Hervey 07 - An Act Of Courage (16 page)

Hervey glanced over his shoulder to look for his landing. He saw the four barges, high in the water, a useful gap between the middle two, just wide enough if he boated the oars. He kept glancing every two or three strokes, the current now so weak that he was barely having to correct. Five yards out, he swung the oars inboard and turned to fend off the barges as the skiff ran in. When they touched the staithe he realized he would have done better to turn and run the skiff in stern first, but it was too late now. He would have to inch forward himself and try to get a hand to what might pass for a mooring.

A face appeared above them, then another, and then two more. ‘
Boa tarde, senhores
.’

To Hervey, the Portuguese sounded ominously laconic. He could not catch what followed.

‘You were left behind, eh, senhores?’

A pistol appeared, then another three, the faces now gleeful.

Hervey, balancing precariously, with one hand grasping a piece of rope just above the waterline, reached for his own pistol.

But Colonel Shaw had more than the measure of the situation. ‘Good morning to you too, gentlemen. But we are not the last of the French; we are the first of the English!’

The glee turned at once to delight. ‘
Sim, senhores?
You are very welcome to our city!’

Helping hands stretched out to the skiff.

Colonel Shaw began the instant his foot touched the top of the wharf: ‘Where are the French? In what strength? What do they do? How many cannon? Where is Soult?’

His interlocutors were uncertain on all points. There were many French, they explained, but for some days now they had not been able to speak as freely with them as before. A week ago there had been ten thousand; that much was known because of the requisitions of food and fuel. Of guns they knew nothing. One of them, who supplied the headquarters with wine, said the French were afraid of being caught between the English and General Silveira’s Portuguese marching from the south-east, cutting off their withdrawal into Spain. There was even talk, he said, of a landing by the English north of the city, for they knew the Royal Navy commanded the entire coast; most of the French cavalry had been sent there to watch.

Colonel Shaw translated it all for Hervey’s benefit (at any moment a French bullet could strike him dead, in which case it would fall to a cornet of light dragoons to take this valuable intelligence to Sir Arthur Wellesley). ‘You see, Hervey, Soult’s in all likelihood so panical, a rousing assault here would bolt him!’ He turned again and fired off more questions.

The answers sounded very certain.

‘I asked why there are no sentries. They say there are, but downstream, nearer the bridge. And we would have been taken for French: there’ve been officers crossing by boat since the bridge was destroyed.’

Colonel Shaw turned once more, this time with less of an enquiry in his voice.

Suddenly agitated, the men began gabbling among themselves, until the supplier of wine spoke up for them, and stern-faced. ‘
Sim, senhor
. We will take the boats across. We will gather twenty men more – half an hour, that is all – and then we will take the boats to Senhor Sir Wellesley!’

Colonel Shaw merely smiled, and nodded.

The men smiled too as their confidence swelled.

It was an anxious half-hour for the two of them, crouched waiting in one of the barges. Colonel Shaw explained what he intended. He wanted the barges to cross to the south side as soon as the men returned, for although the French would see, and stand-to-arms, and they would lose surprise, he couldn’t wait on this side until the infantry were ready to cross, risking discovery by a French patrol. He told Hervey he wanted
him
to take charge of the boats, while
he
slipped into the city to discover Soult’s intentions. ‘And, Mr Hervey, I shall commend you in very decided terms to Sir Arthur Wellesley. You
and
your dragoons.’

It was as much as any cornet could wish to hear, and with Sir Edward Lankester’s words of but a few hours before, it promised certain advancement. This, indeed, was the fortune of war; and he had never expected to be favoured by it, let alone so soon. Daniel Coates used to speak of the bullet’s brute chance: was there such a thing as a lucky soldier, a man whom fortune naturally favoured? Was that why they had found the boat hidden in the reeds? Perhaps that was Colonel Shaw’s luck, though, not theirs. Such a man, who devilled behind the enemy’s lines, needed it in the largest measure. But lucky they had been, as well, to be his escort. Hervey smiled: such notions were absurd – but they were agreeable. ‘We are honoured, Colonel.’

When the men returned, it was with nearer fifty than twenty, and all of them armed.

‘Well, Mr Hervey,’ said Colonel Shaw, allowing himself to look gratified. ‘Here is your command. You will never have another like it!’

Hervey could not know it, but his luck was greater than he supposed. As the Porto boatmen and the other willing hands began paddling the barges across the still-silent Douro, the commander-in-chief himself stood watching from the terrace-heights of the Serra convent. He said not a word, while about him artillerymen manhandled four six-pounders and a howitzer into position, and below and a little further upstream, taking the greatest care to conceal themselves from any sharp-eyed sentry on the heights opposite, men of the 3rd (East Kent) Regiment – the Buffs – were assembling in the narrow streets. It had been the work of but an hour; the work
and
good fortune, for Corporal Collins had ridden straight into Sir Arthur Wellesley and his staff not a mile from Villa Nova. Later, Collins would recount how the commander-in-chief had at once seen the possibilities in Colonel Shaw’s despatch, sending gallopers to the advance guard, and how the horse artillery had come careering past them not twenty minutes later, gunners hanging on to the limbers for dear life; and then the Buffs, doublemarching, sweating like pigs but grinning ear to ear, knowing they would be first at the enemy.

Corporal Armstrong stood at attention before the Buffs’ commanding officer. The colonel was red in the face and short of breath, as every one of his men, but he was concerned for one thing only. ‘
Four
boats, you say, Corporal?’

‘Yes, sir. They’re coming across now.’

‘Very well. Is there any view of the far bank to be had from this side?’

‘There are no houses near where the barges’ll come, sir, and it’s very reedy. I think it would be better to take a look from upstairs here, sir.’

