Hervey 07 - An Act Of Courage

BOOK: Hervey 07 - An Act Of Courage
13.92Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

AN ACT OF COURAGE

ALLAN MALLINSON

Contents

Cover

Title

Copyright

Dedication

Also by Allan Mallinsonr

Map

Foreword

Chapter One: Honoured In The Breach

Chapter Two: Prisoner Of War

Chapter Three: Planting The Standard

Chapter Four: Reputations

Chapter Five: Ghostly Counsel

Chapter Six: First Flush

Chapter Seven: Spearpoint

Chapter Eight: The Chance To Display

Chapter Nine: Field Promotion

Chapter Ten: The King’s Commission

Chapter Eleven: Charge, And Counter-Charge

Chapter Twelve: The Smoke and The Fire

Chapter Thirteen: Times Past

Chapter Fourteen: The Night Horse

Chapter Fifteen: The Work of Cavalry

Chapter Sixteen: A Battle For a Peerage

Chapter Seventeen: A BACKWARDS STEP

Chapter Eighteen: An Officer’s Word

Chapter Nineteen: Long Shadows

Chapter Twenty: First Fruits

Chapter Twenty-One: Resolution

Chapter Twenty-Two: Veiled Speech

Chapter Twenty-Three: Brave Horatius

Chapter Twenty-Four: Battle Honours

Chapter Twenty-Five: Unhappy Returns

Chapter Twenty-Six: A Grand Old Duke

Chapter Twenty-Seven: A Family Regiment

Chapter Twenty-Eight: A New Order

Historical Afternote

This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Version 1.0

Epub ISBN 9781407068480

www.randomhouse.co.uk

TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA
a division of The Random House Group Ltd

RANDOM HOUSE AUSTRALIA (PTY) LTD 20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point, Sydney, New South Wales 2061, Australia

RANDOM HOUSE NEW ZEALAND LTD 18 Poland Road, Glenfield, Auckland 10, New Zealand

RANDOM HOUSE SOUTH AFRICA (PTY) LTD Endulini, 5a Jubilee Road, Parktown 2193, South Africa

Published 2005 by Bantam Press a division of Transworld Publishers

Copyright © Allan Mallinson 2005

The right of Allan Mallinson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 0593 053400

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Typeset in 11/14½pt Times by Falcon Oast Graphic Art Ltd

Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Papers used by Transworld Publishers are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

To
Duggie
Lieutenant-Colonel C. R. D. Gray
Skinner’s Horse
1909–2004
The Ultimate Cavalryman

Also by Allan Mallinson

A CLOSE RUN THING
THE NIZAM’S DAUGHTERS
*
A REGIMENTAL AFFAIR
A CALL TO ARMS
THE SABRE’S EDGE
RUMOURS OF WAR

*
Published outside the UK under the title HONORABLE COMPANY

FOREWORD

The cuts in the British infantry announced last year will change the face of soldiering for ever. Regiments whose names the Duke of Wellington would have seen each day in the ‘morning states’ during the long years of the Peninsular War and Waterloo will disappear – the Royal Scots, Green Howards, Cheshires, Royal Welch Fusiliers, Black Watch, to name but a few. No longer will a man – commissioned or enlisted – join a tight-knit band of six hundred brothers, his county regiment, and stay with them throughout his service as they move as a body from post to post. Instead an infantryman will go from one battalion to another within a large ‘regional’ unit – what is known as ‘trickle posting’. It is, of course, a judgement as to what effect these cuts will have – how continuing commitments and new contingencies will be met by fewer battalions – and what effect the enormous change in regimental organization will have on recruiting, retention and cohesion, the three areas in which the county regiments have been so strong. However, from the long perspective of military history – which is the perspective of my tales – it appears there is but one unvarying lesson of war: there is never enough infantry. Vide Iraq.

This, I believe, is the first
lesson
of war because the man himself is the first
weapon
of war – all too easily forgotten in an age of beguiling and expensive technology. The man and the regiment are inextricably linked: trust and cohesion in battle come from soldiers living and training together, long term, and acquiring a sense that they are part of something bigger than just the collection of individuals who answer the roll call on a particular day. It was never planned thus. Ironically, the regimental system, which the historian Sir John Keegan has called ‘an accidental act of genius’, grew out of the eighteenth century’s penny-pinching arrangements for raising more troops.

In the period of which I write, the danger in not keeping infantrymen together in the battalions in which they train is well illustrated by a letter from one of the Duke of Wellington’s generals after the Battle of Talavera (where, in
An Act of Courage
, we shall find Matthew Hervey in the thick of things once more). Complaining of the poor performance of a ‘detachment battalion’, one in which the men were cobbled together from half a dozen different regiments, the general observes, ‘They have no
esprit de corps
for their interior economy among them, though they will fight. They are careless of all else, and the officers do not look to their temporary field-officers and superiors under whom they are placed, as in an established regiment. I see much of their indiscipline.’

So the new ‘mobility’ of infantrymen, as they change from one battalion to another, was not unknown in Wellington’s day. In Wellington’s army, too, the
officers
– both infantry and cavalry – would often move from one regiment to another as vacancies occurred, since that was what promotion by purchase required. The duke himself served in half a dozen regiments on his way to becoming lieutenant-colonel of the 33rd Foot, which was renamed The Duke of Wellington’s Regiment in his honour (and which is now also to be disbanded).

Other books

Miss Carmelia Faye Lafayette by Katrina Parker Williams
Playing Dead by Julia Heaberlin
Hacker by Malorie Blackman
Teresa Medeiros by Once an Angel
Misdirected by Ali Berman
Is Mr White Mr Right? by J A Fielding
Four of Hearts by Roz Lee