Hervey 08 - Company Of Spears (16 page)

‘Major Hervey!’ The company commander was deftly reloading a pistol, but otherwise he looked as if he were at a drawing room.

‘Captain Hallam. You are attacked?’

‘If you could call it that. I was doing my rounds when half a dozen ruffians came along the road. The sentries told them to halt and the beggars opened fire at once. We’ve been returning fire since, but largely, I think, speculative. I estimate three dozen shots at us at least.’

‘Are they still keeping up the fire? The intruders, I mean.’

‘I’ve seen no muzzle flash for several minutes.’

Prudence suggested he wait a little longer, but Hervey was keen to follow up fast if the intruders had fled. ‘You don’t think it any sort of diversion – others slipping past while they fired on you?’

‘I’m certain there’s no one on the road or tow-path that came through us.’

‘Very well. We’ll go forward as soon as you order ceasefire.’ He turned to the RSM. ‘Mr Hairsine, bring them up, if you will.’

The RSM moved sharply.

‘And F Troop to light torches,’ Hervey called after him.

‘Sir!’

Hervey took out his map. ‘What do you make of it, Hallam? Why begin firing like that?’

Captain Hallam shook his head. ‘I’ve been thinking the same myself. It’s a deuced mazey thing. They even managed to shoot two of their own.’

Hervey’s ears pricked. ‘Indeed? Have you got them? Do they have any papers?’

‘Just pay books. The beggars reek of beer and whisky, though.’

‘No doubt. Dutch courage. Did they have firearms?’

‘No. And I meant they’re so soused I’m amazed they could stand.’

Hervey shook his head and began examining the map, intent on discovering what they might have overlooked.

But soon the squadron came jingling up, hooves thudding rather than clattering, the road no longer metalled, a green lane.

He folded his map quickly and made for the door. ‘Cease firing?’

Number One Company Commander nodded.

Outside, he began blinking to recover his night eyes, trying his best to look away from the torches – one to every three dragoons.

‘Here, sir!’ called Johnson, standing fast where Hervey had dismounted.

He couldn’t complain, but six months ago Johnson would have brought Gilbert up as soon as he heard the firing slacken. He wondered how long it would be before he recovered that assurance – if at all. ‘Have you the torch?’

‘Sir. Do you want me to light it, sir?’

Hervey blinked again, this time at the alien formality. ‘No, not yet,’ he said, taking the reins and remounting. ‘Captain Worsley!’

‘Here, Hervey.’

The voice was closer than he’d expected. He wished the lanterns in the mill had not been so bright; his night eyes were quite gone. ‘There may be two dozen of them. They’ve firearms; how many, I don’t know. They had a bit of a skirmish with the picket, but it looks as though they’ve fallen back. Send an officer and thirty along the sluice, the other side of it, for about three hundred yards until it bends like a hairpin, and then picket the hundred yards or so between there and the bridge on the canal to make sure they can’t get any further south – or get back north, for that matter. See to it as well that the lock north of the hairpin’s picketed. And keep torches well lit so we all know who’s where.’

F Troop Leader turned in the saddle. ‘Mr Thoyts!’

Hervey waited until Worsley had given his orders, then told him his own intention. ‘You’ll recall the map: from here on the Lea and the canal converge for about half a mile, and then there’s a fifty-yard cut which practically joins them, albeit a narrow one. There’s no bridge over the Lea, so if Thoyts stands on the canal they can’t get across there either. We may just have them in the neck of a bottle. We’ll ride straight for the cut now and then beat back towards Thoyts if there’s no sign of them. Torches rear for the time being. Let’s use the moon while we can.’

Captain Worsley touched his shako.

Although he had not seen the ground north of the sluice, Hervey said he would lead. He had had the most time to imprint the map on his mind, and although by simply following the river any dragoon could have found the cut, he judged that he could lead them there quicker by swinging north-west across the common.

Mr Hairsine had objections, however. ‘Proper drill, sir, with respect! Best have scouts out.’

Hervey hesitated: the RSM was right, but every second counted.

