Daniel Coates had never told him about the little voice, he was sure. But the old dragoon must have had a sense of it, since almost his last words were that he had taught him all he could remember, but some things commissioned rank alone knew. ‘A noncommissioned officer knows how to get a thing done,’ he had said. ‘But the officer must first tell him what it is that’s to be done.’ A powerful obligation on a young head, Coates had said.
Hervey did not like the idea of a young head. He had wanted to count himself a proficient as soon as may be. Now, he was weighing Daniel Coates’s words very carefully.
There were shots – two. Then a pause. Then three or four more. The dragoons braced, as if to the serjeant-major’s cautionary word of command. The horses braced. Hervey woke; the voice was gone – forgotten. He put his mare into a trot and closed with Martyn.
‘The Fifteenth have run into a picket post, by the sound of things,’ said Martyn, his voice raised against the wind, though not as much as he would have needed but a half-hour ago. ‘We must be closer to Sahagun than I’d thought.’
Hervey tried to see the time by his watch, but couldn’t. It was no lighter than it had been for much of the night – no moon, no sign of the dawn. And now the garrison was alerted. He wondered in whose favour that would work.
A mile west of the town, about the distance that Lord Paget’s column stood to the south, were the Tenth and General Slade. Slade’s watch, with the aid of a lantern, told him it was six o’clock, and that in a half-hour he was to begin his drive, like beaters at a shoot. Whether these French birds would crouch like partridges until the last moment, putting up low and fast, the covey flying tight as one, or whether like fat pheasants they would lumber away noisily all over the place, he could not know. But, as on a well-run shoot, he could at least have his beaters smart and regulated. Slade decided he would halt, dress the ranks properly, and inspire them with rousing words before going at his work. It was his first time in action, and he meant to take all care to see that nothing went awry. He did not hear the picket’s shots, nor those returned by Lord Paget’s scouts.
The main column was moving again. Not yet at a true trot – irregular jogging and a deal of barging.
‘I’m damned if I can see a thing now,’ complained Martyn. ‘That moon has been very disobliging this last hour.’
But in a minute or so they caught sight of French prisoners, the remains of the picket. Hussars from the Fifteenth were covering them, and Hervey wished it had been they not the ‘tabs’, as for some reason the Fifteenth were known, for this was glory indeed. But then he remembered that Captain Edmonds’s troop would now be slipping north of the town, like ringing fingers closing round the neck of a fat goose. Theirs would be the fight as much as the Fifteenth’s; just as soon as the Tenth beat the ground and drove the game on to them.
Hervey was glad nevertheless to be in Sir Edward Lankester’s troop. Besides liking his captain and judging that his example was the best to follow, Hervey was uncertain of Joseph Edmonds’s temper. Edmonds had welcomed him right enough when first he had reported for duty at the depot, and his troop seemed to have a harder edge to them than the others, perhaps because there were more sweats from India or Holland. Edmonds was a gentleman – no doubt of it – maybe even of a more natural and profound quality, but Hervey had been cautious nonetheless. But no man knew better how to handle a troop than Edmonds; that every man seemed to agree.
Perhaps, then, it would have been better had he been with Edmonds’s troop still, for at this rate it looked as if all they would see would be dead Frenchmen. Perhaps, though, when dawn eventually came, the French would see Lord Paget and assail him. There would be his chance, for then the laurels would be un-rationed. And had he not been dismissed from both riding-school and skill-at-arms with uncommon speed? Quicker, perhaps, than rough-riders and master-at-arms could remember? That was what the adjutant had said. If it came to the fight hand-to-hand, he would surely be a match for a French chasseur? If only the moon would show again, or the dawn come!
The walls of the town loomed, not as high as a true fortress but solid enough. And the column was inclining east, following the road as it turned a right angle. Hervey thought it odd they were not fired on; was there not one tirailleur brave enough?
It was half an hour, perhaps, since the first shots. If the Fifteenth had not got their scouts well ahead, would the French not be forming up now ready to meet them? Hervey imagined more shots at any second. Perhaps they might already be running east, though – free? He could hardly bear the thought. But the French had surely had the time to rouse and muster, no matter how off-guard they had been?
