‘I’ve kept thi snap warm, Cap’n ’Ervey, sir, but it’ll be nowt like it were.’
‘Johnson, I could eat …’ He almost said ‘a horse’, but it was not the thing. ‘I could eat that wretched bird I saw Spreadbury plucking last night!’
Johnson sensed rather than saw Hervey’s frown. ‘They didn’t eat it in the end. They chucked it away.’
‘It tasted so bad?’
‘They found a length o’ snake in its gizzard.’
Hervey could have retched. ‘I’ve just discovered I’m not hungry.’
‘Tha’ll be all right, sir. It’s ’taties and beef. But it’s a bit of a squash. I’ll make a fresh mashin’ o’ tea.’
That was what Hervey would prize above all, now. More so even than the whisky in his spare canteen.
He slept well. Checking the picket he left to Seton Canning and the serjeant-major. That was their job. His now was to rest, to find the sleep that had eluded him these past three days.
Just before four o’clock Johnson’s hand shook his shoulder, as it had more times than had Henrietta’s. But as Hervey took the enamelled cup — he could see the steam rising even in the darkness — he thought of her. And it was the first time since Chittagong that the thought had been more than momentary. What made him hold it now he did not know, but he puzzled over her absence from his mind for so many days. And he did not know whether to be discouraged or the very opposite.
‘I’ll be glad to be gone from
Now that Johnson mentioned it, Hervey too found himself scratching at bites about his hands and face. ‘Because we’re nearer the river, I imagine.’
‘Bastard things, they is. I wonder ’ow French’s gooin’ on wi’ them bee stings?’
‘Say your prayers that we see him later today,’ replied Hervey in a supplicatory tone.
At five o’clock the troop stepped off, Hervey with the pointmen, and no scouts (he knew what lay ahead). The men had put rotting leaves from the forest floor in the backs of their shakos, the curious phosphorescence, as on the hands of his watch, a useful beacon in the pitch dark of the jungle pre-dawn. Stand-to and breaking camp had been a model. How quickly these men had mastered the game, he mused. Would older dogs have been so quick to learn new tricks? Perhaps. After all, the NCOs had done the teaching as well as the jungle. And this morning they had all eaten hot — a rare achievement indeed in a bivouac.
By six they were close enough to the forest’s edge to see fires burning in the Burman camp. Hervey felt the thrill that at last their progress was over. From now on it was battle, and the fortunes of battle, and the price of battle. He did not doubt the outcome, for he did not think of it. ‘Pass the word: ball cartridge, load. Guns make ready.’
He heard the ramming-home of charges in carbines behind him, but no louder than it need have been, and he peered towards the east for the signs of lightening in the sky. The dawn came quickly on them in these parts, and five minutes made a difference. He wanted a sign before they broke cover. He took out his watch. How practical a contribution to killing the King’s enemies had Daniel Coates’s presents been! The old soldier would revel in its telling when he received Hervey’s letter after this was all over. It was so accurate a watch, too. It told him there were but ten minutes to the first rays of the sun, and thereafter he knew he would have six more before there was sufficient light to see a white horse at a furlong. ‘Pass the word: mount!’
He heard the jingle of bits, the creaking of leather, the whickering of horses keen for the off. The thrill of it never palled.
‘Draw swords!’
The chilling chafing of steel on steel — it sent a shiver down his spine as if he had touched rubbed amber.
‘Troop will advance!’
Out they came, at the walk so as to make no more noise than they need. He could feel their eagerness somehow, though, and wanted as much as they to lower his sword and gallop at once on the Burman lines.
He waved the sabre to left and right above his head. Those immediately behind him would see it and repeat it, and begin the movement into line, just as he had told them last night.
The first wisps of sunlight broke the line of the forest canopy to their right, almost to the minute of his calculation — auguries of success, dared he hope? The nearest campfires were only fifty more yards. Would this spell the end of their stealth?
On they walked. The fires were dying, untended. There was no one afoot, just a huddle of sleeping figures by the first of them. Collins and two others jumped from the saddle and made sure they would never rise again — swift, silent execution. Hervey was proud of them.
The line had scarcely slowed, but Collins and the other sabrists were back in the saddle and in their places before another twenty yards. The next would be easy — no sentries, no alarm. They might go through the Burman lines and sabre every one of them in their sleep. Except that no luck ever held so long. Hervey knew he must stick with his plan, even if it meant surrendering some of the surprise that was his for the reaping.
The light was now enough to make out the whole of the camp, the white tents standing like snowcaps. ‘See your opportunity, Sar’nt-Major?’ Hervey’s voice was hushed, but his exhilaration evident.
Armstrong beckoned his guns. ‘All in lines — like regulars on Chobham Common. A shame we’re loaded with grape!’
Nevertheless they could wring havoc in minutes. And the Skinner’s sowars knew it, wheeling full about and unhitching the guns with the fervour of hounds on to a fox.
There were no orders. Portfires went to touch-holes just as soon as the gunners dropped their hands to signal ‘On!’ The guns belched flame and a thousand pieces of iron at the first tents not a dozen yards away, their reports becoming as one roar in that forest arena, all the louder for the enforced silence of the past days.
The nearest tents, and the ones just beyond, blew down like corn stooks in a sudden squall. Then came the screaming, a terrible, devilish noise that unnerved many a dragoon as he sat contemplating the gallopers’ work. For Hervey it meant nothing more than his prevailing over the enemy; it was what he wanted to hear. The sowars almost bayed as they reloaded, urged on by Armstrong waving his sword and shrieking every kind of profanity. Hervey urged them just as fervently, but below his breath.
The right-hand gun beat the left by barely a second. Another two angry explosions, louder than before with increased charges for the double shot, sent four two-pound balls bowling down the tent lines, doing untold slaughter within. Out from those still standing tumbled half-naked Burmans, dazed, not even able to take up their muskets from the arm-piles. With the sun rising above the forest, it was time to test the age-old business of cavalry. ‘And we shall shock them!’ said Hervey aloud.
‘Bible again, Cap’n ’Ervey?’ came the voice at his left.
‘No, Johnson. Only Shakespeare. Trumpeter, sound “Charge”!’
He would never have done it against formed troops — not put untried dragoons into a charge from the halt. But he didn’t need weight, only the noise of hoofs and the sight of sabres lowered. The Burmans ran this way and that, like rabbits scattering before greyhounds. One or two ran into swords, but for the most part the dragoons had not the skill to despatch their prey. It did not matter. The Burmans were broken.
‘Go to it, Harry,’ called Hervey to Seton Canning, then looked about for his trumpeter. ‘Storrs!’ he bellowed.
‘Sir!’ called Storrs, struggling to remount the other side of a tent.
‘What in God’s name—?’
‘Didn’t see the guy-rope, sir.’
Corporal Ashbolt and Johnson closed to help him.
‘Look sharp, Storrs! I hope that bugle of yours is whole. Sound “Rally”!’
Storrs, back in the saddle, blew it well — octave intervals, by no means easy when winded. ‘Good man,’ cheered Hervey. ‘Mr Vanneck!’
The cornet was close by. There was blood on his sabre. ‘Well done, Myles. Take your picket off. Drive well up the road to begin with. I’ll send the guns up when I can.’
‘Very good, sir.’ He turned and started gathering his half-dozen. Hervey rode back to the guns, which the sowars had already hitched up. ‘
Armstrong looked impressed.
‘
