Hervey 11 - On His Majesty's Service (27 page)

‘The order is that messengers light a torch.’

Fairbrother merely raised an eyebrow.

The cannonading and musketry continued. The troops in the square stood fast.

In a quarter of an hour the sky was lightening distinctly.

‘Come,’ said Hervey, no longer content to wait now that imminent daylight promised them a view. ‘Let’s get up on the walls.’

As they crossed the square one of General Wachten’s staff officers hurried up to them. ‘Colonel Hervey, we did not know where you were,’ he began, in French. ‘The general would see you. Please, this way.’

He took them to the door of the staircase of the gate tower, and then up to the battlements.

Here they found the general standing tall on the parapet. ‘Colonel Hervey, I feared you had gone over to the other side!’ he declared boisterously, rolling his German with evident relish.

‘Had I the inclination, General, it would surely be a most perilous venture with those gunboats raking the ground so.’

‘I shall signal for them to cease firing as soon as I am able to see the ground. It cannot be but a false alarm. But it serves nonetheless: a little practice with powder – always good for the circulation!’

‘The picket, I imagine, is long called in, General, but are the Cossacks?’ Hervey was uncertain if they maintained the watch by night.

‘They retired after last light.’

‘May I ask your design, General?’

‘There is no yellow rocket; Vedeniapine has not signalled the redoubts cannot stand, so as soon as it is light enough to know where to direct the counter-assault, I shall do so. If the Turks are in the trenches they shall find us falling on them, and if they are not they shall have to fight us in the open.’

He turned to one of his aides-de-camp and rattled off an order. The officer saluted and hastened away.

‘The Pavlovsk and Kozlov regiments will advance in ten minutes,’ he explained. ‘It should be light enough to form ranks, yet not be seen distantly.’

He turned to a second aide-de-camp and gave the order to cease fire.

Seconds later there was a noise like the hiss of steam from a boiler, and another of the signal rockets raced high over the isthmus, bursting red. The fire from the gunships ceased.

Hervey took out his telescope to peer into the lightening darkness, trying to avoid the glare of the burning pitch barrels which the redoubts had lit. He could make out shadowy movement on the extreme right of ‘B’, the western redoubt (from which they had made yesterday’s sortie). It was rapid – darting, even – but without form. Yet what could it be but Turks, for all the Azov’s men must surely be standing to in the trenches? The flashes of musketry, besides playing the devil with his night eyes, revealed a fight of some sort, but whether it was Turk or Russian musketry, or both, he could not know.

‘What do you make of it all?’ he asked Fairbrother.

‘Quite evidently an affair of some heat, but what’s beyond it? For all we know the whole Turk force might be drawn up waiting for the storming party to take the forward trenches. Or equally possible that it’s a raid in strength, and no more.’

‘Just so,’ replied Hervey, lowering his glass and closing his eyes to recover from the sudden flaring of another tar barrel. ‘Yet they must know that daylight’s at hand. If it’s merely a raid they’d want to be away before it’s full light.’

‘I see ’orses, sir,’ said Corporal Acton, who had borrowed Cornet Agar’s telescope.

Hervey took up his glass again. ‘You have better eyes than I, Corp’ Acton. Where?’

Acton closed to his side, and pointed. ‘Go right, sir – furthest end of the Plough ’andle, and then below to where all that smoke’s drifted.’

Hervey searched. Even half a mile, perhaps more, from the trenches the white smoke was reflecting the flaring light of the pitch barrels and occasional bursting shell – but he could see no horses. ‘You’re sure of it?’

‘Sure of it, sir. Just a dekh, and then yon smoke must’ve drifted again.’

It was good enough. Hervey turned to his host. ‘My corporal had a glimpse of horsemen, General.’ He reckoned he did not need to say that it might mean artillery.

‘The devil! Clearly an attack of some weight then. Well, I am going down to accompany the regiments. You may accompany too.’

