Hervey 11 - On His Majesty's Service (33 page)

Then Hervey braced. ‘Voices,’ he breathed, gesturing.

At once the birds flew from Fairbrother’s mind. He was back in the wild country of the Zulu.

The voices were indistinct, but raised. No knowing how far off.

Hervey looked back at the horses – quiet, and pretty well concealed in the shadow of the oaks. ‘Let’s get to the top of this hill and see where they’re coming from.’

Fairbrother nodded.

They rose to a crouch and waded cautiously across the stream, keeping close to the willows for concealment. They climbed the hill easily – the earth was firm, with roots and branches enough to get a hand to – and made the lee of the crest noiselessly and with breath to spare.

The voices were now clear – and present.

They crept on hands and knees, and broached the crest crawling leopard-like to observe beyond.

Tents, pennants, caparisons – all the panoply of rank. A hundred yards away, no more.

The Vizier sat in an ivory chair (there was no mistaking him), officers attending – anxiously, it seemed to Hervey. A horseman was dismounting. He wore a red cloak despite the heat of the day. He took off his
kalpak
– the high-crowned hat of the country – and advanced with it in both hands held close to his chest as if in supplication.

The Vizier spoke. His words were indistinct, but it seemed he was giving leave to approach the throne.

The horseman now addressed him boldly. Hervey could catch none of it (how he wished Agar were with them). Except for three words, repeated by both men – the horseman with certainty, the Vizier with incredulity: ‘
Bir schei yok
.’

In vain Hervey looked at Fairbrother for enlightenment.

The Vizier flew into a rage, springing from his chair, gesturing at the horseman violently and shouting abuse.

The horseman stood his ground, protesting.

The Vizier raged on.

The horseman angrily flung off his cloak. The Vizier’s officers stepped forward to examine it.

‘What do they do? What is it?’ whispered Hervey.

Fairbrother took up his telescope. ‘It looks as if he’s showing that it’s shot through.’

Hervey’s brow furrowed; what did it signify?

Fairbrother had no idea either.

Only remember ‘
Bir schei yok
’. They would know what it meant at Yeni Bazar. But for the moment they could only watch and wait – if only they could dare.

And then as suddenly as he had become enraged, the Vizier sank back into his chair, head lowered. His officers looked at him, as if waiting on his decision. He rose again and gestured that he was finished with the matter. He laid a hand on the man’s shoulder and dismissed him with equability, then turned; and both Hervey and Fairbrother heard the word quite distinctly – ‘Shumla.’

Officers began hurrying in all directions, horses were brought, tents were taken down. Had it not been for the rage and despondency, they might have thought the Vizier was about to lead his army through the breaches. But the air was of defeat, not victory – and the word ‘Shumla’ could mean only a retrograde movement?

‘The siege is abandoned,’ whispered Hervey. ‘What else?’

It must have been the message the horseman brought – news, perhaps, of the approach of the Russians. Or that the walls withstood the fire? What did it matter; the Turks were beginning the movement that Diebitsch wished.

Hervey inclined his head to signal that they themselves should withdraw.

Fairbrother nodded thankfully.

They scrambled back down the hill, scarcely believing the Vizier’s camp could be so careless of intruders. But then, why should there have been cause to think otherwise? What trespassers could there be here in the wooded fore-hills of the Balkan, the distant rampart of Constantinople?

At the bottom they froze. Before them were Turks, looking over the horses.

How many?

Hervey could see three. He looked at Fairbrother, and mouthed silently, ‘Attack?’

What was the alternative? Fairbrother nodded.

Hervey motioned to him to cross the stream and cover him from a flank while he crossed closer to the horses. That way they might confuse the Turks and make them think they were more. It ought to be done with the sword – they didn’t need the Vizier’s camp alerting, even while it was being struck – but would they oblige?

No time to waste. Hervey drew his sabre silently, took a pistol from his belt (Fairbrother held one in each hand) and began edging along the bank while his friend slipped into the stream, the sudden surge of birdsong welcome ally.

There were three Turks, and a fourth holding their horses fifty yards downstream. Would he take off at the sound of a fight and alert the camp?

Three Turks. He would have surprise for an instant, but
three
of them … It was risking too much, was it not? Pistols and be done with it. He had his Deringer too …

The Turks were now laughing. No time to find out why – attack now! But which of them first – middle, risking both flanks, or left, leaving two together? Take the most brutish-looking – middle.

Three plashy strides, up onto the bank and into them.

They turn as one, but too late.

‘Give point’ to the chest.

The middle man falls.

‘Cut five’ to the left.

The Turk screams, his face slashed through.

The third slices with his scimitar.

Hervey guards, but no time to lock his arm. His sabre breaks.

The Turk, off-balance, cuts upwards, late.

Hervey swings his left arm round, fires.

Nothing
.

Fairbrother’s pistol goes off like a cannon.

The Turk falls as his scimitar touches Hervey’s tunic.

A momentary glance of gratitude, and Fairbrother’s relief in return.

But the fourth Turk is already astride and away.

They tighten girths, spring to the saddle and ride for Yeni Bazar scarcely drawing bit.

XV

AN OFFICER’S WORD

Later

General Diebitsch had not returned from Madara when they reached Yeni Bazar. Hervey related what had happened to the chief of staff.

