"The Sabre_s Edge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mallinson Allan)

CHAPTER THREE

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.

'It is also evident,' continued General Campbell, his voice slowing a little as if to emphasize the importance of what was to follow, 'that the enemy have built themselves stockaded forts upriver, and that thence they are in a position to assail us at will, by land and, what is more, by river, and not least is the renewed threat of fire boats.'

Hervey wondered which might be the general's inference, for there were two that he and Peto had drawn. Would he require to hold Rangoon as a base for operations against the interior, or did he intend to abandon the port since its capture was evidently not the calamity the Governor-General had anticipated? Although, in fairness, there had scarcely been time for the news to shake Ava. The general brandished the bayonet again. 'And so, gentlemen, our first object is to destroy the Burman capacity for the offensive.'

The declaration of the objective and the jabbing of the bayonet had an immediate effect. There was such a hubbub that the sentry posted outside peered round the door.

The general raised his other hand, and there was silence again. Today, therefore, we make a beginning. Colonel McCreagh, you will seize the stockaded village of Kemmendine, here.' He stabbed at the red circle on the map. 'And I wish the assault to be given to my own regiment, the Thirty-eighth.'

Colonel McCreagh simply nodded. There was no need of questions: it would be boat work and the bayonet.

'Colonel Macbean, I wish the Madras brigade to ascertain where to the west of Rangoon the enemy are encamped, and what their intentions are.' The general pointed vaguely at the left of the map, where the forest was represented by pictures of trees of very English appearance.

Hervey hoped that no one imagined it would be like taking a walk in an English park. He had memories enough of the jungle, and he counted that he had been very lucky in his adventures.

'Very well, General,' replied Colonel Macbean. There was no need of questions in this either, for the colonel saw it much like searching for the needle in the bottle of hay. 'And now the matter of supply.'

The general's voice did not falter, but Hervey thought he detected a note less assured. It beggared belief that within hours of the start of England's first war since Waterloo (as Campbell had grandly announced it to his officers in Calcutta), the regiments had been placed on half rations and sentries set to guard the water butts. In the decade since that battle had every hard-learned lesson been forgotten?

'Gentlemen, as I speak, the Royal Navy is taking in hand the unsatisfactory state of affairs in which we find ourselves. They shall provision the expedition direct from Bengal.'

There was much nodding of heads, and murmurs of 'Hear, hear'. Hervey smiled to himself. The navy would have to keep them alive in the old way. It were better, without doubt, that the extended 'exterior lines' were afloat rather than on land – even on a river whose banks were not free of the enemy – but he couldn't help wondering if it would end in the old way, like Walcheren and Corunna.

There followed detail that would much occupy the staff in the days to come, and then the general stood up again. 'I shall have a word in private with the brigadiers,' he said, laying the bayonet at rest on the table. 'For the remainder, you may dismiss to your duties… except for Captain Hervey, if you please.'

Major Seagrass eyed his deputy curiously. And well he might', thought Hervey, for he himself could not imagine why the general had singled him out. Poor Seagrass: he was not enjoying this expedition one bit, and now he was looking in distinctly poor spirits – an ague coming on, perhaps?

When the room was empty but for those bidden to stay, which also included the general's chief of staff, the quartermaster-general, Hervey stepped forward and stood at attention.

'Take a seat, Hervey,' said General Campbell, evidently finding the room rather too close and opening the collar of his jacket.

Hervey found himself admiring the tartan lining of the lapels, evidently the general's own, for it was well known that he had commanded an English regiment. There was no doubting it: Campbell had the crack. In battle, men followed officers like him. 'Captain Hervey?' 'General?' 'You appeared distracted.' 'My regrets, sir.'

The general frowned, but benignly. 'Gentlemen, Captain Hervey is the only man in the division to have any experience of fighting the Burmans. You may find his counsel of assistance, therefore.' Hervey stood up.

'No, no; sit at ease, Hervey. Give the brigadiers time to reflect. But in any case, you shall place yourself at their disposal as they contemplate their plans.'

'Very good. General.' He turned to the brigadiers. 'At your service, gentlemen.'

Neither McCreagh nor Macbean looked to him as though they would be eager to engage that experience.

'Is there anything you would say here and now?' asked the general.

