A Close Run Thing

chests, and he was now counting it worth while, for he did not expect to be able to get a coach on to Warminster until the following morning. At a quarter past eight they halted at the Talbot inn in Ripley, where bowls of hot water, towels and then a breakfast of kidneys and steak, rashers and poached eggs, buttered toast and muffins, coffee, tea and small beer revived the Swiftsure’s passengers. Hervey kept his own company at table awhile before leaving the fug of the Talbot’s low, dark, wainscoted room to watch the team being changed. Old and new were quality horses which looked as though they would serve equally well under the saddle, able to trot with rare velocity on the newly macadamized turnpike — horses to admire.

‘I’ll warrant ye didn’t see their like in Spain often, sir,’ said the guard.

Hervey looked up quizzically, and the big, open-faced man smiled from his seat next to the driver’s. ‘No, indeed,’ replied Hervey. ‘And I am to presume, therefore, that you have knowledge of that country.’

The second guard’s ‘yard of tin’ emitted a shrill recall to the other passengers, drowning the first guard’s reply, and Hervey would have asked him to repeat it had he not observed that one of the outside fares was an elderly woman, a farmer’s wife perhaps, for she had the stamp of the country. With difficulty at first — she thought he wished for some payment — he gave up his seat inside to her and climbed to the coach roof.

‘A gentleman indeed, sir,’ said the guard, offering his flask.

‘I thank you,’ said Hervey, taking a full draw on it. ‘This is uncommon smooth brandy. I fear I did not catch your last against the long horn, though.’

‘I said, sir, that a part of me remained yet in Spain.’

‘It holds that sway with many, I believe,’ agreed Hervey.

‘Bless you, sir,’ smiled the guard, ‘for it is my sally only.’ And he tapped his left shin with the butt of his fowling piece — wood on wood.

Hervey did not return the smile, wide though it was. ‘Then I am sorry for you. Was this the French’s work?’

‘Ay, sir — Albura, a musket ball point-blank,’ the guard replied, still smiling.

‘Then the musket’s aim was most curious if you were anywhere but astride a horse!’

‘That is right sagacious, sir. I were astride one of the Third DG’s.’

‘Indeed?’

‘And with three stripes up.’

‘Well, serjeant, I am glad at least to see you in employ.’

‘Thank you, sir. And yourself — you are an admirer of horseflesh, a professional eye, one of General Cotton’s, too, perhaps? And captain, I would suppose!’

‘Cornet,’ replied Hervey as cheerily as he could. ‘That’s an arsenal worthy of a heavy,’ he added quickly, nodding to the collection of firearms about the guard.

‘The fowling piece and pistols are right enough for the close country, but when we get on the heath a long- range shot or two from a carbine will see off a pad,’ he explained.

‘And the sword?’ queried Hervey.

He smiled. ‘I’ve ’ad it since I joined the Third.’

‘And that curious item by your feet — it has the look of the Paget, and yet …?’

‘It is that, sir. Haven’t you seen one with a folding butt before?’ replied the guard, passing it to him. ‘The Sixteenth had all theirs so in America. They were handier for foot work and they’re better balanced on the pouch- belt swivel. Can’t think why the rest of the cavalry never adopted it.’

‘Like as not because it bore General Tarleton’s stamp, I shouldn’t wonder,’ suggested Hervey (that is what Daniel Coates would have thought: with the fall of the general had gone many of the innovations of that illfated campaign). ‘You know, I should very much like to own one of these. An officer cannot carry a carbine in a saddle bucket — it would not do — but I reckon I could stow this in something little bigger than a pistol holster over the saddle arch.’

‘That’s easy enough, sir. For three pounds you may have a folding-butt Paget within the week, for as well as guard on this here coach I am serjeant-armourer with the Wiltshire Yeomanry, and carbines are simply enough purchased. The butt I shall adapt myself.’

‘Very well, then, Serjeant …?’

