A Call To Arms (44 page)

As ever, theory was not wholly justified by practice. At stand-to in the morning, Armstrong was beside himself with anger as he reported to the troop lieutenant.

Hervey, standing close by, could scarcely believe what he heard. ‘
Absent
, Sar’nt-Major?’

‘Ay, sir, absent – gone.’

Hervey felt a wrench at his gut. ‘When? How?’

‘He’s been gone since before midnight, that’s all I can tell. Mossop couldn’t find him for the sentry change then, but he supposed he was bedded down somewhere else. It was as black as pitch last night.’

‘
Damned fool
Mossop!’

Armstrong did not at heart disagree. ‘There’s not much we could have done about it, even so.’

‘There’s no fear he’s lost himself in the thick of all this?’

‘I couldn’t say for certain, sir, but the orders were that no one was to leave the lines, even to ease himself. If it were anybody but Dodds I might be inclined to give it a thought.’

There was no rebuke in Armstrong’s voice, but Hervey presumed there was one in his mind. ‘The bad character is out at last, Sar’nt-Major?’

‘I fear so, sir.’

Hervey fell silent for a moment. ‘I shall see him hanged.’ He almost spat the words.

He pronounced sentence so very determinedly, indeed, that Seton Canning shivered.

Armstrong stood, silent, awaiting orders.

‘Very well, Mr Seton Canning, Sar’nt-Major: stand down. Rounds in five minutes if you please.’

*

A morning round should not have been necessary after the inspection the night before, but Hervey wanted to look each man in the eye. In truth, he doubted them less than he doubted his own judgement, and that indeed was the reason for the rounds – to restore his own pride, and his authority perhaps, for it was well known that it had been he who had championed the reform of a known bad character, against all the usages of the service and the instincts of his NCOs. He need not have troubled, though. There was not a man who appeared in the slightest degree dismayed by Dodds’s desertion. Dodds’s flight earned the contempt of the bold, and showed to the most timid that they possessed more courage than did another, whereas before they might have thought that none could be possessed of less – a discovery to fortify their own resolve, indeed.

Hervey was much brightened by the round. He wished he could get the whole troop back into the saddle now, to parade in threes and have them in a brisk trot to put the swing into them again, rather than another morning’s plodding as yesterday. But that would have to wait. If his calculations were right it would be a day before they broke cover.
Then
they could go at it with a swing all right! He felt his hand twitch to be at the sabre. But for now, he could not even give an animating word of command to advance, let alone sound the trumpet. Only a hand signal, a wave to have the troop set off in single file. And it could not be a wave that set them off as one, as on parade; rather it had to be the French way, each man in turn, so displeasing to an English eye. If Hervey disliked the jungle as much as did his men, it was for different reasons.

In an hour, to his immense relief, the ground began to rise as he had calculated, and with that change in inclination he felt a general rise in spirits. The pace was slower, the sweating – men and horses – even more prodigious, but with each step came the satisfaction of nearing the quarry. If any dragoon were anxious of what was to come, his fear was dulled by the anticipation of at last being able to swing his sabre to a purpose, and to discharge his carbine at more than a roundel. That, and the standing he knew it would bring when they returned to Calcutta.

A fearful cry broke the toiling silence. Hervey swung round. ‘Who in God’s name is that?’ he cursed, reaching for his sword as if he would inflict his own punishment. The column faltered for an instant then struggled on, with anxious glances over shoulders.

A short while later, garbled word reached Hervey that Private French had been attacked by something and could not move. He halted the column and pushed his way back roughly, past two dozen dragoons and more, until he came to the unfortunate French lying motionless, his face swollen beyond recognition, his arms across his chest and his fingers puffed up like cucumbers. ‘What in God’s name—?’

‘Snake, sir. It must have been,’ suggested Corporal Mossop, the NCO nearest.

‘Beggin’ yer pardon, sir,’ piped Private Rudd, the rank behind. ‘It were bees.’

‘
Bees?
’ Hervey knelt to feel for French’s pulse – he could see the rise and fall of his chest well enough.

‘Ay sir. I’m sure of it. They just seemed to be rushing at him.’

‘That’s not bees,’ said Mossop, certain of the symptoms plain to see. ‘Bees don’t do that.’

Hervey shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t be too sure. English bees perhaps not. But here …’

French remained silent and immobile.

Hervey searched for the obvious clues. ‘Well, there’s no sign of any bite. And I can’t see how a snake could have bit through those overalls.’

Armstrong and the surgeon arrived.

‘Ah, Ledley: bees or a snakebite? I can find no sign.’

The surgeon made a tutting sound as he saw his patient. ‘How’s his pulse?’

‘It seemed weak, but I couldn’t tell for sure.’

The surgeon took up French’s wrist, not troubling with a watch. ‘I’m not surprised. His hand’s so swollen it’s hard to find the pulse at all. Who saw the snake?’

‘I didn’t actually
see
it, sir,’ replied Mossop, his confidence only slightly diminished.

‘Then don’t speculate,’ said Ledley brusquely. ‘Worse than useless.’

Corporal Mossop looked crestfallen.

‘Who saw the bees then?’

‘I did, sir.’

Ledley turned to see his patient of a few days ago. ‘Those stitches can come out tomorrow, by the look of them. You saw these bees?’

‘I didn’t exactly
see
the bees, sir, just French flaying his hands about his head as if he were being
attacked
by ’em.’

‘Mm,’ said Ledley thoughtfully. ‘Not definitive, but good enough in the circumstances.’

