He assured him that he had every intention of doing so.
‘But how shall you keep this enterprise secret?’ pressed the captain. ‘Do you intend dressing as a native or some such thing?’
Hervey smiled. ‘No! If news of the duke’s appointment precedes us — as well it might — I shall go about my business openly. If, however, there is no such news then I have letters from the duke requesting that Calcutta lend me every facility to make a study of the employment of the lance. The duke was much taken by the French lancers at Waterloo and wishes to equip some of our regiments of light dragoons so. And in India are some of the most proficient lancers — in Haidarabad especially.’
Peto looked sceptical. ‘You do not think that some might suppose it would have been easier to go to Brandenburg to see the Uhlans, or even to Warsaw?’
‘That is as maybe, though we are not on entirely the best of terms with the Prussians. However, I think mine a plausible enough mission — do not you?’
Peto took this to be rhetorical. ‘Here, have one of these sweet sisters of the vine; they are come from Turkey — the Locoum variety, very much better than the pressed ones.’
Hervey took a fig and again voiced his appreciation of the quality of the captain’s fare.
‘Well, I must tell you that it’s unlikely to remain thus in so long a voyage. It will be pocket soup and biscuit by the time we reach the Cape.’
Hervey replied that, for his own part, he was perfectly accustomed to any hardship in respect of rations, but his horse could not be expected to fare well on a long voyage without a proper regimen. ‘And I must ask your leave to go ashore soon, sir, to attend to it. I need to find hay and straw, and hard feed.’
Peto said he was happy to accompany him, ‘For there are things of which I have need, too.’
‘Shall you have to find extra provisions?’ asked Hervey without thinking.
The arched eyebrows told Hervey at once that he had somehow impugned Admiralty efficiency. ‘Captain Hervey, I have heard of the dilatorious condition of the army’s commissary department, but I would have you know that a frigate is provisioned so that she might sail without interruption for six months!’
‘Very well, then, Mr Ranson,’ said Peto once he had seated himself.
The crew of the captain’s gig pulled with a good rhythm, seen to by a midshipman who looked not very much older than Hervey when first he had left Horningsham for Shrewsbury. Nisus lay three cables from the quay. Peto kept his eyes fixed ahead and said not a word during the seven minutes which it took for Ranson to pilot the gig through the slack water. As it neared the quayside steps, Peto rose before the midshipman had ordered ‘easy-oars’, and then stepped confidently to the landing stage even as the gig ran alongside with oars just raised. He was almost at the top of the steps before Hervey dared trust himself to alight from the now motionless boat. Hervey thanked the midshipman, who looked startled by it, and raced up the steps to regain Peto’s side, pausing at the top to replace his spurs which, as was the custom, he had removed aboard ship.
‘From your parts, young Ranson,’ said Peto as Hervey caught him up; ‘Somerset. A pity he’s unlikely to see a fleet action ever. But it can’t be helped. He cut his teeth in the 1812 affair: blew off a Yankee’s head with his pistol, right in front of me, though the damned thing broke his wrist! And he club-hauled a prize lugger from a lee shore off Madeira. A little too inclined to drop his head and escape the bit, as you would say, but he’ll do.’
Oh, such a man would do all right, thought Hervey. Some officers needed driving with long, rowelled spurs; most with the touch of the whip; very few needed the curb. And it did not do to judge from a man’s aspect which were the proper aids. Ranson, for one, looked no more like a plunger than did his father’s first curate. Peto’s matter-of-factness intrigued him, though. Studied, perhaps? He had not seen the like except perhaps in Adjutant Barrow. And with Barrow it was more a device to compensate for having risen from the ranks. With Peto he could only suppose it a self-imposed distance, a necessity for command in otherwise close and familiar quarters. It seemed he might be in for a somewhat oppressive six months, the hospitality of the table notwithstanding.
Hervey changed step to walk in time with his senior, spurs ringing on the cobbles while Peto’s heel struck the ground in the less emphatic way that was the sailor’s. It was a sound that always gave him a certain prideful satisfaction. ‘I saw a corn merchant on the way here, a little further along this street,’ he tried.
