A Call To Arms (42 page)

An hour later, as Hervey dozed, Johnson shook him gently by the shoulder. ‘Tea, Cap’n ’Ervey. An’ a good mashin’ it is an’ all.’

Tea at this time and in these circumstances had always had but one important quality as far as Hervey was concerned – that it was hot. Whether or not it was strong or sweet, or had milk, was of no moment compared with this requirement. And it had been Johnson’s singular ability in this direction which for some years now had marked him out in Hervey’s mind as a special sort of man. Since coming to him in Spain, Johnson had never failed to
bring him tea at reveille. Even on the morning of Waterloo, when the rain had poured all night, Johnson had brought ‘a good mashing’ before stand-to, so welcome a drink that Hervey truly believed he would choose to give up all other before he would give up tea.

‘It’s four o’clock, sir,’ added Johnson without having to be asked.

Hervey would record in his journal, later that day, that the dawn stand-to went passably well, except that the troop made too much noise. And he would be pleased with the day’s march, too. The going was easy, and they met with no setback in the forty miles they covered, most of it by midday. The camp that evening therefore had an altogether different air from that of the one before. The NCOs were agreeably surprised by the way the march had gone, and were now giving their orders with not quite so much of a snarl. Armstrong, especially, had been pleased to be able to march and ride for long periods without having to open his mouth. The private men, for the most part, were very tired, for to those unaccustomed to such a distance in one day, the bodily and moral exertion was prodigious. But a tired soldier was almost invariably a contented soldier, a maxim Hervey had learned from Joseph Edmonds when first he had joined, and which he had confirmed for himself in no time at all. And so it would be a propitious time for him to go about the troop in their bivouac as fires were beginning the work of making their supper – just to show himself, just to be there to let the private men share their contentment with him. It would make it so much the easier when he needed to go among them when things looked perilous.

Hervey walked the horse lines by himself, in the main content with what he saw. But the mosquitoes were back, and the men were occupied in rubbing a foul-smelling liquid about their horses’ faces and ears – and, indeed, their own – which the commissary in Chittagong had dispensed. Hervey had brought some citronella from Calcutta, which seemed to work just as well as the camphor or whatever was the other, but had the advantage of a pleasant scent, if the disadvantage of a hefty price.

At the end of the line he came across Private Mole sitting on the ground, who, when he saw Hervey approaching, began struggling
to pull up his overalls to stand. He looked more doleful than usual, even taking account of his lip.

‘Are you quite well, Mole?’

‘He’s got a leech on his pennis, sor!’ said Corporal McCarthy, taking an ember from the fire, blowing it red-hot and handing it to Mole.

Hervey kept the shiver to himself. The surgeon had warned them all about the jungle leech’s habits and preferences, but this seemed uncommonly early proof of it. ‘Sit yourself down, then, Mole. Would it not be better to call Mr Ledley, Corporal McCarthy?’

‘Ah, there’s no need, sor. That ember’ll do it. I’ve done it meself many a time afore, though I must say never with the crown jewels.’

Hervey watched as Mole braced himself and applied the ember to the engorged worm. It curled up at once and in another second let go its grip, falling wriggling to the floor, where Mole’s angry boot finished the job.

‘Just as Mr Ledley told us, sor,’ said McCarthy, with a look of satisfaction. ‘An ember’s the thing. That or salt. I’ve seen ’em pulled off in a panic and the wound become very pussy afterwards.’

Mole looked unhappy still. Hervey thought it best to leave him to recover his humour as well as his modesty. He turned and walked back along the line contemplating his good fortune in having McCarthy. It was clear the man was possessed of something in his field habits which commanded the dragoons to imitate him. He had recognized McCarthy’s fighting spirit in an instant when first they had been hurled together in France, but he had for long months retained a suspicion that an NCO who had once lost his stripes might ever be doing so again. McCarthy was probably no more impulsive a pugilist than Armstrong, and probably no more enamoured of a drop or two than he, but Armstrong had never been reduced to the ranks; that was the difference. Was it, perhaps, that discipline was in some way administered differently in the infantry? He wished he had been able to enquire of the 104th what had been the circumstances. But there was no denying now that McCarthy was an exemplary corporal. Hervey didn’t even have to trust to his own judgement in that; Armstrong was certain of it.

