On His Majesty's Service mh-11

by Allan Mallinson

  He threw out the question generally, to any who had answer. Corporal Acton was first to speak (even with the disadvantage of a poorer glass). ‘Green, sir, ay – and a gun, half a dozen files rear.’

  Hervey found it. ‘Bronze, too – you have a hawk-eye, Corporal Acton.’

  Johnson, relishing not being sent back with the bat-horses, did not have a telescope, but he had an opinion nevertheless. ‘Dressed for paradise, then, sir, like some of ’em’ll be seein when them Cossacks gets at ’em.’

  Hervey continued observing. ‘Not the time for riddles, Johnson, thank you.’

  ‘Weren’t a riddle, sir. That’s what them Turks believes in, that they wears green pee-jams when they goes to ’eaven.’

  Hervey frowned. ‘Where on earth did you hear such a thing?’

  ‘One o’ them Bulgars in camp, sir. Mr Agar’ll know.’

  ‘Mr Agar, what can you tell us of this?’ asked Hervey, content to play along while still surveying the field.

  ‘Of the Turk’s beliefs, sir, or their appearance now?’

  ‘If there be anything at all, pray speak.’

  ‘The Koran promises that a believer will wear green silk in paradise.’

  Hervey lowered his telescope momentarily and glanced at his groom. ‘Then I stand corrected. I beg pardon, Johnson.’

  ‘That’s all right, sir. Mrs ’Ervey told me that ages ago.’

  By ‘Mrs ’Ervey’ he meant Henrietta. Johnson never could grasp, or never would, that on marriage to plain Captain Hervey, Lady Henrietta Lindsay became Lady Henrietta Hervey; just as he could not or would not that on marrying Lieutenant-Colonel Hervey, Lady Lankester became plain Mrs Hervey – for these things, he was convinced, were a conspiracy to confuse simple folk. Hervey smiled to himself: it was typical that Johnson remembered something Henrietta had told him an age ago. ‘Admirable recall,’ he replied, amiably.

  ‘Strange, I see no scouts,’ said Fairbrother, bringing the conversation to earth; ‘nor flankers either. A cool customer, our Turk, it would seem.’

  Hervey had been searching for the same, certain they must be selecting their lines of advance with uncommon craft.

  Suddenly the column came alive.

  ‘Ah, they deploy. We are discovered.’

  The Turks looked well drilled, too. They halted in column of route, turned left and right by alternate troops and then wheeled into line. In less than two minutes they were formed in close order in three ranks, the cannon unlimbered front and centre.

  ‘Prettily done,’ said Hervey. ‘A support and a reserve line, too.’ He looked across to where the sotnia had come to an unruly halt.

  Not for long. The esaul yelped a single word of command, dug his heels into his mare’s flanks and galloped for the Turks full tilt.

  Hervey struggled to keep his own mare still as the sotnia took off like hounds on a running stag. ‘What in heaven’s name …’

  He watched in some amazement as the esaul pulled up after a furlong as abruptly as he’d taken off and the sotnia extended in a single line either side of him.

  ‘Extraordinary!’ he declared, stowing his telescope and taking the reins in both hands.

  Fairbrother was equally impressed. ‘I wonder how it looked to the Turks.’

  ‘No pivot, no words of command … I don’t believe a troop of ours could have done it with fewer than ten.’ (Hervey had long held that the Dundas drill book was a thing of aptness no more, but ‘It beat the French!’ was the usual retort to any suggestion of a better way.)

  Not that he wished to substitute any old swarming tactics for good regulation. The Cossack line overlapped the Turks’ by a furlong on either flank, but it was a single line only: cavalry could not fight through without supports – nor extricate itself if the tide turned.

  ‘Do they intend attacking – or receiving a charge?’ asked Fairbrother, equally incredulous.

  But before Hervey could answer, the line billowed into a fast trot.

  ‘They attack – and with that crest yonder! There’s no knowing what’s beyond it.’ He took up his telescope again.

  Fairbrother was not so measured. ‘Madness!’

  ‘Intrepid, certainly. Mark, Mr Agar: to advance with dead ground to the rear of an objective, in which might be concealed more cavalry, is perilous in the extreme.’