‘With pleasure, General.’

Fairbrother took hold of Hervey’s arm. It was one thing to wish the Turks their congé, but quite another to become embroiled in delivering it. Had they not had scrapes enough? ‘Are you quite sure it’s the place from which best to observe?’

‘We can hardly stand here as if it were a race meeting,’ Hervey replied.

‘But we ain’t declared, either. What will it serve if you’re shot?’

‘The odds are agin it.’

Fairbrother turned to follow his friend. ‘Who would live for ever?’ he said wearily, bracing himself to more action.

The gates swung open and the regiments began marching out in column to the taps of the company time-beaters. It was now light enough for Hervey to make out the colour of the facings, and for the NCOs to see an errant man and bark at him to keep step – but still too dark to see with any certainty what was happening at the trenches. Not feeling bound to hang on the general’s coat tails (who was, in any case, mounted), he, Fairbrother and Corporal Acton slipped through the gates and scrambled atop the rubbled wall near which Johnson had been bowled over by the
franc tireur
not a week ago.

The Pavlovsk, leading, began forming at the halt, two companies abreast, two in support, with all the regularity of the parade ground – sharp but unhurried. And then the Kozlov, with less majesty, but with no less efficiency, forming double-company front, abreast and left of the Pavlovsk. Hervey was impressed.

Into the interval of a dozen yards between the two regiments rode General Wachten and his staff.

Hervey sighed. ‘I suppose we’ll see no less for being on foot, though it makes it deuced awkward having any conversation with Wachten.’

‘Shall you need to converse with him?’ asked Fairbrother guardedly. ‘I really do counsel caution.’

‘You are always judicious.’ Hervey understood perfectly his friend’s reluctance, but also that Fairbrother could never run from a just fight; he was, as the saying in India went, a man to go tiger shooting with.

There was the sound of hoofs, and then the unmistakeable jingling of Cossack bridles.

‘Perhaps they bring your seat at the general’s right hand,’ said Fairbrother archly as the
sotnia
came through the gates at a jog-trot.

‘I doubt it.’ But he was still inclined to excitement. It was the only way he could dismiss his friend’s caution (for he could not fault his reasoning). ‘I would see the battle as does the infantryman. I have quite a taste for it now.’

‘Leave to speak, sir?’

‘Wear away, Corporal Acton.’

‘I’ve just seen ’orses again, sir,’ he said, still peering through his telescope.

The light was increasing rapidly. Hervey thought he too could see what might be horsemen. ‘Well, we shan’t have long to wait,’ he said, putting away his glass as if to say they were now committed to the fight.

Five minutes later, the sun broached the horizon and its first horizontal rays began searching the plain.

And then it was revealed – infantry, a brigade and more, standing waiting a mile hence, a mass of cavalry on either flank, artillery drawn up forward. ‘I believe the Seraskier has stolen a march,’ said Fairbrother decidedly. ‘Vedeniapine’s chaplains had better be on their knees.’

‘I’d never discourage prayer,’ said Hervey thoughtfully, ‘but Vedeniapine’s situation may by no means be as perilous as you surmise. The Seraskier can’t have wanted his position revealed by daylight thus. The storming parties should have broken into the trenches while it was yet dark so the rest could close with the redoubts as daylight came – rather than standing yonder in review order.’

General Wachten’s
coup d’oeil
evidently accorded with Hervey’s. Pointing with his telescope in the direction of the massing Turks, he gave the order for the regiments to load.

‘See,’ said Hervey, nodding to the suddenly animated lines of infantrymen; ‘we might be with Marlborough for all that the drill’s changed.’ He supposed that Peter the Great himself would have approved (certainly the Duke of Marlborough would have found the drill entirely familiar). He could not understand the Russian, but he soon saw what it meant.

‘
Prime and load
.’ Each man made a quarter turn to the right, brought his musket to the hip and opened the pan.

