‘Faith, would yer look; they’re sending boys now!’
The lilting Irish brogue brought raucous acclamation from the rest. Hervey knew at once he had a trial ahead. It had already taken an age to find the regiment’s women, let alone the troop’s, for the baggage train was spread about the meadows outside the town like a tinkers’ fair. He wanted done with the business as soon as may be, but he realized that he had not the slightest idea how to proceed.
But Armstrong had. ‘Come along, ladies,’ he rasped, scarcely forbearing to smile.
‘Isn’t he a fine-made boy, though, the officer, Annie! He’d stay at his post all night!’
There were shrieks from the rest, and more raucous than before.
Hervey stood composed, as best he thought, praying that his mounting discomfort was not evident. Corporal Armstrong poked at the donkeys with his cane, trying to get them separated from the others.
‘Can I do any washing for you, lieutenant?’ came a cheery voice from the Black Country.
Hervey made the mistake of smiling and shaking his head.
‘What’s the matter, dearie – my hands too rough for your smalls?’
‘He don’t look to me as though he’s small, Annie!’
‘Now, girls! If you please!’ tried Armstrong. ‘Mr Hervey is an officer and a gentleman and he expects the regiment’s wives to comport themselves as ladies.’
‘No, indeed we’re not! We’ll not be insulted by someone just because they’ve a bit of lace on their arm!’
‘Oh ay, Maureen? Who would you be insulted by then?’
‘Will you hear that, Lieutenant! Are you going to stand there and let this man call us whores?’
Hervey was close to total confusion.
‘I’ll call you worse than that, Maureen Taylor, if you and the rest of you don’t get a move on with these donkeys!’
Hervey saw the peculiarly disarming effect that Armstrong’s Tyneside, and knowing smile, had. The troop’s dozen dissolved into giggles, with much winking at him, and more than one lift of the skirt to show a bit of calf (and shapely calf, too, Hervey noted).
‘They’re not bad lasses really, sir,’ said Armstrong as they led them off. ‘Taylor’s wife’s a mite brazen at times, but she means right. I don’t suppose you heard how she was on the ship?’
‘No?’
‘Tended all Taylor’s pals when they were sick as dogs, she did. Washed up more puke than you’d see of a pay night!’
‘That is heartening, Corporal.’ Hervey meant it, even if he could not yet quite understand why.
‘Ay, well, sir, I bet yon Sykes of yours’ll avail himself of her services. She knows how to scrub all right does Maureen Taylor.’
Hervey managed a smile to himself as they rode back. He wondered how to tell of it to Daniel Coates. It was a pity he would not be able to in his next letter home, though in truth the regiment’s followers were not unlike half the women of Horningsham, his father’s nominal parishioners. They were not bad sorts; the quartermaster would not have put their names forward for the draw otherwise. Without the discipline of the barracks, though (or the village), they became as unmanageable as their donkeys. But then, what concern was it to him? This little affair had not injured him beyond the moment, and had indeed revealed depths to Corporal Armstrong. The promise of good laundry was a powerful balm, and in any case, he did not expect any regular engagement with Maggie Doolan, Maureen Taylor and their saucy like.
Private Sykes much approved of the followers. ‘They’re not bad ’uns, sir,’ he chirped as he made up Hervey’s camp kit for the night. ‘They made a bit of a commotion as they came in, but they’ll have a boil on soon as. Would you like me to take ’em your linen, sir?’
Hervey did not hesitate. ‘If you would, Sykes. Is that all the baggage brought in now?’
Belisarda, Hercules the mule and Pedro the donkey had come up with the other officers’ bat-horses behind the regimental women. There had been no shortage of men and boys in Lisbon wanting silver, and there were almost as many batmen, muleteers and donkey drivers as animals themselves. Hervey was glad to hear that his baggage was complete, for he had already decided, with the experience of a month’s powderless campaign, that some redistribution of his equipage was necessary.
