A Close Run Thing

‘Then, it would have been more expedient to remove our horses!’ smiled Hervey. ‘But what chance do you give our manoeuvring in this soft going even had we Mercer’s troop still?’

‘Nothing faster than a trot without risk of losing formation. But at least the French will find the going as heavy. Look, Hervey, if we do go forward, then you must keep up close and check the pace: you will not be worth the name of supports otherwise. We have drilled often enough. I am confident of “B” Troop’s handiness in the rally, but holding “A” Troop as supports at the right distance is of the essence. Heavens, but these are difficult evolutions to accomplish at the best of times!’

‘Indeed, sir,’ replied Hervey, ‘and I have seen so many regiments’ drill in the weeks since we arrived that I have my doubts that all will be capable in this regard.’

‘Hervey, I have not the slightest doubt that some are wholly incapable. I saw the Union Brigade at drill less than a fortnight ago: a real Dutch ball it was! The Scotch Greys are as handy as a Thames barge without a rudder! And if any run on today they will pay dearly — as, indeed, may the poor souls who will have to recover them.’

A rattle of distant musketry, towards the centre of the line, or perhaps beyond, and the first that morning, stayed further reflection on the state of the cavalry’s drill. Hervey looked at his watch. ‘A little after eleven,’ he said.

‘Curious that musketry should open a battle such as this,’ replied Lankester.

‘I think it must be skirmishing around the chateau,’ suggested Hervey.

‘Then it seems he is to force that flank after all,’ conceded the captain, turning his charger round and making back for his place in front of the squadron.

But the sound of skirmishing did not distract them long, for across the valley there came the first sign of activity in three hours. A troop of horse artillery trotted on to the opposing ridge, and fluttering lance pennants just visible two hundred yards or so to their rear indicated sizeable supports — unlike that memorable day at Toulouse which had given Hervey opportunity and tribulation in equal measure. He took out his telescope and studied the troop as it began to unlimber, the gunners, dressed in hussar fashion, manhandling four burnished-brass cannon into line, with the sun, now high over the French lines, glinting on the barrels. ‘“And the Lord said unto Joshua, Stretch out the spear that is in thy hand toward Ai.”’

‘Beg your pardon, sir?’ said Hervey’s trumpeter.

‘Book of Joshua,’ he replied absently. ‘Joshua waved his spear, and it glinted in the sunlight, the signal to spring the ambush on the Canaanites.’

The trumpeter nodded.

‘Joshua was my first hero,’ Hervey continued, still peering through the telescope. ‘I remember, as if yesterday, the first time I heard my father read that lesson. It is strange, is it not, to think of those fearsome acts of war recounted in so tranquil a place as a church?’

‘Strange indeed, sir. A very contrary thing can the Bible be,’ agreed the trumpeter readily.

Hervey lowered his telescope with a sudden thought: it was the Sabbath — his father would be in his pulpit this very minute, and Henrietta, perhaps, in his congregation …

But before he could indulge his thoughts of Horningsham too deeply his trumpeter cried out excitedly: ‘Look, sir, a galloper!’

Lieutenant the Honourable Charles Dawson, the distinctive blue busby-bag of the 18th Hussars flying horizontal as he sped along their front, called to him as he passed: ‘Sport, Hervey! I’m off to bring Mercer!’

‘Yes,’ he sighed, ‘well may he gallop after Mercer, with still no sign of that damned Dutch battery!’

Sir Hussey Vivian, with whose summons for Mercer’s guns Dawson now sped, was contemplating the courses now open to him. There was but one of any aptness, however, for launch what he might at the guns they would be overwhelmed by Jacquinot’s lancers beyond, their red and white pennants now unmistakable in the clear morning air. And any cavalry would first suffer sorely from the battery’s fire as they advanced in such heavy going. No, he would have to wait for Mercer — or the Dutch, wherever they were. And he was certainly not prepared to retire behind the ridge so soon, for it would sorely try the Nassauers in the hamlets below, steady as their reputation might be, if they perceived the line to be withdrawing. But, curiously, no fire came from the troop. They merely stood, like the rest of the French line, in eerie silence.