Hervey wished he had a few minutes to marshal his thoughts. Before Waterloo, by a happy accident of the chase, he had found himself riding beside the Duke of Wellington, who had asked him what he thought Bonaparte's design would be. There had been no alternative but to answer at once and he had done so, to the duke's approbation. But that was with the carefree confidence of youth – and the assurance that the duke was merely sporting with him. 'Sir, my experience of the Burmans is very limited, and I am not sure what general principles may be drawn from it. I should say that they are not fighters as good as the Sirmooris or Rajpoots. They can be deadly enough when at close quarters, but I observed they were reluctant to close with us. I judge, however, that they would be ferocious adversaries in the way of the Spanish guerrilleros. And I know, by accounts I have a regard for, that they are most active in stockading and entrenching.'

'This much reluctance to close we have witnessed already, I should say,' said the general, looking at the brigadiers. They nodded.

Hervey nodded too. 'But I say again, sir, they have a reputation in developing an assault, akin to how we would go about a siege. They are prodigious builders of these stockades, and they dig holes in which their men conceal themselves very cunningly. They can advance upon a position very surely.'

'Is this how we shall find them in the jungle?' asked Colonel Macbean.

'I cannot say for certain, Colonel, but I would suppose that would be their practice. And if you should find them so, then it would indicate they are intent on fighting.' The nodding of heads said the logic was sound.

Hervey felt encouraged to develop his appreciation further. 'But I must add,' he began, and with a distinct note of caution, 'I believe the Burman may be in want above all of generalship. There is, perhaps, no telling how much better would their fighting men be if led well. And they do have one general, at least, of repute-' 'Maha Bundula,' said General Campbell.

Hervey nodded. It was the first time the general had given any intimation of prior knowledge. 'Just so, sir.'

'He is by all accounts in Assam,' said the quartermaster-general.

Hervey was encouraged. Here indeed was evidence that the expedition was not entirely blind to the significance of what the enemy might do. 'Then we must hope he is tempted here,' said Campbell, most emphatically. 'The defeat of their best general would indeed be the likeliest way to bring about a surrender.'

Hervey raised his eyebrows before he could stop himself. Why Campbell supposed he was the superior of Maha Bundula he could not imagine, especially with the evidence of the past two weeks before them. Yet he could still admire the gallant confidence. It might yet get them to Ava. But he greatly feared the cost. 'Is there anything else, Hervey?'

'No, sir. I shall try to recall those details which might be of help, and communicate them directly with the brigadiers.'

'Very well, gentlemen,' concluded the general, picking up the bayonet once more. 'Let's be about it. But make no mistake. We shall be sitting out the best part of the rainy season here, and it will be far from pleasant.' In his quarters, a well-made brick affair which had been the rice store of the myosa – the 'town-eater' – the official whose duty it was to extort the most revenue he could from the citizens of Rangoon, Hervey sat down to a breakfast of biscuit and coffee. At least here, though, he was free of the plague of mosquitoes. And plague they had become. He had bought a good quantity of oil of citronella in Calcutta, which he burned in the lamps on the table and by his bed, and no mosquito seemed inclined to linger. But he knew now he would have to calculate very carefully the rate at which he could use it. 'Far from pleasant,' the general had said. They were, to all intents and purposes, besieged in Rangoon, if not exactly by the Burmans – yet – then certainly by the monsoon. How long would it be before the siege was lifted, or they themselves broke it? The rains would continue until the end of September, and during that time there would be nothing to stop Burman reinforcements coming south by river. Meanwhile, the sick rate in Rangoon – even once the Royal Navy had begun provisioning them – would rise, for the air would soon be corrupted by swamp and stagnant water.

He had written at length to Eyre Somervile the evening before, and now he would have to write a postscript. He calculated that operations could not begin in earnest before October at the earliest, for until they were able to clear the forts the flotilla could not navigate the Irawadi. And so the Burmans would attack first, being in the position of greater strength. The only thing Campbell could do was keep making spoiling attacks to disrupt the preparations. But they would be costly. Hervey was certain nothing would be decided before November. The citronella would be long used up, but by then it would be the least of his cares.

Corporal Wainwright came in. 'I'm sorry I could find nothing better than biscuit, sir,' he said, tucking his shako under his arm. 'I doubt even Johnson could find better,' said Hervey, frowning and motioning to the other chair. 'And he would not scruple to forage in the general's own kitchen!'

'I heard the Eighty-ninth had beef last night, sir.' 'Indeed?' 'A regular ox-roast I heard it was.'

