Lord George Irvine struggled to maintain proper supporting distance, while keeping the regiment in check so that he alone would judge the moment to release them for the charge. Hervey, finding Jessye easy in-hand as usual, stood in the stirrups for a better view. The long grass minded him of Salisbury Plain, and he reckoned the ground might yet be as broken and treacherous. But as long as the Twenty-third and the Germans were driving across it, what had he to worry about but the odd rabbit hole? Jessye was sure-footed enough on that account. But there were darker patches in the heath, and that meant water. And where there was water there would be ditches. For all the exhilaration of it, he began wondering if the pace were not too hazardous.
Colonel Elley stumbled on it first. Cantering fast but just in-hand, he managed to check. Then, with a great effort, he cleared the gully, landing well and swinging round to signal frantically.
Too late. The Twenty-third were running fast, too fast. The Germans were no better. They blundered onto it – a wide, dry watercourse the length of the brigade’s front. Some managed to clear it – a twelve-foot leap; some managed to circle; others tumbled one way or another down the side – eight feet at its deepest. Many were unable to scramble out again. Their second line, warned, tried to rein up, but most of them surged into the struggling remains of the first.
The French gunners were onto them in an instant, and the leading infantry of the left-hand column opened a biting musketry.
The Twenty-third’s colonel would not wait and rally, however. He pressed on with any who had leapt clear or managed to scramble out. They were not more than a hundred, and strung out behind him for a furlong and more.
Lord George Irvine still had the Sixth in-hand, and despite the melee the troop-leaders were able to choose their lines. Those troopers that could, jumped; those that couldn’t slid down into the gully and scrambled up the other side without too much trouble.
Jessye cleared it by a foot and more. ‘Good girl!’ shouted Hervey, as if he were galloping with Daniel Coates on the Plain.
There were few fallers, and none who looked back. Lord George pulled up, re-formed the lines at the trot, and then pressed on.
But the thin and ragged ranks of the 23rd Light Dragoons were half a mile ahead, and the Germans too. Half the Twenty-third now tore in at the hastily formed square of the 27e Léger. They fell in dozens, men and horses. The rest, in a swarm rather than a formation, chased behind Colonel Elley, who had swung left between the 27e’s square and the 24e of the Line’s, which the Germans now threw themselves against. For Elley had seen what no one else had – the French cavalry coming to the belated support of the infantry.
Lord George had no choice but to follow him, unless he wished to impale the Sixth on the infantry’s bayonets.
Elley and the remnants of the Twenty-third hurtled into the leading brigade of chasseurs with such momentum that the French line parted rather than meet them. But as the dragoons ran on to the second line, the first closed round them, pincers-like.
Lord George did not hesitate. With a furlong to run, he lofted his sabre and shouted, ‘Charge!’
The collision was appalling – exactly as Lord George meant it to be. Horses fell; riders disappeared beneath kicking hooves and dead flesh. Hervey all but closed his eyes as they ran in. He couldn’t use his sword for want of a man to strike at: all was confusion. But the French were thrown over by the shock of it; that was certain. He could hear the bugle – ‘rally’. Every sense told him to disengage.
He looked for his coverman, reining round to leave the hacking mass. Then he saw Laming, and three chasseurs at him.
He dug in his spurs harder than ever before. Jessye almost leapt the distance. His sabre struck powerfully – Cut Two – and the nearest chasseur lost his rein-arm at the shoulder.
His coverman swooped past and sliced at another, severing the sword-wrist.
Laming, with but one chasseur to deal, could now drop his guard. He brought up the blade like lightning – Cut Three – cleaving the man’s jaw from below.
Hervey circled, tight. ‘Are you well, Laming?’
Laming nodded. ‘Thank you. I really am most greatly obliged – to you both.’
Three men lay irrecoverably wounded at their feet, with nothing to staunch the copious flow of blood. Hundreds of others lay dead or mutilated not yards away. Yet Cornet Laming insisted on the proper courtesies. Hervey smiled by return.
They had surely confounded Joseph Bonaparte now? If only the commander-in-chief had been there! He would heap laurels on the Sixth, for sure! After all, the word had been that this was the battle in which he would raise himself to the peerage. And his cavalry had served him well – if, as ever, unobserved.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A BACKWARDS STEP
Badajoz, 3 September 1809
A month and more had passed – a month in the saddle, a march away from the French rather than towards Joseph Bonaparte’s capital. And this after decisive victory in the field! It had not been as the army hoped. But unlike the retreat to Corunna, the regiments’ self-esteem, and therefore their discipline, had not diminished. The army had not run before the French, as they had believed they were doing eight months before: Talavera was a famous victory; every man felt it. They had the measure of the French now. The infantry knew they could stand and volley, and throw back the columns which had marched all over Europe. The cavalry knew they were more than a match for twice their number – if chastened rather by the disarray of Anson’s brigade and Sir Arthur Wellesley’s rebuke in consequence (but what was wrong with high spirits, they asked?). The French artillery was the problem. Sir Arthur Wellesley had not the weight or the number of guns to pitch against them, and little prospect of acquiring more. And their Spanish allies were . . . at best unpredictable.
