The Sabre's Edge (34 page)

But the country people of this corner of Rajpootana knew that John Company was about (they sold him all they could in Agra and Muttra), though at night they took care to keep themselves scarce, for no one knew what the sahibs would do when the time came, or even Durjan Sal and his Jhauts if they dared leave the fastness of Bhurtpore. And why, indeed, should the Jhauts do that? Bhurtpore had stood against the
gora
log
before. Against Lord Lake, even - he who had dealt the mighty Marathas such a blow. Was not Bhurtpore impregnable? Let John Company try if he dare, they said among themselves - as he tried in vain at Rangoon - and here he would meet the same as there. Only let us not be about the roads when he does try, they said. Let us not run or ride to Bhurtpore to warn Durjan Sal. He has his own spies for that. Let us secure ourselves at night in our villages, with fires burning to ward off marauders, and trust in the boy Krishna, our neighbour from Muttra become a god - and all the other gods that would protect us poor country people from armies of any colour.

They made the Eleventh's distant picket at ten minutes to two. Fires burned bright, but the two dozen dragoons were all alert and anxious for their own off. They even raised a cheer as Hervey led the column past at the walk.

'Nothing to report,' called the officer, standing wrapped in his cloak by a lantern. 'Your scouts went by not five minutes ago.'

Hervey thanked Providence it was Collins in front of him. There were but three men in the regiment he could trust so. Four, properly, for there could be no doubting RSM Lincoln - or rather Quartermaster Lincoln now - even though Hervey had never patrolled with him. A year or so more and there would be another two or three: Wainwright had the makings, certainly -he wanted only experience atop his courage -and Myles Vanneck. But for the present it could only be Collins, or Armstrong, or Seton Canning. The task was straightforward enough: judge, clear the route, report. But it wasn't easy. At night the ablest of men lost their capacity to do what they did by day. They imagined too much, or else too little, they lost command of their dragoons, they failed to observe and forgot what to report. No, Hervey had formed the opinion over long years that scouting at night tested a man more than did the worst trials of the day. He cursed that Cornet Green was so worthless. He wished the man had stayed in the pretty sort of shop that his father must one time have kept. Even though he had no need of him, Collins was entitled to have an officer share the danger. He ought, indeed, to have all of Green's pay.

Hervey's orders to Collins had been few, because they were unnecessary. All that Collins needed to know was the route and rate of advance. Certain of each, he now proved the way with the surest touch. Here and there he had to make a sleeping hackery driver pull his team off the road, but otherwise his progress towards the great fortress was unchecked. For almost five hours without pause, until just before seven o'clock, at the very first intimation of the dawn, he led the Company's troops into the territory of Bhurtpore, and Hervey had not a moment's hesitation in following.

Then, as arranged, only a quarter of an hour later than Hervey had predicted, the advance guard halted at the last village before the road opened onto the plain of the fortress city, and sent word back to him. He was not many minutes coming up, and fewer still at the halt. He had his telescope out at once and made a sweep of the plain.

Nothing, not even the outline of the distant walls. That was good. He risked a great deal in cutting things so fine, but without the help of a bit of daylight he couldn't find the jheels, let alone the bund. He was counting on poor camp discipline among the Jhauts; it was, he knew from experience, a peculiarly British rule for troops to be stood-to with arms for the dawn watch. He counted here on there being but a few sentries, tired after a long night, alert only to their relief at daybreak.

He would take over the lead himself now, for they must soon leave the obliging road. He remembered clearly that it curved in a full right angle north towards the fortress, but a curve at night, especially a shallow one, was not easy to gauge. It would all have been so much easier with a guide. That, however, he had judged impossible without somehow giving away the intention, or else having a man who happened to live in Agra or Muttra and professed a knowledge of the jheels. Either way, it was scarcely a requisite they could advertise. Instead Hervey would have to trust his compass. God bless Daniel Coates, he said to himself, as he thought to check it again - finest of men and best of old soldiers. Who would have imagined there could be so small a thing as this piece of brass and whatever, and yet so serviceable to the hour? Clever Dan Coates, an ancient who sought the innovating as keenly as any lettered man. First the percussion lock, then the watch to read by night, and now the compass to make a man see in the dark - what a testimony to him, once a trumpeter, who had learned and risen by his own exertions alone. Hervey took the compass from its case on the saddle and noted the direction of the needle. 'Very well then,' he said, squeezing his legs the merest touch to put Gilbert into a walk.

Five minutes and the needle was backing very definitely. Hervey waited five minutes more, until the needle had moved a full quarter, and then turned right off the road to make for the stream which would lead them north of the fortress and on to the jheel bund. Gilbert, his feet now on pasture, at once sensed the change of purpose and began to throw his head, hopeful of a gallop. Trumpeter Storrs's grey, the only other in the troop, began whickering. Hervey winced. If the others took it up they would soon alert the doziest of sentries. There was nothing he could do, though, and he had worries enough finding the stream. It must be there; only if he had judged the needle so badly as to be almost doubling back would they not be able to find it. Navigating by night - the officer's constant trial. And yet he had the advantage on any in Hindoostan with Coates's 'contraption', as Johnson called it. Hervey could picture Coates now (omitting to make allowance for the difference of time), rising as always before it was light to beat about the bounds of his prosperous farm, as he had risen every day before dawn as a dragoon in America, and Flanders, and a dozen other places, and then as labourer and shepherd, and now as magistrate and man of consequence in West Wiltshire. Daniel Coates would now be—

Gilbert squealed and ran to the side. Hervey pulle
d him back onto the bit. 'Snake’
he said to Stores, as matter-of-fact as he could having almost dropped the compass.
^‘
I fear we'll have more of 'em if we're near water.' He would gladly put up with the inconvenience were it the price of finding the stream. He could never fathom the horse's ability to detect the proximity of a snake. Was it by smell or by sight? It could hardly be the latter at night, and yet it was curious what a horse could see in the dark when it had a mind. Gilbert had once shied at a basking krait thirty yards away, and yet the troop had lost two others, grazing, to kraits in the last year alone. Jessye had almost died from the same, when first he had gone to India, although that had been in the black of night.

