A Regimental Affair

Great Disturber, and he fretted all the while at Eton, even as the army was assembling before Waterloo. And I confess to you that when I saw the casualty lists following that battle I gave thanks to the Almighty that He had spared my son from such a test. I do not dismay, though, as perhaps I might, that his death was at the hands of his fellow countrymen, for to do so might make in me a resentfulness that would be a canker. Neither do I need pain myself that there was any dereliction of duty on anyone’s part that, if it had been otherwise, might have rendered the outcome different, for Lord Towcester has written to me saying that my son’s squadron leader was the finest of officers and his serjeant the most experienced of men, so that nothing more might have been done to render him better support in that singular duty.

I am ever grateful to you, sir, for your kindness in writing, and if this appears to be but a very inadequate expression of it, then be assured that it is caused only by a heart that I fear may be for ever broken.

I remain, sir,

Huntingdon

The problem was the quite obvious untruth in the assurance that the Duke of Huntingdon had received from the lieutenant colonel — although Hervey could not be sure what the Earl of Towcester had actually written. He had no reason to doubt that Lord Henry Manners was ‘the finest of officers’, but Manners had not been in Skinner Street. And although Serjeant Noakes could certainly be described as experienced, in that twenty years’ service was vastly more than most soldiers could lay claim to, the greater part of that service had been spent with the quartermasters. Had it been one thing or the other, Hervey might have been inclined to think that the Duke of Huntingdon — perhaps even fortuitously — had got hold of the wrong end of the stick. But two misapprehensions was altogether different.

Hervey turned it over again in his mind. Was it proper to ease the suffering of the next of kin by such an artifice? Had he not, himself, spared Margaret Edmonds the details of her husband’s shocking death at Waterloo? Had he not sought to spare Mrs Strange the anguish of knowing that her husband had died in the way he had? Yes — but not in order to conceal some neglect. Indeed, had he not been at pains to tell her of the sacrifice Serjeant Strange had made, so that he, Hervey, might get his despatch to the Prussians?

But it was a dreadful thing indeed to imagine one’s lieutenant colonel capable of so ignoble a deed as covering up a misjudgement in this way. And this was the man on whose favour his promotion rested. Was there not, as ever, more to things than met the eye?

Hervey laid both letters aside and looked out of the window at the delightful corner of Creation that was his father’s garden. He had enough things with which to occupy himself at present, and pleasurably so. By the time the regiment decamped to Brighton, Lord Towcester would be content, and the regiment, too: was that not the Sixth’s way? He really shouldn’t make it his business to worry, he told himself.

CHAPTER FIVE. AN HONOURABLE ESTATE

Salisbury Plain, St George’s Day

Hervey set his horse at the fence and kicked on. The big gelding took off long and pecked on landing. Hervey was so off his balance he was on the ground in a trice. It had been so quick he could do nothing to save himself, but not quick enough to spare him the exasperation of knowing it was happening. His hat fell the other side of the hedge, an iron missed his head by an inch and the gelding galloped off across the vale. Winded and bruised, but with no bones broken, furious with himself but not humiliated, for there was no one to see, he cursed everything — himself most. All the leaps for the King he’d made, or for his life, and a hedge in Warminster Bottom put him on his backside! Thank God it hadn’t been a field day with the regiment, where ‘dismounting involuntarily’ was an occasion for damage to both pride and pocket. He couldn’t blame his horse, and he didn’t. He’d put him at too big a fence for a youngster, a horse he didn’t know well enough, and his mind had been elsewhere. But the sound of liberated hooves now pounding the chalk would turn every eye for miles. ‘Hell,’ he cursed again, this time moderating the oaths. ‘Hell, hell, hell.’ He rubbed his shoulder, which had taken his weight as he hit the ground.

There was so much Hervey liked about this gelding, though, not least because he was a grey, iron grey, and he had always liked that colour, especially when the quarter dappling was as pretty as this one’s. He sat up to see those quarters disappearing at a great pace in the direction of Drove Farm, where Daniel Coates had stabled him for a fortnight since the dealer had brought him from Trowbridge. It could have been worse: he might have been in the middle rather than on the edge of the downs. But, there again, had he been in the middle he wouldn’t have found a hedge to jump. There was no point ruing his luck: the gelding had dumped him and that was that. Better to stride out for Coates’s place while there was still light enough to see him back to Horningsham afterwards.

What he had intended to do was take back the repeating carbine, which Coates had been trying for the better part of the month, and with it the old soldier’s opinion too, for Hervey felt it time to make some report to its supplier. For his own part he was very much impressed with the weapon. A day or so after arriving home, he had taken three rabbits near the hanger above the glebe before the rest made it to their burrows — something he had never managed even with his percussion-lock. And though it had jammed on one occasion he had righted it easily enough. But Daniel Coates’s opinion would be the long view, and that he must surely prize above his own. And soon he would be having it, for scarcely had he walked half a mile when he saw Coates trotting towards him on his old chestnut cob, the grey in hand.

‘Good afternoon, Master Matthew!’ hailed Coates as he neared. It was the old greeting, the way Daniel Coates used to address him when they had been together all those years ago, Hervey on the leading rein. And many had been the time the young Master Hervey had failed to keep his pony between himself and the grass, and ever grateful had he been that it was as springy on the plain as bogmoss in Ireland.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Coates,’ Hervey replied, humouring the old dragoon. ‘Do you have a hobby-horse I might try?’ If anyone was to bring him his loose horse, better that it were Daniel Coates. But Hervey’s equestrian pride had taken a fall, and though he might make a joke of it, that pride which remained was a sight more hurt than his bones. In truth, he would have been content to pick his way back to Horningsham at once.

At Drove Farm, however, Coates was keen to show him his usual hospitality, and the jug of purl was brought. ‘Sit you down, Matthew. I have something important to tell you.’

Hervey sat in his usual chair; Coates’s manner had a note of warning he had heeded with profit many a time before.

‘Your carbine, Matthew. Before I give you my opinion, I should like very much to know what is yours.’

Hervey gave it simply. ‘I should choose it for myself.’

‘Instead of a Paget?’

‘At all times.’

Coates nodded. ‘Instead of the percussion-lock?’

Hervey considered carefully. ‘It would depend on the circumstances.’

‘Ay,’ conceded Coates. ‘Might you elaborate?’

Hervey had not expected to be pressed to a view, but in principle the answer was straightforward. ‘In the wet I should prefer the percussion-lock. When dry, the repeater.’

Coates nodded again. ‘Because the repeater’s advantages are voided by damp?’

‘Just so.’

‘But dry, it has the edge over the other?’

‘Yes,’ said Hervey, quite assured. ‘It can fire at many times the rate of the other.’

Coates thought for a moment. ‘And would you approve it for your dragoons?’

‘Yes.’ Hervey did not feel quite so assured.

Coates made a thoughtful ‘um’ sound.