Hervey 07 - An Act Of Courage (24 page)

Up went Lord George’s sabre. ‘Charge!’

His trumpeter blew the rising triplets as best he could.

Up went five hundred sabres, just as the drill book said, lofted high to meet cavalry with a powerful cut (the point was kept for infantry, to spear like tent pegs).

The Sixth ran
ventre à terre
, the fastest Hervey had known. The collision would be terrible, the destruction appalling. He prayed Jessye would not stumble or collide head-on when they closed. He could only do so much to direct her.

Less than half a furlong: he could see it all. They would overlap both flanks of the
chasseurs
by a dozen yards, just as the drill book prescribed. Jessye was pulling, but nothing to what every other trooper was.

Fifty yards: they broke! The
chasseurs
broke! They turned, they ran – back, left, right, any way there was space to run. The guns were pulling away, but exposed now to five hundred sabres.

Every man pressed his horse for the last turn of speed. The lines bowed and buckled, the cursing and swearing inaudible now – only the wild shouting.

The front rank veered left a fraction, exposing the second by a dozen men. Hervey found himself with a clear front and chasing the
chasseurs
’ left-flankers. But he shot so fast between two of them he almost missed his strike: Cut One – right, diagonal-down left – a clumsy slice to the nearside, slashing the man’s sword-arm from behind. He reined hard left to the support of the front rank, where he was meant to be. It was all confusion.

But the leading squadrons were already galloping on after the guns, despite the disordering of the second line. Some of the
chasseurs
had pulled up or turned, letting the squadrons charge past. Many were clutching at wounds, and many more were pretending to.

Hervey was almost knocked from the saddle by the rear two squadrons as they raced through like the wind, eager for blood and seeing it fast disappearing. They thrust and cut as they passed, making more for the surgeons’ list, but those French who had not run for it suddenly saw their chance: they would fight their way through what was left of the leading squadrons’ second line. In an instant, Hervey and his fellow supports were thrown on to the defence.

A man rode at him with his sabre at Guard, eyes burning. Hervey met him with Cut Three – right, diagonal-up left, driving the horizontal guard high and exposing the man’s rein-arm to the covering corporal. But the coverman wasn’t there. Hervey felt the cut at his shoulder blade as the
chasseur
followed through like lightning. There was no pain, just the sensation of blood, and then another
chasseur
was hacking left and right towards him. Hervey jerked his wrist up, sabre to Bridle Arm Protect. Just in time – the French blade arched down and drove-in his sabre hard, slicing deep into Jessye’s left ear. It would have cut through the headstall had the leather not been doubled with chain; then the bit would have fallen from her mouth and he would have been helpless. He gasped. Another
chasseur
lunged at him with the point, but Hervey’s coverman swooped from the nearside and dashed the sword from his hand.

And then the French were gone. A dozen dragoons were suddenly by themselves, the flotsam of the clash, the rest of the Sixth three furlongs away dealing terrible destruction to
chasseurs
and gunners alike, or lying on the ground as lifeless as the scores of Frenchmen and horses. Two of the dragoons nearest him were so blood-soaked he could not name them; another was bent double in the saddle. What did he do now?

‘Mr Hervey, sir!’

His covering corporal had circled and come up behind him again.

‘Are you all right, sir?’ Well might he be anxious, for his officer’s bloody back rebuked him for not being in position.

‘I’ll be well, Corporal Toyne.’ Hervey was more determined than certain, for he felt his left arm weakening. But he must appear unperturbed, just as would Sir Edward Lankester.

‘I’m sorry, sir: she ran out as we bent left.’

In truth, Hervey had no sense of dereliction in his coverman. The charge had become a barging race, and he himself had lost the front rank, which
he
was meant to be supporting. ‘You were there to parry that point, Corporal Toyne. I’m deuced grateful for that.’

He closed to the doubled-up dragoon. ‘What’s wrong, Bunting?’

Private Bunting tried to lift his head.

Hervey saw the blood oozing between the dragoon’s fingers as he clutched his stomach – and the grey matter among the red, a hideous disembowelling. ‘Take him rear, Abbott,’ he said to the man next to him, trying not to betray any hopelessness. Then he turned away while he still had control of his gorge.

‘Hadn’t I better bind up your shoulder, sir?’ asked Corporal Toyne.

Hervey was tempted, but he couldn’t give in, not now. There was fighting still, and no bugle had sounded ‘recall’. ‘We’d better catch up the troop. Form line, Corporal!’

By the time they closed on the rest of the regiment, the fight was over, and Lord George’s trumpeter was blowing the octave leaps for ‘rally’. Hervey found himself strangely composed by the return to order, for it was just as the manual prescribed:
When the shock of the squadron has broken the order of the opposite enemy, part may be ordered to pursue and keep up the advantage; but its great object is instantly to rally and renew its efforts in a body
. Yet he was abashed that he rallied from the rear rather than from the front.

However, no one seemed to have missed him. But then, how
could
anyone know where men were in an affair such as that?

‘Very well, Mr Hervey,’ said Sir Edward, seeing him touch his sword to his lips. His voice was barely raised. ‘Right-mark for the second rank, if you please. Just there will do capitally.’ He nodded to where, then turned his head again. ‘Your jacket, sir, requires attention. See to it as soon as may be!’

Hervey’s mouth fell open. The remark would have stung when first he joined the Sixth, but now, after his Corunna steeling, he recognized his troop-leader’s manner for what it was. An officer might be carried from the field, but otherwise he was to bear his wounds unremarked and preferably unnoticed. Indeed, an officer was never
wounded
: an officer was
hit
– like a gamebird. That, at least, was the code of the 6th Light Dragoons (Princess Caroline’s Own). He smiled, helplessly.

