Words of Command (Hervey 12) (Matthew Hervey) (15 page)

The order would be found in no drill book, but it was hallowed by precedent, for the Duke of Wellington had brought his Guards Brigade to its feet at Waterloo with the same words. They had lain concealed behind the ridge – ‘in the alien corn’ – and the duke had sprung them in the face of the
Garde Impériale
just as they were about to force the line. That, indeed, was how His Majesty’s 1st Regiment of Guards had won their name (and bearskins) – throwing back the
Grenadiers-à-Pied
.

However, Colonel Calthorp’s intention could no more carry the length of Left Flank Company than could the duke’s have carried to the whole brigade at Waterloo. And so it would be translated into the terminology of the drill book and executed by degrees, the business of the non-commissioned officers – once the captain had given the word.

‘Left Flank to stand up, please, Com’ny Sar’-Major.’

‘Sah!’ The snow was unable entirely to deaden the stamp of his boot as he came to attention.

Then, stentor-like, came the word: ‘Company: Fall in!’

A hundred guardsmen rose from what comfort they’d managed, tapping out pipes, re-fitting equipment, adjusting chin-straps, getting into line in open order to a chorus of yapping corporals.

‘Stand properly at ease!’

The two ranks steadied and then braced. They were now under the canon of the drill book.

‘Company, att–e–en …
shun!
’

The earth seemed to tremble.

The company serjeant-major turned to his captain and saluted. ‘Sah, the company is on parade and awaiting your order, sah!’

‘Thank you, Com’ny Sar’-Major.’

Captain Jessope drew his sword, the signal – if only to himself in this half light – that he now took back formal command. Then he put his weight into the stirrups and braced to the task.

‘Officers: take post!’

The lieutenants and three ensigns drew swords and found their place as best they could.

‘Left Flank Company: stand fast the non-commissioned officers; remainder will fix bayonets; fix …
bayonets!
’

The clatter was like a mill-full of flying shuttles.

‘
Shun!
’

Eighty guardsmen snapped back to attention, their muskets topped with sharpened steel.

‘Non-commissioned officers: with ball-cartridge …
load!
’

More clattering – twenty-odd ramrods tamping down the charges.

Had it been full company drill the business would have required six further commands –
Handle Cartridge
,
Prime
,
Cast About
,
Draw Ramrods
,
Ram Down Cartridge
,
Return Ramrods
– but an NCO of Grenadiers might be relied upon to load his musket in his own time.

‘Left Flank Company: shoulde–e–r …
arms!
’

Hervey turned to Fairbrother. ‘Mark well, for I wager you’ll not see its like again in many a year.’ He said it in a voice just low enough to conceal the admiration, for it didn’t do to praise these fellows too much – especially in the hearing of his own.

Fairbrother replied that he could not discern if he spoke merely in fact or in sorrow. ‘Recall our wager at dinner, Hervey – action ere the year is out. Perhaps not with red coats, but …’

‘Rear rank will move to the right; ri–i–ght …
turn!
’

There was another earth tremble.

‘Rear rank will extend the front rank to the right:
quick march!
’

By what means this unusual movement was accomplished Hervey could not quite see, but the continued yapping of the corporals, and then ‘
On
, sah!’ told him that it was. More words of command turned the former rear rank to the front, brought their muskets to the order, and then dressed the whole line as if on the Horse-guards.

‘Can’t have them going off crooked,’ said Colonel Calthorp; ‘even if they do have to scramble across that ditch. Wouldn’t serve.’

Captain Jessope had taken post in front of the company. He now looked left and then right, ordered muskets to the port, and then ‘Advance!’

His horse took the ditch in one easy movement, landing cleanly and encouraging the guardsmen to try the same. When they were all across, Worsley put his to the ditch, Corporal Lynch alongside.

‘They’ll extend left and right the more to cover the ground,’ explained Calthorp. ‘A cricket pitch between each man, with a few non-commissioned officers as flankers. A mile-long skirmish line, in truth.’

