An Act Of Courage

Hervey stalked off for the horse lines, leaving Sykes to the care of his journal.

‘Where is Mr Daly?’ he snapped.

‘At the lines, sir.’

‘Then why am I called?’

The orderly corporal hesitated. ‘Orderly quar’m’er’ told me, sir.’

‘Yes, Corporal, but why?’

‘Mr Daly is right angry, sir.’

‘With what reason?’

The orderly corporal hesitated again. ‘He’s taken against the quar’m’er’, sir.’

Hervey was becoming irritated by the evasion, but saw no profit in fighting it. ‘I wish they would save their anger for the French,’ he muttered.

It was getting dark, but the light of the campfires was good. The olive trees may have yielded a poor supper but they gave off a good blaze. Hervey could hear Daly cursing as he got near the end of H Troop’s lines; he sounded drunk. Then he saw Daly’s colt on the ground, like a mare foaling. The orderly quartermaster, B Troop’s, stood erect and silent to one side, and beyond him half a dozen dragoons from the inlying picket, while Daly ranted, and swung his arms about.

Hervey could not begin to imagine what was the occurrence. ‘Daly, what ever is up?’

Daly spun round, his eyes blazing. ‘This man is insubordinate!’ he raged. ‘I’ve placed him in arrest.’

Hervey was not sure if a cornet could place the regimental orderly quartermaster in arrest. He was certain that it was ill advised. But why was the colt down? ‘Serjeant Treve, what is the meaning of this?’ And then, before the orderly quartermaster could reply, he rebuked himself for the distraction and turned back to Daly. ‘What is the matter with your colt? Is the veterinary called?’

‘Sir, he is, sir,’ answered Treve, determinedly.

Daly cursed more. ‘I’ll call the vet’nary when I’m ready! This man must be confined, Hervey!’

Hervey bristled. Seniority among cornets might count for little, but he was damned if he was going to be spoken to like that by a newcome. And he was picket-officer! ‘Hold your peace, Daly, if you will.’ He turned back to the orderly quartermaster. ‘Speak, Serjeant!’

Treve, B Troop’s senior serjeant, a Dorset man, sixteen years in the regiment, remained at attention and spoke quietly. ‘Sir, I was making my rounds and came on Mr Daly and his charger. The animal was down and in distress. Mr Daly was holding a cautery, sir. He said he’d fired out the lampas. I told the picket-commander to fetch Mr Knight at once, sir. Mr Daly protested that I was not to, but I said as it was my duty, sir. And then, sir, I regret to say, Mr Daly became abusive. Sir.’

‘That’s a damned lie!’ screamed Daly, lunging towards Treve.

Hervey, boiling at the thought of the botched firing, stepped between them and held up his hand. Daly halted, swaying. Hervey wished there were another officer to take hold of him. ‘Mr Daly, you will retire at once and report to the adjutant!’ He knew it was a mistake as soon as he spoke, the proverbial red rag to a bull already enraged by the orderly quartermaster’s correctness.

Daly lunged again – whether at Treve or Hervey, no one would ever be quite certain. The orderly quartermaster stood his ground. Hervey squared, and swung his left fist, striking Daly in the temple.

He fell – out, cold.

‘Oh, God,’ groaned Hervey. But better he than the orderly quartermaster. Could he have restrained Daly otherwise, though?

‘What in heaven’s name’s going on?’ came a voice behind them.

Hervey turned to see John Knight with a lantern.

‘What’s the infernal commotion? In the horse lines, of all places!’

Hervey began to explain.

John Knight was horrified. ‘Stand easy, Sarn’t Treve.’ He handed the lantern to his assistant and knelt down by the motionless colt. ‘Christ! What a fever,’ he spat, running a hand along the sweating neck and shoulders. ‘Light, Brayshaw!’

The assistant held the lantern close to the colt’s head as the veterinary surgeon tried to prise the mouth open.

‘Hervey, give a hand here.’

Hervey knelt, turning to the orderly corporal. ‘Go and bring Mr Beale-Browne, please.’

‘Ay, sir.’

‘And tell him all you can!’

‘Ay, sir.’

John Knight had managed to get the colt’s mouth a little way open, but it took the two of them to prise it far enough for him to get a finger to the roof – risky business that that was. The colt struggled, legs lashing out. Hervey held the mouth wide for all he was worth.

‘For heaven’s sake, the palate’s like . . .’ John Knight took out his hand. ‘Leave off, Hervey. God knows what I can do. Brayshaw, make me up a gargle for mouth canker: vinegar, two parts burned alum and salt, and one of bole armenic.’

‘Sir.’

John Knight looked to where Daly lay sprawled. ‘How does he?’

The orderly quartermaster answered. ‘He’ll be well enough, sir.’

John Knight huffed. ‘Then more is the pity.’

All Hervey could do now was wait for H Troop’s lieutenant. Daly had to be removed from the horse lines, and that was a job for his fellow troop-officers. He himself would have to make his report to the adjutant, and already he was wondering how it would be received.

He got up, spoke quietly to the orderly quartermaster, bade him dismiss the picket and continue his rounds, then turned back to John Knight.

‘Christ!’ spat the veterinarian again.

Hervey saw. The colt lay quite dead.

Next morning, Hervey made his report to the adjutant after stand-down. Lieutenant & Adjutant Ezra Barrow, ‘the inelegant extract’ as the blades had dubbed him, listened seemingly unperturbed. Extract he may be, but he was the commanding officer’s extract, brought in by him from his old regiment, and therefore carrying authority without the need to display it. Barrow had seen much during his eighteen years in the ranks of the 1st Dragoons, but dispute between gentlemen-officers he was not well prepared for. To him, the officers’ mess was still terra incognita. He had observed its native habits at a distance for many years, and they had seemed alien indeed; but now that he stood on the same ground as they, he sometimes felt he knew them not at all. He was adjutant, however, the lieutenant-colonel’s executive officer, and he would attend to what was before him now as if it had been a mere case of indiscipline among dragoons.

Except that when he heard the words ‘I was obliged to strike him’, he realized that they were all treading in deep water. ‘Striking’ was a word with resonance, the mainstay of many a charge-sheet: ‘striking a superior’, ‘striking a subordinate’, ‘striking an officer’. For a moment his head swam. Which of these charges was appropriate? A cornet had struck another cornet: he had no idea which of them was senior (it was a trivial thing among cornets anyway, was it not?). Might one officer be charged with ‘striking an officer’? It was surely not the purpose of that particular formulation . . .

‘A moment, Mr Hervey, if you please,’ he replied, in the grating vowels of Brummagem. ‘As I recall the serjeant-major informing me at stand-to, the orderly quartermaster informed him that you interposed yourself between Mr Daly and the same, and that Mr Daly then fell unconscious on account of his . . . hysteria.’

Hervey was surprised. Was that truly how it had appeared to Serjeant Treve, or was it the exercise of rough regimental justice? Either way, he could not let it stand, tempting though it undoubtedly was. ‘No, sir, I did strike a blow, believing it necessary to prevent Mr Daly’s hitting me or Serjeant Treve.’

Barrow sighed. ‘You might have waited to make sure, Hervey. That way there’d be no doubt of what we’re about now.’

Hervey was taken aback. ‘I believe I might have weathered the blow without too much injury, sir, but Daly would now be facing a grave charge one way or the other.’

‘Or not at all.’