Company Of Spears

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?’