‘Space is pressing in a frigate, Captain Hervey — even in peacetime. I do not wish it too filled with oats,’ replied Peto peremptorily.
‘No, indeed not,’ said Hervey, taken aback somewhat. ‘I have calculated very precisely how much she — my charger — shall need for a six-month passage.’
‘She? Captain Hervey — a mare!’
Hervey sighed to himself. This was to be heavy going. ‘Yes, a mare, but not a chestnut, you will be pleased to know.’
‘Captain Hervey,’ frowned Peto, ‘any mare, with any number of legs, is much the same to me: I have little use for them.’
He chose to ignore the proposition. ‘I trust that mine will be no trouble, sir.’
‘I trust not, too,’ replied Peto, still looking straight ahead. ‘Just so long as you do not fill the orlop with oats.’
‘I shall give her no oats whatever,’ replied Hervey, sounding surprised, ‘otherwise she will likely as not suffer setfast.’
Peto turned his head and eyed him quizzically. ‘I can keep a horse between myself and the ground tolerably well, Captain Hervey, but beyond that I make no claim.’
‘Setfast is sometimes called Monday-morning sickness, which describes the symptoms aptly. The horse shows great stiffness; in extreme cases unable to move.’
‘Why Monday morning?’
‘It generally follows from inactivity after vigorous exercise — a day’s rest on Sunday after a Saturday’s hunting is common. There can be muscle damage, which is evident if the blood becomes azotous — discoloration of the urine, I mean. And then the kidneys may fail. Mares seem especially prone.’
‘Captain Hervey, my surgeon would be intrigued to hear of such a systemic catastrophe resulting from a day’s rest, for he is a great advocate of them!’
‘I make no claim to know anything of human physic, sir,’ countered Hervey, not immediately catching the attempt at humour.
‘No,’ smiled Peto at last, ‘I am sure you do not. I am, however, impressed that your veterinary knowledge goes beyond that of many of the run-of-the-mill officers I have met.’
Hervey said nothing.
‘So, your horse—’ he continued.
‘Jessye is her name, sir.’
‘So, Jessye — a fine thoroughbred no doubt — how shall she maintain condition during the passage?’
‘She is not a thoroughbred. Indeed, were she to be one I would as soon see a caged beast aboard. No, she has some good Welsh Mountain in her, and she is, therefore, just sufficiently tractable for the adventure. I shall give her hay ad libitum to reduce the risk of colic or her gut twisting. No doubt we shall have to pay over the odds — it’s not a good time to be buying old hay, and I dare not risk new to begin with. But if we can find good Timothy it should keep her in modest fettle. I shall feed her some barley each day — say, three pounds — and a pound of bran with chop to keep her interested.’ He took out a notebook and opened it to consult his earlier calculations. ‘We shall need, therefore, two hundredweight-sacks of bran and five more of barley, and forty hundredweight of hay.’
‘Great heavens, Captain Hervey! I haven’t the—’
‘I have resolved on deep-littering her, you will be pleased to hear, and so I shall need only the same again of straw. Barley straw unless we can find no other, for she has a partiality to eating it, and wheat straw can blow her up something dreadful.’
Peto halted and turned full towards him. ‘Captain Hervey,’ he said, portentously; ‘I am full of ad
miration for the attention you lavish on your mare — by your own accounts, a female of not especial breeding. Is that affection returned, do you suppose?’
Hervey wondered where this line of questioning was leading. ‘I do suppose — yes.’
Peto nodded. ‘I had imagined thus. See, therefore,Captain Hervey, the distraction that affection demands,’ he sighed, his head shaking pityingly.
As they neared the head of the great avenue leading from the quay to the Paris highroad, where stood the gendarmerie building as the street turned ninety degrees to the right, they came on a large but silent gathering. Curious as to its purpose, they joined the rear of the crowd, but the onlookers soon recognized the import of their uniforms and shifted to one side, affording them a clear view of the object of interest.
