A Close Run Thing

‘That is the most significant part — more so merely than breech-loading. The piece is called a percussion lock. Come, see.’

They went to the paddock beyond the stables where Coates handed him both carbine and cartridge-bag. ‘Try it first and then I shall tell you the story of how I came by it,’ he said, lifting the hinged firing mechanism at the point where stock and butt met, and placing a cartridge in the breech for him. ‘You pull back the hammer — it locks itself back, see? There’s a safety catch here, too — and then the trigger releases the hammer just like a flintlock. No exterior spark — nothing. And the cartridges are waterproof, too, made of goldbeaters’ skin.’

‘Of what?’

‘Well, not strict as: goldbeaters’ skin is from ox gizzards. These are sheepgut; I make ’em myself.’

Hervey tried the carbine, firing at a tree a hundred yards distant and watching with satisfaction as pieces of bark flew off with some velocity. Coates even dropped several cartridges into a bucket of water, and these fired instantly, too. It took only a fraction of the time to reload that it would a loose charge, and the accuracy compared well with the Baker service rifle.

‘Dan, such a weapon — it is astounding. Tell me how you came of it.’

‘From a minister of the Kirk, would you believe!’

‘What?’

‘The Reverend Alexander Forsyth, doctor of divinity no less, the minister in Margaret’s village near Glasgow. He made it in his own workshop! And you know what, Matthew? He took it to the Board of Ordnance, and they said they had no use for it! No use! Bonaparte had use for it right enough — offered him twenty thousand pounds for the secret. But he would not sell it, so the Ordnance have promised him a pension for keeping silent! He now has a shop in London — sporting-guns and the like.’

‘Yes, Forsyth’s in Piccadilly — I saw it only days ago! So this is from London?’

‘No, he has no permit to sell them yet. This I made myself after he’d shown me the principle!’

‘Dan, at every river in Spain it was the same — the Devil’s own job just to keep powder and fire-locks dry. Then we would have to prove the carbines although we were meant to be scouting: you risked either giving yourself away or a misfire when you least needed it. I’ve seen every carbine in a troop flash in the pan so.’

‘Well, the carbine is yours, Matthew — I have a pair. There’s no reason why you should not have dry powder at least. Though, now that Bonaparte is done for, His Majesty’s Ordnance will no doubt consider it timely to make it a general issue!’

* * *

The next morning, before seven, Hervey drove with his mother into Warminster for the Saturday fair, where she bought turbot and lobster fresh-caught from Weymouth. On settling for the fish, as had been her routine for as many years as he could remember, she took a letter for her sister in Hereford to the letter office in the high street, and afterwards they drove home, returning to the vicarage before nine. Each way she spoke of little but Henrietta Lindsay — how fine a lady she was grown, what society she kept, how distinguished a peer was her guardian, the marquess, and on what close terms Henrietta and Elizabeth had remained. She urged him to pay her a call at Longleat that day, and lamented that she had not the servants to ask her to dine with them at the vicarage. What thoughts Hervey entertained in that direction he now sought hard to conceal; for, much that he might look forward keenly to meeting once again the sparkling child whose schoolroom in Longleat House he had once shared, he knew that both the years and the society in which she moved must place a distance between them. No, he insisted politely, and to his mother’s consternation, he would wait a little while more before calling. Instead, when they had breakfasted, he took out his new bay, intending to put the gelding through its paces in Longleat Park.

The yeomanry were being put through their paces in the park also. Hervey saw them from some distance as he rode towards the deer enclosure, and first impressions of their manoeuvring were of handiness. He knew well enough the difficulties with which the volunteers were beset — largely the want of anyone to train them, since all the regulars had been sent to the Indies or Spain, or to Ireland or the coast at the supposed invasion-points. He halted fifty yards or so from them as they drew up in double rank on the edge of a piece of open ground which evidently served as their drill field.