Hervey was sure there had been no rescinding order. 'Corporal Wainwright, I cannot imagine the officers would allow-'

'All the officers were dining together – a regimental day, or something.' Hervey smiled. 'But not on beef.' 'I should imagine not, sir.'

'Mm. Well, if you have half a chance of buying any then take it. I'd be pleased to part with a fair few rupees for a plate of something other than maggoty biscuit.'

'Sir.' Wainwright tried not to smile; they had been under pain of the lash not so much as to lay hands on a beast up until now. 'The word is we're to go after them, by the way, sir – the Burmans.'

'And it is right, which is why you found me already about at reveille. I was copying orders for two hours.' He pushed away the remains of the biscuit porridge. 'The Madras brigade's to beat into the jungle to find where they have gone. The other brigade's to attack upstream and clear the stockades.'

Wainwright looked pleased. 'Do we go with them, sir?'

'We do, I hope. I shall want you to go to the Thirty-eighth and find out when they are to begin. They have orders to take a stockade about two leagues north. I intend going with them, but I'll first have to ask leave of Major Seagrass.' In the event, the interview with the military secretary proved an unusual exchange. By nine o'clock it was raining again, a steady downpour of the type that cruelly tested the builder's art. The myosd had built his rice store well, and Hervey remained dry while others in more exalted positions found themselves dodging leaks and inundations. Major Seagrass was abed complaining of cramps and a sore head when Hervey reported to him. His quarters were almost adjacent to the general's, but water dripped with the regularity of a ticking clock onto the floor near his head, and mosquitoes hovered like wasps about a fallen plum on an English summer's day.

Hervey assumed at once that Seagrass's indisposition would rule out his own hopes of slipping away from the headquarters to join the Thirty-eighth, but he was surprised to find instead that the major did not in the least object – although his manner of reasoning was startling. 'Go on, Hervey,' he moaned, hardly opening his eyes. 'You may as well be killed in the cannon's mouth as sickening and dying in this place!'

Hervey was appalled at the self-pity. Could a man sicken quite so quickly? He looked down at the plump outline of the military secretary concealed beneath the grey blanket, and he sighed. How was it that men were appointed to commands and to the staff who were so manifestly incapable? There was another way of looking at it, of course; and perhaps he ought not to be quite so contemptuous of Seagrass's words, for the major knew as well as he that sickening was not a soldier's business. Perhaps he was only lamenting his disability. In any case, Hervey himself had no intention of either sickening or succumbing to the cannon's roar. He took his leave, summoned Major Seagrass's servant to his quarters and sent him back with a phial of citronella. Hervey cursed himself and everything as he hastened to buckle on his sword and bind his pistols with oilskin. It was barely an hour since reveille, but the Thirty-eighth had been quicker off the mark than he fancied even his own troop would have been. Liffey's boats were already on the water and pulling through the deluge as if it were nothing but a spring shower. He ought to have known it, he muttered, fastening closed his lapels: men who had been cooped up for so long would be off at their quarry like hounds on to a hare. The door flew open. 'Sir, the Thirty-eighth-' 'Yes, Corporal Wainwright. I've just seen for myself. Are you ready?' 'Ay, sir.' They ran all the way to the river, slipping and sliding in the mud, drenched within a couple of minutes. Corporal Wainwright began hailing the boats. There was no one else about in that rain, so their object must have been plain enough, and it was not long before a cutter began pulling towards them.

The boats were packed with the Thirty-eighth's biggest men, the grenadier company, and there was scarcely space for one more, let alone two. But the grenadiers looked happy enough that an officer in another uniform – from the staff indeed – thought their enterprise worthy.

The grenadier captain was welcoming. 'It would not do for a dragoon to be overtaken by foot,' he said, smiling and holding out his hand. 'I am Richard Birch, sir.'

'Matthew Hervey, sir. And very pleased to join your ranks, though I fear my coat a little conspicuous in so much red.'

'I should worry not, Captain Hervey, for I have no doubt we shall all look the same within minutes of scrambling ashore.'

Seeing the colour of the grenadiers' belts, Hervey could only smile ruefully; the white pipeclay had run off onto their jackets and trousers, and even the red dye was not holding fast. 'I freely confess that your alacrity took me by surprise, though. It was but a few hours ago that the general gave the brigadier his orders.'

Captain Birch smiled. 'The colonel has had a company under arms since we landed. It was my good fortune that it was the grenadiers' turn for duty today.'

Hervey nodded. Even so, he thought, it was smart work.

