Hervey 11 - On His Majesty's Service (37 page)

‘Poor devils,’ groaned Hervey, looking right to see what danger faced
them
.

Seconds later it was the same: down a near-vertical cliff plunged the Turk horse.

Colonel Voinov’s instinct was to haul away and re-form. ‘Columns!’

Too late.

Voinov changed his mind. ‘Charge!’

It was a desperate rush at a great host of lances. But surprise counted. The Turks scattered like chaff in a sudden gust of wind. Not a point touched a single hussar; some of the
sipahis
even took cuts from the faster sabres.

Hervey had not even lofted his when they pulled up. ‘That was fortune smiling,’ he rasped, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘We’d better retire and re-form, or else if they ever see we’re unsupported they’ll roll us up like a damned carpet!’

Fairbrother had already seen – horse and infantry threatening to lap round their other flank. ‘Quickly, Hervey!’

The squadrons turned as best they could – no trumpets, only shouting – trying to regain order as they bustled rear. It was no field-day drill, to be sure.

They began galloping, hastened now by the re-emboldened Turks.

Hervey despaired. They must rally soon, or else it would be rout.

Another two hundred yards – a dry course on which to form: ‘Hold hard!’ he growled, as if any would heed, let alone hear.

Besides, Voinov knew his job. The Irkutzk turned about, rough but ready.

‘Look, sir!’ called Agar.

Five hundred yards left, a phalanx of Turk infantry had detached the Murom Regiment from the rest of the line. They were frantically forming square, surrounded on three sides already, and losing order. Muskets from another phalanx swarmed on them like angry wasps. It would be a pure killing match.

‘My God, where did they come from? Brace yourself, Agar. They’re lost.’

Where were the supports? But all of Ostroschenko’s cavalry were fighting to break clean or else retiring apace. The Irkutzk couldn’t wheel and charge or they’d open a flank to the
sipahis
.

He shook his head. This was not well-handled. Turk numbers were beginning to tell. Some of the gunners were bravely serving their pieces, but they too couldn’t stand without supports. Where
was
Ostroschenko?

‘There’s the general, sir,’ called Acton, pointing to the middle of the field.

Hervey saw: he, too, was in a perilous place. ‘He makes a stand! Does Voinov not see him?’

‘Look, sir, they’re breaking away!’ shouted Agar excitedly.

Hervey looked again. Men were streaming from the crumbling Murom square. Unchecked and they would throw away their muskets and be cut down.

‘We’ve got to rally them, Fairbrother. No one else will.’

He didn’t wait for opinion. He took off at a gallop, calling as he went. ‘Mr Agar, when I pull up, remain in the saddle with the others to bar the way. Fairbrother, we shall dismount. They’ll never rally otherwise.’

Fairbrother was past protest. Death by Turk lance or Russian bayonet – what did it matter?

‘Flats of the sword, no pistols.’

The noise was great, and the smoke increasing. A hundred yards, a dry channel to break their flight: that’s where he’d rally them.

‘Here!’ He drew hard to the halt and sprang down, Acton taking the reins.

Cornet Agar motioned Brayshaw and Green to stand left as Acton turned in on the right.

The fugitives from the Murom Regiment came on like hounds in full cry. Hervey raised his sabre and began hallooing.

The first of them took the dry course in their stride. Acton ran in obliquely, leading Hervey’s gelding, blocking. Several gave up, fell exhausted, though some got past. Agar sent two sprawling with the flat of his sabre. They looked up at him strangely grateful. Another jabbed with his bayonet. Acton sprang from the saddle cursing but still holding both sets of reins and felled him deftly with a swipe in the small of the back. He grabbed the man’s tunic straps and hauled him to his feet, shouting the while, turning him round and pushing him back towards the dry course, where Hervey and Fairbrother were manhandling and cajoling. He shouted to Brayshaw and Green to take the reins, then ran to their side.

Exhaustion helped. There was soon a line of twenty Muromskiye standing in the course. Stragglers now began making for them of their own accord – safety in standing numbers. An NCO had recovered himself and was barking reassuringly. A drummer boy struggled manfully with his drum.

Hervey saw him, half aghast: he looked no older than Georgiana. ‘Drum! Drum!’ he shouted.

The boy looked terrified.

Acton ran and showed him, and he began a plucky roll.

Hervey wished he had a dozen more.

They were soon fifty, and most with muskets still. A horse battery galloped up and began unlimbering – six gleaming brass cannon. Hervey cheered them. The Murom fugitives cheered with him.

The Irkutzk Hussars had been pushed back a furlong. If only they would come up and support …

The sun beat down, their ears were filled with the infernal noise of slaughter, but Hervey and his fugitive company watched in silence the death of the Regiment of Murom – a monstrous firing squad. No,
worse
– for they were shot down with all the sport of netted rabbits. He was sickened. Not even at Waterloo had there been such execution.

But, curiously, it seemed to steady the fugitives. In ten more minutes they were a hundred, and a mix of regiments, like a life-raft in a sea of drowning men.

The battery was in action now – deafening, yet fortifying.

But there was none that could speak a language other than their own.

Acton, however, by some Babel-process given to NCOs, now had them volleying – and sharp about it too, even if their targets were a hundred yards too far for any appreciable effect. That didn’t matter; the drill was galvanizing. In four rounds of ball cartridge – two minutes of biting, ramming, presenting and firing – the flotsam of the field had regained a semblance of soldierly purpose, and Hervey began thinking they might hold.

‘Sir, look behind,’ called Agar, still astride.

Thank God – the Irkutzk coming up at the trot. Hervey nodded; he was
sure
they would now hold.

‘And I think it’s General Ostroschenko as well.’

