Hervey 09 - Man Of War (46 page)

Now came the happy strains of ‘Shrewsbury Lasses’, Lord Hill’s favourite (as the bandmaster knew full well). He rose and went to the window, his eyes becoming quite misty at the thought of his Shropshire childhood, of his fifteen siblings, five of whom had fought, as he, throughout the French wars. ‘Daddy’ Hill, as the army knew him (his paternal regard for the men under his command had been proverbial in the Peninsula), was now fifty-six years old, though by his round face and ungainly frame he might have been a country squire of seventy and more. But his mind was still active, young.

He returned to his desk. ‘The Cape Mounted Rifles: that is the decided opinion, is it, that they be reconstituted as separate companies, and no regimental staff?’

‘It is, my lord: the express recommendation of the War Office. The lieutenant-governor at the Cape accepts it as a retrenchment measure, and that the penalty is bearable.’

‘And Hervey thereby relinquishes lieutenant-colonel’s rank.’

‘Just so. With effect from the first of January proximo. The appointment was always to be provisional, though I understand that Colonel Hervey was originally gazetted to the following December.’

‘And so the board recommends he has a brevet.’

‘Yes, my lord. The general officer commanding the London District has made a very particular recommendation, as too has the lieutenant-governor at the Cape.’

Lord Hill frowned. ‘Why has the GOC made a recommendation?’

‘In part because he believes Hervey to have been ill used over the affair at Waltham Abbey, in which, after all, the regiment under his orders acted in the most trying circumstances, and to advantage. And also on account of a letter he received from Lord Holderness.’

‘How old is Hervey now?’ (Lord Hill searched for the detail.) ‘Thirty . . .’

‘Thirty-seven, my lord.’

Lord Hill shook his head. ‘And the board recommends that he has a brevet and not substantive promotion.’

The military secretary nodded.

The commander-in-chief shook his head once more. ‘I was major general near five years when I was his age. It won’t serve, I tell you. I know Hervey from the Peninsula – he galloped for me at Talavera – and I differ from the board’s recommendation.’ Lord Hill recollected young Cornet Hervey’s service very well indeed, and with a warmth that his present frown utterly belied.

The military secretary saw only a disapproving look, and heard only dissent at the recommendation of promotion. He made to speak, but then thought better of it. It was, after all, the commander-in-chief’s prerogative to countermand the board’s findings.

Lord Hill continued studying the list for another minute or so, before laying it down and taking up a pen. He dipped it in the silver inkwell in the middle of his desk, and struck through the nomination to a brevet.

‘Sir, may I beg you to give a reason for disallowing Major Hervey’s brevet?’

‘You may. It is insufficient.’

‘My lord?’

‘He is to have command, Harry.
And
he is to advance without purchase.’

THE END

HISTORICAL AFTERWORD

Le vieux colosse turc sur l’Orient retombe.
La Grèce est libre et dans la tombe
Byron applaudit Navarin.

Victor Hugo

Not everyone applauded the battle of Navarino. The Anglo-French-Russian statesmen who signed the Paris treaty had not envisaged a battle at all, believing that a strong show of force would somehow compel the Turks to give up their sovereignty of the Hellenes. Such a vain hope is not unknown to the military today, although at least at Navarino there was more than enough force to do the job once the politicians’ hopes had been confounded. The Tsar was pleased, certainly, for Russia’s great eastern rival was reduced (Nicholas I offered Codrington a ship to carry his flag while the
Asia
was being repaired); the French, too, were delighted with the news, for it was a most welcome restoration of
la gloire
. In England, however, although the victory was greeted with the usual popular acclaim which Britannia’s soldiers and sailors rightfully expect, the official reaction was far from joyous. The Duke of Clarence, Lord High Admiral and a naval enthusiast of almost childlike conviction, was, not surprisingly, delighted: without reference to his brother the King, he awarded Codrington the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath. But the King acquiesced only with reluctance: ‘I have sent him a ribband,’ he is reputed to have said, ‘but it ought to be a halter.’ Indeed, in his speech at the opening of parliament in January the following year, he declared: ‘Notwithstanding the valour displayed by the combined fleet, His Majesty laments the conflict should have occurred with the naval force of an ancient ally: but he still entertains a hope that this untoward event will not be followed by further hostilities . . .’ And so the recriminations began. They would not abate in the best part of ten years, and never to Codrington’s satisfaction, although he was reinstated to command, and promoted Admiral of the Red in 1837 (under a Whig, not a Tory, government).

The casualty returns in Codrington’s despatch of 21 October 1827, published in
The London Gazette Extraordinary
of 10 November, were as follows:

British:
Killed 75, Wounded 197

French:
Killed 43, Wounded 144

Russian: Returns had not been received at the time of the despatch, but were later given as
Killed 59, Wounded 137
. Of these,
24
and
67
respectively were from Count Heiden’s flagship
Azov
, 74 guns, which came valiantly to the aid of the
Asia
in her peril, and which might therefore have been the model for
Prince Rupert
.

Turkish – Egyptian:
Killed 2,400. Losses: three line-of-battle ships, nineteen frigates, twenty-six corvettes, twelve brigs, five fire-vessels

In fact, Codrington’s later estimate put the Turkish–Egyptian figures at
Killed 6,000
(swelled by the primitive or non-existent provisions for first-aid; indeed, some men were chained to their posts),
Wounded 4,000
. Among these were captured British and American sailors, as well as Slavs and Greeks. At least sixty Turkish–Egyptian ships were totally destroyed. Many that could have been repaired were blown up or fired during the night ‘in a spirit of wanton fatalism’, says one historian of the battle. According to another, French, account, the only fighting ships still afloat the following day were one dismasted frigate, four corvettes, six brigs and four schooners.