'The rest of the battalion will follow. Our intention is to test the strength of the stockade and to try to take it by surprise.' Captain Birch had to raise his voice against the beating rain and the sailors' oar work, and his resolve seemed all the stronger thereby.

Hervey had no doubt that Birch's company would carry all but the most determined resistance before them – if they could make headway enough to reach their objective: so strong was the current that the sailors were red in the face despite the cooling drench. If ever they had need of the steamship to give them a tow it was now, but Commodore Peto had said he would not risk Diana until he was sure the banks were clear of cannon, and the river of fire boats.

Captain Birch's little flotilla was not without resource, however. The naval officer in command, one of Liffey's lieutenants, had as good an eye for water as Hervey prided himself he had for ground. As they reached the point of the big bend that hid Rangoon from further observation upstream (and, as Hervey observed, vice versa), and where the oars could shift no more water in that swollen flow, he signalled for the boats to turn full about and for hands to pull hard for the slack water by the left bank.

It was done in less than a minute, and very neatly thought Hervey – quicker, for sure, than trying to row broadside across the stream, as he would have attempted. The crews now put the boats about again and struck off with a will, for there was an obvious danger in going for the slacker water – too close to the bank, easy prey to musketry no matter how ill-aimed.

It was a tense quarter of an hour before the lieutenant was able to lead the boats to the middle of the river again, but there was no sign of life on either bank except for a solitary zebu that watched them pass, mournful-looking.

'Can we make room in the boat for him on the way back, Corporal?' came a voice from the bows.

Captain Birch replied. 'It will be yours if we take the stockade!'

There were cheers. Hervey smiled to himself. A beef dinner – not a promise that would excite men ordinarily to great feats of arms. But such was the miserable fare to which the expedition had been reduced that a pile of gold was worth nothing compared with boiled meat. He turned his cloak collar up once more against the rain.

'Pull hard now, lads; pull hard!' Though the lieutenant's voice carried easily to the other three boats, there was just something in his tone that coaxed the extra from his sailors rather than commanded it. It promised them something if they did pull hard rather than threaten if they did not. In truth, they needed little encouragement. Months confined, cruising the Bay of Bengal, and now the prospect of action. It would take more than the monsoon and the Rangoon river in spate to damp their ardour.

After half an hour's pulling hard, the boats swung closer to the right bank to clear a thick knot of mangrove that reached into the river like a giant's arm. And then their first sight of the enemy, or rather his work – a hundred yards distant on the opposite bank.

'Still a mile to go by my reckoning, at least,' said Captain Birch. 'An outpost do you think?'

Hervey had no more prior intelligence than Birch. 'I think it best to work on that assumption. It's not a thing to have at your backs as you go for Kemmendine – or, for that matter, in front of you as you come back.'

'My view precisely.' Birch cupped his hands to be heard above the fall of water. 'Mr Wilkinson!'

The lieutenant brought his boat within easier hailing distance, and without once losing the stroke.

'I want to put half the company ashore to assault yonder fort,' called Birch, gesturing with his pistol. 'The rest I would have Mr Ash work upstream to assault the Kemmendine stockade. We can go at it from two sides at once. But maintain a contact.'

Both officers signalled their understanding, and put their boats for the bank. ??? Out scrambled the grenadiers like ants swarming from a nest, with Hervey and Wainwright almost knocked over in the rush. There were no orders, no forming-up, just a headlong rush with the bayonet.

Shots rang out from the fort. At a hundred yards the musketry was well wide, though one ball sent a man's shako flying.

It continued as grenadiers splashed through the sodden padi, and still no nearer the mark. Hervey could hear the whizz of balls high above, or see the odd one spatter in front. He was surprised the Burmans stood their ground at all, for they could neither volley nor snipe.

Now they were under the bamboo walls, breathless. 'Up, up, get up!' shouted the corporals as grenadiers clambered onto each other's shoulders: the Burmans were only ten feet above them, and the redcoats wanted but a fingerhold to claim first blood.

But the Burmans wouldn't wait for them to gain the top. They leapt from the parapet and ran for the gate for all they were worth. The stockade was no longer a fort but a pen.

Over the parapet came the Thirty-eighth, wild-eyed and baying like, hounds on to their fox.

The gate wouldn't open, and then not wide enough. And then the press of Burmans was so great that it jammed closed again, trapping three dozen of them, perhaps four.

