The Sabre's Edge mh-5 Page 4

  'Company will break into double time; double march!'

  In another five minutes there was but a half-mile to go, and it was light enough to make out Shwedagon's soaring dome. Hervey thought it unlikely that the Burmans would have abandoned it unless they had no intention at all of fighting.

  'It's like piss-proud Pat of a Sunday morning,' came a voice from the ranks behind.

  A welter of reproach followed from an NCO.

  'D'ye think there'll be much gold, Serjeant?' came another voice.

  'Stick to the drink, Mick. You won't have to carry it as far!'

  'He can't hold on to either for long!' came yet another voice from the ranks.

  Hervey smiled. The banter was not so very different from the Sixth's, though he did not doubt the capacity for riot in the Eighty-ninth's wild Irish ranks. It was as well that its NCOs brooked no disorder.

  There was a shot. Then half a dozen others. A couple of hundred yards ahead? It was difficult to tell. Hervey felt the momentum check just a fraction. Then came the shouting - quick time! - and the companies breaking from the double march. Serjeants barked out the step - left, right, left, right; pick it up’ The ensigns raised the colours. The commanding officer took off for the front of the column. Runners began coming and going.

  The thrill of action flashed through the ranks like a quickmatch. It would have been the same in the Sixth, thought Hervey - but perhaps more so here, for the ranks were tighter-packed, the men shoulder to shoulder rather than knee to knee. 'Skirmishers out!'

  He heard the order ripple along the column. And then a bugle. He didn't recognize the call, supposing it must be for the light company. If they were deploying, it couldn't be many minutes before the battalion companies did the same.

  'Number One Company, halt! Company will incline left; left incline! Company will form right, at the halt; right form!’

  It took less than a minute for Number One Company to change from column of route to face front in two ranks, and with no more seeming effort than if they had been on parade. And this in spite of the semi-darkness and the broken ground.

  'With ball cartridge, load!'

  The best part of a hundred men reached as one into black leather pouches to take out a greased paper cartridge. They bit off the end, poured a little of the powder into the pan of the musket-lock, closed it, emptied the remainder down the barrel, spat in the one-ounce ball of iron, pushed in the paper tube and rammed it home with a clattering noise like a mill full of flying shuttles. Then up came the East India-pattern muskets to the port. Even after so many years Hervey found himself awed by the drill. Rough men, these; unlettered for the most part, the sweepings of the gutters. Yet they worked like the well-turned mechanism of a fine watch. He could feel the swagger in the drill, the pride and confidence in what each man was about, as if he were saying there was no one better at this - no company better, no battalion better; and certainly no army. The 89th Foot, well to the left of the Line, had no royal lace to distinguish the regiment, only green facings like many another; but the 89th (Prince of Wales' Irish) counted themselves second to none, and neither Burman nor monsoon would stop them getting to Ava if that was the general's command. It would have been the same too had the battalion been the 90th Foot, or the 91st. Indeed it would have mattered not what number was worn on the pewter buttons or the blackened 'trotters' - except to the men who wore them. Hervey smiled to himself: the drill would be the same anywhere along the Line, and the spirit no less so.

  'Company will fix bayonets; fix . . . bayonets!’ More clattering, then sudden silence. "Shun!'

  Number One Company stood stiffly at attention. No man dared move a muscle lest it bring the withering rebuke of an NCO. It was a moment that could not long hold. Neither was it meant to; it was just the captain's final check before the off that he had his men in hand, as a dragoon might bring his horse up sharp onto the bit before pressing him forward to a gallop.

  'Company, should-e-e-r arms!’

  The line seemed to sway, eager to be on with it, though not a foot moved.

  ‘Po-o-rt arms! By the right, quick march!'

