‘I think I must go and see General Wachten,’ he said at length, replacing his telescope in its holster.
‘To what purpose?’ asked Fairbrother, likewise giving up his surveillance of the distant hawk-eye.
‘To propose that we take a ride towards Aidos to see why the Turk does not come to evict us.’
Fairbrother was inclined to be wry. ‘I suppose the Russians have spare horses and no objection to lending them to impartial observers.’
‘I trust so.’
‘Or perhaps I should say “the Germans have spare horses”: shall we meet any Russian generals, do you think? Wachten, Roth, Diebitsch – does the Tsar trust only those with German names?’
Hervey smiled. ‘The Tsar himself had a German mother, and his wife is Prussian. That must count for something, though I can’t say what with any certainty.’
Corporal Acton asked leave to speak. ‘Sir, might I try and borrow a rifle and return the Turk’s fire, sir? Not to ’urt ’im – just to try an’ bustle ’im out. As an aid to observation, sir.’ His expression was made the more ironic by the accent of Bow.
Hervey thought for a moment. ‘Admirable idea, Corporal Acton – ordinarily. But in truth I’d rather not have our Russian friends here think the Turk’s our enemy. It wouldn’t do for them to think we considered him a friend either, mind, but there’s no cause for raising doubts.’
Acton looked disappointed. If there were no enemy, what use was a covering corporal? ‘Sir.’
* * *
General von Wachten was a compact, solid-looking artillery officer of about fifty years, friendly enough if not exactly warm, active but not energetic. Hervey and his party had travelled in his company by frigate from Bessarabia, where the greater part of the army had wintered after the campaign of the previous year. He spoke German with the accent of Silesia – in which he preferred to curse, seemingly, rather than in his workmanlike Russian – as well as passable French. Hervey supposed he had been appointed for solidity rather than dash: his mission was to hold Siseboli, no more. That much might be entrusted to an artillery officer.
Wachten was at his headquarters, the residence of the customs official, eating cheese and drinking coffee, as was his habit in the middle of the morning.
‘How is your Latin, Colonel Hervey?’ he asked, nodding to acknowledge the salute as Hervey was ushered in, and indicating two books on his otherwise empty desk.
Hervey supposed it to be an attempt at affability, and thought to chance a little in his reply. ‘It has been out to grass for some years, General.’
‘And Greek?’
‘Even longer. But if you have need of translation, the cornet accompanying me has ample of both.’
Wachten smiled ever so slightly. ‘The priest here brought me those. Pliny and Herodotus. They both write of these parts, he says, and he wanted to give me something in gratitude for the repairs my engineers have made to his church.’
Hervey nodded. As soon as the Russians had landed they had begun rebuilding the church of the Virgin. It had been ruined in the Ottoman depredations, they told him (though he thought it perhaps more in ignorance than with malign intent). They taught him a word even – two words: lúkovichnaya glava, onion-dome. It had been broken in half. The engineers made it whole. And then they gilded it. Where the gold came from they would not say, but they were fiercely proud of what they did. He had remarked on the will with which they went about it, and Wachten had said that it was relief from the labour at the defence works, and good also for the spirit of his troops to see their religion restored (‘They will have many more to gild in Constantinople!’).
‘I can have Mr Agar read them, General, and apprise you of anything worthwhile.’
Wachten nodded. ‘This place was called Apollonia in ancient times, a colony of Miletus. Did you know that, Colonel Hervey?’
‘I did, General.’
‘There was a temple of Apollo, from which Lucullus carried off to Rome a statue of the god, whose height was thirty cubits, which he afterwards erected in the Capitol.’
‘I did not know that.’
‘Well, perhaps your cornet would be so good as to read these books to see if there is anything to learn from General Lucullus. It would amuse me to find, say, that there was some secret passage that my engineers have not discovered. Or where the statue stood, in case Lucullus left behind any treasure.’