This scale of loss is not surprising considering the expenditure of ammunition: from
Asia
, 9,289 lb of powder and 40 tons of shot (1 ton = 2,240 lb); from
Genoa
7,089 lb and 30 tons respectively; and from
Albion
a staggering 11,092 lb and 52 tons respectively. Readers of
An Act of Courage
will be interested in the comparable effect on land: the expenditure of
Genoa
alone was calculated to be enough to open a breach 65 feet wide in the ramparts of Badajoz at a range of 600–700 yards. Needless to say, the expenditure was considered excessive in the counting houses of Whitehall.

The Allies lost not a single vessel, although many of the small ships suffered proportionately more casualties than those of the Line. The gallant little
Hind
, having no place assigned to her, deliberately took up position alongside Codrington’s flagship
Asia
, under the guns of the Egyptian
Warrior
, which tried in vain to sink or capture her. The action earned her the fleet’s accolade of ‘His Majesty’s Cutter of the Line’. She lost three killed and ten wounded out of a crew of thirty, though among the dead was not, I am pleased to say, her gallant commander, Lieutenant John Robb, else my younger daughter would not today be married to the man she is.

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON’S CAVALRY

AN EXPLANATORY NOTE

Here is a picture – a very incomplete one – of the cavalry in the Duke of Wellington’s day. The picture remained the same, with but minor changes, until after the Crimean War nearly half a century later.

Like the infantry, the cavalry was organized in regiments. Each had a colonel as titular head, usually a very senior officer (in the case of the 10th Light Dragoons, for instance, it was the Prince of Wales; in the case of the fictional 6th Light Dragoons it was first the Earl of Sussex and then Lord George Irvine, both lieutenant generals) who kept a fatherly if distant eye on things, in particular the appointment of officers. The actual command of the regiment was exercised by a lieutenant-colonel. He had a major as his second in command (or ‘senior major’ as he was known in the Sixth and other regiments), an adjutant who was usually commissioned from the ranks, a regimental serjeant-major (RSM) and various other ‘specialist’ staff.

A cavalry regiment comprised a number of troops identified by a letter (A Troop, B Troop, etc.), each of a hundred or so men commanded by a captain, though in practice the troops were usually under strength. The number of troops in a regiment varied depending on where it was stationed; in Spain, for instance, at the height of the war, there were eight.

The captain was assisted by two or three subaltern officers – lieutenants and cornets (second-lieutenants) – and a troop serjeant-major, who before 1811 was known as a quartermaster (QM). After 1811 a regimental quartermaster was established to supervise supply and quartering (accommodation) for the regiment as a whole – men and horses. There was also a riding-master (RM), like the QM usually commissioned from the ranks (‘the ranks’ referred to everyone who was not a commissioned officer, in other words RSM and below). With his staff of rough-riders (a rough was an unbroken remount, a replacement horse) the RM was responsible for training recruits both human and equine.

Troops were sometimes paired in squadrons, numbered First, Second, Third (and occasionally Fourth). On grand reviews in the eighteenth century the colonel would command the first squadron, the lieutenant-colonel the second, and the major the third, each squadron bearing an identifying
guidon
, a silk banner – similar to the infantry battalion’s
colours
. By the time of the Peninsular War, however, guidons were no longer carried mounted in the field, and the squadron was commanded by the senior of the two troop leaders (captains).

A troop or squadron leader, as well indeed as the commanding officer, would give his orders in the field by voice and through his trumpeter. His words of command were either carried along the line by the sheer power of his voice, or were repeated by the troop officers, or in the case of the commanding officer were relayed by the adjutant (‘gallopers’ and aides-de-camp performed the same function for general officers). The trumpet was often used for repeating an order and to recall or signal scattered troops. The commanding officer and each captain had his own trumpeter, who was traditionally mounted on a grey, and they were trained by the trumpet-major (who, incidentally, was traditionally responsible for administering floggings).

The lowest rank was private man. In a muster roll, for instance, he was entered as ‘Private John Smith’; he was addressed by all ranks, however, simply as ‘Smith’. In the Sixth and regiments like them he would be referred to as a dragoon. The practice of referring to him as a trooper came much later; the cavalry rank ‘trooper’ only replaced ‘private’ officially after the First World War. In Wellington’s day, a trooper was the man’s horse – troop horse; an officer’s horse was known as a charger (which he had to buy for himself – two of them at least – along with all his uniform and equipment).

A dragoon, a private soldier, would hope in time to be promoted corporal, and he would then be addressed as, say, ‘Corporal Smith’ by all ranks. The rank of lance-corporal, or in some regiments ‘chosen man’, was not yet properly established, though it was used unofficially. In due course a corporal might be promoted sergeant (with a ‘j’ in the Sixth and other regiments) and perhaps serjeant-major. The best of these non-commissioned officers (NCOs – every rank from corporal to RSM, i.e. between private and cornet, since warrant rank was not yet properly established), if he survived long enough, would hope to be promoted RSM, and would then be addressed by the officers as ‘Mr Smith’ (like the subaltern officers), or by subordinates as ‘Sir’. In time the RSM might be commissioned as a lieutenant to be adjutant, QM or RM.