Man Of War

Office, which news pleased and troubled Hervey in turn since thanks to Lord John Howard he had some acquaintance with the minister. But it was Palmerston who had ordered the court of inquiry.

There was a line of hackney carriages outside the post office. Hervey engaged one, tipped a boy to transfer their baggage, and bid the driver take them to the United Service Club.

Fairbrother at last fell silent as they drove along Poultry and Cheapside, and then by way of St Paul’s, Fleet Street and the Strand to St James’s, wholly transfixed by what he saw, a juxtaposition of grandeur (new and old alternating – conjoined, indeed) with dereliction of a kind he had not seen; yet a lively dereliction, not a waste, the noise and the vigour of it all beyond his former imagining.

‘So much is torn down and built each time I come,’ said Hervey as they passed yet another demolition site, scene of scaffolding and cranes straining to replace with new before the old was even wholly reduced. ‘The new London Bridge was nothing when last I crossed the old one. And downriver they are driving a tunnel from one side to the other.’

Fairbrother shook his head in amazement.

‘I must tell you again, though, the United Service you will not find more than passing comfortable. A new club is being built,’ (Hervey smiled as he realized Fairbrother must picture all London abuild) ‘and the committee has spent very little on the existing premises as a consequence. It is a pity we shan’t be able to try the new ones.’

Fairbrother turned to him but momentarily. ‘My dear fellow, it is excessively good of you to put me up at your club, no matter what its condition. I hope it occasions you no discomfort.’

Hervey frowned. ‘As I have told you before, you mistake matters if you once think otherwise.’

Fairbrother turned his gaze once more to the building work on the Strand. He did not think that he did mistake matters; he rather thought that Hervey did. He admired the lieutenant-colonel – his lieutenant-colonel, indeed – of mounted rifles (and major of light dragoons); in truth he had not met his like. But his previous association with British officers did not predispose him to believe that Hervey was at all typical of his caste. Oh, to be sure, the officers of his former corps, the Royal African Regiment, were not out of the top drawer; half of them could not have passed for gentlemen save for the badges of rank which proclaimed them to be so. But it was not merely they: Lord Charles Somerset, the previous lieutenant-governor at the Cape, had never deigned to receive him, and his son, Colonel Henry Somerset, had never troubled to disguise his contempt – except, of course, of late (saving a fellow’s life put even a Somerset under a powerful obligation to be civil). It was true that the present governor, Hervey’s old friend Sir Eyre (and Lady Somervile), had received him at the Castle with the greatest courtesy; no, with the greatest warmth – but this he was inclined to attribute to the Somerviles’ time in India, where a dark skin (not that his own could be accurately described as dark) was no impediment to society if the native were a gentleman. For the rest, he would reserve his judgement.

‘See here,’ said Hervey in an effort to be aptly cheery as they passed Charing Cross. ‘This part is called the Bermuda and Caribbee Islands, though I’m not sure why. They say it is all to be pulled down, and a vast piazza made of it in memory of Nelson.’

Fairbrother peered indifferently at the slum-jumble about St Martin’s church. No decent planter in Jamaica (in which category he firmly placed his father) would thus house his slaves (in which category he could not deny had been his mother). But then, he imagined that the inhabitants of these crowding tenements were not so gainfully employed as plantation slaves.

‘They are what you call rookeries?’

‘I don’t know that they are rookeries – I think the term is applied more to the tenements in the old city – but they are noisome, for sure. Over here,’ (Hervey smiled ruefully) ‘not so very far away, is where the King lived when he was regent.’

Fairbrother turned his attention to the other window. In a minute or so the building site that was the old Carlton House came into view.

‘And there is the new United Service Club. Or will be. Not long now by the look of things; the glaziers have made a beginning.’

The hackney swung into Regent Street, and Fairbrother could only marvel at the change that a mere hundred yards brought: from dereliction to royal palace, and now to a street as graceful as any he expected to see. The carriage turned right into Charles Street and pulled up in front of four Corinthian columns, which marked the entrance of the United Service Club.

A red-waistcoated porter whom Hervey did not recognize advanced at once to the kerbside. Hervey paid the driver, nodded to the club servant, who began taking the baggage from the hackney’s boot, and then he and his friend made their long-looked-for entry to ‘the Duke’s Own’.

‘Good morning, Thomas,’ he said quietly at the lodge.

The hall porter looked up. ‘Why, Colonel Hervey, sir! It is good to see you. We are expecting you, of course, sir.’

Hervey was relieved, though he did not show it. The United Service’s servants, loyal and delightful as they were, had no more reputation for efficiency than any other club’s staff. And although he had sent an express immediately on disembarking, the day before, he could not then be certain that rooms would be available. ‘And my guest, Captain Fairbrother.’

The hall porter glanced at Fairbrother, and perfectly maintained his smile of welcome. ‘Of course, sir. There are two excellent rooms on the west side.’

‘Capital, Thomas. Are there letters for me?’

‘I will look, sir.’

Hervey nodded. ‘We shall take coffee the while.’

‘Very good, sir. Mr Peter is on duty.’

Hervey gave Fairbrother a look of ‘I told you it would be thus’ as they made their way to the United Service’s principal public room.

In the coffee room they met Major-General Sir Francis Evans, who had been the general officer commanding the Northern District when the Sixth had been sent to the Midlands to suppress the Luddite violence (where Hervey had distinguished himself in the most trying of circumstances). That had been a decade and more ago, and the intervening years had made him even more crabbed in his aspect.

Hervey bowed. ‘Good morning, Sir Francis.’

The old general narrowed his eyes. ‘Hervey?’

‘Yes, General.’

‘Hah! By God, sir, I must say your exploits are vastly entertaining.’

Hervey’s brow furrowed. ‘General?’

‘Can’t open The Times these days without reading your name – castles in Spain, powder-mills in Hertfordshire, wilds of Africa . . .’ (Hervey shifted a shade awkwardly.) ‘How are you, my boy?’

Hervey smiled. ‘I am excessively well, General. May I present my good friend Captain Fairbrother of the Cape Mounted Rifles . . .’

The general turned to Fairbrother and scowled. ‘You’re the officer who rescued Somerset’s nephew, are you not? You and Hervey here.’

Fairbrother returned the well-meaning scowl with a smile, and bowed. ‘Just so, Sir Francis.’

‘Desperate affair, by all accounts,’ said the general, turning back to Hervey. ‘And young Somerset appears to have fought quite a battle with these Zulu. I imagine you had a good view of things?’

Hervey was at first puzzled by the question, for it suggested that he and Fairbrother had had a somewhat peripheral involvement, until he realized what might be the game. The Times’s report, if it had been based on the official despatches, which were in essence Colonel Henry Somerset’s own (and on what else could it be based?), and undoubtedly further coloured by letters to Somerset’s father and uncle, men of no little influence, would for certain exalt the name of Somerset. Well, so things went. ‘We did indeed, General.’

‘A man to watch, eh, Hervey?’

Sir Francis Evans was a shrewd old bird. There was just something in his tone . . .

‘I do watch him, sir.’

The general nodded, knowingly. ‘Sit you down, gentlemen.’

Hervey glanced at Fairbrother and raised his eyebrows a fraction to signal that their quiet half-hour’s coffee was not to be had. But Hervey knew too that the general would oblige them with all the club crack, of which he was