Hervey turned to look at his own command. He saw the apprehensiveness of the new troopers, and the impassiveness of the older ones, who were mostly chewing tobacco. At the end of the first rank, the flanker, Armstrong, sat with the faintest trace of a smile on his lined face, like some seasoned foxhound waiting patiently at the covertside, assured of the good sport to come. Not Serjeant Strange, though — not that Hervey was able to see him behind the rear rank. His face would reveal nothing whatever. He then looked over to the other squadrons, noting with pleasure the congruity of the horses within troops, which long custom — and attention since their return from Spain — had ensured. There was his own troop, consisting entirely of dark bays. There was ‘B’ with blacks, ‘C, like ‘A’, with bays. ‘D’ had lighter browns, ‘E’ (the smallest, but smartest) were all chestnuts, and ‘F’ were mainly blacks with some dark bays. All were compact, active types, mainly Irish; few were over 15 hands at most. And although the practice had been discontinued by an Army Order of 1799, the Sixth, in common with most other regiments, still mounted all their trumpeters on greys. No, he thought, the regiment did not disgrace Sir Hussey’s brigade. And if they had to ride at this battery, well …

After what seemed an age, but which the adjutant’s journal would record as one quarter-hour only, the sound of Mercer’s troop returning broke the silence — the thud of hoofs pounding on soft ground, the clatter of running gear and, above it all, the jingle of harness. The six gun-teams galloped straight through the gap between Vivian’s and Vandeleur’s brigades on to the forward slope and deployed in two sections, the faster way of coming into action than by the usual three divisions. As they did so a thunderous fire erupted far over to the right.

‘I think it has begun in earnest, then,’ said Hervey to his trumpeter coolly. ‘Eleven-thirty, by my reckoning.’

But before the man could make any reply the French battery opened up, ripple fire so that the gunners could better observe their fall of shot and correct. The rounds went high, but one gun at least needed to make no corrections, its shell slamming into the ground and exploding five yards in front of Edmonds. His horse, a fine black mare bought the previous summer at Banbridge, and Edmonds’s pride and joy, was thrown screaming on to her back, legs flaying frantically for several seconds before falling still. The major lay motionless by her side, his body riddled with splinters, his neck broken.

The Sixth let out a groan the like of which Hervey had never heard. One trooper close by threw up noisily; another fell out of the saddle in a dead faint. He himself was frozen with uncommon horror.

‘Mr Hervey, take command of the squadron, please,’ he heard Lankester saying as the captain rode forward to assume Edmonds’s place. RSM Lincoln and the major’s trumpeter, himself bleeding from the lacerations of a dozen splinters, were already dismounting to carry their commanding officer to the rear. Lankester had to think quicker than ever before, as, with dismay, he perceived that his first order in command might be to retire — as shameful to him as it was perilous to the unity of the line. The French gunners, with the range thus established, would now be loading solid shot rather than shell, or even double-loading both. In open order the roundshot would go through each of the four ranks like a hot knife through butter, but they were at least drawn up in line of squadrons (by Vivian’s prudence, or the need to show a wide front? — he could not know which). Was there enough time, even, to go threes-about to get behind the crest? But then, if the French corrected high, there might just be … Lankester had it! ‘Dismount!’ he shouted.

No reviewing officer could have faulted the steadiness with which the Sixth executed that command. It was as if they saw Edmonds himself observing the movement, and they rendered it precisely as required in the 1801 manual, as he would have wanted it. In open order they did not need to make ready. Taking the time from the man in front, each trooper threw a lock of his horse’s mane into the left hand, at the same time quitting the right stirrup and placing the forefinger and thumb of the right hand on the pommel of the saddle. Then a pause before the second motion. Bearing on the left stirrup, assisted by the right hand, each man brought the right leg clear over the cantle, many a trooper repeating to himself the orders his rough rider had barked at him so many times in training: ‘In this position the body is to be kept perfectly upright, the shoulders well back, the breast out, the belly in, without constraint, the back hollow, the thighs and legs together, and the head turned to the front over the left shoulder!’ The third motion brought the right leg to the ground and the left leg from the stirrup. Scarcely had the left foot touched the ground than the four guns fired in unison. Three roundshots whistled just above head-height to go