Hervey 11 - On His Majesty's Service (21 page)

Why not just charge? he wondered.

‘Do they suspect a trap, sir?’ asked Agar. Even to his novice eye the Turk advance looked feeble.

‘Perhaps they’ve felt a Cossack lance too often. That or they’re wary of what might be concealed behind
our
hill. But rarely have I seen such passivity.’

But the Cossacks too were leisured, peeling away from the fight as if it were a
gen-khana
.

He shook his head. ‘It won’t serve.’

But his dismay grew as he saw the
esaul
slip from the melee, like Reynard from the back of covert, and trot unheeded towards the cannon which the gunners had abandoned.

‘Great Gods, do you see, Fairbrother?’

‘I do. His folly knows no bounds.’

The
esaul
, with two others now, cast lassos around the barrel to begin hauling it away.

‘Madness!’ gasped Hervey. ‘What the deuce does he mean?’

‘Booty: it’s in the blood!’ sighed Fairbrother.

‘And blood’s what they’ll pay for it if those fellows charge.’

Yet still the mass of Turks was all confusion, and the line of red seemed content to let its steady advance drive off the Cossacks without clash of steel. None looked to save the cannon.

But to Hervey it was plain as day: the line of red, unchecked, would overtake the
esaul
and his lassoers. Couldn’t they see that –
any
of them? He could only marvel at the Cossacks’ sang froid – and despair equally of the
sipahis
’ lifelessness. This was not war.

And then abruptly, as if they woke from torpor, the flanks of the red line quickened pace, wheeling inwards in an envelopment that would catch the
esaul
and half the
sotnia
if they didn’t gallop clear at once.

‘Leave the damned gun and retire!’ spat Hervey. ‘What in the name of God …’

But there was nothing he could do except rage: if the rest of the Turks recovered and advanced too, the whole
sotnia
would be overwhelmed.

Still the
esaul
made slow way with the cannon (if only he had lassoed the trail instead of the barrel …).

‘Martyrs to their own folly, Hervey, but we can’t sit idly by,’ said Fairbrother, fretfully (and only too aware of his change of tune).

‘Yes, but I can’t see what—’

In the strangely quiet battle of the
arme blanche
– for not even a pistol had been fired – the cannon’s sudden discharge came as a monstrous thunderclap.

Hervey drove in his spurs instinctively. The others followed hard on his heels for the cannon. He jumped from the saddle. One Cossack lay dead, a bloody pulp; another writhed moaning, his knee smashed. The
esaul
staggered blindly, blood streaming down his face. His horse was dead; the others had bolted. Johnson reined his mount to a halt beside Hervey. Fairbrother jumped down to help get the
esaul
across Johnson’s saddle. Acton and the two dragoons covered them, Johnson holding the horses, leaving Agar alone to try to rescue the other Cossack. But he hadn’t the strength with one arm while holding the reins with the other. He leapt down. Acton saw and turned, leaning far out of the saddle to get a hand under the man’s shoulder. They just managed to haul him atop Agar’s prancing mare, and then Acton pulled Agar himself up.

‘Kick on back, sir. Fast!’

Hervey and Fairbrother were back astride, the
esaul
across the pommel of Johnson’s saddle, turning to get him away.

Acton swung round to see
sipahis
coming at them from every angle – and Cossacks.

‘You two,’ he roared to the dragoons: ‘to your front, ready,
fire
!’

A volley of three: ‘farting against thunder’, he rasped. He could scarce believe they did it.

At fifty yards it was a wonder even one ball struck, let alone all three. But strike they did, and toppled three Turks.

There was a collective groan from the rest, as if at the parting of a great spirit: one of the three was the
miralay
, the commander.

‘Reload!’ barked Acton.

The Cossacks had rallied and formed a lance shield. But Hervey knew it wouldn’t be enough. He drew his sabre and spurred to the middle of the line, waving it left and right – the signal to extend. He checked only for an instant, just enough to see they were with him, then plunged towards the wall of
sipahis
.

Down came the Turk lances – the instinct to protect – but the charge was unnerving. The Turks bumped to a halt and the Cossacks fell on them with all the advantage of momentum.

Hervey lofted his sabre and brought it down in a slicing blow to the nearest lance – Cut Two – striking it aside and driving the point into the
sipahi
’s chest (the lance was a fearsome thing, but useless in a melee). Stirrup clashed with stirrup as he forged past, recovering his sabre in time for a second – Cut One – at the bridle arm of the
sipahi
to his left.

Acton, exactly placed as if at a field day, followed him through at two lengths and finished the Turk with the point.

Hervey, clear through the line, glanced back.
Sipahis
were reining round desperately to escape – and on either flank disordered ranks of red stood mesmerized.

Fairbrother all but grabbed his reins. ‘Hervey! Enough! See the breach there’ (a gap in the middle of the Turk line): ‘Let’s get through and back before they rally!’

