain Edmonds had other thoughts, however. ‘Where in hell’s name have you been, Knight?’ he demanded, when at last the veterinary surgeon found him that evening.

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry, Edmonds; I should have sent word.’ He settled himself into a chair in a corner of the priest’s house, which its accustomed tenant had given up unusually freely (more often the clergy had cursed them as heretics). Smoke from the unseasoned wood in the grate made him cough a little. ‘As soon as I heard what the Tenth were doing I went to see the town major to enquire of the slaughter houses, what was their capacity and all.’

  ‘That was very prescient of you.’

  ‘A waste of time, I fear. They haven’t the means of disposing of the carcasses. And then I was rowed out to one of the store ships to see what might be, but they would not serve either. I’m told they’re all the same, all hold and no decking. They might do if we were crossing the Channel of a summer eve, but Biscay in January would be savage.’

  ‘I fear it will come to it, though,’ said Edmonds, shaking his head. ‘But what to do? We must surely not botch it as the Tenth did by all accounts?’

  The veterinarian shook his head. ‘There’s no way to destroy three hundred horses pleasingly. The trouble is, you may shoot one cleanly enough, but as soon as the next gets the smell of blood in its
nostrils there’s no saying what it’ll do. The Tenth were having to cut their throats.’

  Edmonds groaned. ‘I heard the engineers are to blow up the magazine in Corunna. Perhaps if we drove all the horses in there?’

  ‘That would serve, certainly. I’m not sure how the Spanish would see it. Why do you not just drive them loose into the country, towards Vigo say?’

  ‘I’ve thought about it, but that would be to disobey Moore’s orders. If they are his orders, that is.’

  ‘Well, Edmonds, short of drowning or poisoning ’em there’s nothing more I can suggest.’

  Edmonds nodded slowly, and sighed. ‘Ay. Well, never let it be said that the Sixth couldn’t destroy what was valuable to the enemy.’

  Veterinary Surgeon Knight rubbed his eyes; the smoke was getting thicker. ‘You’ve heard talk of armistice, of course?’

  Edmonds braced. ‘Armistice? I have not! It would be infamous!’

  ‘That’s what is being spoken of. A sort of quid pro quo for Cintra, I suppose.’

  ‘My God. We’d never be able to show our faces in England again!’

  ‘Yet they say it’s not Sir John Moore’s wish, of course, but some of the generals’. They fear too many of our men will be made prisoner otherwise. The word is that with so strong a wind onshore the transports, even if they arrive, would suffer the most destructive cannonade before they were able to be away.’

  Edmonds shook his head. ‘Not a word of it, though, Knight. I’ll not have the regiment gingered up.’

  Two welcome days of making and mending followed. Hervey’s journal made no mention of armistice or the difficulties facing the shipping in Corunna Bay. Indeed, it reflected only the Sixth’s optimism, for the second day had been uncommonly full of good news:

  14th January 1809

  Today the transports have arrived in the bay and the artillery has begun embarking, along with the regiments of cavalry that are not immediately required. We are now allowed to send our chargers on board, and there is every hope that there might be provision too for the troop horses. So mine shall go tomorrow with Sykes, and very glad I am of it too, for it would have been the saddest thing to shoot them, especially La Belle Dame, who has been a very faithful horse to me, and of course L’Etoile du Soir, in whom all of my pay for next year and beyond is invested! It must go very ill with the Tenth, who had to shoot all theirs, and for no reason. And I can hardly bear to write that it grieves us all very much that poor Colnl Reynell should have died so and to no purpose. They say he had probably suffered an apoplexy on account of the exertions of the march, just as Genl Lord Paget and Genl Stewart have been made invalide.

  There was today the very greatest of explosions that I ever heard, on account of the artillery blowing up all the powder in the citadel. It is said the explosion was so very great because they did not know of powder elsewhere in the magazines, so that some of the houses in Corunna itself were damaged, and masonry fell at a great distance, and all about the ships in the bay. It is said there are 12,000 barrels of powder and 300,000 cartridges gone.

  It was, however, a melancholy thing to destroy so much that might serve the army well. He only supposed that powder was easier to come by in England than horses were.

  But the day after, Hervey reflected the elation of every man in the army at hearing their sudden, unexpected news:

  We are to fight a general action! Marshal Soult has crossed the river at Burgos, though our engineers had made a very thorough job of the bridge’s destruction there, and is taking up positions on the heights a league or so south of the harbour. Sir John Moore is disposing his army to face him on the heights immediately south and east of our position of bivouac, which Sir Edward Paget’s division is to occupy as reserve. They say there is very little need of cavalry, however, for the ground thence is a veritable network of walls, hedges and rows of olive trees and aloes, of such intricacy that it is nearly impossible to have formed fifty men abreast anywhere. But Lord Paget was very pleased with us, it seems, for he commended Captain Edmonds and made him major (which is only his right after all) and said that the regiment shall come at once under the command of his brother, so that we might yet have a gallop. My chargers have this day gone down to the harbour with Sykes to be taken off, and I have instead a nice little trooper called Fox. I am sure she will carry me well in the battle to come, for the country is very trappy, and there is nowhere good for a charge.

