Free The Sabre's Edge by Allan Mallinson

smiled. Here was an infantryman who knew his job: a man who preferred a soaking to the skin in order that it might soak the powder of his enemy too.
    'Pull hard again, my lads; pull hard!' called Liffey's lieutenant as they struck off.
    'I'm grateful to you, sir,' said Captain Birch, who had decided to place himself in his barge as they re-embarked. The rain had not eased in the slightest; he turned up the collar of his cloak again. 'You kept a good contact. Did you see aught of the fugitives bolting the stockade?'
    'We did indeed, sir! Your lieutenant was all for putting ashore to give chase, but they sped so there was little chance of taking any. I fancy they're hiding in that wilderness and won't come out for a week.'
    'And I fancy they're already half-way to Kemmendine to raise the alarm. What say you, Hervey?'
    Hervey was trying to secure the bib of his jacket, having pulled off a couple of buttons while scrambling into the cutter. 'We must pray they're not like the Thirty-eighth, Birch, but proceed as if they are.'
    'Well said. And very wise. I think we'd better take their measure this next time before hurling ourselves at the w alls. Anyway, we're number enou gh to give them a fright.'
    Hervey was relieved. It saved him the trouble of telling a man his job. A bayonet rush may have overawed the stockade, but Kemmendine would be different. A show of discipline and steady bearing, and all in red, might do better. It would at least preserve a good many of them, for he could not quite believe that Kemmendine had as little fight in it as the place they'd just sent packing. 'And we shall shock them!'
    'Ay, indeed, Hervey. Naught shall make us rue!'
    'I recall when last I said that, just as we were about to attack a Burman camp. We thought ourselves very bold.'
    'You were.'
    'It was a comfortable affair compared with this.'
    'You would count yourself happier in the saddle, I suppose?'
    Hervey smiled. 'Does it seem ill that I would?'
    'Not at all. The cobbler is better at his last. I wonder you've exchanged a dry billet at all for this.'
    Hervey clapped a hand on Birch's shoulder. 'Oh, don't mistake me; I would not miss this for all the tea in China, even if I mayn't be dry-shod.'
    Birch offered him his brandy flask.
    'What is your intention then?' asked Hervey, taking a most restorative swig.
    'It is not easy to say without seeing the object, but I shall land out of musketry range and then advance with skirmishers. I think the navy might feint beyond. You never know: we might yet bolt them as we did before.'
    'It will be a famous business if you do,' said Hervey, taking another draw on the flask. 'That and to put a torch to the place.'
    The reas on they were making now for Kem mendine was Peto's fear of fire boats, for it was no hindrance to progress if the general struck for the Irawadi. That said, if Campbell could not proceed for a month or so - and in this weather Hervey thought it nigh impossible - then it would not do to have the village become a fortress from which Maha Bundula's men might sortie. The general himself believed that the same weather would also hold up the Burmans, but Hervey had reasoned that they would be moving on interior lines and might therefore do so much swifter. And he knew enough of Maha Bundula's reputation to know that he would march where others could not. Captain Birch's work today might well be an affair on which the expedition turned. He had better let him know it.
    How those sailors pulled on the oars! Hervey marvelled at their skill and strength - like the free hands that propelled the triremes of ancient Greece faster than could the galley-slaves of their enemies. The rain had stopped, quite suddenly, revealing how warm was the morning - and how soon could the mosquitoes set about them again, so that in a little while both red- and bluejacket alike would have welcomed back the rain in whatever measure. And, of course, the rain dispersed the miasma, the mist that brought the fevers.