Hervey thought he would rather have a half-hour of dark than of light for such an enterprise, but then he was not an infantryman. If that was Major-General Reynell’s wish - he personally was to direct the storming of the main breach - then be it according to his will.
There were so many senior officers in the sap that Hervey wondered if they might yet see Lord Combermere himself. There was General Reynell, commanding the first division of infantry, a fine, whiskered foot soldier who had seen more campaigning than most men in his thirty years with the colours, and whose appetite for the fight was no less diminished by it. There was Brigadier-General McCombe of the 14th Foot commanding the first brigade, and Brigadier Paton of the 18th Native Infantry commanding the fifth. There was said to be a wager between them as to who would be out of the trench first.
And there was Sir Ivo Lankester, wearing his pelisse coat still, feeling the chill a little but as determined as McCombe and Paton to be out of the trench at once when the mine was sprung. He exchanged a few words with Hervey and Hugh Rose when they were settled, waiting, and then said he would see if he could get a few more yards forward to be next to the brigade commanders for a better view of the explosion.
'He's a spanker all right, sir,' said Armstrong. The consolation in letting Armstrong remain with the sappers was that E Troop and his serjeant-major now stood side by side at the point where must come the decision in this battle. 'I wish we might have a better view of it’ complained Hervey. I’d no idea the sap was going to be this deep.'
'We'll be grateful of it when yon mine's sprung, sir. I never saw so much powder in my life. They only got the last keg in just before midnight.'
'We must hope for a good pile of stones to scramble up,' said Hugh Rose. 'It'll be the very devil if all it does is rearrange the wall.'
Hervey raised his eyebrows. It would not be the first time if that happened. 'Yes, indeed.' He turned and looked over his shoulder. 'Mr Green?'
'Sir?'
'The lieutenant-colonel has gone up the trench to be with General Reynell. You had better go up and be with him in case he has any orders.'
'Yes sir. Which way is "up"?'
Hervey was momentarily speechless.
'This way, Mr Green, sir,' said Armstrong equably, making to lead him past Hervey and Rose.
Johnson now wholly recovered the situation, whether intentionally or not. 'Tea, Mr 'Ervey?'
Hervey smiled - though it was still too dark for any to see. 'Do you think it is why I got a ball in the shoulder at Rangoon, Johnson? Because I'd not had your tea at daybreak?'
'Ay, 'appen tha did, sir,' replied Johnson, uncorking his patent warming flask. 'And for you, sir?' he added, directing the question at Rose, having a care to use the less familiar second person.
'Mindful of its possible properties, I should indeed. Thank you,' drawled Rose. 'Do you think we might smoke, Hervey?'
Hervey smiled again. 'I rather think not, Hugh.'
There were a dozen or so of the Sixth in the trench. Their function, along with the fifty other volunteers, was straightforward - to rush the breach as soon as it was made and to hold on to it until the infantry could come up in proper order. It was ever a precarious enterprise. By rights, if the engineers and artillery did their work, it was but a headlong dash into a devastated space and then a few exchanges of fire with those of the garrison not too stunned to raise a musket. The work of carrying the fortress was then the business of the assault columns. But if the breach was feeble or incomplete it was theirs still to take it. And then they might face disciplined volleys, or the raking fire of guns not overturned in the blast. It was vulgarly called 'the forlorn hope', but no one really knew why. One or two were always killed, subalterns usually, well in the van and hoping for the reward of field promotion. But for the rank and file it was not a bad gamble: a good breach was worth a year's reckoning of service.
Not that Hervey or Rose would be in the van. Command of the party was the prerogative of an ensign, always, and today it fell to one of the Fourteenth's, the senior regiment of foot in the army before Bhurtpore. It was Ensign Daly's eighteenth birthday, and he had shaken hands with each man of the storming party, as was customary, before taking his place next to General McCombe at the head of the sap, together with Lieutenant Irvine of the Engineers and, just behind, Sir Ivo Lankester and Cornet Green.
There was more method in Hervey's sending Green forward than merely to give Sir Ivo a galloper. If Green showed a moment's hesitation in leaving the trench then the lieutenant-colonel would see it for himself, and all would be up. But Hervey was not entirely closed to the notion of redemption. He thought it possible that Green, with so many brave men about him, and his blood heated by the occasion, would find after all that he had the resource to do his duty, and that once it was done he would then have appetite for it in the future. However, he had determined one thing: if Green did hesitate to leave the trench - if he were still not out when he himself came up - then he would have him out at the point of the sword.
'A bit confused, I'd say, Mr Green, sir,' whispered Armstrong to Hervey as he rejoined them.
Hervey sighed. 'Well, Sar'nt-Major, there'll be no doubting which way to advance once the mine's sprung, so that's one thing he needn't concern himself over.'
'No, that's true. But I gave him some wadding to put in his ears, and told him to cover them if he got a chance. I've known sound enough men become a mite addled in a thunderstorm.'
Elsewhere about the fortress were other storming parties braced for the assault. But all would take their cue from the springing of the cavalier mine, or what was now known in the Sixth - the secret at last out - as the cavalry mine, or even 'Armstrong's mine'. What Hervey had written to Somervile the evening before was as much as he knew, and a good deal at that, for Lord Combermere's staff had been generous in their information in the final waiting days. But he supposed that only Combermere himself had in his mind a complete picture of the assault, the commander-in-chief having appointed no deputy, the major-generals being with the assaulting divisions. If he should fall, it would likely as not be his quarter-master-general, the veteran cavalryman Sir Sam Whittingham, to whom the reins would pass and in due course the laurels be given. But Hervey hoped that when the fortress was taken, Armstrong's part would receive its due recognition - more so, even, than it had already. And, of course, that of Brigadier Anburey, for it had been he who had directed the preparations for the assault and had ordered the cavalier mine to be driven under Armstrong's supervision.
And even now Anburey courted oblivion by attending the mine like an anxious midwife with her charge. He had assembled ten thousand pounds
of the coarsest-grained powder - 'corned' powder, as it was known, as opposed to the fine 'mealed' sort - which, because of the air between the bigger grains, burned faster and therefore produced an explosion of greater force. But he did not know if this depended on a normal supply of air in the atmosphere in which the powder burned. The only way that he could be sure there would be an explosion was to have air at the end of the tunnel, and this required Armstrong's fire to be lit and Stray's duct to function. He would not, of course, ask either man to see to the work. He would not even ask one of his own. He did it himself - lighting the fire and then crawling to the end of the tunnel to be sure that air was being drawn through the duct.