A Regimental Affair

‘Do we have good news at last?’

‘I think it may be so,’ she said, smiling even wider. ‘You will not have seen The Times, I think?’

She handed him the paper, folded open to reveal the leading piece.

THREAT TO THE REGENT’S PAVILION

Brighton

We are most reliably informed that Tuesday’s affair with the Frenchmen bent on depriving His Majesty’s Revenue of their just receipts, and which occasioned the deaths of an officer of the Revenue and two private men of His Majesty’s Sixth Light Dragoons, as well as a number more very grievously wounded, was a most desperate contest between the dragoons and upwards of one hundred heavily armed smugglers who greatly outnumbered our brave fellows. The Dragoons, led by their noble and gallant lieutenant colonel, the Earl of Towcester, had ridden through the foulest of weather and the blackest of nights to answer the Revenue’s urgent request for assistance. And had it not been for the extraordinary address shown by His Lordship and his gallant officers and men, it is thought that the French might even have despoiled that part of the town of Brighton nearest their landing. We need scarcely add that His Royal Highness’s own pavilion residence is within but a short distance, and, though it shall not be our business to provide intelligence of His Royal Highness’s comings and goings so as to be of use to malefactors of any nationality, we may say with safety that it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that a most exalted personage might have been taken captive in such an expedition had it not been for the prompt action of the Regiment. We may further say, with the same assurance, that not even in their late campaigning in the Peninsula and at the Battle of Waterloo, have the Sixth Light Dragoons rendered His Majesty and the Nation greater Service, and that we expect confidently to report in due course the honours which must surely be bestowed on the regiment.

‘How in heaven’s name did such a piece come to be written?’ Hervey’s tone could not have been more incredulous. ‘I’ve never seen such a concoction of falsehoods! “Inaccuracies” would be too charitable a word. And such speculation!’

‘But it serves very well, does it not?’

‘It serves to make of Lord Towcester a hero, for sure.’

‘But does it not serve to absolve you, Matthew?’

‘It may be so, but that is an incidental which hardly makes the fiction worthy.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Henrietta, picking up a teapot as an excuse to look away. ‘But why do you say “incidental”?’ She turned back, and lifted her eyelids just enough to catch his gaze.

He was stunned. Surely she could not have had anything to do with such a report?

‘Do you really not think it settles things, my darling?’ she pressed, looking away to the window again. ‘Lord Towcester is a hero. He could scarcely make one of his captains a case for court martial!’

He smiled, wryly. ‘I think, very probably… yes. It does settle things!’

She took back the newspaper, and kissed him.

‘You are naught, you are naught,’ he declared.

She giggled in the wicked way he had provoked. ‘And you are very poetic. And you have no duties for a little while longer, I imagine…’

CHAPTER TWELVE. TO THE AID OF THE CIVIL POWERS

Brighton, three days later

Major Eustace Joynson had a sick headache. He had sick headaches often, and his doctors’ prescription was always the same. He emptied a small envelope of calomel into a glass of water, watched it dissolve and then drank it in one go. As a purgative it was admirable. As a counter to pain he could not tell, for although it had no immediate effect, the pain always passed, and so he could never be sure whether it was the white powder or simply time that was efficacious. He recoiled from taking laudanum, since that had rendered his wife to all intents and purposes an invalid — at least, she was no longer fit to be about society. One of his doctors said they might try the new morphium from Leipzig, but he was as yet wary of that. His sick headaches were invariably coincident with periods of demanding activity of the cerebral kind. Indeed, if the major were faced with a disagreeable decision, a sick headache could come on almost at once.

The past three days had not required of him any decision, but it had required unprecedented cerebral activity. First there were the courts martial. Strickland’s was a relatively straightforward affair to arrange, for the evidence was before them all in the shape, or rather the absence of shape — and colour — of his troop’s best jackets. But in the case of Hervey’s court martial there was the report of the revenue commissioner to await, and so the arrangements could only be tentative. And then had come The Times’s resounding praise, and with it a sea change in the lieutenant colonel’s disposition, so that all the arrangements for the courts martial had had to be undone, and hastily. The invitation from the Prince Regent for Lord Towcester to attend on him at once at Carlton House, which had followed within a day of The Times’s report, had further lifted the lieutenant colonel’s spirits; but it also placed the major in a position of temporary command, and this was not conducive to freedom from headaches. So when, this very morning, orders arrived from the Horse Guards to proceed to the north within twenty-four hours, the cerebral consequences for Joynson were unhappy.

‘Hervey, I must go and rest — a darkened room. Please would you be so good as to see these orders are put in hand?’ He gave him a sheaf of foolscap.

Hervey sat in the major’s chair once he was gone, and read over the orders quickly to gain a feel for their substance: general insurrection is feared in Nottinghamshire and south Yorkshire… seditious meetings… serious outbreak of violence against machines and property… threats made to magistrates and constables… informers suggest traitorous conspiracy… six troops to reinforce Northern District… under direct command of Major-General Sir Francis Evans.

He could hardly be surprised, for there had been reports in the broadsheets for the past month, though heavily censored. And, as Daniel Coates had said in his last letter, with habeas corpus still suspended, not even the bountiful harvest they were enjoying was likely to quell the discontent. Six months ago, the Yeomanry had been issued with a general order to respond to calls for assistance from the civil authorities, and so Hervey supposed that the yeomen must be exhausted, for to order the ‘pavilion regiment’ north was no small thing.

He turned to the sheet headed ‘Regimental Orders’. It was blank. What the major had meant when he said ‘See these orders are put in hand’ was ‘Write the orders and then put them in hand.’ He sighed. ‘Where is the adjutant, Serjeant Short?’

The orderly room serjeant said he was in Lewes for the assize dinner.

‘Please bring me the standing orders for forced marching, then,’ said Hervey briskly, beginning to read over the papers again.

‘There are none, sir.’

‘What?’

‘None, sir.’

‘What about the orders that Major Edmonds wrote as we left for Belgium? They were printed and bound when we got to France, were they not?’

‘Yes, sir, but his lordship ordered them all destroyed a month ago and said that there was to be a new edition.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Yes, sir. In red morocco.’

‘Red morocco?’ Hervey was about to ask why the old orders should be destroyed before the new ones were