On His Majesty's Service mh-11

by Allan Mallinson

  They were at once into a jogging trot – not the way the Sixth would have begun a march – and his little Kabardin mare was anxious to be with the others. But Hervey knew he would just have to content himself with sitting to it and enjoying the jingling of the chaghanas (might the Sixth’s band have use for one?) and the admiration of the infantry. Only after the best part of a mile, with the well-wishing behind them, did they slow from the trot. There were no audible words of command; it seemed that the esaul transmitted his intention by some instinctive means, so that the sotnia simply rippled to a walk. It was unmilitary, but it was not without a certain style; and without doubt it was done with economy.

  Hervey and his party marched parallel and to the off-flank, the going either side of the road flat, on good spring grass, ungrazed. In the far distance the rolling, wooded hills – mountains even – lay as a barrier the like of which he had not seen in twenty years, when the duke’s army had at last crossed the Pyrenees into France. The Balkan range, the Haemus Mons of antiquity and his schoolroom – he had never dreamed he would one day behold them. Tunc etiam aërei divulsis sedibus Haemi – ‘the summit even of lofty Haemus shall have crumbled’; the words he had declaimed an age ago at Shrewsbury. They were famous days, simpler days, infinite in their promise, with books innumerable, war, heroes … He envied Agar his Oxford learning and his footing, now, at the threshold of soldiery. And such a threshold – Haemus Mons, which no Tsar’s general had crossed since ancient times. How strange it felt to be at their southern side when still the Turk held them, as if they had come into a house basely.

  ‘Hervey?’

  He woke. ‘I beg pardon. You were saying?’

  Fairbrother smiled indulgently. ‘Only that I am excessively grateful for your asking me to accompany you. This is the first I have ridden on the soil of Europe. And deuced fine too. Yonder sea – as blue as at the Cape.’

  Hervey nodded. England was, strictly, a part of Europe too, but he could only think of her so when he was in another continent altogether. It was strange, moreover, that they had waited so long to ride, that their journey hither had been so little by land. They had come to St Petersburg by frigate, thence almost at once to Riga by coaster, thereafter along the Dvina by steam to Vitebsk, then a day and a half’s post to Smolensk, and from there on down the Dnieper by sail and steam to Kherson, a mean city in which to wait for onward passage by warship, first to Varna, and finally to Siseboli. He did not complain, for they had seen much, and he had made sketches of what he thought to be of interest to the Horse Guards; they had read much, talked much and written much; except that Fairbrother had written not at all, for he saw no cause for a journal – to whom would it be of interest in the event of his death? he asked – nor occasion for letters, his father being content with but an annual report. He was, he said, and with an admixture of seriousness to the archness, content to pass without note, ‘A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown’.

  Hervey had remonstrated with him, lest his friend think him in thrall to either fortune or fame: he did not seek either, merely the command to which he was by temperament and long years of service suited. And Fairbrother, while protesting that he had never intended to suggest anything base, had pressed him nevertheless to answer ‘to what end?’ To which Hervey had replied that there was no end: the judicious exercise of command was of itself sufficient. He had no ambition then, Fairbrother had asked. Indeed he had, Hervey had answered – the perfection of his command, so that it accomplished whatever the Horse Guards ordained, and with the greatest economy of life, effort and treasure. And Fairbrother had smiled, for he knew that he himself could never give his life to such a thing (or so he said), while acknowledging – exalting, even – the ideal itself; and he had even quoted the Iliad, when the Trojan prince Sarpedon urges his comrade Glaucus to fight with him in the front rank of the coming battle: ‘’Tis ours, the dignity they give to grace/ The first in valour, as the first in place.’ And Hervey had pondered a good deal on it.

