An Act Of Courage h-7

by Allan Mallinson

  ‘You would be parson?’

  Hervey smiled. ‘I take your point.’

  Laming’s second servant had brought a bottle of wine, the red of Estremadura, rough and warm but refreshing nonetheless, and infinitely to be preferred to the brackish water they had been forced to drink of late. The horses pulled at the parched couch grass as the two cornets sat with them, reins in hand. The sun was fierce, though not as bad as it sometimes was at this time of year, said their Spanish guides. The Sixth had lost twenty horses to the heat, and although the other regiments had lost many more, John Knight had been beside himself on a dozen occasions. The King’s Germans weren’t losing as many, he would thunder. Remounts were nigh impossible to come by. Why wouldn’t the officers regulate things better?

  ‘You know,’ began Laming, intent yet on Cornet Daly, who had still not off-saddled his colt, ‘I believe we cornets ought to speak as one to the senior subaltern.’

  ‘And what might that do?’

  ‘We should demand that we buy them out.’

  Hervey was doubtful. He had heard of the practice, though never of any particular. He had no great objection: he probably stood to lose no money, if the regimental agents handled it well. ‘Would that not take an inordinate amount of time?’

  ‘I don’t see why. These things can all be arranged among gentlemen.’

  Hervey raised an eyebrow.

  Laming sighed. ‘I acknowledge the difficulty in that respect. But what say you?’

  ‘If it could be brought off without rancour, then I say yes.’

  Laming nodded. ‘Very well, I shall speak to Martyn. He will have sound counsel. The sooner it’s done the better, for the further we march from Lisbon the harder it will be to induce either of them to sell.’

  That evening, the regiment encamped a league to the east of Talavera among olive groves, finding an old well which, after they had dug it out by pick and shovel, yielded enough water for both men and horses, though the relays had to work for four hours before watering was complete, and another three to fill the buckets ready for morning stables. ‘Never did I know the back-breaking work that is a cavalry camp until this day’ wrote Hervey in his journal:We halted at Three o’clock, the horses very tired and showing the want of meat and water. Our three days of marching rations are exhausted, and there was no corn to be had from the commissaries when they came at six. Neither have the men eaten today. They have taken every olive from the trees, which are abundant, but they are very sour. I myself have nothing at all, having eaten the last of the pocket soup for breakfast. There is tea, but no sugar, and little wine. We hope to stay here for a day so that our supply may be restored, for it is as bad with the rest of the army, they say, and worse. We hear of a general action in the next few days, for the French are in strength the other side of the Alberche, and, goes camp tattle, ‘King’ Joseph Bonaparte himself is with the army. How ironic it shall be when we fight a Royal French army!

  ‘Sir! Will you come, please? Mr Daly’s horse is down and there’s a hell of a to-do about it!’ The orderly corporal sounded angry rather than perturbed.

  Hervey sprang up and buckled on his sword. He had hoped for another half an hour with his journal before rounds as picketofficer. ‘Is the orderly quartermaster there?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He sent me.’

  Hervey stalked off for the horse lines, leaving Sykes to the care of his journal.

  ‘Where is Mr Daly?’ he snapped.

  ‘At the lines, sir.’

  ‘Then why am I called?’

  The orderly corporal hesitated. ‘Orderly quar’m’er’ told me, sir.’

  ‘Yes, Corporal, but why?’

  ‘Mr Daly is right angry, sir.’

  ‘With what reason?’

  The orderly corporal hesitated again. ‘He’s taken against the quar’m’er’, sir.’

  Hervey was becoming irritated by the evasion, but saw no profit in fighting it. ‘I wish they would save their anger for the French,’ he muttered.

  It was getting dark, but the light of the campfires was good. The olive trees may have yielded a poor supper but they gave off a good blaze. Hervey could hear Daly cursing as he got near the end of H Troop’s lines; he sounded drunk. Then he saw Daly’s colt on the ground, like a mare foaling. The orderly quartermaster, B Troop’s, stood erect and silent to one side, and beyond him half a dozen dragoons from the inlying picket, while Daly ranted, and swung his arms about.

  Hervey could not begin to imagine what was the occurrence. ‘Daly, what ever is up?’