‘Telling off, by files, number!’ began the troop serjeant-major. The words of command were somewhat eccentric, not strictly the Dundas manual, but effective none the less. But then the serjeant-major began telling off by sub-divisions, and after that by quarter-ranks. The process seemed interminable, and to what end Hervey could scarcely imagine: had they been militia there might have been some benefit in numbering aloud (for many a militiaman would not have been able to count beyond a dozen), but there hardly seemed the need in the solid citizens of the yeomanry.

Beyond the troop was a vocal gathering — several carriages and half a dozen blades astride quality horses, the kind of group that assembled anywhere the military paraded. And, if these yeomen troopers had not the edge in drilling that the regulars had, they were a diverting enough sight to any who would admire a fine uniform. Indeed, Hervey began to wonder at whose expense they had been clothed: the fur-crested Tarleton would have cost double, perhaps treble, the new shako. Whoever had paid was also of an independent mind, he concluded, for the plume was still in what he presumed must be the yeomanry’s facing colour — blue — rather than the national white over red to which other corps had changed a decade before. He could not but admire the skirted, tailless blue dolman jackets, slightly longer than the new-pattern coat which his own regiment wore. And he noted with approval that the jackets were worn with just a sword-belt and snake-fastening instead of with the barrelled girdle which used to be popular: this way their belts would be kept tight even if the effect were not as eye-catching. But it was clear that in white breeches and boots these men were not meant for serious field service, for overalls were what anyone who spent whole days in the saddle would choose.

His eye moved to the drill ground, where two parallel rails, set on posts about four feet high and painted white, ran for fifty yards down the middle of the open area, and to which the troop was drawn up at a right-angle. The rails were about three feet apart and, at intervals of ten yards, and three feet from the rails on both sides, there were posts about the height of a man, on each of which was fixed a sheaf of straw. It was much like any cavalry skill-at-arms field, but the rails gave it more the look of the medieval tiltyard. By Hervey’s reckoning, two troopers would gallop towards each other, safely separated by the rails, and in a backhand cut would slice the sheaves. Indeed, he would soon have a demonstration, for the first pair were trotting out to their starting positions — two corporals, the chevrons on their sleeves larger even than a regular’s.

They began their approach at a trot, and he judged that they would go forward to canter at the start of the rails and then gallop a couple of lengths before the posts. To his astonishment, however, they maintained the trot throughout, and — worse — they simply held out their swords to cut at the sheaves with forehand swipes. Even at that modest pace, however, it should have been possible to cut them, but the swords were so blunt that they knocked all but one off the posts. The corporals seemed pleased with their demonstration nevertheless, as did their officer, the same pallid lieutenant of the Imber road. Hervey groaned. There then followed a ponderous half-hour while the thirty or so troopers went through these same evolutions. Why he stayed was uncertain. Perhaps he hoped for some redeeming feature of drill before the parade was over; but there was not, and he was puzzled why. If it were too much to expect these volunteers to learn to cut at the gallop (and he would be the first to acknowledge the skill in that manoeuvre), surely it were better then to point with the sword and quicken the pace? But, without anyone of experience to drill them, how might such a practical solution be advanced?

‘Good morning, my fine fellow; so you are taken by the sight of regimentals, eh?’

Wrapped in his thoughts, Hervey had not noticed the lieutenant ride up to him.

‘Well, you look as though you could be made to sit well and be useful with a sword. Want to try your hand on the gallops?’

Hervey could but stare at the lieutenant’s leg, stretched in regulation fashion, the very tip of the toe, only, in the stirrup, and it took the greatest effort to suppress his smile at the word gallops. A less appropriate one he would have found difficult to imagine, and, in the face of such delusion, laughter was tempting in the extreme. ‘I thank you, no,’ he managed instead.

‘Oh, now, come: there is nothing to be afraid of. My men will applaud your efforts, be what may.’

Had this milksop assailed him with any kindness, then he might have hesitated, but the lofty treatment of Daniel Coates on the Imber road the day before sealed it. Now was the time for Lieutenant Hugo Styles, the slightly