Rumours Of War

backs eased. I don’t suppose Lord Paget will have a mind to lead in hand.’

Sore backs, the bane of the cavalry; ill-fitting saddles and too long spent in them. In the Sixth they led as much as they rode (if it was ‘walk-march’ then as a rule it was ‘dismount’), but it was not the common practice. And when it came to the trot there was no avoiding the regulation seat, bumping along, sitting deep, stirrups long, legs (as the riding-master had it) ‘like tongs across a wall’. Even now, new as he was, Hervey could not see the point. Every officer would hack to the covert rising, and then follow the field with a bent leg; but the practice of the hunt was somehow thought inapt for a regiment on campaign.

‘Shall you have me take post at the rear?’ he asked, hoping the answer would be no.

‘Ay,’ said Martyn, trying to see the time by his Ellicott hunter. ‘Emmet and Crook will do their share of driving, with a deal of curses I dare say, but some’ll go better for the odd kind word.’

But words, kind or otherwise, would have been wasted. The wind rose again soon after they left the town, and whistled in their ears all the way to Sahagun. It blew snow over them, and then it blew it off again. The road – the whole country – was white, fetlock-deep, lit brilliantly from time to time by lightning, and occasionally by a good moon when the heavy-laden clouds parted. In places, against a hedge or where the snow had piled in the lee of a bank, the horses struggled knee-deep, and at times up to the forearm. Hervey grew worried: some of them looked fit to drop. There were too many with bellows to mend, and others lobbing and sobbing. But their riders were at least doing their best to help instead of slumping like woolpacks on a chapman’s nag – lengthening the reins to let the animal stretch, shifting weight in the saddle. For here was no mere march. Now there was a fair prospect before them: Frenchmen to charge and overturn. And every man would hold his comfort as nothing when it came to such a prospect as this.

Hervey would count his comfort as naught too. He was tired, he was hungry and he was so cold that his head felt as if it were in a vice. He had tried riding up and down the line as Martyn had asked, but urging his mare to the extra effort proved progressively futile. And his want of sleep was telling too, for he was now fighting the drowsiness that came with the plodding and the numbing chill. He wanted only to lie down, not even by a fire, anywhere he might close his eyes; the same cold sleep the dragoons had been tempted by. He was dismayed that it should now tempt him, that he had to fight it so hard. And it was not just the drowsiness: there was a curious feeling in his stomach, the like of which he had never known. There had been no gut-twisting in the little affair of the point patrol, when they had gone at the enemy in the dark. But then it had been all of a sudden, so to speak; all of a business of draw swords and charge, no time for wondering what to do. It was not fear for himself – not for the cut of the sabre or its point, or the tearing of flesh and the splintering of bone which the carbine’s ball might bring; these he supposed he had a mind to bear as well as the next man. Rather was it the little voice within which asked if he would have the capability.

Daniel Coates had never told him about the little voice, he was sure. But the old dragoon must have had a sense of it, since almost his last words were that he had taught him all he could remember, but some things commissioned rank alone knew. ‘A noncommissioned officer knows how to get a thing done,’ he had said. ‘But the officer must first tell him what it is that’s to be done.’ A powerful obligation on a young head, Coates had said.

Hervey did not like the idea of a young head. He had wanted to count himself a proficient as soon as may be. Now, he was weighing Daniel Coates’s words very carefully.

There were shots – two. Then a pause. Then three or four more. The dragoons braced, as if to the serjeant-major’s cautionary word of command. The horses braced. Hervey woke; the voice was gone – forgotten. He put his mare into a trot and closed with Martyn.

‘The Fifteenth have run into a picket post, by the sound of things,’ said Martyn, his voice raised against the wind, though not as much as he would have needed but a half-hour ago. ‘We must be closer to Sahagun than I’d thought.’

Hervey tried to see the time by his watch, but couldn’t. It was no lighter than it had been for much of the night – no moon, no sign of the dawn. And now the garrison was alerted. He wondered in whose favour that would work.