‘The cover’s not too close,’ said Hervey. ‘They shouldn’t have a deal of trouble. Good hunting.’

Indeed, although the cover was next to nothing for the greater part of the first furlong, the guardsmen went to it with a will. Any half-likely-looking bush or burrow – and in went the bayonet. Here was fine sport for all.

Captain Jessope had decided not to send a party directly to the lair, believing it better to keep the line as a whole advancing at an even pace, for he wanted to spring or capture every one of them, wherever they’d gone to earth. But it was now a struggle to keep that dressing, for the ground was increasingly broken by ditches filled deceptively with snow, fences in various states of repair, and evil thorn hedges. Still, by half past seven, the light all but full day, they had managed to advance a quarter of a mile, with the ground swept clean in commendable silence (no beat of drum, and the voices of the NCOs having given way to hand signals), and at last Corporal Lynch could point out the fugitives’ hut – in clear sight another furlong ahead.

Jessope trotted behind the line of ‘beaters’ to the ensign nearest the objective. Supposing the occupants would have a lookout, he reckoned there was scant chance of surrounding it by stealth, hoping instead the appearance of so many troops would persuade them that flight was futile.

Another hundred yards and he told the ensign to have some NCOs close in – such a cramped affair the hut looked now – in case one of the fugitives should be so desperate as to discharge a firearm.

Three corporals doubled forward – skirmishing drill – the ensign just behind them, sword drawn.

Fifty yards to the hut and still not a sight or sound of anything but the beasts of the field.

The ensign signalled them on.

Thirty yards, and the muskets came to the aim, ready.

Twenty yards … ten …

The ensign signalled one of them to the back of the hut and the other two to halt. Then he motioned them to cover him as he went forward, sword lowered to the engage.

The door burst open. Out dashed six men as one.

The first almost impaled himself on the sword but sidestepped in time, only to be caught by a swinging butt from the covering guardsman.

The flat of the sword felled the next, and the third went down to another savage butt.

Fourth and fifth met with the same fate – the fifth with both blade and butt – but the sixth, a ferret of a man, leapt the ditch at the side of the hut and took off west. Guardsmen scrambled after him, unable to clear the ditch in one. He’d gained fifty yards before they found their feet.

‘Stand fast!’ shouted the ensign. There was more cover to beat, and the man was running on to the line of dragoons: let the cavalry have their sport.

Hervey, seeing the bolting fox, could only trust that they would. The Guards had certainly had excellent sport themselves.

He need not have worried. Worsley had told Lieutenant Kennett to keep the dragoons in the lane, rather than try to get the longer view. There was a hedge running its length: better to make the fugitives, rather than his own men, tackle its thorns. He turned to his trumpeter. ‘Sound “Alarm”!’

C’s and E’s, the simplest of calls (and the quavers shortened) – as thrilling to a dragoon and his horse as ‘Gone Away’ to a hunting man.

The ‘fox’ had slipped into dead ground, however. Kennett’s men would just have to wait for him to break cover in the lane.

Hervey was glad that Worsley had sent Collins to keep an eye.

‘Draw swords!’ Kennett’s voice travelled well in the still air.

Nevertheless, NCOs repeated the order the length of the line, until a mile of steel stood ready for the next command.

The interval between dragoons was perhaps too great to allow the fox to be chopped at once, but none could slip across the lane unseen; and once through the hedge on the other side – shorter, thinner – in the open pasture beyond, it would be nothing to take him at a canter.

Meanwhile a dozen guardsmen were herding the bloody and fearful captives back towards the Winkfield road at the point of the bayonet. Hervey and Calthorp congratulated each other: even if the other birds had flown, the authorities should soon discover who they were.

In the lane, dragoons were now braced like lurchers waiting for the slip, Kennett taking post half-way along, where the hedge thinned and lowered a little to give a view of sorts.