‘Qui vive?’
It came down the column like a Babel brook, and the thrill with it. At last they were closing with the French!
Hervey itched to draw his sword.
‘Qui vive?’
Again. It must have been repeated fifty times along the column, like ripples from a stone in a mill pond. But they didn’t check the pace, not for a moment – a fast walk still, and a jogtrot every so often to close a gap. Who was challenging? Did they fall back as they did so? Why were there no shots?
A few furlongs north, riding parallel with them indeed, though Lord Paget could not know it, was Edmonds and his troop. Their progress was not so easy, for the country there was well wooded, and the snow had drifted more, but they too were hearing ‘Qui vive?’ and wondering why, when he gave no answer, the videttes did not open fire on them.
West of the town still, in the same position he had halted half an hour before, General Slade was finishing his rousing speech. It had been too long. Even if his audience had not been so damnably cold it would have been too long, for it was full of needless rhetoric, of bravado even. Many of the Tenth’s officers shifted in the saddle with embarrassment, and not a little distaste, for Slade now exhorted his command to ‘feats the day would quake to look upon’, and to ‘an affair that will be writ down large in the annals of the cavalry!’
But while Slade declaimed, General Debelle was able to assemble his own command unmolested and with perfect regularity – exactly the condition that Lord Paget had most calculated to avoid, for there were perhaps twice as many Frenchmen as he himself could match in his depleted brigade. In truth, there was still no telling how many men Debelle had.
‘Very well, the Tenth! Blood and slaughter! March.’
And with that, Slade at last began his drive.
It had stopped snowing now, but it was still too dark even to contemplate bringing the accompanying gun into action. Paget had brought two, giving one to Slade. He had fancied they might serve him as the ultima ratio, for the ground favoured him (as far as the observing officer who had first reconnoitred the town had described it to him). If he could get to the little bridge over the Valderaduey – not a deep or a wide river, but in this weather obstacle enough – he could command Sahagun’s eastern approaches with canister. But what Paget could not understand was who these French were challenging him out of the dark, or how many they were. And where was Slade? Could these Frenchmen be the Tenth indeed, having overrun the town? But why would they shout ‘Qui vive’? Where was Slade?
Hervey’s thoughts were now solely of when he might draw his sword. He had scant enough knowledge of the general’s design and an imperfect conception of how the ground lay, for his was not a position of advantage so far back in the column. But he could hear the Qui vives clearly now. Why did the French videttes persist? What did they want to hear – whether the reply was in Spanish or English? Could they really think they were French?
He thought it the queerest thing, marching in column along a road with the enemy in the fields close by unable to make out what things were and therefore what to do. Was it always like this? Would he ever know what was really happening? Later their tracks would reveal it all: Debelle and Paget moving in parallel a couple of hundred yards apart, separated by snowy vineyards in their winter truncation, and a dry ditch. The skirmishers perhaps had a
notion of it, but their field of view was too small to comprehend the symmetry of the march. Debelle wanted to get to the little bridge over the Valderaduey too, the only crossing point in the darkness, but he could not shake off the shadowy force on the road.
It was getting light. Lord Paget could make out quite clearly now mounted figures in the fields the other side of the road – not many, ones and twos here and there, but no more than a hundred yards away.
Suddenly there was cheering, then firing – a peppering of carbines from the fields.
‘Aha! The videttes have decided it,’ said Paget, though with no more to his voice than had he been observing hounds drawing a distant covert. He strained hard to make out precisely where the cheering was coming from. And then he thought he had it, for what he had first supposed to be the dark background of the wooded slopes beyond the fields now looked like close ranks of horsemen.
Beyond the flashes of the videttes’ carbines was, indeed, General César-Alexandre Debelle’s brigade – three hundred sabres of the 8e Dragons, and a further four hundred of the 1er Provisoire Chasseurs à Cheval – all drawn up ready to charge, the chasseurs in the first line, with only a dry ditch between them and their bold videttes. Lord Paget could have but a very incomplete picture yet, but his instinct told him all he needed: a body of cavalry stood not two furlongs away, and his own command, inferior in number, was in column of route. It was a position that could at once turn to disaster.
