Warrior

Armstrong got down from the saddle and handed the reins to Somervile. 'If you wouldn't mind, sir? Just for a short while.'

Somervile looked appalled. 'Sarn't-Major, what—'

'Be so good as to hold the reins, sir. That's all.' Armstrong glanced at Serjeant Wainwright as he pushed the captive to his knees and bound his legs and ankles with the rest of the lead-rope. 'Jobie, I want you to take a good deep breath of this fine Cape air and cover me with that excellent firearm His Majesty gave you.'

'I will, sir,' gasped Wainwright, reaching painfully for his carbine.

'This is madness,' said Somervile, beneath his breath, looping the reins of the serjeant-major's trooper round his wrist, trying to work out how he might do as he had been bidden while taking some more active part in the destruction of the enemy.

Armstrong unshipped his carbine from the saddle sleeve, coolly checking it was ready, and began to walk back along the track. The Xhosa halted, as if puzzled – as if it were not at all what they had expected from the men on horses.

At forty yards Armstrong dropped to one knee, took careful aim resting an elbow on his left foreleg, and fired.

It was the limit of accurate shooting for the carbine, but the Xhosa with the rifle crumpled and fell backwards, dead. Two more Xhosa appeared – six now. Armstrong cursed as he bit off the cartridge, took the ball between his teeth, tapped a little powder into the pan, and emptied the charge into the barrel.

Still the Xhosa made no move.

Armstrong spat in the ball and brought the carbine to the aim again without tamping, firing a split second later and felling another of Piet Doorn's slayers.

The five that remained suddenly woke. They began again to close, with the same wary walk, half crouching, gesturing with their spears. Armstrong knew he had one more shot before they would rush him, and then there would be four, and Wainwright would have one of them, and he, the non-commissioned officer in charge of Somervile's escort, would have the other three – one with the pistol at his belt, the other two (if they pressed home the attack) with the edge of the sword.

He fired. Another Xhosa fell. He laid down his carbine to draw his sabre, transferring it to his left hand, then took the pistol from his waist belt with his right and cocked the hammer.

At a dozen yards Wainwright's carbine fired. The biggest of the four Xhosa clutched at his chest, stumbled, then fell.

Armstrong levelled his pistol at the middle Xhosa – twice the distance he wanted, but he needed time to transfer the sabre to his right hand. He pulled the trigger, the hammer fell. There was no spark. Nothing.

The Xhosa checked, but seeing there was no more to fear from the pistol, came on, crouching lower, animal- intent.

Armstrong switched pistol for sabre, coolly weighing the blade as he took stock of the new challenge: three Xhosa, three spears – odds he would not have faced willingly.

They edged towards him.

He could see their eyes – murderous as the tiger's. He stayed on one knee.

They checked again.

He sprang – left, well left, to the flank of the right-hand Xhosa, cutting savagely, backhand, tearing open his shoulder. He leapt thence at the furthest before he could turn, slicing deep through the back of his neck. The remaining Xhosa spun round and feinted with his shield. But Armstrong knew the ruse. He dropped to one knee and drove his sabre under the shield into the gut with savage force. Two more points finished off the other two, leaving Armstrong on his feet, heart pounding, surveying the bloody outcome of twenty years' drill and gymnasium.

Somervile could not speak, such was his admiration: Armstrong Agonistes.

II

REGIMENTAL MOURNINGSt Mary Moorfields, London, 4 July 1828

Sweet, white smoke billowed from the silver thurible as the celebrant censed the altar, the deacon and sub- deacon holding aside his black cope to permit of freer movement, they, too, black-vested, the altar frontal black, also. The incense rose like the chantry orisons of another age, refracting the morning light which, though there was no east window, fell on the sanctuary steps in front of the guidon-draped coffin in a warm, sunny pool that seemed to waitwelcome the soul of the faithful departed. There were no wreaths of flowers, these being (except in the exequies for a child) 'alien to the mind of the Church'. But six candles, of unbleached wax, burned bright and hopeful about the coffin.

The smoke drifted from the sanctuary to the nave, into the nostrils of men who would as a rule have reeled at the prospect of ritual – a foreign practice, a thing of those countries which for centuries had contrived to subvert the demi-paradise. But this morning they stood respectful. Hervey, indeed, breathed the scented smoke deep, as if to pay even fuller regard.

The choir sang the introit, plainsong, as the Sixth had often heard through long years in the Peninsula: Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine. Et lux perpetua luceat eis. Some of the officers joined in the final prayer, if sotto voce, and two or three of the dragoons made the sign of the cross: Requiem aeternam.

The stream of supplication continued: Deus, cui proprium est misereri semper et parcere . . . the celebrant's words at once recognizable, yet of another world. What he – what all the Sixth – did, though, was real enough. They were gathered to commend to the Almighty the soul (indeed, to pray for the soul's release, as the regular worshippers of the Moorfields chapel would have it) of one of the goodliest servants of the regiment, whose death and its terrible consequences he, Hervey, could scarcely yet credit: te supplices exoramus pro anima famulae tuae Catharinae . . . 'We humbly entreat Thee for the soul of Thy handmaiden . . .'

Tears filled his eyes – the incense smoke, perhaps; but, more likely, for the pity of it, and for those consequences.