Daniel Coates had been most particular in respect of Hervey’s campaigning kit. He had given him his own tarpaulin bed, which had once belonged to his general, but he had also urged him to obtain a boat cloak and learn quickly how to sleep in it. Coates’s ‘the first occasion the baggage fails to come up isn’t the time to be acquainting yourself with the cold earth’ had already proved prescient. On almost every detail, in fact, Daniel Coates had imparted the distilled experience of North America and Flanders with admirable aptness. Dry, wet, hot or cold: the old dragoon had known it all. He was determined ‘his’ young gentleman should know it too, and have whatever he had come to prize in the process – telescope, tinderbox, camp-kettle, oilskin haversack, and a dozen other things that eased the soldier’s burden. And all now neatly stencilled
Except, of course, the business of regimentals. This, even Coates acknowledged, was beyond his former station and, therefore, competence. Instead, Hervey had placed the business of his uniforms in the hands of the travelling representative of the Sixth’s tailor, Mr Gieve of Piccadilly. Lord Bath had had his own bootmaker, Hoby of St James’s Street, fashion him two pairs of hessians. His brother, John, had presented him with a morocco writing box; his godfather had sent him a travelling dressing case. Even his sister had contributed to his necessaries; the lip salve in a silver sheath had already proved an unexpected blessing.
There were, however, three considerations in which he had resolved to take very particular counsel, these being, so to speak, the particular tools of his trade. The riding-master’s declamation rang in his ears still: ‘The cavalryman must live only for his horse, which is his legs, his safety, his honour and his reward.’ And so Hervey had always understood, but Jessye had been greeted with disdain: a ‘covert hack’, some of the blades had called her, fit only to be ridden to the meet. ‘You’ll need rather more blood than that for the chase,’ his lieutenant had exclaimed on first seeing her. But Jessye had soon proved her speed and handiness in the jumping lanes, and by the time the Sixth had begun readying themselves for Portugal she was admitted as being a good sort for campaigning. His second charger he had bought at the Canterbury depot from an officer transferring on to half pay. The gelding was three-quarter-bred, as good a hunter as any to be found in Leicestershire, the seller had declared. Hervey was pleased with his purchase, not least for buying within the modest amount his father had been able to provide (the selling officer had had an unusual degree of sentiment when it came to his horses, keener they should go to someone with good hands than deep pockets). And Jessye’s saddle fitted well enough too.
Jessye’s own replacement (temporary, Hervey was determined – just long enough for her to be let out of quarantine when the farcy was done at her layerage) he had bought from a dealer in Arundel, where the regiment had lately formed its depot for the campaign. He had had to pay over the odds, he knew full well; he needed a horse at that instant more than the dealer needed a buyer, but the riding-master told him he’d have no difficulty selling on in Spain for twice the price. La Belle Dame was smaller-made than Robert, the bay gelding; she could be marish, even a little nappy, but she was pleasingly up to weight, and so far rather a good doer. He would be sorry to part with her when the time came.
With the other tools of his trade – pistol and sword – he had had mixed fortune. He had taken with him the light dragoon sabre with which he had learned the cuts and guards as a boy, thinking that he would at least have a workmanlike weapon to hand if fashion failed him. He had been determined to have a ‘Mameluke’, as all self- respecting officers of cavalry sported, but he had had to buy blind from Reddell’s in Jermyn Street. When it came, its length and weight felt strange compared with the dragoon’s, and he was not sure he had the real measure of it even now.
At least his pistols gave him no trouble. The adjutant had told him that the colonel would have no objection to his carrying a pair of the new ‘Land Service Pattern’, which he would be permitted to buy at ‘vocabulary’ price from the Ordnance. His fellow cornets all had the same; it was a very serviceable weapon, they agreed. But it had been the best part of a month now since leaving Lisbon, and he had drawn neither firearm nor sabre, save to clean it.
Indeed, Hervey was fretting. Moreover, the dragoons were fretting. They had all been told in Lisbon that Sir John Moore was taking the army to Madrid, to stand side by side with the Spanish to repel Bonaparte. Why then did they not make more haste? They marched scarcely twenty miles in a day. And why were the French not here to
