he, Hervey, must do, for it was clear now that nothing would happen except by his own hand. And throughout he prayed that the lieutenant colonel would not return before they left for Detroit.
Only the second prayer seemed to be answered. Lord Towcester was detained in Quebec, and there was peace about Fort York. But Hervey had been unable to see any proper course respecting the lieutenant colonel’s fitness for command. Do something he must, however, and so in the last hour of his furlough he had taken pen and paper, and written his submission as fully as he was able.
He now read his submission aloud to Henrietta, and to his surprise, she thought it well. He read her the letter once more so that there could be no mistaking his intention.
‘Matthew, it will be well, I tell you. General Rolt is by all accounts a sensible man. He will know that a subordinate officer would not make such complaint without the gravest cause.’
Hervey nodded.
‘I do wish you would let me speak to Sarah Maitland, though. She would—’
‘No,’ said Hervey, gently but emphatically. ‘There must be no cause for Lord Towcester to claim that anyone is scheming against him. General Rolt would very properly sympathize with him if he were persuaded that there had been scheming.’
‘As you wish, my love,’ she smiled. And then she took his hand and kissed his cheek. ‘Shall you look in the nursery once more before you go?’
Their daughter was sleeping. Her eyes were bluer and bigger, and her hair more abundant still. Georgiana had the look of her mother, and Hervey could scarcely comprehend it. He could only feel it, deep in his vitals — the force, the obligation, that was paternity.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE. THE FINISHER
Fort Detroit, Michigan Territory, 27 February
Never had Hervey found a mission so simple in conception and yet so difficult in execution. And it was nature that accounted for both. The hundred and fifty miles of country between Detroit and Lake Michigan were easy going — for the most part empty plain, broken occasionally by low-lying hills, the rivers running straight, either to Lake Michigan itself, or east to the Erie — and the snow betrayed the tracks of anything that moved. However, the snow fell so often that a guileful enemy, if such the Shawanese could be called, had only to lay up until the sky told him that snow would soon fall again, and then continue his evasion secure in the knowledge that his tracks were being covered. And the Shawanese could read the sky, it seemed, for Hervey and his troop had not seen a single brave — or even an infirm old squaw — in a fortnight of patrolling the line of the Raisin and Grand rivers.
He put down his pen, and began to read over his letter to Henrietta.
My darling wife,
Yours to me of the day after our parting is now at hand, my having returned only this very morning from a tour of the country. Your sentiments I return in all their measure. I am so very content, and principally because you declare yourself to be so. I, too, pray that we may be reunited soon, and I am so very glad that you say you will come here as soon as I send word. Fort Detroit, and the town of that name, is an agreeable settlement, and you would be comfortable there. The Americans are hospitable, if somewhat brusque in their manners, and my quarters are adequate. Or you might stay instead at Fort Malden on the Canadian side of the river, for there is a ferry by which our lines of communication run from Fort Brownstown, where the troop is quartered, and on to York. I am brought to Detroit, some twenty miles or so north of there, because the American general’s flag flies here. If you believe yourself to be strong enough for the journey, then the rear details may arrange an escort for you, for there is frequent traffic on account of the despatches &c. I am glad you have found a wet nurse with whom to leave our daughter, though the weather is warming so rapidly now that in another month I am sure it would be not unwise to have her brought too.
I have seen a great many wild creatures here, whereas we saw none before. There is moose and elk, and quite easy to catch, since they tire easily in the snow, and can be driven into deep drifts where they stick fast. We do not shoot them since the noise would give away our presence to the Shawanese. I have seen fox and racoon, and, I think, porcupine, but our guides say they take to winter quarters, so perhaps it was something else. We have seen black bears, several times. We are not able to get near, for they take off surprisingly fast at our approach, but they stand much bigger than I imagined. And — at last — we have heard wolves, and so many of the dragoons are now content. Indeed, we hear wolves almost every night. Sometimes they are a very discordant noise indeed, when they all just seem to howl for no reason but to proclaim they are there, but from time to time a single, far distant wolf calling is a very melancholy sound indeed. I am sure you will love to see all that Nature displays here.
In all respects we are well. Seton Canning and St Oswald are greatly enjoying their liberty, and it is very good for St Oswald especially to have this chance of long patrols of his own. Serjeant Armstrong awaits his news with surprising want of ease. I never saw him so agitated! If this duty continues as uneventfully, then I shall send him back to York for a few days. I should also tell you, by the way, that Gilbert seems made for this weather. He can trot with so high an action that snow as deep as his hocks hardly detains him. And at a hundred yards he is invisible!
But the news I am least pleased with — and which you must, by now, have yourself heard — is that Joynson is gone back to England an invalid. Besides being sorry for him in his unhealth, I fear my letter, with its enclosure for General Rolt, will not have reached him before he left. Indeed, I cannot see how it possibly could. And so I am left now with no alternative but to request an interview with the general as soon as he is come back from Quebec, though when I shall be able to return to York I have no idea. I chide myself that I should have acted earlier — in England, indeed — but in truth I cannot see how before this affair of his at Niagara I had any evidence to go on that would stand scrutiny. What one thinks of as being of overwhelming import in the regiment suddenly sounds thin skillee indeed in a general’s headquarters. And even the Niagara business is not beyond refute. I do so regret, now, the courtesy of writing first to the major, but every bit of me as a soldier said I must. It is a very dreadful thing to have done, to complain of one’s commanding officer, and I can only suppose that I was trying not to compound my delinquency by submitting the complaint through the major. For the moment, therefore, I can do no more than submit my request for an interview with the general, and trust to God that he is a fair-minded man.
And so, with these presents I must conclude, for there is a rider about to leave with despatches, and I do so wish you — and now our daughter — to have this expression of love and admiration, as well as assurances that it leaves me well and as content as I might be in the circumstances of our separation.
Your ever loving husband,
Matthew Hervey
Brigadier-General Sam Power was a man whom Hervey knew at once to be just the sort of officer whose generalship he would enjoy. His family were farmers from the west of the territory, and he had enlisted in the Michigan Legionary Corps on its formation in 1805, serving first with the rifle and then with the cavalry company. In 1808, when the regular army was enlarged, he went to the new military academy at West Point in New York state, and was subsequently commissioned into the Second Infantry. He had served with Zachary Taylor on the Wabash, Winfield Scott at Niagara and Andrew Jackson at New Orleans, and he was not yet thirty-five. His blue staff uniform