  Daly spun round, his eyes blazing. ‘This man is insubordinate!’ he raged. ‘I’ve placed him in arrest.’

  Hervey was not sure if a cornet could place the regimental orderly quartermaster in arrest. He was certain that it was ill advised. But why was the colt down? ‘Serjeant Treve, what is the meaning of this?’ And then, before the orderly quartermaster could reply, he rebuked himself for the distraction and turned back to Daly. ‘What is the matter with your colt? Is the veterinary called?’

  ‘Sir, he is, sir,’ answered Treve, determinedly.

  Daly cursed more. ‘I’ll call the vet’nary when I’m ready! This man must be confined, Hervey!’

  Hervey bristled. Seniority among cornets might count for little, but he was damned if he was going to be spoken to like that by a newcome. And he was picket-officer! ‘Hold your peace, Daly, if you will.’ He turned back to the orderly quartermaster. ‘Speak, Serjeant!’

  Treve, B Troop’s senior serjeant, a Dorset man, sixteen years in the regiment, remained at attention and spoke quietly. ‘Sir, I was making my rounds and came on Mr Daly and his charger. The animal was down and in distress. Mr Daly was holding a cautery, sir. He said he’d fired out the lampas. I told the picket-commander to fetch Mr Knight at once, sir. Mr Daly protested that I was not to, but I said as it was my duty, sir. And then, sir, I regret to say, Mr Daly became abusive. Sir.’

  ‘That’s a damned lie!’ screamed Daly, lunging towards Treve.

  Hervey, boiling at the thought of the botched firing, stepped between them and held up his hand. Daly halted, swaying. Hervey wished there were another officer to take hold of him. ‘Mr Daly, you will retire at once and report to the adjutant!’ He knew it was a mistake as soon as he spoke, the proverbial red rag to a bull already enraged by the orderly quartermaster’s correctness.

  Daly lunged again – whether at Treve or Hervey, no one would ever be quite certain. The orderly quartermaster stood his ground. Hervey squared, and swung his left fist, striking Daly in the temple.

  He fell – out, cold.

  ‘Oh, God,’ groaned Hervey. But better he than the orderly quartermaster. Could he have restrained Daly otherwise, though?

  ‘What in heaven’s name’s going on?’ came a voice behind them.

  Hervey turned to see John Knight with a lantern.

  ‘What’s the infernal commotion? In the horse lines, of all places!’

  Hervey began to explain.

  John Knight was horrified. ‘Stand easy, Sarn’t Treve.’ He handed the lantern to his assistant and knelt down by the motionless colt. ‘Christ! What a fever,’ he spat, running a hand along the sweating neck and shoulders. ‘Light, Brayshaw!’

  The assistant held the lantern close to the colt’s head as the veterinary surgeon tried to prise the mouth open.

  ‘Hervey, give a hand here.’

  Hervey knelt, turning to the orderly corporal. ‘Go and bring Mr Beale-Browne, please.’

  ‘Ay, sir.’

  ‘And tell him all you can!’

  ‘Ay, sir.’

  John Knight had managed to get the colt’s mouth a little way open, but it took the two of them to prise it far enough for him to get a finger to the roof – risky business that that was. The colt struggled, legs lashing out. Hervey held the mouth wide for all he was worth.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, the palate’s like . . .’ John Knight took out his hand. ‘Leave off, Hervey. God knows what I can do. Brayshaw, make
me up a gargle for mouth canker: vinegar, two parts burned alum and salt, and one of bole armenic.’

  ‘Sir.’

  John Knight looked to where Daly lay sprawled. ‘How does he?’

  The orderly quartermaster answered. ‘He’ll be well enough, sir.’

  John Knight huffed. ‘Then more is the pity.’

  All Hervey could do now was wait for H Troop’s lieutenant. Daly had to be removed from the horse lines, and that was a job for his fellow troop-officers. He himself would have to make his report to the adjutant, and already he was wondering how it would be received.

  He got up, spoke quietly to the orderly quartermaster, bade him dismiss the picket and continue his rounds, then turned back to John Knight.

  ‘Christ!’ spat the veterinarian again.

  Hervey saw. The colt lay quite dead.

