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  A Regimental Affair

  ( Matthew Hervey - 3 )

  Allan Mallinson

  A REGIMENTAL AFFAIR

  ALLAN MALLINSON

  To

  The late Colonel George Stephen,

  sometime commanding officer 13th/18th Royal Hussars

  (Queen Mary’s Own) and, ‘from time to time in such other regiments

  and corps as Her Majesty directs’, a Cameronian and a Grey.

  ‘What a Go!’

  Also by Allan Mallinson

  A CLOSE RUN THING

  THE NIZAM’S DAUGHTERS

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ‘Soldiers in peace are like chimneys in summer,’ wrote William Cecil, Lord Burghley. At the end of every war, a grateful British nation has dismissed its surplus soldiers, and usually with indifference. One has only to look back not ten years, to the end of the Cold War, to see how ill-used a soldier can be when his arms are no longer required. Invariably, too, the calculation proves wrong and a shortage of soldiers soon follows – as was the case with the 1992 reductions.

  After Waterloo there was a wholesale disbanding of regiments. Unlike 1992, however, when the cavalry – or, more properly, the Royal Armoured Corps – was all but eviscerated, the Duke of Wellington’s horsed regiments escaped the worst for a time because they were needed to deal with civil disturbances at home, there being no proper police force. On the whole they found it disagreeable work, as soldiers still do. One of the reasons was that their legal position was often ambiguous. I commend two books on this fascinating subject to those who would read more. First is Military Intervention in Democratic Societies (Croom Helm, 1985), a scholarly collection of essays edited by Peter Rowe and Christopher Whelan. Second is Military Intervention in Britain, from the Gordon Riots to the Gibraltar Incident (Routledge, 1990). Its author, Anthony Babington, is a retired circuit judge with wartime military service, and it is a most authoritative and lively account of the soldier’s tribulations in aid of the civil power.

  I am indebted to the staff of the Prince Consort’s Library at Aldershot, who have been most generous in searching out books and material. Again I owe many thanks to the two retired officers who keep the Small Arms Collection at the School of Infantry in Warminster, Lieutenant-Colonel ‘Tug’ Wilson and Major John Oldfield. I gratefully acknowledge, as before, my wife’s equestrian advice, and now my younger daughter’s help with the early manuscript. Fortune continues to smile on me with editors, too, for after Ursula Mackenzie’s leaving Transworld for greater things, my publishers took on strength Selina Walker, a woman of such apt cavalry credentials that the departure of Ursula (who taught me a great deal) was in the end bearable. And Simon Thorogood persists in his patient, painstaking way to serve the manuscripts and me admirably.

  While I was writing this book, the man who gave my military life the greatest turn, and without whom Matthew Hervey would therefore never have been, died prematurely. I dedicate A Regimental Affair to him, with thankfulness and fond memories.

  1815

  At the commencement of the present reign, and indeed thirty or forty years ago, peace officers were seen keeping order among the crowd, but now not a court-day passes without a strong military force being stationed on the public highway.

  Henry Brougham MP,

  future Whig Lord Chancellor

  THE KING’S PEACE

  I found myself obliged, by every tie of duty and affection to my people, to suppress in every part those rebellious insurrections and to provide for the public safety by the most effectual and immediate application of the force entrusted to me by Parliament.