  He woke again. A night heron flapped unperturbed across their line of march, and in the distance, along the shore and around the great lake behind Bourgas, there were grebe and ibises, and more geese than he thought he had ever seen. It was a fine place; it seemed a fine country; and for the briefest moment he thought that they intruded, that they had no cause to be here. Whose was this land that these Cossacks – men every bit as fine as the country, and whose company he was relishing – came to fight over? Would the Tsar wade through more slaughter to a greater throne, and trample the country and the poor souls living here? He shrugged; it was not his business – only to observe the methods by which they made war. It was difficult, anyway, not to side with a former ally, especially one that had in great measure helped bring down the tyrant Bonaparte. And although he did not bear the Turks ill will for the crippling of his old friend Peto (these things were the ‘exigencies of the service’, and to be borne without bitterness), he could not think of the Sultan without the epithet ‘cruel’. He had no romantic attachment to Athens; he was no philhellene of the Byron mould. He supposed it was unnatural that the Turk should be master of the land of the Greeks – and of almost the whole of the country between the Black Sea and the Adriatic – but that was the way of history, was it not? And the Turks were, as the word ran in London, ‘an ancient ally’. Yet all this was of no import when riding in the company of Cossacks (though he had explained his situation to the esaul, who had replied that he did not understand neutrality but nevertheless understood what were its practical constraints). And so now he and his party rode just a little apart from the sotnia, as if by this he somehow made his situation plainer.

  But the esaul … Hervey liked him, liked him very much, thought him the sort of man to rely on in battle. In any other circumstances he would gladly have ridden with him stirrup to stirrup.

  They marched all day – with the briefest of halts as the sun reached its highest (though it had as yet no great heat) – at the jog-trot, which the Kabardin seemed to prefer to walking collected or even on a long rein. Perhaps the kvas last evening had magnified the Kabardin’s quality in Hervey’s mind. They would climb mountains, cross torrents, fight with wolves, the esaul boasted; the Kabardin mare foaled onto frost-bitten earth – little wonder her progeny would carry her rider for hours on end without so much as a blade of grass. Hervey had expressed his admiration, if perhaps (he was not sure he remembered) guardedly, but would readily admit, now, that his was the most tractable mare he had ridden in some time. What, he marvelled, might come out of her by an English Thoroughbred!

  They saw few people, nor even animals, wild or pastoral. It was as if the word ‘Cossack’ had gone before them, emptying every dwelling, fold and byre. But not once had the sotnia fallen out to loot – not even to raise water from a well – so that Hervey began wondering if it were not they from whom the populace had fled but the Turks who were marching hither. The people of Roumelia – Bulgars for the most part, hereabouts at least – had no love of Ottoman rule, and, no doubt, a healthy fear of marching armies of any flag. Empty country he always found dispiriting to cross, as he had the rolling plains of Natal and the Cape Colony, but he would own that this was indeed deuced fine country, wholly belying its reputation as a wild and brutish place where brigandage stalked.

  An hour before sunset they fell out to bivouac in an abandoned vineyard. Hervey was surprised they had not made camp in the deserted village they had passed through half an hour before; it had been a mean sort of place, and godless, the little church ruined, but, as the soldier’s saying went, a half-decent billet was better than a good bivouac.

  He asked the esaul why, and was met with a smile: ‘My Cossacks would not enter the home of simple people without invitation.’

  It was impossible to tell if it were the truth, or even a part of the truth. The esaul smiled enigmatically, and at almost everything. But every time he smiled, Hervey liked him the more.

  They were not off-saddled long before a fire was sendi
ng up a cloud of thick white smoke, fed by a Cossack sprinkling gunpowder on the flames.

  ‘To whom do they signal, sir?’ asked Agar.

  Hervey had unshipped his carbine, nodding for Johnson to take the saddle from him. He looked across to the plume of smoke again. ‘At what distance did the scouts ride today, Mr Agar?’

  ‘I … I did not see that any scouts were posted, sir.’

  ‘Nor did I. But we rode as if there were, which means that either the esaul is foolhardy, or the scouts left Siseboli before light. I’d lay my money on the latter.’

  ‘So they are now signalled in?’

  ‘They’ll be ranging too far to hear the trumpet, and besides, so I observe, the sotnia has no trumpeters.’

  Fairbrother now joined the inquisition. ‘But why signal your presence to the Turk, if he’s about?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Hervey, genuinely puzzled. ‘There’ll be method in it, no doubt. Go and ask the sotnik, Mr Agar.’