  Next morning, Hervey made his report to the adjutant after stand-down. Lieutenant & Adjutant Ezra Barrow, ‘the inelegant extract’ as the blades had dubbed him, listened seemingly unperturbed. Extract he may be, but he was the commanding officer’s extract, brought in by him from his old regiment, and therefore carrying authority without the need to display it. Barrow had seen much during his eighteen years in the ranks of the 1st Dragoons, but dispute between gentlemen-officers he was not well prepared for. To him, the officers’ mess was still terra incognita. He had observed its native habits at a distance for many years, and they had seemed alien indeed; but now that he stood on the same ground as they, he sometimes felt he knew them not at all. He was adjutant, however, the lieutenant-colonel’s executive officer, and he would attend to what was before him now as if it had been a mere case of indiscipline among dragoons.

  Except that when he heard the words ‘I was obliged to strike him’, he realized that they were all treading in deep water. ‘Striking’ was a word with resonance, the mainstay of many a charge-sheet: ‘striking a superior’, ‘striking a subordinate’, ‘striking an officer’. For a moment his head swam. Which of these charges was appropriate? A cornet had struck another cornet: he had no idea which of them was senior (it was a trivial thing among cornets anyway, was it not?). Might one officer be charged with ‘striking an officer’? It was surely not the purpose of that particular formulation . . .

  ‘A moment, Mr Hervey, if you please,’ he replied, in the grating vowels of Brummagem. ‘As I recall the serjeant-major informing me at stand-to, the orderly quartermaster informed him that you interposed yourself between Mr Daly and the same, and that Mr Daly then fell unconscious on account of his . . . hysteria.’

  Hervey was surprised. Was that truly how it had appeared to Serjeant Treve, or was it the exercise of rough regimental justice? Either way, he could not let it stand, tempting though it undoubtedly was. ‘No, sir, I did strike a blow, believing it necessary to prevent Mr Daly’s hitting me or Serjeant Treve.’

  Barrow sighed. ‘You might have waited to make sure, Hervey. That way there’d be no doubt of what we’re about now.’

  Hervey was taken aback. ‘I believe I might have weathered the blow without too much injury, sir, but Daly would now be facing a grave charge one way or the other.’

  ‘Or not at all.’

  ‘I have no doubt he was about to assault one or other of us. His whole demeanour spoke of it, then and before.’

  ‘Your fellow cornets will not thank you, Mr Hervey,’ said Barrow, shaking his head with a distinct look of disappointment.

  Hervey was puzzled. ‘What do you mean, sir?’

  ‘I mean that one way or another Mr Daly would have been in such trouble as to lead to his employment elsewhere. That is what you have been plotting, is it not?’

  ‘Sir, that is—’

  ‘Have a care, Mr Hervey. I may not share your learning, but it is my business to know what goes on in this regiment, and I do not neglect it.’

  ‘No, sir, of course.’

  There was silence. A huge horsefly settled on Barrow’s neck. Hervey strained to warn him, but stood at attention instead, waiting leave to speak. After what seemed an age, the horsefly left in search of other flesh. Hervey wondered why it had not stung – or how Barrow had not felt it if it had. For weeks they had been plagued by them. Was the adjutant’s skin literally as thick as the cornets supposed?

  Barrow sighed again. ‘Mr Hervey, the veterinary surgeon has already been to see me. He wants Mr Daly to be charged for mistreating his horse. The serjeant-major believes he should be chastised for abusing Serjeant Treve in front of the picket, too. And no doubt you will expect charges regarding his menacing and assault.’

  ‘No, sir. Daly was drunk.’

  ‘I thought officers got intoxicated, Mr Hervey?’

  Hervey considered himself in too precarious a position to rise to the bait. ‘No doubt Mr Laming would prefer the word, sir.’

  ‘Ah yes, Mr Laming and his Greek. Very useful skill in an officer.’

  ‘Except the word is Latin, sir.’

  ‘Don’t quibble, Mr Hervey.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir. I meant no disrespect.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it, otherwise I would have had your sword this instant.’

  Hervey braced up again. He was not at all on firm ground, much less than he had imagined.

  ‘Well now, for the time being there is no need to render this in writing, not until I have spoken to Mr Daly and then the lieutenant-colonel. You had better speak to Captain Lankester meanwhile. Is there anything else?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Very well, dismiss.’

