Rumours Of War

Private Johnson had lately joined from C Troop. Hervey wondered at his blunt cheerfulness, while struggling to make sense of his syntax and enunciation. It was from a place far removed from his own, for sure; and further, he felt certain, than Corporal Armstrong’s.

‘Fall asleep in this an’ it’s t’dead knock all right!’

This time he understood. It was a matter, he reckoned, of catching the all-but-absent definite article and the curiously compact vowels – not really so difficult with anything like a half-decent ear. If he could speak French and German he ought to be able to fathom a dragoon from the far north of his own country.

Martyn, meanwhile, had sent word for the serjeants.

Crook came up rubbing his hands as if relishing another four hours’ march, saluting as sharp as on parade. ‘Morning, sir!’

Emmet, if not so obviously animated by the prospect, joined them not long after. Hervey could not imagine a troop better served by its NCOs than was A.

Martyn listened to the parade states, gave a few orders, then told Emmet and Crook all he knew. There were a few questions, some answers, and then exchanges of compliments, before they dismissed to their duties.

These were two different men, mused Hervey, and he would be pressed to choose which was best. He wondered how Armstrong might be in his turn.

‘Now, you dragoons, we’re for the off again in an hour – less,’ he could hear Crook piping.

He closed to hear better.

‘So them ’orses is to have a bit o’ water, good an’ warm, mind, a bit o’ corn and no ’ay. We don’t want the colic, do we? Off-saddle an’ give the back a good rub. And then you may have a bit of something yourselves.’

‘Where’s us off to, Serjeant?’ asked Private Johnson, his voice lively in its way, but somehow indifferent.

‘Sirgoon.’

‘Where’s that, Serjeant?’

Hervey answered instead. ‘About four leagues to the east. There’s a brigade of French cavalry there.’

Every man turned his head, and very intent. ‘Are we going to fight ’em, sir?’ asked one.

‘I think we must if that is where we go.’

‘I hope dere’ll be enough to go round!’ chirped an Irish wag.

‘How many’s that, then, Mick?’ asked the oldest sweat. ‘How many should we put you down for?’

Tired men – exhausted men, some of them – yet come alive at the prospect of a fight. Hervey all but shook his head as he tried to fathom it. And it was not the fiery spirit of the flask that stirred them to arms, just the prospect of ‘Death to the French’. These men had little enough, but they had their pride, a rough sort of honour, and they had grumbled that it would be a mean homecoming if they left Spain with never a shot. For without a bit of blood on the sword they would be no better than the yeomen.

Hervey felt the same. He had had a skirmish, but it had not been battle. The guns hadn’t roared, and bullets hadn’t sung past his ears; he hadn’t charged, sabre-drawn, knee-to-knee. That was what they all wanted. And they wanted it in the company of messing friends and companions, with the NCOs they knew, and the officers they trusted, for it was in that company they were emboldened to do it, and in sight of which they could never default. That much he thought he understood.

He now withdrew to be with his thoughts. How they raced too, this way and that, like a horse turned out first time of a week. He sensed he was near the test. And Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is beside Beth-aven, on the east side of Beth-el, and spake unto them, saying, Go up and view the country. And the men went up and viewed Ai.

Joshua was his favourite, still. He had read every word a hundred times. Joshua was brave in battle, but clever too, resourceful. That, he knew, was what these dragoons expected of him. He prayed that when the time came he would be first and foremost like Joshua, that when it was his time to command he would first be as cunning, and then as brave. He trusted that what Daniel Coates had taught him over long years – and in their way his family, and the fellows at Shrewsbury too – would give him the resource. And he prayed for the wit to recall it when the time came. And the men went up and viewed Ai. And they returned to Joshua, and said unto him, Let not all the people go up; but let about two or three thousand men go up and smite Ai; and make not all the people to labour thither; for they are but few.

Hervey had no true idea how strong were the French at Sahagun. What was a brigade of cavalry? Anything from five hundred to five thousand. Neither, for that matter, did he know how strong was General Paget’s own command. Private Dooley fretted for a surfeit of Frenchman, but Hervey wondered how they would manoeuvre if they found themselves badly outnumbered. Not that he actually feared it. What was it they said? ‘The silly, sanguine notion that one Englishman can beat three Frenchmen encourages, and has sometimes enabled, one Englishman, in reality, to beat two.’

Well, perhaps one Irishman might manage three or four, but only if the French fought with no art. He had observed Private Dooley about the lines; indeed, he had watched him in little short of amazement as he expended copious muscle power – and sometimes blood – where a grain of brainpower would have served as well. But Daniel Coates always said to beware the Irish, for the image could often as not be pretence, masking both aptitude and guile (and even low cunning). Dooley’s mask was indeed a good one if mask it was, and Hervey wondered at the NCOs and their patience with him. But then again, it was impossible not to like Private Dooley.

At one o’clock, the general called Lieutenant Martyn to his quarters. Hervey went too, half surprised to gain admittance. He stood in a corner speaking to no one, no one speaking to him. Instead he observed.

Lord Paget was tall, a fine-looking officer, thought Hervey, with the open expression of a man to trust and admire. The general shook hands with Martyn and told him to sit down, as he himself did to fasten on his spurs. Also in the room were gallopers from the regiments of General Slade’s brigade, together with Paget’s own quartermaster-general and ADCs – a dozen or so staff officers, well booted, assured. Hervey felt a shade awkward, like a doul summoned to the praepostors’ hall for the first time.

‘Well,’ began Paget, pulling tight the straps which doubly secured the box spurs. ‘You will ride in file to my rear at all times, until I order otherwise or we come in face of the enemy, in which latter case you shall bring the escort into line without ado – in one or two lines I leave to your good judgement.’

‘Sir.’

‘The point is, Mr Martyn, my thoughts will be entirely of the enemy and how to dispose my command against him. I do not have a care to directing my own escort.’

‘Sir.’

‘Very well. We march for Sahagun. My information is that the French are not many there, but enough to give of a good fight if they stand. And stand I would expect them to do. So my intention is that General Slade, with the Tenth, shall beat through the town just before dawn, driving the French on to the guns so to speak – on to the Fifteenth, whom I shall have brought myself around the town, to the south, to an enfilade. A troop of your own regiment – Captain Edmonds’s – will stand to the north to block any escape in that direction. I trust your men and horses are rested?’

This latter seemed more a punctuating statement than a genuine enquiry, but Martyn was not inclined to answer blandly. ‘Both are tired, General. But it will only tell if we must force the pace.’

Lord Paget looked at him keenly. ‘Thank you, Mr Martyn.’ Then he stood up. ‘I am obliged.’

Martyn saluted, turned and left the room, Hervey close behind.

‘He imagines we came in some hours ago, I suppose,’ he said, a shade ruefully. ‘And I dare say the weather’s taken a turn for the worse since he arrived. Four leagues to Sahagun, you reckon?’

Hervey nodded.

‘One league in the hour, then, if we’re to be in place by first light.’

Hervey had taken good note of Martyn’s candour. Many a man, he supposed, would have said yea to the general, thinking it somehow a dishonour to admit anything but readiness and capability. Scripture and many fine men had told him that truth was always the necessity, but he had also learned that truth must be founded on good judgement: it took an honest officer to hear the truth well.

He woke to Martyn’s calculation. ‘That is what we made on the march here.’

Martyn nodded. It was snowing again, heavier if anything, although the wind had moderated and the snow was at least falling more or less perpendicular. He turned up his cloak collar. ‘I would wish we had had a few hours more – just long enough for the men to lay their heads down, I mean. And the horses to have a little time with their