then the French counter-attacked good and proper out of Egmont, and rolled over them like they wasn’t there.’
Hervey knew the battle well: a good light dragoon action, he had always understood. And Coates had spoken of it before. But now it was as if he were still there, so intent was his look. ‘Go on, Dan.’
‘Lord Towcester — well, he wasn’t Lord Towcester then: he was Lord Charles Keys, wasn’t he — Lord Towcester had a troop of the Twenty-third and he upped and left them — galloped off the field as if the hounds of hell were after him! In full view of his brigadier!’
Hervey’s mouth fell open. ‘How in heaven’s name could he become a captain, then, let alone a lieutenant colonel?’
Coates didn’t answer directly. ‘The Eighteenth charged through and through — young Stewart at their head, him that is Lord Londonderry now, privy councillor an’ all. “That’s the way cavalry should be handled,” called General Poole. “And as for that officer who bolted I’ll have his name disgraced for ever!” ’
‘But it seems he didn’t,’ sighed Hervey.
‘That night, I was outside the general’s office waiting on him to take his despatch to Lord Abercromby’s headquarters. Just a curtain for a door, it had. Lord Towcester was brought in under arrest, and I heard everything. The general’d been appalled when he’d learned who the officer was, because he knew his father as a very old friend. He’d wanted to have Lord Towcester court-martialled at first, but said he couldn’t bear to think of the pain it would bring so noble a man as was his father. He made him swear upon his honour to resign his commission at once and never again to seek one. And then Lord Towcester went out into the night, and no one ever saw him again.’
‘But this was all done in front of witnesses, was it not?’ pressed Hervey, disbelieving that such a promise could not have been enforced, let alone dishonoured. ‘And the whole brigade saw the flight too?’
‘The only man that I know of who would have heard the exchange was the brigade major, but he died that winter. And General Poole went peacefully in his bed many years ago now. He called me in to take the despatch soon afterwards and asked me if I’d heard what’d passed. I said I had, and the general said he believed he might well live to rue the day he had been so weak-minded about it. I remember it as clearly as if it were yesterday, for a general would never share such a thought with a corporal if he were not truly dismayed.’
Hervey could not but agree. ‘But what about those who saw him bolt?’
‘That I can’t say,’ said Coates, shaking his head. ‘It was nigh on twenty years ago. Who remembers anything when so much has happened in between? And who could say anything against their betters anyway? I don’t even know if Stewart himself saw it.’
What a dismal thing to hear on any morning, thought Hervey. ‘So I have a commanding officer who is not merely disliked for his manner by all, he was — and therefore almost certainly still is — a coward. And, what’s worse, his word counts for nothing.’
‘Ay, Matthew,’ agreed Coates, shaking his head gravely. ‘You see now why I was in such haste to warn you of it. A regiment commanded by a knave like him will be a damned pitiable place. He’d give you the point from behind soon as look at you. Stay on guard, Matthew! Stay on guard!’
PART TWO. SKIRMISHERS OUT
CHAPTER SIX. FROM WHOM NO SECRETS ARE HID
‘His lordship is most insistent on it, Captain Hervey. He wishes that you will take command of your troop at once. The major general’s inspection is at the end of the month.’ The adjutant’s tone was emphatic.
Hervey could not complain. These were the petty exigencies of the service after all. But why had July been declared the grass month only weeks before, and officers promised leave? He accepted Lord Towcester’s wish as if it were an order — that went without saying — but it seemed not unreasonable for the adjutant to say why the change had been necessary. Did the annual inspection come as such a surprise?
The adjutant clearly believed he had a fight on his hands. ‘If you wish to protest any more then you shall have to put it in writing to his lordship,’ he said, defiantly.
‘But I have not protested in the least! I have merely asked to be told the reason for the change. Things will go all the easier with the troop if they know why it is.’
‘I do not think his lordship would hold with that sentiment. An order is given and it is a subordinate’s duty to obey!’
Hervey sighed to himself. Only an imbecile would think that this truism was the last word on the command of men. ‘Dauntsey, do not mistake me. I say again that I have not the slightest wish to question the order. But I have always observed that our men go the better for it if they are told as much as possible.’
‘Our’ came properly enough, for they both wore the same badge.
The adjutant sneered. ‘In my former regiment I pride myself that we were greatly more punctilious in such matters, Captain Hervey. You shall have to put your objections in writing to the lieutenant colonel. He would not countenance it if this conversation continued.’
‘And I say for a third time that I make no objection!’ Hervey managed to keep his voice quite even, to begin with, but then his patience failed him. ‘See here, Dauntsey, if you go blustering to the troop captains in this way you will soon have their resentment, and it is not a good thing for a commanding officer to have an adjutant who cannot manage the captains.’
The adjutant made to protest.
‘I am not finished, if you please, Mr Dauntsey. When you speak, it is as if the lieutenant colonel himself were speaking, and it is as well that you remember that privilege, for if you use words that the colonel would not have wished, then your authority will be shot through once and for all.’
The adjutant wore a look like thunder.
‘Very well, then, Dauntsey. I shall return to Longleat now, and I shall be back, as his lordship wishes, in seven days’ time. Be pleased to give my respects to him when he returns.’
Hervey left the orderly room and walked to the officers’ mess, fulminating at the adjutant’s disdain and presumption. He was angry at having been driven to speak so sharply, but Dauntsey had had it coming to him. The fellow had been deuced rude on their first meeting two months ago, and since his own arrival yesterday — to do no more than make a few domestic arrangements — Dauntsey had scarce had a civil word for him.
It was not good, though, to be on poor terms with the adjutant. For although Hervey was confident enough of keeping the likes of Dauntsey on his guard, a mean-minded adjutant could always exact his vengeance in other ways: on the troop itself, perhaps. And in Hervey’s experience, when that went on for some time, the men could turn their resentment towards their captain rather than their true persecutor. An unpropitious start then, but better, perhaps, than to let things run on and have a bigger quarrel later. Well, it was done now, said Hervey to himself. Better to get his things into the chaise and be away.
How satisfying it was to have his own chaise. The stage was a mean alternative, even though he could now take an inside seat without having to worry about the cost. Serjeant Armstrong had called it swanking when first he had seen the carriage, with the Bath arms and all on the sides, and Hervey had been quick to admit to its provenance — and its temporary proprietorship. But it would still give him no little satisfaction to leave the barracks in it at once, beholden not even to the mess drag to get him to the staging inn.
‘Hallo! You are off already?’ said Captain Strickland, coming on the rig outside the mess a half-hour later.
‘Ay. The colonel wants me back early, it seems. There are things to do in Wiltshire first.’
Strickland raised an eyebrow and half smiled. ‘The major general’s inspection?’
