On His Majesty's Service

Herr Leutnant.’

He opened it at the title page, and was at once even more puzzled (as well as dispirited, as ever, on seeing the Gothic script, which he still found both a labour and strangely hostile). ‘Die beiden Freunde. Eine Erzahlung. How intriguing.’

Eine Erzahlung – a fiction, a novel. Not at all what he’d expected. But a charming gesture nevertheless. He slipped the book inside his tunic and put on his cap.

‘I shall read it with close attention. Thank you, Herr Leutnant.’

‘I look forward keenly to our next meeting, Herr Oberst,’ said Moltke, bracing. And then he seemed to remember himself: ‘If you are agreeable, sir?’

‘I look forward to it, also, at which time I trust that General Muffling will be restored to health, and that we may discuss the campaign.’

They shook hands, and then with the accompanying click of the heels, Moltke bid his visitor Abschied.

‘He gave me a book he’d written,’ said Hervey when he had found Fairbrother and they were making their way back to General Budberg’s command post. ‘A novel: Die beiden Freunde – “The Two Friends”.’

‘A soldier with the sensibility to write a novel; that is very queer.’

‘Perhaps not in Prussia. Who knows; they’re a restless folk.’

‘And the novel is about …?’

Hervey reached into his pocket and took out the book, opening it at the first page: ‘“It was in the year 1762 on a fine summer’s evening whose peace so often—”’

‘Ah, the year Catherine became empress.’

‘I believe it was.’

‘Was Prussia at war then?’

‘Prussia has always been at war. It is an army with a country attached to it. Let me read on: “Two young warriors were in lively discussion sitting by the pleasant Elbe—”’

‘Would you count yourself a young warrior still?’

Hervey eyed his friend seriously. ‘I believe … in my mind, yes. I don’t think of the time when I was a cornet as of another world entirely.’

He took a few more thoughtful paces, and closed the book. ‘And how was your novel? Did you finish it?’

‘I did indeed. And it’s given me an idea. Let me read something to you.’ Fairbrother opened the Scott at the last page. ‘Guy Mannering’s returned from India a colonel, and he’s resolved to give up his house and build anew: “See, here’s the plan of my bungalow, with all convenience for being separate and sulky when I please”.’

‘It does not have the ring of great literature, so I imagine you have another purpose in reading it.’

Fairbrother smiled, grateful that his design was already half explained. ‘Well, I am minded to give up my house at the Cape and build the same, a bungalow, close to your quarters at Hounslow – close enough to stroll by of an evening, yet far enough to be “separate and sulky” when I please. What say you?’

Hervey smiled broadly, and shook his head. ‘I think it a capital idea. Except that you forget that I shall not be taking quarters at Hounslow. How well would your plan of building succeed in Gibraltar – or even, I might say, St Petersburg?’

General Budberg received them with the news that Muffling was now awake and that his temperature was a little lower, but that he was in no condition to see anyone. ‘He begs pardon.’

Hervey was entirely at his ease. He would return to Adrianople, he said, and present himself again when the general was fit to receive him. ‘I was most courteously entertained by Herr Moltke, whose mission appears to be independent of General Muffling’s.’

‘I was not aware of that,’ said Budberg, curious.

Hervey explained what little he was able, though not his speculation.

‘Why do you not stay here until the morning, Colonel? There are ample comforts thanks to the Turk.’

‘I thank you, but General Diebitsch expects me to dine this evening.’

‘As you will; only have a care. My Cossacks had a brush with bashi-bazouks before you arrived – though not on the high road. If you can wait for an hour or so, until I have finished my despatches, you may go back with my aide-de-camp and his escort.’

Bashi-bazouks had not troubled the army much. Irregulars – ‘bandits’ was the word the Russians preferred – were ever a nuisance to a campaign, but the Cossacks had dealt them short shrift early on, and the word had spread. ‘Again, General, I’m obliged to you, but I must return without delay. We’ll ride direct by the high road. We have good horses.’

But when he had taken leave of Budberg, he was astonished to find Cornet Agar waiting outside the headquarters.

‘Sir, letters have arrived for you from England. I brought them at once.’

Hervey looked at him irritably. ‘What in heaven’s name possessed you to do such a thing? You knew I was returning before dark. Who rode with you?’

Agar looked distinctly uncomfortable. ‘No one, sir. I’d given Corporal Acton and the others leave to visit the baths. And then the letters came – they were brought with the despatches from Bourgas, and—’

‘Mr Agar, that was foolhardy in the extreme. But I haven’t the time to speak of it now.’

He strode off to where they had stalled the horses, leaving Fairbrother to raise his eyebrows and shake his head in dismay. ‘You’re a damned fool,’ he said. ‘There are bashi-bazouks abroad, and they wouldn’t have been interested in your telling them their history.’ He put a hand to Agar’s shoulder consolingly. ‘Come on; we’re going back. Put the letters in your sabretache.’

They took the first mile at a walk, Hervey and Fairbrother speculating on what might be Muffling’s mission to the Porte, and Moltke’s, while Agar rode disconsolately behind. For that piece of intelligence alone – that Muffling and Diebitsch had served together in Paris – it had been worth the ride to Iskender, said Hervey. And why did Muffling come now to see him? Prussia was no ally of Russia’s in these parts: it could hardly be to prescribe the old medicine ‘’ran wie Blucher’ – ‘on like Blucher’ (old ‘Marshal Vorwarts’ never calculated much; ‘forward’ was the only way). Perhaps that was how Constantinople would be taken, though – not by prodigious numbers and scientific siege, but by just going forward; the ‘slope on which it was not possible to stand still’.

‘I do believe that if Constantinople falls it will fall thus. Moltke gave away nothing about the Turk, but neither did he say they would hold the walls come what may.’

Fairbrother was inclined to think that the Sultan would call back every man from the marches of the empire to defend the Topkapi.

But in truth Hervey had had enough of Prussians and the walls of Constantinople. He looked at his friend, quizzically. ‘You’re quite determined on building your “bungalow”, aren’t you?’ It was not really a question, rather an observation. And he was just a little ashamed that he had not recognized sufficiently the strengthening wish to build, almost literally, upon their friendship.

‘Depend upon it, Herr Oberst.’

But Hervey could not quite see its outcome.

So they trotted for the next mile in silence, a steady pace, in-hand, but enough to leave behind the flies that had begun to oppress the geldings. They passed a shepherd and his lop-eared flock, and an old man sitting beneath a walnut tree who raised his hand but not his head, so that they supposed he was blind. But otherwise the country was as empty as before.

They slowed to a walk in the third mile, though the horses had no need of rest, and then pressed to the trot again after ten minutes of longer rein.

Not long after, they saw the cluster of horsemen – a quarter of a mile to the right, perhaps less, by a clump of olive trees in the middle of rough grazing.