‘Smeaton, sir, William Smeaton.’

‘Very well, Serjeant Smeaton, it is agreed. Shall you have it sent to me in Horningsham? It is near Warminster.’

‘No, sir, I shall bring it myself, for I have dealings with the Warminster Troop this very week.’

And then, business concluded, Hervey was content to listen to Serjeant Smeaton’s recollections of the war, to his commentary on the sights, greater and lesser, along the road, and to his general observations on the state of the country as would a returning regular find it. When they set down that evening at the Red Lion in Salisbury, in the shadow of the great cathedral, Armourer-Serjeant William Smeaton shook his hand as an old friend. ‘That Warminster Troop, mind,’ he warned, scratching his head and smiling still more, ‘they’re not as you and me, as reg’lars, would know things — not as things would be in the Third or the Sixth.’

Hervey caught his meaning well enough: ‘I’m obliged, Armourer-Serjeant!’ And he smiled, too.

No stage ran through the night to Warminster, and the hire of a coach of any sort would rob him (so he reckoned) of a preposterous sum. Instead, he took the early post the next morning to the old wool town thirty miles along the Bath road. Warminster’s rooftops looked comfortingly familiar when first he saw them as the post crested the final rise and ran along the turnpike under the south-western scarp of the great plain, its ancient hillforts standing silent picket. And the press of people at the sheep fair filling the high street was as he had always remembered it. Or perhaps not quite as he remembered it, for the driver of the gig which then took him on to Horningsham said that the fairs were double the size and twice as frequent as before the war. Everywhere, indeed, there was the look of prosperity.

His letter had preceded him by two days, although at what time he would arrive, or even which day, it had not been possible to say. So when the gig pulled up to the vicarage his reception was as clamorous as if he had been wholly unexpected, the family all but tumbling from the door. His father’s only reserve (though little enough) was occasioned by advancing years; his mother showed none whatever; and his sister was almost as unrestrained. He had thought so long of this moment that in the event he found himself unaccountably composed, and made apology for being so. It was of no moment, his father insisted: it was but the manner of the soldier. His mother ascribed it to the long journey; but Elizabeth thought otherwise, fearful that she had, to all intents, lost a second brother (though she had forborne to say so in the weeks before his keenly anticipated homecoming).

But Elizabeth seized her brother’s arm resolutely, none the less. ‘Come, Matthew; there are others who wish to see you.’ And she took him inside to the servants’ hall.

Francis, their ancient footman, now bore a pronounced stoop, but cook was as large and merry as ever he remembered. ‘Master Matthew, do they not feed you in the Army any more? I’ve seen more meat on a tuppenny cony!’ she exclaimed, hugging and pinching him.

‘Mrs Pomeroy, a week of your puddings will right all, have no fear!’

A kitchen maid giggled in the corner. ‘Not to be so silly, Hannah,’ said Mrs Pomeroy with some primness. ‘This is Hannah, Master Matthew, Abel Towle’s young’n.’

Abel Towle, gardener-cum-groom, who could not speak one full sentence without cursing, albeit of the mildest sort within the family’s hearing, bade his welcome when Hervey and his sister went to the stable. Towle and Ruth, his elder daughter, completed the vicarage’s modest establishment.

Next they took a turn about the garden, Elizabeth pointing out keenly the additions since his last brief visit home all of five years before. They embraced from time to time, but it was too soon for them to speak of anything of consequence. Hervey stopped by some of the new cold frames and looked at her sheepishly. ‘You will think me strange, Elizabeth, but is there still the big leaden tub? I have never looked forward to a soak in it as these past weeks!’

‘Indeed, there is the leaden bath! And Ruth and Hannah shall fill it at once. And while they do so you must go to the orchard and see the old chestnut tree of which you were so fond. You will still see Longleat from its branches, I’ll warrant!’

So long was he in his bath that a giggling Hannah was sent to discover if he were awake. In truth, the