On His Majesty's Service mh-11

by Allan Mallinson

  Hervey took a good sip. ‘Where did you find milk?’

  ‘T’Rousskis killed a nanny-goat, an’ there were a bit, still, in ’er udder.’

  ‘Posthumous milk – I do believe it’s the first I’ve had.’

  It wasn’t, but Johnson would not gainsay him, instead picking off a last bit of eggshell before handing over the meagre supper.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Hervey, suddenly feeling too tired to ask if by any chance there was a little salt. ‘Is that my bed?’ he asked, hopefully, nodding to a blanket the other side of the stone floor.

  ‘Ay, sir. There’s a bit o’ straw underneath, an’ a nice piece o’ silk I twisted into a pillow. This place were full o’ stuff when we came in, but t’Rousskis said they wanted it, an’ Cap’n Fairbrother said as not to stop them.’

  ‘Eminently sensible,’ replied Hervey, picturing with some dismay Johnson trying to defy a looting party.

  It was colder than the night before, which they had passed in a tent at the roadside amid cherry and walnut trees (the dew had fallen like rain); but the single blanket would do. He would sleep again dressed – but tonight with the comfort of his boots off.

  Johnson did not wake him until after seven (reveille was a quiet affair, no trumpets). An orderly had come soon after six and, with General Diebitsch’s compliments, asked that Hervey come to the headquarters at nine. Agar, just returned from stables, answered for him.

  As ever, Johnson woke him with tea, sweetened and with milk judged to have another day’s life, just, and with the additional information that he was expected at headquarters and that there was a bowl of hot water ready for him to shave. ‘And there’s bacon ’n’ eggs.’

  ‘Where did you find bacon?’ asked Hervey, rising stiffly on an elbow to sip the tea, wondering how much sleep he had had, for it felt like very little.

  ‘It were ’idden in t’chimney. It’s all right though.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it. A good-sized flitch, was it?’

  ‘It’ll last us a few days.’

  ‘Then perhaps you might make up some sort of forage bag. I intend taking a ride.’

  ‘Right, sir. I’ll make some more ’avercakes an’ all.’

  Hervey shaved quickly and then breakfasted at a table, which somehow had been spared the looting party, Fairbrother and Agar joining him for more coffee. He told them the headquarters news.

  Fairbrother looked uncertain. ‘A good deal seems to rest on the word of the prisoners. What if they had indeed discovered our march and were making a sortie to test our strength?’

  ‘It’s not impossible. But Pahlen’s position at Madara serves as an impediment to movement from east or west.’

  Fairbrother seemed content.

  ‘Might I go to Madara, sir?’ asked Agar. ‘There is a carving there of great antiquity I should like to see.’

  ‘A carving?’

  ‘Of a horseman spearing a lion.’

  ‘What is its significance, beyond the appeal of art?’

  Agar looked puzzled. ‘Well … it is thought to be Thracian-Greek, some three centuries before Christ.’

  ‘And there are not many of these?’

  Agar realized he had not described its singular dimensions and situation. ‘It is about twenty feet in height, carved high up in the side of a cliff.’

  ‘I see. I had imagined it to be yet another statue.’ (There had been many during their wanderings.) ‘By all means you may go. Corporal Acton shall accompany. Only return in good time – before last light.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. If I may I will start out at once.’

  When he was gone, Fairbrother lit a cheroot and stretched out his legs, until his chair creaked ominously. ‘How many men did you say the Vizier has in all?’

  ‘The estimate is thirty thousand, and upwards of fifty guns.’

  ‘Mm. A very even match, then … except in guns. Diebitsch has, what, three times that number?’

  Hervey nodded. ‘But in country so trappy it’s not perhaps so decisive. I think he’ll have the devil of a job bringing the Vizier to battle.’ He drained his coffee cup and rose. ‘See, I want to take a ride into yonder foothills. There’s nothing to occupy us here until Roth comes in. Will you ride with me?’

  ‘Of course. It’s a deuced tedious business riding with an army; I’d relish a gallop. But first, while you attend on the headquarters, I shall take a bath.’

  Hervey looked at him doubtfully.

  ‘There’s a Turkish bath here.’