  His Majesty King George III,

  Debate on the King’s Speech from the Throne, Parliament,

  June 1780

  PART ONE

  THE BREVET

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE PRIVILEGE OF RANK

  The Horse Guards, 12 March 1817

  Five major generals – so much scarlet and gold that the usually sombre meeting room of the commander-in-chief’s headquarters was for once a place of colour – sat in comfortable upholstered chairs at a long baize-covered table, their chairman, Sir Loftus Wake, Bart., the Vice Adjutant General, at the head, while on upright chairs at the wall perched the Duke of York’s military secretary and two clerks. The atmosphere was somnolent despite the morning hour. In front of each general officer lay a blue vellum portfolio tied with red silk, as well as paper, pencils and a coffee cup of delicate pink Rockingham, rather out of place. Some of the cups were empty, and were being attended to by a footman in court livery. Major-General the Lord Dunseath, a dyspeptic-looking man with a purple nose, waved him aside without a word, intent on some detail in his copy of The Times. The footman next proffered his coffee pot to Sir Archibald Barret, KG, a kind-faced man in spite of his eyepatch, who merely sighed and declined with the same breath. Major-General the Earl of Rotheram, noble-browed, a picture of decency, lit a cigar instead, but Sir Francis Evans, Kt, crabbed and lacking any appreciable chin, with an ear that was turned forward like a tailor’s tab, accepted more of the strong araba and took out his snuffbox. The footman hesitated by the next, empty, chair and then moved to replenish Sir Loftus’s cup.

  Sir Loftus Wake resembled a small garden bird in both looks and animation. His frame was spare indeed, and his eyes – his whole head – darted from papers to watch, from watch to door and then back again with the speed and regularity with which small birds must search about constantly for predators. He stared again at the empty chair and then at his half-hunter. ‘It is a quarter past. Where can Sir Horace be?’

  Lord Dunseath, his nose always a beacon of his disposition, put down his newspaper and made a loud huffing sound. ‘Well, if he’s trying to come through the City he’ll never get here. They’re hanging that caitiff Cashman at Newgate this morning. The Times says a crowd’s expected. A mob more like, I’ll warrant! I trust you’ve a line of cavalry between them and Whitehall, Wake?’

  ‘Oh come!’ said Sir Loftus, more agitated still. ‘That will be no occasion for trouble.’

  ‘Don’t you imagine it,’ huffed Dunseath again. ‘I was ’ere last December when those damned Radicals at the Spa Fields marched on the Tower. As close to revolution as I ever saw!’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense, sir!’ said the Earl of Rotheram, blowing a cloud of smoke ceilingwards. ‘I was at St James’s the whole time. It was all wind and wine. Hunt and his like – rabble-rousers, yes, but I hardly fancy they have the stuff of a Robespierre in them!’ The earl was ever a man in whom the moderation of the shires found a faithful voice.

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure, Rotheram,’ warned Dunseath. ‘There’s radicalism seething all about. In some parts the machine-breakers are as active as ever. And there’s a deal too many discharged soldiers and sailors as well. All a prey to jackanapes like Hunt.’

  ‘On this latter I would not dissent. And where might we seek to lay blame on that account? I think it truly ignoble that this government has discharged its fighting men in so mean a fashion. There are beggars in scarlet in every lane.’

  Lord Dunseath’s nose seemed darker still. ‘What would you have had Liverpool do then? Exalt Pitt’s income tax another penny to provide sturdy beggars with pensions? We want done with it!’

  Lord Dunseath’s voice was rising in both pitch and volume, but the Earl of Rotheram remained unperturbed. ‘I very much doubt we shall see an end to the income tax now that it is so expeditiously collected. And I should not have thought it too great a burden on men who stand to profit so much from peace – and, indeed, who have profited so much already from war. At least they might rid us of the wretched Corn Laws.’

  ‘Now that, sir, is radical talk!’ spluttered Duns
eath.

  ‘Gentlemen! Gentlemen!’ pleaded Sir Loftus Wake. ‘I hardly think the Horse Guards is the place for politics.’

  The military secretary had moved towards the chairman, meanwhile, and he now whispered something in his ear.

  Sir Loftus looked relieved. ‘Well, gentlemen, it seems that, since we are five, there is a quorum. So let us begin without Sir Horace; and if he does arrive . . .’

  At this point Major-General Sir Horace Shawcross, KCB, did indeed arrive, flushed and angry. ‘In God’s name what’s become of this country!’ he boomed. ‘Insolent devils holding up every carriage in the City, and not a constable in sight. It would’ve been the same along the Strand an’ all had there not been regular horse there.’

