Words of Command (Hervey 12) (Matthew Hervey) (48 page)

Then the advance resumed. Walk-march … trot …

So many men – two hundred, four lines, an overlap, a great weight in the press of horses: he’d need Vanneck’s to bolster Worsley’s, yet be able to extricate them to form a firing line if …

‘I shall take post with the supports now, Captain Worsley. A resolute front, mind.’

Worsley saluted with his sword. ‘You may count on it, Colonel.’

He knew he could. But these things were better said – if only for the benefit of those on whom Worsley in turn depended.

He reined left and trotted to where Vanneck had halted and drawn up his troop, fifty yards to the rear on rising ground, with Acton at his heels, and Fairbrother, Johnson and the little knot of others who formed his suite.

Vanneck had anticipated his orders. The troop was already dividing into three to cover Worsley’s flanks while keeping a few carbines for support.

‘Nicely done, Captain Vanneck.’

‘Thank heavens we set aside Dundas this last month.’

Hervey nodded. ‘No doubt he has his uses, but not today for sure.’

And this was the dangerous time. If the French broke into a gallop they’d be unstoppable without shot or counter-charge. All Worsley could then do – and he’d have to judge it to the second – was go threes-about and wheel left or right at a pace.

They stumbled into a short canter. It was still a peril.

Hervey grimaced: was it bluff?

Worsley swallowed hard, but stood his ground.

At a hundred yards they fell back to a trot, then halted suddenly.

An officer rode forward and called to them in what sounded like Dutch.

Worsley answered with the authority of his broad acres, wearying of their blue being taken for a foreign coat. ‘
Pas Hollandais, monsieur; nous sommes Anglais!
’

One of his corporals lofted the Union flag which they’d carried in the parades in Brussels.

It hung limply in the still air.

The spokesman conferred with his colonel, who shook his head vigorously. ‘
Anglais? Pas possible
,’ he said, in a voice that carried clearly. ‘
C’est une ruse de guerre!
’

He turned and said something to his adjutant.

And then abuse erupted the length of the French line: ‘Cheeseheads! Marsh-frogs! Clog-feet!’

Hervey angered. ‘
Rosbifs
, yes,’ he said, gathering his reins and spurring forward, ‘but I’m damned if I’ll be called aught else.’

B Troop sat impassively, aided by growls from Collins.

‘Stand fast, Worsley, while I go and speak with that fellow,’ Hervey called.

But their colonel was in no mood for parley. He waved his sword: ‘
En avant!
’

The line billowed forward.

Hervey cursed, reined about and cantered for the support line. Once, he’d tried to make some Portuguese troops look like the King’s infantry, in red coats, and the ruse had failed. Now he couldn’t persuade a Frenchman that he wasn’t a ‘clog-foot’!

It was up to Worsley – and Vanneck if it came to carbines.

The trot was in-hand, but they’d still barge the line, for although Worsley wasn’t in open order, he wasn’t knee-to-knee either (he hadn’t the numbers).

Hervey gave Vanneck the look that said ‘ready yourself.’

But it was Worsley’s moment. ‘Quarters left!’

Round swung every troop horse, just as in the park at Windsor. There were now no gaps – and the line not a fraction shorter.

‘Good work, B Troop,’ said Hervey beneath his breath.

The French checked, stumbled for the most part to a walk and collided with them with no more force than a boat coming alongside in a light swell.

Now the mounted ruck. Cursing, swearing – every sort of imprecation – arms, elbows, knees, boots, pushing, shoving, kicking, gouging.

But sabres both sides stayed shouldered.

‘Now Vanneck, if you please: the flanks,’ called Hervey.

No words of command, just signals with the sabre. Twenty dragoons with a cornet peeled off from both ends of Vanneck’s line to extend Worsley’s.

‘Nicely done,’ said Hervey beneath his breath again. They might be at a field day.

