A Close Run Thing mh-1 Read online

  A Close Run Thing

  ( Matthew Hervey - 1 )

  Allan Mallinson

  A CLOSE RUN THING

  ALLAN MALLINSON

  To

  The Light Dragoons

  (formerly the 13th/18th and the 15th/19th Hussars)

  In whose history, character and personalities I have

  found much inspiration for this story.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This is not just the story of an officer in the Duke of Wellington’s army: it is the story of a regiment – that peculiarly British institution which John Keegan, the most percipient historian and observer of all things military, has described as ‘an accidental act of genius’. Every regiment was – still is – different, and revelled in that difference. The difference was not just in the people but in the regiment’s history and traditions – the received notions of how things should be done, the esprit, the spirit.

  The 6th Light Dragoons are a fictitious regiment, but the events in which they take part are historical fact. The major characters outside the regiment are real figures of history. Occasional liberties have been taken – General Slade did not go to Ireland in 1814, for instance – but not in any way that changes the historical plausibility of the story.

  The army of 1814 was singular. It had endured five years of campaigning in the Peninsula, and it had gone from success to success, until the duke was able to remark, famously, that it ‘could go anywhere and do anything’. Sir Charles Oman, one of the two greatest historians of the campaign (the other being Sir William Napier), made also this interesting observation: ‘A very appreciable number of men were of a religious turn – a thing I imagine to have been most unusual in the army of the eighteenth century.’ (Wellington’s Army, 1809–1814.)

  The army was not, of course, without its faults. Neither was the duke. One of the most controversial matters was the purchase of commissions, the system by which officers of the cavalry and the infantry bought their promotion, a system that the duke strenuously upheld long after the war. This is a complex issue, however, and not one to be taken at face value. I know of no better (or more entertaining) explanation of it than that in Volume One of the Marquess of Anglesey’s History of the British Cavalry 1816–1919, which, incidentally, is also the most readable authority on horse-soldiering in the early nineteenth century.

  Readers who wish to know more about the organization and equipment of the army at this time should consult the detailed reference works by Mr Philip Haythornthwaite: they have no equal. I am indebted, too, to Major (retd) John Oldfield, sometime curator of the Small Arms Museum at the School of Infantry, Warminster. The museum is an unrivalled collection of both weapons and knowledge, and (though the fact is little known) is open to visitors, by appointment. My wife, whom I met in a stable, has been an unfailing aid in finding the right words to describe the horses and their world: she has kept me from the worst metaphorical falls.

  Any Englishman writing even a little about Ireland needs an Irish interlocutor of exceptional patience. I have been immensely fortunate in the friendship and support of Brigadier-General (retd) Pat Hogan, late of the Irish Defence Forces and president of the Irish Military History Society. But he can in no way be held responsible for anything that smacks of perfide Albion.

  I owe a very great deal indeed to Mr Patrick O’Brian – directly and indirectly. His Aubrey/Maturin stories enthralled me for so many years that I began to fret for anything remotely comparable for the cavalry of that period, until eventually I found the resolve to attempt, myself, to do something about it. He has been most generous in giving me advice and encouragement.

  I must acknowledge perhaps my greatest debt, however, to Paula Levey (Mrs Piers Fletcher) – soldier’s daughter, soldier’s sister, and wife of a former soldier, who, as editor of the early manuscript, knew exactly what was what, and never flinched from telling me.

  A CLOSE RUN THING

  ‘Oh! pity the condition of man, gracious God! and save us from such a system of malevolence, in which all our old and venerated prejudices are to be done away, and by which we are taught to consider war as the natural state of man, and peace but as a dangerous and difficult extremity. Sir, this temper must be corrected. It is a diabolical spirit and would lead to interminable war … At what time did we ever profit by obstinately persevering in war?’