When they had retired west of the Portiña, dressed wounds of men and horses alike, mended tackling, refastened shoes, and attended to all the other requirements of a regiment of cavalry that had clashed with a couple of hundred
chasseurs
and brought in or spiked six guns (and were required to be ready at once to do the same again if needs be), Hervey sat under an olive tree, put his sabretache on his knees and wrote to Wiltshire.

Talavera de la Reina
27th July

My dear Dan
,

I enclose herewith a separate account of our progress to this place, which is the furthest we have advanced eastwards this time. But today we had an affair or two of cavalry, in which the regiment as a whole utterly routed two strong squadrons of Chasseurs à Cheval, and took six guns. Earlier this day I was so close to the Commander-in-Chief that he looked directly at me. He is smaller than I had imagined, compared with Sir John Moore I mean, but very active. He was almost captured, had he not been able to spring so fleet into the saddle! After our affair of the guns, which was by way of covering the retirement of a division of infantry most sorely tried in advance of the city, we crossed the Portina river, a dry stream about a mile to the north of the city, which the Spanish have garrisoned. It is not a little steep sided, about four feet deep, and more in places. One of the dragoons had a fall, his horse broke a leg and he himself has broke his skull, which was very ill luck since he had gone through the skirmish with the chasseurs with not a scratch. We are dismounted now and stood-easy (it is Six, and the sun is still high directly to our rear) amid olive groves, very extensive, so that one might ride to Talavera without showing oneself to the front. They extend half way up the Cerro de Medellin, which is a promontory, affording the same cover therefore. In front of us are the Guards and Col. Kemmis’s brigade, in which are the 40th, where John Ayling is ensign, for whom I was doul at Shrewsbury, and an excellent fellow. He hailed me as we rode in and I shall mess with them later if duties allow. We stand-to at Nine
.

I did not say that a Frenchman cut Jessye’s ear badly, so that I feared she must lose a part of it, but our veterinary surgeon, John Knight, is so skilled with needle and thread that he has sewed her up admirably
. . .

He wrote nothing of his own predicament. The wound he would not have dreamed of mentioning, and certainly not the prospect of a general court martial. The one would have caused anxiety to the old man, the other dismay, and Hervey could not be sure that he would not speak of it with his people at Horningsham. And in any case, the wound was nothing that the surgeon’s needle – as John Knight’s with Jessye’s ear – had not been able to repair. His tunic was another matter, but Private Sykes had found the baggage animals and brought his second coat forward. Hervey had wanted to keep it for the court martial, but Sir Edward Lankester’s strictures would not now permit him.

It was a strange thing, he mused as he began readying himself for stand-to: he hoped fervently that the regiment would be in the thick of things tomorrow, yet he hoped as much that his uniform would not be spoiled. What queer things indeed an officer must be sensible of! But at least he would be well turned out to mess with the Fortieth. And after today, with the affair of the patrol and the charge at the guns, he would not trouble himself with thoughts of court martial. What could he do but smile at the peculiar fortunes of war?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

TIMES PAST

Belem, the Feast of Stephen, 1826

Brevet-Colonel Charles Laming settled into the rear-facing seat of the Delgado travelling carriage, on the right-offside, as a gentleman ought, so that he faced Isabella diagonally, allowing her the forward prospect and the shaded side during the journey eastwards to Elvas. He had lost no time in securing leave of Sir William Clinton in order to go to the assistance of his old friend. The general, indeed, had been wholly supportive, declaring that if Hervey were not released very promptly then he would take it upon himself to effect his release by whatever means he thought fit. Sir William, as a lieutenant-general, had wide discretion (even if he could not be entirely certain what his orders from London amounted to), and he did not intend that any of this ill news should reach the Horse Guards until it was resolved satisfactorily, and to Hervey’s advantage, since the dispositions he was now making for the army of intervention were based in large part on Hervey’s own assessment of the situation.

In ordinary circumstances Sir William would not have been so sanguine about losing his deputy quartermaster-general. Laming had been promoted to the staff on account of his uncommon facility to render into few words, and with absolute clarity, the thoughts and intentions of politicos and senior officers. Throughout the years of unrest in England, which had continued in one form or another since the end of the war with Bonaparte, he had penned instructions to the army acting in support of the civil power, and his precision and foresight had saved many an ugly situation from turning into disaster. It was said that if it had been Laming who had drafted the orders for the Northern District that day in 1819, when the crowds had gathered to hear ‘Orator’ Hunt, there would have been no occasion for the coining ‘Peterloo’. These talents had kept him from regimental duty, and then had come the opportunity for advancement, on the list of another regiment, and eventually a substantive lieutenant-colonelcy on the quartermaster-general’s permanent establishment. Laming had seen a good deal of action as a subaltern, but none since Waterloo.

The years of his cornetcy came easily to mind, however, as he continued his reacquaintance with Isabella. Her English was fluent, with nothing of the accent of someone who spoke it only occasionally. She was, after all, ‘Mrs Broke’, as well as ‘Dona Isabella Delgado’.

‘Colonel Laming, this is very good of you – to accompany me to Elvas, I mean,’ began Isabella, as the travelling carriage picked up speed. ‘And to have Major Hervey’s corporal, too. We have lost a little time by this delay, but my father says we may journey through the night. He would not hear of it before, when I had no escort.’

From what Corporal Wainwright had told him of the first affair in Elvas, when Hervey and Isabella had confronted the Miguelites in the middle of the night, Laming scarcely imagined she had need of an escort. ‘I am glad you waited, ma’am. This is a more agreeable way to go than posting astride.’

She smiled. ‘I was speaking with my father last night, Colonel, and he seemed to recall that you once shot one of his footmen?’