The Sabre's Edge

Wales' Irish) counted themselves second to none, and neither Burman nor monsoon would stop them getting to Ava if that was the general's command. It would have been the same too had the battalion been the 90th Foot, or the 91st. Indeed it would have mattered not what number was worn on the pewter buttons or the blackened 'trotters' - except to the men who wore them. Hervey smiled to himself: the drill would be the same anywhere along the Line, and the spirit no less so.

'Company will fix bayonets; fix . . . bayonets! ’ More clattering, then sudden silence. 'Shun!'

Number One Company stood stiffly at attention. No man dared move a muscle lest it bring the withering rebuke of an NCO. It was a moment that could not long hold. Neither was it meant to; it was just the captain's final check before the off that he had his men in hand, as a dragoon might bring his horse up sharp onto the bit before pressing him forward to a gallop.

'Company, should-e-e-r arms!’

The line seemed to sway, eager to be on with it, though not a foot moved.

‘Po-o-rt arms! By the right, quick march!'

It would be full light in not many minutes. Hervey strained to see their objective as they struck off, but too many shakos stood in his way. There had been no more firing. It didn't surprise him: the shots came from the outposts, for sure. They'd done their job: raise the alarm, then fall back. He wondered how many cannon the Burmans had, and how close they'd let the battalion come before putting the slow matches to the touch-holes. But he didn't suppose there was a man afraid, nor even for a moment anxious. As soon as the Burmans fired, the battalion would give them a volley and be in on them with the bayonet before they could reload. A ball might take a head off, and grape might tear through flesh and bone, but there was nothing anyone could do about it, so there was no point in having a care of it.

But there was no thunder of cannon, nor rattle of musketry. Only the sudden command, 'At the double!' And then they were running again, faster this time, not quite charging speed he imagined, but definitely faster. Still he could not see where they were doubling to, only the dome of the pagoda itself a couple of hundred yards away. In no time they had closed the distance without another shot, and officers and NCOs were shouting orders for sections and half-sections to follow. Up the steps to the pagoda itself, or to either side of its balustrades, or to beat out the cover to right or left, or to search the shrines that lined the great maidan at the bottom of the steps. They went at it like harriers into kale.

Hervey saw relief and disappointment in equal measure in the faces around him. The Prince of Wales' Irish did not load with ball cartridge here except to discharge it at a live target; they had discharged shot enough at practice ones these several past years. But at least there were not the screams of fallen comrades to heed. Could there be such contradictory feelings in any other craft? For his part, Hervey had no particular desire to blood his sabre again, nor to discharge the pistol that was lodged in his belt. His only thought was what this peculiar absence of resistance portended.

He came upon the commanding officer, a man not much older than he, who wore an expression of both determination and perplexity.

'What in God's name is going on, Hervey?'

They had first met at Vittoria, a dozen years before, when each man's sword had been red, for there had been no doubt what they were meant to be doing that day. 'I cannot say, Colonel. But there seem to be only two possibilities.'

'Indeed,' sighed the Eighty-ninth's man, ramming home his sword in its scabbard. 'And I wonder how long we shall have to wait to discover which it's to be. There's a degree of confusion so far that I haven't seen since Corunna.'

The captain of the light company came up and asked for orders, to which the colonel replied that his men should beat towards the jungle's edge.

It was exactly as Hervey would have done. 'I fancy the answer will only be found in there, sir,' he said as the captain made off. ^CI think sooner or later the general shall have to send patrols some way into the forest to see if the Burmans make a stand or no.'

'Ay,' sighed the colonel. 'And it won't be easy. But first Campbell had better strike upstream, for if the Burmans mount any sort of attack along the river we'll be at sixes and sevens. And fire boats'll be giving yonder commodore a deal to think about, too, I'll warrant.'

'Sir,' was all Hervey thought it necessary to say, for they were but Commodore Peto's own strictures of the night before.

'Well, this place has the makings of a decent billet, at least,' said the colonel, beckoning over his adjutant. 'Come, Merrick. Let us have a look inside that pagoda before Alltoft's men do it any great injury.'

Hervey smiled again. Here was the dry humour of one who sat permanently atop a powder keg, an officer whose easy victory might yet turn to ruin at the hands of the same men who had delivered him the prize. And Shwedagon was a place where riot even on a small scale would not do - a religious site of prominence, of some grandeur indeed. The general would certainly want to see it in one piece.

No doubt the colonel was half disbelieving in his good fortune in not having had the battalion ashore when the brandy was flowing. Hervey wondered how the Eighty-ninth's discipline would hold now they were no longer in close order. How active were the subalterns? How true were the corporals? Once, in Spain, he had seen an entire company fire its muskets at the windows of an empty palace rather than draw the charges; the smashing of every pane seemed to give satisfaction to men denied a shot at the French. And gilded carvings and finials were an awfully tempting target.

Now there was more shouting. ‘Pres-e-e-ent arms!’

Hervey looked about to see what the sudden fuss was, and saw General Campbell coming up with Colonel Macbean, commander of the Madras brigade.

The general looked pleased. And well he might, thought Hervey. Yesterday had been one of mixed honours, at best, and this morning's work was a model of method and celerity by comparison.

General Campbell raised his hat to the saluting muskets. The guns will be up with you within the hour, Ireson,' he said, eyes twinkling, his red whiskers as bright as his coat. This without doubt is the key to Rangoon. Hold on to the pagoda, Ireson, and any attack on the town must falter.'

'Very good, General,' said Colonel Ireson, sounding matter-of-fact.

The colonel's luck was indeed great, thought

Hervey. What any man would do to be in a position of the first importance, though he wondered why the Burmans must attack from the north through Shwedagon. But he had not seen a good map and he supposed the general had.

The general had certainly not seen him until that moment. 'Ah, Hervey! What brings you here?^’

'Major Seagrass had no need of me. General.^’

'And you had a mind to see how infantry work! Well you might, sir; well you might. I imagine this campaign shall go down as the first to be made without benefit of cavalry!^’

Hervey checked himself. 'Indeed, sir?^’ The general's novelty knew no bounds. It was already a most singular campaign having no transport or supply.

'Yes indeed. Audacity and the bayonet, Hervey. That is what this campaign is about.^’

The general slapped his neck, but the mosquito evaded his hand. It would be the first of many to do so.

An hour later it was raining. The rain fell not in drops, or even in torrents, but as a single sheet of water, so that it was impossible to see more than a dozen yards, and only then with a great distortion. Hervey did not think he had seen anything like it. Neither was it how the monsoon was supposed to begin. But for once the poor redcoats, the infantrymen of the Line and the sepoys, on whom alternately rain fell and fierce sun beat, were dry, for the shrines that surrounded the pagoda of Schwedagon afforded cover for all. Cooking fires blazed inside - teak burned very satisfactorily - and there was skilly and tea in every belly before the hands of Hervey's watch showed nine. Sharing a canteen with the men in whose billet he had taken cover might have seemed an unlikely pleasure for him, but it was almost like being in the Peninsula again. He stood a little apart, with Corporal Wainwright, trying to make out the language of their gestures and method - as strange to him at times as the accents in which they spoke. As flesh and blood they could not, in truth, be so very different from the Sixth, but they were men who drilled as a body, whose military utility was solely as part of that body. They marched as a body, took aim as a body and