A Call to Arms

The RSM returned Sir Ivo’s ironic smile. ‘Indeed, Colonel.’

Sir Ivo turned to the adjutant. ‘Thomas, my compliments to Captain Hervey, and inform him that he’d better pick up his pen again.’ He nodded to the RSM. ‘And that will be all, too, Mr Lincoln. Your counsel, as always, is appreciated.’

The RSM, matchless in his turnout, even though the heavy air would have made sweat-scrapes busy on them all, saluted and left the office. As he closed the door, Joynson took off his cap and sat down.

‘Colonel, I worry about Hervey. He seems his old self a lot of the time, but the anger burns still.’

Sir Ivo nodded. ‘It can sometimes be a powerful force for action, Eustace. I saw many an angry man in the Peninsula carry a place with the bayonet or the sabre.’

The major knew that if he himself had had more anger he might have remained with the regiment longer in Spain. He nodded slowly. ‘Of course, of course,’ he said, as if still measuring the proposition. ‘But, I wonder, is it conducive always to good judgement, in hot or in cold blood? Hot blood is probably the lesser to worry about. It’s the slow-burning anger, the brooding, the resentment, the loss of reason which sets all the factors in a decision in their proper perspective.’

The Earl of Sussex had warned Sir Ivo that his major would serve him at all times faithfully, and in matters of administrative detail well, but that beyond this he should expect nothing. Yet Sir Ivo had a growing regard for Joynson’s general wisdom, not least his modestly perceptive estimates of character in the Sixth’s officers. They might all still call him ‘Daddy’ Joynson, but Sir Ivo had observed that his opinion was sought increasingly by them, and that was ever a sure sign — as, indeed, was the virtual absence of sick headaches. ‘A glass of Madeira, Eustace?’

‘Thank you, Colonel.’

Sir Ivo took a decanter and glasses from a cupboard. ‘You don’t think Hervey has lost anything of his touch, do you? I mean, it just occurs to me that the Hervey of whom I’d heard might have seen that confusion before it happened.’

The major took his glass and considered the proposition. ‘In truth, I’ve thought the same. I know that I should never have seen it.’

‘Nor I,’ said Sir Ivo, with a wry smile. ‘Indeed, the notion’s probably absurd. But I, too, worry. We must keep a special eye. Who are his friends, though? Eyre Somervile, I suppose.’

‘Hervey would count all the officers his friends, but none would own to knowing his thoughts, not even Strickland. And I dare say that Somervile, neither, has ploughed too deep; but he’s a shrewd man.’

‘A good man. I’d have him with me in a fight any day. I’ll speak with him — unless you think it better it came from you?’

The major thought about it for a moment. ‘I think, let me try first. It might not do for Somervile to think he were being asked to spy on him in some way, which it might well seem if you approached him.’

Sir Ivo smiled. ‘Quite so.’ He pushed the decanter back across the desk. ‘Tell me, Eustace, to change to happier matters, how is Frances? I have not seen her these past two weeks.’

The major smiled too. ‘She is more the attention of the garrison officers than ever it seemed in England!’

Sir Ivo nodded. ‘It was ever thus, I’m told, Eustace!’

At ten that evening Serjeant Collins, the regimental orderly serjeant-major, entered the wet canteen, as his orders required, to instruct the sutler to close it. It was always a tricky moment, a time when abuse had to be differentiated from good-natured banter in a split-second. Collins never looked forward to the duty, but he was one of the more practised ROSMs in the art of dealing with bibulous dragoons who fancied themselves as wits. His art was tested this night, however, by a barrage of opinion from A Troop men on the question of E Troop’s proficiency; it was taken up in turn by groups from B, C and D Troops. Collins stood his ground perhaps a little too long, as if challenging one of them to more than words. He looked about to see where were the E Troop men, to nod to them to beat a retreat before it was too late, but a swaying pug from A Troop was already making his determined way towards the bar.

‘I want another fookin’ nog, and thou’s not gooin’ to stop me.’ The jabbing finger left no doubt about who was not to do the stopping.

Collins braced himself.

‘E Troop?’ continued the pug. ‘I wouldn’t piss on ’em!’

Lance-Corporal McCarthy, sitting in direct line between the pug and his objective, put down his tankard and stood up. ‘Time for bed, Brummie.’

The pug looked at him in disbelief. What was a piece of tape compared with his brawn? ‘Fook off, yo’ thick Paddy.’

Corporal McCarthy sighed wearily, clenched both fists, feinted with his left, then drove his right into the pug’s nose.

It was the last thing that Serjeant Collins would be able to give any clear account of to the RSM the following morning.

‘Major’s compliments, sir, and would you attend on him at once.’ Scarcely had first parade finished but that Hervey was being summoned to regimental headquarters on account of the wet canteen. He thought it a little unfair that he had not yet had advantage of his serjeant-major’s reports in their entirety — Armstrong had been summoned to the RSM’s office even before muster — but in any event he did not expect to be given much of an opportunity to speak.

‘Sit down, Hervey,’ said the major, distinctly tired of the business already. ‘You’ll have heard of the events of last night, I take it.’

‘Yes, sir — in short.’

‘In short, eh? I don’t suppose any shorter than the brigadier has heard.’

Hervey looked astonished. ‘The brigadier? How might he have come to hear?’

‘Because the Skinner’s quarter-guard had to come and relieve our own while they cleared the canteen.’

Hervey grimaced. ‘Is the colonel very dismayed?’

‘Not yet. He was at a ball last evening. I don’t expect him back until tomorrow.’

‘What is there to do?’

‘Have you written that letter yet?’

‘I was just about to start it.’

‘Well, this is what you do, Hervey. You write it as if you had offended against Holy Writ. Is that clear?’

‘Perfectly.’

The major took off his spectacles and held them up to the light, before polishing them vigorously with a silk square. ‘Your Irishman will be reduced to the ranks, of course. Collins’ll be lucky, too, if he scrapes clear.’

‘Sir, we’re not going to make any great affair of this, are we?

E Troop was the butt of every dragoon’s joke yesterday. They’d become pretty resentful.’

‘Encouraged, no doubt, by their captain!’

‘That is deuced unfair, sir!’

‘Is it, Hervey?’

‘I freely admit to my anger, but I thought to have it in good check.’

‘Others may not agree. Oh, I have no very great trouble with a fray in the canteen — and neither, I should think, would Sir Ivo. The paymaster’s clerks’ll be the busier for a few weeks with stoppages, but that’s of little moment.’ The major took off his spectacles again and began rubbing them once more with the silk. ‘Are you not owed any leave you might think of taking, Hervey? Say, a month or so?’

Hervey looked pained, almost affronted. ‘If I were owed it, sir, I should not dream of taking it now.’

The major looked quite shamefaced. ‘No, of course not. Silly of me.’

Hervey said nothing.

‘You know, the trouble with these little regimental quarrels is that after a while resentment is turned towards the man at the head. Your dragoons’ll weary of having to answer on these barbs.’ Hervey was well aware of it, but still made no reply. Then he took up his cap. ‘Will that be all, sir?’

‘Yes, yes, I think so,’ said the major, apparently absently. ‘But Hervey, do be a good fellow and write that letter.’