Hervey 07 - An Act Of Courage (43 page)

They were safe for the moment, long enough at least to get the captain back into the saddle. He had come-to: he was well, he protested; it was nothing, they need have no fear, they should make at once for the other side.

Hervey and Wainwright heaved him astride his mare. She settled at last as he gathered the reins, though a stirrup evaded him. He looked dazed still as the rest of them remounted and kicked for the other side.

This was the way General Phillipon had galloped to freedom the day after Badajoz, and it had been a short liberty, gone to ground in Fort San Cristobal until Wellington’s men found him the following morning. Could they now get as far as the fort, even? Hervey, too, was beginning to doubt it. At the other end of the bridge was the Tête du Pont – not a gate, but a strongpoint nevertheless. It straddled their line of escape; except that its purpose was to guard the bridge from assault, not command what passed on it. But there would be soldiers there. How many, he couldn’t know: perhaps they only garrisoned the place at times of danger? But if it
were
garrisoned, the signal gun must have told them to do something. He dearly hoped it would be to take post facing the approaches rather than the bridge itself.

‘Kick on!’ snapped Laming. ‘We take the bridge at the trot, and at the other end we wheel sharp left for the road to Elvas. No looking back!’

Hervey marked his old friend’s determination. If any fell there would be no going back for them.

‘Major Hervey, sir: look!’

Hervey turned to see the gatehouse walls alive with men. He was thankful that Wainwright, at least, took more notice of his duty than Laming’s commands.

They had not gone fifty yards before a volley sent musket balls whistling about their ears. Laming at once pressed to a faster trot, though the cobbles were treacherous. Hervey looked back again and saw the gates opening. He expected cavalry to burst out after them like hounds in full cry.

There was cavalry, all right, but they seemed loathe to follow.

Hervey saw why. At the far side the guards were mustering, not with cavalry but a cannon. Would they sweep the bridge with grape when they knew there was a woman with them – and an English officer? He could scarce believe it. But how would they know who they fired at? The signal gun told them there were fugitives, and evidently the drill was to rake the bridge.

Laming would not surrender, however. ‘We must ride them down before they’re ready!’ he shouted, pistol aloft and spurring into a canter.

Hervey kicked hard after him. If only they had sabres: the mere promise of steel could make a guncrew panic!

There was another volley from the Las Palmas gate. Hervey looked round to make sure Wainwright and the captain were with him still.

They weren’t. The captain’s mare lay sprawled on the cobbles, her quarters crimson, her rider under her. Hervey cursed and reined hard round.

‘No, sir! Go on, I can do it,’ shouted Wainwright.

But Hervey had left a man behind a dozen years ago, at Waterloo. He would not do it again.

‘Go on, sir!’ insisted Wainwright. ‘There’s Mrs Delgado!’

What was he thinking? It was Isabella they must get away. The rest, himself included, must take their chance. He turned the gelding even sharper and kicked hard for the far end.

In seconds it was a desperate, close-quarter business. The gunners cowered, but a line of bayonets was doubling from the Tête du Pont. Laming, reins looped and both pistols cocked, rode straight at the gun. ‘Go on!’ he shouted to the others. ‘See her safe!’

Isabella, Sanchez and the bewildered courier raced past him, but Hervey pulled up and thrust his pistol at one of the gunners. ‘
Espada! Espada! Presto!
’

The terrified gunner gave it him, expecting a ball in the chest at any moment.

‘
Espada!
’ demanded Hervey again, and another of them gave up his sword, to Laming.

Now they felt as if they could fight rather than just fire and run. But two dozen bayonets were no odds to sport with.

‘Come on, Hervey, we’ve got to get her away!’

Hervey looked back across the bridge: Wainwright had the captain astride his own mare. He was determined. ‘We’ve got to hold those bayonets off the bridge, Laming! Leave these: let’s front
them
!’

Laming didn’t hesitate. They rode straight at the line, breaking it in two places, then turning and charging back to break it in another two. That was what dismayed infantry – spoiling ‘the touch of cloth’! Another go and Hervey was certain they would scatter them.

