A Regimental Affair

‘It may not be so bad. We might see inside the Prince Regent’s pavilion,’ tried Hervey, with a sort of smile.

‘Hervey, I don’t like saying this. It goes against everything I’ve held to in two and a half score years in the service. But yon Earl of Towcester is a bad lot. He’ll fall foul of the Horse Guards sooner or later. They all do. But he’ll lead the regiment a pretty dance ere then. And a lot of men shall pay a heavy price — Hopwood, me, you even…’

‘I’ve been trying to tell myself that it won’t be so bad once we have real work to do.’

‘Maybe,’ Barrow conceded, though not sounding convinced. ‘But if I had the means…’

‘For what?’

‘To let them in authority know what is his true nature, I would!’

Hervey understood that the financial stake for Barrow was too high. And perhaps, in its way, it was for him too. He shuddered at the notion. It must never be so, he told himself: he must act disinterestedly, always. And if a man like Barrow was driven to thoughts of defiance, then was it not time that he himself made such a stand?

When Hervey returned home that evening, a little before eight, the brandy was no more than a dull headache, for he had turned out his troop for sword drill in the afternoon to sweat the flogging out of them. It had been a woeful affair to begin with, for Serjeant-Major Kendall seemed wholly incapable of exercising any mastery over a body of men; and had it not been for the most judicious, and surprisingly tactful, intervention of Serjeant Armstrong, the parade might have become like a shambles of a busy morning. He had wondered when he could be rid of Kendall, when he might raise the matter with Lord Towcester. He had even discovered lately that the serjeant-major had managed to get himself and the commissary wagons thoroughly lost during the general’s inspection, where but for the early finish to the scheme there would have followed certain disarray in the troop. But at the moment Hervey could not broach the subject even with the adjutant, for such was the strong detestation in that quarter that a request to have the man moved would only be met with accusations that he was trying to deflect the blame for his own shortcomings. There seemed no end to his problems.

The heavy silk curtains in the drawing room were closed, and candles burned brightly, although it was still light outside. The house was a picture of elegant comfort rather than of luxury, a good place for a soldier to withdraw to.

Henrietta greeted him warmly. ‘Johnson has just this minute left,’ she said, holding her cheek to his lips. ‘He told me about the affair at the barracks. I am sorry, my darling.’

It pleased and touched him that she should understand so perfectly. ‘A hideous business.’ He sighed deeply. ‘I should have been home before now, but—’

‘There is a bath drawn for you. Why don’t you wash away the day and then come to me as if it were a fresh one? I’ve news that should interest you.’

‘From Wiltshire?’

She gave him a puzzled smile. ‘Yes.’

‘Is my father to be made bishop?’

‘Wait and see, dearest,’ said Henrietta indulgently. ‘I shall expect you down in half an hour, and then I shall tell you all.’

His bath was a restoring exercise, but when Hanks poured water over his head he had a moment’s vision of the salt water and Private Hopwood’s back. He made an effort to put that from his mind, though, for Henrietta did not deserve to have to share the Sixth’s troubles. He dressed quickly and returned to her side, hopeful of diverting news from Wiltshire.

Henrietta was holding a glass of champagne, which she loved better than any other wine. Hervey might not himself have chosen it in the circumstances, but the regiment’s trials were not to be hers, and so he took the glass which Hanks proffered.

‘Well?’ he said, with amused anticipation. ‘What is it in Wiltshire that will interest me?’

Henrietta waited until Hanks had closed the door behind him, and then gave her husband another kiss. ‘My dearest, Princess Charlotte is with child!’

Hervey tried hard to conceal his disappointment at news that was of such little moment to him. Had he not heard it before, too? ‘My darling, what is—’

‘And so am I!’

Sensations of every kind came over him. He was dumbstruck. Henrietta, blushing a little, smiled at him. ‘Matthew, I am wondering why you seem so surprised. There has scarcely been a day when…’

This was certainly true, even on the night of the general’s inspection. He took her in his arms, shaking his head with a sort of unbelieving pride.

‘But I do believe it was the day when Jessye went to the stallion.’

He reddened, and then became anxious. ‘Shouldn’t you be sitting? Resting? Have you seen a doctor? Is there—’

‘Matthew.’ She put a finger to his mouth.

He kissed her with the greatest tenderness. ‘Whoever could have thought that the day might end as well as this?’

‘It is not ended yet, my dear,’ she whispered. ‘And I am not suddenly become as a piece of china.’

Hervey was ready for the rude rebuff, the curse, profanity, obscenity — whatever it was to be — for he was the man’s troop leader, the officer in whose charge Private Hopwood now was, punishment having been carried out.

Joseph Edmonds had told him, when first he had joined the Sixth, that it was unfair for an officer ever to confront a man when his senses were dulled by alcohol, or fired by another spirit, for if the man then acted violently — by word or worse — the officer was in truth guilty of provoking it. Hervey knew that Private Hopwood was scarcely able to rise from his bed and assault him, but what if his verbal abusing was loud enough to be heard by all the others in the sick bay? What if the abuse were directed not at him but at the commanding officer, the adjutant, the farrier-major — at anybody, indeed, who might then prefer a charge of insubordination? Would he, Hervey, have the right to overlook such a thing — as he was prepared to do now, should the invective be directed at him personally?

But Hopwood’s reply was silence.

At first Hervey thought Hopwood might not have heard him, being still drowsy, perhaps, from the laudanum. ‘Private Hopwood,’ he said again, thinking at least to give him back a little dignity in addressing him by his rank. ‘Is there anything I can do?’

Still Hopwood made no reply. Hervey was now caught between anger at the refusal to speak, for the man was still under discipline, even prone in his sickbed, and compassion for his evident wish to be shot of officers. He would not leave, though, without first making Hopwood meet his eye. But as he moved closer to the bed, he wished with all his heart that he hadn’t, for Hopwood’s eyes were streaming — a continuous flow of tears, as if all will to stem them were gone, and every drop of that soldier’s spirit which had made him face his punishment so bravely the day before was being washed away. Hopwood was no longer a man in age three or four years his captain’s senior; he was not even a child.

Hervey turned to leave, but as he did so came the extraordinary sound of hymn-singing. Not the doleful stuff of Corporal Sandbache’s prayer meetings, which even Lord Towcester had not thought worth suppressing, nor even the regimented chorus of a Sunday church parade, but a full-throated rendering of ‘He who would valiant be’. By how many, Hervey wondered? It sounded like half the regiment! He hastened outside to find his troop and the chaplain, hats off, heads high.

The sound would be carrying throughout the barracks, and easily across the square. Hervey glanced towards the orderly room, where the lieutenant colonel’s pennant was run up the pole; Lord Towcester was certainly at orderly room. The windows were closing one by one. All, that is, but Mr Lincoln’s.

Henrietta was on her day bed, and did not hear him come in.

‘My dear,’ Hervey stammered as he saw her. ‘Are you unwell?’

She turned to see his anxious face, and laughed. ‘No. I am tired!’

It was not yet ten in the morning. ‘But—’

‘Matthew…’ she protested coyly.

He saw her tease at once, and kissed her forehead.

‘Why are you home so soon? Is anything wrong?’