oilskin and wrapping cartridges in waxed paper. When they were ready, Hervey had the troop remount and face the river in line, then he rode to the centre and cast his eyes left and right. ‘I have just two things to say, and you will do well to remember them. First, your horse will swim across without any help from you. All you need to do is to let him have his head and sit tall in the saddle. Second, your carbine: you will have no greeting from me if you emerge from the river without it!’
Hervey paused to let the message be understood. Some of the NCOs added their own warnings, though muttered.
‘Those elephants will stand in line in case anyone is unseated,’ Hervey went on, and then, slowing his delivery to emphasize the point, added, ‘which there is no reason to be!’ He nodded to Serjeant Collins.
Collins rode out of the ranks, halted and drew his carbine from its bucket and clipped it to his crossbelt in the approved fashion. Then he took the coil of rope, the end of which the serjeantmajor had secured to a tree, looped it in the crook of his right arm, took the carbine in the same hand and rode straight for the river’s edge.
‘See how he holds the carbine up to keep it dry,’ called Hervey, glancing left and right again along the line.
All eyes were on Collins. He rode straight into the river as if it were no more than a field of barley, his horse not hesitating a fraction. For half a minute the water came no higher than Collins’s toes, then his knees, and then there was no longer a footing, and the horse struck out into the peculiar lunging motion that was its swimming method, head pushed forward flat on the water.
‘See how he has let his horse have the rein, and keeps his back straight and carbine hand raised,’ continued Hervey.
For another half a minute Collins’s horse paddled powerfully until its feet touched bottom again.
‘When the horse first gets a footing he’ll lurch a bit until he gets his stride. Don’t let your weight be thrown forward or you’ll unbalance him.’
The water was now back to Collins’s knees, and soon to his toes, and then he was riding up the shallow bank and out of the river.
‘Serjeant Collins will secure the rope, and that shall be to save the unwary. But I say again, I do not expect any one of you to have recourse to it!’ He nodded to Armstrong, who took up post at the entry point.
‘Right, you dryfeet! From the left, begin!’ barked the serjeantmajor.
Armstrong had numbered off the NCOs carefully so that there would be a good spreading of experience. First in went Private French. ‘No harder than driving a pair, lad,’ said Armstrong encouragingly. ‘Probably a lot easier.’
French rode in confidently.
‘Keep that carbine up. He’ll be up to his neck in no time.’
Next went Corporal Mossop. ‘Go on, Eli. Show ’em how it’s done.’
Mossop was by no means the best, but Armstrong knew he would be better for a good word.
Then came Mole, the hireling, and Shepherd Stent. Then Corporal Ashbolt and Harkness, and Corporal McCarthy. ‘Look careful there, Paddy,’ said Armstrong with a smile. ‘It’s not the River Jordan.’
‘No, sor, it isn’t. And I was baptized an infant already.’ McCarthy had crossed rivers before, many a time, and by no means as warm and sluggish as this, but always on his feet. He looked gingerly ahead, but he had been trained, and he trusted his officers.
A dozen more entered, as regularly as those in front clambered out on the far bank. Johnson took his own mount and Hervey’s second across, knotting his reins and holding his carbine high, and with no more trouble than if he had been crossing the parade ground. Parkin and a clutch of Warminster pals came next. Armstrong eyed him fiercely: ‘Parkin, you keep that carbine hand up, mind!’ That was going to be the least of his worries, Armstrong knew, but this was not the time for second thoughts. He fixed Corporal Tait, following, with a glare. Tait knew what he meant, and nodded. And if there was a better corporal than Tait in the saddle then he wasn’t in the Sixth. Then came Wainwright and Rudd, eager to ride up close to Parkin, but Armstrong held them back awhile (it was no use too many in the stream at once).