‘I’ll scout with Lightowler, sir,’ said Hairsine by way of deciding it.

‘Very well, Sarn’t-major. Head north-west for half a mile; if you run onto the canal then just follow it right.’

‘Sir.’ The RSM saluted, and nodded to his groom. ‘Come on, Lightowler.’

They set off at a measured trot. It was moonlight to see well enough, and the treeless, marshy common ahead could hold few surprises. Hervey let them get a good fifty yards before signalling the rest of the troop to follow.

It took but five minutes to close to the cut, with not a sign of life other than protesting waterfowl. Hervey could see, too, that Cornet Thoyts’s party had made equally rapid progress, the torches now halted in a line, and four more where he supposed the canal lock must be. If there were fugitives on the common they were as good as in the bag. ‘Well done, Thoyts,’ he muttered.

A sudden and violent fusillade brought him up short. He held up his hand and reined sharp to a halt. He couldn’t work out from which side of the river, or even the canal, the firing came, for the two narrowed to a point at the cut. He took out his telescope. It revealed only that the RSM and Lightowler had dismounted. There were more shots – the muzzle flashes two hundred yards off at least. Not worth returning fire with carbines at that range. He had but one decision: dismount or not.

‘Front form line!’

NCOs shouted the order the length of the column as Corporal Parry blew the repeated Gs.

Hervey supposed they had a frontage of two hundred yards at most, and narrowing. They would be tight packed, even with the torch men in the second line. But the NCOs would manage it somehow. ‘Draw swords!’

Out rasped fifty blades.

‘Forward!’ He would keep them at the walk – all the better to hear the next words of command.

The moon disappeared behind a cloud as they swept the ground. Hervey cursed: the smiles of harlots! But the firing soon stopped.

They bumped, stumbled and barged on for a minute and more.

‘Sir!’ came a dragoon’s voice, urgent.

Hervey looked right.

‘Sir, it’s Lightowler. I think ’e’s dead, sir.’

He cursed again. F Troop could take care of Private Lightowler. Where was the RSM?

They found him twenty yards on, not a stone’s throw from the cut. It was still near pitch dark, for the torches served more to light up the line than the way ahead. Hervey jumped from the saddle.

The RSM lay clutching his left shoulder. ‘Other side of the cut they were, sir. Lightowler took a ball in the throat.’ The voice was as determined as ever but a deal weaker.

‘Johnson!’ shouted Hervey. Johnson was no surgeon’s mate, but he knew how to staunch and dress. ‘Did you see how many, Sarn’t-major?’

‘Ay, sir, I did: quite a little knot of ’em – a dozen and more, and at least half a dozen shooters.’

Hervey angered. He clasped the RSM’s right arm, then when Johnson came he sprang up and back into the saddle. ‘Forward!’

The clouds parted suddenly and the moon lit their front like a stage at curtain-up. Another ragged fusillade crackled directly ahead.

Hervey saw his quarry. ‘Charge!’

The canal cut was but a hunting challenge to any half-decent equestrian, especially now the blood was up. The squadron leapt, scrambled and tumbled across it. Sabres sliced left and right. There were screams, oaths and imprecations for a full five minutes until every dragoon had satisfied himself there was not a living thing on the marsh but in blue.

‘Rally! Rally!’ croaked Hervey.

Corporal Parry blew as well as he could, but he too had swung his sabre the while.

‘Captain Worsley!’

‘Think ‘e’s fallen, sir,’ came a voice Hervey recognized. ‘Sarn’t-major Collins?’

‘Ay, sir!’

‘Hand over all your torches to E, then get your troop in hand fifty yards back and wait my orders!’

‘Sir!’

‘Sarn’t-major Armstrong!’

‘Sir!’

‘I want every body and weapon recovered. Every last one. Get as many torches as you can forward.’

‘Sir!’

‘Hervey?’ came his lieutenant’s voice, breathless.

