Matthew Hervey Series by Allan Mallinson
Matthew Hervey #1
Matthew Hervey #2
Matthew Hervey #3
Matthew Hervey #4
A Call to Arms mh-4
Allan Mallinson
1817 and 1818 have not been good years for Matthew Hervey. His beloved wife Henrietta is dead and he is no longer in the Sixth regiment. Now he is kicking his heels in a corrupt and unruly England far removed from its once glorious past. 1819 sees Hervey in Rome with his sister Elizabeth where a chance meeting with man of letters Percy Bysshe Shelley leads him to rethink his future. Realizing just how much he misses the excitement of military action and the camaraderie of his regiment, Hervey hurriedly purchases a new commission and is refitted for the uniform of the 6th Light Dragoons. Hervey’s most immediate task is to raise a new troop and to organize transport, for his men and horses are to set sail for India with immediate effect. What Hervey and his greenhorn soldiers cannot know is that in India they will face one of their toughest trials. A large number of Burmese warboats are being assembled near the headwaters of the river leading to Chittagong, and the only way to thwart their advance involves an arduous and hazardous march through jungle territory. What begins as a relatively simple operation becomes a journey into the heart of darkness, as Hervey and his troop find themselves in the midst of hot and bloody action once more. From the Hardcover edition.
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Matthew Hervey #4
Matthew Hervey #5
The Sabre's Edge mh-5
Allan Mallinson
The most exciting adventure yet for Matthew Hervey and the Sixth Light Dragoons.1824. The Sixth Light Dragoons are still stationed in India and the talk in the officer’s mess is of war. The Burmese are encroaching on Company land and skirmishes are common on India’s borders. Meanwhile, across the country in Bhurtpoor the succession to the Raj has been usurped. The rightful claimant Balwant Sing has been forced from the throne by the war-mongering Durjan Sal. The conflict looks set to flair up into bloody conflict, taking the surrounding provinces with it. With the threat of war on two fronts the British troops must intercede.The trial ahead will test Hervey and his newly blooded troop to their very limits, for Durjan Sal has taken refuge in the infamous Bhurtpoor -- a fortress surrounded by a deep moat almost five miles in perimeter, with thirty-five turreted bastions and the Tower of Victory built with the skulls of Lord Lakes’ defeated men. Hervey can be sure of one thing: the siege of Bhurtpoor will be hot and bloody work. Once again, the fortunes of Matthew Hervey and his courageous troop will be decided by the sabre’s edge.
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Matthew Hervey #5
The Sabre's Edge
Allan Mallinson
SUMMARY:
The most exciting adventure yet for Matthew Hervey and the Sixth Light Dragoons.1824. The Sixth Light Dragoons are still stationed in India and the talk in the officer’s mess is of war. The Burmese are encroaching on Company land and skirmishes are common on India’s borders. Meanwhile, across the country in Bhurtpoor the succession to the Raj has been usurped. The rightful claimant Balwant Sing has been forced from the throne by the war-mongering Durjan Sal. The conflict looks set to flair up into bloody conflict, taking the surrounding provinces with it. With the threat of war on two fronts the British troops must intercede.The trial ahead will test Hervey and his newly blooded troop to their very limits, for Durjan Sal has taken refuge in the infamous Bhurtpoor -- a fortress surrounded by a deep moat almost five miles in perimeter, with thirty-five turreted bastions and the Tower of Victory built with the skulls of Lord Lakes’ defeated men. Hervey can be sure of one thing: the siege of Bhurtpoor will be hot and bloody work. Once again, the fortunes of Matthew Hervey and his courageous troop will be decided by the sabre’s edge.From the Paperback edition.
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Matthew Hervey #8
Company Of Spears mh-8
Allan Mallinson
The eighth novel in the acclaimed and bestselling series finds Hervey on his way to South Africa where he is preparing to form a new body of cavalry, the Cape Mounted Rifles.
All looks set fair for Major Matthew Hervey: news of a handsome legacy should allow him to purchase command of his beloved regiment, the 6th Light Dragoons. He is resolved to marry, and rather to his surprise, the object of his affections — the widow of the late Sir Ivo Lankester — has readily consented. But he has reckoned without the opportunism of a fellow officer with ready cash to hand; and before too long, he is on the lookout for a new posting. However, Hervey has always been well-served by old and loyal friends, and Eyre Somervile comes to his aid with the means of promotion: there is need of a man to help reorganize the local forces at the Cape Colony, and in particular to form a new body of horse.