Serjeant-Major Collins had come up too, from the far end of the line. He drew his sabre and stood in the stirrups to see where the Guards had reached …

And it was as sudden as any venery – a figure darting, fox from lair, hare from form. Across the lane before any could turn. Into the hedge – to cover once more.

But the hedge, though nothing to that he’d just worked through, was yet too thick to let him pass without struggle. Kennett saw and dug in his spurs, Collins likewise.

The brown-clothed figure thrashed frantically, but Kennett was too quick. Out from a pocket came his ‘man stopper’ and into the aim.

‘No, sir!’

Collins’s sabre flashed, driving down the pistol with the flat. It fired into the ground, startling Kennett’s charger, so that it was all he could do to keep his seat.

‘What the deuce do you mean, man?’ he yelled, with swearing worthy of the army in Flanders.

Two dragoons galloped up. Collins shot them angry looks. ‘Get back to your posts! Look to your front!’

He grabbed hold of Kennett’s reins. ‘Sir, that was murder but for a split second.’

‘Unhand me, Serjeant-Major. You have no knowing that I was to fire, only to threaten.’

But Collins was having none of it. He cursed, sprang from his horse and launched at the blackthorn captive, dragging him out roughly and demanding he say where the rest of the band was. ‘Or you’ll feel the touch of cold steel.’

Kennett turned away and called back the two dragoons, and an NCO who had come up, saying calmly, ‘This felon’s for the magistrate, Corporal, when he’s told us where his accomplices are. Make ready to take him to the court – the manor in yonder place.’

‘Sir!’

Collins pushed the man towards them. ‘He’s neither armed nor does he have any notion where the others are, only that they struck off northwards after dark. Doubtless he’ll be able to recall who and what their dwelling, once the JP’s told him his fate otherwise.’

‘Sir!’

The dragoons returned swords and grabbed the man by the shoulders, kicking off down the lane at a brisk trot, half dragging him between the horses to the encouragement of the corporal’s ‘Step sharper, you gallows-fodder, you!’

Hervey now came up having heard the shot and breasted the hedge further down the lane, Malet, Fairbrother and Serjeant Acton close on his heels.

‘Good morning, Colonel,’ piped the escorts in a greatly satisfied unison.

Seeing the man was evidently without injury, Hervey merely acknowledged and cantered on to where Kennett was standing in his stirrups speaking with the Guards ensign on the other side of the hedge.

‘Good morning, Colonel,’ chirped the lieutenant as he came up, saluting sharply. ‘We have taken a prisoner.’

Hervey acknowledged the salute, and that of Collins standing a length or two away. ‘Yes, I saw him. Well done, Mr Kennett. What was the shot?’

‘The man was half-way through the hedge, Colonel. I fired at the ground and he gave up the struggle to escape.’

Hervey looked at him keenly. Collins said nothing. ‘A warning shot?’

‘I did not fire to hit him, Colonel.’

That much was the truth, but by no means the whole truth, and there was just something in his way of speaking that suggested it thus. ‘Then it was fortunate the man was not between the bullet and the ground,’ replied Hervey cautiously. ‘Well, there are six of them now for the bench. The others, it seems, have made clean their escape.’

‘The prisoner said they’d taken off northwards during the night, Colonel.’

‘Indeed? Did he say how they had become separated?’

Kennett looked at Collins.

‘Colonel, he said they’d split into two parties to make it easier to evade the constables they thought had come. His lot headed west but reckoned they couldn’t get across the lane here because of all the torches, so they went back to lie up till they were sure the coast was clear.’

‘You spoke to him yourself?’

‘I did, Colonel.’

‘And he said no more?’

‘No, Colonel. He said he couldn’t peach on his friends. We reckoned the magistrate’d be able to explain his best interests to him.’

‘Just so, Sar’nt-Major,’ he replied, quietly confident in Collins’s judgement. He turned to Malet, who had been very pointedly silent. ‘I think our work here is done.’