Allan Mallinson - The Sabre_s Edge

Hervey smiled grimly. 'Don't be too sure that you'll draw the charge, Corporal Wainwright. The Burmans may have fled, but I doubt they'll count themselves beaten.' There were so many infantrymen about the streets, however. Even if the Burmans counter-attacked, Hervey thought they must be repulsed before they could get a footing on the stockades. But in fleeing before the bombardment, they had made a good job of leaving little for the comfort of the invader. House after house was empty of portables, the heavier furniture was broken up, and Hervey was further disquietened by the evident system with which it had been accomplished. It spoke of a discipline that might be turned to good effect against an invader. It was evidence, certainly, that Calcutta's assumption of cooperation was wholly ill-conceived. As he made his way past groups of infantrymen waiting for the Serjeants to allocate a billet (at least they would have a roof over their heads when the rains came), Hervey began to fear the worst – that the rice stores and granaries had been emptied too, and the cattle driven into the jungle.

He tramped the town for an hour. It proved an unlovely place, with few buildings of any solidity and aspect, even the official ones. In the wake of the redcoats he saw not a house whose doors or windows remained barred, but neither did he see a man with anything more valuable in his hands than an iron cooking pot or a pan. Here and there a Buddhist shrine would impress, as much by the gilded contrast with its surroundings as by any true merit, and from time to time he would catch sight of the soaring pagoda of Shwedagon a league or so to the north, rising above the squat meanness like St Paul's above the rookeries of the City.

'I would lay odds that yonder place will be a regular hornet's nest,' said Hervey to Wainwright as they climbed a wall to get a better view. 'I'll warrant that's where they've bolted with the treasury.'

There was shooting still, sporadic shots from the redcoats searching the streets. But it did not trouble him. He knew they were aimed not at the enemy but at obstinate locks. It had been the same every time they had captured a place in Spain. It took a while, always, for the officers to regain order -hot blood, the exhilaration of being alive after the fight, the prospect of a bit of gold, the certainty of finding something to slake a thirst. That was all it was, but it could be brute enough when it ran unchecked for too long. At least he would not see the worst of it today, for there had been no fighting to hot the blood, no long march beforehand. Only the wretched, clammy heat of the day.

They pressed on. Several much smaller pagodas bore the signs of the infantry's passing.

'Ah, this looks worthier,' said Hervey, stopping at one of them. 'As resplendent, I'd say, as any of the shrines around Calcutta. Except, of course, it's all sham.' He prodded at the gold leaf with his sabre. 'In Calcutta it would be marble instead of this teak, and the inlay wouldn't be glass. Evidently our red-coated friends thought little of it.'

The pillaging seemed to have consisted in dashing all the lattices to the floor and then being disappointed to find that the imagined rubies and emeralds became so many cheap shards. Hervey sighed to himself. He'd seen a lot worse – the Prussians, for one (after Waterloo they had been thoroughly wanton in their destruction). But knocking down even gaudy pagodas was hardly the way to win the hearts of the Burman people, let alone their active support. And support was what General Campbell's plan of campaign depended on. He just hoped the officers would have their men in hand soon.

'But solid enough, sir,' said Wainwright, having made his own assessment of the structure. He pointed to the roof. 'Look at that.' An iron shot from one of the broadsides was embedded in a joist. It had not fully penetrated but had somehow caused the wood to splinter on the inside. Hervey had heard Peto speak of the especial danger in teak-built men-of-war. Unlike oak, Peto said, a teak splinter invariably meant a septic wound. He had been most insistent on it, most insistent that while the Indies might be a place of sickness for the soldier, the sailor faced his trials too.

Many would be the trials in this campaign, right enough. Hervey sheathed his sabre and took off his shako. 'You know, Corporal Wainwright, it is one thing to enter the roads of a seaport and bombard the town – many a captain's done that. But it's quite another to sail upstream for all of five hundred miles when the degree of resistance is uncertain.'

Corporal Wainwright had been a dragoon for nearly five years and had worn a chevron for two of them. Hervey held him in particular regard, not least because he was recruited from his own town, but more so because of his thoroughgoing decency and unwavering sense of duty. He reminded him of Serjeant Strange, yet without that fine NCO's somewhat chilly piety. Hervey had made him his covering corporal at the first opportunity.

'Well, it couldn't be less resistance than here, sir.'

It was true that the defenders of Rangoon had been scarcely worth the name so far, but was the town defensible against so powerful a cannonade as that which Peto's ships had delivered at point-blank range? Hervey sat down on the pagoda steps and loosened his collar. 'But what does the disappearance of every living soul, and all their chattels and livestock, bode?'

Corporal Wainwright had not been on campaign. He had tramped through the jungle three years before with Hervey's troop to fire the Burman war boats, but that was a mere raid, scarcely comparable in military organization with the scale of this expedition. This indeed was war. Nevertheless, he could make a fair estimate. 'One way or another, sir, we're going to be here longer than we thought.'

Hervey nodded. He knew from Peninsula days that General Campbell could make battle, but he had no idea if he could make war. What he had seen so far – not least the delays even in getting to Rangoon – was not auspicious. 'Well, Corporal Wainwright,' he said, taking a draw on his canteen. 'I think that it is a show of resistance and we might expect more. I think the battalions had better get this place into a state of defence quickly, lest the Burmans counter-attack. Our men-of-war wouldn't be able to support them. It may well be why the Burmans abandoned the town.'

As if in response to Hervey's assessment, redcoats of His Majesty's 38th Foot now came doubling past. Except that things weren't quite right.

Hervey sprang up. 'Come on, Corporal Wainwright. There's the glint of gold in those eyes.'

More men rushed by, without NCOs, almost knocking Wainwright to the ground. 'Or liquor, sir.' 'Either way it'll be trouble.'

They drew their sabres. Wainwright lashed out with the flat of his to check the barging of another gaggle, this time from the Thirteenth. 'Hold hard! Don't you see the officer?' he bawled.

They took off after the Thirty-eighth, Hervey cursing.

The narrow ways between the houses were soon choked with men, some without their muskets. Then it was impossible to go any further. Wainwright clambered onto the roof of one of the more solid-looking houses to try to see ahead. He was down again as quickly, bringing a shower of tiles with him and a foul string of abuse from the infantrymen below. 'Drink, sir. They're tossing bottles of it out of a warehouse. There must be two hundred men there, at least.'

'Well, we can't do anything of ourselves. Where are their NCOs?' Hervey turned and began pushing his way past men still homing on the irregular issue. 'Always the same,' he snarled, using his own sabre freely to force his way through. 'And these not even Irish!'

Down one of the side streets they found a picket of the Forty-first in good order. The corporal came to attention.