Wachten laughed, so that Hervey was unsure how serious were his expectations. He was obliged to humour him, however; he did, after all, rely on his good offices for both bread and horses. ‘Of course, General. But may I be permitted also to know your intention in reconnoitring – now that, it appears to me, the defences of the town have been placed on so sound a footing?’
The general looked suddenly grave. ‘Colonel Hervey, I have been remiss. Coffee – and cheese?’
‘The general is very kind. Coffee, please.’
The orderly standing at attention by the door evidently understood German well enough, and began pouring him a cup.
‘Be seated, Colonel,’ said Wachten, looking – to Hervey’s mind – just a little pleased with himself. ‘I am aware that you are a cavalryman, and therefore restless to be about the business of searching out the enemy. You will have wondered daily, no doubt, why I do not send out my Cossacks on such a mission.’ He leaned forward and lowered his voice slightly. ‘I tell you a secret. There is a most excellent system of spies here in Roumelia, and I intend keeping my few and precious horsemen for some more definite purpose than riding all about the country.’ He sat back and pulled a disapproving face. ‘Besides, they would doubtless carry off more than they could pay for, and I have no wish to make enemies of the people hereabouts.’
Hervey nodded appreciatively: such an enlightened attitude was worthy of the Duke of Wellington himself. But reliance on spies? It had nearly been the duke’s undoing before Waterloo. How, though, might he make his point without giving offence? Indeed, was it right that he should do so – for he was not an adviser but an observer?
But before he could scruple too painfully, Wachten took him aback. ‘I have learned, for example, that this morning, at dawn, the Seraskier marched out of Aidos at the head of five thousand foot and cavalry. And I have ordered the Cossacks out at dawn tomorrow to make contact with them.’
Hervey tried to hide his surprise, anxious not to suggest he had doubted Wachten’s efficiency. ‘May I accompany them, General?’ he asked, in a tone of purposeful admiration.
‘I have ordered horses to be made ready for you and your party.’
Hervey made appreciative gestures, then rose to request leave to dismiss, adding inadvertently, ‘And if there is any service I can be …’
Wachten shook his head. ‘I have every confidence in the men under my command, thank you, Colonel. But if there is occasion for service to His Imperial Majesty, I trust I shall be able to call upon you.’
Hervey braced, a useful mechanism for covering mistakes (as well as being the customary courtesy). ‘I trust I shall know where my duty lies, General. Thank you, again, for your kindness.’
He put on his forage cap, gathered up his sword, saluted and took his leave.
Outside, a battalion of the Pavlovsk Grenadiers, the general’s quarter guard, was forming up for inspection. The garrison mustered at dawn each day for roll-call and stood down afterwards to breakfast before being detailed for the fatigues of the day, which for the Line battalions principally consisted in digging trenches and bringing up defence stores from the harbour. But the Pavlovsk Grenadiers, besides the guard duty and escorts, were at the provost-marshal’s call, and therefore did not take turns on the defence works.
He stopped to watch the parade. The Pavlovsk were an undoubted cut above the Line – five hundred chosen men in close order. Recruits to all the grenadier battalions, not just to the Pavlovsk, were handpicked from the Line regiments for their bearing, good conduct and courage. They wore the same close-fitting white linen trousers as those of the
Line battalions, but the workaday dress of the Line was baggy overalls tied at the ankle, invariably filthy from fatigues. They wore much the same tunic too – green, long-tailed (with red facings in the Pavlovsk) – but they wore it better. It was the mitre cap, however, that truly set them off. At first it had looked to him strangely old-fashioned: grenadiers in English regiments had long since given it up (before he had joined, indeed). But its singular appearance worked its effect, for, claimed the Pavlovsk, it was a mark of their special bravery at Friedland. They alone had been allowed to keep it.