There was nothing ordered or martial about their flight. All Hervey knew was that his own men were ahead as he galloped clear, and that he would drive his little Kabardin until she dropped. They rallied – stumbled exhausted – at the top of the rise whence they’d first seen the Turks (he could see none now), and the Cossacks were cheering – cheering
him
.

X

REDOUBTS

Siseboli, 8 April (three days later)

Hervey turned up his collar. Smuts from the smokestack flecked his cheeks as the tender ploughed through the swell back to harbour. He had passed a good hour aboard the hospital ship with the
esaul
, whose face had not once betrayed the pain of wounds from which, Hervey knew, laudanum gave but partial relief. Such pride, such spirit – he was all admiration, if still doubtful of the soldierly judgement which had occasioned the wounds. But the
esaul
had said he wanted to test the Turk’s mettle, and so he had – to extreme, perhaps to excess (who could say?). The Turk cavalry had been inactive in the face of every inducement, and that was intelligence worth having. Even as the little band of Cossacks had fallen back on Siseboli, no
sipahi
had chanced within carbine range.

Hervey had estimated their number in all to be fifteen hundred; it was a mystery why they had not used their advantage. But as for infantry, he had seen none. Had the
esaul
not been so anxious to be at the
sipahis
’ throats, he might have been able to observe the marching regiments at a distance from a flank; but after the debacle, the Turk cavalry had pulled themselves together, extended their front and thrown out flankers, so that it had been a vain hope to get round them.

He shrugged; there was no use comparing Cossacks with a squadron of English light dragoons. In any case, they had achieved the object of the patrol, to discover if the Turks were coming – and had given General Wachten twenty-four hours’ warning of the approach of the investing force. They might have learned even more, but with their captain
hors de combat
and surprise lost, there was little more Hervey could have done. He had taken command, by general acclamation, and had tried to handle them as if they had been a squadron of the Sixth … At least he had brought them all back without harm.

And how they had all cheered him for it when they rode in through the gates of Siseboli. He had thanked them and told them what a privilege it was to lead them, but that it had been his duty to his own party alone that had compelled him to act, for his status was that of a neutral. Between Cornet Agar and the
sotnik
the meaning of that qualification had probably been lost, however; the
sotnia
cheered him even more.

It was a strange sight before him now – a town under siege, observed from water. Howitzer and mortar shells arched high before plunging to their mark, and it was as if he watched a display of fireworks, for their effect on the ground was hidden from him. ‘Mark’, anyway, was scarcely apt, for the Turk gunners aimed blind, with no sight of the fall of shot – nuisance stuff, meant to demoralize. It was the big siege guns, the 24-pounders, which
aimed
for their mark – the walls of a fortress – and saw the result. Yet although the Turks had begun the investment the evening before, they had yet to bring up their siege train. When they did, they would find the town a tougher nut to crack than perhaps they supposed, for the Russians had been daily strengthening the defences. Hervey wondered if he would still be here when the guns came up, for the time was surely close when General Diebitsch’s great offensive on the Danube would begin, and it was this above all that he wanted to see.

Not that he had done other than help himself in that ambition by his conduct with the Cossacks. General Wachten now treated him as one of his own officers. Indeed, he had asked him to continue in command of the
sotnia
(though cavalry in a siege were little use except in the sally), which Hervey had been able to decline without too great an affront. For before transferring to the Danube, he explained, he wanted to see the infantry at their work (at this Fairbrother had ribbed him that it was in anticipation of defending the Rock of Gibraltar), and he had begged a
laissez-passer
for the defence-works.

As the tender came up to the quay he leapt out purposefully. There was just time, before visiting the outworks again, to hear the day’s intelligence. He had to all intents and purposes now a
laissezpasser
for the headquarters too.

Here, Wachten received him as before, but, observing the prize at his belt, he did so with even greater assurance. ‘So now you wear the insignia of the Cossack!’

Hervey glanced at the
sashka
, the guardless sabre which the Cossacks alone carried. ‘The
esaul
gave it to me. You have no objection? I think it handsome, though in truth I would think it more use on foot than in the saddle.’

Wachten smiled. ‘Colonel Hervey, I should be glad if you put on the
cherkesska
too. Be that as it may, the Cossacks brought in another prisoner this morning, and if he’s to be believed, there are now five thousand laying siege to our fortress. I consider it an additional feat to have drawn the Seraskier and so many of the Turk’s best troops on to my own, and yet not excess of them.’

‘Did you not suppose they would come in that strength, General?’ asked Hervey.

‘In several times that strength, or not at all. My orders were not to hazard a defeat if the numbers were overwhelming, and to withdraw whence we’d come. But these odds are not overwhelming – merely formidable.’

Formidable though not overwhelming – it would have been the conclusion of any who had attended sieges in the Peninsula, except that Siseboli was not Badajoz: the defences were earthworks, and the walls of the town were those that the Greeks had first built – well-made, but hardly bastions. ‘Did the Turk prisoner say anything of guns, General?’