  ‘When the scouts came in just now, might they have reported that the Turks were without supports?’

  Hervey shook his head. ‘It’s a possibility, but in half an hour there’s no saying what might have come forward. Except that yonder esaul’s had uncanny fortune so far.’

  The sotnia had picked up speed – a hand gallop – and with half a mile to run.

  The Turks started to show a flank left and right, but did so hastily. Their support line buckled rear and some of them began turning, making the reserve line give way. In a moment the cohort had lost its solidity.

  ‘He’s checking the pace a fraction,’ said Hervey, shielding his eyes although the sun was on his back. ‘I wonder if …’

  Down came the Cossack lance points, and the flanks began extending.

  ‘I do believe he intends enveloping them! By God, he has nerve!’

  ‘Look,’ called Fairbrother, standing in the stirrups; ‘the reserve line’s high-tailing!’

  They had turned about as one, then galloped for the crest. It was so uniformly done that Hervey wondered if it was by design, except that the support line now disintegrated, half of them following the reserve and the other taking shelter with the front rank in what had become a misshapen and hollow square.

  ‘I can scarce credit it,’ he said. ‘What a reputation these Cossacks must have.’

  ‘You would have charged just the same in India, I think,’ suggested Fairbrother, his telescope out again.

  ‘Perhaps it’s easier to execute than to watch,’ said Hervey drily, scarcely able to credit, too, that his sabre was yet undrawn. And what silent battle this was, with not a shot yet fired. ‘Your first taste of action, Mr Agar, and quiet as the grave.’

  ‘Sir.’

  Hervey assumed the gun had canister loaded, waiting the moment – fifty yards. The Turks lowered their lances. Without artillery to make holes in the great steel-tipped hedge, the Cossacks would find it a deadly fence to take. What had induced the reserves to turn tail?

  Fifty yards … forty … and still no fire. Hervey tried in vain to make out what the gunners did, his line of sight obscured.

  But the Cossacks had no intention of taking the fence of steel. Just short of lance-contact they inclined left and right, tilting as they galloped the length of the line, taking advantage of their extra reach (the Turk lances three feet shorter) and the oblique attack. Sipahis fell here and there, but not a single Cossack.

  ‘And thus they test their mettle, it seems,’ said Hervey, not sure what to make of the Cossacks’ aversion to charging home, or the Turks’ to counter-charging.

  Round to the rear they galloped, deftly picking off any sipahi who stood a foot proud of the man to left or right. ‘Tent-pegging,’ muttered Hervey to himself; ‘pure sport.’

  But the game suddenly changed.

  Fairbrother saw it first. ‘My God – look yonder!’

  The crest was now topped by a line of red, as if a curtain had gone up – two hundred sipahis, perhaps more.

  ‘They don’t see them!’ gasped Hervey.

  The tent-pegging continued.

  ‘No – they do. They’re breaking off. But they’ll never get away in time. Damned impetuous Cossacks! Come on!’

  He put his mare into a gallop.

  Fairbrother dug in his spurs after him. ‘What in God’s name are you doing? This ain’t your fight. Let ’em break off and run for it!’

  But he would not. Hervey galloped for another hundred yards, pulled up hard by a dry stream bed a furlong in front of the skirmish, and looped his reins. He had not once looked behind to see who was with him; theirs was to be there. ‘Unship carbines and make read
y!’

  They did as they were told – seven men in extended line.

  Fairbrother closed to his side and spoke quietly. ‘It’s not our affair, Hervey. Don’t hazard all in an unworthy scrap.’

  ‘If we stand by and the Cossacks are worsted, we’ll never be received by a single Russian again.’

  Fairbrother said nothing. He would himself have taken that risk, but he did not have his friend’s obligations. For now, he was prepared to take a spear in the chest, but only because his friend was prepared to. He smiled at the contrariness of his own logic, and at what meagre price (to those who did not understand) he held his life.

  They loaded afresh, having drawn the charges after stand-down. Corporal Acton’s hands were as nimble as a card-sharp’s, tamping the wadding before the other two dragoons had yet dropped in the ball. ‘Bite harder when you reload,’ he told them, sharp but encouragingly. ‘And don’t fret about spilling at the pan. It’s always a business loading astride: the best of ’orses never stand stock still.’