General Toll listened without a word, and then turned to one of the interpreters. ‘
Bir schei yok?
’

‘“It was as it was”,’ came the reply, in Russian.

‘
Es war wie es war
,’ repeated the general helpfully.

Hervey was disappointed – and puzzled. ‘It seemed more portentous. I can’t think what it meant. Except that the Vizier may have doubted what the horseman said, and he in turn insisted it was so – that the Turks could make no impression on the walls, perhaps?’

‘Well, there’s no profit in speculating, Colonel. You are sure it was the Vizier, and that he broke camp?’

‘No, General, I can’t be certain it was the Vizier, only that it was a man of highest rank. But he broke camp – no doubt of it – and he was in angry spirits.’

Toll – Karl Wilhelm von Toll – had been a colonel on Kutusov’s staff at Borodino when Hervey was but a cornet. As the character of the Baltic Germans tended, he was not to be hastened to any decision. He thought for what seemed an age, and then nodded determinedly. ‘Very well, it will be dark in three hours; I shall give the order to be ready to move by stand-to-arms. By then we ought to have heard from the Cossacks, and Roth. You saw nothing at all of him?’

‘Not a sign. There again, we followed a path in the forest for a good deal of the way.’

But it was the news he needed to hear, that the Vizier was making his move back to Shumla. Now they could bring him to a battle of manoeuvre. Toll looked grateful at last. ‘Very well. And thank you, Colonel Hervey. You may indeed have gained us time.’

Hervey gathered up his leather and took his leave.

He made straight for his quarters where he found Fairbrother studying a map, and Johnson making a stew of bacon and lentils.

Johnson greeted him cheerily. He put the makeshift lid on the camp kettle and wiped his hands on his overalls. ‘There’s some coffee in that degsy, sir,’ he said, nodding to the stove.

‘Thank you, yes. It was rank stuff they had at the headquarters.’

Johnson poured the thick black brew into a china cup.

‘Cap’n Fairbrother says tha were in a bit of a
tamash
, sir.’

Hervey nodded. It amused him sometimes to contemplate confounding the code-breaker’s art by combining Johnson’s enunciation and his Hindoostani and rendering it into Greek script. ‘We lived to tell the tale, as you see. Is Mr Agar returned?’

‘’E’s just off-saddling now, sir.’

‘My damned sabre broke. And my pistol misfired.’

Johnson looked anxious suddenly.

‘I carried that sabre all the time we were in India.’

‘I’m sure I can find thee another, sir. Them Cossacks ’re very obliging.’

Hervey had his Mameluke still, but he’d never thought to use it. It was lighter than the service sabre, and the curve was shallower, so it handled differently. It was a thing of court dress, no more. ‘I’d be very obliged if they
were
obliging. By all means see if they’ll spare me one. Thank you.’ He sipped his coffee. It was very bitter. He screwed up his face. ‘Have we sugar, or honey?’

‘I’ll ask t’Cossacks for some an’ all.’

Hervey smiled; Johnson’s simple cheer could be restorative. It was quite like old times. ‘Where
is
Mr Agar?’

As if answering the summons, Agar came. He looked decidedly happy.

Hervey nodded in acknowledgement of the salute. ‘A report, if you please, Agar.’

‘Well, sir, I believe I may say with certainty that the carvings are not of Thracian antiquity. The—’

‘Mr Agar, in the circumstances – our being on active operations in the proximity of an enemy – I consider the military details to have priority over the antiquarian, absorbing though the latter doubtless are.’

Agar looked rather abashed. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I … That is,’ (he braced himself) ‘we saw no sign of Turk activity on the way to or returning from Madara – only, about a league east of that place, a good number of bodies, Turk, on which a pack of wild dogs was scavenging. We dispersed these, but I fear that they will return. At Madara, General Pahlen has erected gabions and mounted several guns to command the principal road, which is wide enough to admit the passing of waggons side by side, and has dug many rifle pits. There is very little opportunity to outflank the position, and not in any strength, save debouching either north or south of the entire ridge, a considerable diversion which would in turn expose a flank to the general’s cavalry and, in the north, too, to troops in Yeni Bazar.’

‘Thank you. Admirably clear. Quite exemplary. And the carving?’

Agar’s expression turned to delight. ‘Ah, it is most intriguingly done, though much of what must once have been carving in high relief is eroded. It is nearer to Kaspichan than Madara in point of fact, some hundred feet above the level of the river, which is also called Madara, in a vertical cliff standing about three hundred feet. The horseman, a prince, I would hazard, is thrusting a spear into a lion which is lying at his horse’s feet, and an eagle flies in front and a dog runs after him.’

‘Why was it carved?’

‘Scenes such as this elsewhere are symbolical of a military triumph.’

‘But not Thracian.’

‘No, I am sure not.’

Hervey listened, almost spellbound, as Agar then expounded at length on the crucial dissimilarities with extant Thracian symbols, and on how the inscriptions, though indecipherable, indicated a much later date, perhaps even medieval. What good fortune was his: Fairbrother, Agar, Johnson – such capable and diverting company. It fell to few men, he supposed, to know three fellows of such infinite jest and excellent fancy.