Hervey 09 - Man Of War (22 page)

Hervey cleared his throat slightly. ‘Johnson, my groom, Colonel.’

‘Ah, yes, Private Johnson.’

Hervey thought it better not to ponder on the reason the commanding officer might know Johnson’s name. ‘A good eye, he has.’

‘He puts us to shame observing in silhouette,’ declared Lord Holderness, now crouching to try the same perspective of Fairbrother.

‘Indeed, Colonel.’ Hervey took a few steps nearer the edge. ‘Is the sar’nt-major out yet, Johnson?’

‘Reckon ’e is, sir: can’t see owt o’im now for them trees. Ah reckon Cap’n Fairbrother’s gooin all right an’ all cos t’rope’s theer.’

‘You can see the rope?’

‘Ay, sir. It’s ’angin from a tree.’

Hervey sighed with no little relief: if the rope were truly fast, Fairbrother would make the bank.

‘Admirable
éclaircissement
,’ said Lord Holderness, sounding both relieved and amused.

The sound of hoofs signalled Serjeant-Major Collins’s happy approach. ‘Johnson, hold that rope fast,’ he barked as he cantered up, seeing the farrier was now tying the return rope to the tow. ‘Drop it and you’ll go in after it.’

‘Right, Serjeant-Major,’ replied Johnson wearily (he had no ambition for rank, but occasionally he had to bite his lip: the serjeant-major had joined the Sixth a month after he had).

‘By, but there’s an undertow midstream, sir,’ said Collins, slipping from the saddle and rubbing his gelding’s muzzle.

‘How does it run, Sar’nt-Major?’ asked Lord Holderness.

‘It’s nothing you can’t make headway through, Colonel, but a nasty enough surprise. You will have to keep your charger’s head at the far bank or his quarters’ll swing right round, downstream.’

‘Perhaps you should tie a line round yourself, Colonel, as well as Rolly’s neck.’

‘Too many lines, I think,’ he replied, unbuckling his sabre to attach to the saddle.

‘We can’t use the return rope, sir, or we might not get the tow back,’ explained Collins.

‘There’s the reins, Hervey; that’ll do,’ insisted Lord Holderness.

Hervey nodded, if reluctantly. He had seen scores of upsets in the Peninsula (as indeed must have Lord Holderness too), but the memory of Chittagong, and the Karnaphuli, weighed heavily with him still. There they had lost Private Parkin, a Warminster man, one of ‘the Pals’, in sluggish water and broad daylight . . . ‘All of the party are swimmers, Sar’nt-Major?’

‘Ay, sir.’

It was as if he had never been away – the application of duty, the habit of command. He searched anxiously again for Fairbrother, though in this was an element beyond mere obligation (as there had been, too, with Collins).

There was a flicker of light on the far bank – the safety match – and then the steady flame of the candle, the signal that the tow rope was secure; and, moreover, that Fairbrother was also.

‘Ready, Colonel?’

‘I am,’ replied Lord Holderness, climbing into the saddle. His big thoroughbred, manners perfect, moved not a foot.

‘Colonel, wouldn’t it be better if I held your sword?’ asked his groom doubtfully.

‘It would, Corporal Steele, but who will hold the dragoons’ swords?’

‘Colonel.’ Steele knew as well as the rest that the commanding officer was intent on giving a true lead.

‘The tow, Johnson.’

‘Right, Serjeant-Major.’

‘The reply is “sir”, Johnson.’

Hervey cringed, feeling somehow responsible (though he knew Johnson ought to have known): there were three officers on parade.

‘Right, sir.’

‘Just “sir”.’

‘Sir.’ Johnson put the return rope over his shoulder, and handed the tow to the serjeant-major.

‘Colonel, with permission,’ said Collins, slipping the tow loop over the charger’s neck. ‘Keep his nose at yonder bank, sir, and be ready for the current to swing ’im round, about thirty yards in.’

‘Thank you, Sar’nt-Major. And I should have said: that was smart work.’

‘Thank you, Colonel.’

Serjeant-Major Collins counted himself especially fortunate that the commanding officer had witnessed it: in these days of peace there was little enough opportunity for distinction, and without distinction there was no alternative but the dead hand of seniority when it came to the promotion stakes.

Lord Holderness urged Rolly to the edge of the bank. The gelding paused only to take a look, curious, at the moon on the water and then slid gently into the river with scarcely a sound. As Rolly began swimming, Lord Holderness slipped his feet from the stirrups, swinging his legs up on to the horse’s quarters, letting the weight off its back. As the current took hold, the tow rope tautened, and horse and rider swung midstream like the weight on the end of a pendulum, Rolly now swimming confidently. Lord Holderness, ready for the undertow, pulled hard on the right rein as soon as he felt the quarters swinging, just as Collins had told him, until slowly they began to make progress again.