But Hervey and the other officers of the 6th Light Dragoons knew there were the makings of a successful strategy to evict the French from the Peninsula. Major Joseph Edmonds had told them. ‘Think of it,’ he had said one evening at mess. ‘They cannot merely sit on all those bayonets of theirs; this ain’t the sort of country. Bonaparte – major or minor – has got to defeat Wellesley, not just parry him. As long as the Spaniards can tie down French troops at Madrid and places, Wellesley can draw the rest on to ground of his own choosing. And I can’t see, from what I observed at Talavera, that they could overthrow him thence.’
‘And he will have the Portuguese, Edmonds; let us not forget that,’ Lord George had added.
They had all agreed: the Portuguese would be worthier allies. To all intents and purposes they were British troops – British-armed, British-dressed, British-drilled, British-led. They could fight. They seemed to want to fight. The mess had even raised their glasses to them: ‘A toast – His Majesty’s Lusitanians!’
And so, in spite of a retrograde march as long as Sir John Moore’s to Corunna, Sir Arthur Wellesley’s army was unbowed. They were not running for the sea; they were seeking favourable ground, and there they would bloody the French, just as they had done at Talavera.
Hervey had rediscovered the invigorating sense of being clean. Not clean-shaven (for that he was most days), nor clean-bodied (once a week there had been, as a rule, opportunity to strip-bathe in a bucket), nor even clean-vested (for he had managed that several times in the last month). It was, however, the three in combination that had eluded them ever since leaving Lisbon. At Badajoz, the day before, the cavalry had gone into billets – and not bad billets, although it was ever the regimental maxim that a modest billet was better than a good bivouac. With that respite from the march came the opportunity for thorough ablutions, and for ‘interior economy’, as the business of putting the regiment’s administration in order was known. The walls of Badajoz were washed on the northern side by the Guadiana, and bathing in that wide, gentle river, with soap, and clean linen to change into (and the prospect of regular bread and meat), made every dragoon think himself a new man – a new man capable again of the greatest exertion, whereas
but a day ago he had thought himself capable only of sleep.
Not that any dragoon expected great exertion. No walls they had seen since first coming to the Peninsula compared with Badajoz’s – not even at Elvas. The ditches, moats, ramparts and bastions, the river on the north side, the Rivellas stream on the east, were a picture of impregnability. The French would not attack here. No one ought to.
Hervey, like the rest, was enjoying this new sense of liberty, and, the officers’ duties being done for the day until evening stables, he felt able at last to address himself to a deficiency which had troubled him for the month past. In his billet, a comfortable house near the walls, he picked up his pen, hesitated for a moment while trying to decide whose letter should be first, and then began to write.My dear Dan,I cannot know if this letter will arrive before my last (on 27th July) wherein I told you of the day’s skirmishing with the French before the city of Talavera de la Reina. Hereafter I shall number these so that you may tell at once when there is an interruption in my reports. Since that letter, as well you may have read in the newspapers, we have fought a general action, which is to be called Talavera, and they say that more men fought here than at Blenheim! Think of that, Dan, for your own cadet has seen a battle as great as that. They say that Sir Arthur Wellesley will be made an Earl! I send you herewith a fair copy of my journal for the day, which I was able to set down within forty-eight hours of the end of the action, for the army was greatly knocked up on account of the fighting, and there was some rest. General Craufurd came up from Portugal with the Lt Brigade which they say made a most prodigious march as fast almost as cavalry, and they were received with great cheering all across the field, the like of which I never heard. And it was as well that they did for the Army has lost five and a half thousand. It was the most dreadful business, and the collecting of the wounded and burying the dead fair wore us out. The ground was so hard we could not dig, and so many dead we had to place in dried beds of winter torrents and cover as best we could, while many more and the horses were gathered in heaps and burned, a dreadful thing to do, but there was no other course for the sun was very hot. I confess the smell was intolerable. And many of the wounded, British and French, for both were treated the same, perished while lying in the blazing sun, in want of water, dressing, and shelter.The excitement of battle over, we all felt severe stomach cramps. But for some bread and peaches we had nothing for most two days. We cursed the commissaries greatly, but it was not all their fault, for bread had been baked for the Army before the battle, but the Spaniards had broken into the stores and made off with it, and many of these left the field altogether. Early next morning about 25 of the Spanish deserters, all dressed in white and accompanied by priests, were marched up in front of the Army and shot. One was a young lad, and he dropped before the party fired, but it was no use, for after a volley at 10 paces distant had been given by about 50 men, the whole party ran forward, and firing through heads, necks, breasts, &c, completed their grisly work.Since then we have been much about the country between Talavera and the Portuguese border, for Marshal Soult has marched from the north of the country where he had been reinforced since the battle at Oporto, and has collected an army of fifty thousand, which greatly threatens our lines of communication with Portugal since General Joseph Bonaparte has not been besieged in Madrid as it had been thought after the battle, and is able to fasten the Spanish of General Cuesta at Talavera, so that in dividing our forces we should be very materially at risk, and especially so now that it is certain that Soult has fifty thousand not twenty as was first supposed. We have marched up and down but now we are where Sir Arthur Wellesley intends staying. It is said that we should have marched on to Elvas, which is not many miles westwards of here, but that abandoning altogether Spanish soil was too hard a thing for the commander in chief after such a victory as Talavera . . .