  ‘Sir.’

  He returned after ten minutes (during which time Johnson and the two dragoons had laid out the bedding rolls and got the pots simmering) with the answer that indeed the esaul wanted the Turks to know they were hereabout. Hervey could only shake his head, puzzled; it was contrary to all the practice of reconnaissance by light cavalry.

  Fairbrother had an idea. ‘Perhaps he would fire them thence like foxes?’

  Hervey looked at him, puzzled.

  ‘Lear: “He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven and fire us hence like foxes”. The esaul intends bolting the Turk with smoke and fire.’

  Hervey looked thoughtful. ‘I had not thought the meaning to be thus. I had always thought it a reference to burning the Philistine corn.’

  Now Fairbrother looked puzzled. ‘I have a dim recollection, but I confess it eludes me.’

  Hervey smiled. ‘Then at last my memory surpasses yours. It was the foxes that did the burning out. Samson caught three hundred of them and tied them in pairs, then set their brushes alight and loosed them into the Philistine corn.’

  ‘Of course; now I remember. Deuced clever of him. I wonder if the esaul knows the story.’

  ‘I suppose there are foxes in Roumelia …’ replied Hervey, pensively. Then he smiled again, fondly, at the remembrance of a Horningsham sermon many years past. ‘I recall my father one day, in his pulpit when the lesson had been read, and it had been that chapter of Judges, and Lord Bath and a good many farmers were in the congregation, and he said something along the lines of “Now here you might lament the ill keepering, and the docility of the hunts in Philistia at that time, that there should be three hundred foxes at liberty …”.’

  ‘I am all eagerness to hear your father in his pulpit, as I told you in England,’ said Fairbrother agreeably.

  ‘And what say you on the subject, Mr Agar?’

  Agar cleared his throat apologetically. ‘I believe, sir, that Shakespeare had read Orlando Furioso, for there is a notable passage therein concerning the fox bolted by smoke and fire into the terrier’s mouth. I think it more probable that Lear alludes to foxes being bolted by fire than to their spreading of it.’

  Fairbrother’s face was a picture of mild triumph.

  Hervey nodded, conceding. ‘I’m run to earth.’

  When the scouts came in – three of them, towards last light – Hervey took Agar with him to find out what they had learned. But Agar found the sotnik now more difficult to understand, the subject less conducive to gestures of the hand. Eventually he was able to establish with some confidence that the Turks were marching in the general direction of Siseboli, though at no great pace, and had begun to make camp for the night at Sagora, three leagues to the west – an eccentric route perhaps, but evidently the Seraskier wished to give Bourgas a wide berth, for he could not know for certain that the Russians had not landed there as well as at Siseboli. The sotnik said that the scouts were to return to their posts, to be ready to resume contact with the Turks at first light. And as for their own camp, there would be an in-lying picket, but no greater precaution.

  ‘A gamble,’ said Hervey, as he walked back with Agar. ‘But probably a safe bet.’

  They slept under the stars – slept well. There was no stand-to at first light, except that Hervey’s party turned out and watched, carbines in hand, as the sun rose over where the horses were tethered, along a low wall at the south-east corner of the vineyard.

  The esaul’s disregard for field discipline made him uneasy once again. He did not doubt that the chance of one Turk, let alone a sufficient force, traversing the country undetected during the night and assaulting the camp at dawn was practically nothing, but it remained a possibility, and to ignore it therefore reckless. But, then, Cossacks – irregulars in all but name – were not circumscribed by standing orders; they lived by gambling.

  No Turk attacked the camp, and the esaul, had he seen them, would have smiled at Hervey and his men. So the morning routine was that of the camp at Siseboli – a leisurely breakfast, no muster. When an hour had passed, without ceremony or words of command the esaul simply climbed into the saddle and put his mare into a jog-trot, and the rest of the sotnia vaulted astride behind him and formed twos in apparently random fashion. Even Fairbrother, no advocate of drill, shrugged his shoulders and smiled as Hervey looked at him quizzically. And yet, they conceded, it seemed to work – and, again, with no little economy of effort.