‘Well,’ said Peto after some moments’ consideration; ‘I own that this is the closest I have come to General Bonaparte’s Grande Armée. What a sight they are!’
What a sight indeed, thought Hervey. The last he had seen of officers of the Garde was on the field of Waterloo, in the final moments of the battle when he had led the Sixth up the slopes which had been French ground all day, and on to the inn called La Belle Alliance, far in advance of any others of the Duke of Wellington’s army. What a moment that had been. What a heady mix of joy and sorrow, of anger and pity. ‘Yes,’ he replied; ‘officers of the Imperial Guard — grenadiers and chasseurs à pied, les vieux des vieux.’
They were as he had seen them at Waterloo — the white breeches and top boots, the white facings of the blue coat, with its long tails and bullion epaulettes. Above all the ‘bearskin’, the plateless fur cap with its red-tipped green plume. He had watched hundreds upon hundreds of them advance on the duke’s line in perfect order, and thought that all before must surely be swept away — until the duke’s own Guards, who had lain concealed in the corn to the very last moment, sprang up and opened a withering fire, sending the French columns reeling back down the slopes.
‘They are formidable-looking, even in defeat,’ acknowledged Peto. ‘I can well understand, now, how an army with such as these men might gain so much — might march to Moscow and back, and fight every mile of the way.’
Yes — formidable, thought Hervey. And yet, without their swords they had perhaps lost something of their menace. ‘I had not supposed I should ever be so close again myself,’ he conceded.
‘Lion is at anchor waiting to take them to join Bonaparte at St Helena. I spoke with her captain yesterday. He’s hoping to meet the man himself there.’
There were thirty of them, perhaps more — Hervey could not see all — and they stood, arms folded, in the middle of the wide street. Some were smoking clay pipes, and all had the appearance of sublime indifference to their fate. In the sky above, swallows circled and dived, soon themselves to be southbound. The French were eyeing them too, envious perhaps of the freedom to pick their own moment. The escort, two dozen men of the 104th (North Derbyshire) Regiment, and evidently weary of the task, stood easy in a circle about them, bayonets fixed but muskets at the order. The captain, a tall, languid man, perhaps a year or so older than Hervey, but no more, on noticing the two officers touched his peak in salute and raised his eyebrows as if in search of sympathy for his role as gaoler. He gained none from Hervey, though, who was affronted, indeed, by the want of collection in the escort. The men looked tired and insensible, a picture neither of vigilance nor good order. Never would the Sixth have paraded themselves thus in front of a French crowd, let alone before their captives! There was a price to aiglets, he told himself: duty required that he say something. He began pushing his way to the front.
He was too late, though. In an instant a dozen of the French officers rushed the sentries furthest from where he stood. The others formed line with their hands raised above their heads in submission, confusing the disengaged half-circle of infantrymen from rushing to the aid of their comrades. It was done in seconds. The sentries had not even time to bring their bayonets to the port before they were assailed with the greatest ferocity by the French, fists and boots flailing. Those on the edge seemed dumbstruck. Had they rushed in at once from the flanks it would have been over quickly. Two of them fired their muskets in the air, but then the weapons, discharged and harmless, were wrenched at once from their hands. Hervey and Peto drew their swords and rushed at the fray, but the crowd had doubled in size and women and children arrested their progress so effectively — whether by design or not — that by the time they had pushed through to the other side the captive officers had wholly overpowered their guards. They began withdrawing along the street towards the prefecture in model fashion, half of them doubling a dozen yards and then levelling the muskets while the others doubled further to take up the same covering position. The North Derbyshires’ officer recovered himself and shouldered his way through the crowd with the remainder of the escort, ordering his men to give the French a volley. The report was deafening, and smoke filled the street, making it difficult to see its effect. The French did not fire back, however: Hervey supposed it because the street was full of civilians. ‘Reload!’ shouted the captain. As the smoke cleared, the Derbyshires furiously ramming home new charges, the effect of the first volley was revealed: a dozen or more bodies lay not thirty paces up the street, and only a handful in uniform.