  ‘See, Rotheram; The Times warned as much,’ said Lord Dunseath, his nose almost glowing with satisfaction at the news.

  The Earl of Rotheram merely raised his eyebrows.

  Sir Horace Shawcross ignored the exchange as he half-flung his cloak at an orderly. ‘When in God’s name is parliament going to grasp the nettle? If we don’t have proper police soon there’ll be no peace for the keeping anywhere, and the army’ll be ruined doing the work!’

  Sir Loftus, though well acquainted with Sir Horace Shawcross’s choleric disposition, was taken aback by his vehemence, and the strains of the latter’s pronounced Lancashire vowels were permitted, for the moment, to continue unchecked.

  ‘Damme, I’d the very devil of a job in the Midlands with them Luddites.’ He pronounced ‘Ludd’ to rhyme with ‘hood’.

  Sir Francis Evans smiled to himself.

  Even had Sir Horace seen it, it would not have mattered, for his hero, Robert Peel, chief secretary for Ireland, pronounced the word in the same way. ‘Now if we had a peace preservation force, as Peel has got himself in Ireland,’ he boomed again, ‘we could stop all this nonsense in a trice.’

  The Earl of Rotheram set aside his cigar. ‘Peelers? In England?’

  ‘Rather them than us having to do the work,’ replied Sir Horace gruffly. ‘Rather would I be under an Albura saw again than chase round doing police business!’ He pulled aside the chair with his right hand, his left having been the object of the surgeon’s blade after that bloody battle, and slammed his hat on the table, setting the cups and saucers atremble.

  For what seemed an age, Sir Loftus stared intently at the hat, for it was the old service shako of Sir Horace’s beloved Forty-seventh – ‘Wolfe’s Own’ – rather than a major general’s plumes. Sir Loftus, as Vice Adjutant General, was most punctilious in these matters. Indeed, he seemed quite oblivious now to the growing ruction about his committee.

  ‘Said there’d be trouble,’ muttered the purple nose from behind The Times.

  ‘Everyone ’as been saying there’d be trouble,’ growled Sir Horace. ‘But what’s the good of that? If we had proper police we might do something about it.’

  The Earl of Rotheram sighed.

  ‘Ay, Rotheram, well might y’sigh,’ complained the voice of Lancashire; ‘for it’s your party that won’t see sense.’

  The Earl of Rotheram had, indeed, spoken against the proposal for such a force when last it had been debated in the Lords. ‘I should sooner trust to the good sense of the magistrates than have some damnable system as they have on the continent. We’ve not fought Bonaparte these past twenty years just to have a score of little Fouchés in every town.’

  Sir Horace looked startled until he recognized the French. He drank his coffee in one go and held out his cup for more. ‘Rotheram, you’re as good a man as ever walked them broad acres o’ yours, but you underestimate the seething there is, and the dissatisfaction of folk who are a prey to violence every day – in town and country alike. I grant you the odd poacher might disturb your peace, but that’s nothing to having yer livelihood and property – ay, and yer very life itself – a hostage to the mob’s whim.’

  The two men looked across the table at each other incomprehendingly, as if it were the great divide of the Pennine range itself, for Sir Horace’s family was cotton-rich and Whig, whereas Lord Rotheram’s was land-rich and Tory. In their own counties the families were as well regarded by the poorest of their workers – be it in factory or farm – as any could be. And these two sons had served England dearly in its late trial, Sir Horace’s hand being matched by the earl’s right leg. Yet each saw the future as differently as might two horses see the same fence.

  Sensing exhaustion on the subject of a professional constabulary, Sir Loftus Wake sought to regain his authority. ‘Well, gentlemen, perhaps we should adjourn this debate and be about our proper affairs this day.’

  To his considerable relief there was a general murmur of agreement.

  ‘We all want to be ’ome afore dark,’ added Sir Horace gruffly.