Hervey picked himself up after half tumbling from the wall.

The grenadiers' yelling was truly terrible. The Burmans turned to receive them on their spears, but they had never faced English bayonets before.

The ferocity astonished even Hervey. Two dozen of them fell to the point of steel in a handful of seconds, a single man sometimes to three and more bayonets. The rest would have fallen the same had not the gates been suddenly wrenched from their hinges, terror-stricken Burmans throwing down spear and musket and fleeing through the ooze in bare feet twice as fast as boots could follow. They were lucky that the rain kept lead from following, too. Hervey looked at the heap of dead, a sight he was spared as a rule since the horse took him and his dragoons on from their slaughter. The Burman soldier looked the same in death as any other: untidy, unsuccessful. He felt nothing for them. Had they stayed at their posts and fought they might at least have repulsed the first headlong attack. Was that not what they were paid to do? Perhaps Calcutta was right: perhaps there was no fight in the Burman army.

'Good work this, eh, Hervey?' called Captain Birch from outside the gates. He bent to wipe his sword on a Burman coat.

'Very good work indeed. But I wonder they were not more determined. You might have lost a fair few men had they stood their ground.' 'Perhaps,' said Birch, returning his sword. 'But in this rain they would not have been able to reload, and we'd have pushed them from that wall in no time. See the size of these men compared with mine.'

Hervey did. The grenadiers were picked men. It had been many years since the biggest soldiers in a battalion had been mustered together to throw the grenade, but the custom of putting the biggest men in the same company remained – quite evidently so in the Thirty-eighth. He nodded. 'But I doubt we shall be so fortunate every time. I can but admire the ardour of your men, though,' he added quickly, not wanting to belittle it in the slightest.

Captain Birch turned to his ensign. 'Have them form up in column of route, if you please.' And then to Hervey. 'Shall you come with us?' 'Indeed I shall.'

'Good. We all know of your exploits in Chittagong.'

Hervey was gratified, if surprised. He made no reply. He did not speak for the best part of one full hour. They marched the while, first through mud so gummy that it pulled boots from feet at every step, and then through forest that from the outside looked deceptively like an English wood.

'No, no; it's too much,' said Captain Birch, coming to a standstill in the middle of a particularly dense tangle of byaik. 'I've never seen thicker,' agreed Hervey.

'We'd better make for the river and re-embark. We've lost enough time – and surprise, too.'

Hervey could but agree again. 'The shots may not have carried that far in this rain, but the runaways will have. They're bound to know a way through this.' Captain Birch cursed.

Hervey sympathized. An approach march through difficult country for an attack from an unexpected direction was an admirable undertaking, much to be preferred to a frontal assault from the direction they were expected. But, as he had heard say often enough, the business of war was merely the art of the possible, and passage of this verdure was not possible in the time they had.

'At least this rain's to our advantage,' said Birch, signalling the change of march with his hand to those behind.

Hervey smiled. Here was an infantryman who knew his job: a man who preferred a soaking to the skin in order that it might soak the powder of his enemy too. 'Pull hard again, my lads; pull hard!' called Liffey's lieutenant as they struck off.

'I'm grateful to you, sir,' said Captain Birch, who had decided to place himself in his barge as they re-embarked. The rain had not eased in the slightest; he turned up the collar of his cloak again. 'You kept a good contact. Did you see aught of the fugitives bolting the stockade?'

'We did indeed, sir! Your lieutenant was all for putting ashore to give chase, but they sped so there was little chance of taking any. I fancy they're hiding in that wilderness and won't come out for a week.'

'And I fancy they're already half-way to Kemmendine to raise the alarm. What say you, Hervey?'

Hervey was trying to secure the bib of his jacket, having pulled off a couple of buttons while scrambling into the cutter. 'We must pray they're not like the Thirty-eighth, Birch, but proceed as if they are.'

'Well said. And very wise. I think we'd better take their measure this next time before hurling ourselves at the walls. Anyway, we're number enough to give them a fright.'

Hervey was relieved. It saved him the trouble of telling a man his job. A bayonet rush may have overawed the stockade, but Kemmendine would be different. A show of discipline and steady bearing, and all in red, might do better. It would at least preserve a good many of them, for he could not quite believe that Kemmendine had as little fight in it as the place they'd just sent packing. 'And we shall shock them!'

'Ay, indeed, Hervey. Naught shall make us rue!'

'I recall when last I said that, just as we were about to attack a Burman camp. We thought ourselves very bold.' 'You were.'