  Hervey replaced his forage cap, saluted, turned to his right and marched from under the shade of the olive tree, which was the adjutant’s orderly room. He had had nothing but broth to eat in thirty-six hours, but that was not the reason he felt sick.

  * * *

  When he reported to Sir Edward Lankester, Hervey found that his troop-leader was already aware of the turn-out (indeed, the entire regiment appeared to be, according to Private Sykes).

  Sir Edward looked pained. To the dismay of not being able to feed his troop – horses or men – was now added the distaste of one of his officers fighting with another. ‘I know that it was not brawling, Hervey, but that is what the canteen will be saying. It does not do to have officers appearing at odds with each other. There are badmashes who would take advantage, if I may borrow a word from our Indian friends. It’s not so very long ago that I recall speaking with you of advancement, and here we are now contemplating the very opposite!’

  Hervey shook his head. He was a cornet of but a year – less; Sir Edward Lankester was a captain of much experience. But Corunna had steeled him in considerable measure. ‘Truly I do not see what else might have been, Sir Edward, except to be knocked down by him. If I had merely stood in his way there would have been a struggle of some kind, just as repugnant, for he was much taken by drink. And I have at least spared him the charge of striking a subordinate, which I had every belief he might do.’

  Sir Edward held up a hand. ‘I don’t doubt any of it. But are you able to say that your action was in no degree animated by the anger at seeing the horse?’

  ‘No, I cannot, Sir Edward. But I do believe that it made not the slightest difference to the outcome. Daly was drunk and attempted an assault. I defended myself.’

  ‘A little prematurely, some might say.’

  ‘They would not if they had been there, Sir Edward.’ He paused. ‘And there were witnesses.’

  Sir Edward nodded, thoughtfully. ‘Ah yes, witnesses. The orderly quartermaster and the picket. How do you suppose that would serve – a serjeant and dragoons giving evidence against an officer?’

  Hervey said nothing. It was a loathsome prospect. But he had imagined Daly would be facing two charges: causing unlawful injury – even death – to an animal in the King’s service, and drunkenness (the latter offence obviating any graver charge of assault, threatened or otherwise). Why, therefore, was his troop-leader speaking of witnesses? ‘Sir, I am revolted by the notion, but I believe
I acted honourably as picket-officer. I trust that Mr Daly will do likewise now.’

  Sir Edward sighed. ‘There is the rub, Hervey. Warde has told me already that Daly intends bringing charges against you.’

  Hervey felt sick again.

  ‘But be assured, I don’t doubt you for an instant. I shall go with Warde to the colonel to see if this may be resolved directly. For the meantime, I trust you will not speak of it. The very best thing will be to remain active: take a patrol north to see if there’s anything to be bought by way of rations. Return by midday. Take Serjeant Strange with you.’

  ‘Yes, Sir Edward.’

  Hervey took his leave, feeling better for the expression of trust, except that by specifying Serjeant Strange, Sir Edward spoke of some doubt still. Strange was the steadiest NCO in the troop, probably in the regiment.

  An hour later, in the shade of the same olive tree, the adjutant announced A and H Troop leaders to the commanding officer: ‘Captain Lankester and Captain Warde, Colonel.’

  Lord George Irvine looked up from his camp-chair. ‘I can offer you no hospitality, gentlemen, but take your ease, if you will.’ The first of the mules had come up with the regiment’s baggage, so there were at least chairs for them to take, if nothing else. ‘I compliment you both on your stables again. I thought the horses in extraordinarily good condition at muster, all things considered.’ He smiled. ‘Even John Knight says so.’

  ‘Thank you, Colonel,’ they replied.

  Lord George shook his head, and looked grave again. ‘Wellesley’s going to have to fill some bellies, though, if he intends a general action. I’m assured there’s bread and beef on its way to us, and, by God, not before time; but there’s nothing of corn yet.’

  ‘It could be worse, Colonel. There’s plenty of couch grass, at least,’ said Warde, holding up a cigar.

  Lord George nodded, and again at the cigar.

  Warde lit it – a quarter of a fine Havana, which was all that remained of his supply after two months marching in what they had begun calling the Wilderness. ‘I wonder if we might boil up these olives the Good Lord has provided. There are trees for miles, say the guides.’