  Charles James Fox, to the House of Commons,

  3 February 1800

  1814

  Britain had persevered in war with revolutionary France, with but one short break, since 1793. The Royal Navy, at Aboukir in 1798 and Trafalgar in 1805, had confined Bonaparte to Europe; British money had financed the allies when they were ready to come forward; and a British army in the Iberian peninsula had, from 1809, maintained a front which had drained French resources and given hope to other Europeans. By the beginning of 1814, Bonaparte could defend only France. Russian, Prussian and Austrian armies were closing in from the east, while the British, already in the Pyrenees, stood ready to invade from the south-west.

  PART ONE

  PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

  ‘But if you cannot make peace with Buonaparte in the winter, we must run at him in the spring.’

  The Marquess (later the Duke) of Wellington to the Cabinet,

  10 January 1814

  CHAPTER ONE

  IN THE HEAT OF BATTLE

  The Convent of St Mary of Magdala,

  Toulouse, 12 April 1814

  ‘It is a very singular thing indeed, Mr Hervey, for a cornet to be placed in arrest upon the field of battle.’

  Joseph Edmonds was deploying all his considerable facility with words in order to convey the gravity of the matter at hand.

  ‘Tell me, if you please, precisely and dispassionately, the circumstances by which this was brought about.’

  Cornet Hervey stood rigidly to attention before the major’s desk, his left hand clasping the sword scabbard to his side, his right hand clenched with the thumb pointing downwards along the double yellow stripe of his overalls. His eyes were set front, and filling the limited arc of their fixed gaze were two symbols which, while if not to his mind entirely contradictory, in their juxtaposition seemed somehow incongruous. For on the wall behind the desk was a large wooden cross with a painted figure of the crucified Christ. Next to it – perhaps even leaning against it – was the regimental guidon, a piece of red silk on a beechwood stave, its richly embroidered battle honours still resplendent despite the staining and fading. The irony, that he had been raised in a household whose world was shaped by the first symbol, and had then elected to throw himself wholeheartedly behind the second, was not lost on him even at this exigent moment. He had little imagined such a convergence, however, nor its place – a nunnery hastily and rudely requisitioned for the purposes of the military. He drew in a deep breath, his stomach feeling tighter than ever it had done when he had been awaiting combat, and began the recollection of the events which had brought him now before his commanding officer.

  ‘Sir, yesterday forenoon I was in command of the flank picket, as you had placed me, one quarter of a league to the west of our lines of attack upon this city …’

  The fateful encounter with authority had begun spectacularly. Edmonds had not expected any affair on the left flank. Not that that was why he had entrusted the picket to Hervey: he had long been of the conviction that the worst that could happen in battle usually did (and as a consequence he had never been wrong-footed – at least, that is, in the field), and Hervey and his standing patrol were a trusty yet economical insurance.

  Hervey had disposed his command, a half-troop (by the Sixth’s depleted muster scarcely two dozen men), in the dead ground to the rear of a shallow ridge running obliquely t
o the army’s front. They were dismounted and standing easy. Posted as vidette a furlong to their front, with a view into the valley beyond the ridge, was his picket Serjeant. And it was the sudden animation in that sentinel that alerted Hervey now.

  ‘Mount!’ he called, and his troopers began tightening girths before springing back into their saddles. Without an order the contact man – the picket corporal – galloped off to Serjeant Armstrong, who had by now worked his way in cover along the ridge and further to the flank.

  Five minutes passed before the corporal returned, with intelligence that thrilled through the ranks: ‘Sir, there is a horse battery, six guns, approaching.’

  ‘And supports?’ pressed Hervey.

  ‘None observed, sir.’

  ‘None? No supports? That is not possible!’

  ‘Serjeant Armstrong says there are none within the mile as he can see, sir.’

  Hervey could scarce believe it. But, supports or no, it would still be David and Goliath if the guns came into action before they could close with them. He hesitated not another second and took the patrol in a brisk hand-gallop towards Armstrong. As they broached the ridge he held them up and edged forward with just his covering-corporal to where Serjeant Armstrong was crouching in the saddle to observe over the bracken.