'It was a comfortable affair compared with this.'

'You would count yourself happier in the saddle, I suppose?' Hervey smiled. 'Does it seem ill that I would?'

'Not at all. The cobbler is better at his last. I wonder you've exchanged a dry billet at all for this.'

Hervey clapped a hand on Birch's shoulder. 'Oh, don't mistake me; I would not miss this for all the tea in China, even if I mayn't be dry-shod.' Birch offered him his brandy flask.

'What is your intention then?' asked Hervey, taking a most restorative swig.

'It is not easy to say without seeing the object, but I shall land out of musketry range and then advance with skirmishers. I think the navy might feint beyond. You never know: we might yet bolt them as we did before.'

'It will be a famous business if you do,' said Hervey, taking another draw on the flask. 'That and to put a torch to the place.'

The reason they were making now for Kemmendine was Peto's fear of fire boats, for it was no hindrance to progress if the general struck for the Irawadi. That said, if Campbell could not proceed for a month or so – and in this weather Hervey thought it nigh impossible – then it would not do to have the village become a fortress from which Maha Bundula's men might sortie. The general himself believed that the same weather would also hold up the Burmans, but Hervey had reasoned that they would be moving on interior lines and might therefore do so much swifter. And he knew enough of Maha Bundula's reputation to know that he would march where others could not. Captain Birch's work today might well be an affair on which the expedition turned. He had better let him know it. How those sailors pulled on the oars! Hervey marvelled at their skill and strength – like the free hands that propelled the triremes of ancient Greece faster than could the galley-slaves of their enemies. The rain had stopped, quite suddenly, revealing how warm was the morning – and how soon could the mosquitoes set about them again, so that in a little while both red- and bluejacket alike would have welcomed back the rain in whatever measure. And, of course, the rain dispersed the miasma, the mist that brought the fevers. Hervey, having lowered his collar and unfastened his cloak, quickly reversed the decision with the first bites at his neck. He was lucky to have his hands free for it, unlike the oarsmen.

'There's the place,' exclaimed Captain Birch suddenly, double-checking his map. 'It's good and flat, and Kemmendine just around the bend ahead. We land there.'

Hervey searched with his telescope. It was an excellent place to disembark. Boats could beach and the grenadiers jump to dry land, if that description was at all apt. ' 'Ware pickets, though, Birch. It's altogether too likely a place.'

'It may be so, Hervey, but we're beggars in choice.' He hailed his ensign in the boat alongside. 'Secure a footing, Kerr!'

Ensign Kerr, looking half the years of any man in his boat, saluted and put the cutter at once for the shoal.

'Pull!' bellowed the mate: he would have it run well up the bank.

Out scrambled the grenadiers as the boat stuck fast, a full ten feet of keel out of the water. At once a fusillade opened on them.

Musket balls struck the clinker side. A grenadier crumpled clutching his stomach. One dropped to his knees, his hip shot away. Another fell backwards into the water with a ball in his throat. 'Lie down!' shouted Ensign Kerr.

They did so willingly, even in so much mud, while Kerr himself stood brazenly looking for the source of the musketry.

Another volley. White smoke billowed from a thicket not a hundred yards away.

Bad soldiers, tutted Kerr. No target for the volley and all to lose by giving away the position. The bayonet should dislodge them easy enough!

But no – his eyes deceived him. It was no haphazard cover in which the musketeers hid, but bamboo walls as before, only this time most artfully, cunningly, concealed. He looked up and down the bank. There was no other place to land to advantage. 'Stand up, men!'

As soon as fire was opened, Captain Birch had signalled for the other boats to row for the bank, covered from view by abundant mangrove. 'We'll just have to hack through,' he called to Hervey, gesturing at the tangle that overhung the river.

Both were now standing in the stern trying to get a clearer picture of Kerr's skirmish.

'Not two dozen muskets by the sound of it,' said Hervey. 'Your man might yet do it on his own.'

That indeed was Ensign Kerr's intention. 'Fix bayonets! On guard!'

He would waste no time trying to load – certainly not to have so many of them misfire with damp powder. And the clattering of bayonets locking home was a fine sound! 'Advance!'

Captain Birch gasped at the audacity. 'Make after them!' he bellowed. 'Pull hard!'

They fairly raced through the slack water of the bank, but there wasn't the same room to get the boats run up the shoal.

