the cavalry, that is. Stewart’s done splendid work, but we need to cross swords with the French instead of just stalking them. As I see it, we’re bound to turn for the sea before too long, and if we don’t fight them hard at some stage—’
Lord Paget held up his hand. ‘I know, Sir Edward, I know. Moore has been let down by that damnable junta in Madrid, and our envoy there’s an imbecile – he writes even now urging him to march there directly, as if it were an open city. Nor will Bonaparte sit there for long. He has eighty thousand, according to our latest intelligence. Whether he’ll turn these against the Spanish and finish them off, or drive for Lisbon, or come for Moore is the question.’
‘But our numbers, given that we are unable to make any useful junction with the Spanish, could not stand against such an onslaught. That is the material point, is it not?’
‘It is. But we can bloody Soult’s imperious nose before Bonaparte and he make a junction. We can even destroy his corps, with a certain address, and that could not fail to spoil Bonaparte’s plans. It might indeed buy the Spaniards a little time, though there’s no saying they wouldn’t then waste it. It might just save Lisbon, too – at least for a month or so.’
‘What a distance we have come since Vimiera!’
‘Heavy irony, Sir Edward –
‘I don’t as a rule take instruction from Corporal Cobbett!’
‘He accused him of snugging it in to London.’
‘I think it a shame if we lose Wellesley,’ said Lankester, warming his hands with the cup. ‘He has his faults, God knows, but he does at least know when to fight. And, from what I have heard, Cintra was not of his choosing.’
‘No,’ said Paget, shaking his head sympathetically and sighing. ‘Those two old fools Dalrymple and Burrard were the cause. Burrard’s boy is one of Moore’s aides-de-camp. It must go hard with him. The inquiry cannot be much longer in the outcome, but I hazard, still, that it will be the end of Wellesley.’
Lankester finished his mess of tea. ‘But what may we say of this evening, sir? Can you stay your leave for two hours more? My dragoons will be the better for a good hash inside them, and some of the horses are in want of a nail or two.’
‘
‘They would be discouraged if you did not!’
‘Very well. Send them word, and stay for some dinner. I have it on good authority the commissary has killed its several fatted calves.’
‘A treat indeed. I’ve had nothing but stirabout these three days past.’
Beef was what the dragoons had heard promised. But it was not steaks or even clod that the commissary issued that evening; rather was it ox tails and head, though this would make a welcome potage if they could find a few other things to throw in. Bread they had not seen since Salamanca, and the biscuit was as solid as the frozen ground. Hervey had eaten the last of his hard-boiled eggs that morning – half of one egg, for he had shared it with Private Sykes. Daniel Coates had told him to carry hard-boiled eggs always, as many as he could find space for. It had so far proved one of his best Flanders dodges. It would be a good while, now, before he ate another, for he had seen neither beast nor fowl in the last twenty miles.
A Troop’s dragoons had got themselves very fair shelter in one of the dorters, and half a dozen fires were giving good service. Where the fuel had come from Hervey wondered, but was not inclined to ask. If the friary was long abandoned, as it appeared to be, it was salvage wood whatever its first purpose. Camp-kettles bubbled away promisingly. It was impressive how quickly they came into action. The Sixth had dispensed with the big, iron ‘Flanders’ pattern, one for every ten men; the mules had carried them with the regimental baggage, and it could be an age before they came up. Instead the lieutenant-colonel, by judicious use of the grass fund, had replaced them with a much handier one made of tin, which a man could carry on his saddle, one between six. They could thereby have a brew of tea without every man having to make his own fire and use his own mess tin.
Hervey stopped by a kettle where a dragoon called Knowles, known universally as ‘Knacker’, was making dumplings of Indian corn and dropping them into the boil.
‘Are you going to try one of Knacker’s doughboys, Mr ’Ervey, sir?’ asked Private Harris, a cheery sweat of a dragoon who was wont to say, whatever the vexation, ‘It’s naught compared to ’Olland.’
Hervey welcomed the offer, as much for its comradely purport as its nutrition. He imagined himself not so much ‘Cornet Newcome’ any longer.
Private Knowles had been called ‘Knacker’ since the Duke of York’s ill-starred landing in Holland in the last year of the old century. He and Harris had been greenhead dragoons together, both having enlisted at Kingston the year before. They had learned fast but hard on that campaign, and when the regiment had had to destroy so many of its horses because there was not room for them on the transports home, Knowles had used his pistol on behalf of many a man who could not face shooting his own trooper. There were not many left in the regiment who had been in Holland, but the alliteration served to keep the nickname popular. Hervey had shivered at the story when first he heard it. It was one thing to have to shoot a lame animal (and Daniel Coates had made sure he knew how), but to put down good horseflesh to keep it from the hands of the enemy was a sorry business for an Englishman.
Knacker was not his half-dozen’s cook that evening on account of any culinary skill. Each man who chummed together took the chore in turn, and given the unvarying ration and the means to cook it, there was little to be had between any of them in terms of proficiency. The issue biscuit came in three conditions: hard, jaw-breaking or maggoty. The maggoty made the better stirabout, but it was not always palatable to those who had first seen the ration live.
This evening the biscuit was jaw-breaking, and Harris for one decided to put his in a pocket for another day, one when he might have an afternoon to let it soak in a mess of grog. ‘I reckon the artillery could fire it, sir, if they was short of case.’
Hervey smiled. He liked the way the best men made fun of their hardships. There was infinitely more comfort in it than grumbling, although, in truth, there was little enough of that except when it looked as if there would be no going at the enemy. And then there could be any amount. Marching away, ‘like licked men’: they could not contemplate it.
But not tonight. Tonight they were happy. All they needed was a warm bellyful of something, and then they could be off with Lord Paget to have a go at the French.
‘I’ll take a doughboy, thank you, Harris, but I would not wish for someone to go short on my account.’
‘They won’t do that, sir,’ said Knowles, pulling out the first of the dumplings. ‘We found a whole sackful of corn, we did.’
Hervey took it in his gloved hands. It looked like a little frightened hedgehog, and he had to remove a glove so as to pick out the prickles.
‘What’s it like, sir?’ asked Harris, taking his.
‘I can taste the beef,’ replied Hervey. Which was to be expected, for the extremities of the butcher’s art were having a good boiling in the kettle too. ‘What is the corn you have?’
‘Here, sir,’ said Harris, pulling open the sack.
Hervey took a handful. ‘Mm; like barley meal, unsifted.’ Later, the commissaries would issue the same to the troop quartermasters for stables. But he picked out all the prickles and ate the doughboy just the same.
‘Shall you be coming with us, Mr Hervey?’
‘Oh yes,’ he said, very decidedly.
Harris seemed to nod, and Knowles too. ‘Chokey’ Finch arrived with an armful of wood.
‘A good find, that, Private Finch,’ said Hervey, mindful of how the dragoon had got
‘Ay, sir,’ said Chokey, looking pleased. ‘Serjeant Grady gave it me. He were giving away lots of it. The commissaries bought an ’ouse that no one were livin’ in – all ruined an’ that – and broke it up for firewood.’
Hervey was impressed by the enterprise; the commissary-general’s department had been the butt of much criticism from regimental officers of late.
‘Is everything in order, Mr Hervey, sir?’ came a deep Welsh voice, a touch of anxiety added with careful measure.