He had not seen Russian troops since Paris, after Bonaparte’s final exile. These little moments of unlooked-for display were therefore instructive, for there was much that a seasoned soldier could tell from how a regiment mustered – how observant were the officers, how the NCOs cut about, the economy in the words of command, the sharpness of the drill. And by these measures he judged that the Pavlovsk would stand immovable during an attack, and would in their turn go to it with the bayonet in determined fashion. But then, from what he had seen of the Azov Regiment – a very legionary unit – at their fatigues, he did not doubt that they too would be obedient and stalwart. The Pavlovsk were the pick of the Line, but their grenadiers were conscripts too: both regiments were from the same peasant stock, hardened to adversity by the time they drew their first kopek. He found himself musing that if he were to command a regiment of infantry when he returned, he would wish it to be as well ordered as these grenadiers.
As he left them to the rest of the muster parade, he resolved to write his first despatch to the Horse Guards that evening. Though there was little to report by way of true intelligence, he would render in writing how and by what means he had come to the seat of war without His Britannic Majesty’s ambassador (for it was in the ambassador’s suite that he had been accredited). It did not matter to the mission on which he was engaged, he supposed, but if anything were to go wrong in the course of it, it were better that he did not first have to explain how he had come to be travelling other than in diplomatic company. If Lord Heytesbury chose to remain in St Petersburg with the Tsar, who had returned to his capital at the close of the former campaigning season, then what business could it be of the Horse Guards?
As he side-stepped yet another filthy pool, Hervey began forming in his mind the impressions of which he would write to Lord Hill. First, however, he must present his compliments to the Cossacks.
* * *
He watched with the others from the edge of the maidan on the old causeway which (said Cornet Agar) linked what had once been an island, where Apollo’s statue had stood, to the mainland, although it now had all the appearance of a natural peninsula. Siseboli was not without charm. Some of its houses were substantial, even elegant by provincial standards, and the rest were well found, although to the landward end of the peninsula they became rather meaner, and some were little more than shanties. The people, those that had stayed when the Russians landed – Bulgars, in the main – were swarthy but upright, and for the most part they looked to the sea for their fortunes rather than to the land. They had been ruled by Constantinople for so many years that they no longer thought of any other condition but servitude – or so Wachten had told him. They were not (yet) as the Greeks, clamouring for their liberty.
About the Cossacks’ exercise ground – ‘parade’ ground seemed wholly inappropriate for so irregular a band of troops – lounged the bearded horsemen on whose legendary exploits so much of the Tsar’s military reputation rested. No two of them were dressed the same, as far as Hervey could see. Most wore dark blue overalls with a broad red stripe, but some wore looser bags; many were bare-headed, some wore a sort of forage cap, but others had on a fleece shako pulled to one side alla Turca. Some were in the short, blue summer shell jacket, some wore the winter cherkesska smock still, with its rows of cartridge loops, while others had on just shirts, and of several different colours. There was but one common item of ‘uniform’: as it was the hour of repose after the midday dinner of mutton and the issue of kvas, every man had his pipe lit. When Hervey had first learned what was the strength of the garrison, he asked the esaul, the Cossacks’ captain, why there was only a squadron (sotnia) of them, two hundred lances, to which the reply had been that they were Chernomorski – Cossacks of the Black Sea Host – and that one Black Sea Cossack was equal to three from the Don.
Seeing now the approach of the Anglichanye, the esaul rose from his camp stool, and, with his sotnik (lieutenant), bid them welcome. He was a burly, dark-skinned man of indeterminate age (Hervey knew little of him other than that he had been at Borodino, and then Paris) who spoke the worst Russian, so Wachten’s chief of staff told him, of any officer in Siseboli. He certainly spoke no other language Hervey knew, though Cornet Agar, by a combination of Persian, Greek and bazaar Turkish, was able to communicate with his sotnik.
They had looked over the Cossack horses soon after landing, and Hervey had made admiring noises to the esaul, for they were hardy animals, fifteen hands or so, and evidently good-doers. They were bred (if Agar’s understanding was correct) out of Kabardin mares from the Caucasus, put-to by Turcomans and Arabs, so that they were equally at home on the wide steppe or tricky mountain paths.