  ‘They’ve halted, sir, just this minute,’ said the Serjeant in his melodious Tyneside.

  ‘Why ever do you suppose they have stopped there?’ asked Hervey, peering through his telescope.

  ‘Can’t make it out at all,’ Armstrong replied.

  They both watched the battery, halted in the valley two full furlongs away, eager to know in which direction it would next move. Armstrong thought it must turn about; Hervey was sure it would wheel left and run parallel to the ridge. Suddenly both their predictions were confounded: the French began dismounting to unlimber the guns.

  Hervey’s reaction was instinctive: ‘Draw swords! Charge!’ he cried, ramming the telescope into its saddle holster and digging his spurs into his mare’s flanks.

  His troopers took off after him as eager as greyhounds springing a hare, but Hervey would not check his pace for the sake of dressing: he was a dozen lengths clear of the front rank by the time they were halfway to the battery, only his covering-corporal within challenging distance. The French, who had seen them the instant they crested the ridge, were now frantically ramming charges down the barrels of the eight-pounders, the limbers racing back whence they had come. At a hundred yards Hervey stretched his sword-arm fully to the engage and fixed on the narrow gap between the centre guns. Not one had managed to load with canister by the time the troopers fell on them. In panic two guns were fired with charges only, adding smoke to the confusion but nothing more injurious than the deafening reports. Had the gunners taken up side-arms instead, they might have inflicted some damage, but it was too late now. Hervey slashed at the battery commander as the Frenchman belatedly reached for his pistol, and the officer fell from his horse screaming, his arm all but severed at the shoulder. Hervey galloped on to the limbers, which were making heavy weather of crossing a half-sunken track (the guns were no immediate threat now and could wait – the limbers and teams would not). They showed no sign of yielding as Hervey made for the lead team, and he glanced behind to see who was with him. More than a dozen, and he could see Serjeant Armstrong still at the guns. It would do.

  If only the drivers had yielded. Then they could have been made prisoner, or even set free. But no, they tried to run. In panic, or in duty to the teams? There was no time to care, even had there been time to think. Hervey pointed rather than cut at the lead driver, using his forward momentum to take the blade halfway to the hilt in the Frenchman’s side. He followed through as if at sword drill in camp, effortlessly recovering the sabre to set about the wheeler-drivers in the same fashion. Behind him it was the same, his dragoons doing swift execution. And then they cut the traces to set loose the teams, and began driving them back towards the British lines.

  Still the fight was not gone from the battery, and small-arms fire (albeit ragged) began at the guns. Hervey galloped at once to the relief of Serjeant Armstrong and his half-dozen prize-takers, but the firing was ended by the time he came up. ‘Start spiking, then, Serjeant Armstrong,’ he called, ‘and fire the limbers.’

  ‘Ay, sir,’ Armstrong replied grimly. ‘Jesus, but some of these bastards were a time dying!’

  Hervey sheathed his sabre and leaned forward in the saddle to adjust the breastplate which had somehow twisted. In that instant a bombardier sprang from beneath one of the guns and thrust a spontoon in his thigh. Hervey’s covering-corporal leaped from his horse and launched so ferociousness an assault that the Frenchman had no time to parry the downward swordstroke. It cleaved his skull in two, and blood bubbled like a spring for a full minute where the body lay twitching. Armstrong rushed to support Hervey in the saddle.

  ‘Leave go,’ he said sharply, angry with himself for the lapse of alertness that was costing so much pain to body and pride.

  Corporal Collins spluttered an apology.

  ‘Don’t be a fool, man,’ snapped Hervey, gripping the gash hard. ‘I’m not a greenhead. For heaven’s sake, Serjeant Armstrong, let’s get these guns spiked and then back to our post before worse arrives.’

