Hervey 08 - Company Of Spears (36 page)

Cape Town, three weeks later, 14 September

Colonel Hervey stood at the end of the line of riflemen on the firing range. The practice was conducted by a former serjeant of the Ninety-fifth commissioned in the field after Waterloo and now adjutant of the Cape Mounted Rifles.

It was the first opportunity Hervey had had to observe the Rifles at drill. In his month and more’s absence, his major had seen to completing the dismounted training, and soon the recruits would begin riding school. It would be six weeks, at least, before he could take field drill, though he could make a beginning in the sand tray with his company officers.

The fortnight at the frontier had formed his thoughts very particularly. It was not merely the ambush that had shaped his thinking, but the notion of men – the Xhosa principally, but he imagined the other native tribes to be the same – the notion of their acting as individual warriors, intent on pressing home the attack in ones and twos as the country permitted. It was not unlike what he knew to be the practice in North America, but here in Africa, by all accounts, the warriors also adopted regular formations when the country was otherwise too open. After reaching Trompetter’s Drift, exhausted, the party had rested for twenty-four hours before continuing on the trail of the reiving Xhosa. Hervey had marvelled at the changing country – from close thorn to scrubby bushveld, and then to rolling grassland. He knew that if the Xhosa could be made to fight in open country then musketry and cavalry ought to defeat them roundly. If they could not be brought to battle in the open, then his volleying infantry and his well-drilled light dragoons might as well hold parades as go into close country after them.

This much might have been in the mind of Lord Charles Somerset when he set in hand the reorganization; except that Hervey had seen no reference to any cause but economy. And whatever the intention of the former governor, the fact was that the officers of the Mounted Rifles were already thinking like skirmishers – as if they were preparing for the sort of general action in which riflemen took post ahead of the red lines of muskets. Hervey was certain there was a place for that, but it was not in two-thirds of the country he had ridden over. There, it was the Rifles themselves who would have to close with the enemy, for there was no more chance of Line infantry advancing shoulder-to-shoulder than there was of discharging a single volley to effect. In truth, he had concluded, if there was to be another war on the frontier the proportion of such troops as the Rifles to those that fought in close order must be at the least three to one.

‘At two hundred yards … targets, five rounds,
shoot!’

The fire was ragged compared with that of volleying redcoats, but it was through no idleness or slow burn: riflemen fired as individuals, taking individual aim, firing only when their sights were properly laid, and stopping their breath to keep the aim true. Two hundred yards! Redcoats might volley at a hundred, but more likely fifty.

When the firing ended, the adjutant shouted ‘Stop’, and each man sprang to his feet.

‘In double time,
march!’

Fifty green-coated recruits, rifles at the trail, began doubling the two hundred yards to the targets. Hervey doubled too. He could not recall the last time he ran as far. In a couple of months these men would be able to fire five rounds, spring into the saddle, gallop two hundred yards and then dismount to fire another five. Such speed and accurate fire could confound an enemy ten times their number. He was convinced they were the answer – not the complete answer, but one that might shock the Xhosa out of the fastness of the bush and into the very country in which red- and bluecoats had the advantage.

He walked from target to target. There was none without five neat holes, and many where the holes were drilled in a cluster the size of a soup bowl. Here was impressive shooting, by any measure. But then many a recruit had been a cradle rifleman, schooled in marksmanship for the pot; though many more had been well-chosen volunteers whom the corporals and the adjutant had coaxed in their shooting rather than drilled by sharp words and the jab of the pike staff as if they were musketeers.

‘Stand to your front!’

Fifty riflemen braced up. The corporals walked along the line giving each man a new white target, a piece of white canvas in a wooden frame eighteen inches square.

‘Even numbers, double
march!’

Hervey watched, deciding not to distract the adjutant by asking the purpose.

When the even numbers had doubled a hundred yards, the adjutant blew his whistle, the riflemen halted, faced about, grounded arms and held the targets aloft.

Hervey’s mouth near fell open.

‘Every man a volunteer, Colonel,’ said the adjutant. ‘They do things different at the Cape.’

Hervey shook his head: they were indeed a long way from Hounslow.