Parkin was doing well, sitting upright if a little hunched, struggling manfully to keep his carbine up by his shoulders. Corporal Tait was alongside, Wainwright and Rudd a couple of lengths behind. In less than a minute they would be in the shallows. And then the very worst happened, so quick that none saw it coming. The ferry rope, straining to hold the raft with its two galloper guns, snapped with a crack like a rifle. It startled the horses on the near bank and even unsettled the elephants. The raft swung free as if propelled by a paddle, and bore down at once on the swimmers.
There was nothing they could do. Tait was struck first and knocked clean from the saddle, but he managed to grab the side of the raft. Then it hit the packhorse carrying the goats. The horse lost balance, and the current, though weak, began to take the drowning animal towards the elephants, the goats bleating frantically. Then the raft swung round and caught Parkin, still struggling manfully to keep his carbine dry. He disappeared beneath the big teak logs with a shout of ‘Jobie!’
Jobie Wainwright did not calculate. He threw himself from the saddle towards the raft, but he fell well short. He had swum many a time in the rivers and ponds about Warminster, but the weight of all he bore was too much, and he too sank like a stone. Corporal Tait threw his crossbelt and carbine onto the raft and slid below after them. Armstrong likewise threw off all his equipment and coat and raced powerfully to the middle of the river, bellowing at Rudd to stay in the saddle. Serjeant Collins plunged in from the far bank astride his gelding, and Shepherd Stent dived headlong after him. Hervey shouted for the remainder to stand fast and then put his own horse into the river. The Skinner’s daffadar struggled to hold the galloper guns on the raft as it swung towards the rope which Collins had paid out.
Tait surfaced gasping, struggling desperately to bring up his man. Armstrong reached him first and managed to pull up Wainwright’s head. Collins was close enough now to reach out and grab hold of his crossbelt. Tait, exhausted, seized the rope, coughing and trying to catch his breath. ‘Parkin, sir! Just under!’
Armstrong dived once more, then Shepherd Stent. After half a minute Armstrong came up for air, then Stent, and then both went under again. It seemed an age. The raft went over the rope, but the mahouts were already moving the elephants towards it. Up came Armstrong and Stent together, gasping worse than Tait, and with a lifeless Parkin. Hervey grabbed his crossbelt and took the weight from them so they could both make for the rope. And in a minute it was all quiet, the river empty but for two of the elephants, the others having edged the raft to the far side.
The surgeon had been the last out. He had never so much as ridden his horse through a dewpond before, but he had put him straight at the far bank as soon as he had seen cause. And now he worked frantically to revive Parkin, even as the crowding knot of men saw there was no life in him. A full five minutes did Ledley pound at Parkin’s chest to have him cough up the water. Never would Hervey have believed a surgeon had such faith. But it was to no good. At length he rose, and pronounced him dead.
Two hours it took to dig Private Parkin’s grave. The troop carried only a few entrenching tools, and Hervey wanted it deep, so that the scavengers at the jungle’s edge should not disturb Parkin’s resting place. The pals — Wainwright, Spreadbury and Needham — dug alone for the first hour, until finally they relented and let Rudd, the ‘milliner’, join them. Needham cried quietly for a lot of the time. He and Parkin had lived cheek by jowl on Warminster Common since they could remember, longer even than had Jobie Wainwright, for he had come with his mother from the parish when he was full five years old. Only once did anyone speak, when Spreadbury, exhausted, sat down and said, ‘Danny should have been let off sick.’ But Jobie had simply taken up the pick and quietly explained, ‘No, Billy. We’s all soldiers now.’ And the others had accepted it because Jobie had said it. But even Jobie could not rest, for he had told Parkin’s mother he would look after him, and he hadn’t. What would he say to her? She was as good a mother as any there was on the Common.
When it was done, the pals brought Parkin’s body, wrapped in his cloak, and laid it beside the grave, where the rest of the troop was drawn up, hatless.
‘I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.’ Hervey spoke the words with sad assurance. Though the rubric of the Prayer Book required that the office was not to be used for any that died unbaptized, he had not been minded to enquire of Parkin’s status. He wanted to commend a stout-hearted dragoon to his maker, and to show to the others that the Sixth honoured its dead. ‘We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’
