Warrior

going on parade he could never recognize which was his company unless the serjeants were posted. Here, in the formal but shabby ease of the evening stables parade, a man would touch the peak of his forage cap in salute, with a smile of recognition and an 'evenin sir' in greater or lesser degree according to his length of service. And he, Hervey, could return that greeting with an intimacy which defied the understanding of all but an insider. Yet on parade, in the field, in the face of the enemy, he could give the same man an order to charge – even unto death – knowing that it would be obeyed without question.

Obeyed not through fear of the lash (for the Sixth did not flog) but through trust that a man's life was not thrown away merely because his rank was lowly; and, too, that no one – officer or NCO – would ask a man to do a thing which he himself would not. Trust, mutual trust, was the secret of light cavalry discipline. This he had learned, before ever seeing a dragoon, from his old and late friend and mentor Daniel Coates, sometime Trumpeter-Corporal Coates of His Majesty's 16th Light Dragoons (and now in death his magnificent benefactor). And that trust he had cultivated throughout the years of the Peninsula, and since. It would be deuced hard to exchange it all for the world of the serjeant's half-pike and the cat-o'-nine-tails. Likely as not, he would never speak directly to a private man again . . .

'Sir?'

He snapped to. 'Sar'nt-Major.'

Collins was standing at attention in front of him.

Hervey recollected himself as best he could with a 'How do you find things?'

Collins took his whip from under his arm and moved to Hervey's side, ready to continue the progress through the lines. 'Just as I expected, sir.'

Which was indeed exactly as Hervey himself expected, for both Armstrong and Collins had been raised in the same school – RSM Lincoln's.

'Every last item in the ledger accounted for, all of it in good condition, and a satisfactory store of backshee.'

The regiment had picked up the word in India, where the native regiments used it to describe those items held in excess of what the ledger specified – the 'working margin', as the quartermasters and serjeant-majors more usually officialized it. Except that as a rule none would ever declare the existence of backshee, since by rights any excess belonged to the superior account holder.

Hervey nodded, perfectly appreciating the candour: Collins wanted him to know that Armstrong had run the troop exactly as it should be run. 'I trust that Sar'nt-Major Armstrong will be able to report the same in due course,' he added, though in truth with no certainty, now, that Armstrong would indeed take back his troop (Private Johnson's conviction that he would 'chuck it' for the sake of his children seemed no longer impossible).

'Evenin, sor!'

Hervey was taken aback. 'Corporal McCarthy!' (He had last seen him in the quartermaster-serjeant's office in Hounslow.) 'It is still 'Corporal' isn't it?' he enquired, with mock severity.

'Sor!'

'What do you do here? The stores not to your liking?'

'Sor, they was askin for men for E Troop, sor, an' I thought as I might volunteer. Sor!'

Hervey tried hard not to smile, which he always found difficult when dealing with this irrepressible Cork man. 'What happened to the principle of 'never volunteer for anything'?'

'I make an exception, sor, in connection with E Troop.'

Hervey recalled well McCarthy's special devotion: on one occasion in India it had cost him the stripes on his arm, when he had broken the nose of a pug from another troop who had impugned E Troop's honour. 'I'm sure you are very welcome.'

He moved on to the next stall. The dragoon was bending with his back to him, but Hervey had known the man's thick, black curls for ten years. 'Corporal French!'

The NCO rose and turned, bringing his hands to his side in salute. 'Good evening, sir.'

French was almost a gentleman. Indeed he was a gentleman by the usual measure; the 'almost' was the regiment's customary form of allowing him a kind of half-way status between other rank and officer, though he answered to a serjeant as any other. He was a gentleman by birth, a son of impoverished Welsh gentry and the parsonage, but he lacked any means to support himself as such, and had been a counting-house clerk before enlisting. Had he been five or six years older he would almost certainly have had a free commission in a battalion of the Line, for the ensign ranks of the Peninsular infantry had suffered sorely. With peace come, however, and with it retrenchment, there were sons enough of the gentry who could pay their way. But Corporal French had always appeared content with his situation; and he was liked by all ranks.

'I was thinking, sir,' said Collins quietly as they moved on. 'With Wainwright still poorly, French would be a good coverman.'

Hervey nodded. 'In any case, with Wainwright now serjeant he shouldn't be covering.' And then he remembered. 'But the troop's under Captain Brereton's orders, Sar'nt-Major. I shouldn't be making these decisions.'

'No, sir,' agreed Collins. He said nothing for a few paces. 'But if you are content on French, sir, I'll arrange it.'

Hervey nodded again. 'That would be the way. Thank you.'

And he found himself nodding to dragoons in turn as if for the last time, looking at each with an eye almost paternal. Most of them he had first seen as green recruits; some he had himself enlisted; a few were old sweats, Peninsular veterans who remembered his arriving. He would miss them – more than he had imagined. But he thanked God there was this one last ride together: if not actually a campaign, then an expedition promising something unusual, something to remember, even if it were only the face of this intriguing chief, Shaka.

But there must be no sentiment; it did not serve. 'Have you seen Wainwright yet?' he asked, to be more purposeful. 'I must say he looks in better condition than I'd dared hope.'