At the Cape, Hervey is at once thrown into frontier skirmishes with the Xhosa and Bushmen, but it is Eyre Somervile’s instruction to range deep across the frontier, into the territory of the Zulus, that is his greatest test. Accompanied by the charming, cultured, but dissipated Edward Fairbrother, a black captain from the disbanded Royal African Corps and bastard son of a Jamaican planter, he makes contact with the legendary King Shaka, and thereafter warns Somervile of the danger that the expanding Zulu nation poses to the Cape Colony.
The climax of the novel is the battle of Umtata River (August 1828), in which Hervey has to fight as he has never fought before, and in so doing saves the life of the nephew of one of the Duke of Wellington’s closest friends.
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Matthew Hervey #9
Man Of War mh-9
Allan Mallinson
War at sea: While Matthew Hervey is getting ready to re-join his regiment in England, his close friend Captain Peto is at sea preparing his mighty line-of-battle ship for war with the Turks.
1827: Captain Peto has just taken command of HMS Prince Rupert, the only three-decker line-of-battle ship in His Majesty’s Fleet — a wooden fortress whose formidable firepower is the equal and more of Bonaparte’s grand battery at Waterloo. But his journey to the Aegian, where Admiral Codrington’s flagship awaits him, will not be smooth sailing, having as he does, a largely inexperienced crew. He’s also been entrusted with the safe passage to Malta of the Admiral’s youngest daughter — a situation that is far from ideal for Peto and his crew.
A year on, and Hervey is in London recovering from a recent bout of malaria. All is set fair for his upcoming marriage, and his subsequent return to active duty in the Cape. But trouble lies ahead as family commitments clash with affairs of the heart, and Hervey finds himself embroiled in a military enquiry that could result in public humiliation.
As the cataclysmic sea-battle of Navarino Bay looms ever closer for Peto and his crew, Hervey faces a regimental crisis that may be beyond even his capabilities.
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Matthew Hervey #10
Warrior mh-10
Allan Mallinson
In South Africa, Matthew Hervey clashes with the Warrior King of the Zulus.
1828: The stability of the Cape Colony has been threatened by Xhosa tribesmen who have been making incursions across the borders. And when Hervey is told by his old friend, Sir Eyre Somervile, that the Zulu warrior king, Shaka, is about to make war on neighbouring tribes in the south of the country, he knows that matters are perilous indeed. Leaving his new wife and young daughter in England, Hervey speeds to his friend’s aid.
He and Somervile journey to meet the Zulu king, but Shaka’s royal kraal is a horrifying place. The sentinels at the gates are corpses, and it soon becomes apparent that Shaka has slaughtered thousands of his own people. Into this febrile atmosphere ride Hervey, Somervile and their escort of dragoons and mounted rifles. But the sudden death of the Zulu king plunges the region into civil war, and Hervey and his men into terrible danger.
Yet worse is to come. As Hervey leads Shaka’s queen across the veldt to safety, he knows he must cross an alien landscape where they will be hunted by wild animals — and deadly warriors.
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Matthew Hervey #11
On His Majesty's Service mh-11
Allan Mallinson
In the Eastern Balkans, Matthew Hervey faces bloody war with the Turks.
January 1829: George IV is on the throne, Wellington is England's prime-minister, and snow is falling thickly on the London streets as Lieutenant-Colonel Matthew Hervey is summoned to the Horse Guards in the expectation of command of his regiment, the 6th Light Dragoons. But the benefits of long-term peace at home mean cuts in the army, and Hervey is told that the Sixth are to be reduced to a single squadron. With his long-term plans in disarray, he undertakes instead a six-month assignment as an observer with the Russian army, an undertaking at the personal request of the commander-in-chief, Lord Hill.
Soon Hervey, his friend Edward Fairbrother and his faithful groom, Private Johnson, are sailing north to St Petersburg, and from there on to the Eastern Balkans, seat of the ferocious war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. Hervey is meant to be an impartial spectator in the campaign, but soon the circumstances -- and his own nature --propel him into a more active role. In the climactic Battle of Kulewtscha, in which more troops were engaged than in any battle since Waterloo, Hervey and Fairbrother find themselves in the thick of the action.
For Hervey, the stakes have never been higher -- or more personal.
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