  It would be full light in not many minutes. Hervey strained to see their objective as they struck off, but too many shakos stood in his way. There had been no more firing. It didn't surprise him: the shots came from the outposts, for sure. They'd done their job: raise the alarm, then fall back. He wondered how many cannon the Burmans had, and how close they'd let the battalion come before putting the slow matches to the touch-holes. But he didn't suppose there was a man afraid, nor even for a moment anxious. As soon as the Burmans fired, the battalion would give them a volley and be in on them with the bayonet before they could reload. A ball might take a head off, and grape might tear through flesh and bone, but there was nothing anyone could do about it, so there was no point in having a care of it.

  But there was no thunder of cannon, nor rattle of musketry. Only the sudden command, 'At the double!' And then they were running again, faster this time, not quite charging speed he imagined, but definitely faster. Still he could not see where they were doubling to, only the dome of the pagoda itself a couple of hundred yards away. In no time they had closed the distance without another shot, and officers and NCOs were shouting orders for sections and half-sections to follow. Up the steps to the pagoda itself, or to either side of its balustrades, or to beat out the cover to right or left, or to search the shrines that lined the great maidan at the bottom of the steps. They went at it like harriers into kale.

  Hervey saw relief and disappointment in equal measure in the faces around him. The Prince of Wales' Irish did not load with ball cartridge here except to discharge it at a live target; they had discharged shot enough at practice ones these several past years. But at least there were not the screams of fallen comrades to heed. Could there be such contradictory feelings in any other craft? For his part, Hervey had no particular desire to blood his sabre again, nor to discharge the pistol that was lodged in his belt. His only thought was what this peculiar absence of resistance portended.

  He came upon the commanding officer, a man not much older than he, who wore an expression of both determination and perplexity.

  'What in God's name is going on, Hervey?'

  They had first met at Vittoria, a dozen years before, when each man's sword had been red, for there had been no doubt what they were meant to be doing that day. 'I cannot say, Colonel. But there seem to be only two possibilities.'

  'Indeed,' sighed the Eighty-ninth's man, ramming home his sword in its scabbard. 'And I wonder how long we shall have to wait to discover which it's to be. There's a degree of confusion so far that I haven't seen since Corunna.'

  The captain of the light company came up and asked for orders, to which the colonel replied that his men should beat towards the jungle's edge.

  It was exactly as Hervey would have done. 'I fancy the answer will only be found in there, sir,' he said as the captain made off. CI think sooner or later the general shall have to send patrols some way into the forest to see if the Burmans make a stand or no.'

  'Ay,' sighed the colonel. 'And it won't be easy. But first Campbell had better strike upstream, for if the Burmans mount any sort of attack along the river we'll be at sixes and sevens. And fire boats'll be giving yonder commodore a deal to think about, too, I'll warrant.'

  'Sir,' was all Hervey thought it necessary to say, for they were but Commodore Peto's own strictures of the night before.

  'Well, this place has the makings of a decent billet, at least,' said the colonel, beckoning over his adjutant. 'Come, Merrick. Let us have a look inside that pagoda before Alltoft's men do it any great injury.'

  Hervey smiled again. Here was the dry humour of one who sat permanently atop a powder keg, an officer whose easy victory might yet turn to ruin at the hands of the same men who had delivered him the prize. And Shwedagon was a place where riot even on a small scale would not do - a religious site of prominence, of some grandeur indeed. The general wo
uld certainly want to see it in one piece.

  No doubt the colonel was half disbelieving in his good fortune in not having had the battalion ashore when the brandy was flowing. Hervey wondered how the Eighty-ninth's discipline would hold now they were no longer in close order. How active were the subalterns? How true were the corporals? Once, in Spain, he had seen an entire company fire its muskets at the windows of an empty palace rather than draw the charges; the smashing of every pane seemed to give satisfaction to men denied a shot at the French. And gilded carvings and finials were an awfully tempting target.

  Now there was more shouting. ‘Pres-e-e-ent arms!’

  Hervey looked about to see what the sudden fuss was, and saw General Campbell coming up with Colonel Macbean, commander of the Madras brigade.

  The general looked pleased. And well he might, thought Hervey. Yesterday had been one of mixed honours, at best, and this morning's work was a model of method and celerity by comparison.