  ‘Truly?’

  ‘Tellaks and all. The provost-marshal put it under guard, reserved it for the staff, but I fancy I’ll be able to get a ticket.’

  The summons to headquarters proved something of a misunderstanding, merely an invitation to breakfast with the officers. Hervey took coffee with them and left as soon as he was decently able, but not before the courtesy of seeking leave of the general-in-chief (or rather, his chief of staff) to ride out from the lines. He turned down the offer of an escort of Cossacks, explaining that he intended merely to see the country rather than the enemy. Besides, a pair of horsemen ought to present no alarm to Turkish scouts.

  They set off at eleven and headed due south. It was not yet hot, although the flies were troubling, and it was a relief to get into the fresher air beyond the outposts.

  ‘How was your bath?’

  ‘Quite excellent, thank you. There were only two others admitted. You should have come. But here’s the strange thing: the tellaks were Bulgar – and very good, too; very adroit with tired muscles – but no lover of the Turk, certainly. Not at all. There was much thanksgiving for the arrival of the Russians – all this was through the Russians of course, who obliged me with their French, but I believe it to have been honest – and they said there’d been many deserters of late, all complaining that the Vizier demanded of them unreasonable, impossible things.’

  Hervey nodded, as if unsurprised. ‘Then why had the rest of Yeni Bazar fled?’

  ‘Erring on the safe side to protect their women? Half the inhabitants were Turk anyway, it seems.’

  Hervey pondered. ‘Deserters – it certainly augurs well. But I’ve been thinking: if the Vizier doesn’t break off his siege at Pravadi, Diebitsch will have to force him to – and that would not be a battle in which he would have the advantage.’

  Fairbrother was doubtful the Vizier could stay put. ‘He must break it off when he learns Diebitsch might get between him and Shumla.’

  ‘I think you must be right.’ Hervey cleared his throat. ‘Then might we not ride towards Pravadi and see what’s afoot?’

  ‘I do believe it was your intention from the outset.’

  ‘Truly it wasn’t. I regret to say the significance of the timing of the Vizier’s withdrawal occurs to me only now. I confess I was deucedly tired last night.’

  Fairbrother pulled up suddenly. ‘There, yonder!’

  Hervey reached for his pistol.

  But his friend was pointing at the sky. ‘Is it an eagle?’ He took out his telescope. ‘I believe it is. But Golden or Imperial?’

  ‘I fear I’m unable to help. I’ve no knowledge how to tell between them,’ replied Hervey, and with some regret, since he had once prided himself on his eye for raptors.

  Fairbrother, in the way of his sudden interests, had become a student of ornithology during their journey out. He had bought Temminck’s Manuel d’ornithologie in London for his ‘campaign library’, as he called it, and had been annotating it almost daily with his sightings. ‘The species is only lately defined. The Imperial’s slightly smaller than the Golden, but how can one compare at such a distance? It might be a Bonelli’s, but that’s smaller still, and much lighter on its underside.’

  ‘Bonelli?’

  ‘Italian. A considerable naturalist.’

  ‘Do you recall the skirmishing line of vultures at the Cape, how grateful we were of their timely intelligence of the Zulu?’

  ‘Vividly.’ Fairbrother lowered his telescope and shook his h
ead; he would not be able to make a definitive entry at this range. ‘You know, I wonder that no one has yet devised a practicable use for the balloon in such work.’

  ‘Quite so. To observe an eagle in its milieu would be a fine thing indeed.’

  ‘No – I meant to use the eagle’s vantage of the plain. Napoleon – I beg pardon; Bonaparte – used balloons, did he not?’

  Hervey smiled. It was not often his friend turned his thoughts to soldiery when there were other distractions. ‘Forgive me. Indeed he did – aéronautiers, they called them. I think they saw service against the Austrians, but nothing of consequence. I have a notion they had some in Egypt too, and Sir John Moore destroyed all their apparatus. Strange, really, Moore being so innovatory a man. A pretty sort of toy, I suppose they all thought. I remember Peto saying he’d considered raising one from his quarterdeck to see beyond the horizon, but that he was always afeard the rigging would foul its cable – or the other way round. You know, I myself nearly made an ascent in Paris.’

