There could have been no doubt of it. The Royal Navy had every Frenchman blockaded in his port, and after Trafalgar they had not been keen to force the issue again. The important thing was that there were ships. The navy had never let them down, that was for sure, but January was a stormy month: they might have been blown west, and away from Spain. It had played on many a man’s mind as they got nearer the promised haven, even Hervey’s, for he did not yet know that His Majesty’s ships could keep station or make headway as they pleased in the worst of weather – or so it seemed.
Hervey and Laming took out their own telescopes. ‘Not so many as I had imagined,’ said Laming. ‘There were many more, I think, when we sailed here.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Martyn. ‘But ships enough I’ll warrant. I expect we shall be away tomorrow.’
‘How shall we have the horses aboard do you think?’
‘Tricky,’ said Martyn, closing his glass. ‘Lighters, for certain. But yon ships’ll have to stand in a bit closer, else the swell will make it a deal too hazardous.’
Hervey supposed that Martyn knew of these things. But for the meantime there was the prospect of food and rest, and making and mending, with Sir John Moore’s army between them and the French. Although the Sixth might have fretted for action when ordered to make straight for Corunna, they had conducted themselves honourably, enduring long night-watches, freezing pickets and lonely videttes, fighting when they had the opportunity, and standing ready at any time to rush this way or that, as the roads permitted (and often as they did not) to some alarm or other. It had been scrappy work, never more than a troop at most, and often as not the business of a cornet or a corporal. By its very nature, no one saw the work of outposts and patrolling; there were no laurels to be garnered. But the regiment’s appearance this morning spoke all that Lord Paget or Sir John Moore could require: the Sixth were well found, as well found as any in that army might be, and a good deal better than most. Colonel Reynell thanked God the regiment had done its duty.
Colonel Reynell’s face fell. ‘You mean we’re just to leave ’em here, after all we’ve just—’ He checked himself, sensing he betrayed a sentiment that belonged within the Sixth only. ‘It has taken a pretty few pennies to mount the regiment, and a good deal more time. We shall be in no state to go at Bonaparte again inside of twelve months!’
‘Colonel,’ began the AQMG wearily, though not without sympathy, ‘there are horses enough in England to mount the entire army. There are not, however, so many stout hearts in red coats!’
‘And who is to take my horses?’
The AQMG hesitated. ‘I am very much afraid, Colonel, that the orders are that they be shot.’
‘Shot? All of them?’ Reynell’s face looked like a man’s suddenly bereaved.
‘I am very much afraid so. To save the French having them. The Tenth are to make a start with theirs this afternoon.’
Reynell left the AQMG’s office without another word. The adjutant, who had been speaking with the commissary officers outside, and who had learned from them of the intention for the army’s horses, noted a man who seemed confused, as if he were in another place, not the indefatigable commanding officer of the last two weeks. ‘Colonel, shall I assemble the captains?’
Reynell seemed not to have heard.
‘Colonel?’
Reynell narrowed his eyes. ‘They say we are to destroy the horses,’ he replied, as if scarcely able to believe the words.
‘Yes, Colonel, I heard. Shall I assemble the captains?’
There was a long silence.
‘I think I shall ride over to the Tenth.’
The adjutant could not imagine for what purpose. He had been many years in the ranks, some of them in Flanders, where he had seen things too infamous to contemplate, and he knew an unpalatable order was best executed without delay or introspection. ‘Do you wish me to accompany you, Colonel? Or shall I give the captains the orders on your behalf?’
Reynell emerged from his thoughts. ‘Orders? No, decidedly not.’
Without speaking, they rode to where the Tenth were bivouacked, in a meadow on the cliff tops overlooking a sandy beach. In ordinary times there would have been no pleasanter spot or happier sight. As they approached they heard the shots. Later they saw men leading the troopers to the edge of the cliff, where the farriers did their pistol work with varying degrees of skill, then heaving the animals over to the sands below, where other hussars with hammers and axes despatched those which landed alive through a badly aimed shot.
Some of the horses had broken loose. Their heads were down, and pulling greedily at the green shoots in the stony till, their handlers making no attempt to recapture them. Others, with the smell of blood in their nostrils, bolted from the meadow towards Corunna, or down the cliff path to the blood-splashed beach, which only increased their terror. Everywhere, there were men sitting weeping.
‘Colonel?’ The adjutant could see no purpose in staying. There was nothing to learn by way of good practice here.
Colonel Reynell said nothing. It had been his sole concern for a fortnight and more to preserve the reputation of the regiment, to earn not a single rebuke from Paget or Moore, knowing that when they reached England there would be recriminations enough. And it was come to this. He looked around at the Tenth, as proud a regiment as any in the Line: they were unhorsed, and bloodily, by their own hand. It was not to be borne.
A trooper, a bay mare, came hobbling towards them, seeking perhaps the comfort of two animals quietly composed. Her off-fore was broken at the knee, though she made no sound in pain. Reynell looked at her, disbelieving. No regiment’s horses could be allowed to end this way.
The adjutant reached for his pistol.
‘No, Frank. I’ll do it,’ said Reynell. ‘Take my reins.’
Colonel Reynell dismounted and took his service pistols from their saddle holsters, pushing one into his swordbelt. They had been primed at first light, and the day was dry. He had no fear of misfire.
He took the mare by the long lock of her mane, which fell full across a handsome blaze, and led her away from the chargers. He stopped, cocked the pistol and raised it to her head, she nuzzling him the while, content to be in caring hands. He pressed the barrel into the fossa above her left eye, aiming at the base of the right ear, and pulled the trigger. The mare fell before the smoke filled his nostrils. He stepped back as she lay twitching.
The adjutant saw him take the second pistol from his swordbelt, though to him it looked a clean despatch.
Colonel Reynell walked a dozen paces towards the sea, stopped, put the pistol to his head and fired.
While the regiment buried its lieutenant-colonel that afternoon, Joseph Edmonds, the senior captain, was at the AQMG’s. He had taken Hervey with him, officer of the day. Hervey was still numb with the realization that a man such as Reynell was flesh and blood enough to act as he had. Somehow he had imagined that senior officers possessed a sort of invisible armour against the trials that troubled their juniors, a sort of waterdeck mantle that made them impervious to fear and the vexations of the field. How could a man like Reynell, who had spoken so eloquently of the journey before them, who had worked so tirelessly to keep the regiment together – how could such a man put a bullet in his head, and at the moment of deliverance? Was it that a man had only so much strength, and that it could seep away fatally, just as blood from a wound? He shivered at the thought of where his own measure lay at this time, and tried to concentrate instead on what was being said the other side of the door to the AQMG’s office.
It was not difficult, for the voices within had been rising for some minutes. ‘I do not care if Sir John Moore himself gave the order, I will not destroy three hundred and more horses!’
‘Captain Edmonds, may I remind you to whom you speak! Indeed they
‘Do you tell me, sir, that none of those ships there’ – he pointed at the window with its view of the harbour and beyond – ‘has space for troopers?’