Hervey, watching through his telescope, began at last to believe the scheme would work. And then he froze. Lord Holderness was struggling – upright, violently. ‘What—’

He tumbled from the saddle suddenly, as if shot.

Hervey raced into the water, grabbing the return rope. ‘Hold hard, Johnson! Hold hard!’

Collins remounted and put his trooper into the water. ‘Keep it taut, Johno!’

‘What’s to do?’ asked Corporal Steele anxiously, closing to Johnson’s side.

‘Ah don’t know. T’Colonel just seemed to thrash abaht an’ then tummel into t’watter.’

‘Oh, no,’ groaned Steele as he got hold of the rope.

‘What’s up wi’im then, Flashy? Is ’e poorly?’

‘Just keep ’old o’ this rope, Johno.’

Hervey made progress despite the weight of sodden uniform, and his left arm over the rope. But Collins bore down quicker. As he reached Rolly, held fast midstream by the tow rope, he saw Lord Holderness motionless in the water, a leg held by the reins, and knew he had but a few seconds before the current would sweep his own trooper clear. He slipped from the saddle to grasp Rolly’s reins, holding on desperately to his own, until he was able to thread his arm through both sets of reins and get a hand to Lord Holderness’s crossbelt.

Hervey just reached them as the drag of Collins’s trooper became too much to fight against. ‘I’ve got him!’

‘Go on, then, sir; I’ll cut Rolly free.’

‘Hervey? Is that you? What goes there?’ Fairbrother’s voice came from but a dozen feet away. He had swum down the tow rope just as Hervey had along the return line.

‘Hol’ness is in the water, but we have him.’

‘What would you have me do?’

Serjeant-Major Collins had managed to draw his sabre. ‘How close is the return line tied, sir? I’ve got to cut Rolly free.’

‘A good six feet. Give me the sabre!’

Somehow Collins did it, before at last the drag broke Rolly’s reins, and his trooper slid away with the current, Collins hanging on, exhausted. Fairbrother cut through the tow between return line and neck loop, and the commanding officer’s charger drifted off downstream after them. ‘Hervey, do you manage?’

Cornet Blanche, newly joined the regiment and detailed by Captain Worsley for the crossing detachment, was now in the river and closing fast to Hervey’s aid. Between the two of them, Hervey reckoned they would recover the colonel. ‘Yes, Fairbrother. Get back to yonder bank!’

In a few minutes more, helping hands pulled the three from the river. ‘Get blankets!’ gasped Hervey. ‘Wrap all there are about him!’

Corporal Steele felt for a pulse – successfully. ‘Thank God, sir: he’s breathing.’

‘I don’t think he can have swallowed much water. He was not long in it. I don’t know what happened; the horse, perhaps . . .’

‘Sir,’ said Steele, as if seeking permission to give an opinion.

‘What? What is it, Corporal Steele?’

‘Sir, the colonel has fits, sir. Not often, but he’s had two or three bad ones since we came to Hounslow.’ Lord Holderness had brought his groom with him from the 4th Dragoon Guards.

‘We must get the surgeon. See to it, Mr Blanche,’ he said, turning to the bedraggled new cornet.

‘He’ll be all right, sir, will Lord Hol’ness,’ said Steele, anxiously. ‘He just needs to sleep. Only half an hour or so, and then he’s right as a line, sir.’

Johnson brought Hervey his brandy flask. ‘Corporal White’s gone off t’elp t’serjeant-major, sir.’

Hervey was relieved to hear it, and could only pray that Collins was fit to be helped. He cursed. ‘A foolhardy thing, that,’ he muttered – though in Johnson’s hearing, not meaning to bring an answer. ‘Noble, but deuced foolhardy.’

‘What’s tha want to do, then, sir?’

Hervey took another draw from the flask. ‘Do? We do again as we just have, until we get someone other than Captain Fairbrother across!’

‘Right, sir.’ The disapproving resignation in Johnson’s tone was too familiar to invite remark, let alone rebuke.

An age seemed to pass before Collins returned. Hervey sighed, wearied but relieved again. ‘How many more times might you be able to do that, Sar’nt-Major?’

‘How many times might you want me to, sir? How’s the colonel?’

‘He’s well enough.’

Cornet Blanche came back. ‘Major Hervey, sir, I have sent Corporal Beckett for the surgeon. He said he knew where to find him.’