‘
Handle cartridge
.’ Back snapped the frizzen, out came cartridge from cartouche bag, and a thousand well-drilled soldiers of the Tsar bit off the bullets and spat out the paper.

‘
Prime
.’ Hammer to half-cock, pinch of powder in priming pan, frizzen snapped closed again.

‘
About
.’ Musket butt to the ground, rest of powder into barrel, spit in the ball and push in the cartridge paper to wad the charge.

‘
Draw ramrods
.’ Pull the ramrod half-way from the barrel hoops, seize backhanded in the middle, draw out and turn it simultaneously to the front, place one inch into barrel.

‘
Ram down the cartridge
.’ Drive wadding, bullet and powder to bottom of barrel, tamp down with two quick strokes, return ramrod to its hoops.

Half a minute.

The brigade shouldered arms, and waited.

General Wachten rode forward five lengths. ‘Troops will advance!’

Battalion commanders repeated the cautionary.

‘By the left –
March!
’

Out stepped the line to the beat of drum in the left flank company, taken up in turn by the time-beaters the length of the brigade. The Cossacks followed at a hundred yards.

‘Come on,’ said Hervey, scrambling down the pile of masonry.

Fairbrother was past remonstrating. In any case, he had never marched to the beat of drum in a parade like this. He fancied he would enjoy it.

They fell in between the Grenadiers and the Kozlov Regiment.

‘A fine prospect, then. Don’t you agree, Corporal Acton?’

‘Can’t understand why I didn’t take the Fusilier serjeant’s shilling and not Serjeant Deakin’s, sir.’

Droll; Hervey smiled. And since there was little else to do in the advance but march in step, he might as well pass the time of day: ‘You were ’listed by Serjeant Deakin, were you? C Troop man – the image of a dragoon. No question that you preferred his shilling. How much was the bounty?’

‘Nine guineas, sir.’

‘I hope there were not too many off-reckonings.’

‘I was able to buy a small interest in a public house, sir.’

Hervey laughed. ‘Ale for all who drank your farewell! I’ve never heard it thus expressed.’

‘No, sir. I means it proper. My uncle’s landlord o’ the Marquis o’ Granby in Bromley.’

Hervey was a shade discomfited. ‘I beg your pardon, Corporal Acton. My compliments to you. An admirably named place.’

Fairbrother had detached himself from the marching repartee, and was first to notice the activity off-shore. ‘Look yonder.’ He pointed to the gunships off the west side of the isthmus.

They had lowered small-boats, and the crews were pulling hard. It was not yet full light but the towing ropes were clearly visible. It wouldn’t take long to swing the ships on their moorings so the guns could bear.

‘Smart work,’ said Hervey. ‘As we observed yesterday, they’ll have targets aplenty if the Turk obliges and stands fast in the open much longer … What do you estimate their number?’

‘I confess I’ve never seen the like,’ said Fairbrother. ‘Who knows how many stand to the rear. Our perspective on foot is very limited. Thousands?’

‘What say you, Corporal Acton?’

Even though observation was the dragoon’s business, and the tricks of the trade practised every field day, it was still a tall order. Yet Acton was undaunted. He shielded his eyes (the sun was now gathering strength) and calmly surveyed the distant ‘enemy’.

‘There appears to be three distinct musters of infantry, sir. If that’s three battalions, suppose upwards, say, of two thousand? The cavalry I can’t make out at all well, but there must be half that number at least. And where else would all them we saw with the Cossacks have gone?’

‘So your report would be?’

‘Estimate two thousand infantry in brigade, with cavalry supports at least one thousand, and artillery troop.’

‘Excellent summation. There must also be a battalion in the trenches, else the fighting would not be so active. We must count on there being four thousand in all.’

‘And we are, what, fifteen hundred?’ asked Fairbrother (‘we’ seemed natural enough, marching in line with a Russian brigade – and he was certain the Turks would make no distinction).