It was indeed, and making straight for them. Hervey checked that his buttons were fastened – the instinct of twenty years.

The general rode up to the guns and embraced the captain warmly, and then along the line of 12-pounders with encouraging words for the gunners.

Then he turned to the improvised company of infantry. The senior of the NCOs called the line to attention, and then arms to ‘Present’.

Hervey saluted with his sword. ‘
Bonjour, monsieur le général
.’

Ostroschenko touched the peak of his cap to acknowledge.

Hervey tried to explain who they were, but the general nodded and stayed him.

‘
Je l’ai vue, monsieur le colonel anglais. Tout
.’

Hervey was glad of it; it spared him the discomfort of speaking of ‘stragglers’.

‘
Et je n’en oublierai pas!
’

Hervey returned his sword, and bowed.

Ostroschenko pointed right and rear to the ridge. ‘
Et voilà Pahlen!
’

Hervey turned; and sighed with relief. Count Pahlen’s corps, two divisions and another of cavalry, were coming down the slopes in column. Did Diebitsch sense victory, or fear defeat of his advance guard? For now, it hardly mattered: in half an hour Pahlen’s men would be close enough to support them, and his cavalry in no time at all. He saluted in acknowledgement.

This was the battle they had sought, said Ostroschenko. They would see it through where they stood. Then he smiled and nodded reassuringly: ‘
Tenez ferme, mes braves!
’

Agar had out his telescope. ‘A great number of guns, too, sir,’ he said when Ostroschenko had galloped back for his vantage point.

Pahlen’s batteries were moving by the valley of the Bulanik to keep clear of the columns. Hervey saw, yet he could not make out what it tokened, though only too aware of his worm’s-eye view of the battle. ‘Can Diebitsch believe the Turks have shot their bolt?’

Fairbrother had been too busy on the right of the volleying line to take much note of what was happening elsewhere. ‘The Vizier must have a deal more arrows in his quiver than that,’ he replied, doubtfully. ‘I’ll warrant we’ll have the fight of our lives within the hour. Might we try to find a Russian officer to take command here?’

It was a reasonable request, but Hervey could see no very practical way of addressing it. Corporal Acton, meanwhile, was strolling along the front of the line like a regimental serjeant-major. They were now a hundred and fifty, and at Hervey’s bidding Acton had somehow got them into two ranks – and then to stand easy. There was now laughter and the smell of pipe smoke. At that moment Hervey was unsure he would
welcome
a relief.

The sun was no longer in their eyes but beat down unsparingly, and canteens were running dry. Had there been a stream nearby he might have risked sending half a dozen men to fill them, but there was none. There was nothing for it therefore but to ask the hussars. He pulled the medal ribbon out from his tunic once more and strode back the hundred yards to where the Irkutzk stood.

Colonel Voinov sent for the
rotmistr
. When he came, Hervey explained the predicament. Yet Voinov was unmoved: the Muromskiye must live with the consequences of their indiscipline, he said.

Hervey persisted: the men had stood long in the sun, they had rallied bravely, and their mouths were parched biting off the cartridges.

Still Voinov was unmoved: they were fortunate to escape the lash and the firing squad for running away (and then a remark which the
rotmistr
did not translate, but which seemed to imply some contempt for the Muromskiye, as opposed to the manly Sibirskiye).

‘They are soldiers of the Tsar, Colonel. They will bear their condition without complaint – or else they will answer for it.’

There was no animus in Voinov’s remarks, only a gulf between their notions of authority. Hervey knew he had no experience of conscripts, and took his leave courteously, but with a look that spoke his mind.

‘They are soldiers of the Tsar,’ he told Fairbrother simply.

Fairbrother raised an eyebrow. ‘At this moment they look pretty much like soldiers of anybody’s. And putting them against a wall tomorrow doesn’t help now.’

Hervey smiled, grimly. He had at least the comfort of knowing that Voinov’s sabres would make bloody work of any who ran – and that the Muromskiye knew it too.

The attack began a little before half past three with a storm of roundshot on the jangled orchards and groves of Tschirkowna, pounding General Ostroschenko’s brigade of chasseurs which had stood throughout with impressive resolution. Pahlen’s artillery answered with shell, and soon the field was a blanket of smoke, so thick in places that none could see beyond a dozen yards. The gunners close-on Hervey’s men hastily began hand-spiking the 12-pounders back to their original lay and reloading with canister; if the Turks came on in this fog of battle there’d be no time for other than case-shot.

The smoke drifted, thinning, then rolled in again thicker. Hervey became anxious: this was the time the faint-hearted – and the straight cowards – would slip away. ‘Get them to fix bayonets, Corporal Acton.’ There was no point in giving the order in English; best let Acton do it by demonstration.

‘Sir!’

Acton marched to the front, seized the bayonet from the belt of a startled
rekrut
and held it aloft. ‘Rousskis will fix bayonets,’ he bellowed (he had once seen the Militia do it). He waited a few seconds to let the cautionary sink in, and then roared the executive: ‘Fix bayonets!’

A hundred and fifty bayonets – those the
rekruty
had not lost or thrown away – were somehow fixed. Now, at least, if the Turks appeared out of the smoke they would have to stand a volley and then run on to steel. In truth, though, Hervey was confident of neither volley nor bayonet.

A commotion to the rear made all eyes turn.

He could scarce believe it: out from the ‘fog’ came the sutler of the erstwhile Regiment of Murom leading a train of donkeys.

There was cheering, and all order vanished as the
rekruty
flocked to him.

Hervey looked anxiously beyond in case it excited the Irkutzk to draw sabres.

For the time being they stood impassive. Perhaps the smoke worked to his advantage?

‘Corporal Acton, get these men under discipline!’ he barked as he doubled after them.