While Hervey and the esaul saluted, embraced, shook hands, exchanged mutually incomprehensible greetings and generally made like officers of rank, Agar and the sotnik spoke in tongues.
‘The sotnik says that all the arrangements are made for us, sir,’ said Agar, after some explanatory gesturing. ‘They will bring our horses as soon as it is light.’
‘You are sure not before?’ asked Hervey. ‘The general said they were to leave before dawn. I don’t wish to find myself late on parade.’
There followed another exchange with the sotnik, who then spoke to the esaul, bringing broad smiles from both.
‘The esaul says he wants the whole place to see them march out.’
Hervey smiled too. He perfectly understood – not least that General Wachten’s command was not absolute when it came to Cossacks.
The esaul spoke again: Hervey heard the word ‘kvas’ and braced himself to the challenge. He would not be picking up his pen for an hour and more. And he wondered how prudent it would be to do so when he did.
IX
THE ESAUL
Next day
At a quarter past five the signal guns on the old walls called in the pickets for the morning stand-to-arms – three shots, five seconds between. Hervey was standing ready for parade outside the house where his party was billeted, taking in the pure air of the pre-dawn, looking forward keenly to his ride in the country, away from the rankness of the camp and its confining defences. Beyond the outworks it would be spring, whereas within there were only the few signs of it. Bugles began sounding reveille. In twenty minutes the sun would be rising, the pickets would be in and the guards stood to. In twenty more, the rest of the troops would muster by companies and battalions, and another day of garrison routine would begin. Now came the sound of hoofs – the sotnik and a dozen men bringing horses. His heart beat faster; he would soon be in his element again.
Pack-saddling the camp stores did not take long, thanks to Johnson’s practice of twenty years and the deft hands of the Cossacks (expecting to be on patrol but two days and nights they rode with only light scales). Just after full light the rest of the sotnia came up in noisy good spirits – horseshoes ringing on the cobbles, chaghanas jingle-jangling, and hearty Cossack babble. But for the forest of lances, they might have been a band of gypsies breaking camp. Hervey smiled to himself at the thought: these were the men whom Bonaparte’s veterans had feared.
He would stay his opinion, however. In appearance the Cossacks had much in common with the irregular cavalry he had fought alongside in India – Skinner’s regiment especially, which he counted second to none in ranging and raiding. With English troops it was generally the rule that good appearance was a sure indication of capability, but it was not invariably so with native troops
– and not, he suspected, with Cossacks. He smiled to himself again, for the esaul was having his way: men from every regiment were turning out to watch them leave.
‘Very well, let us join our host,’ he said to his little party, with a look of amused curiosity. The sotnik had brought him a compact, almost jet-black mare. He checked the girth, gathered the reins and sprang into the saddle (he would not risk his weight in the stirrup with an unknown horse).
‘It is too early an hour for puns, Hervey – even pert ones,’ groaned Fairbrother, as he took an obliging Cossack’s hand to mount. ‘Deuced early for anything, indeed.’
The sotnia’s exuberance was infectious, however. ‘I have always considered “reveille” to be an order to wake, not a mere notice of the hour of day,’ Hervey replied, relieved that, knowing he’d had a despatch to write, he had not stayed long drinking kvas – and supposing his friend to wish he had had the same pretext to quit.
He glanced at the others – Agar, Corporal Acton and the two dragoons who had volunteered as servants – and felt a curious sort of ‘cornet’s lease’, as if conscious of the sober mask of command (blue or red) that awaited him. In any case he liked pressing Fairbrother on points of military correctness, not least because they brought wit by return, and occasionally a counter that was worthy of serious consideration, and even approval. He had learned much from this most contradictory of men – at one moment the image of apathy, of indolence even; and at another, of the most astonishing address. He owed his life and reputation to him on more than one occasion (and one occasion alone was sufficient to forge a bond between fighting men).
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