Hervey 11 - On His Majesty's Service (23 page)

Wachten had chosen neither to occupy the isthmus nor to construct any obstacle to movement across it, for it was here that he intended forming up his reserve to counter-attack if the redoubts fell. And since the Turks would face a murderous fire from the gunboats if they themselves tried to cross, it made no sense to offer them shelter by throwing up earthworks. Hervey understood precisely. What Wachten had asked him, however, was to look with an ‘unregulated’ eye; and it was only from the approaches, the vantage of the attacker, that he could do so. He put away his telescope and looked at his friend. ‘Let us take a walk,’ he said, cheerily.

To Fairbrother it felt like stepping from the wings onto a stage – and a very empty one at that – as they slipped from the bailey. And it seemed the strangest thing to be walking alone between two points of danger and yet quite safe from molestation by the enemy (or rather, the Turk). On the other hand, his friend appeared wholly unaware of anything exceptional, and he wondered, as he had done more than once, if it were the quality of every true soldier (as opposed to those like himself whom he thought dilettante) that in the face of the enemy he was not conscious of his own presence. For it seemed to him that Hervey possessed the most remarkable facility in this regard; and yet he knew him to be a not-unthinking man. On the contrary, his friend was capable of (to his mind) ruinous contemplation. Not that he counted himself as possessing excessive caution, only that in Colonel Matthew Hervey caution appeared to be but a consideration rather than an instinct.

Such as now, as they tramped across this empty space, and all he could speak of was his surprise at the ease with which they had quit the walls and the bailey: not a sentry had required them even to halt, let alone show their
laissez-passers
. And he, Fairbrother, had replied that he supposed it was taken for granted that anyone passing out of the town was friend not foe, and that this did not seem unreasonable – especially since neither of them looked Turk. Yet Hervey had countered by saying that that was how many a ruse had worked. ‘Perhaps you are recognized as a Cossack, then,’ he had tried, and only half-ironically.

The sun was due west, or he was sure he would have seen him earlier – a galloper speeding towards them from the redoubts. He shielded his eyes for a better view, but Hervey remained oblivious to the intruder on the empty boards, more absorbed in crouching to discover the extent of what he called ‘dead ground’ (Fairbrother supposed that a galloper must have been an everyday of the Peninsula).

At a hundred yards he could make him out clearer. ‘An uhlan, Hervey.’

The only uhlans were the general’s aides-de-camp.

He galloped past with a touch to the peak of his
czapka
.

‘A pretty sight. The best uniform I ever saw on a post-boy,’ tried Fairbrother, hoping it might bring his friend back to the present.

Hervey frowned. ‘Don’t decry gallopers; a general can’t be everywhere himself. But he
was
rather splendidly arrayed. How many cavalry d’ye suppose could cross the isthmus at a gallop while being enfiladed by the gunboats?’

Once again Fairbrother could only wonder at his friend’s unswerving application. He was minded of the precepts of Marcus Aurelius, of whose wisdom he had long made a study:
A man’s true delight consists in doing what he was made for
. ‘With you at their head?’ he asked, archly.

Getting into the trenches at the postern in the earthwork curtain of the south-west (B) redoubt was considerably more difficult than getting out of the bailey. Indeed, for all that they were but a few furlongs from the walls of the town, they might have been in a different world. Here was all alertness and edge. The
laissez-passers
meant nothing to the musketeer of the Azov Regiment who stood sentry at the postern (for he could not read), nor even to the corporal; and the lieutenant was uncertain (and anxious). Only the captain would admit them.

‘
Qu’est-ce qui se passe? Que font les Turcs?
’ (the cannonade was increasing).

Hervey put the questions so abruptly that Fairbrother expected some coolness in reply, but the captain merely smiled. He had fought as an ensign at Borodino, he explained, and lately against the Persians, and in the years between he had battled with the tribes of the marches; he did not think very highly of Turks. ‘They make a great deal of noise, Colonel; that is all.’

