sighed, his head shaking pityingly.
As they neared the head of the great avenue leading from the quay to the Paris highroad, where stood the gendarmerie building as the street turned ninety degrees to the right, they came on a large but silent gathering. Curious as to its purpose, they joined the rear of the crowd, but the onlookers soon recognized the import of their uniforms and shifted to one side, affording them a clear view of the object of interest.
‘Well,’ said Peto after some moments’ consideration; ‘I own that this is the closest I have come to General Bonaparte’s
What a sight indeed, thought Hervey. The last he had seen of officers of the
They were as he had seen them at Waterloo — the white breeches and top boots, the white facings of the blue coat, with its long tails and bullion epaulettes. Above all the ‘bearskin’, the plateless fur cap with its red-tipped green plume. He had watched hundreds upon hundreds of them advance on the duke’s line in perfect order, and thought that all before must surely be swept away — until the duke’s own Guards, who had lain concealed in the corn to the very last moment, sprang up and opened a withering fire, sending the French columns reeling back down the slopes.
‘They are formidable-looking, even in defeat,’ acknowledged Peto. ‘I can well understand, now, how an army with such as these men might gain so much — might march to Moscow and back, and fight every mile of the way.’
Yes —
‘
There were thirty of them, perhaps more — Hervey could not see all — and they stood, arms folded, in the middle of the wide street. Some were smoking clay pipes, and all had the appearance of sublime indifference to their fate. In the sky above, swallows circled and dived, soon themselves to be southbound. The French were eyeing them too, envious perhaps of the freedom to pick their own moment. The escort, two dozen men of the 104th (North Derbyshire) Regiment, and evidently weary of the task, stood easy in a circle about them, bayonets fixed but muskets at the order. The captain, a tall, languid man, perhaps a year or so older than Hervey, but no more, on noticing the two officers touched his peak in salute and raised his eyebrows as if in search of sympathy for his role as gaoler. He gained none from Hervey, though, who was affronted, indeed, by the want of collection in the escort. The men looked tired and insensible, a picture neither of vigilance nor good order. Never would the Sixth have paraded themselves thus in front of a French crowd, let alone before their captives! There was a price to aiglets, he told himself: duty required that he say something. He began pushing his way to the front.
He was too late, though. In an instant a dozen of the French officers rushed the sentries furthest from where he stood. The others formed line with their hands raised above their heads in submission, confusing the disengaged half-circle of infantrymen from rushing to the aid of their comrades. It was done in seconds. The sentries had not even time to bring their bayonets to the port before they were assailed with the greatest ferocity by the French, fists and boots flailing. Those on the edge seemed dumbstruck. Had they rushed in at once from the flanks it would have been over quickly. Two of them fired their muskets in the air, but then the weapons, discharged and harmless, were wrenched at once from their hands. Hervey and Peto drew their swords and rushed at the fray, but the crowd had doubled in size and women and children arrested their progress so effectively — whether by design or not — that by the time they had pushed through to the other side the captive officers had wholly overpowered their guards. They began withdrawing along the street towards the prefecture in model fashion, half of them doubling a dozen yards and then levelling the muskets while the others doubled further to take up the same covering position. The North Derbyshires’ officer recovered himself and shouldered his way through the crowd with the remainder of the escort, ordering his men to give the French a volley. The report was deafening, and smoke filled the street, making it difficult to see its effect. The French did not fire back, however: Hervey supposed it because the street was full of civilians. ‘Reload!’ shouted the captain. As the smoke cleared, the Derbyshires furiously ramming home new charges, the effect of the first volley was revealed: a dozen or more bodies lay not thirty paces up the street, and only a handful in uniform.
Hervey was as appalled by the recklessness of the volley as he had been by the escort’s bearing. Why had they not charged first with the bayonet? He called to the captain, but the man did not hear, having now decided, it seemed, to follow with steel after failing to lead with it. Hervey rushed forward but a French leg was put in his way and he fell sprawling atop one of the sentries lying senseless from a butt-stroke. A ragged volley of musketry came from windows on both sides of the street fifty yards ahead, knocking down redcoats like skittles at a fair. It would have struck down Hervey, too, for some of it flew his way, striking the walls of the house where he lay, making little puffs of red brick-dust, the lead balls flattening and falling to the ground — where iron shot would have ricocheted. He turned his head to look for Peto, relieved to see him crouching safe in a doorway. The remnants of the escort fell back along the street, the half-dozen or so remaining on their feet trying to pull their wounded comrades with them — though several were beyond help. At least as many were left for dead. Another volley came, felling two more. Hervey sprang up and rushed to one of them, lifting him across his shoulder and taking up his musket in his free hand. Peto did the same as another welter of musket balls assailed them. One struck the silver pouch of Hervey’s crossbelt, and with such force that he was knocked clean to the ground. Peto, having dropped his man in a doorway, dashed to him, but he was already on his hands and knees retching with the pain and gasping for the air that had been knocked out of him. And still the firing continued as Peto half-pulled him to the safety of the side street where the ragged remains of the infantry were rallying, then ran back to the wounded corporal whom Hervey had been carrying, dragging him too to safety.
The crossbelt pouch was so twisted that the gilt ‘GR’ was no longer recognizable. The ball was embedded in the silver cover, but it had been the hardened leather of the pouch itself that had stopped it. Where precisely on his back the pouch had been when the ball struck Hervey could not tell, for the ache there was too general. But had it sat as it usually did, when he walked or rode erect, the pouch would have rested directly on his spine. Here, likely enough, was the closest that death had kissed him in seven years’ campaigning — and the first time in his life that England was truly at peace with France!
‘You fell so hard I was sure you were shot through,’ gasped Peto, still out of breath.
‘It felt so,’ he muttered as he glanced across to where the Derbyshires’ officer lay dead. They had to do something — and quickly. Peto was indisputably his senior, but the responsibility was surely his. There were now a dozen or so infantrymen crowding his corner of the side street, including their serjeant, whose earlier lack of address was still manifest in a look of stupefaction. ‘Serjeant,’ said Hervey, shouting almost and shaking the man’s arm, ‘where is the rest of your company?’
The NCO continued to stare straight across the main street, as if relief might come from that direction at any second. Hervey shook him again, but could get no answer. He looked at the others, who looked back at him like so many sheep. Yet these were men who, not two months before, had stood their ground at Waterloo against Bonaparte’s finest. Only one of them was showing any activity: he lay prone, squinting round the corner whence the firing had come. Hervey shook the man’s leg: ‘What do you see?’
The soldier, who had taken off his shako so that as little as possible should betray his surveillance, did not move. ‘They ’ave just picked the cartridge bags off ’em, sor. An’ by the way, sor, them French is in the gendarmry building now. They’ll ’ave powder and shot aplenty there.’
Hervey recognized the soft vowels of Cork. For an instant his mind was filled with his tribulations there. Then he noticed the stitching holes on the arm of the man’s jacket: evidently the sleeve had borne two chevrons lately. He came back to the present. ‘Where’s the rest of your company, Corporal? Where is the garrison?’
‘The company’s at ’Arfleur, sor. There’s a review or some such. And it’s “Private” now.’
Harfleur was ten miles away: he had ridden through it that very morning. ‘How many marines do you have on your ship, Captain Peto?’ he asked, turning to see Peto deftly applying a tourniquet above the shattered knee of a private little older than a boy.
Peto looked surprised. ‘Thirty-eight, the same number as she has guns — and a lieutenant. Are you asking