Hervey wrote three pages of news, attached four more (the fair copy of his journal account of the battle), and then composed a second letter, to Horningsham. This was an altogether less dramatic account of the past month, with little narrative of the action to and fro, and even less of the battle itself, merely a line that ‘I was much about the field with my regiment but never in any danger’. One event he felt compelled to write of, however, even though his people knew nothing of the man, for he had never before mentioned him.Late in the day of the battle we were obliged to advance across country which had not previously been spied out, and which proved to have several hidden watercourses, some quite deep, and the brigade ran faster than was prudent, so that one regiment (the 23rd Lt Drgns) lost so many men fallen as to be severely disordered, and ours coming up in the support line lost some as well, on the left flank, and one cornet, Quilley, I am afraid broke his neck . . .
He wrote by way of expiation. Such had been the contempt for Quilley by the time of Talavera that there had been a general sneering at the news of the fall, ascribing it to a ‘what can be expected?’ lack of horsemanship. But when it became known that Quilley was dead, a certain sense of guilt – or perhaps it was merely distaste – had silenced all comment.
Hervey, indeed, had felt a good deal of shame at his first thoughts (that he wished it had been Cornet Daly instead). That was a part of his news that he could not impart to Wiltshire, either to his family or to Daniel Coates. For Talavera, for all that the steeples might be rocking in England now, had not been the occasion for amnesty: the court martial merely awaited opportunity. Hervey’s pleasure in going into quarters at Badajoz was therefore greatly tempered by the knowledge that at last there was the opportunity.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
AN OFFICER’S WORD
Badajoz, evening, Innocents’ Day, 1826
Hervey looked at the letter from Elvas again. It had been in his hand not a quarter of an hour, but it was intriguing him the more with each minute. The veiled speech and the knowledge that it was not the writer’s mother tongue – although as fine as ever he would expect to read from someone whose first language was not English – was increasing his doubts.
Elvas
28th DecemberMy Dear Friend,It pains me greatly that ten whole days have passed since your noble act, and yet you are still confined. I assure you, as I have each time, that I do not spare myself in seeking your return to Elvas in accordance with what I trust are your wishes. I am comforted to know that you are well treated, as I would expect of our great neighbour, Spain. These are confounding times, and I pray that proper relations shall be restored before long between two countries which are of one Catholic heart.
Hervey shook his head again as he re-read the sentiment. He recognized both the sincerity and the need to assure the censor – to engage his sympathy, even – but the words, truly, were too finely crafted, even for Dom Mateo, though he had no reason to suppose the letter was not his. In any case, the news it brought, heartening as it was, could scarcely have been from another, even if the singular puzzle over the identity of the ‘fellow of long acquaintance’ would now vex him. At least the identity of the other arrival at Elvas could be in no doubt:I am overjoyed to tell you that unofficial and friendly emissaries from Lisbon have arrived here this very hour. The one who has connections here, and in whose company we first made our acquaintance, shall be of exceptional assistance on account of family. The other is a fellow of long acquaintance to you, in a position of some authority and influence now. But more I cannot say until the greater comings are made generally known, for to do so might tempt hasty action, or diminish the consequence at the highest level.
So, Isabella Delgado was in Elvas! Hervey felt more reassured than he had in days. Why, he would have been hard put to say; except that there was about Isabella a great air of capability and judgement, as well as connections with the bishop’s palace in Elvas, which in turn meant connections in Badajoz – perhaps even in Madrid. However, such an oblique reference to the identity of the second arrival could suggest no name to him more likely than any other, except the mention of authority and influence. ‘Authority
’ ruled out Kat. Thank God, for Kat’s charms and talents did not seem to him well matched to the frontier. There were any number of officers who might answer to the description, especially since he had no idea of the magnitude of the authority and influence Dom Mateo had in mind. There were generals, indeed, who might feel some slight obligation to him. But could a general be an ‘unofficial’ emissary? He thought not.
‘The greater comings’ was maddeningly ambiguous. Hervey saw perfectly well that the words could refer to the visit of senior officials (and with that, public humiliation and the Horse Guards’ discipline). But might they refer to comings to Portugal, rather than to Elvas? And might ‘greater’ mean greater in number rather than rank? In other words, had a British army landed in Lisbon?
Dr Sanchez came about six. Hervey did not know if he had seen the letter (Sanchez had brought all the others, but this one had come by an orderly – which had first put Hervey on his guard somewhat). He thought to judge his moment before revealing its receipt or contents.
They sat down to wine, the physician in distinctly good spirits.
‘You know, Major Hervey, I have been thinking about Talavera since you recounted it to me. I believe I must have seen your regiment that day. The Duke of Albuquerque’s corps stood in the valley north of the ridge you spoke of. I confess I recall it very well, in fact, since I was astonished – and I was not alone in that sentiment – that our corps made no move.’ Sanchez shook his head, not pained, but evidently embarrassed. ‘But what did I know, a mere regimental surgeon? And it was a long time ago.’
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