And then, like the challenging stag which, knowing the contest to be uneven, breaks from the lock of antlers, he saw the colonel of cuirassiers turn about and ride rear. It could not be long now …

‘I do believe Worsley’s outwitted them!’

Malet heard. ‘And see, Colonel – how Collins steadies them.’

He was trotting the line with no more agitation than before an inspection.

Would Armstrong? Or would it be fists by now?

Perhaps it was just a matter of time, for no recall was sounded, and the push of troopers was becoming like the old push of pikes. If one side wouldn’t yield, it must come to blows …

The curses increased, mutually unintelligible, but plain enough.

And then a Frenchman lashed out with his sword arm.

St Alban parried.

All that clashed were sword hilts.

But his coverman, furious at the affront, lunged with his knuckle.

Others followed.

Then sabres clashed.

Collins was there in an instant: ‘Swords up, damn you! Up!’

He drove between the two locked blades.

‘Up, I say!’ thrusting his sabre between them.

Another – instinct, or evil? – cut at his sword arm.

Blades flashed left and right.

A dragoon fell. Two cuirassiers followed.

Blades the length of the line now.

Rennie weighed in from nowhere with all the authority of his rank, somehow transcending the barrier of noise and language.

Both sides reeled momentarily.

Their colonel bore down. ‘
Arrête!
’

NCOs berated their own, on both sides.

The brawl petered out.

Hervey galloped into the melee and all but seized the colonel’s reins. ‘
Vous avez blessé des soldats du Roi d’Angleterre!
’

The lines fell still – a sullen, glowering stand-off.

The colonel seemed only now to comprehend. He saw the black crape. He looked dazed.

‘For whom are you in mourning,
monsieur
?’

His accent was more of the street than the château.

‘For His late Majesty, King George,’ barked Hervey.

Confusion overcame him. ‘You are, then, English?’

Hervey spoke his precisest French. ‘I am the commanding officer of His Majesty King William’s Sixth Light Dragoons, and under the terms of the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna I am authorized to prevent the invasion of the sovereign territory of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.’

Bluff it might be called; audacity certainly – magnificent audacity. Either way, there could be no more words.
Ne plus ultra
.

The colonel sheathed his sword.

Hervey merely recovered his.

And, oh, the irony. In life the old King could do nothing but put on uniform and play the game of soldiers, while in death he could turn back a regiment of cuirassiers. Hervey grew tall in the saddle and demanded he yield.

The colonel cleared his throat. ‘
Monsieur le commandant
, I am commanded to make no war on an ally. My orders are only to secure the safety of the people of these parts.’

Hervey bowed. ‘They are in no danger,
monsieur
, as you might presume from the presence of His Majesty’s troops.’

The colonel, his aspect still one of daze, shook his head. ‘In that case I shall withdraw at once to Maubeuge to consult with my superiors.’

Hervey nodded. ‘I understand,
monsieur
. But please make plain to your superiors that English troops shall remain here to secure the safety not only of the people but of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.’

The colonel, humbled like the challenging stag that had not the potency, though it might one day, withdrew warily. Hervey had not been inclined to melt at the word ‘ally’ and to part on fraternal terms, for one of his dragoons was unhorsed. It was no occasion for civility.

When the French had quit the field, he turned to the bloody consequences of his audacious victory. The surgeon had set up post at the spinney, where Hervey found Princess Augusta kneeling next to the dragoon, whose leg was broken and bleeding, and a corporal whose nose was split so badly that blood had turned his tunic facings red, the countess trying to staunch the flow with pieces of her petticoat, while the princess used hers to bind the dragoon’s legs together.

But Milne and his orderlies were cutting away urgently at another coat, which was blood-soaked beyond recognition – like their aprons.

‘Who …
Collins
?’

‘Artery, Hervey … If I can’t get a clamp to it …’

Hervey shuddered. He’d seen men die in minutes for want of a tuppenny clamp.

Collins lay still, his eyes misted.