Hervey was as appalled by the recklessness of the volley as he had been by the escort’s bearing. Why had they not charged first with the bayonet? He called to the captain, but the man did not hear, having now decided, it seemed, to follow with steel after failing to lead with it. Hervey rushed forward but a French leg was put in his way and he fell sprawling atop one of the sentries lying senseless from a butt-stroke. A ragged volley of musketry came from windows on both sides of the street fifty yards ahead, knocking down redcoats like skittles at a fair. It would have struck down Hervey, too, for some of it flew his way, striking the walls of the house where he lay, making little puffs of red brick-dust, the lead balls flattening and falling to the ground — where iron shot would have ricocheted. He turned his head to look for Peto, relieved to see him crouching safe in a doorway. The remnants of the escort fell back along the street, the half-dozen or so remaining on their feet trying to pull their wounded comrades with them — though several were beyond help. At least as many were left for dead. Another volley came, felling two more. Hervey sprang up and rushed to one of them, lifting him across his shoulder and taking up his musket in his free hand. Peto did the same as another welter of musket balls assailed them. One struck the silver pouch of Hervey’s crossbelt, and with such force that he was knocked clean to the ground. Peto, having dropped his man in a doorway, dashed to him, but he was already on his hands and knees retching with the pain and gasping for the air that had been knocked out of him. And still the firing continued as Peto half-pulled him to the safety of the side street where the ragged remains of the infantry were rallying, then ran back to the wounded corporal whom Hervey had been carrying, dragging him too to safety.
The crossbelt pouch was so twisted that the gilt ‘GR’ was no longer recognizable. The ball was embedded in the silver cover, but it had been the hardened leather of the pouch itself that had stopped it. Where precisely on his back the pouch had been when the ball struck Hervey could not tell, for the ache there was too general. But had it sat as it usually did, when he walked or rode erect, the pouch would have rested directly on his spine. Here, likely enough, was the closest that death had kissed him in seven years’ campaigning — and the first time in his life that England was truly at peace with France!
‘You fell so hard I was sure you were shot through,’ gasped Peto, still out of breath.
‘It felt so,’ he muttered as he glanced across to where the Derbyshires’ officer lay dead. They had to do something — and quickly. Peto was indisputably his senior, but the responsibility was surely his. There were now a dozen or so infantrymen crowding his corner of the side street, including their serjeant, whose earlier lack of address w
as still manifest in a look of stupefaction. ‘Serjeant,’ said Hervey, shouting almost and shaking the man’s arm, ‘where is the rest of your company?’
The NCO continued to stare straight across the main street, as if relief might come from that direction at any second. Hervey shook him again, but could get no answer. He looked at the others, who looked back at him like so many sheep. Yet these were men who, not two months before, had stood their ground at Waterloo against Bonaparte’s finest. Only one of them was showing any activity: he lay prone, squinting round the corner whence the firing had come. Hervey shook the man’s leg: ‘What do you see?’
The soldier, who had taken off his shako so that as little as possible should betray his surveillance, did not move. ‘They ’ave just picked the cartridge bags off ’em, sor. An’ by the way, sor, them French is in the gendarmry building now. They’ll ’ave powder and shot aplenty there.’
Hervey recognized the soft vowels of Cork. For an instant his mind was filled with his tribulations there. Then he noticed the stitching holes on the arm of the man’s jacket: evidently the sleeve had borne two chevrons lately. He came back to the present. ‘Where’s the rest of your company, Corporal? Where is the garrison?’
‘The company’s at ’Arfleur, sor. There’s a review or some such. And it’s “Private” now.’
Harfleur was ten miles away: he had ridden through it that very morning. ‘How many marines do you have on your ship, Captain Peto?’ he asked, turning to see Peto deftly applying a tourniquet above the shattered knee of a private little older than a boy.
Peto looked surprised. ‘Thirty-eight, the same number as she has guns — and a lieutenant. Are you asking me to—’
‘With only these men here all we can do is watch the gendarmerie: we can’t assault it,’ he replied, shaking his head to emphasize their powerlessness.
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