  ‘I suppose nearly making an ascent has some distinction,’ said Fairbrother drily.

  ‘There was a longer waiting list than for the United Service, and when my turn came the wind was too strong.’

  They rode on for two hours thus, talking of balloons, the feathered world, ships and books, and all manner of tangential affairs, seeing a good many birds, but no Turks – nor even sign of Turks. Indeed, but for a goatherd, with whom they could make no communication at all, they did not see a soul, for the half-dozen settlements that passed for villages were as deserted as those on the road to Yeni Bazar. Whether the inhabitants had fled on the appearance of the Vizier’s men or General Roth’s, there was no way of telling.

  They began to climb – a gentle, even slope, ungrazed meadow with many violets; peaceful. When they reached the tree-line, however, they heard distant cannon. It was barely perceptible at first, but continual, and it increased as they gained height. And then it ceased abruptly, so that they found themselves once more in a still world, serene, the sunlight filtered by the green canopy; and then into a broad glade, with a slow-running stream. It was a fine place to make a halt.

  ‘How far do you say we’ve come?’ asked Hervey as he pulled out his map.

  They had trotted for no more than half an hour in the three. ‘A dozen miles … fifteen perhaps?’

  ‘Which must place us nearer to Pravadi than the sound of the cannon suggests. It’s a devil of a business being certain with maps like this.’

  ‘Pravadi’s in a deepish sort of valley, is it not? If the guns are at the foot of the cliffs surrounding it, there’s little wonder they make no great noise.’

  Hervey nodded; it made sense. ‘I wonder why they stop?’

  Fairbrother shrugged. ‘Perhaps to face Mecca. Who knows?’

  Hervey smiled. There was always cause, but it did not always follow that the cause was reasonable. ‘I fancy we might take our ease here a while. Do you note the flies are gone?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Let’s have our feast by the stream yonder, let these two drink and then picket them in the shade for an hour.’

  They dismounted, loosened the surcingles and girth straps and led the horses to the pool. The geldings drank long but steadily, for they had been watered in Yeni Bazar. Nevertheless, Hervey was again taken by the docility of these big Dons. He had no idea of their turn of speed, but they looked as if they could cover ground; and yet they were not so long-backed as to lack handiness.

  When the geldings had drunk their fill, Hervey and Fairbrother drove picket pegs into the ground under a spread of mountain oaks, and tethered them not too short. It was as peaceful as the great park at Windsor of a summer’s afternoon, or the hills above Longleat, but the discipline of years would never let Hervey indulge such a thought too long. ‘Better not off-saddle,’ he said.

  They unshipped their pistols and took the haversacks to a sunny bank of the stream. The Ordnance’s black bread, the hard-boiled eggs of unknown provenance, the bacon from a draper’s chimney, Johnson’s oatcakes, strawberries from the draper’s garden, and a flask of red wine of the country – a rough and ready picnic, but nonetheless agreeable.

  It was now beyond warm. Hervey’s brow had been wet beneath the band of his forage cap. It was good to be inactive at this hour, with shade and running water. The flies were no longer troublesome; only the occasional buzz of a mosquito intruded.

  When they had eaten, Hervey lay back with his hands clasped behind his head, looking at the clear blue sky beyond the leafy canopy, trying to fathom if it were different in any way from that he would have observed at the Cape, or India, or Spain, or even Wiltshire, on such an afternoon as this. He closed his eyes, conjuring with the thought of home in distant, simpler days.

  ‘Good heavens, see there,’ said Fairbrother suddenly, his voice all pleasant surprise.

  Hervey opened his eyes. ‘See what?’

  Fairbrother was peering with his telescope upstream towards a clump of willow. ‘There – hanging from the lower branches yonder, where they reach over to the middle stream.’

  Hervey took the telescope. ‘I see them. Like plumped pears hanging from cords. What are they?’

  ‘Unless I’m very much mistaken, nests of the penduline titmouse. I’d rather come to think they were never to be found. According to Temminck the eggs are quite exquisite.’

  ‘Perhaps we should gather some,’ suggested Hervey, studying the hanging colony of a bird he’d hitherto never heard of. ‘Do they make the nests themselves, or is it just such a thing as they take up?’