‘It’s bad,’ whispered Milne. ‘It’ll have to come off. Only way to get at the artery. He’s cut to the bone.’

The right arm.

An arm was an arm, but a sword arm …

Hervey grasped him by the shoulder. ‘All your skill and science, Milne. All of it. Save that arm.’

‘Colonel, it will need all my skill and more to save his life.’

Hervey blanched. ‘Then save his life first, Milne – and
then
the arm.’

fn1
‘Not further beyond’, the supposed inscription on the Pillars of Hercules at the Straits of Gibraltar warning ships against passage west.

Hervey put down the letter, shaking his head. ‘
Thou art my battle axe and weapons of war: for with thee will I break in pieces the nations, and with thee will I destroy kingdoms
.’

‘Joshua?’ asked Fairbrother, laying aside his book.

‘Jeremiah. None more apt.’

The day before, the separatists had disarmed the Garde Civile, stormed the Hôtel de Ville and declared a provisional government. Gone was the Committee of Public Safety – dread title, Jacobin (and soon there’d be a Robespierre, no doubt), yet a force for moderation nonetheless – and in its place a fierce tribe of Belgae who’d treat with The Hague as their forebears had with Rome. He could feel no great triumph.

‘Well, if the Kingdom of the Netherlands is to be destroyed, it will be on better terms for your address. Two troops of light dragoons, and Monsieur Talleyrand is confounded!’

‘If only Bylandt had shown more resolve, or perhaps I …’

Fairbrother shook his head. ‘A tide in the affairs of men, Hervey. Think not on it. The affair at the border was a far greater imperative. I don’t believe that even you know quite
how
brilliant an affair: you judged the place and the method to perfection. And I trust that Windsor shall hear of it.’

‘I trust that Windsor shall hear of
Collins
.’

Fairbrother sighed. ‘Nothing is ever without cost. You and I know that.’

‘I would not stand here now had he not been my coverman at Toulouse.’

‘I know it.’

‘Toulouse, and many a time before. But Toulouse especially – in the very last hours of the war, indeed.’

They’d just taken a battery, and a Frenchman had sprung from beneath a gun and thrust a spontoon in his thigh. Collins had leapt from his horse and launched so ferocious an assault that the man had no time to parry, and the sword cleaved his skull in two. Blood had bubbled like a spring for a full minute where he lay twitching.

If only he’d been able to do the same for Collins in that needless melee …

‘He was a man for whom duty was all,’ said Fairbrother consolingly. ‘It’s unwise, is it not, to count the cost too … particularly? Else we’d never hazard anything.’

Hervey nodded. Had it come to carbines they’d be counting a good deal more. ‘I must do all in my power to see him settled well.’

Fairbrother answered brightly. ‘Others have prospered with but a single arm; and he’s resourceful.’

‘Indeed.’

‘And no man lost his life.’

‘God be thanked.’

Fairbrother’s brow furrowed. ‘I think you yourself may take a little of the thanks too.’

Hervey inclined his head as if to acknowledge, for every man of the Sixth was saying the same, said Johnson.

‘And you have the acclamation of the ambassador. And I’ll warrant there’ll be a ribbon in it.’

‘You know, I trust, that I do nothing for acclamation and ribbons.’

‘Hervey, I was not with you at Toulouse or Waterloo, or any number of places you’ve drawn your sword – great’s the pity – but you will grant that we’ve seen
some
action together!’

Hervey conceded with a nod, but said nothing other than ‘Luck went with me.’ Anyway, it was time to be done with dark thoughts.

‘Who is the letter from? What exactly does it say?’ asked Fairbrother.

‘The secretary of the embassy. And it conveys in writing what he said in person yesterday – expressions of gratitude et cetera. And he attaches a copy of the ambassador’s last letter to London.’

He handed it to him:

From His Excellency Sir Charles Bagot, His Majesty’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary at the Court of the Netherlands
,