  Hervey and the others mounted and took post as before, this time on the near, landward flank (for that towards the sea was broken by numerous dry channels), but they were not long marching before a single rider came over the rise at a canter. He made straight for the esaul, reined about and made his report while circling. The esaul heard him without remark, nodded, and turned to the khorunzhiy (cornet) at his side. A few words followed, and then the khorunzhiy and his coverman were into a hand gallop back whence they had come before Hervey could make up his mind whether to sit and wait or close to learn what he might.

  The sotnik rode over to them.

  ‘The Turks broke camp at first light and their cavalry now lead.’ Agar was able to translate quickly and with confidence.

  ‘Cavalry leading: you’re sure that’s what he said?’ pressed Hervey.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  He was intrigued. He knew that Turk practice was for the cavalry to march at the rear and to the flanks so as not to disturb the ground for the infantry. Placing them in advance meant the Seraskier expected opposition or wanted to quicken the pace. Perhaps the fox had indeed been fired from his hole. In either case it was ripe news; little wonder the khorunzhiy had been sent speeding back to General Wachten.

  ‘The esaul believes they might be before the walls of Siseboli by evening. We shall therefore close with the Turk at once. The bat-horses are to go back to the vineyard.’

  ‘Very well. They can go with the Cossack servants.’

  Hervey did not doubt the esaul’s appreciation of the situation. It was possible that if the cavalry hastened and the infantry made a forced march, their fires tonight would be seen from the walls of Siseboli; but after so many weeks’ delay, what should now compel the Seraskier to hurry?

  ‘What is the esaul’s intention on closing with the Turk?’

  Agar asked the sotnik. He heard ‘khameereh’ – Persian – in reply, and had to press for explanation.

  ‘Well?’ said Hervey, becoming impatient.

  Agar turned, looking unsure. ‘He says, I believe, the esaul wants to test the mettle of the Turk.’

  ‘How?’

  Agar asked the sotnik again.

  ‘Napadat!’

  It was one of the handful of Russian words that Hervey had acquired. He looked at Fairbrother, disbelieving. ‘Attack? Two hundred against – how many?’

  Fairbrother shrugged. ‘If one Black Sea Cossack is equal to three from the Don, perhaps he’s equal to ten Turks?’

  It had occurred to Hervey more than once that the object of the Horse Guards’ intere
st ought perhaps to be the Ottoman army rather than the Russian, for a good deal was known of the Tsar’s troops, but very little of the Sultan’s new army, the ‘Mansure’ – Muallem Asakir-i Mansure-yi Muhammadiye (‘the Trained Victorious Troops of Muhammad’). The Mansure had been formed three years before, after the mutiny of the Janissaries gave the Sultan his chance to disband that corrupt corps. For a century the Janissaries, non-Turkmen, had held the Porte to ransom, while the empire fell apart. The Sultan had brought in foreign officers to advise him, or so it was believed; the artillery and transport had been reorganized, and there were new regiments of infantry, though the cavalry – the sipahis – remained as before, since unlike the Janissaries they were all Turkmen. In Hervey’s estimation, London could not remain indifferent to a new and efficient army astride a road to India.

  In an hour there came the first sighting, at about three-quarters of a mile – a cohort of Turk lancers, two hundred strong at least, ambling in column along the road due east. The country was rolling, unbroken, coverless, with short springy turf, not too hard underfoot; it was very apt, thought Hervey, that they should make their first contact on ground so good – ‘cavalry country’.

  ‘Odd that they come on in column still,’ he said, reining to a halt and taking out his telescope.

  Fairbrother and Agar were already following suit.

  ‘I must say, the time and course couldn’t be more favourable, with the sun low and in their eyes.’

  Fairbrother glanced at him questioningly. ‘Is “favourable” entirely apt? Should we have a preference for the way the sun shines?’

  ‘Apt for observation,’ replied Hervey, blithely but perfectly aware that his friend had detected the slip. ‘Lances and green dolmans, would you say?’