'Out! Out!' roared Birch, leaping from the stern into water knee-deep, followed by Hervey and Corporal Wainwright.

The silting was so bad it took the greatest effort to make the five yards to the bank. 'All right, sir?' asked Wainwright as they crawled out. 'Ay, just,' said Hervey, sliding back a second time before getting to grips with a firm-rooted clump of rushes to pull himself free of the silt. 'I'd forgotten how much easier it is on four legs.'

Captain Birch was only a stride ahead of them, and Ensign Kerr's picket was half-way to the stockade. 'Come on you grenadiers, form line!' he bellowed.

But his voice could barely be heard above those of the NCOs, all of whom had the same idea.

'Right marker!' a corporal was screaming, his hand raised.

A line started to take shape, in double rank -if not as on parade, then no very great distance from it.

Birch doubled to the front and centre. He would have regularity. 'Company will fix bayonets. Fix… bayonets!' Hervey, coming up beside him, drew his sabre.

Behind him came the rattle of a full five dozen blades being rammed home. 'Company, on guard!'

Up came the muskets, bayonets thrust out to impale the luckless souls who stood in their way.

'Company will advance, by the centre, quick march!'

The stockade had fallen silent. The going was heavy but Ensign Kerr's dozen grenadiers had kept admirable dressing. They had but twenty yards to go. Kerr raised his sword. 'Double march!' A ragged volley greeted them. A ball struck the hilt of Kerr's sword, knocking it from his hand. Another struck him in the groin so that he staggered left and right, then fell to his knees, his mouth open. The line wavered.

The serjeant, his face a picture of horror, shouted for them to keep going as he rushed to the ensign.

'No, no. That's not the way,' groaned Captain Birch, seeing plainly the loss of momentum. He pointed his sword at the fort. 'Company, double march!'

It was not what he'd wanted to do – not to blow them all by doubling through this mud. They'd need every bit of breath to scale the walls. But he couldn't have the picket faltering.

Hervey saw it too. These Burmans were a deal more resolute than the others. If they could volley as fast as British infantry they had less than half a minute to get to the lee of the stockade.

It was as well the defenders were more resolute than capable, for the mud clung to the grenadiers' feet as if demons were trying to pull them into hell. Never did Hervey think himself so powerless.

He could scarcely get his breath as they made the walls. The others looked no better, and some much worse. Furious musketry from above felled two corporals and enveloped the walls in smoke. A ball struck a grenadier full in the mouth. He ran back towards the river squealing like a stuck pig until another ball sent him sprawling in the mud, choking his way to a merciful death.

Hervey crouched watching as two grenadiers holding a musket between them put their shoulders to the wall.

A third, a big Irishman, jumped onto it. 'By Jasus I'll not spare one of them!' he cursed as they heaved him up full stretch.

Hervey could only marvel at their strength – and then at the Irishman's raw fight as he withstood the rain of blows to his head and hands. He got a footing on the parapet and at once the defenders shrank back, but another rushed him with a spear, and the point sank deep in his chest. The Irishman seized the man's head with both hands and they fell to the ground as one.

Hervey drew his pistol to despatch the executioner, but the grenadiers beat him to it.

There was no shortage of volunteers for the escalade. The lieutenant himself, not long out of his teens, was now hauling himself up, his sword in his mouth like a pirate boarding a prize.

Where were the ladders, wondered Hervey? Why were they going against stockades without so much as a grapple and line?

'Will you be going, sir?' called another of the grenadiers, as if they were asking if he intended taking a walk.

'Me first, sir,' said Corporal Wainwright, his foot on the musket in an instant.

Up it went before Hervey could protest. Wainwright, a jockey-weight compared with the grenadiers, was almost flung over the parapet.

He rolled forward in a neat somersault and sprang to his feet facing the way he had come, sabre already in hand. A clumsy lunge from a spearman was met by a parry and then a terrible slice which parted the spear, and the hand gripping it, from its wielder. Another two spearman backed away at once. 'Clear, sir!' he called.

Hervey clambered up the same way seconds later, by which time Wainwright had accounted for the reluctant supports. He looked at his covering-corporal's handiwork, and nodded: he could not have done it neater himself – perhaps not even as neat.

Left and right, all along the parapet, there were grenadiers duelling with Burmans. Theirs was not so neat work – the jabbing bayonet, the boot, the butt end. There were few shots, a pistol here or there. It was the brute strength of beef-fed redcoats and good steel that were carrying the day, although the grenadiers had had precious little beef this month.

