The Sabre's Edge by Allan Mallinson Page A

general's staff in Calcutta.
    The sortie paraded outside the north gate. They were six companies, three British and three native, together with two field pieces - a six-pounder and a howitzer - some five hundred men in all, and another fifty dhoolie-bearers. They gave an impression of unity by their red coats, except for the artillerymen, who wore blue, but close to they were rather more disparate than a Calcutta inspecting officer would have been used to. It was but a fortnight since the landing, and already some of the troops had a ragged appearance which spoke of their exertions and the flimsiness of their uniforms, as well as the lack of supply. For the most part, the trousers were white, summer pattern, but heavily patched, and the sepoy companies had abandoned their boots. Some of the officers wore forage caps. The general, indeed, wore one. Hervey would have been appalled had he not witnessed all that had gone before: an officer of the Sixth never wore a forage cap but in the lines. That it should have come to this in one month beggared belief.
    There was no doubting the effect as a whole, however. In close order, and from a distance, these men looked like a solid red wall. They would stand, come what may. And their muskets - they would know how to handle them, for sure. Five rounds in the minute at their best - how could the Burmans match or bear it? The trouble was, the best volleying was only possible with dry powder.
    General Campbell was rapt in conversation with the sortie's lieutenant-colonel, a short, stocky man whose voice was said to be the loudest in the expedition. Hervey studied the general carefully. He had not fully appreciated his height before, for he seemed now to stand taller than any man on parade. Without doubt, Sir Archibald Campbell had the crack and physique to convince a subordinate of his competence; Hervey pushed all his doubting thoughts to the back of his mind.
    Would Campbell address the sortie? The rain hammered so loud it would be pointless but for a few men in the front rank. So they would just turn into column of route and march off down the track into the forest. Poor infantry - trudge, trudge, trudge, a mouthful of black powder biting the cartridge, a minute of rushing blood in a bayonet charge, and then . . .
    Then it was the same for all of them - kill or be killed. The soldier's life was nearest Nature -lowly, nasty, brutish, and all too frequently short.
    It was, of course, why they made comrades of one another so quickly. Everyone knew that. Hervey had seen it in his first week at the depot squadron, and he supposed it was why, perhaps, decent society could sometimes hail the soldier, for all his licentiousness. The quality certainly liked an officer in his regimentals. He wondered if they ever imagined them as they appeared this morning, however - sodden, tattered, grubby. Or what they looked like when rent with grape, ball, or the point of iron and steel.
    It was strange he should think now of Henrietta. Now, when things stood at their most brutish. But Henrietta had had a good imagination of the truth, for all her feigning otherwise. Not so Lady Katherine Greville. Hervey did not suppose she had ever thought of it, let alone was capable of imagining it. Regimentals were not for this. They were for the delighting of her and those like her - a mark of potency rather than aught else. He did not suppose it, indeed; he knew it. Her letters told him as explicitly as she had implied the day they had ridden together in Hyde Park. That was four, nearly five years ago, and still she wrote. He wrote too, not exactly by return, but with sufficient despatch to keep the correspondence lively. It flattered him. She might have her pick of officers in London - and no doubt did - and yet she penned him letters. He smiled to himself, now, at her questions. Did he wish to be an ADC? Did he wish for an appointment at the Horse Guards? If he would not return soon to London, did he wish a place on