  A second later Hervey and his arresting officer would have galloped into each other. Hervey had crested the rise, however, just in time to evade the collision. Reining hard right, he cursed as his mare crumpled then struggled to regain her footing, the air bursting from her lungs as they fought to keep their balance, her nostrils flaring wide and blowing blood into his eyes. And although searing pain from the gash made it difficult for him to keep his right leg pressed on the girth, with blood spreading its sticky warmth the length of it, neither this nor the damned fool galloping about his corner of the battlefield was going to dull the exhilaration of success. He had led the charge to the French guns, judging the moment to perfection so that his dragoons had caught the battery at its most vulnerable – unlimbered but not yet in action. Had he charged too soon, the French would have been off; a fraction too late and his little command might have been swept away in a hail of grapeshot. The surprise and terror in the faces of the gunners, the frenzied cutting, thrusting and slashing, the hammering of nails into touch-holes, then the dash back to their picket post, expecting French lanciers to appear at any second to spear them like dogs – it had been the stuff of a cornet’s dream.

  In truth it had been an affair, and a prize, beyond his dreams, a prize which by rights ought never to have been in the offing: for a whole troop of horse artillery to come into action on a flank without cavalry supports was abominable to any professional. Half a dozen eight-pounders disabled, three score and more horses captured or driven towards the British lines, and as many gunners now lying with their lifeblood draining into their native soil – barely a dozen Frenchmen had escaped to seek the protection of their errant lancers. Somewhere, Hervey knew, there was a lancier officer who ought to be cashiered – or shot – for that dereliction of duty. But he at least knew that he had done his, and he had been scarcely able to bear the wait before he would make his report to Edmonds, afterwards to bask in the praise with which the major was as a rule so sparing.

  To have collided with the mounted interloper would have denied him that satisfaction for sure. At such a speed a broken neck, and death, was the likely outcome. Or perhaps – and what many would have counted worse – it might have meant invaliding to the Chelsea hospital and a lifetime of milk pobs spooned haphazardly by some old soldier. Either fate would have been a terrible irony after escaping the French, and he could only wonder at how often he had had cause to be grateful for his little mare’s cat-like agility: more than nine times, certainly, she had saved him from disaster.

  Shortening the rein and completing his circle, he looked about angrily for the man who had nearly ridden him down. Anger then turned to astonishment as he recognized him to be one of Slade’s aides-de-ca
mp, and he wondered what in heaven’s name he was doing on this flank. Then two staff dragoons galloped on to the ridge as Hervey’s own men caught him up. But his own anger was nothing to that which he was about to face.

  ‘What the devil do you mean, sir, by abandoning your post?’ bellowed the ADC as he bore down from the opposite direction, having himself circled right, though nothing like as tightly as Hervey and his mare had managed.

  Cornet Hervey was aghast. Blood from the gash in his thigh, where the French bombardier had thrust the spontoon, was soaking the entire leg of his canvas overalls. From this alone, even to the most purblind, it must have been clear that something had been happening. But Slade’s staff could be as obtuse as their general.

  ‘What in God’s name are you talking about, Regan? We did no such thing!’ he protested, sliding painfully from the saddle to loosen the girth.

  ‘Then tell me how lancers have been able to loot the general’s own baggage!’

  By now Hervey’s covering-serjeant had joined him, still in a frenzy from the slaughter they had just dealt the hapless battery. He seized the ADC’s reins: ‘Look, mister, what d’ye think—?’ But the staff dragoons reached for their sabres.

  ‘As you were, Armstrong! Go and settle the patrol!’ snapped Hervey.

  The ADC was now beyond mere anger, and his voice rose in shrill rage. ‘Mr Hervey, you have disobeyed orders and that insubordinate serjeant is proof of your unfitness for this command!’

  Hervey’s groom had brought up a second charger, and he now remounted, though not with the easy vault he would ordinarily have taken. Instead he was helped up awkwardly, grimacing as more pain shot the length of his leg. It hardly made for a conciliatory response.