‘Good man! I confess the chill in the air is something more than I supposed.’
‘A bit hotter, I imagine, where you come from, sir,’ replied Blanche, affably, slipping the loop from his mare’s neck.
The two following horses crossed with the same facility, albeit with as great an effort. But the third was disinclined even to enter the water. Hervey was of a mind to tell Collins to stand the dragoon down, but he decided instead to try a lead, springing into the saddle and taking hold of the reluctant trooper’s reins. He pressed his spurs into his own gelding’s flanks – this was no time for half measures – and pulled hard at the other’s bit. ‘Give him the flat of the sword if he refuses, Kelly!’
‘Sir!’
But Private Kelly did not need to draw his sabre; his horse took the lead, and Hervey was able to let go while they were still treading the bottom. ‘For’ard then, Kelly; keep his nose at the far bank. You’ll be fine.’
‘For sure, sir!’ Private Kelly was an old hand; he had no wish to be disgraced in front of the others.
The moon disappeared behind the clouds as they surged forward, the gelding picking its feet up high, exaggerated like a hackney, and then the first uneasy moments of flotation, unbalanced, even floundering, until the confident action as the animal settled to a proper rhythm. Kelly loosed his feet from the stirrups and lay full length along the trooper’s back, gasping at the sudden cold douche, letting the water lift him clear of the saddle, for all his sodden weight.
Hervey could no longer see them.
The current, deflected at the bend, took them exactly as the three before, but Kelly was not as ready as they for the undertow. The gelding’s quarters began to swing downstream, and his rider was too slow with the correcting rein – were the horse anyway well mannered enough to respond, out of his element.
The tow-rope loop slid forward to the gelding’s throat, levering his head up even more, so that he started struggling against it. Nothing that Kelly could do would get the horse to answer to the rein. He had but seconds, he reckoned. His trooper would drown, if it did not first choke. Though he knew he would be cutting himself free of his line, he reached for his sabre, groping for the hilt in its uncustomary position. He got the blade out, with difficulty, and then hauled himself by the brow-band to get within reach of the rope. Then he swung his sword arm.
The rope severed at the second cut. He let go of the brow-band and grabbed for the return line. He got but a touch – enough, though, for a desperate man – and both hands grasped it vice-like as the current swept the gelding away.
He began shouting, but against the spate it was like a whisper. Fairbrother, waiting at the point where the horses got their first footing, just had a glimpse of the loosed gelding – and thought the worst.
He ran back to the tether point and began pulling on the line. Resistance meant it was fouled – or there was a dragoon clinging to it. ‘Give me a minute and then haul in!’ he shouted to Cornet Blanche and the others, stripping off his tunic and boots. Then once more he dived into the slack water.
Blanche counted to sixty and then began hauling. In another minute it was done – the two of them dragged to the bank, Kelly exhausted, Fairbrother little better.
Corporal White was first to speak. ‘Sir, if I may say so, that was a rare brave thing you did, an’ we’s awful thankful for it. Isn’t that right, Micky me old pal?’
Private Kelly was still on his hands and knees, with Corporal White’s sodden cloak about him. ‘We is, sir; right thankful o’ it. Can you ’ave a see for my Ben, Chalky?’
Fairbrother, gathering up his clothes and attempting to dry himself a third time, was more touched by the accolade than he might have imagined. ‘Well, let us try to get the rest across without recourse to the same measures. Where’s the rope? We must needs make a new loop and then get it to the other side.’
Johnson saw the candle-signal, and hauled on the return rope as fast as he could.
Back came the tow-rope; but with no moon – and no immediate prospect of it – Hervey had had enough. ‘No, Sar’nt-Major. They will have to go to it with the men they have. I’ll get word across in an oilskin. Have the party form up. We join the rest of the regiment.’
X
Just after four o’clock, an hour or so before first light, Hervey arrived at the regimental contact point, a knoll half a mile to the south-east of Fifield (it was a most opportune rendezvous that Lord Holderness had fixed on before the troops had gone to their tasks).
‘So ho, Hervey! Where is the colonel?’
Captain Worsley sounded unusually hale, thought Hervey as the party jingled up the hill. ‘He is at the river, still. Is Vanneck here?’
‘
Hervey reckoned the mood was evidently infectious: doubtless the ride through Eton High-street brought memories. ‘I would speak to the two of you.’
They drew aside, remaining mounted. Hervey lowered his voice nonetheless. ‘Lord Holderness was taken by a fit as he crossed the river. He damn well nearly drowned. The surgeon’s with him. He says he will recover quickly, but I don’t believe he’ll be able to take the reins again for a good few hours.’
‘What do you propose, Hervey?’ asked Worsley, sounding now less hale.
‘
‘Yes.’
There was something in the tone of that shortest of replies which conveyed offence at the notion they would think otherwise. But he was taking no chances: once a general smelled blood, so to speak, he would hound the wretched quarry until it were done for – and Hervey had no desire to see Lord Holderness brought down (and even less the regiment with him). ‘Where is the sar’nt-major?’
‘He’s checking the pickets,’ said Vanneck.
‘Very well, I’ll tell him on return.’ Mr Rennie, whom Lord Holderness had brought with him from the Fourth, already enjoyed the confidence of the officers, though Hervey himself did not know him. The RSM and the adjutant were the only two others whom he considered it necessary to inform of the colonel’s true situation.
‘The party otherwise crossed safely?’ asked Worsley.
Hervey recovered himself. ‘Yes, forgive me: they are, but only a handful. Kelly near drowned. I could not risk any others. Blanche is across. Fairbrother and he shall have to do the business.’ It had been the idea that Hervey would lead the party, but Worsley and Vanneck must know that with the colonel hors de combat Hervey was obliged to take his place.
To that end he now needed the squadron leaders’ reports. Lord Holderness’s plan had been to send a strong scouting party an hour and a half before last light through Windsor Forest, as far as the wooded high ground overlooking Fifield (where Hervey and the two squadron leaders now stood), for he had calculated that Fifield would be the southernmost extent of the Grenadiers’ lodgement. He had put Myles Vanneck in command of the party, with the five remaining cornets, to picket the route through the forest, which, though hardly like the forests of India, was no place to take chances with the main body of the regiment at night, even a moonlit one (he would not give the game away to the Grenadiers’ pickets by advancing in daylight), and then to discover what they could of the ‘enemy’ dispositions. Vanneck, as Worsley, was entirely capable, but even if the reconnaissance were detected, Lord Holderness had reckoned that it would serve his design, for the Grenadiers would stand to and reinforce their pickets, fixing their attention to the south rather than to the north and east, the other side of the Thames.
Hervey had been at one with him in this. They gambled, of course. If they had been unable to get anyone
