On His Majesty's Service

Hervey could make no reply. The design was inspiring. All that was necessary to bring it off was that the Tsar’s officers had the requisite acuity. And of that he could not yet be certain.

When an hour later Hervey returned to their quarters, he found Fairbrother lying back in a chair, his face being vigorously lathered by a wiry Bessarabian barber.

‘I have ripe news … but it must wait a little longer.’

Fairbrother could not reply until the barber began stropping his razor. ‘For what?’

Hervey nodded and raised an eyebrow.

‘Have no fear on that account. I’ve had the devil of a job to explain I wanted my upper lip shaving.’

‘I take no chances.’

Fairbrother decided that his own news could be aired instead. ‘Well, I tell you the strangest thing. While you were away I borrowed a horse from the commissaries and took a ride upriver, and behold – I saw camels drinking in the Danube.’

Hervey looked puzzled. ‘Why strange? They’ll need some water, I dare say; and the river seems to have excess of it. They’re Turcomans, to make up the losses in pack horses.’

‘Yes, I learned that. But is it not extraordinary: the prophecy is come true, eh?’

Hervey took off his forage cap and sat down, already sensing that his friend had a meal to make. ‘I have not the pleasure of knowing what prophecy.’

Fairbrother wiped soap from his mouth. ‘Hervey, you astound me. “Dans le Danube et du Rhin viendra boire le Grand Chameau ”?’

Hervey shook his head. ‘Thou speakest in riddles.’

‘But of course; I quote Nostradamus. You’ve heard of Nostradamus, have you not?’

‘Of course I’ve heard of Nostradamus. And the three witches on the heath.’

Fairbrother chose to ignore the comparison. ‘Did he not prophesy the Mussulman would drive all before him in his march westward?’

‘I’ve never read his work. In any case, General Diebitsch intends driving his camels in the other direction, to Constantinople.’

The barber now began with his razor, and conversation ceased until he had scraped off the last of the soap.

As he took to the brush and the strop for the second, close shave, Fairbrother could contain himself no longer. ‘I must tell you of a considerable piece of intelligence I acquired during my ride. I watched the engineers blow up a fougasse. Not, however, by quick-match but with electricity. Is such a means known to English engineers?’

‘I think not,’ replied Hervey, at once engaged by the notion. ‘But why were you so close to the siege works? Were the Turks making a sortie?’

‘No. I came upon the engineers at their practice ground. They fired the mine from six hundred yards off, with a Voltaic pile.’

‘I am no electrician.’

‘Nor I, though I’ve read enough to comprehend what they told me – which they were content enough to do until their superior arrived. He was greatly perturbed by my presence, so I feigned ignorance. I have, however, made extensive notes.’

‘Excellent. I fancy the Board of Ordnance will be pleased to read them. But I wonder why we haven’t used electricity, and yet the Russians have?’

‘I suppose it’s that their army has been active these late years. Others, dare I say it, have become decidedly cobwebby.’

The barber began lathering again, and conversation ceased until he was done with his razor and had left the room for the wash-house where he was boiling up towels.

Hervey took the opportunity to explain his own news, the general-in-chief’s intentions. Without being able to point out the various places on a map, however, he imagined he would have to reprise them once his friend had left the chair.

The barber returned with his hot towels, and soon Fairbrother’s head was swaddled like a mummy, but for his mouth.

‘What distance is it from Pravadi to Shumla – a dozen leagues or thereabouts?’

Hervey took out the map from his sabretache and consulted it. ‘It is.’

‘Do you not think it perilous to try to manoeuvre against such an accomplished general as Reschid, especially with such support as he has at close hand in Shumla, for he cannot have left the place empty? And if Hussein Pasha at Rustchuk is summoned to his aid, it is but fifty miles from there to Shumla – two days’ forced march at most.’

Hervey was now less impressed with the possibility that the barber was a Turkish spy and more with the ability of his friend to picture the country in his mind. Nevertheless he proceeded with caution. ‘The intelligence is that there are but … quattuor cohortes remaining there. But … our friends, with whom we rode, their patrols tie up very neatly the force at the other place. The venture is risky, of course, but the … imperator is rightly impatient for success.’

He sat back to observe the barber applying one last towel, wondering again at his friend’s contrary disposition. It was extraordinary that – and in so chance a fashion – Fairbrother could one minute display an indolence that was proverbial of the race to which he partially belonged, and yet in another demonstrate the most remarkable percipience. That in its way, perhaps, was part not just of his charm but of his worth: there was something in his friend’s haphazardness that made him look at things differently, not taking them quite at face value, for Fairbrother seemed at times capable of divination (whereas he himself proceeded entirely from – he believed – a proper soldierly impulse or from the application of dispassionate logic). The haphazardness no doubt derived from, among other things, his eclectic reading (which apparently, now, even took in scientific papers), which, though never of the depth that would make him a scholar, gave him nevertheless a passing acquaintance with almost everything of the moment. Of the two of them, Hervey was sure that Dr Johnson would have judged Fairbrother the more ‘clubbable’. Yet with Fairbrother’s intuition added to his own more measured approach, he would count himself almost unassailable. He was certainly resolved to have it so in Gibraltar – or even (he smiled to himself – preposterous notion!) St Petersburg.

‘When do we begin?’ asked the diviner, emerging from the towels.

‘Crastinum. They are providing us with horses.’

Fairbrother stood up, fished out silver from a pocket and dismissed the barber with a smile and a handshake.

‘I thought to try him by telling him to come back crastinum – but I suppose we shall be leaving at too early an hour?’

Hervey sighed. ‘I have spent too long in India to underestimate the possibilities of spies. But, yes, I believe we shall leave early.’

Fairbrother began brushing his hair back vigorously. ‘What else did you learn? Diebitsch – is he as his reputation?’

‘I would judge him a very considerable general. He has a very … complete view of strategy. I’ll tell you more when we dine, but this I must first tell you: I was made a member of the Order of Saint Anna, Second Class – With Swords.’

Fairbrother put down his hair brushes and turned to his friend, his face shining with the polishing of soap and an admiring smile. ‘And most deservedly so. Congratulations!’

‘And – here’s the ripest news of all – Diebitsch wants to make me a major-general and give me a brigade.’

Fairbrother’s expression turned to one of curiosity. ‘Does he, indeed? Not empty honours, then: he sees your true worth. What reply did you give him?’

‘That I esteemed his offer greatly, but that I required time to consider it.’

‘You did not reject it forthwith? I am heartened. How much time was agreed?’

‘It was not specified. He gave me to understand that he wished my services to be with him principally in St Petersburg. I don’t believe my leading a brigade to Constantinople is an essential element in his design.’