A Call To Arms (39 page)

‘ ’E were too fuzzed to stand, Mossop said.’ A hint of a smirk betrayed Johnson’s pleasure at the pun.

Hervey was not inclined to share it. ‘Johnson, you do realize he would have been hanged for his absence?’

‘Ay sir,’ replied his groom, the smile gone. ‘And to tell thee t’truth, there’d not be any as’d put in a good word for ’im.’

Hervey fumed, but at himself. It was he who had wanted to enlist Dodds, and since then he had seized on any sign of amends to his ‘bad character’, and in the face of Armstrong’s continuing doubts. For a moment the lash seemed appealing.

He tried to put it from his mind as he rode with Seton Canning to the maidan. He halted at the edge to let his lieutenant go forward to take over the parade from Armstrong, and then he in turn took command. As he rode along the front rank and then the rear, his humour was much restored by his dragoons’ appearance. Green his troop might be, but they looked likely enough this day. Just so long as they went to it with a will, and luck went with them, they would manage.

‘Dodds is with the bat-horses, sir, in open arrest,’ said Armstrong as they cleared the rear right marker. ‘For my part I’d have him nowhere near, except that he should stand his chances like the rest of them.’

Hervey could not help wondering, even now, if Dodds had truly intended to absent himself. ‘Are we sure he
was
at first parade? Unless he’d heard the warning for the field, he couldn’t very well be charged with desertion.’

Armstrong had not considered it. The troop had been reported present or else accounted for. ‘I’ll get ’is corporal to vouch, sir,’ he replied doubtfully.

Hervey checked in front of one of the Warminster pals. ‘Are you quite well, Parkin?’ he asked, seeing an unusual amount of perspiration about his face and neck.

‘Not feeling too good, sir. I expect it’ll pass though, sir.’ Hervey glanced at Private Wainwright next to him.

‘He were all right until last night, sir, but he didn’t want to report sick after what you said at first parade, sir.’

‘Report now to the surgeon, Parkin.’

Parkin saluted, a shade awkwardly thought Hervey, as if his arm were constrained, and fell out to his right. ‘You’ll find him with the bat-horses, lad,’ said Armstrong as he passed.

‘What did he have to eat last night, Wainwright?’ asked Hervey.

‘Mutton, sir, same as us.’

‘And drink?’

‘Just a measure of rum, sir. That’s all. He never has more, sir.’

Hervey pressed on down the line, looking into faces more intently now, determined on seeing any sign that Parkin’s ailment might not be entirely his own. But all looked none the worse than usual.

They rode round behind the rear rank to where the two galloper guns were, their teams – each of three sowars – sitting like ramrods in the saddle, the kurtas as vivid as sunflowers. Hervey had asked for a daffadar who could understand some English and the adjutant had assured him that he would oblige; but he tried a few words of his Urdu, if as no more than a courtesy.

The daffadar braced in acknowledgement: ‘
Hazoor!
’

There was a strange noise from beyond the guns, a bleating. Hervey peered between the sowars to see what was the cause.

‘Rations, sahib!’ said the daffadar, with a grin.

Now he could see it. One of the packhorses carried two live goats strapped either side of the saddle. Hervey nodded to the daffadar, as much in amazement as approval, then reined about, trotted to the front of the troop, and faced. He looked left and right along the ranks. All eyes were still front, and horses’ heads were steady. The regiment did not draw swords for inspection in campaign order, so his command was merely ‘Sit easy.’

He stood in the saddle to address them. ‘E Troop, I am well pleased with your appearance – as serviceable as anything I saw in the Peninsula. It is a good beginning. We march from here presently some twenty miles, in the direction south-east towards Bandarban. After fording the river thereabouts we make camp for the night, and there I shall give a fuller account of our mission. For the moment it is as well that you understand that, as always, your first duty is the care of your mounts. To that end we make no show of pushing off. We shall cover the first half of that distance at the walk, leading the first half-hour.’ He turned to his lieutenant and asked him to carry on, then beckoned Johnson over. ‘Go and see what the surgeon says about Parkin, will you? I want every man I can have on parade, but we can’t carry sick.’

Ten minutes later, with the troop dismounted and drawn up in column of route, two native guides leading, Johnson returned. ‘Mr Ledley says ’e thinks it could be just a chill, but ’e can’t be sure. Parkin were swearin’ blind it were nowt but a sweat, so t’surgeon ’as dosed ’im an’ ’e’s fallen in again.’

Hervey nodded. Ledley had no worse a reputation than any, so he might as well trust to his optimism. ‘Very well. Trumpeter, “walk-march”!’

Later that day

E Troop had never marched twenty miles before. For the first half-hour they tramped the road from the cantonment to the river, at times in no better order than a train of tinkers. Hervey set too fast a pace to begin with, the dragoons at the rear of the column finding it difficult to get into their stride, with gaps suddenly opening up and then having to be closed rapidly at the trot. And some of the horses would not take to long reins, so that there was a deal of napping, which in turn opened more gaps. After twenty minutes the NCOs were hoarse with their efforts to keep a semblance of soldierly appearance, and more than one dragoon was looking as though he would not stay the distance. But at last the troop settled to a rhythm of sorts, sustained by each man in turn taking up the pace-count; no mean achievement, Hervey and Seton Canning agreed, considering that at least half of them had not been able to count reliably beyond half a dozen when they enlisted. And then they had tightened girths and mounted, and ridden for the next hour at a steady trot, and very creditably together, Hervey thought from his perspective at the column’s
head. More than one dragoon found the exercise a powerful thirstmaker, but Hervey had given orders that on the march a strict water discipline was to be maintained. At the first halt, after an hour and a half, several men at the rear of the column believed themselves to be so parched as to be close to expiring, and Corporal McCarthy was obliged to seize with some force a canteen from one of them. McCarthy, though he knew nothing more of horses than what every man had learned since enlisting, was nevertheless entirely convinced of the necessity of discipline. His best Cork ‘Horses first, you heathens!’ stung would-be defaulters with its obvious appeal to duty as well as with the native authority which an Irish NCO possessed.

