A Close Run Thing

Hervey was unaware of it.

‘There is a silly, sanguine notion, his lordship said once in the house of peers, that one Englishman can beat three Frenchmen, and this encourages, and has sometimes enabled, one Englishman, in reality, to beat two.’

Hervey smiled broadly. ‘Those may indeed be the odds here, sir — two to one. All should be well, then!’

Edmonds smiled, too. ‘Come, let us repair to the flank. We may have nothing to do there but at least we know what we are meant to be about!’

Hervey saluted and returned to his troop: Cornet Seton Canning, his only officer, and Serjeant Strange would be expecting orders.

Canning looked more boyish than ever that morning but, other than listening to his troop leader with intense concentration, he showed no signs of anxiety. The first courage was always the greatest, Hervey recalled, yet he rued that the duke would have to depend on so much of it in this battle. If only the American war had not taken the first battalions, the Peninsular veterans … But Canning had been steady enough the previous day, as had the others new to battle, and Hervey had made up his mind that, boy or not, he could trust him. By heavens, he himself had been only a year older at Corunna! Next he sought out Armstrong. A few words of appreciation for his night’s foraging seemed in order. He found him sitting on an up-turned camp-kettle, the reverse of his sabretache serving as a writing-slope, and scribbling hurriedly. Hervey could not recall seeing him with a pencil in his hand before, and it brought to mind the teacup in the garden at Horningsham. A smile came at the thought. ‘Serjeant Armstrong, is it not a little early to be writing a memoir?’ he called.

Armstrong acknowledged the jest but with some reserve. ‘Nobody would be wanting a mere Serjeant’s account when all you officers is so eloquent with the pen.’

Hervey frowned.

‘No, sir, it’s me last will and testament. Never ’ave ’ad cause for one before now, and I’ve always thought it tempting fate for a soldier to write one.’

‘Heavens, man, you’re indestructible! You’ll be seeking absolution next!’ said Hervey with genuine surprise.

‘Ay, that an’ all, Mr ’Ervey! If I could find a priest, I might very well do so.’

‘Serjeant Armstrong,’ he replied resolutely, ‘if you could find one priest who would not envy your dutiful record, I should at once become a papist myself!’

‘Well, tell that to my Caithlin if I stop a musket ball with my vitals today. And be so good as to witness this will meanwhile.’

Hervey smiled again as he put his signature to the document. ‘You know, of course, that I cannot be a beneficiary and a witness, too?’

‘Well, I cannot very well leave my wife to you, can I? Though she is my only possession of any worth. But I know you wouldn’t see her fall on the parish.’ Armstrong fixed him with an unyielding look.

‘You may depend on it,’ he replied, and there was a second or so of intimate silence before Edmonds’s trumpeter sounded ‘Stand to your horses’. ‘Very well, then, Serjeant Armstrong, to your post — right marker, right- hand troop, brigade right-regiment!’

‘Thank the Lord we are not with General Grant on the right of the Line, eh, sir?’

Hervey looked puzzled. ‘Why?’

‘Because if the duke ordered the Line to right-wheel I should be marking time for three whole hours!’

They both laughed. ‘That was a real Joe Miller, Serjeant Armstrong! But you took me by surprise nevertheless! Away with you — and good luck!’

Private Johnson answered the trumpet with Jessye. She looked uncommonly good, with not a scratch from the day before. Johnson had even made quarter-marks. But still Hervey had second thoughts: ‘No, Nero, I think, please.’

For once his groom did not argue. ‘Take ’er for the minute, then, sir, an’ I’ll bring ’im up.’

The Sixth mustered quickly and without ceremony. Edmonds’s brisk commands moved them to the left at the halt in column of squadrons. There was a minute or so’s wait to allow several ammunition waggons to clear their line, and then it was ‘Walk-march’, by the trumpet, along the unpaved Chemin d’Ohain towards their vigil on the flank. The Scots Greys, with the rest of the Union Brigade, trotted by in the other direction, towards the crossroads at the centre of the line. They were a rare sight. They had scraped off most of the mud which had covered them from head to foot the day before, but the rain had caused the dye of their red jackets to run over their white belts, as if the sanguinary work they were about to begin was already completed. ‘Guidbye, Lights; ye’ll be unco’ palled over there!’ they called. The Sixth’s troopers were happy enough to return the banter and trade good-humoured insults, but they had more than a suspicion that the Greys might be right, that they would indeed see nothing of the fighting which these Scotsmen craved so much. But Hervey was first astonished at the impertinence, for here was his regiment, with all but eight successive years’ campaigning, and yesterday was the first action the Greys had seen in a quarter of a century! Their spirit could not but be admired, however — the ‘first courage’ again. They meant to make up for those years, and knew they would have every opportunity of doing so. And he knew, too, that afterwards they would never let anyone forget it!

‘Why are they so particular about ridin’ greys anyway, sir?’ asked Johnson after a mutually incomprehensible exchange with one of their troopers.

‘Well,’ said Hervey, ‘it is their name surely.’

‘I mean why did they ’ave to ’ave greys in the first place?’

‘I beg your pardon, Johnson. I mistook your meaning. It had nothing to do with their horses: their uniform was grey cloth when first they were raised.’

‘I wouldn’t want one of them ’ats, that’s for sure,’ Johnson scoffed, certain that the bearskin must topple over in the charge.

‘No, nor I. They are uncommonly attached to them, though. I think they captured many from the French grenadiers in the Duke of Marlborough’s wars. What is most vexing, though, is that they must now dock their tails. I envied the Heavies the days when they had long tails. I think it the most abominable thing still that we must do it. I thank heaven that chargers are exempt: I could not bear to see Jessye plagued by flies as I have seen others.’

‘Well, if dealers would stop docking ’em before they was remount age we wouldn’t ’ave to buy ’em. It’s because all them fashionables wants ’em that way.’

‘Yes, you’re right of course, Johnson; I don’t think many believe any longer that docking strengthens the back.’

The Chemin d’Ohain took them past an extraordinary patchwork of uniforms. The red of the British infantry, the backbone of Wellington’s campaigns, predominated; but there were lines of blue coats, too, of the Dutch- Belgian corps, with the distinctive orange facings of their militia battalions. And then the more familiar green of the King’s German Legion — exiles whose hatred of Bonaparte would mean no quarter to any Frenchman hapless enough to fall prey to their bayonets. Of the Dutch, Hervey was not so sure. During his reconnaissance the duke had confided his concern at having so much of his army made up of untried allied contingents, and for that matter untried British battalions. But his own infantry were well drilled, at least, whereas the Dutch-Belgics had until recently been drilled in French methods. There had been many sneering asides — Hervey himself had made some — but word now was that they had given a good account of themselves yesterday at Quatre-Bras. Perhaps, then, the concern would prove unfounded? Hervey prayed that it would be so, for if they were to face Bonaparte in the strength that the Prussians had felt yesterday …

And then for once, just for an instant, as he watched a company of Rifles doubling along the road, he wished that he might be elsewhere than with the Sixth. ‘D’ye see those riflemen, Johnson? I’d give a deal to be with them today, for they will be in the thick of things, come what may!’

‘Can’t say as I would,’ Johnson replied with a shrug. ‘They’re as big a bunch of roughnecks as you’d find!’

‘That is as may be, but you should have seen them six years ago on the retreat to Corunna. I tell you, had it not been for their discipline and marksmanship in that march over the Galician mountains … Well, let us just say that more than one corps owes its survival to those men.’

‘What are they meant to be about today, then, sir?’

‘They will take up positions, out in front of the brigades, to counter the French tirailleurs and then to harry the columns of infantry. I tell you, they may rely on being in