A Regimental Affair

of French smugglers, of whom some sources have it that their numbers were close on a hundred. A running fight with as many of His Majesty’s dragoons has left a score of dead on both sides.

Hervey sighed. The scribbler’s art could ennoble the meanest affair.

‘What is it, my love?’ asked Henrietta, the first two pages of her own news not detaining her long.

He read it to her.

‘It sounds… heroic.’

He smiled ruefully. ‘There were neither a hundred Frenchmen nor a hundred dragoons — though there should have been.’

‘Matthew, my love, if someone wants to say there were a hundred Frenchmen opposed to you, then I should not be in any great hurry to disabuse them!’

He smiled again. ‘No, perhaps not.’

‘What does The Times say?’

‘We do not appear to have it.’

‘Then we shall have to wait to see if they have any advance on a hundred!’

Henrietta’s self-possession seemed remarkable. She appeared not the least anxious for her own situation in connection with her husband’s. Hervey was about to make some endearment when Hanks entered again and announced that Private Johnson wished urgently to see him. Henrietta nodded, and Hervey bid him show him in.

Johnson was in best dress (he would explain that it was the surest way of being allowed to pass by the town patrols, who assumed him to be on official business). ‘Good morning, your ladyship, ma’am. Good morning, Cap’n ’Ervey, sir. I thought you’d be wanting t’know that we’ve got all t’orses back, ’Arkaway an’ all!’

Hervey was astonished. ‘How in heaven’s name—’

‘They’d all run east, and down into that valley that ’as that river.’

‘The Winterbourne?’

‘Ay, sir. That’s why Cap’n Strickland’s troop couldn’t see ’ide nor ’air of ’em from t’turnpike.’

‘And who found them?’

Johnson smiled even broader. ‘They all came into Ovingdean trottin’ behind t’Dover stage yesterday morning — still saddled. T’livery there caught ’em all.’

This was good news indeed. And it would draw the sting as far as Lord Towcester was concerned — somewhat, at least. ‘Where’s Harkaway now?’

‘Back in ’is stall, right as a trivet.’

‘But with one more leg?’

Johnson smiled. ‘I’m glad yer not too out of sorts, then, Cap’n ’Ervey!’

Henrietta smiled too. ‘I shall go to my sitting room to finish my letter, and you may talk all morning of corralling horses. I shall ask Hanks to bring more coffee.’

When she had gone, Hervey bid Johnson sit at the table and tell him what other news there was.

‘Not a lot, sir. Cap’n Strickland is in arrest, too, though.’

‘Not a lot? Just another troop leader arrested?’

Johnson frowned. ‘I thought you meant news in t’troop.’

It was always well to remember the difference. A private man thought little beyond his own troop. ‘Any news, man!’

‘Crowner’s ’quest on Greenwood an’ ’Ill today.’

‘Is it, indeed? That is very prompt. Where?’

‘I think they said it were at t’assembly rooms.’

‘At what time?’

‘Twelve, I think. Are you going to go, sir?’

‘Most certainly! I can’t think why I’ve not been called to give evidence.’

Johnson looked thoughtful. ‘Are ye sure y’ought to be gooin’?’

‘Just pretend you never heard me say it. What other news?’

‘There’s been a man from t’Times sniffin’ round since yesterday mornin’, but nobody’s said owt as far as I know. But ’e’s buying drink and offering money. It won’t be long before some gobby devil falls for it.’

‘And what might he say, Johnson?’ Hervey had the distinct sense that his groom felt there was something to withhold.

‘Anything ’e wants to ’ear. That there were two hundred Frenchies, led by Bonaparte himself!’

‘So you don’t mean that some might say we were wandering about the downs like lost Jews?’ Hervey’s concern for the good opinion of the canteen was genuine, as well as for the mischief the opposite opinion could make.

Johnson shrugged. ‘I’ve been lost in worse places. Isn’t that what ’appens in t’dark?’

‘Not if you’re an officer,’ smiled Hervey wryly.

‘But at least y’knew where y’was gooin’. I’ve known some officers as didn’t even know that!’

Johnson was ever frank. It was one of the reasons he was still a private — and one of the reasons he was still Hervey’s groom. ‘And is there anything else?’

‘Oh, ay, there is: t’RM asks if you’d like to ’elp ’im wi’ a new ’orse ’e’s just bought. Up on t’downs, away from things.’

Hervey was touched, for the riding master’s invitation to schooling sounded like a message of support. ‘Please tell Mr Broad that I should like to very much. And do you think you might look out some clothes for the inquest meanwhile?’

‘Ay, right you are then, sir.’

Johnson left through the door that Henrietta opened. She smiled at him, as she always did, and then turned to her husband with a look of some distress. ‘Matthew, have you not received any word from Wiltshire of late?’

‘No. Is there something wrong?’

‘Lady Bath writes that your father is to be summoned before the consistory court.’

Hervey’s heart sank again. ‘But all that was finished. He made his peace with the archdeacon months ago.’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘Evidently it was not a lasting peace.’

‘There is no mistake? I’ve heard nothing from Elizabeth, and she for certain would have written.’

‘There is no mistake, Matthew. Lady Bath gives dates and places — here, read it.’

He took the sheet. It read plainly enough. ‘I’ll apply for leave to travel to Horningsham at once.’ Then he frowned. ‘I’ll not be granted it of course. I’d better write at once.’

The inquest into the deaths of Privates Hill and Greenwood was pleasingly brisk. The coroner was a no- nonsense sort of man who seemed not in the least dismayed by the attention the proceedings had generated, especially the reporters from the London broadsheets who with others of the provincial press filled one of the galleries in the assembly rooms. At the end of a brief deposition by the surviving revenue riding officer, he directed the jury to bring in a verdict of unlawful killing in the case of both dragoons, and adjourned the proceedings without elaboration. In an instant the London and provincial hacks besieged the uniformed observers for some titbit to enliven their day’s copy: for once, Hervey was glad to be in plain clothes and apart from his fellows. All the hacks, that is, but The Times’s man, who raced from the court to a waiting chaise and made off with great haste to the capital.

* * *

Dawn the next morning saw Hervey and his groom on the downs above Brighton. The air had a taste of salt but was invigorating, and with no one as far as the eye could see but the riding master, Lieutenant Broad, and Broad’s groom, Hervey could forget his woeful condition for the time being.

Mr Broad was another extract, but Hervey had taken to him from their first meeting. Broad had been in the ranks of the 1st Dragoons — Lord George Irvine’s former regiment — for fifteen years before Lord George had arranged his commissioning into the Sixth after Waterloo. His predecessor as riding master, who had been a rough rider under three RMs, had been diligent but somewhat rigid. And though he had been generally respected, there were some (including Hervey) who thought he had become too averse to new ideas, so that the regiment’s