  All next morning, however, the embarkation of the artillery continued without so much as a ranging shot from the enemy. There had been a thick mist in the bay when day broke, making it difficult for the lighters to keep their bearings as they ploughed to and from the transports, and, it was said, for Soult to chance to an assault. But it had cleared by nine, and for three full hours afterwards the army stood, or rather lay, waiting for the French to make a move.

  At midday, Sir John Moore made his own. He had told General Edward Paget’s reserve division that in recognition of their sterling service as rearguard in the march to Corunna they would have the privilege of embarking first and choosing the most comfortable quarters. He now sent a galloper to the bridge over the Monelos stream with orders to make at once for the harbour.

  ‘If there’s no bungling, I hope we shall get away in a few hours, Thomas,’ said Sir John to Colonel Thomas Graham.

  Graham, astride a hardy cob at Sir John’s hand, with the forward brigade, the army commander himself on his cream-coloured gelding, nodded slowly and glanced over his shoulder towards the sail in the bay. ‘I can’t understand it. Soult has such strength in reserve he could drive us into the sea at a stroke if he wished to.’

  ‘Not without loss, though,’ said the army commander, in a tone with just a trace of indignation.

  Colonel Graham hoped Sir John was right, but the army lay at rest after spending its strength in heavy measure this fortnight past, and their eyes were set firm on the sail that was to be their deliverance. How much fight was there left in them?

  It was, indeed, a welcome order that Major-General the Honourable Edward Paget passed to his regiments, except that the Sixth were apprehensive about the number of horses the embarkation officers had provided for. Hervey was about to mount with the rest when Sir Edward Lankester called for him.

  ‘Sir Edward?’

  ‘You have found favour, Hervey. Colonel Long is just arrived from Vigo for Moore’s staff. He asks for a galloper, and Edmonds names you.’

  Hervey was flattered. ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘I fear you shan’t be excessively occupied though. The French have had their noses bloodied once too often this past month. They seem all too happy to see us off. Go to it then.’

  Hervey went to find Martyn. Without a groom, since Sykes was at the harbour still, he asked the troop lieutenant if he could take another man.

  ‘Take Armstrong.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘We shall manage well enough without him, I assure you.’ Martyn did not say, ‘but you might not’.

  *

  An hour later, just after half past one o’clock, Colonel Long’s galloper was standing with the aides-de-camp and the other gallopers to the rear of Sir John Moore and his staff on a little hill on the right of the British line, above the village of Elvina. Hervey could see three of the four brigades quite clearly. A few men were on their feet, some were cooking, most were lying down. He wondered if anything could stir them, exhausted as he knew they were; and he shivered at the thought of what little there had been between the Sixth and the French during the night, when the regiment had slept so soundly. Yet soon these men must get up and file away to the transports. And in such order that if the French, whom they could see clearly on the facing hills, were suddenly to decide to speed them on their way they could turn and repel them. Hervey thought that in the circumstances a general action was perhaps not so welcome a thing.

  He turned to offer a fellow galloper a bull’s-eye, one of his last (Sykes had found them when they had been making light of
his baggage). As he leaned across to the cornet the French battery thundered into life, so sudden and violent that he dropped the bag. Fox jumped sideways, almost leaving her rider behind, and trampled the prized peppermints.

  The shot arched eight hundred yards and fell in Elvina with fountains of earth and showers of tiles. A dozen of the pickets of Lord William Bentinck’s brigade were thrown down dead in a terrible butcher’s mangle, and the rest took cover to await the next salvo or hear the order to retire.

  In an instant the whole of the British line rose, Lazarus-like. Never would Hervey have believed it. They began forming ranks as coolly and with as perfect order as if they had been at drill in Hyde Park. There was a regular buzz, jolly shouts, the odd peal of laughter. He had never seen infantry at work, not even at drill. Was this how they went at it?

  ‘With ball cartridge, load!’

  The command ran the length of the line. The red machine heaved into life, and Hervey heard the extraordinary sound of ramrods clattering in ten thousand musket barrels.

  ‘Like flying shuttles in a mill,’ said a Lancastrian cornet next to him.’

  An ADC sped from Sir John Moore’s side to recall General Edward Paget’s division.

  And then another was wanted. ‘Galloper!’

  The calls were frequent, but not from Colonel Long. Hervey sat calming his trooper patiently; she was ear-brisk enough, even without the thunder of the French guns and the strange buzzing the roundshot made.

  ‘Burrard, Fane, Hervey!’ The names came fast as Sir John Moore, Colonel Graham and Colonel Long suddenly took off left along the ridge.