It was not the same with Corporal Mossop, though. Mossop did not do anything wrong; he did it, indeed, to the best of his ability.
And there lay the problem. Mossop tried, but nothing came easily or naturally. Mossop was awkward, even in conversation. He would have thrown himself into the flames for his captain, but Hervey would dodge the other side of a horse so as not to have to pass the time of day with him. And that, he knew full well, could not but convey itself to the man, and so he would make himself go through the motions of bantering, if only to display his confidence in him in front of the dragoons. But Mossop would never be a serjeant; that was certain. With McCarthy, on the other hand, there could be no such certainty.

When Hervey looked at Collins, though, he wondered how any other corporal might aspire to serjeant. How might they measure themselves against him – his celerity in action, his composure in routine? It was Collins’s misfortune, however, to be a serjeant at this time, for the wait would be long for the fourth piece of tape. He needed the toast to ‘a short war and a bloody one’, but India looked unlikely to oblige him, even with forays such as this. It was a sorry thing to wish for dead men’s boots, thought Hervey, but he hoped very dearly that Collins would not be spent before his time came for a troop of his own.

However, it was the little knot of Warminster pals that intrigued him most. They were three now, the original pals, but Rudd was messing with them this evening. His mother would have been appalled at the notion of her son’s associating with the roughs of Warminster Common – and in ordinary the son too would never have had occasion to speak with them – but the bond of a shared home place when so far distant from it was ever strong. Even Shepherd Stent, although an Imber man by birth, felt some kin with Rudd and Wainwright and Spreadbury and Needham. Indeed, he had been more welcome in the high street, at the sheep markets with his father, than ever the roughs of the Common had been. Hervey stood watching them for some time, unnoticed. Stent was the older by ten years, perhaps, and by experience and temper should have been the chosen man in their case. But he seemed always to want nothing of it, to want that nothing extra be required of him other than honest duty as a private soldier. Hervey still had his doubts about him as coverman. As for Rudd, he was a shiny dragoon – no doubt about it – but as yet there seemed no edge to him that would make him fit for command. It was
Wainwright, not yet twenty, who held the pals’ esteem. Indeed, the more Hervey saw of him, and the more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that Wainwright had singular promise. What was beyond doubt was that yesterday both Jobie Wainwright and Shepherd Stent had shown instinctive and selfless courage. England bred her heroes rough, mused Hervey; but breed them she did.

They were late striking off next morning. Hervey had been expecting a rendezvous with the Chakma guides the evening before, but there had been no sign of them. By eight o’clock, the troop having breakfasted and done an hour’s making and mending, there was still no sign of them. Hervey spoke with Seton Canning and Armstrong. ‘I don’t like just sitting and waiting. The track we’re following is clear enough, and the Chittagong guides say they’re certain it leads to the border. The Chakma will have no difficulty finding us if they’re as good as they say. I intend pressing on and making up lost time.’

Armstrong made as if to turn, but Seton Canning looked mildly troubled. ‘Why might the Chakma not be here, Hervey? You’re not inclined to see any mischief?’

Hervey grimaced to himself. ‘No, I’m not inclined to, not yet. There are any number of reasons why they mightn’t have shown – the haste with which we mounted things, to begin with.’

‘These folk work to a different clock from us, Mr Seton Canning, sir,’ added Armstrong. ‘It were just the same in Spain. There you’d wait days for some bandit to leave off what he was doing.’

‘And in any case, I don’t see any alternative.’

Hervey’s voice had an edge to it again. Seton Canning made no reply.

Just after midday, with close on four hours of marching behind them, the troop halted for the second rest. The going had become harder than the day before, the ground now climbing towards the tribal tracts, but the way was wide enough still to permit two horses to go abreast. This was important for it allowed the NCOs to patrol the column, although, as yesterday, they found remarkably little dereliction or inactivity to reprove.

