The Sabre's Edge

wall.

A third, a big Irishman, jumped onto it. 'By Jasus I'll not spare one of them!' he cursed as they heaved him up full stretch.

Hervey could only marvel at their strength - and then at the Irishman's raw fight as he withstood the rain of blows to his head and hands. He got a footing on the parapet and at once the defenders shrank back, but another rushed him with a spear, and the point sank deep in his chest. The Irishman seized the man's head with both hands and they fell to the ground as one.

Hervey drew his pistol to despatch the executioner, but the grenadiers beat him to it.

There was no shortage of volunteers for the escalade. The lieutenant himself, not long out of his teens, was now hauling himself up, his sword in his mouth like a pirate boarding a prize.

Where were the ladders, wondered Hervey? Why were they going against stockades without so much as a grapple and line?

'Will you be going, sir?' called another of the grenadiers, as if they were asking if he intended taking a walk.

'Me first, sir,' said Corporal Wainwright, his foot on the musket in an instant.

Up it went before Hervey could protest. Wainwright, a jockey-weight compared with the grenadiers, was almost flung over the parapet.

He rolled forward in a neat somersault and sprang to his feet facing the way he had come, sabre already in hand. A clumsy lunge from a spearman was met by a parry and then a terrible slice which parted the spear, and the hand gripping it, from its wielder. Another two spearman backed away at once. 'Clear, sir!' he called.

Hervey clambered up the same way seconds later, by which time Wainwright had accounted for the reluctant supports. He looked at his covering-corporal's handiwork, and nodded: he could not have done it neater himself - perhaps not even as neat.

Left and right, all along the parapet, there were grenadiers duelling with Burmans. Theirs was not so neat work - the jabbing bayonet, the boot, the butt end. There were few shots, a pistol here or there. It was the brute strength of beef-fed redcoats and good steel that were carrying the day, although the grenadiers had had precious little beef this month.

The parapet was now treacherous, running as much with blood as rain. Hervey nearly lost his footing as he made for a down-ladder.

Wainwright was first to the ground, sabre up challenging any who would contest his entry. But there were none that would. Those who could get away from the parapet were making for the back of the stockade, some of them crawling with fearful wounds and a trail of blood. The grenadiers pouring over the wall were looking for retribution, and these men now obliged them. With each point driven into Burman flesh they avenged their comrades - a very personal slaughter, this. Hervey was only glad of the anger that could whip men up to escalade high walls with no other wherewithal than the determination to do so. Ferocious, savage; not a pretty sight, but the proper way, no question. And then get the men back in hand so that blind rage did not lead them to their own destruction. Where was Captain Birch?

Hervey soon learned. The serjeant-major was a colossus even among the giants of the grenadier company, and Captain Birch lay across his shoulder like a rag doll. 'Have you seen Mr Napier, sir?' he asked, coolly, seeing the fight was all but over.

'No, Sar'nt-major, I haven't,' replied Hervey, dismayed at the lifeless form of the company commander. 'Is the captain dead?'

'Sir. He took a ball in the throat just as he was broaching the wall.'

'Very well, Sar'nt-major. Will you have his orderly attend him, and come with me if you please. We must put the stockade in a state of defence at once.' Hervey did not imagine a counter-attack was likely, but that did not remove his obligation to take measures to repel one.

'Ay, sir. But let me just lay the captain aside decently first.'

Hervey hurried to the back of the stockade. 'Close the gates!' he shouted to two grenadiers.

They seemed uncomprehending.

He cursed, saw a corporal, gave him the same instruction, and at once the gates were pushed shut.

Up came the serjeant-major again. 'Set them shakos straight!' he bellowed at two men on the parapet.

Hervey could hear Armstrong in that command. It was remarkable how quickly a wound began healing in a regiment: that need to carry on, the notion of next-for-duty, and all. Where was the lieutenant?

Lieutenant Napier had given chase. He now returned with a look of thunder. He saw Hervey and shook his head. 'They've bolted, damn them. They beat us to the jungle by a minute, no more, but it's so thick—'

'I'm afraid Captain Birch is killed,' said Hervey.

Napier's thunder was stilled. He had already seen the ensign's death with his own eyes. He looked about the stockade and saw redcoats lying wounded; he knew there were more outside. 'How many, Sar'nt-major?'

'We can muster fifty sir, thereabout.'

That was a lot for the surgeon, or for the chaplain to say words over; a heavy butcher's bill indeed. The lieutenant set his teeth. 'See if we can torch this place, Sar'nt-major. Then we get our wounded back to the boats, and the dead too, and then press on for Kemmendine.' He checked himself, turning to Hervey. 'If you approve, sir.'

'Carry on, Mr Napier,' said Hervey grimly. The lieutenant nodded.

The serjeant-major saluted. 'Serjeant Craggs, bearers! Serjeant Walker, find everything you can that will light - Burmans included!'

Hervey took the lieutenant to one side. 'Do you judge that you will be in a position to take Kemmendine?' he asked, the doubt more than apparent in his voice.

The lieutenant looked as if the question had never crossed his mind. 'Those are our orders, sir.'

'But I asked you if you considered that you had the strength to execute them.'

Still the lieutenant was incomprehending. 'The Thirty-eighth do not balk at trials, sir, however great.'

Hervey was becoming irritated. 'I do not doubt it. But to expend more life in a hopeless venture is base. More than that, however, it would be hazardous for the expedition as a whole. If you fail to take Kemmendine then the enemy will be emboldened. The essential thing while we stand on the defensive at Rangoon is not to have a setback in combat with them.'

'That is as may be, sir, but the Thirty-eighth were given orders to—'

'And I am now giving you an order to remain here until the rest of your battalion arrives!'

The lieutenant visibly braced himself. 'Very well, sir, but I must ask for the order in writing.'

'You may have it in any form you wish, Mr Napier. But I counsel you not to protest too much in front of your troops. They have fought bravely and it is no dishonour to them that they retire now.^’

Corporal Wainwright listened intently to the exchange. He had seen his captain, sword in hand, display enough courage for a dozen men; yet countermanding a general's orders must require a different courage from the everyday kind. He wondered at it, took careful note, and hoped fervently that his captain was right as well as brave.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE SORTIE

Two days later

Hervey picked up a pencil. Pen and ink was no good. The paper was damp and the ink spread, so that even his carefully formed letters became indistinct in a matter of seconds. Damp paper, damp powder, damp biscuit - mouldy, even - on which they now subsisted, damp leather inside which men's feet chafed, the sores then suppurating: it was as inauspicious a beginning to a campaign as ever he had known. Indeed, it was more than inauspicious: it was ignominy in the making. Four hundred miles still to their object - Ava - and here they struggled through the delta's mud to attack stockades with only bayonets and the breasts of brave men. Hervey was