A Close Run Thing

that he might feel.

As the regiment woke to the call of the trumpet and began its familiar routine, he walked back to his cell, passing the chapel with its plain windows lit dimly from within. A frail chant, Te Deum Laudamus, drifted out, with an occasional whicker from the cloister stalls punctuating the plainsong. He found his cell a blaze of light compared with the gloom elsewhere, for each corner was filled with candles, and an oil lamp burned brightly on a small table, these meagre but useful camp-stores bearing witness to the ever- resourceful Johnson’s nocturnal activities. Next to the lamp stood a steaming canteen of tea, and a clean pair of undress overalls lay on the bed.

‘Baggage came in last night, sir,’ explained his groom. ‘I’ll bring t’rest along presently — thought these’d be more comfortable. I’ll take thee field overalls to mend now. I ’ear it’s all over?’

But Hervey had to admit that he had no more information than the barrack room evidently had. ‘Do you have my sketchbooks yet?’ he asked.

‘Ay, sir; they’re with t’rest of thee things.’

There was no more news at first parade, either, only speculation — Bonaparte was dead, Bonaparte had escaped to America, Bonaparte was in a cage in the Tuileries. By the time the officers assembled in the refectory, at eight o’clock, there was at least unanimity that Bonaparte was finished. There were barely a dozen and a half officers on parade that morning, fewer than half the establishment with which they had begun the campaign. Hervey could picture the absent faces as clearly as if they were standing there: the colonel would, no doubt, return to duty in good time, but the two captains, Lennox and Twentyman, would never again hear reveille; nor would Martyn and Mayall, the lieutenants who had fallen at Salamanca; nor Cornets Wyllie and Lord Arthur Percival, killed at Badajoz; Cornet Bruce would never again see the wild flowers of whose names, both vulgar and botanical, he had such astonishing recall, for the explosion of the arsenal after Ciudad Rodrigo had scorched his eyes terribly. And there were others, more fortunate, who had been invalided home with wounds or sickness: they had filled the mess with laughter and companionship (and Hirsch with the uncommon beauty of his flute), and he would miss them even more now that peace brought a respite from the exertions of this campaign. The noise which the gallant and fortunate remnant made suggested double their number, however, and Cornet Laming had to struggle to make himself heard: ‘D’ye see Edmonds, Hervey?’

Hervey looked to where Laming nodded and saw the major at the far end of the refectory, looking sombre. Barrow was speaking into his ear and appeared equally grave.

‘Something’s up,’ said Laming. ‘I heard after stables that the Fourteenth are for America.’

‘I would not mind America. Why should that trouble us?’ replied Hervey, momentarily forgetful of his own pressing need to return home.

‘Because the regiment’s worn out, that is why.’

‘We might still have a march on Paris if Bonaparte’s flight is but rumour,’ he countered warily.

‘That is another matter entirely. Look around: we have been campaigning longer than any corps in the army — we are at less than half-strength! Look at Edmonds, his nerves have frayed to nothing; he’s had the blue devils for months! And there’s scarcely a horse that I’d warrant through another winter out.’

But before Hervey could reply Barrow called them to order and Edmonds began speaking. ‘Gentlemen, I have a dispatch from General Cotton. It reads as follows:

‘“Lord Wellington has received intelligence of the abdication of the self-styled Emperor Napoleon Buonaparte and of his custody with the Royal Navy. There shall be an immediate armistice, for two months. Marshal Soult is to surrender his army of the south to the Commander-in-Chief directly. The Garonne is to be the line of demarcation and Toulouse will remain in our possession. The administration of the country is to be vested immediately in the appointed representatives of His Majesty King Lewis the Eighteenth, who are to be treated as our allies.”’

‘See how quickly will they make white cockades out of tricolours,’ whispered Laming.

‘Too cynical,’ Hervey whispered back.

‘“Si foret in terris …”’declaimed Laming airily.

‘“Rideret Democritus.” What has Horace to do with it?’

Laming nodded with faint surprise, and Hervey took the opportunity to tilt gently at the senior cornet’s self- esteem.