  Even Johnson, sweat that he was, found Acton’s words welcome. As a rule he disliked NCOs, but it was strange how when there was trouble …

  ‘Volley or aimed shots?’ asked Fairbrother archly, seating the butt of his carbine on his off-foreleg.

  Hervey took no notice, clipping back the swivel ramrod while trying hard to fathom what they could do to help.

  Down the slope at a slow trot came the line of red, lances up.

  Why not just charge? he wondered.

  ‘Do they suspect a trap, sir?’ asked Agar. Even to his novice eye the Turk advance looked feeble.

  ‘Perhaps they’ve felt a Cossack lance too often. That or they’re wary of what might be concealed behind our hill. But rarely have I seen such passivity.’

  But the Cossacks too were leisured, peeling away from the fight as if it were a gen-khana.

  He shook his head. ‘It won’t serve.’

  But his dismay grew as he saw the esaul slip from the melee, like Reynard from the back of covert, and trot unheeded towards the cannon which the gunners had abandoned.

  ‘Great Gods, do you see, Fairbrother?’

  ‘I do. His folly knows no bounds.’

  The esaul, with two others now, cast lassos around the barrel to begin hauling it away.

  ‘Madness!’ gasped Hervey. ‘What the deuce does he mean?’

  ‘Booty: it’s in the blood!’ sighed Fairbrother.

  ‘And blood’s what they’ll pay for it if those fellows charge.’

  Yet still the mass of Turks was all confusion, and the line of red seemed content to let its steady advance drive off the Cossacks without clash of steel. None looked to save the cannon.

  But to Hervey it was plain as day: the line of red, unchecked, would overtake the esaul and his lassoers. Couldn’t they see that – any of them? He could only marvel at the Cossacks’ sang froid – and despair equally of the sipahis’ lifelessness. This was not war.

  And then abruptly, as if they woke from torpor, the flanks of the red line quickened pace, wheeling inwards in an envelopment that would catch the esaul and half the sotnia if they didn’t gallop clear at once.

  ‘Leave the damned gun and retire!’ spat Hervey. ‘What in the name of God …’

  But there was nothing he could do except rage: if the rest of the Turks recovered and advanced too, the whole sotnia would be overwhelmed.

  Still the esaul made slow way with the cannon (if only he had lassoed the trail instead of the barrel …).

  ‘Martyrs to their own folly, Hervey, but we can’t sit idly by,’ said Fairbrother, fretfully (and only too aware of his change of tune).

  ‘Yes, but I can’t see what—’

  In the strangely quiet battle of the arme blanche – for not even a pistol had been fired – the cannon’s sudden discharge came as a monstrous thunderclap.

  Hervey drove in his spurs instinctively. The others followed hard on his heels for the cannon. He jumped from the saddle. One Cossack lay dead, a bloody pulp; another writhed moaning, his knee smashed. The esaul staggered blindly, blood streaming down his face. His horse was dead; the others had bolted. Johnson reined his mount to a halt beside Hervey. Fairbrother jumped down to help get the esaul across Johnson’s saddle. Acton and the two dragoons covered them, Johnson holding the horses, leaving Agar alone to try to rescue the other Cossack. But he hadn’t the strength with one arm while holding the reins with the other. He leapt down. Acton saw and turned, leaning far out of the saddle to get a hand under the man’s shoulder. They just managed to haul him atop Agar’s prancing mare, and then Acton pulled Agar himself up.

  ‘Kick on back, sir. Fast!’

  Hervey and Fairbrother were back astride, the esaul across the pommel of Johnson’s saddle, turning to get him away.

  Acton swung round to see sipahis coming at them from every angle – and Cossacks.

  ‘You two,’ he roared to the dragoons: ‘to your front, ready, fire!’

  A volley of three: ‘farting against thunder’, he rasped. He could scarce believe they did it.

  At fifty yards it was a wonder even one ball struck, let alone all three. But strike they did, and toppled three Turks.

  There was a collective groan from the rest, as if at the parting of a great spirit: one of the three was the miralay, the commander.

  ‘Reload!’ barked Acton.