‘Odd numbers, prone position, two rounds in your own time,
go on!’

The adjutant explained that the riflemen had been numbered off a fortnight ago in permanent pairings, and that this was to be the final test of mutual confidence.

Single shots rang out the length of the line, impressively deliberate. There was a pause of several seconds to let the smoke clear, while each man took aim with the second barrel, and then it was the same again: the most purposeful shooting Hervey had ever seen. He could not tell yet, of course, how wide or high the riflemen had aimed, but he greatly admired the steadiness of the target-holders nonetheless. He would not have wished to stand at a hundred yards and have a line of redcoats fire even wide and high of him, so inaccurate was the musket!

The adjutant blew his whistle, and the even numbers doubled back to the firing point. Hervey began examining the targets eagerly. Every one of them had two holes.

Now the practice was repeated, odd numbers doubling out with the targets for the evens. The shoot-ing was the same, deliberate business; and when the targets came back, the results were as before.

Hervey was minded to address the rifle-recruits, and then thought better of it: let them think this was nothing remarkable and they might achieve even more. There would certainly be need, and much of it at close-quarters. He knew he might see shooting as intelligent as this at Shorncliffe, but there was a distinct edge to what he had just witnessed. He was thoroughly heartened. He could tell Somervile that already there were the makings of a force to tackle the frontier on its own terms – could tell Somervile
and
General Bourke (he must make no mistake on that account).

‘And the other recruit platoons are as good,’ said the adjutant as Hervey began walking from the firing point towards where Johnson stood with the horses.

Hervey nodded. ‘I congratulate you most heartily, Captain Brigg. And I’m grateful to you for sending me word of this. I landed only a little before midnight, but the effort has been repaid handsomely, I assure you. And now I shall go and see how my dragoons are’ (he smiled wryly); ‘carbines and all!’

Hervey gazed at the corral in horrified disbelief. Never in all his service had he seen its like. ‘How many?’

‘Fifty-seven,’ said the veterinary surgeon.

Not a horse moved: two-thirds of the squadron’s sabre strength stood head down, as if bawled out by the harshest-mouthed serjeant-major, their coats looking like nothing so much as old blankets with half the nap plucked away.

‘And the others?’

‘Not one of the chargers, thank God. They were stabled well apart. For the rest, I can discern no pattern. The better quality have fared as bad as the rest. It’s difficult to say what’s the nature of the illness, let alone the cause or cure. The depression you see in their condition is undoubtedly respiratory, but there’s some poison in the blood too. There’s a good deal of inflammation about the eyes, and the fossa’s much swollen. That will account for some of the immobility. And the fever too.’

‘What do the authorities say?’

‘Nothing of real help. The Dutch call it
perdesiekt.
It strikes from time to time, though without obvious cause, the only common factor being that it tends to come at the onset of summer. It’s highly contagious and they’ve no treatment for it. The chances of recovery appear to be about one in five.’

‘Could it be something else, contracted in England?’

‘I could not dismiss the possibility, but I know of no disease which takes longer than twenty-eight days to manifest itself, which is why we fix the period of quarantine at twice that time. If it is this
perdesiekt
then there’s consolation that those that recover will be salted.’

Hervey sighed. ‘That is cold comfort, I think.’

‘At this time, perhaps. The Dutch have been clever about it, though. They’ve built their studs with salted stock. Any Caper we buy – and we’ll have to buy – will be warranted resistant to it.’

Hervey thought for a while. ‘There’s nothing you can do?’

‘On the contrary: I’m doing a great deal, but it can be of little prospect, for I can only treat speculatively – and variously, so that if there is any amendment it will likely as not be confined to a quarter of them.’

Hervey felt himself tired, but even so he thought Sam Kirwan a shade difficult to follow this morning. ‘Would you explain?’

‘One quarter of them I’m not treating at all. One quarter I’m dosing strongly with acetic acid, another I’m purging with calomel, and the rest I’m bleeding.’

‘Bleeding? But you always said—’

‘Unless I can show that I’ve bled, the College will dismiss any findings.’