He looked back at the bridge. The gunners hadn’t given up. They were already ramming. The gun would soon be loadedprimed. He saw Wainwright struggling to lead his mare, saw the puffs of smoke from the ragged musketry at the far end of the bridge, and then the captain bowled from the saddle like a running hare to buckshot. At two hundred yards it could only have been luck, but a ball in the back at that range was the end. He saw Wainwright crouching by him – it seemed an age – until he was certain of what Hervey could only suppose. Then Wainwright sprang back into the saddle and spurred for the Tête du Pont.

But the way was barred. The gunners were determined. The bridge-end bristled with handspikes, spontoons, muskets, and half a dozen of the bayonets with the nerve to run that far. The ventsman was putting in the primer-quill; in seconds more it would be ‘Stand clear!’ And then a hundred one-ounce iron balls would mangle every bit of flesh on the bridge.

‘No!’ bellowed Laming. ‘No, Hervey!’

Hervey jerked the bit, and the gelding pulled up. It was futile.

Wainwright, too, saw there was no way forward or back.

Hervey reeled as a man lunged at him from the cover of the brush, the bayonet tearing through his cloak and into the saddle. He plunged the straight, thin blade of the artilleryman’s sword between collarbone and neck. As the man fell lifeless, Hervey looked back in dread for his covering corporal.

His jaw fell open. Wainwright, with not even a sabre as goad, was urging his little Lusitano onto the parapet. Then, Horatiuslike, he leapt, astride her still, into the deep, dark Guadiana.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

BATTLE HONOURS

Badajoz, late afternoon, 7 April 1812

‘Sixth Light Dragoons, draw swords!’ Lieutenant-Colonel Lord George Irvine, turned-out as immaculately as if on Horse Guards, gave the words of command with the confidence and pride of one who did so under the gaze of both his own and the defeated commanders-in-chief.

Five hundred sabres were drawn from their scabbards with a flourish, to rest, vertical, awaiting the next order.

‘Sixth Light Dragoons,
salute
!’

The private-men remained braced, as the officers brought their swords first to the ‘kiss’ and then down and outwards, flat-side offered, to their chargers’ right flank.

There was no band, no double lines of infantrymen at the ‘present’. The Earl of Wellington (as lately he had been created) showed courtesy to General Phillipon; he did not render him military honours. Had the French surrendered
before
the assault on the fortress, they would have been able to march to their captivity bearing arms and colours. Since they had forced the issue –
and
after a practicable breach had been made – they were lucky to be spared their lives.

Not that there wasn’t a deal of respect – grudging respect – for the tenacity with which they had defended the place: the army had turned its anger on the Spanish in the city rather than on the beaten French.

Out of the San Cristobal fort, to which he had galloped over the Guadiana bridge in the early hours, when Wellington’s redcoats had finally taken the
alcázabar
, General Phillipon and his staff rode at a parade-walk. At fifty yards, the distance Hervey now stood from him, he looked every inch one of Bonaparte’s generals – the braid, the sashes, the plumes, the ribbons, all resplendent in the late-afternoon sun. A little closer and Hervey would have seen the tired truth, as did Lord Wellington now as he received the general’s sword. Defeat went hard with such a man.

When the Sixth were stood down half an hour later, Sir Edward Lankester sought Hervey out. ‘The provost marshal’s men will want a deposition from you regarding the Spanish girl. Larpent intends putting up the gallows.’

Hervey nodded. Wellington’s judge-advocate-general was a punctilious man; he would suppose there were accomplices to the murder. ‘Of course, Sir Edward, but in truth I saw only the one man – and he can say nothing.’

Sir Edward smiled, but grimly. ‘The deposition is for your own benefit, Hervey. You can’t go about shooting His Majesty’s soldiers without remark!’

‘No, of course not, Sir Edward! I meant that—’

‘I know what you meant. Had I the means last night I’d have had a dozen of them shot down. It was infamous.’