  General Campbell raised his hat to the saluting muskets. The guns will be up with you within the hour, Ireson,' he said, eyes twinkling, his red whiskers as bright as his coat. This without doubt is the key to Rangoon. Hold on to the pagoda, Ireson, and any attack on the town must falter.'

  'Very good, General,' said Colonel Ireson, sounding matter-of-fact.

  The colonel's luck was indeed great, thought

  Hervey. What any man would do to be in a position of the first importance, though he wondered why the Burmans must attack from the north through Shwedagon. But he had not seen a good map and he supposed the general had.

  The general had certainly not seen him until that moment. 'Ah, Hervey! What brings you here?’

  'Major Seagrass had no need of me. General.’

  'And you had a mind to see how infantry work! Well you might, sir; well you might. I imagine this campaign shall go down as the first to be made without benefit of cavalry!’

  Hervey checked himself. 'Indeed, sir?’ The general's novelty knew no bounds. It was already a most singular campaign having no transport or supply.

  'Yes indeed. Audacity and the bayonet, Hervey. That is what this campaign is about.’

  The general slapped his neck, but the mosquito evaded his hand. It would be the first of many to do so.

  An hour later it was raining. The rain fell not in drops, or even in torrents, but as a single sheet of water, so that it was impossible to see more than a dozen yards, and only then with a great distortion. Hervey did not think he had seen anything like it. Neither was it how the monsoon was supposed to begin. But for once the poor redcoats, the infantrymen of the Line and the sepoys, on whom alternately rain fell and fierce sun beat, were dry, for the shrines that surrounded the pagoda of Schwedagon afforded cover for all. Cooking fires blazed inside - teak burned very satisfactorily - and there was skilly and tea in every belly before the hands of Hervey's watch showed nine. Sharing a canteen with the men in whose billet he had taken cover might have seemed an unlikely pleasure for him, but it was almost like being in the Peninsula again. He stood a little apart, with Corporal Wainwright, trying to make out the language of their gestures and method - as strange to him at times as the accents in which they spoke. As flesh and blood they could not, in truth, be so very different from the Sixth, but they were men who drilled as a body, whose military utility was solely as part of that body. They marched as a body, took aim as a body and they fired in volleys. They did exactly as they were told, when they were told. He could certainly admire them for it. He had seen enough red-breasted lines stand rock-like in the face of Bonaparte's columns, and he had seen those lines go forward with the same unshakeable resolve. His dragoons were different. At his best, each was his own man, who used sabre and carbine as he himself judged fit, yet who knew how to combine with others to multiply the effect. Was a man better suited to the one method drawn to the bringers of a particular regiment by some unknown process perhaps? Or was it only drill that made them different? Hervey wondered.

  It could not be other than drill, surely, for the recruiting process was haphazard to say the least. He had only to look at Corporal Wainwright to be reminded of quite how haphazard. Wainwright would not have been in uniform at all had not he, Hervey, and Serjeant Collins gone that day to Warminster Common to search for the odd lad who had sunk to where he could sink no further - who was more likely than a husbandman or mechanical to be tempted by the King's shilling. It could only be the process of drill that made a soldier what he was; the drill and how it was imparted. And on this latter the difference was plain enough to him, for he had already noted how awkward these men seemed at being spoken to directly, addressing their remarks in return to Corporal Wainwright. No doubt it was necessary in drilling men to volley and manoeuvre as one body, but it must be deuced awkward never being able to speak directly to a man.

  By the time the downpour had eased, a full hour later, Hervey had concluded that of the seven private men, five of whom were from Dublin and thereabouts, four might take to being dragoons with very little effort - supposing, of course, they showed a modicum of aptitude for the saddle -and that of the other three, two were inveterate 'machine men', happy only when their every action was preceded by a word of command from the corporal, while the other was quite probably unsuited even to his present position, so sullen was he that Hervey imagined the Serjeant's pike a regular prompter. However, much as he admired the Eighty-ninth's drill that morning, and the relish with which they had gone to the expected fight, he would admit to missing E Troop with its cheery, sometimes outspoken, dragoons. Whatever General Campbell might say now about the utility of cavalry, Hervey was certain he would feel the want of them before the month was out.