But the houses were strongly barred, and in any case the colonel was certain of his instructions: Sir Arthur Wellesley wanted him to cross the river straight away and establish a strongpoint so that they could ferry the entire army over as they arrived. The French would be sure to launch the most ferocious counter-attacks as soon as they realized what was happening, and everything would depend on how strongly the Buffs could lodge themselves.

The colonel turned to his leading company commander. ‘You shall just have to choose your ground when you’re over. Make sure you mark your positions for the gunners. And take off your jackets: it’s just possible the French’ll be confused if they don’t see red.’

‘Very good, sir.’ The captain turned about. ‘Jackets off, serjeantmajor. Company will advance.’ He nodded to Armstrong. ‘Lead on, Corporal!’

As the Buffs began filing to the river’s edge, Hervey and his little command began making headway. He would willingly have taken up pole or paddle, but the boatmen would have none of it; the river was theirs. Instead, he stood in the bows of the leading barge, searching the opposite bank. He wondered how long they would have to wait for Sir Arthur Wellesley’s men to come up. He had no idea where they had bivouacked that night, how near they might be, or even how long it would take Corporal Collins to reach the contact point. He reckoned they would have to wait until nightfall, at least. Oughtn’t he to have gathered some willing citizens of Porto to make barricades and defend the quay where they would land? But that must have occurred to Colonel Shaw; perhaps he judged that it would surrender all surprise? Perhaps, though, in slipping into the city, the colonel intended raising such a party? He wished he had asked. Did he have the authority to act on his own initiative? Or had Colonel Shaw supposed that it was sufficient merely to instruct a cornet to do something, with no need of elaboration as to what he might
not
do? These things were knotty. In any case, his first priority was to get the barges to the south side; he could always slip back across in the skiff . . . He turned and scanned the enemy bank with his telescope. It was as deserted as when he had first crossed.

The barges plied effortlessly. The steersmen knew the river well, the crews bent hard to the oars or put their shoulders to the poles, and the snatching current did not trouble them. Hervey, his telescope now trained on the south bank, spotted Armstrong at the waterside, with men either side of him – local men, he supposed. Perhaps he should take them across at once to guard the landing? But what if the French caught them as the barges ran in? They would then have lost the only means of getting the infantry across. Perhaps if he risked just the one barge . . .

He jumped to the bank as they grounded among the reeds. He saw the jacketless men, and the service muskets – and he breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Dawes, Third Foot, captain of the grenadier company,’ said a man in his mid-twenties with cropped black hair.

Hervey took his hand, then put on his Tarleton and saluted. ‘Cornet Hervey, sir, Sixth Light Dragoons.’

‘We shall cross at once, if you please,’ replied the captain, with resolution rather than certainty. ‘You had better tell me what you can of the other side.’

‘I cannot tell you much, sir, for I have only been at the water’s edge. You will have to scramble about six feet up onto the quay itself: the river is low and the barges sit likewise, as you see. There’s a steep ascent to a fair-size building, cobbled all the way –
very
steep in fact, but I would reckon the building a good place to occupy. I can’t see how the French might take the quay, or even fire on it, without first clearing the place.’

‘Very well, Mr Hervey, that will do. Now, do you suppose these barges will take a couple of dozen men each?’

‘That is what the boatmen say. I will accompany you; I have a little Portuguese.’

The captain half smiled, as if pitying the youthful eagerness. ‘No, Mr Hervey. That will not be necessary. You may leave this to the Third. I imagine you have other business.’

Could he argue? These were
his
boats, were they not? ‘Sir, I think I ought to—’

‘No, thank you, Mr Hervey. This is infantry business. Your horse will be waiting somewhere, no doubt!’

And the captain of grenadiers, with the weight of a hundred picked men behind him, brushed aside the cornet of light dragoons and jumped into the first barge.

CHAPTER NINE

FIELD PROMOTION

Two hours later

‘Where in heaven’s name have you been, Hervey?’ Sir Edward Lankester sounded like a man irritated by a trifle, but to whom no trifle was unimportant. And he was tired, as they all were, but without Hervey’s thrill of crossing and recrossing the Douro.

‘We escorted Colonel Shaw to the river and—’

‘Well, well, it has all taken a deal longer than I supposed, and now we are bidden to be two leagues east of here as many minutes ago.’ Sir Edward detected muddle on someone’s part, and he had a great disdain for disorder of any kind.

Hervey was a shade crestfallen. He had not expected words of praise (Sir Edward could not have known what they had been about at the river), but it felt doubly unfair that he should suffer his troop-leader’s irritation on account of someone else’s folly. But that was war, as Daniel Coates used to say. He wondered what would have happened if he had not found the troop at all as they made their way up the Douro valley: he didn’t seem much missed – he could have stayed with the infantry. And there was heavy cannonading at the river, now. The
river
was the place to display, no doubt of it. Armstrong would have been in his element!

But Sir Edward evidently had other orders, and the battle moved on. He could still make his report, later, in writing. But what would he write? He could not speak of his own part in things. He could commend – he
must
commend – Corporals Armstrong and Collins, of course. For himself, if his service was in any way singular, he need not worry, for there would in due course be Colonel Shaw’s despatch. But, looking back on things, with the infantry having to fight their way into Oporto, what was so special about rowing a skiff across the Douro?

‘Hervey?’

He woke suddenly, having touched his helmet to Sir Edward and fallen back routinely to the cornet’s place in troop column. ‘What? Oh, I—’

Lieutenant Martyn, A Troop’s second in command once more, now that the squadron was reunited, looked as fresh as a daisy, his uniform just as if it had come from a portmanteau, although he could not have had a great deal more sleep than the rest. ‘I said that it sounded hot work in Oporto.’