On His Majesty's Service

– all this was through the Russians of course, who obliged me with their French, but I believe it to have been honest – and they said there’d been many deserters of late, all complaining that the Vizier demanded of them unreasonable, impossible things.’

Hervey nodded, as if unsurprised. ‘Then why had the rest of Yeni Bazar fled?’

‘Erring on the safe side to protect their women? Half the inhabitants were Turk anyway, it seems.’

Hervey pondered. ‘Deserters – it certainly augurs well. But I’ve been thinking: if the Vizier doesn’t break off his siege at Pravadi, Diebitsch will have to force him to – and that would not be a battle in which he would have the advantage.’

Fairbrother was doubtful the Vizier could stay put. ‘He must break it off when he learns Diebitsch might get between him and Shumla.’

‘I think you must be right.’ Hervey cleared his throat. ‘Then might we not ride towards Pravadi and see what’s afoot?’

‘I do believe it was your intention from the outset.’

‘Truly it wasn’t. I regret to say the significance of the timing of the Vizier’s withdrawal occurs to me only now. I confess I was deucedly tired last night.’

Fairbrother pulled up suddenly. ‘There, yonder!’

Hervey reached for his pistol.

But his friend was pointing at the sky. ‘Is it an eagle?’ He took out his telescope. ‘I believe it is. But Golden or Imperial?’

‘I fear I’m unable to help. I’ve no knowledge how to tell between them,’ replied Hervey, and with some regret, since he had once prided himself on his eye for raptors.

Fairbrother, in the way of his sudden interests, had become a student of ornithology during their journey out. He had bought Temminck’s Manuel d’ornithologie in London for his ‘campaign library’, as he called it, and had been annotating it almost daily with his sightings. ‘The species is only lately defined. The Imperial’s slightly smaller than the Golden, but how can one compare at such a distance? It might be a Bonelli’s, but that’s smaller still, and much lighter on its underside.’

‘Bonelli?’

‘Italian. A considerable naturalist.’

‘Do you recall the skirmishing line of vultures at the Cape, how grateful we were of their timely intelligence of the Zulu?’

‘Vividly.’ Fairbrother lowered his telescope and shook his head; he would not be able to make a definitive entry at this range. ‘You know, I wonder that no one has yet devised a practicable use for the balloon in such work.’

‘Quite so. To observe an eagle in its milieu would be a fine thing indeed.’

‘No – I meant to use the eagle’s vantage of the plain. Napoleon – I beg pardon; Bonaparte – used balloons, did he not?’

Hervey smiled. It was not often his friend turned his thoughts to soldiery when there were other distractions. ‘Forgive me. Indeed he did – aeronautiers, they called them. I think they saw service against the Austrians, but nothing of consequence. I have a notion they had some in Egypt too, and Sir John Moore destroyed all their apparatus. Strange, really, Moore being so innovatory a man. A pretty sort of toy, I suppose they all thought. I remember Peto saying he’d considered raising one from his quarterdeck to see beyond the horizon, but that he was always afeard the rigging would foul its cable – or the other way round. You know, I myself nearly made an ascent in Paris.’

‘I suppose nearly making an ascent has some distinction,’ said Fairbrother drily.

‘There was a longer waiting list than for the United Service, and when my turn came the wind was too strong.’

They rode on for two hours thus, talking of balloons, the feathered world, ships and books, and all manner of tangential affairs, seeing a good many birds, but no Turks – nor even sign of Turks. Indeed, but for a goatherd, with whom they could make no communication at all, they did not see a soul, for the half-dozen settlements that passed for villages were as deserted as those on the road to Yeni Bazar. Whether the inhabitants had fled on the appearance of the Vizier’s men or General Roth’s, there was no way of telling.

They began to climb – a gentle, even slope, ungrazed meadow with many violets; peaceful. When they reached the tree-line, however, they heard distant cannon. It was barely perceptible at first, but continual, and it increased as they gained height. And then it ceased abruptly, so that they found themselves once more in a still world, serene, the sunlight filtered by the green canopy; and then into a broad glade, with a slow-running stream. It was a fine place to make a halt.

‘How far do you say we’ve come?’ asked Hervey as he pulled out his map.

They had trotted for no more than half an hour in the three. ‘A dozen miles … fifteen perhaps?’

‘Which must place us nearer to Pravadi than the sound of the cannon suggests. It’s a devil of a business being certain with maps like this.’

‘Pravadi’s in a deepish sort of valley, is it not? If the guns are at the foot of the cliffs surrounding it, there’s little wonder they make no great noise.’

Hervey nodded; it made sense. ‘I wonder why they stop?’

Fairbrother shrugged. ‘Perhaps to face Mecca. Who knows?’

Hervey smiled. There was always cause, but it did not always follow that the cause was reasonable. ‘I fancy we might take our ease here a while. Do you note the flies are gone?’

‘I do.’

‘Let’s have our feast by the stream yonder, let these two drink and then picket them in the shade for an hour.’

They dismounted, loosened the surcingles and girth straps and led the horses to the pool. The geldings drank long but steadily, for they had been watered in Yeni Bazar. Nevertheless, Hervey was again taken by the docility of these big Dons. He had no idea of their turn of speed, but they looked as if they could cover ground; and yet they were not so long-backed as to lack handiness.

When the geldings had drunk their fill, Hervey and Fairbrother drove picket pegs into the ground under a spread of mountain oaks, and tethered them not too short. It was as peaceful as the great park at Windsor of a summer’s afternoon, or the hills above Longleat, but the discipline of years would never let Hervey indulge such a thought too long. ‘Better not off-saddle,’ he said.

They unshipped their pistols and took the haversacks to a sunny bank of the stream. The Ordnance’s black bread, the hard-boiled eggs of unknown provenance, the bacon from a draper’s chimney, Johnson’s oatcakes, strawberries from the draper’s garden, and a flask of red wine of the country – a rough and ready picnic, but nonetheless agreeable.

It was now beyond warm. Hervey’s brow had been wet beneath the band of his forage cap. It was good to be inactive at this hour, with shade and running water. The flies were no longer troublesome; only the occasional buzz of a mosquito intruded.

When they had eaten, Hervey lay back with his hands clasped behind his head, looking at the clear blue sky beyond the leafy canopy, trying to fathom if it were different in any way from that he would have observed at the Cape, or India, or Spain, or even Wiltshire, on such an afternoon as this. He closed his eyes, conjuring with the thought of home in distant, simpler days.

‘Good heavens, see there,’ said Fairbrother suddenly, his voice all pleasant surprise.

Hervey opened his eyes. ‘See what?’

Fairbrother was peering with his telescope upstream towards a clump of willow. ‘There – hanging from the lower branches yonder, where they reach over to the middle stream.’

Hervey took the telescope. ‘I see them. Like plumped pears hanging from cords. What are they?’

‘Unless I’m very much mistaken, nests of the penduline titmouse. I’d rather come to think they were never to be found. According to Temminck the eggs are quite exquisite.’

‘Perhaps we should gather some,’ suggested Hervey, studying the hanging colony of a bird he’d hitherto never heard of. ‘Do they make the nests themselves, or is it just such a thing as they take up?’

‘They weave them from whatever’s to hand – grass, spiders’ webs, hair. Do you see a bird?’