An old soldier – an
efreytor
(lance-corporal) – was boiling potatoes in a corner of the trench. He had perhaps seen even more service than the captain, and was watching the exchange – in a tongue he could hardly have recognized, let alone understood – merely as a diversion from routine. Fairbrother thought he looked curiously indifferent to any fate. It was not unlike being back with the Royal Africans.

Yet Hervey was clearly exhilarated by the experience. And when he had finished interrogating the captain he explained why: it was the first time he had been in the trenches with infantry under cannonade. Yes, he had gone forward at Badajoz, and he had joined the assault at Bhurtpore, but those were siege-works, temporary means to an end. Here, on the other hand, the infantryman had chosen his ground and intended holding it. Here the earth beneath his feet and above his head was bosom friend, whereas to Hervey as a rule it was a mere acquaintance, to be avoided by adhesion to the saddle. And the sweat of men rather than horses – it was, indeed, exhilarating.

A roundshot ricocheted from the glacis, arched over the bluejackets in the battery and crashed into the postern gabions not a dozen paces from where they stood. Fairbrother stared at the hissing ball half-buried in the sand. What if it were fused?

The captain said the Turks had fired nothing but solid shot so far. ‘We presume they intend to pound first before frightening us with shell,’ he added, and then with a wry smile, ‘But we shall not know for certain until it does not explode.’

Fairbrother frowned. ‘I confess I should not be content to sit and let them pound, nor even just to answer with artillery,’ he replied in French as impeccable as Hervey’s.

‘Ah, but we do not,’ said the captain. ‘The
strelki
are even at this moment making ready to attack.’

Hervey quickened. ‘Then we must see them.’

Fairbrother was wary. He had no objection to watching an attack by skirmishers, only to his friend’s propensity for action rather than observation.

But the captain looked gratified. ‘By all means, Colonel.’

The redoubt proper, in which sat the battery, was a natural, elongated mound the size of a frigate, fortified by gabions and stonework, the embrasures revetted with logs, but the surrounding trenches were dug only three feet down, with breastworks of four feet built up from trench spoil and that from the dry moat which encircled the whole redoubt. Besides the gunners, there were, said the captain, two and a half companies in the trenches – three hundred men – who would be relieved before last light by the battalion’s reserve companies from the town. Five hundred yards to the east was the slightly smaller ‘A’ Redoubt, guarding the approaches from the south and south-west and able to support ‘B’, just as ‘B’ could support ‘A’.

The trenches were wide by the usual standards, and progress was easy. Nearer the far side, closest the Turks, they were narrower, and tighter packed with
strelki
, who pressed their backs up against the side of the trench to let them pass, silently knuckling their foreheads, economical salutes.

‘Our best men, Colonel,’ explained the captain as they picked their way forward. ‘From the grenadier battalion.’

Fairbrother had read somewhere that Russians were not good at skirmishing, seeing no point to it when there was a mass of bayonets at hand and an unquestioning willingness to advance. But he had heard much, too, of the new Tsar’s reforms; he supposed that skirmishing must be one of them.

In an angle of the trench forming a salient they found the commanding officer, Vedeniapine, a tall, athletic-looking man about forty, in forage hat and
kolet
(the short tunic), chatting easily with his men and carrying the same rifle. They had met before, at Wachten’s headquarters. Fairbrother was intrigued by his manner of greeting them – an undeniable satisfaction in receiving visitors of distinction, and at the same time an air of confidence which suggested that the honour was his visitors’ as much as his own.

‘Colonel Hervey, Captain Fairbrother, we are honoured that you visit,’ he said in effortless French, albeit punctuated by cannon fire. ‘But I fear we are about to take our leave. The Turk is being impertinent, and we mean to chastise him. You may watch from here; you should have a fine view.’

‘You are going yourself, Colonel?’ asked Hervey.

‘Certainly.’