‘Laming, contrary to what might have been supposed at Eton, we were not barbarians at Shrewsbury.’

‘Oh, a most apt riposte, I do acknowledge!’ said Laming rather too loudly. Barrow glanced their way sharply, and then Edmonds continued.

‘But there is to be no rest, gentlemen. Two divisions under Lord Hill are to proceed to America as soon as possible. The Fourteenth are to accompany them and a squadron of the Staff Corps; we shall be asked for nominations of men of the highest character, as usual, for the Corps. Meanwhile we shall remain in Toulouse until the acknowledgement of King Lewis is universal and the French army and marshals have taken oaths of allegiance.’ The cadence seemed to indicate that this was an end to it, and a general hubbub began.

‘Thank God it’s only the Chambermaids for America, then,’ said Laming. ‘We can decamp to Paris and then be in Leicestershire for next season!’

‘Venery and then venery!’ quipped Hervey.

Laming frowned, but at least the Sixth’s prizes at Vitoria had not landed them with so ungraceful a sobriquet as the Fourteenth’s: a silver chamberpot belonging to Bonaparte’s brother had at the time seemed amusing booty to the 14th Light Dragoons.

‘Gentlemen, please!’ called Barrow, and silence quickly returned.

Edmonds paused. ‘Gentlemen, this is, I believe, the end of what we were coming to think of as a never- ending war. You have done well — the regiment has done well, but I fear that this end may be but a beginning. We are not for Paris, however. We have been warned for England together with most of the rest of the cavalry, and I need not speak aloud my worst fears, for you are only too aware of the economies which this parliament will now seek. I pray that our seniority will afford us some security. And the Earl of Sussex will not let his regiment disband without protest — of that you may be assured. Meanwhile we must continue to conduct our affairs with the same fidelity, trusting that virtue is in itself, ultimately, a sufficient reward. That is all, gentlemen.’ And, turning about, he left the room with not another word.

‘A very pretty speech, I do declare,’ said Cornet Laming. ‘What say you, Murray?’

Their troop senior’s brow furrowed angrily. ‘So we’re going to be paid off, are we? And what price d’ye think our commissions will fetch now, eh? It’s all very well for the likes of you, Laming, but I paid twice over price and all my people’s estates in the Americas have been lost,’ he snapped, turning on his heel.

Hervey and Laming looked at each other blankly as Lieutenant Murray stalked away. Barrow had not left, however, and he now came up to them looking no less preoccupied than he had before Edmonds had spoken.

‘The major wishes to see you directly, Hervey.’

‘About what?’ he replied. ‘There is no more trouble surely?’

‘Not in your case, not personally. Armstrong — bloody business, bloody, bloody business,’ he replied, shaking his head.

The regimental serjeant-major was already talking with Edmonds when Barrow and Hervey entered the abbess’s library, which was beginning to look like the orderly room in Canterbury, for the regiment’s silver had arrived with the baggage train. The crucifix had been more reverently draped with a white sheet, and the guidon was unfurled so that the regiment’s four battle-honours (though still to be officially authorized) were clearly arrayed: Tournay, where they had lost every third man while covering the infantry’s hard-pressed retreat; Willems, where they had almost stuck fast in the Flanders mud; Egmont-Op-Zee, where they had galloped along the beach and dunes for six miles to cut off the French. He knew the battles well enough from accounts which lay in the regiment’s reading-room. But that which he admired the greatest, that which he wished most to have been party to the honour, lay not in the Low Countries but in a place so distant that it could exist for him only at the extremity of his imagination: Seringapatam. There were still a few old hands in the ranks who remembered that day, though most had by now taken their prize-money to begin life out of uniform (those, that is, who had not drunk or whored it in the three years they remained in India after that affair). Edmonds was the only officer remaining who had been present. He would never speak of it, except of late to say that the sack of Vitoria was but revelry compared with that of Seringapatam.

The adjutant joined Edmonds and the RSM beside the guidon, but Hervey saluted and stood at attention in