‘Just so, sir.’

Sir Edward fingered the loose bevel on Jessye’s throat plume. ‘This needs the armourer’s hammer.’

‘Sir.’

‘After they’ve seen to the sabres. God, what a sight they were!’

Hervey raised an eyebrow. The fifty yards between Wellington and the regiment had worked not solely to Phillipon’s advantage.

‘Lord George wants to see you.’

‘See me, Sir Edward?’

‘Yes,
see
you! Do not have me repeat myself.’

Hervey blinked. It was easy to forget that Sir Edward Lankester could be as tired as any of them. He saluted, handed his reins to his groom, and went to find his commanding officer. He did not see Sir Edward smiling wryly.

‘Mr Barrow?’

The adjutant spun round, still holding his charger’s near-fore. ‘What is it, Hervey? I’m deuced busy!’

‘Sir Edward said the colonel wished to see me.’

Barrow gestured to his groom to take the horse’s foot. ‘Dry it and lime-bag it,’ he said wearily, then turned back to Hervey. ‘Come with me.’

They set off for the regiment’s headquarters.

‘What does the colonel want to see me for?’

‘I’ll leave that to him,’ said the adjutant, firmly.

Hervey knew he was guilty of no offence – in any case, the adjutant would have been first to notify him of it – but he was becoming anxious nevertheless. He had never spoken directly to the commanding officer before, other than the usual civilities in the mess.

‘Mr Hervey, Colonel,’ Barrow announced, at the door of the white-walled hut which served as regimental headquarters.

Lord George looked up from his writing table. ‘Come in, Hervey. Thank you, Barrow.’

The adjutant left them, which Hervey knew to be irregular, but Lord George, though tired, did not look like a man about to deliver a reprimand.

He saluted. ‘Good afternoon, Colonel.’

‘Good afternoon, Hervey. Stand easy, take off your hat.’

Hervey did so gratefully.

‘Now, last night: you were witness to murder. The Eightyeighth’s colonel has asked to speak with you on it. I have agreed, and the provost marshal has no objection.’

‘Very good, Colonel.’

‘A dreadful affair, but it was an act of courage on your part that prevented further outrage.’

Hervey said nothing. He knew that the mother and her two daughters had been interviewed already by at least three doctors, a chaplain and one of Judge-Advocate-General Larpent’s men.

‘You shall have a promotion.’

Hervey’s spirits leapt. And then they sank again as he realized it would be promotion for shooting a man in red rather than the enemy – a cruel irony after three years’ fighting. ‘Sir, I had not expected—’

‘No doubt, no doubt,’ said Lord George, leaning well back in an old leather chair. ‘The promotion is not in the Sixth, I regret to say.’

The words were like a cold douche. Hervey’s stomach tightened.

‘There just isn’t the vacancy. It would be in the Royals.’

A promotion in Lord George’s old regiment (and evidently, therefore, of his arranging) – Hervey knew he was rewarded
and
honoured. ‘I thank you, Colonel. It would be a great privilege.’

Lord George nodded.

‘But I could not accept.’

‘
What?
’

Hervey was surprised his commanding officer appeared not to understand. ‘Colonel, these past three years I have come to know a good many men in the Sixth, and to trust them – and they me, I believe – and I would see the war to its end in their company. With respect, Colonel.’

Lord George leaned forward again, and sighed. ‘Sit down, Hervey.’

Hervey pulled a wooden stool towards the writing table.

‘I greatly admire your sentiment, but there can be no promotion in the Sixth for a year at least. I don’t say the war will be ended by then, but it can’t run much longer in Spain now that Badajoz is ours.’

Hervey shifted awkwardly. ‘I understand, Colonel.’

‘Do you? This lieutenant’s vacancy is solely on account of circumstances in the Royals. Their colonel has asked me if I have a nomination. That is unlikely ever to occur again.’

Hervey felt his certainty only increasing. ‘Colonel, with the very greatest of respect, I request to remain in the regiment.’