Paget knew the Dundas drill book, Instructions and Regulations for the Formations and Movements of the Cavalry, and he knew it well. To get his column to face left in line would require, at the least, twenty-two verbal commands, including seven of ‘halt’. But he knew he could trust the Fifteenth’s commanding officer to have a handier way.
‘Fifteenth Hussars, left face!’
Colonel Colquhoun Grant had fought with the 25th Light Dragoons at Seringapatam and had led the 72nd Highlanders at the recapture of the Cape. He was not a man of unnecessary words of command. He had drilled his regiment to a handiness which, if it would not please a general officer at a review, would certainly delight one in the circumstances in which Lord Paget now found himself.
‘Hussars, form divisions! Wheel into line!’
It was done in less than a quarter of a minute, and as the men wheeled to face their adversaries, visible to all at last in the dawn’s cold grey light, they gave out a great cheer: ‘Huzzah!’
Not twenty yards behind Lord Paget, Hervey felt the deep-throated roar as much as he heard it. His spine shivered. He had heard hounds baying a hundred times, but never with such a lust as these men now gave tongue to. This was it. This was the moment he had prayed would come. Going knee-to-knee in the charge, he would soon be able to count himself a true cavalryman. But when would they draw swords?
Lord Paget knew exactly. It was an error to draw swords before the very instant of attack, for otherwise the effect was diminished. He had known an enemy waver and then break at the mere sight of the sabre’s edge revealed.
He took in all before him with one more glance about the field – the coup d’oeil, the cavalryman’s advantage – then made his way to the centre of the line.
Hervey and the escort followed, throwing off their cloaks, sword arms free and eager.
‘Draw sabres!’ called Paget.
Out rasped the better part of four hundred and fifty blades.
Lord Paget knew his drill book, and he knew his colonels too. Now he would show that he knew his history. ‘Fifteenth Hussars: Emsdorf and Victory – charge!’
The line took off like the field on Newmarket Heath when the flag was dropped. It was not as it should be – not the progression of walk, trot, gallop, charge – but Hervey scarcely noticed. There in front was Lord Paget, sword arm outstretched, the escort behind, left and right, and behind them the hussars crying ‘Emsdorf and Victory!’
The strangest things crowded his mind – tilting at sheep in Longleat Park astride a young Jessye, the races at Shrewsbury, Daniel Coates shouting not to let his sword arm bend: ‘Seek out your man and ride hard for him!’
He hoped to ride hard for an officer, but he couldn’t make one out. Why did the French stand to receive and not counter-charge?
He saw the carbines come up and heard the shots – he thought. He saw the smoke for sure. They hadn’t the slightest effect.
And then into the smoke, and then they were among them. Robert, his gelding, plunged between two horses that had turned already. Hervey’s right leg struck a chasseur’s boot hard, almost heaving him from the saddle. He lost a stirrup, cursed, swung back blindly with his sabre – ‘Cut Two against infantry’ the closest he dare call it – felt it strike, and followed through with his arm still straight. He saw the blood as the sabre came full circle.
Now they were on the dragoons in the second line, the chasseurs thrown back in confusion. There were horses and men down – shrieks, squeals, curses, groans, prayers for mercy. The French ranks were deep, all Greek helmets and plumes. It was like diving into a black pool, wondering if he would break the surface before running out of air. He cut and thrust left and right, as if hacking through thicket. He felt blows, but no pain. He heard shouting, orders, but they made no sense. All that mattered was to get through the mass of men and into the clear air beyond. Where Lord Paget was he had no idea. He could see men of his own regiment, and the Fifteenth, but not the general.
Then, as suddenly as they’d clashed, he was through, and gasping for air just like breaking surface in the pool. He saw Martyn, and Serjeant Crook, then Serjeant Emmet, Corporal Armstrong and Collins, and dragoons spattered with blood.