The river was slow by the standards of those they had known in Spain, and the colour of earth. At the first halt it was set about by tall rain trees, and the grasses at the edge were not so high as in the open stretch from the city – no higher than a man’s knee, and in places grazed shorter or uprooted altogether by cattle and game preferring to drink in the rain trees’ shade.

‘By sections, mouths into the river and then straight out again,’ called Armstrong, handing his own horse to his groom and taking his whip in hand as he began to walk along the line, rapping the other hand with it in a manner that signalled there would be no mercy for the ‘idle’ dragoon. ‘Just enough to wash their mouths with. And then a wisp of a hay. One quarter of one hour!’

Hervey slipped the bridle off his little Marwari and put on the head collar. He was pleased to note how little she had sweated, and how light was her breathing. He led her to the river’s edge and let her drop her head. She swallowed twice and he pulled her head up again, quite easily – she did not struggle. She was as fit as ever Jessye had been. He turned her away and walked back to where Johnson waited with a handful of hay. Armstrong came up. ‘How are the galloper-gunners?’ asked Hervey, picking up each of the Marwari’s feet to check for stones.

‘Not a bead of sweat on any of them, sir! Horses or men.’

Hervey smiled to himself. ‘I wonder what they make of us, Sar’nt-Major.’

‘I wouldn’t rightly know, sir. But let’s wait till we’ve done what we’re doing before we ask ’em.’

Hervey smiled again. ‘You’re quite right. We’ll stand judged by
our effect, not our appearance. I’ll warrant that if they knew how little time we’d had they’d never believe we could have come this far.’

Armstrong looked puzzled. ‘Bloody ’ell, sir. We’ve come nought but ten miles on a warm afternoon. I reckon my Caithlin could manage that!’

Hervey frowned. Armstrong knew well enough that his captain was speaking of more than the day’s march, but the latter knew his serjeant-major’s proposition was undoubtedly true. An hour and a half into a ‘campaign’ was a deal too early to be drawing any conclusions, favourable or otherwise.

‘Very well then, five minutes more by my watch. At your order, Sar’nt-Major. Then two leagues at a good trot.’ And with that he began replacing the bridle.

The next leg they covered at a flying pace. The ground had a spring in it, neither too hard-baked, as in the early part of the year, nor yet soaked by the heavy rains of the middle months. Horses were fit enough, and riders too – at least for a six-mile trot on good, level going. Hervey glanced behind him from time to time and was pleased by what he saw. The jingle of bits and the striking of hoofs fell into a rhythm, which in turn served that regular order which was the mark of seasoned cavalry. So good a rhythm, indeed, that many a head could have nodded a while in perfect safety.

Hervey judged it by his watch. Forty-five minutes at such a pace – two leagues. He held up his hand and ceased rising in the saddle (the Sixth, in common with many another regiment, had for some time given up ‘bumping’ in the trot), then brought the Marwari to a walk for a full five minutes more, before holding up his hand again for the halt. In a trice he was off and unsaddling his little mare, patting her neck and making much. She was sweating a bit under the saddle blanket and along her shoulders, but scarcely more than a hunter on an English autumn’s day. He pulled the stable rubber from the carry-all on the saddle, and set to removing the worst of it. He picked out her feet – nothing troubling her there either. He pulled her funny little ears, turned in like horns, and spoke keenly to her again before taking off the bridle and slipping on the halter. Now was the time to let her take a good drink.
He led her to the river’s edge and let her drop her head awhile – not too much, though, not enough to bring on the colic. And then again, a little longer, and then once more, until it was safe to hold the lead-rein loose.

He looked down the line of dragoons as they watered by halfsections so as to be under the eye of an NCO. Perhaps not all the NCOs were the best of that breed, but they were adequate, he felt sure. He thought back to those corporals and serjeants who had crossed the Pyrenees all of seven years ago. Was it so long? Would there ever be their like again? How could there be? Surely they would never see a campaign the like of the Peninsula. And without its like, how could such men as they be forged? He knew it to be true of himself, especially. A God-fearing home he had had, and a soldierly tutor of exemplary quality in Daniel Coates, and the best of learning at Shrewsbury, but it had been the winter of Corunna and the summers afterwards on the Spanish plain that had made him no longer a boy.

‘Captain Hervey, sir,’ came the voice of Serjeant-Major Armstrong upon his reveries, as it had done innumerable times before in less exalted rank. ‘Yon Parkin’s a sick man. I’ve a mind to turn him back.’

Hervey frowned at him. ‘Shall I take a look?’

‘I think you’d better. Surgeon’ll take a look when he’s put a stitch or two in Rudd’s bonny face.’

Hervey raised an inquisitorial eyebrow.

‘That nappy little lass of his threw her head up a bit sharp when he’d taken her bridle off.’

Hervey sighed, handed his reins to Johnson and set off back down the column. He came on Parkin sitting with his head in his hands, with Private Wainwright next to him holding both horses. ‘What is it, Parkin?’

‘It’s nothing, sir,’ replied Parkin, struggling to rise.

‘No, keep where you are,’ said Hervey, squatting on his haunches to take a proper look at Parkin’s face. It was undoubtedly worse than at muster, beads of sweat trickling almost continuously down his cheeks and neck. But they had since been in a brisk trot, and for the best part of an hour. ‘Do you have any pain?’