‘I told
you
to fetch him, Mr Blanche!’

‘Sir, I’m sorry. I thought I would be of more use here.’

Hervey shook his head, despairing of his ill temper. ‘So you would, Mr Blanche; so you would. You did right.’

‘Orders, sir?’ asked Collins, declining Johnson’s offer of a blanket with a shrug of the shoulders.

‘We carry on. Who was next to go?’

‘I was, sir,’ came Corporal White’s voice.

‘Very well . . . no. Mr Blanche, you will go next, if you please, since you have your uniform waterproof already.’ The ironic tone of his voice was marked.

‘Thank you, sir. It can absorb no more, that is for sure.’

Spirits were restored.

‘You’re sure the colonel’s well, Corporal Steele?’ Not that there was anything they could do if the answer were in the negative.

‘Ay, sir, he is.’

‘Very well. Have we the tow rope back?’

‘Sir,’ came another voice.

‘Carry on, then, Sar’nt-Major.’

Collins made a new loop in the tow and put it over Cornet Blanche’s charger’s neck. ‘Now, remember, sir, keep his nose at yon bank and be ready for the current to swing ’im round, about thirty yards in.’

‘I will, thank you, Serjeant-Major.’

Blanche sounded steady enough, thought Hervey. But if he botched it, then he did not fancy the chances of getting
anyone
across (he himself would almost certainly have to take command of the regiment, for he did not believe that Lord Holderness would be fit to do so before the morning at least, whatever Corporal Steele’s assurances).

Blanche saluted sharply and urged his mare to the edge of the bank. Like the colonel’s charger before her, she too took a quick, curious look at the moon on the water, and then slid willingly into the river. Blanche slipped his feet from the stirrups, swung his legs up on to the mare’s quarters, and as the current took hold, and the tow rope tautened, they swung to the exact same position midstream, the mare swimming well. Blanche pulled hard on the right rein as soon as he felt her quarters swinging, and gradually they began making headway. It took no more than five minutes, although it seemed longer to Hervey, and then the mare was making her first footing in the shallows on the far side. She struggled out, blowing hard as if she had just run a fast mile, and Blanche jumped down.

Fairbrother was waiting. ‘Welcome to the playing fields of Eton.’

‘Welcome back, you might say, sir.’

‘I should have known,’ replied Fairbrother, raising his eyebrows.

‘And that was as hard a game as ever I had here, I may tell you.’ Blanche handed Fairbrother the water-deck bundle in which his clothes had been wrapped. ‘Here’s a parcel from home, as it were.’

‘Good man! I confess the chill in the air is something more than I supposed.’

‘A bit hotter, I imagine, where you come from, sir,’ replied Blanche, affably, slipping the loop from his mare’s neck.

The two following horses crossed with the same facility, albeit with as great an effort. But the third was disinclined even to enter the water. Hervey was of a mind to tell Collins to stand the dragoon down, but he decided instead to try a lead, springing into the saddle and taking hold of the reluctant trooper’s reins. He pressed his spurs into his own gelding’s flanks – this was no time for half measures – and pulled hard at the other’s bit. ‘Give him the flat of the sword if he refuses, Kelly!’

‘Sir!’

But Private Kelly did not need to draw his sabre; his horse took the lead, and Hervey was able to let go while they were still treading the bottom. ‘For’ard then, Kelly; keep his nose at the far bank. You’ll be fine.’

‘For sure, sir!’ Private Kelly was an old hand; he had no wish to be disgraced in front of the others.

The moon disappeared behind the clouds as they surged forward, the gelding picking its feet up high, exaggerated like a hackney, and then the first uneasy moments of flotation, unbalanced, even floundering, until the confident action as the animal settled to a proper rhythm. Kelly loosed his feet from the stirrups and lay full length along the trooper’s back, gasping at the sudden cold douche, letting the water lift him clear of the saddle, for all his sodden weight.

Hervey could no longer see them.

The current, deflected at the bend, took them exactly as the three before, but Kelly was not as ready as they for the undertow. The gelding’s quarters began to swing downstream, and his rider was too slow with the correcting rein – were the horse anyway well mannered enough to respond, out of his element.

The tow-rope loop slid forward to the gelding’s throat, levering his head up even more, so that he started struggling against it. Nothing that Kelly could do would get the horse to answer to the rein. He had but seconds, he reckoned. His trooper would drown, if it did not first choke. Though he knew he would be cutting himself free of his line, he reached for his sabre, groping for the hilt in its uncustomary position. He got the blade out, with difficulty, and then hauled himself by the brow-band to get within reach of the rope. Then he swung his sword arm.