  As the rain had become little more than a drizzle, he stood up and went to the door of their shelter. He could now see the river again. Pulling upstream were a dozen boats filled with marines and men from the Calcutta brigade, not yet 'blooded' in this curious inaction. He had helped write their orders the night before: they were off to do what he and his dragoons could have done in a fraction of the time and with far less effort. If only those who had conceived this adventure had allowed the possibility of action over land rather than solely from water! He had heard it said in Calcutta that horses could not pass over such terrain. How could anyone doubt that, where a man could go in this country, there for the most part could a horse? Nor, indeed, that when the monsoon turned the country to nothing but swamp there would be no passage for beast or man.

  Hervey thought of hailing the boats. It would be diverting to join them, for there was nothing to do here but watch the Eighty-ninth put the place in a state of defence. But he reluctantly concluded that it was time he reported himself back to Campbell's military secretary. He was sure there would be nothing for him to do - nothing, at least, of the slightest consequence - but if he exhausted Major Seagrass's indulgence too soon it would be so much the harder to get leave for when the infantry made a determined foray. He slapped his neck with left and right hand in rapid succession, but too late to prevent the bites, and he cursed. It was worse than the fleas in the lousiest billets in Spain.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE POINT OF THE BAYONET

  Four days later

  Hervey slipped into the room where Major-General Sir Archibald Campbell was about to hold his council. It was not very large - enough for a couple of dozen people - and the lamps and candles were making the otherwise coolest time of the day hot. Hervey wondered what could be the imperative for calling the conference three hours before dawn. He supposed he would have heard of any alarm, so the general must have intelligence new come by; or else he had resolved on something that he had been privately turning over for days.

  The two brigadiers rose as the general entered, and with them the dozen or so officers on the headquarters staff. Sir Archibald Campbell nodded - all sat - and then he nodded once more, to his quartermaster-general, who pulled loose the knot that held furled a sheet on the wall. Down rolled a hand-drawn sketch of the
stockaded port and the Rangoon river to the extent of some two leagues to the north. At the furthest point

  of the river, on the eastern bank, there was a red circle.

  'Gentlemen,' began the general briskly, seizing the bayonet on the table beside the wall and tapping the map with it. 'In the five and one-half days since we hove to in the river yonder' (he inclined his head to indicate the direction), 'our circumstances have changed so decidedly that I am obliged to conceive a wholly new plan of campaign.'

  Hervey, as every man in the room, was all attention. He was hardly surprised to hear the assessment, only that it had been the best part of a week in the making. And he was as much relieved as he was surprised to hear it stated so candidly. There had never been any doubting Major-General Sir Archibald Campbell as a fighting officer. Word was that he had been given the exacting command of a Portuguese brigade in the Peninsula because of his impressive physique and offensive spirit, and because the duke himself knew at first hand of his youthful exploits in Mysore. But fearless and spirited fighting was one thing; the design of a campaign - the decision how to fight - was quite another. And the design of a campaign was not something to which General Campbell had had any apprenticeship.

  'Or perhaps, gentlemen, I should say that it is necessary to recognize that our circumstances are not as were earlier imagined. It is evident that the Burman people are either too afeard to rally to us, or have no heart to do so. We are therefore in want of supplies from Calcutta, and any expedition to Ava will be through hostile territory. Indeed, it will need to be supplied through hostile territory.'

  Every man in Rangoon must be of the same opinion, thought Hervey. Indeed, Peto had told him yesterday that the sloops he had sent to reconnoitre the mouths of the Irawadi had reported the channels running close in to numerous forts. But at least now they might proceed openly on the presumption of Burman hostility. They might even be allowed to butcher the few cattle that remained. Immunity from the slaughterman's axe had been one thing five days ago, but there was scant reason now to let the troops starve so that sacred cattle could live.