The grass was now taller. Hervey raised his hand for Stores to halt, and pressed Gilbert on gingerly. At last he was on it - the stream. He reined about and then motioned to Stores to follow again as he turned right and north more, sighing with relief. The rest ought to be easy enough, even if it meant the point of the sword.

Serjeant Collins, a dozen yards behind, saw Hervey turn. Rather, he saw Gilbert turn, for a few white hairs made all the difference in the forewarning of daylight. Collins knew that Hervey was onto his line. He never doubted he would be, though he too knew how tricky the simplest of things were when night and the enemy were about. And he knew that everything would change in the next half-hour. The day came on faster in these parts than ever it managed in Spain. In half an hour they would be revealed even to a sentry on the walls of the distant fortress - intruders, murderous, like the snakes in the grass. The blow would surely be swift, as it must be against a snake lest it bite the hand that strikes. Collins had no illusions as to how desperate would be their position in the hours ahead.

The column was now in a trot, an uneven one, as the ground itself was uneven, but more than double the pace of the walk nevertheless. The noise was greater too, bits jingling and scabbards clanking. It sounded like a wagonload of tinkers on the move. Could that be what any who heard it thought it was? Some hope, thought Hervey. Bullocks didn't snort and whinny. He pressed Gilbert for more speed: get it over with, get in among whoever was between them and the Motee Jheel, cut and slice through them and get to the bund. The commander-in-chief was depending on him, countless lives were waiting to be spared by his success.

The ground was with them for a while. Between the stream and the walls, half a league distant, was a rise which hid them from all but an observer on their side of it. And it was still too dark to see further than earshot. He could remember seeing a great many hovels when he had sketched here, but they had come across none so far. They were on the common pasture, after all, and he wouldn't expect to see even a grass-cutter abroad at this time. They were trotting even faster now - Gilbert stumbled once or twice until Hervey took a proper hold and lifted him onto the bit. He reckoned there would be light enough to canter in ten more minutes. Then they could sprint for the jheel bund and be done with it.

Another three hundred yards: the sun seemed to be racing them. Hervey could now see huts all along the rise. He would risk it - no words of command, just press to the canter and let the rest follow. Gilbert struck off eagerly with his off-fore, as he always favoured, Hervey peering intently ahead, praying that a cut or a bund would not suddenly check them. Four hundred horses pounding the till - if they could not be heard, then the earth must surely be shaking enough to rouse the dead. He thought he saw the odd figure on the ridge - with luck, terrified villagers.

Now there was light enough to make out the walls, but still in the dim distance barely more than a silhouette. They had the grass and the reeds as a backdrop, the advantage yet. Would the guns on the walls be trained on the approaches to the jheel bund, shotted and run out ready? Hervey knew they ought to be. Would they have the range? A thousand yards, he had estimated, perhaps a bit more. He had heard all manner of stories about the Bhurtpore guns, massive affairs, immovable, which could send an eight-inch ball of iron with great velocity over the outworks and beyond. Such a gun, well-served, could visit terrible destruction on a battery or a sap. This was Colonel Anburey's fear, that his sappers and miners would be too exposed to develop their work, but it could be no less a concern for Colonel Macleod, who had to expose his guns to some extent in order that they might fire at all. There was bound to be ground less dominated by the bigger guns, but the whole art of fortification was the facility to rake any approach and demolish any siege device. Hervey did not envy the engineers as they dug their saps and tunnels, nor the artillerymen, who heaved shot and powder and made themselves senseless and deaf - nor, indeed, the infantry who would have to sit patiently waiting for a breach and then storm it. And all these men relying on him now.

The sun broached the jungled horizon to his right, a brilliant torch which at last signalled an end to the night watch and to stealthy manoeuvre. It was day, the time for fighting.

And fighting they would have - directly ahead, a quarter of a mile (no more), a cavalry camp come hastily to life. He could see men rushing for their horses, and others already mounted forming up. How many they were he could have no true notion. It might be the entire Jhaut host beyond them, and these a picket only. Even so, they barred his way as effectively as any earthwork.

'Left wheel into line!' he called, checking the pace to a trot to allow them the manoeuvre time.

Trumpeter Storrs blew the call perfectly: just the four notes, and a simple fifth interval - easy enough with the bugle, even at a bounce.

Hervey's own troop wheeled effortlessly, an evolution they might do in their sleep so often had they practised it. The Eleventh, behind, had a harder time of it, with more ground to make up and two ranks to form, not one. Hervey wished he were leading with lances: they were not much use to him at the rear, and the sight of them lowered might well send the enemy packing. As they stood, he could only let them pursue once the dragoons had broken the Jhauts up. He cursed himself.

He looked rear again to see if the Eleventh were close enough yet for support. His jaw dropped. Up on the rise was a line of lances and yellow kurtas. He could scarcely believe their celerity and address. Skinner's sowars had taken post as flankers, and on the commanding ground, and without a word from him.

'Draw swords!'

Out rasped two hundred blades.

Four hundred yards now, and the ground ahead was even. He put Gilbert back into a canter, glancing over his shoulder again. There was Wainwright, covering, and Perry, upright and assured. He saw Green struggling with both hands to hold his mare. This was the best time, the troop in hand, every man intent on his next word of command. In another two hundred yards or so, when he shouted

'Charge!' he would relinquish all control for a frenzied few minutes, as each man fought his own battle, self-reliant instead of, as now, knee to knee.