Company Of Spears

‘If parley fails, I reckon I can gain a minute at most on them back to the ridge. When you see that, I want you to take the troop to the left flank – the ground looks a fraction better that way – and stand ready in line in dead ground to take any advantage once they broach the crest. But listen hard for the trumpet for recall. No running on!’

‘Colonel.’

‘Captain Welsh, your company to check them as they broach the crest. Is the range to your liking?’

‘Two hundred and fifty yards, and Zulus tight-packed? Admirable, Colonel.’

Hervey was sure of it. He had watched the riflemen put bullet after bullet into the target at two hundred. ‘How many rounds can you get off from crest to here?’

Welsh had already calculated. He could fire two rounds a minute at least, and all his riflemen carried spare balls and powder flasks as well as the prepared cartridges; a charging Zulu might cover the ground in … a minute? ‘Five, perhaps six. Better we snipe them at the crest, though, and open a general fire as they come down the slope.’

And then they would have to remount in good time, Hervey knew: they could not take on an unending swarm of Zulu with the bayonet. He nodded. ‘Very well. Three rounds, then withdraw as they get to a hundred yards. Rally on that last ridge we crossed.’

‘Three rounds it will be, Colonel. One hundred and forty rifles: four hundred and twenty corpses.’

Hervey smiled. A happy warrior indeed, Captain Welsh. He supposed that if all his riflemen were of the same spirit, the horse-holders would be prodigiously frustrated.

A different voice now hailed him: ‘May I ride with you, Hervey? I should so very much like to see how these things are done.’

Hervey turned to see Sam Kirwan in his fore-and-aft, as incongruous a hat in the field now as once it had been commonplace. He smiled again: a happy warrior-veterinary. ‘Have you ever unsheathed that sword, Sam?’

The veterinary surgeon judged the question rhetorical.

But Hervey did not forbid it. Sam Kirwan reined up alongside Serjeant Wainwright, and opened his notebook.

Hervey at once took off back to where Corporal Wick stood resolutely observing the Zulu.

‘Still coming on, Colonel,’ said Wick as Gilbert almost stumbled to a halt next to him.

Hervey took out his telescope for one last look before the parley.

Sam Kirwan closed with him and slipped from the saddle. ‘Gilbert’s running uneven, Hervey. Let me take a look.’

Hervey had noticed nothing: any horse could stumble, and they were none of them too fresh. ‘What—’

‘Breathing’s very irregular, and the pupils are like saucers. Hervey, you’d better change horses. He looks as though he could drop at any moment.’

Hervey jammed the telescope back in its holster. ‘Very well, but after I’ve had the parley. This isn’t the time to be changing horses.’ He glanced behind.

The troop was beginning to come up the slope.

‘Time to introduce ourselves to the Zulu, I believe.’ He squeezed Gilbert’s flanks – just a touch with the lower leg – and the gelding stepped off at once.

There was no white flag. Hervey was sure it would mean nothing to the Zulu, and in any case he disliked the practice since it restricted his freedom of action. Instead the little party advanced towards what he presumed was the leading column, where he supposed he would find either the commander of this host or else an officer who would know where the commander was. Fairbrother rode at his side, and to the rear of them Wainwright and Corporal Dilke, and behind them Sam Kirwan.

They began to trot. Hervey felt at once that Gilbert had lost his spring. The horse was indeed tired; perhaps he would change to his second as soon as he got back to the ridge (Johnson, for sure, would be there waiting for him). But this slope was kind; they could take it in an easy canter down to the Zulu, and it would not tax them greatly to regain the crest afterwards – even if they had to make a run for it.

He glanced over his shoulder again. There was the troop in impressive line along the ridge, motionless, two hundred yards of blue and yellow, and white-topped. But, strangely, he found himself wishing it were a furlong of red: there were times (very few, but this was one) when he knew that Nature’s own colour of danger magnified the effect.

The black columns stopped suddenly, and then came a blood-chilling moan which almost knocked him back in the saddle. He had never heard its like – not the shouting on the battlefields of the Peninsula, nor the cheering at Waterloo, nor even the fiendish cries at Bhurtpore. It was inhuman, one voice prodigiously loud rather than many thousands, as if they somehow spoke – thought – with one mind. It was eerie; indeed it was unsettling. He prayed it would not be unnerving.