And then he saw Lord Paget – relief! For not only was he now a cavalryman, the troop had done its duty.
But it was not over yet, by any means. The French were fleeing east towards the Carrion road, and Paget meant to stop them. ‘After them, Grant! We must head them off the bridge!’
Colonel Grant raised his sabre to acknowledge. His hand was bloody, whether by the enemy’s or his own it was not possible to tell. His adjutant was a fearful sight, bare-headed, face a mass of blood – and very evidently his own.
‘Damned silly muff caps!’ said Martyn.
Hervey saw. It was not the mirliton’s appearance but its serviceability. Handsome it might be, but it was too tall to stay in place in a mêlée, and it gave not the slightest protection against a blade, for while the French hussars wore the same, theirs were strengthened by iron hoops rather than pasteboard.
‘Rather the Tarleton any day!’ Martyn stood in the stirrups and raised his sabre above his head to rally the rest of the troop. ‘Keep an eye on Paget, Hervey. He’ll be off like a greyhound given half a chance.’
True it was. Lord Paget was view-hallooing like the best of them, waving his sabre at the bridge, his horse blowing hard and champing for the second off.
Martyn had rallied two dozen of his men. It was enough. They wheeled into line behind the general, expecting him to bolt at any second.
Hervey just had time to look back where he had ridden. The sight appalled and thrilled him at the same time: men and horses down, some of them still but many more writhing in agony; and some neither up nor down, staggering to rise, on two legs or four, occasionally succeeding, but for the most part just falling back. Who would tend them? He had no idea. He turned to face front. The last thing he wanted was an involuntary tear, not now he had been seasoned.
Off they sprang again. The ground seemed heavier than before. And devilish treacherous, vine stumps and ditches everywhere. He saw Private Dooley’s trooper fall, somersaulting and throwing him clear the other side of the cut, the horse thrashing, cast, in the bottom of it. Everywhere Hervey could see pairs of men in combat – individual, as if jousting – while others raced for the bridge, the French knowing where they were galloping to, the hussars only sensing. And every so often another French horse would tumble, and its rider might rise, hopeful of regaining the saddle – but in vain, for an Eng
lish blade would take him first.
Hervey looked for his man – a dragon, preferably, the greater prize. He had no fear. Robert was fagged, but he didn’t doubt he would answer to the leg. And his blade was sharp. But as long as Lord Paget was not threatened he could have no occasion to prove his skill.
They galloped the best part of a mile until the general judged that his men were out of hand. He had his trumpeter sound ‘rally’, a simple call, just Cs and Gs, the same pitch whether bugle or trumpet.
Hervey pulled up, not without difficulty, for even though Robert was lathered as white as the ground there was fire in him yet. He looked back towards Sahagun: how great indeed they had shocked them! His chest swelled with pride. So Joshua rose up early in the morning, and brought Israel by their tribes!
Joshua’s own trumpeters could not have been more insistent than were the Fifteenth’s now. Bugles all across the field repeated the ‘rally’ (it was ever a problem to get a man to hear, let alone respond). Lord Paget cursed loud to himself, and then at the hussars as they eventually began answering the call. But they merely cheered him by return, taking a pride in their wilful ardour.
They were hard up against the Valderaduey and somehow drawn well north of the bridge. Paget cursed again. But the stream was deep with snowmelt, not a way to escape. Paget looked about, saw the French scattered like so much chaff, and ordered his captains to call on them to surrender.
The French would not yield, however – those, at least, still in the saddle. Three or four dragons close by plunged into the stream. One of them fell as his horse stumbled, sinking at once with the weight of his boots and breastplate. Two managed to reach the far bank, but their horses could get no footing, and they in turn fell. A chasseur put his mount obliquely at the bank. It managed to scramble out a little way, just enough for the man to leap from the saddle and gain a footing, grasping at the sedge near the top of the bank and hauling himself out. Then, catching the reins as his horse, without the burden of a rider, managed to struggle up the snowy slide of the riverbank, he remounted and saluted his pursuers. Hervey and the others gave him a cheer.
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