‘Bee stings, then?’ asked Hervey, anxious for confirmation so that they could decide their course.

‘Near enough.’ By now the surgeon had had a close look at French’s face – plumped and red like a gourd on a scarecrow. ‘Not bees, though,’ said Ledley, shaking his head. ‘Hornets, jungle hornets. Brutish little devils by all accounts and the evidence before us.’

Even Armstrong looked appalled at the transformation of the dragoon’s features by so small an agent and in so rapid a manner. Only the thick black curls gave away its owner. ‘Will he live, sir?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the surgeon briskly. ‘If he lives the next quarter of an hour then he ought to be safe.’ He reached into his saddlebag. ‘Water, if you please.’

Private Rudd unslung his canteen and handed it to the surgeon. Ledley poured a cupful into an enamelled bowl and added five drops of clear liquid from a glass phial. He lifted French’s head with one hand and put the bowl to his lips. ‘Drink this, my lad. All of it.’

French, who had hitherto shown no sign of sentience, began at once to sip.

‘What is it?’ asked Hervey.

‘Digitalis. To stimulate the heart. That’s his greatest need at present.’

Hervey took Armstrong to one side. ‘I’ll leave one man with him – Rudd – and a surgeon’s orderly, but even them we can scarcely spare.’

Armstrong nodded. ‘But Rudd’s too good a man when we’re short already. The orderly ought to be able to mind him on his own. Why not make the woman stay an’ all?’

If Dodds had not stolen away in the night like some— Hervey
bit his lip and nodded. ‘You’re right. Just the orderly and the woman. And Boy Porrit. You’d better see to it, then. I’ll get the troop moving.’

At the next halt, French’s misfortune was retailed through the ranks from the back of the column to the front, and by the time it reached the point-men hornets were no longer the culprit but giant batlike creatures which tore at the flesh and sucked blood more voraciously than a dozen bull leeches. Hervey had to walk the length of the column again to allay the consternation. With some difficulty he managed also to inform the Skinner’s sowars of the affair, but they knew full well what had been the cause, and revealed that they had left powdered cow dung with the orderly, to be made into a paste and applied to the swollen parts. Hervey, whose respect for native medicine had been settled during his previous sojourn in India, hoped the orderly would not scruple to use it.

At three o’clock, at the scouts’ bidding, they halted. Hervey went forward to see what had prompted them.

‘The cover’s changing, sir,’ said Serjeant Collins. ‘It’s getting thicker. It must mean we’re coming to the edge.’

Hervey smiled thankfully to himself. There were but half a dozen men in the troop who would have drawn such an inference. He checked his map and his calculations. It was certainly possible.

‘And it’s been flat going for a full two hours,’ he said, pleased to be able to corroborate Collins’s observation.

‘I think I’d like to scout forward a little more, sir. Can the troop hold a while?’

‘I think I’ll gamble on a bivouac, Sar’nt Collins,’ said Hervey, sensing they might make contact with the Burmans sooner rather than later. But how he wished the Chakma were with him, for it was now that their intimate knowledge would be of most use. To stumble on outposts, or make camp too close, would be the devil of a thing after all they had been through. He turned to his trumpeter. ‘Storrs, my compliments to Mr Seton Canning, and we’ll bivouac where they stand now. I shall go forward with Serjeant Collins to spy things out. Have the point-men sent up to join Corporal Ashbolt here as picket, and have the daffadar reassemble the guns.’

‘Very good, sir,’ said Storrs, closing his notebook.

Hervey laid down his carbine and pistol. ‘And yours too,’ he said to Collins and Stent. ‘If we come upon an outpost we shall have to carry it with steel. One shot and it might be the death of us all.’

Later

‘It’s a fine-balanced thing, Sar’nt-Major, but I think it best to attack at first light. The camp had the look of receiving troops at any minute, but they’re not likely to be marching in during the night, so there’s nothing to lose in that respect.’ Hervey sipped gratefully at the hot sweet tea which Johnson had waiting for him. He took out his watch again: they had been gone for the best part of two hours, and there were but two more until darkness.

Armstrong relit his pipe, sat back on the fallen tree which served as the troop orderly room, and put his heel on a tiny scorpion emerging from under a dead leaf. ‘About half a mile, you say, sir? We could just about do it before dark. At least we’d have the night to burn the boats.’

Hervey was conscious of going against every cavalry precept. ‘We couldn’t be sure they’d not march in once we began the fight, though. No matter how afeard they were of moving about the jungle by night, if they heard the sound of a fight they’d surely make for it? You would!’

‘Ay, and it’s as well never to suppose the enemy’s any less canny.’

‘Just so. In daylight we surely have a better chance of holding them off, if only to make good our escape.’

‘Ay, you’re right, sir. How many do you reckon there are there now?’

‘Three hundred, perhaps four. Most of those are bargees, but there are lines laid out for a thousand more, and I reckon the boats will carry twice that number.’

Armstrong did not so much look dismayed at the numbers as incredulous. ‘And they would assemble that many men in the forest and paddle ’em all that way to Chittagong? What a business when they could be on the place from the sea with not a fraction of the trouble.’

Hervey had rehearsed the same doubts with Somervile. ‘They couldn’t do it unnoticed, though, and if there were one frigate in sight then they’d be blown from out of the water. No, Sar’nt-Major, I think this is a deuced clever plan, and I think we have come on it not a day too soon.’

Armstrong took his pipe from his mouth and looked at the bowl in despair. He hoped the troop’s powder was drier than his tobacco. ‘Just so I’m sure, which side of the river do we come out of the forest on?’