The parapet was now treacherous, running as much with blood as rain. Hervey nearly lost his footing as he made for a down-ladder.

Wainwright was first to the ground, sabre up challenging any who would contest his entry. But there were none that would. Those who could get away from the parapet were making for the back of the stockade, some of them crawling with fearful wounds and a trail of blood. The grenadiers pouring over the wall were looking for retribution, and these men now obliged them. With each point driven into Burman flesh they avenged their comrades – a very personal slaughter, this. Hervey was only glad of the anger that could whip men up to escalade high walls with no other wherewithal than the determination to do so. Ferocious, savage; not a pretty sight, but the proper way, no question. And then get the men back in hand so that blind rage did not lead them to their own destruction. Where was Captain Birch?

Hervey soon learned. The serjeant-major was a colossus even among the giants of the grenadier company, and Captain Birch lay across his shoulder like a rag doll. 'Have you seen Mr Napier, sir?' he asked, coolly, seeing the fight was all but over.

'No, Sar'nt-major, I haven't,' replied Hervey, dismayed at the lifeless form of the company commander. 'Is the captain dead?'

'Sir. He took a ball in the throat just as he was broaching the wall.'

'Very well, Sar'nt-major. Will you have his orderly attend him, and come with me if you please. We must put the stockade in a state of defence at once.' Hervey did not imagine a counter-attack was likely, but that did not remove his obligation to take measures to repel one.

'Ay, sir. But let me just lay the captain aside decently first.'

Hervey hurried to the back of the stockade. 'Close the gates!' he shouted to two grenadiers. They seemed uncomprehending.

He cursed, saw a corporal, gave him the same instruction, and at once the gates were pushed shut.

Up came the serjeant-major again. 'Set them shakos straight!' he bellowed at two men on the parapet.

Hervey could hear Armstrong in that command. It was remarkable how quickly a wound began healing in a regiment: that need to carry on, the notion of next-for-duty, and all. Where was the lieutenant?

Lieutenant Napier had given chase. He now returned with a look of thunder. He saw Hervey and shook his head. 'They've bolted, damn them. They beat us to the jungle by a minute, no more, but it's so thick-' 'I'm afraid Captain Birch is killed,' said Hervey.

Napier's thunder was stilled. He had already seen the ensign's death with his own eyes. He looked about the stockade and saw redcoats lying wounded; he knew there were more outside. 'How many, Sar'nt-major?' 'We can muster fifty sir, thereabout.'

That was a lot for the surgeon, or for the chaplain to say words over; a heavy butcher's bill indeed. The lieutenant set his teeth. 'See if we can torch this place, Sar'nt-major. Then we get our wounded back to the boats, and the dead too, and then press on for Kemmendine.' He checked himself, turning to Hervey. 'If you approve, sir.' 'Carry on, Mr Napier,' said Hervey grimly. The lieutenant nodded.

The serjeant-major saluted. 'Serjeant Craggs, bearers! Serjeant Walker, find everything you can that will light – Burmans included!'

Hervey took the lieutenant to one side. 'Do you judge that you will be in a position to take Kemmendine?' he asked, the doubt more than apparent in his voice.

The lieutenant looked as if the question had never crossed his mind. 'Those are our orders, sir.'

'But I asked you if you considered that you had the strength to execute them.'

Still the lieutenant was incomprehending. 'The Thirty-eighth do not balk at trials, sir, however great.'

Hervey was becoming irritated. 'I do not doubt it. But to expend more life in a hopeless venture is base. More than that, however, it would be hazardous for the expedition as a whole. If you fail to take Kemmendine then the enemy will be emboldened. The essential thing while we stand on the defensive at Rangoon is not to have a setback in combat with them.'

'That is as may be, sir, but the Thirty-eighth were given orders to-'

'And I am now giving you an order to remain here until the rest of your battalion arrives!'

The lieutenant visibly braced himself. 'Very well, sir, but I must ask for the order in writing.'

'You may have it in any form you wish, Mr Napier. But I counsel you not to protest too much in front of your troops. They have fought bravely and it is no dishonour to them that they retire now.'

Corporal Wainwright listened intently to the exchange. He had seen his captain, sword in hand, display enough courage for a dozen men; yet countermanding a general's orders must require a different courage from the everyday kind. He wondered at it, took careful note, and hoped fervently that his captain was right as well as brave.