Man Of War

across the river, the entire adventure would have rested on a direct approach to the bridge, against the enemy’s strength rather than his weakness. Hervey now had but a handful of men on the north side, and they had no plan but to improvise a ruse on nearing the bridge. Yet he did not doubt that they would. In what he had seen of Fairbrother at the Cape – the scrapes with the Xhosa in the night, the clash with the Zulu at the Umtata River – he concluded that he had a soldier-companion of rare facility with unpromising circumstances.

The hazard in the plan was, to his mind, the inability to communicate with Fairbrother now. All, therefore, depended on timing. Since the regiment’s mission was to seize the bridge by first light, timing was in any case of the essence; but the success of a ruse, especially one with so few men, could turn on a fortuitous minute.

There was, too, the second element of the regiment’s assignment: the bridge had to be held until the Sixth were relieved. A handful of men, in the dark and with surprise on their side, might take the bridge from the rear; but as soon as the Grenadiers had recovered themselves, they would mount a counter-attack, and easily carry the bridge. In that case it were better that the bridge was destroyed, cutting off the enemy from their own forces.

But how could the umpire at the bridge be persuaded that so few men had captured and then destroyed it? That was the material question, and one which Hervey had no option but to leave to Fairbrother. Yet even if Fairbrother were able to take the bridge, and he, Hervey, was able to get every man of the Sixth to it in time – and the artillery pieces – the general’s umpire would not permit them an indefinite defence. If only he might know what were the Grenadiers’ orders! He had made the most thorough appreciation of the situation – of the Grenadiers’ situation, too – as they rode through the forest, but he could not be certain. That, however, was the nature of war, even mock war:nothing was certain.

‘What is there to report of the lodgement?’ he asked Vanneck.

‘I think I may tell you the most effectually if we ride to the forward edge of the copse.’

They did so. And what Hervey saw in the distance both surprised and buoyed him.

‘I imagine the field of the cloth of gold was no more remarkable,’ said Vanneck wryly. ‘They have a vast officers’ tent just this side of the Thames at Dorney, and the band was playing until after midnight.’

‘I don’t think I ever saw so many campfires since Spain,’ replied Hervey, not troubling to take out his telescope. ‘What else have you discovered?’

‘They have pickets within hailing of each other in an arc from a half-mile up and downstream of the bridge, almost as far as Fifield itself.’

‘Worsley?’ Captain Christopher Worsley’s orders had been to probe the far right flank of the lodgement.

‘They’ve assembled a dozen boats upstream towards Bray, on this side, strongly guarded,’ replied F Troop Leader.

‘Within the picket line?’

‘Yes. I estimate there is a full company guarding them.’

‘I congratulate you.’ Hervey began taking out his glass.

‘But why would they want boats?’ added Worsley. ‘Why would they be thinking of withdrawing, with the best part of a thousand men, and we but three hundred?’

‘I am wondering the same,’ said Hervey, searching the low-lying country below. ‘And they would have the devil of a time ferrying men across, with the river in such spate. But let us presume that the Grenadiers’ commanding officer knows his business. Recollect that the general has set him a test as well as us. Suppose he fears the general’s umpire will declare that the Guards must quit the bridge – that it has been destroyed or captured by some extraordinary means – to see what he, the commanding officer, will then do?’

‘You mean he might try to put men back across the river to recapture the bridge from the far side?’

‘That is a possibility.’

‘But with so many men, he hardly needs to make such an indirect approach – not one that would take so long to mount.’

‘Supposing the umpire would by some means still deny him the bridge, even if the Grenadiers were making the most direct and violent counter-attack?’

‘Is that likely?’

‘I cannot say. But the Guards would then be wholly unsupported on the wrong side of the river, facing annihilation: recollect that we alone may be the “enemy”, but on paper there is a division and more behind us. Might not the general wish to test the Guards’ suppleness of thinking – in other words, whether they have some means of recovering themselves from a most perilous position? A prudent commanding officer would have some plan ready. What would be the general’s delight if the Guards’ colonel were able to re-cross the river with his entire battalion?’

‘It would show an admirable capacity for improvisation.’

‘Just so. And you will recall that the manoeuvres are a test not merely of the Sixth but of the Grenadiers.’

‘How does this help us?’

‘Think on it, Worsley: which is the more important to the Guards’ colonel – the bridge or the boats?’

Worsley thought for a moment. ‘It ought, I suppose, to be the bridge. If this were real war then it would be the bridge. But,’ (he seemed reluctant to say it) ‘I suppose, this being mock war, the boats are more important to him.’

‘Exactly so. If the Grenadiers’ commanding officer is a thinking man, and one adept at games. Do you know of him, by any chance?’

‘St Aubyn. He took command last year. But I know nothing more. I think he was lately in Portugal.’

‘Well, the mere fact that he has assembled those boats persuades me that Colonel St Aubyn is a thinking man.’

‘Our efforts should therefore be directed towards the boats, to draw him away, I suppose?’

Hervey nodded. ‘We must show him early that we know of them. That way he will have to reinforce there, at the expense of the pickets. And as soon as Fairbrother’s party takes the bridge we can move a reserve rapidly to reinforce him. St Aubyn will then have to decide as rapidly what is his best option . . . and if Fairbrother can persuade him and the umpire that he has the capacity to destroy the bridge, we might just carry the day.’

Vanneck cleared his throat very slightly. ‘Hervey, I do not wish to sound disobliging, but how shall Fairbrother manage that with half a dozen men and but the clothes they stand in?’

Hervey replaced his telescope in its holster, almost dismissively. ‘Something will turn up.’

The first intimations of dawn towards Windsor, and the striking of Vanneck’s repeating hunter – a quarter before five o’clock – were the signal to mount. Hervey was up and eager, pistols blank-primed, cloak rolled and on the saddle, though the dewy morning had a chill to it. ‘Very well, Captain Vanneck: let us advance on the bridge.’ He gave back the canteen of tea to Johnson.

‘Sir!’ Vanneck saluted and rode forward into the darkness. The glorious moon had not reappeared, and it was back to night drills.

First Squadron began throwing out scouts and flankers, to a good deal of sotto voce cursing from the NCOs. Hervey despaired at the falling away of the edge which the regiment had had in India, when to stand to and move off before first light was the merest matter of routine, accomplished with scarcely a word of command. Could they have captured the sluices at Bhurtpore in their present state of efficiency? He had better not think on it. He must hope that the Guards, devoted as they were to the parade ground in Whitehall, were likewise a blunter instrument than he had observed in Spain.

In five minutes, when Vanneck’s squadron had settled to its business, there was a great eruption of noise and flame in the distance: carbines firing, bugles, whistles, rockets (always a handy device for such a show, and easily got for a few pounds in London), and then the roar of the Chestnuts’ nine-pounders. Worsley’s diversionary attack on the boats had begun.

‘A rude reveille for the good citizens of Berkshire, Mr Rennie,’ said Hervey to the RSM, who was riding on his nearside, the adjutant to his other.

‘And for the Grenadiers, I hope, sir.’

‘Oh, I imagine they’ll be awake. I hope at this moment their light company will be double-marching to the sound of the guns.’