The adjutant sighed, but more with heavy heart than with any impatience at Hervey's incredulity. 'We have seen it ourselves, have we not? A man dead within the day, when all the surgeon does is tend a wound with bandages, while another survives the saw with scarce a fever?'
Hervey nodded, a reluctant acknowledgement of the mysterious ways of God, or of corruption.
There remained his immediate concern. 'What are the arrangements for the funeral? Who has charge of it?'
The adjutant tilted his head. 'The question has vexed me the best part of the morning. The priest from the mission is away for the summer. Serjeant Molloy is devilling about to find what is the form. I confess I know not. I wish there were a chaplain still. Or even that the parson were in his parish instead of. . . wherever it is he's gone.'
Hervey sighed, deeply. The death of a serjeant-major's wife was an unhappy event, but when the widower was half-way round the world, and his late wife's religion strange to all, it became a pitiable thing indeed. 'I think I had better look to the arrangements myself.'
'Are you quite sure?' asked Malet, doubtful but grateful. 'I believe there will be many of every rank who would wish to pay respects; there is a collection already got up in the canteens for the children. But your honeymoon —'
'I will arrange the funeral,' said Hervey decidedly, draining his cup, and rising.
The stamp of the orderly corporal's spurred boots on the wooden floor outside, and 'Good morning, Colonel' announced the return of Lord Holderness, who came into the adjutant's office rather than entering his own directly.
'Ah, Hervey: how glad I am to see you.' The relief was evident not merely in the words themselves. 'I confess I am at a loss to know how to proceed. Come.'
Lord Holderness led him into his office, that which Hervey himself had occupied, albeit in temporary command, for some months the year before. He indicated the leather tub-chair, and sat wearily in the one adjacent.
'I have told Malet that I personally will attend to the arrangements,' said Hervey, sitting perfectly upright.
Lord Holderness looked even more relieved. 'I'd consider it a great favour.'
Hervey shook his head. 'With respect, Colonel, Armstrong is my sar'nt-major, and I've known – I knew – Caithlin Armstrong a good many years.'
'Did you? You will know, therefore, perhaps, how we may inform her people?'
The colonel's solicitousness was heartening (he was, after all, an extract – a man come in from another regiment). But informing Caithlin's people could hardly be by express, reckoned Hervey, and he had no idea who was now in the garrison at Cork, and who therefore might have been able to help.
'I believe it best if we send a cornet, Colonel.'
This was extreme counsel, he knew. Four dragoons, and as many women, had died at Hounslow since January alone, and the practice was that an officer took the ill news, and the lieutenant-colonel's condoling letter, to the family. But to Caithlin's people, in Ireland, beyond the Pale . . .
Lord Holderness smiled, however, if sadly. 'I am glad you are of that opinion, for it is mine too.'
'And one other thing, Colonel,' said Hervey, shifting his feet resolutely. 'Mrs Armstrong should have a regimental funeral. I believe she deserves no less, and that it would be of some consolation to Armstrong. The others, too – the dragoons and NCOs – would want it, I'm sure.'
Lord Holderness nodded: the fifth such funeral in a year – the inescapable business of soldiery.
Hervey now cleared his throat. 'There is, of course, the question of her religion. You would have no objection to . . . to being present at such a service?' He had no idea how his commanding officer had voted in the House of Peers on the various measures for Catholic emancipation; he had certainly not disclosed his views in the mess.
Lord Holderness raised his head, and looked at him frankly. 'I believe a man, or a woman for that matter, has a right to be buried according to the practices of his religion, and that his passing should be mourned with all due respect. I shall instruct that the regiment parades for church on the day, whether a man be Protestant or Catholic.'
Hervey smiled appreciatively. 'Thank you, Colonel.'
Lord Holderness now relaxed visibly. 'Do you happen to know where that church might be?' he asked, nodding his thanks to an orderly who brought in his coffee.
Hervey shook his head. 'I confess I have not yet the slightest idea. I suppose we are not able to have such a service in the parish church here – with a Catholic priest, I mean, not the parson. I think I must seek advice in London. I'll make a beginning at once.'
'And then there is the business of Armstrong. What's to do? He shall have to come back, don't you think – the children, and all?'
Hervey inclined his head. 'He would not expect to, I think. He would not expect to leave his post just to take up with his children. They're in good hands, after all.'
'But even so . . .'
Hervey thought a little more, and then began nodding his head, slowly. In the normal course of events – in war, India, or wherever – these things were misfortunes to be taken, if not quite in one's stride, then with fortitude, in the place they came. For what other way was there? But not now; not when the nation was at peace, when its army was made up of true volunteers. The Sixth did not treat its dragoons heartlessly; it never had. 'Patrician command and the fellowship of the horse': that was the way of the Sixth, was it not?
He breathed deep. 'I should need to replace him, Colonel. It would not serve with Quilter standing in. He's a sound enough serjeant, but he could not manage a troop.' (He would have been content to have Wainwright do duty, but Wainwright was too junior.)
