The regiment was mustered in parade dress this morning. The officers wore white buckskins and hessians instead of workaday overalls, and their chargers were turned out in shabraques instead of sheepskins. There were four hundred men on parade, of whom three hundred and more were mounted. The Sixth were not yet returned to their old custom – A and C Troops bay, B black, D light brown and E chestnut; that would take a year or so yet to accomplish. But they rode good-looking troopers, the hussar regiment they had replaced evidently having taken care – and spent money – on purchase of their remounts. The late-autumn sun glinted on sabres and farriers’ axes, and the old music of the bits and curb chains took over as the band fell silent. It was a special moment, and there was scarcely a man that did not feel it.
The regimental serjeant-major’s big gelding, its coat shining like jet, began pawing the metalled square. Mr Hairsine merely flexed his rein hand and the horse stood still, head up. Then he touched his spurs to the gelding’s flanks and trotted out from behind the ranks and up to the adjutant. The latter, primed, reined round to a flank to give the RSM full face to the commanding officer, a wholly unorthodox evolution that immediately presaged ‘an event’.
‘Sir,’ began Mr Hairsine, ‘the non-commissioned officers and other ranks of His Majesty’s Sixth Light Dragoons are desirous to mark this day with an expression of their esteem, sir. May I have your leave to carry on, sir, please?’
Eustace Joynson, wholly taken aback, simply nodded.
‘Private Adcock!’ bellowed the RSM.
‘Sir!’
The dragoon, riding a liver chestnut mare which seemed reluctant at first to leave her fellows, trotted out of the ranks and up to the RSM’s side. He alone on parade that day wore any decoration. And Joynson knew at once what was afoot, for Adcock was the longest-serving private man, with whom he shared the Sixth’s silver Peninsular medal (it would be two decades more before the government would see fit to honour those left with its own).
‘Colonel, sir,’ began Private Adcock, sword still at the carry. ‘The non-commissioned officers and men, being of appreciation, respectfully ask you to accept these tokens, sir.’
Adcock pressed his mare forward, having to repeat the leg aids, for she was as nervous of her new-found prominence as was Adcock himself. He halted in front of the lieutenant-colonel, sheathed his sabre, saluted (other ranks never paid compliments with the sword), deftly unfastened his cross-belt pouch and took out a small leather pocket. He pressed forward two lengths more to close the space that remained, and handed Joynson the token of esteem.
The lieutenant-colonel opened it and found a gold hunter watch.
‘There is a sentiment on the inside, Colonel, sir.’
Joynson opened the cover:
Three lusty cheers broke the sudden silence.
Joynson knew he must say some words in reply, carrying to the whole parade as had Private Adcock’s, though it was so alien to his temperament that he doubted his capacity to do so.
However, the RSM knew his colonel almost as well as Joynson knew himself. Mr Hairsine now turned his head and nodded to the bandmaster on the other side of the square. Herr Hamper raised his baton, up came the instruments to the bandsmen’s mouths, and on the downstroke they began ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’.
The adjutant and the RSM closed to Joynson’s side and led him off in a final review of the ranks. Through moisture-laden eyes the lieutenant-colonel saw many a face that brought back memories, painful as a rule but now no more than a dull ache; and the occasional one that induced a recollection of something happier. He nodded frequently, by way of appreciation at so singular a gesture as this, and even managed what passed as a smile for the odd sweat. And all the time the band played ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’.
When he reached the end of the left-flank troop, Joynson turned to make the speech he dreaded, but the Sixth’s last compliment was to spare him from the ordeal, and the band played on. Joynson nodded, smiling, at last recognizing the stratagem, then saluted and reined about to ride off parade accompanied solely by his trumpeter.
*
An hour later Hervey went to Joynson’s quarters. Little remained there, for the carters had been coming and going since early the day before. ‘I’ve come to add my gratitude too, Eustace,’ he said.
‘I wish Bella might have seen that,’ said Joynson, from an upright chair and deep in thought. ‘And Frances for that matter. Perhaps it would . . .’
Hervey waited, but in vain. When it became clear that Joynson was not going to finish his sentence he spoke instead. ‘I’m sure she will hear of it. It was a most handsome thing. And not in the least degree unwarranted, if I may say.’
Joynson shook his head. ‘Whoever would have thought it. Sent home from the Peninsula in disgrace, too.’
‘You were never in disgrace!’
Joynson smiled, wryly. ‘Not even Slade was sent home!’
‘Stop it, Eustace. We each have our ups and downs. A man might rest properly on his laurels for ever after a sending-off like this morning’s.’
He smiled again, more convincingly this time. ‘Ay, you’re right I’m sure. The river won’t be so melancholy a place after all.’
‘I should think not too!’ Hervey pulled close another chair and sat down.
‘Have you made your arrangements for Lisbon then?’ asked Joynson brightly, but with a look of some bemusement.
‘Yes. I leave next week. I shall take my groom and coverman, no more.’
‘What do you make of it all?’
‘It’s difficult to say. The duke, by all accounts, is opposed to any adventure.’
‘Quite right too. A knife fight between the dons is naught for us to be mixing with. It’s a dispute between who in the same family is to rule Portugal, that’s all. It can hardly disturb the peace of this realm. I don’t hold with Canning’s grand ideas.’
‘The Spanish are backing Dom Miguel. It may come to war. And the French would intervene too, likely as not. How would that be good for the prosperity of the realm? And is there not a treaty which obliges us to come to Portugal’s defence?’
Hervey shrugged. ‘If Portugal’s where is the sound of the guns, Eustace, then I can’t see as I have any choice. And by the time I arrive there, I assume the government will know which side we are to support! In any case, how else am I to find preferment, unless I go and court cream at the Horse Guards?’
Joynson looked at him archly.
Hervey was not inclined to take the rebuke. ‘You know how much it will cost to advance by purchase!’
Joynson shook his head despairingly. ‘Ay, and you know how hard won is any promotion in the field: Bhurtpore brought you nothing. Well, a brevet, for what that’s worth. You have a family, Hervey. Mark what has come to pass with Frances by neglect.’
Hervey flinched. For an officer more at home with an acquittance roll than a sabre, Joynson could certainly cut deep. ‘I should not trouble yourself too greatly on either account, Eustace,’ he replied, with as much composure as he could muster. ‘Frances has not once dishonoured you.’
Joynson narrowed his eyes, and admitted the assertion by the merest movement of his head. ‘Then don’t you presume too much of that admirable sister of yours.’
It was kindly meant, and Hervey knew it. ‘I am most conscious of it, I assure you.’
Indeed he was. Elizabeth Hervey had welcomed her brother home these three months past in the expectation that she, and his daughter therefore, might see him on a regular, indeed a frequent, basis. That he had not been down to Wiltshire very much so far was understandable; she knew there must be all manner of things to detain him in the first months of a new station. But tomorrow, when she and Georgiana came up to Hounslow for the first time,
