Rumours Of War

rousing speech. It had been too long. Even if his audience had not been so damnably cold it would have been too long, for it was full of needless rhetoric, of bravado even. Many of the Tenth’s officers shifted in the saddle with embarrassment, and not a little distaste, for Slade now exhorted his command to ‘feats the day would quake to look upon’, and to ‘an affair that will be writ down large in the annals of the cavalry!’

But while Slade declaimed, General Debelle was able to assemble his own command unmolested and with perfect regularity – exactly the condition that Lord Paget had most calculated to avoid, for there were perhaps twice as many Frenchmen as he himself could match in his depleted brigade. In truth, there was still no telling how many men Debelle had.

‘Very well, the Tenth! Blood and slaughter! March.’

And with that, Slade at last began his drive.

It had stopped snowing now, but it was still too dark even to contemplate bringing the accompanying gun into action. Paget had brought two, giving one to Slade. He had fancied they might serve him as the ultima ratio, for the ground favoured him (as far as the observing officer who had first reconnoitred the town had described it to him). If he could get to the little bridge over the Valderaduey – not a deep or a wide river, but in this weather obstacle enough – he could command Sahagun’s eastern approaches with canister. But what Paget could not understand was who these French were challenging him out of the dark, or how many they were. And where was Slade? Could these Frenchmen be the Tenth indeed, having overrun the town? But why would they shout ‘Qui vive’? Where was Slade?

Hervey’s thoughts were now solely of when he might draw his sword. He had scant enough knowledge of the general’s design and an imperfect conception of how the ground lay, for his was not a position of advantage so far back in the column. But he could hear the Qui vives clearly now. Why did the French videttes persist? What did they want to hear – whether the reply was in Spanish or English? Could they really think they were French?

He thought it the queerest thing, marching in column along a road with the enemy in the fields close by unable to make out what things were and therefore what to do. Was it always like this? Would he ever know what was really happening? Later their tracks would reveal it all: Debelle and Paget moving in parallel a couple of hundred yards apart, separated by snowy vineyards in their winter truncation, and a dry ditch. The skirmishers perhaps had a notion of it, but their field of view was too small to comprehend the symmetry of the march. Debelle wanted to get to the little bridge over the Valderaduey too, the only crossing point in the darkness, but he could not shake off the shadowy force on the road.

It was getting light. Lord Paget could make out quite clearly now mounted figures in the fields the other side of the road – not many, ones and twos here and there, but no more than a hundred yards away.

Suddenly there was cheering, then firing – a peppering of carbines from the fields.

‘Aha! The videttes have decided it,’ said Paget, though with no more to his voice than had he been observing hounds drawing a distant covert. He strained hard to make out precisely where the cheering was coming from. And then he thought he had it, for what he had first supposed to be the dark background of the wooded slopes beyond the fields now looked like close ranks of horsemen.

Beyond the flashes of the videttes’ carbines was, indeed, General Cesar-Alexandre Debelle’s brigade – three hundred sabres of the 8e Dragons, and a further four hundred of the 1er Provisoire Chasseurs a Cheval – all drawn up ready to charge, the chasseurs in the first line, with only a dry ditch between them and their bold videttes. Lord Paget could have but a very incomplete picture yet, but his instinct told him all he needed: a body of cavalry stood not two furlongs away, and his own command, inferior in number, was in column of route. It was a position that could at once turn to disaster.

Paget knew the Dundas drill book, Instructions and Regulations for the Formations and Movements of the Cavalry, and he knew it well. To get his column to face left in line would require, at the least, twenty-two verbal commands, including seven of ‘halt’. But he knew he could trust the Fifteenth’s commanding officer to have a handier way.

‘Fifteenth Hussars, left face!’

Colonel Colquhoun Grant had fought with the 25th Light Dragoons at Seringapatam and had led the 72nd Highlanders at the recapture of the Cape. He was not a man of unnecessary words of command. He had drilled his regiment to a handiness which, if it would not please a general officer at a review, would certainly delight one in the circumstances in which Lord Paget now found himself.

‘Hussars, form divisions! Wheel into line!’

It was done in less than a quarter of a minute, and as the men wheeled to face their adversaries, visible to all at last in the dawn’s cold grey light, they gave out a great cheer: ‘Huzzah!’

Not twenty yards behind Lord Paget, Hervey felt the deep-throated roar as much as he heard it. His spine shivered. He had heard hounds baying a hundred times, but never with such a lust as these men now gave tongue to. This was it. This was the moment he had prayed would come. Going knee-to-knee in the charge, he would soon be able to count himself a true cavalryman. But when would they draw swords?

Lord Paget knew exactly. It was an error to draw swords before the very instant of attack, for otherwise the effect was diminished. He had known an enemy waver and then break at the mere sight of the sabre’s edge revealed.

He took in all before him with one more glance about the field – the coup d’oeil, the cavalryman’s advantage – then made his way to the centre of the line.

Hervey and the escort followed, throwing off their cloaks, sword arms free and eager.

‘Draw sabres!’ called Paget.

Out rasped the better part of four hundred and fifty blades.

Lord Paget knew his drill book, and he knew his colonels too. Now he would show that he knew his history. ‘Fifteenth Hussars: Emsdorf and Victory – charge!’

The line took off like the field on Newmarket Heath when the flag was dropped. It was not as it should be – not the progression of walk, trot, gallop, charge – but Hervey scarcely noticed. There in front was Lord Paget, sword arm outstretched, the escort behind, left and right, and behind them the hussars crying ‘Emsdorf and Victory!’

The strangest things crowded his mind – tilting at sheep in Longleat Park astride a young Jessye, the races at Shrewsbury, Daniel Coates shouting not to let his sword arm bend: ‘Seek out your man and ride hard for him!’

He hoped to ride hard for an officer, but he couldn’t make one out. Why did the French stand to receive and not counter-charge?

He saw the carbines come up and heard the shots – he thought. He saw the smoke for sure. They hadn’t the slightest effect.

And then into the smoke, and then they were among them. Robert, his gelding, plunged between two horses that had turned already. Hervey’s right leg struck a chasseur’s boot hard, almost heaving him from the saddle. He lost a stirrup, cursed, swung back blindly with his sabre – ‘Cut Two against infantry’ the closest he dare call it – felt it strike, and followed through with his arm still straight. He saw the blood as the sabre came full circle.

Now they were on the dragoons in the second line, the chasseurs thrown back in confusion. There were horses and men down – shrieks, squeals, curses, groans, prayers for mercy. The French ranks were deep, all Greek helmets and plumes. It was like diving into a black pool, wondering if he would break the surface before running out of air. He cut and thrust left and right, as if hacking through thicket. He felt blows, but no pain. He heard shouting, orders, but they made no sense. All that mattered was to get through the mass of men and into the clear air beyond. Where Lord Paget was he had no idea. He could see men of his own regiment, and the Fifteenth, but not the general.

Then, as suddenly as they’d clashed, he was through, and gasping for air just like breaking surface in the pool. He saw Martyn, and Serjeant Crook, then Serjeant Emmet, Corporal Armstrong and Collins, and dragoons spattered with blood.

And then he saw Lord Paget – relief! For not only was he now a cavalryman, the troop had done its duty.

But it was not over yet, by any means. The French were fleeing east towards the Carrion road, and Paget meant to stop them. ‘After them, Grant! We must head them off the bridge!’

Colonel Grant raised his sabre to acknowledge. His hand was bloody, whether by the enemy’s or his own it