Never, perhaps, had Sister Maria de Chantonnay expected the cloisters of the Convent of St Mary of Magdala to throng with so great a number of men, let alone horses. As she and Hervey made their way through the lines they had to step this way and that around piles of hay and soiled straw, and buckets of water (for the watering call had sounded ten minutes before, and the troopers were working in relays from the well in the courtyard). Stopping here and there when Hervey thought there was some point of interest with a particular animal, they were paid no more attention than if they had been at a fair. C Troop were evidently to furnish some escort, for a dozen troopers were in the throes of saddling up under the supervision of the troop corporal.
‘This seems a most elaborate routine, Mr Hervey,’ said Sister Maria, watching a trooper folding saddle blankets.
‘Yes, the saddles are different from any you will have seen, most likely. The necessity is to keep all the rider’s weight, and that of his equipment, well clear of the spine — as, indeed, it ought to be with any saddle. But we cannot afford the luxury of measuring a saddle to individual horses, so each is built up to suit. Look’ — he picked up a crude wooden saddle-frame — ‘the saddle itself is composed simply of two arches joined by pieces of wood called side-boards. This is then placed over as many blankets on the horse’s back as is required by its particular conformation.’ Sister Maria nodded. ‘How many does this one take?’ he asked the nearest trooper.
‘This un’s broad-backed, sir — needs six,’ replied the man.
‘If the saddle isn’t set up right, then the horse will have a sore back within the hour,’ added Hervey. ‘And that is the gravest source of our trouble — that and poor feed.’
‘But’, said Sister Maria, looking puzzled, ‘you cannot possibly sit in such a saddle? It seems so … crude.’
Hervey smiled. ‘No, Sister, a sheepskin goes over the top of it, secured by a surcingle. We officers have a shabracque, too, for reviews — you will know of shabracques?’
‘Oh, yes, as had the warhorses of the knights — but not very practical, I should suppose?’
‘No, which is why we no longer take them on campaign. But see also, the holstered pistols have to be strapped to the front arch of the saddle, along with the rolled cloak, and the carbine boot strapped to the offside, and the sword to the nearside. It is something of an art,’ he added.
‘So it indeed seems, Mr Hervey,’ she replied, ‘but tell me, you have spoken before of troops and squadrons in the same breath, as if they were one. How is this so?’
‘No, they are not one, Sister, though I understand your confusion,’ he began. ‘A troop may number up to a hundred or so and is commanded by a captain. Usually there are six such troops in each regiment. When there is a royal review both the colonel and the lieutenant-colonel, and the major, too, would each take command of a squadron. The squadron would comprise two troops, and each squadron would carry a guidon. But on campaign it is the lieutenant-colonel who commands, and the senior captains each command a squadron, with command of their own troop devolving impermanently to their senior lieutenant. It sounds perhaps a little complicated but it works well.’
‘Oh, evidently so,’ she smiled, as the dragoon they were watching finished saddling. ‘You fit the head- harness last?’ she added with a note of surprise.
‘Because it gives time for the animal to adjust to the girth, which can then be tightened before mounting. The breastplate must, of course, be fitted at the same time as the saddle, then the crupper and last the bridle. This is the new 1812 pattern,’ he said, holding up a practical-looking piece of harness. ‘Much better than that we had before, but it can still be the devil of a job to fit in the dark, especially with cold fingers. This rosette here on the crossed face-pieces must be set dead between the eyes, and just below the bridge, or the orderly corporal will round on a man once daylight reveals otherwise!’
‘It is a handsome bridle, Mr Hervey, for sure. But what is this chain across the top?’
He gave a faint smile of satisfaction. ‘That is an additional device which we ourselves — in the Sixth I mean — have made. A sabre-cut through the headpiece would mean the bridle falls away and the rider would lose control of his mount. The chain prevents that.’
She turned and looked at him intently, and then spoke more softly than hitherto. ‘You are proud of your regiment, not just of your army, are you not, Mr Hervey?’
He seemed surprised. ‘Oh
Their parting, a week later, was a curious affair. In the days that had followed their visit to the cloister stalls Hervey had looked forward to subsequent meetings with increasing anticipation. The routine each day had been the same. She would first dress his wound (removing the sutures when the time came). Then followed several hours of sifting papers, and then a half-hour’s catechism (but of no great earnestness). In the afternoon they would walk together — further each day as his leg regained its strength. So that, as the time came for Boulogne, there had formed between them a considerable bond, a respect, an affection.
Only once had he felt any desire to stay her enquiries. One afternoon, as they walked in the orchard, she had asked him if there were anyone waiting for him at home, to which he had replied that in war a soldier must have no such ties. It was a conviction not unheard of in France, she countered, adding, however, that the denial of any part of God’s creation was innately sinful.
Already he had been able to tell her that he could deliver the letter to her father in person since the Sixth were to march to Boulogne through the Vendee, and her evident pleasure brought a smile to his lips. So, when they met on the morning that the regiment was to leave, her apparent resumption of the formality of their earlier meetings surprised him, and he felt awkward with what he now intended. He had had one of the armourers fit a shako plate to a piece of ebony to make a paperweight, its cross-pattee seeming especially appropriate. ‘To remember the regiment by, Sister,’ he explained uneasily as he gave it her. ‘It is the Garter cross, from our country’s most honoured order, with the regiment’s numerals in the centre.’
‘Just so,’ he managed to croak.
‘I was happy that we were able to read St Ignatius together, Mr Hervey,’ she began, ‘but there was so little time to begin the discipline of his way. You will not, I think, have time or occasion much to ponder directly on these hours, but there will come a time …’ She paused, as if to assess whether or not she might complete the prophecy. ‘There is a desire in you, a spiritual desire, as there is in all of us, and I have composed this vade-mecum for you,’ she continued gently, pulling from her pocket the diminutive volume. ‘It will tell you how St Ignatius himself might speak to you.’
Hervey took the primer without a word and opened it. Sister Maria’s handwriting, a compact, almost medieval script, filled its pages, the effort it represented apparent in an instant. He did what he could to find the right words, but he knew that he failed. T hope we may meet again, Sister,’ he added, and this perhaps said what his more formal civilities failed to.
‘And I, too,’ she replied, ‘though is it not ironic that our meeting was in war, and peace makes its prolongation impossible, or its repeating unlikely?’
Hervey smiled, awkwardly, and was about to hold out his hand when, on an impulse, it seemed, she reached into her pocket again to retrieve a gold signet ring with a blue silk handkerchief knotted to it.
‘Sir, I have one more kindness to beg. This ring is the de Chantonnay seal. It has been with me for safe keeping these past five years. The title papers of my father’s estates were taken by the revolutionaries, and if he is to recover his inheritance he will need the seal now that the war is ended. Please take it to him, but please on no account place it in anyone’s hands but his. On
Time was running out for their farewell. The ring begged certain questions (and he would have wished to address them), but it was no hardship to carry a ring as well as the letter. ‘So be it, Sister — I shall do as you bid. We must hope that I find your father home: he will have a long journey to Wiltshire otherwise.’
‘We must risk that at least,’ she replied with an empty expression. And then at last she smiled — not the wide, sparkling smile of their earlier hours together, but warm enough.
He reached out his hand, fully this time, and she took it. ‘Goodbye, Sister. And thank you.’
‘God bless you and go with you, Mr Hervey.’ She rose on her bare toes and kissed his cheek. ‘And, please, the ring — you must keep it safe and give it into no-one’s hand but my father’s.’