‘Mr Fearnley, this is the rummest thing. Those wretches had no more idea of driving home an attack than a bunch of Methodists. I can’t think what in hell’s name they were about. Take a dozen men and see what you find yonder.’ He pointed in the direction the wretches must have come. ‘Horses, boats, waggons – anything. Half a mile, no more.’

Lieutenant Fearnley touched his peak and called for his serjeant.

Hervey sat silently astride as the torches began revealing the butcher’s bill, body after crumpled body in grey homespun, a dozen of them at least, more a scene from the plague than a battleground. These men, whoever they were, had not fallen like soldiers; he could not even see their weapons. They had certainly not
behaved
as soldiers. It had been more like that night at Elvas, when the rebels had opened fire in one of the squares to test the garrison. That was
exactly
what it was like. Except that the rebels had not been so inept as to get themselves shot. And where were Nasmyth’s men in all this? Hervey cursed worse than before, and shook his head. There was a smell of rat. That, he was sure.

But why repine? To all other appearances, armed men had tried to storm the Royal Gunpowder Mills, and the 6th Light Dragoons, commanded by Acting-Major Matthew Hervey, had done their duty with economy and efficiency. And with thorough execution.

He swore again, stood in the stirrups and bellowed the one order he was pleased to give: ‘Sarn’t-major Armstrong, take Mr Hairsine’s place!’

IX

LIBERTICIDE

Hounslow, next day

The first streaks of a grey dawn followed the squadron into barracks, but it was another three hours before Hervey returned, insistent as he had been on seeing Captain Worsley, the RSM and two injured dragoons into the proper care of the surgeon at the mills, and the body of Private Lightowler into the hands of a decent undertaker.

He had not known Lightowler. Collins said that he was a waterman’s boy, from Kent, but where exactly he didn’t know. Hervey hoped the attestation papers would say something, though not every recruit would declare a next of kin, for his own good reasons. But however root-less a dragoon’s life might appear in the official records, he had four hundred adoptive kin, the bearers of the numeral ‘VI’ on their regimental appointments. There would be a funeral with all due military honours, for Lightowler had died on the King’s service, and no man in the Sixth would wish to see that go unremarked; for what would that say of the worth of his own life?

‘The very devil of a business, sir,’ said the adjutant, as he brought Hervey brandy in his office. ‘I had it all from Fearnley.’

‘Not all of it, I’ll warrant,’ came the rasping reply, the anger raw despite the four-hour ride and the lack of sleep. ‘Those were no Whiteboys and Irish navvies. Not those who did the business at any rate.’

‘Sir?’

Hervey unfastened the bib front of his tunic and loosened the necktie. ‘We killed a dozen of them and rounded up half a dozen more, but they were so drunk they could scarcely walk. They could’ve done little harm firing.’

Vanneck was puzzled. ‘Then who did?’

Hervey shook his head. ‘I don’t know. But they didn’t shoot like bolting paddies; that’s certain. The whole affair has a deuced rank smell to it.’

‘Well, it has brought some distinction at least,’ said the adjutant, handing him a sheet of paper.

Headquarters,
The London District,
20th March 1827.

The General Officer Commanding congratulates Major Hervey and detachment H. M. 6th Light Dragoons for their high efficiency and exemplary conduct in the incident at H. M. Gunpowder Mills
last night. He much regrets the injury to life and limb among the detachment and assures the officer commanding that the facts of the incident, and the approbation of the General Officer Commanding of their part in the protection of a manufactory so vital to the Nation’s defence, shall be placed this day before the Commander-in-Chief…

Hervey was impressed by the promptness with which it had been both written and delivered. Had it not been for the mention of casualties, he could have thought it composed in anticipation the night before. Why was the General Officer Commanding troubling to rise so early? Hervey had never known such dispatch, not even in the Peninsula. But without doubt it brought distinction, and that was some consolation. An ill wind, such as could do no harm to his purchase of command…

‘Gratifying,’ he said simply, handing back the paper. ‘You had better tell Sarn’t-major Armstrong he will stand duty for Mr Hairsine until Tully is returned from leave.’