‘Then I should be privileged to accompany you.’

Fairbrother groaned, but to himself. As a rule he did not concern himself in the slightest with what others thought (indeed, it often seemed that he took perverse pride in it), but he was conscious that he acted for his friend, and had no wish to do or say anything which impaired his mission. And yet he could not for the life of him see how clambering out of this trench to ‘pepperpot’ (as the Cape Riflemen called it) in front of the Turks would be of service to the Horse Guards.

‘A word, if you please, Colonel,’ he tried, hoping the Azov’s commanding officer had no English.

Taking Hervey aside, he made his objections sound as matter-of-fact as possible so as not to betray any dissent within hearing of their host, but to no avail; his friend was clearly intent on playing the infantryman (doubtless in some effort to conclude what should be the colour of his jacket in future), and so he too must revert to his old colours.

When it was done, Hervey turned back to the Azov’s colonel and asked what exactly was his design. Vedeniapine replied that his design was straightforward: they would ‘
faire une démonstration
’ – make the Turks believe they were about to be attacked by a larger force, obliging them to withdraw their guns.

Fairbrother kept his counsel, though he had every suspicion that this manly colonel would not be content until he had captured at least one eagle – or whatever it was these heathen Turks paraded about with. He and Hervey would get on famously. Then he chided himself for thinking thus, for he knew that Hervey was wholly without vainglory. Nor, too, ought he to suppose that the Azov’s colonel was made of any less stern stuff; it was just that he feared his friend was no longer thinking quite as acutely as was his custom.

‘
Eh bien; à cheval!
’ Vedeniapine nodded to the captain along the trench who would command the
strelki
.

The captain saluted, signalled left and right with his hand, and sprang from the banquette onto the parapet like a gymnast.

Riflemen scrambled over the top eagerly, extending into skirmishing order without a word from an NCO, kneeling while the line formed, dressing in silence; and then on a single note of the whistle stood up and advanced with rifles at the trail. The apostles at Shorncliffe could not have found fault, said Fairbrother as they watched from the banquette, but with a note of ‘however …’ that made Hervey frown back at him.

Undaunted, Fairbrother suggested the watching Turks, six or seven hundred yards distant, could not but be impressed too. ‘How long do you suppose it will take them to begin loading canister instead of shot?’

Hervey shrugged. ‘If the Turks are still at their guns as we close to canister range we’ll simply have to withdraw in good order, as now.’

Fairbrother sighed and resolved to say no more. It was time to become a skirmisher.

‘
Allons
,’ said Vedeniapine, determined to be the same, and with a hand from an orderly, as if mounting a horse, climbed onto the parapet.

Hervey likewise took Fairbrother’s hand, and in turn pulled him up.

The sixty riflemen presented a front of a hundred and fifty yards, with the captain and half a dozen junior officers and serjeants to the rear to direct them. Hervey and Fairbrother were hastening to take post either side of the colonel when Agar and Corporal Acton rejoined them.

‘Colonel Hervey, sir,’ (Agar saluting) ‘the veterinary surgeon is sick. A farrier does duty in his place. Leave to fall in, sir, please.’

Fairbrother was amused by the sudden formality – ‘leave to fall in, sir’. He supposed it must be some infantry contagion.

Hervey made the introductions (quite the strangest circumstances for presentation that Fairbrother could recall).

Colonel Vedeniapine bowed to both men (a courtesy that did not go unnoticed) before resuming his watch on the
strelki
.

‘What do they do?’ asked Agar as he fell in beside Fairbrother.

‘The general idea seems to be that they make a demonstration against the Turk batteries and force them to withdraw.’

‘These men alone?’

To Fairbrother’s mind, Agar’s was a commendable tone of disbelief. ‘The rest of the battalion will form line in front of the trenches so that there’s the appearance of a general attack. I think they count on the Turk being laggardly,’ he replied, sounding not wholly convinced.