The troop had taken longer than prescribed at the first halt since
they had ridden for longer, the way being too steep to pull up for some miles; and it had been the same with the second halt, for Hervey had wanted to draw closer to the river. By his calculations they were now within three hours of the border. The Chittagong guides seemed sure of it too, although they conceded that their knowledge of these parts was sparse. There was still no sign of the Chakma, however, and Hervey knew that soon the guides would be wholly beyond their reach. Not that they had shown the least hesitation so far. Quite the opposite, indeed: one of them, an Arakani boatman whom Somervile had said knew the rivers well, seemed positively fired with the notion of the coming blow at his people’s oppressor. He told Hervey, in broken Urdu, that he knew the country well enough to take them to the boats, and Hervey could but admire the man’s determination to be at them; and, he reasoned, he was not himself entirely without resource in navigation. The way they had come had been the way of the Karnaphuli, and that was the essential detail, even if for much of the time the river had been out of sight.

Hervey leaned back against a tree, where Johnson had placed a blanket for him to sit, and peered again at his map. That morning he had checked constantly by his travelling compass, and he was as confident as any might be of their position and course. He decided to press on as soon as the rest was up. But he judged it time to make packhorses of the troopers pulling the galloper guns, for if the way deteriorated much more, wheels would be an encumbrance. Also, he did not want to be disassembling guns in a place not of his own choosing. He sent word for the daffadar to make ready as soon as he could.

In a quarter of an hour he got up and walked to the back of the column. There he was surprised to find wheels and trunnions, barrels and trails already stripped down and distributed between the two gun-horses and the four spares. He hoped they would be as quick, if not quicker, reassembling them when the time came: a ball and a bag of grape would be a powerful blow to the enemy, not for its material effect so much as for the shock of cannon fire in so wholly unexpected a place.

The afternoon was the hardest. For the most part the dragoons had to lead, not only to spare the horses but because the way was
ever more overgrown. Saj trees crowded the way, their grey bark like crocodile skin and bhorla creepers coiling like snakes about their trunks. Soon the horses were being led single-file. So heavy were the vines and creepers that here and there a branch, and sometimes a whole tree, had collapsed across the way, and the farriers’ axes would be called up. And while the axes swung, the dragoons stood, the respite welcome. They had shed their coats at the second halt, on command, but the sweat ran freely still. Some swore there was less air to breathe, others feared that trees might fall behind them like coffin lids. Some thought secretly of flight; but what chance might they have in this green prison, and with NCOs like Armstrong and Collins – ay, and McCarthy – after them? Only a very few of them could take pleasure in what the jungle offered their eyes: orchids, little dabs of colour in the gloom, or the strange shapes of the dhak trees, dark crooked skeletons which in two or three months’ time would burst into flower, orange and red, the ‘flame of the forest’. Jobie Wainwright could. Jobie saw pleasing things in the most wretched of places. It was why the Common had not made a felon of him as it had many another. For the rest, there were not half a dozen who might share Jobie’s pleasure in the forest. They might be sons of the crowding streets of a great city, but cities weren’t forests: they were not haunted by all manner of beasts that might kill in an instant, whose strike was sudden and unseen. And at night, even in the drearest, foggiest rookery, there were not ghostly creatures that slid or shuffled as here about the forest floor, that darted between the trees, or crept about their branches.

Hervey could see their unease all too well as he walked back along the column when they were halted to clear a third tree. But at the rear was Armstrong, looking for all the world as if he were merely at stables, at Hounslow even. Armstrong was neither fearful of nor partial to the forest. He was entirely unmoved by it: the forest was there, and he was in it; that was that. ‘This is chatty country all right,’ he opined as Hervey pushed past the last dragoon. ‘And getting chattier by the looks of it.’

Hervey took off his shako, wiped his brow with his sleeve, and raised his eyebrows. ‘The guides say it will get no worse – well, not
much
worse.’