On His Majesty's Service

He signed it quickly – I remain, yours faithfully, Matthew Hervey – and sealed it before he could have any more troubling second thoughts, and placed it with the other letters inside an oilskin envelope addressed to his agents, which he left unsealed to await the morning letter to Kezia. By now he was feeling the hour keenly (it was past two o’clock and the candles were beginning to gutter). He rose from the table at which he had sat for two hours, and without even recourse to the nightstand lay down on his bed and closed his eyes.

There was no easy repose, however. At once Kat appeared – so vividly as to make him open his eyes and sit up. He shook his head, willing her away. She had visited him daily before they reached St Petersburg, then less frequently during the journey south, and hardly at all since coming to Siseboli. He had hoped that time and distance would work its usual cure. But such confusion as were the circumstances with Kat could not be resolved by the mere passing of hours and the accumulation of miles. He cursed himself for the weakness of will that had brought those circumstances about, and shivered with the shame of it. It pained him to think how Fairbrother and Johnson (and Agar and all the others) looked to him for his assured command, for his certainty in what to do, and yet he was so in error in his private affairs as to render himself unfit to exercise any authority. Or so it would be thought were his affairs to cease being private. Not that there was immediate danger of that; not if he kept his head. And therefore he would exercise his authority in pretence, deceit – the ‘mask of command’ writ large.

Would it matter? He didn’t know. There was in the Prayer Book, in the ‘Articles of Religion’, an affirmation concerning the unworthiness of some ministers of religion that might equally apply to the exercise of military command: ‘Neither is the effect of Christ’s ordinance taken away by their wickedness’. He had always found it curiously fortifying, upheld, as it had been, by his father, who would always quote it in adversity, when some wickedness of the diocese oppressed him. But for all that the article gave comfort, it contained a rider: ‘Nevertheless it appertaineth to the discipline of the Church that inquiry be made of evil ministers, and that they be accused by those that have knowledge of their offences; and finally, being found guilty by just judgement, be deposed.’ There was no assured refuge from reckoning, therefore. He could go to Gibraltar, wear the badges of rank, exercise the power of command – but ruin lurked, perhaps even stalked.

He lay down again, sick in his stomach, and closed his eyes. He gave desperate thanks for the fellowship of his good friend and his much older one; what a barren office would any command be without their company.

XII

THE BOOT AND THE BAYONET

Early next morning

The signal gun in ‘B’ Redoubt – unshotted, twice as loud – woke Siseboli an hour before its expected reveille. Hervey sat bolt upright, full awake, the instinct of twenty years’ campaigning, which many a time had saved his skin. The nightlight by his bed was still burning. He reached for his hunter – ten minutes before two o’clock. Bugles sounded ‘Alarm’ above the distant rattle of musketry. He was up, buckling on his sword, reaching for his pistols, grabbing telescope, spurs, crossbelt, cap, and making for the door. The first thing that mattered was speed.

Corporal Acton was at the foot of the stairs. ‘Signal rockets from the redoubts, sir – red ’ns. The Turks are attacking.’

‘You saw the rockets?’

‘I did, sir. I were gone to the groyne for a see if they’d caught any fish, when the gun went off.’

Fairbrother came hurrying downstairs, booted and spurred (Hervey was always intrigued how his friend could rise with alacrity when the occasion required, yet otherwise remain abed all morning). ‘It might be a false alarm,’ he said, as if to excuse his promptitude, ‘but I take no chance. I’d wager your Colonel Vedeniapine knows his business.’

Johnson now appeared, barelegged but in his greatcoat, shielding a candle. ‘Sir?’

‘Captain Fairbrother and I are going to see what’s the alarm. Stay here and make ready. Have Brayshaw and Green help.’

‘There’s water on t’boil, sir. I could mash some tea, quick.’

‘No,’ said Hervey, pushing his spurs into a pocket, and telescope into his tunic bib. ‘If the Turks are attacking we must see it at once.’ He remembered: ‘On my desk – a letter for London. See it gets to the headquarters for the courier if I’m not back in the hour.’

They went into the street. There was the faintest notice of coming dawn in the moonless sky, but the torches everywhere made it seem midnight still. An infantry detail doubled past, two efreytors barking time. The distant musketry swelled and then slackened like fireworks at a fete.

‘If the Turks have got in the trenches they’ve duped us,’ said Fairbrother, pulling his cap down. ‘They must’ve been toying with us yesterday; that musketry doesn’t sound like a picket skirmish.’

‘It does not,’ agreed Hervey, striding out after the grenadiers. ‘We must pray if they have got into the trenches it was more by good fortune.’

Both men had given up any pretence at disinterest: the Turk was an intruder; he must be seen off.

In the square behind the main gates the guard company was already drawn up in two ranks, standing easy, while others of the Pavlovsk were getting on parade. Officers of the reserve battalion of the Kozlov Regiment were gathering for orders while the men mustered outside their billets at the further end of town. A party of Cossacks – twenty or so – came clattering along the cobbles at the trot, and then General Wachten arrived with his staff and escort of grenadiers.

Hervey kept a respectful distance. In any case, he would not be able to understand the orders, and could hardly expect Wachten to translate for him while disposing his troops. It would soon be perfectly apparent what the orders were.

A rocket shot up from the castellation above the main gates, bursting in a bright green shower at a hundred feet. Seconds later the gunships moored either side of the isthmus opened a sweeping fire on the approaches.

Fairbrother frowned. ‘What in God’s name do they shoot at?’

‘Wachten told me they’d fire blind on signal.’

‘It goes hard, then, with any messenger.’

‘The order is that messengers light a torch.’

Fairbrother merely raised an eyebrow.

The cannonading and musketry continued. The troops in the square stood fast.

In a quarter of an hour the sky was lightening distinctly.

‘Come,’ said Hervey, no longer content to wait now that imminent daylight promised them a view. ‘Let’s get up on the walls.’

As they crossed the square one of General Wachten’s staff officers hurried up to them. ‘Colonel Hervey, we did not know where you were,’ he began, in French. ‘The general would see you. Please, this way.’

He took them to the door of the staircase of the gate tower, and then up to the battlements.

Here they found the general standing tall on the parapet. ‘Colonel Hervey, I feared you had gone over to the other side!’ he declared boisterously, rolling his German with evident relish.

‘Had I the inclination, General, it would surely be a most perilous venture with those gunboats raking the ground so.’

‘I shall signal for them to cease firing as soon as I am able to see the ground. It cannot be but a false alarm. But it serves nonetheless: a little practice with powder – always good for the circulation!’

‘The picket, I imagine, is long called in, General, but are the Cossacks?’ Hervey was uncertain if they maintained the watch by night.

‘They retired after last light.’

‘May I ask your design, General?’

‘There is no yellow rocket; Vedeniapine has not signalled the redoubts cannot stand, so as soon as it is light enough to know where to direct the counter-assault, I shall do so. If the Turks are in the trenches they shall find us falling on them, and if they are not they shall have to fight us in the open.’

He turned to one of his aides-de-camp and rattled off an order. The officer saluted and hastened away.

‘The Pavlovsk and Kozlov regiments will advance in ten minutes,’ he explained. ‘It should be light enough to