On His Majesty's Service

Hervey did his best to make light of it (how he envied his friend’s easy way with matters): ‘I should value your … company … advice … and so on.’

Fairbrother reached for the burgundy again. ‘And what of the distaff side? Would Gibraltar be agreeable?’

Hervey checked the movement of any muscle that might convey an unhappy inability to speak for his wife. ‘I very much hope so.’

Kat had once followed him to Lisbon; his own wife might reasonably be expected to travel the few miles further. It did not occur to him that his friend’s answer might be consequent on it.

‘In principle I have no objection to service – however unofficial – in Gibraltar, nor in proximity to men in red,’ his friend replied, smiling wryly. ‘Indeed, I have no principled objection to anything after service with the Royal Africans!’

Hervey reflected the smile. ‘Quite. Just imagine had Lord Hill appointed me to a penal battalion!’ He took another good measure of burgundy, and signalled a change of course. ‘This pudding is uncommonly good, is it not?’

Fairbrother understood at once. He invariably did. He did not always heed the signal, but he recognized it, and on this occasion he was happy to oblige. ‘What did you make of Youell?’

And Hervey smiled the more for his friend’s understanding.

They left the warm upholstered comfort of Rule’s just after four o’clock, and set a hopeful, if indirect, course for the gunsmiths. It was darkling, but the streets were well lit, the gaslight made brighter by the snow, and the builders were still at work in Covent Garden, where the plan of the new market was now manifest – a great classical temple on a scale Hervey had seen only in Paris.

Fairbrother remarked again on the ubiquity of London masons.

‘The King is a great builder, I believe,’ said Hervey, slowing to admire the work on a section of Corinthian pillar about to be hoist. ‘Or so he was when regent.’

‘Urbem lateritiam invenit, marmoream reliquit,’¹ declaimed Fairbrother magisterially, if a shade slurred.

Hervey looked at him with an approving smile. ‘My old cornet-friend Laming was fond of quoting Suetonius – and any number of others whose words seemed apt to our predicament. You would have liked him – a very excellent fellow. But then so are you; Gibraltar would be the duller place without you – brick instead of marble!’

His friend merely inclined his head.

‘I lay emphasis on the conditional, mind. I might add that so would Hounslow be – the duller place, that is.’

Indeed he was certain of it. He did not doubt there were agreeable officers in Gibraltar, and he supposed there would be too at Hounslow – though he fancied that no officer of spirit would stay in a depot squadron, which is what it would amount to if the regiment were placed en cadre. But with Fairbrother he knew he might speak his mind, and in turn receive unvarnished opinion. He had never felt the want of that resource before, but he had lately, at the Cape, felt its beneficial qualities keenly, and he did not wish to be done with it now.

‘I am greatly flattered.’

But Hervey intended no flattery, only the truth. ‘Fairbrother, let me speak plainly. I should esteem it the greatest good fortune if you accompanied me either to Hounslow or to Gibraltar – or, frankly, to anywhere else His Majesty is pleased to post me.’

Fairbrother, for once inclined to cast off insouciance, clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder. But there was increase in his sportive humour nevertheless. ‘Might we conditionally visit the Fifty-third’s tailor then, and lay a swatch of red cloth across your breast?’

Hervey was inclined to enter the spirit of archness. ‘Scarlet cloth.’

Fairbrother smiled, conceding the point. ‘Ah, yes – scarlet. It seemed to me in the Royal Africans that the distinction lay solely in the fastness of the dye. A private man’s red coat was a pale affair after a good soaking, whereas an officer’s scarlet remained true – an allegory, as it were, of devotion to duty.’

‘The burgundy makes you excessively poetic. I have no intention of visiting the Fifty-third’s tailor. A red coat’s a red coat, and I fancy I can imagine what a button with “fifty-three” on it looks like – as opposed to one with “fifty-two”, or whatever it might otherwise be.’

The calls of the flower sellers – which with little other than greenery to sell were more importunate than those of the costers – were now intruding on their conversation, so that both men had to raise their voices to continue. ‘Even so, what a world apart are those two buttons. Would not the Fifty-second tempt you dearly?’

The Fifty-second – the ‘Oxfordshire Light Infantry’ – had been with Moore and the Light Brigade at Shorncliffe, and then Corunna; they were (they considered themselves, at least) an elite. Hervey was certainly tempted to agree with his friend – if only for the purpose of silencing him on the subject of red coats. ‘The Fifty-second would tempt anyone.’

A flower seller, pretty, Italian-looking, in a cloak with the hood thrown back, stepped in front of Fairbrother, bringing both men to a halt. ‘Buy these snowdrops from a poor, frozen flower girl, captain,’ she said, in a curious mixture of the accent of the streets and somewhere more distant. ‘It’s bitter cold, captain, and I needs buy a hot supper.’

Fairbrother reached instinctively inside his coat for his pocket-book, before realizing that coin was more appropriate.

Hervey wondered why the girl had made his friend the object of her entreaty and not him. Was it the affinity of a similar complexion (for he observed that hers was not much lighter than Fairbrother’s), or did his friend possess a more generous countenance? More susceptible, even?

‘How much?’ asked Fairbrother, purse in hand.

‘Sixpence, if you please, captain.’

‘Sixpence?’ said Hervey, astonished.

The girl turned to her questioner. ‘Why, sir, they’re picked this morning and brought a good long way,’ she replied disarmingly.

‘Here’s a shilling,’ said Fairbrother, taking no notice. ‘Two bunches, if you please. That will buy a hot supper will it not?’

‘It will, captain. God bless you.’ She handed him the snowdrops with a smile that might have been genuine.

He took them and then gave a bunch back to her. ‘Put these in a window to brighten it.’

‘Oh, thank you sir,’ she thrilled. ‘And a very good evening to you.’

Fairbrother raised his cap as she stood aside to let them pass.

Hervey said nothing until he was sure they were out of earshot. ‘I will say that I have been similarly done to in the past, but never more charmingly. I dare say we’ll be lucky to make it from the market without having to give a shilling to every girl. She’ll be telling them all this very moment.’

‘Oh, I’d reckon not,’ replied Fairbrother, in a knowing sort of way. ‘She’ll wish to sell us a bunch tomorrow if we’re passing. Why tell others and spoil her trade?’

‘Upon my word, you are reading London keenly!’

‘Not London, not especially. I observe it as universal nature.’

‘Well, she was bold and it was nicely done by both sides.’

‘None but the fair deserve the bold!’

‘That is very droll. The cold evidently neither dulls your brain nor cools your heart. I am all envy. Or is it the burgundy again?’

Fairbrother smiled. ‘You make matters easy for me. Recall the rhyme? – “Drinking is the soldier’s pleasure/ Rich the treasure/ Sweet the pleasure/ Sweet is pleasure after pain.”’

Hervey nodded. ‘I allow that you are in excellent form. London agrees with you.’

‘Oh, indeed,’ his friend assured him, as if the contrary notion were impossible. ‘My heart swelled as soon as we landed and began posting for here. Did not you see?’

Hervey had not seen. He had been far too preoccupied with his own thoughts. It was not London that swelled