  ‘They weave them from whatever’s to hand – grass, spiders’ webs, hair. Do you see a bird?’

  He had not yet, though even with a telescope he sensed it would be difficult to spy a titmouse of any species in such cover. ‘Perhaps the apertures are on the other side, and the birds approach unseen. Would that not be Nature’s way?’

  ‘Let’s take a closer look,’ said Fairbrother, getting to his knees. ‘There must be eggs, or a brood.’

  Hervey was happy to indulge his friend. The horses were quiet, it would not take too long to stalk a hundred yards, and in any case he thought it a fine thing to be able to tell Georgiana. ‘Allons.’

  The friends stalked the diminutive bird with the stealth of the hunting cat. A full quarter of an hour – more – crouching, crawling, making like statues. But they discovered that Hervey was right: the entry to the nest was on the other side. Like good scouting dragoons, the birds approached from cover.

  As they drew within whispering distance, the titmice became visible – all activity, to-ing and fro-ing, endlessly purposeful.

  They lay watching, silent.

  A breeze got up from the south-east. The leafy branches of the willow trembled, the nests swayed slightly, the birds remained active.

  Then Hervey braced. ‘Voices,’ he breathed, gesturing.

  At once the birds flew from Fairbrother’s mind. He was back in the wild country of the Zulu.

  The voices were indistinct, but raised. No knowing how far off.

  Hervey looked back at the horses – quiet, and pretty well concealed in the shadow of the oaks. ‘Let’s get to the top of this hill and see where they’re coming from.’

  Fairbrother nodded.

  They rose to a crouch and waded cautiously across the stream, keeping close to the willows for concealment. They climbed the hill easily – the earth was firm, with roots and branches enough to get a hand to – and made the lee of the crest noiselessly and with breath to spare.

  The voices were now clear – and present.

  They crept on hands and knees, and broached the crest crawling leopard-like to observe beyond.

  Tents, pennants, caparisons – all the panoply of rank. A hundred yards away, no more.

  The Vizier sat in an ivory chair (there was no mistaking him), officers attending – anxiously, it seemed to Hervey. A horseman was dismounting. He wore a red cloak despite the heat of the day. He took
off his kalpak – the high-crowned hat of the country – and advanced with it in both hands held close to his chest as if in supplication.

  The Vizier spoke. His words were indistinct, but it seemed he was giving leave to approach the throne.

  The horseman now addressed him boldly. Hervey could catch none of it (how he wished Agar were with them). Except for three words, repeated by both men – the horseman with certainty, the Vizier with incredulity: ‘Bir schei yok.’

  In vain Hervey looked at Fairbrother for enlightenment.

  The Vizier flew into a rage, springing from his chair, gesturing at the horseman violently and shouting abuse.

  The horseman stood his ground, protesting.

  The Vizier raged on.

  The horseman angrily flung off his cloak. The Vizier’s officers stepped forward to examine it.

  ‘What do they do? What is it?’ whispered Hervey.

  Fairbrother took up his telescope. ‘It looks as if he’s showing that it’s shot through.’

  Hervey’s brow furrowed; what did it signify?

  Fairbrother had no idea either.

  Only remember ‘Bir schei yok’. They would know what it meant at Yeni Bazar. But for the moment they could only watch and wait – if only they could dare.

  And then as suddenly as he had become enraged, the Vizier sank back into his chair, head lowered. His officers looked at him, as if waiting on his decision. He rose again and gestured that he was finished with the matter. He laid a hand on the man’s shoulder and dismissed him with equability, then turned; and both Hervey and Fairbrother heard the word quite distinctly – ‘Shumla.’

  Officers began hurrying in all directions, horses were brought, tents were taken down. Had it not been for the rage and despondency, they might have thought the Vizier was about to lead his army through the breaches. But the air was of defeat, not victory – and the word ‘Shumla’ could mean only a retrograde movement?

  ‘The siege is abandoned,’ whispered Hervey. ‘What else?’

  It must have been the message the horseman brought – news, perhaps, of the approach of the Russians. Or that the walls withstood the fire? What did it matter; the Turks were beginning the movement that Diebitsch wished.