Hervey’s brow furrowed. ‘Sam, if you believe that bleeding does nothing but weaken a sick animal, then a quarter of these are condemned for the sake of science.’

‘Not a quarter, Hervey, but one in five of a quarter; unless – and it would be perverse in the extreme – all the animals in that quarter were the ones that would recover naturally.’

Hervey had questioned Sam Kirwan’s judgement once before; tired though he was, he would not do so a second time. ‘Very well. You did not say: have any died yet?’

‘No. Death generally occurs in about a week, say the Dutch. The disease only manifested itself four days ago.’

‘And a very strict quarantine of the chargers is being enforced?’

Sam glanced at Hervey from under raised eyebrows.

‘Very well. But you know, come to think of it, we may have a dozen of these saved, but meanwhile we run a terrible risk of contagion. I’ve half a mind it would be better to destroy the lot.’

Sam nodded. ‘I understand your concern perfectly. And I acknowledge I am keenly studying the science in all this, but the chargers are separated by a mile and more; and only I and my assistants travel between them. I do not see how there could be any contagion.’

Hervey was in truth only too pleased to be persuaded that there was no need for destroying the best part of a troop’s worth of horses. ‘Has Fearnley done anything about remounts, do you know?’

Remounts were the regimental officers’ business, not the veterinary surgeon’s, though a prudent buyer would take his opinion. Sam Kirwan had not waited to be asked, however. ‘I’ve made arrangements to go with him to a farm at Eerste River, about fifteen miles east. The Dutch say there’s a good breeder there. He sells to the Company in Madras.’

‘They’ll be tits, no doubt.’

‘But hardy, and good doers, and salted, so you might care to sit a little shorter in the saddle.’

Hervey shrugged. ‘If they’re up to weight then I’ve no very great concern for appearance. When do you go?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘I may go myself, depending on duties at the castle. But Fearnley’s perfectly capable of choosing remounts – once he’s got over his dismay at not seeing blood. I would have Armstrong go with him too.’

They watched in silence for a while as one of the assistants went to work with a bleeding stick.

‘Two quarts only: enough to keep the antediluvians at the College content. And from the toe: least damage.’

Hervey looked sadly on the scene. He knew Sam Kirwan to be a man of genuine love for the horses in his care: Sam would never have wished such an event. But at least he had his science to compensate him. For the rest – even the roughest dragoon – it was a melancholy affair. No one of his troop had paraded with his own horse longer than a year, for they had brought none back with them from India; yet he had seen seasoned men cry at the destruction of a trooper not weeks in their charge. And, he was bound to concede, it made mockery of his petition to the Horse Guards that shipping troopers was good economy
and
sound practice, for now there would be both the expense of remounting
and
delay in the troop’s readiness for the field.

Hervey made his way back to the castle, but without the spring in his step with which he had left the rifle range. When he reached his quarters he found Johnson attending to the lees of their time at the frontier.

‘What’s up, sir?’

Hervey made no pretence about it. ‘Sixty-odd horses from the troop have got some wretched sickness that will destroy all but a dozen of them. And there’s nothing to be done.’

‘Porca Maria!
‘

Hervey glowered at him. ‘You picked up a little Italian, then, in Stepney?’

Johnson shuffled uncomfortably.

‘Is there coffee?’

Johnson scuttled off, returning but a minute later with a tin mug. ‘Will this do for now, sir?’

Hervey nodded. There was doubtless good reason why they were using camp stores still.

‘Has there been any word from the lieutenant-governor? I’m dining with him this evening, and Lady Somervile.’

‘Who’s Lady Somervile?’ asked Johnson, forehead creased.

Hervey looked at him, shaking his head. ‘His wife!’

‘Ah never knew she were a Lady.’

Hervey’s eyes narrowed, uncertain whether Johnson was playing a game. ‘Of course she’s “Lady” now he’s “Sir”!’

Johnson’s brow remained furrowed. ‘You mean they made ‘er a “Lady” when they made ’im a “Sir”?’

Hervey shook his head again, disbelieving. ‘Johnson, how long have you moved in what is called good society? Don’t you yet know that the wife of a knight is always styled “Lady”?’