  The Cossacks had rallied and formed a lance shield. But Hervey knew it wouldn’t be enough. He drew his sabre and spurred to the middle of the line, waving it left and right – the signal to extend. He checked only for an instant, just enough to see they were with him, then plunged towards the wall of sipahis.

  Down came the Turk lances – the instinct to protect – but the charge was unnerving. The Turks bumped to a halt and the Cossacks fell on them with all the advantage of momentum.

  Hervey lofted his sabre and brought it down in a slicing blow to the nearest lance – Cut Two – striking it aside and driving the point into the sipahi’s chest (the lance was a fearsome thing, but useless in a melee). Stirrup clashed with stirrup as he forged past, recovering his sabre in time for a second – Cut One – at the bridle arm of the sipahi to his left.

  Acton, exactly placed as if at a field day, followed him through at two lengths and finished the Turk with the point.

  Hervey, clear through the line, glanced back. Sipahis were reining round desperately to escape – and on either flank disordered ranks of red stood mesmerized.

  Fairbrother all but grabbed his reins. ‘Hervey! Enough! See the breach there’ (a gap in the middle of the Turk line): ‘Let’s get through and back before they rally!’

  There was nothing ordered or martial about their flight. All Hervey knew was that his own men were ahead as he galloped clear, and that he would drive his little Kabardin until she dropped. They rallied – stumbled exhausted – at the top of the rise whence they’d first seen the Turks (he could see none now), and the Cossacks were cheering – cheering him.

  X

  REDOUBTS

  Siseboli, 8 April (three days later)

  Hervey turned up his collar. Smuts from the smokestack flecked his cheeks as the tender ploughed through the swell back to harbour. He had passed a good hour aboard the hospital ship with the esaul, whose face had not once betrayed the pain of wounds from which, Hervey knew, laudanum gave but partial relief. Such pride, such spirit – he was all admiration, if still doubtful of the soldierly judgement which had occasioned the wounds. But the esaul had said he wanted to test the Turk’s mettle, and so he had – to extreme, perhaps to excess (who could say?). The Turk cavalry had been inactive in the face of every inducement, and that was intelligence worth having. Even as the little band of Cossacks had fallen back on Siseboli, no sipahi had chanced within carbine range.

  Hervey had estimated their number in all to be fifteen hundred; it was a mystery why they had not used their advantage. But as for infantry, he had seen none. Had the esaul not been so anxious to be at the
sipahis’ throats, he might have been able to observe the marching regiments at a distance from a flank; but after the debacle, the Turk cavalry had pulled themselves together, extended their front and thrown out flankers, so that it had been a vain hope to get round them.

  He shrugged; there was no use comparing Cossacks with a squadron of English light dragoons. In any case, they had achieved the object of the patrol, to discover if the Turks were coming – and had given General Wachten twenty-four hours’ warning of the approach of the investing force. They might have learned even more, but with their captain hors de combat and surprise lost, there was little more Hervey could have done. He had taken command, by general acclamation, and had tried to handle them as if they had been a squadron of the Sixth … At least he had brought them all back without harm.

  And how they had all cheered him for it when they rode in through the gates of Siseboli. He had thanked them and told them what a privilege it was to lead them, but that it had been his duty to his own party alone that had compelled him to act, for his status was that of a neutral. Between Cornet Agar and the sotnik the meaning of that qualification had probably been lost, however; the sotnia cheered him even more.

  It was a strange sight before him now – a town under siege, observed from water. Howitzer and mortar shells arched high before plunging to their mark, and it was as if he watched a display of fireworks, for their effect on the ground was hidden from him. ‘Mark’, anyway, was scarcely apt, for the Turk gunners aimed blind, with no sight of the fall of shot – nuisance stuff, meant to demoralize. It was the big siege guns, the 24-pounders, which aimed for their mark – the walls of a fortress – and saw the result. Yet although the Turks had begun the investment the evening before, they had yet to bring up their siege train. When they did, they would find the town a tougher nut to crack than perhaps they supposed, for the Russians had been daily strengthening the defences. Hervey wondered if he would still be here when the guns came up, for the time was surely close when General Diebitsch’s great offensive on the Danube would begin, and it was this above all that he wanted to see.