A mile west of the town, about the distance that Lord Paget’s column stood to the south, were the Tenth and General Slade. Slade’s watch, with the aid of a lantern, told him it was six o’clock, and that in a half-hour he was to begin his drive, like beaters at a shoot. Whether these French birds would crouch like partridges until the last moment, putting up low and fast, the covey flying tight as one, or whether like fat pheasants they would lumber away noisily all over the place, he could not know. But, as on a well-run shoot, he could at least have his beaters smart and regulated. Slade decided he would halt, dress the ranks properly, and inspire them with rousing words before going at his work. It was his first time in action, and he meant to take all care to see that nothing went awry. He did not hear the picket’s shots, nor those returned by Lord Paget’s scouts.

The main column was moving again. Not yet at a true trot – irregular jogging and a deal of barging.

‘I’m damned if I can see a thing now,’ complained Martyn. ‘That moon has been very disobliging this last hour.’

But in a minute or so they caught sight of French prisoners, the remains of the picket. Hussars from the Fifteenth were covering them, and Hervey wished it had been they not the ‘tabs’, as for some reason the Fifteenth were known, for this was glory indeed. But then he remembered that Captain Edmonds’s troop would now be slipping north of the town, like ringing fingers closing round the neck of a fat goose. Theirs would be the fight as much as the Fifteenth’s; just as soon as the Tenth beat the ground and drove the game on to them.

Hervey was glad nevertheless to be in Sir Edward Lankester’s troop. Besides liking his captain and judging that his example was the best to follow, Hervey was uncertain of Joseph Edmonds’s temper. Edmonds had welcomed him right enough when first he had reported for duty at the depot, and his troop seemed to have a harder edge to them than the others, perhaps because there were more sweats from India or Holland. Edmonds was a gentleman – no doubt of it – maybe even of a more natural and profound quality, but Hervey had been cautious nonetheless. But no man knew better how to handle a troop than Edmonds; that every man seemed to agree.

Perhaps, then, it would have been better had he been with Edmonds’s troop still, for at this rate it looked as if all they would see would be dead Frenchmen. Perhaps, though, when dawn eventually came, the French would see Lord Paget and assail him. There would be his chance, for then the laurels would be un-rationed. And had he not been dismissed from both riding-school and skill-at-arms with uncommon speed? Quicker, perhaps, than rough-riders and master-at-arms could remember? That was what the adjutant had said. If it came to the fight hand-to-hand, he would surely be a match for a French chasseur? If only the moon would show again, or the dawn come!

The walls of the town loomed, not as high as a true fortress but solid enough. And the column was inclining east, following the road as it turned a right angle. Hervey thought it odd they were not fired on; was there not one tirailleur brave enough?

It was half an hour, perhaps, since the first shots. If the Fifteenth had not got their scouts well ahead, would the French not be forming up now ready to meet them? Hervey imagined more shots at any second. Perhaps they might already be running east, though – free? He could hardly bear the thought. But the French had surely had the time to rouse and muster, no matter how off-guard they had been?

‘Qui vive?’

It came down the column like a Babel brook, and the thrill with it. At last they were closing with the French!

Hervey itched to draw his sword.

‘Qui vive?’

Again. It must have been repeated fifty times along the column, like ripples from a stone in a mill pond. But they didn’t check the pace, not for a moment – a fast walk still, and a jogtrot every so often to close a gap. Who was challenging? Did they fall back as they did so? Why were there no shots?

A few furlongs north, riding parallel with them indeed, though Lord Paget could not know it, was Edmonds and his troop. Their progress was not so easy, for the country there was well wooded, and the snow had drifted more, but they too were hearing ‘Qui vive?’ and wondering why, when he gave no answer, the videttes did not open fire on them.

West of the town still, in the same position he had halted half an hour before, General Slade was finishing his