  ‘Well, therefore, let us begin the proceedings of the twenty-third meeting of the Army Brevets Committee.’ He replaced his pincenez firmly and turned over a page of his portfolio. ‘May I first respectfully remind you that the purpose of a brevet—’

  ‘We all know what the purpose of a brevet is, Wake!’ rasped Sir Horace. ‘Let’s be having the business!’

  Sir Loftus looked pained once more. ‘My dear general, I have no reason to suppose that you are anything but in the right. However, it has ever been my practice to proceed on the supposition that not everyone should be expected to retain each and every detail of Horse Guards administration. In that way we may be sure to avoid any profound error.’

  Sir Horace looked unconvinced. ‘As you please, then.’

  ‘Very well, gentlemen. The purpose of brevet rank is to advance those officers of exceptional merit who might otherwise find their promotion retarded by lack of means to purchase the next higher rank, or indeed by a lack of regimental vacancy in such a rank.’ He paused. ‘It does not carry with it the additional pay, of course, neither is it recognized regimentally, but only in the army as a whole.’ He glanced about the table for confirmation that the purpose was understood.

  No one seemed to be paying much attention, but Sir Loftus was pleased he had been able to read through his brief so far without further challenge.

  ‘These the nominations?’ asked Sir Horace, pulling at the ribbon on the portfolio in front of him.

  ‘Yes,’ confirmed the chairman anxiously. ‘But do permit me to explain more fully.’

  Sir Horace raised his eyebrows a little petulantly and gave up fingering the silk.

  ‘Our work this morning,’ continued Sir Loftus quickly, ‘is in two parts. The most important is to recommend ten lieutenant colonels’ brevets. But first there is the same number of majors’ brevets. The Duke of York’s military secretary would be obliged if all our recommendations were done by the dinner hour so that he might take them for the commander-in-chief’s approval this evening.’

  ‘Well, let’s be about it, then,’ demanded Sir Horace. ‘How many names are there for each brevet?’

  ‘Two,’ replied the chairman. ‘And so, gentlemen, if you would please open now the portfolios before you, you will see the summaries of service and the letters of nomination for each of twenty captains. In the usual manner we shall each of us award a mark out of six, and when I ask you for that mark I should be obliged if you would all, at the same instant, indicate it to me by the dies which the military secretary is now distributing.’

  The lieutenant colonel placed an ebony die, half as big as a sword basket, in front of each member of the committee.

  ‘And may I respectfully remind you, gentlemen, that the die has two blank faces, for any lesser score than three would be unseemly.’

  All nodded. And then, at Sir Loftus’s bidding, they began the task of assessing the twenty claims to a coveted brevet.

  An hour passed in varying degrees of silence. From time to time a clerk was sent scurrying away on some errand or other, but the seven major generals laboured in the main with little need for clarification. When all were done – Sir Francis Evans the last to finish, but only by a
minute or so – Sir Loftus motioned a footman to bring Madeira and seedcake to the table, and as smoke from assorted cigars began to fill the room once more, he invited the committee to declare their marks for each contender. ‘Let us begin, then, with number one: Captain Lord Arthur Fitzwarren, First Guards.’

  The dies each showed six, except Sir Loftus’s own and Sir Horace Shawcross’s, which showed four. The clerks took note.

  ‘Captain Sir Aylwin Onslow, Second Guards.’

  The scores were as before, except that Sir Horace’s die showed three.

  The chairman made a thoughtful ‘um’ sound, before naming the third. ‘Captain the Lord Collingbourne, Royal Horse Guards.’

  The scores were as before, except that Sir Loftus’s die now showed three as well as Sir Horace’s. ‘We seem to be in a fractional degree of disparity,’ said the chairman, diffidently.

  ‘Seems to me you’re both marking meanly,’ said Sir Archibald Barret. ‘Even I can see that!’ He adjusted his eyepatch pointedly.

  ‘Meanly be damned,’ huffed Sir Horace. ‘All I’ve seen so far are men with more than adequate means to buy their own advancement. None of them has seen campaigning service. All they’ve seen is the inside of St James’s and got themselves a good patron!’

  ‘Sir Horace . . .’ began Sir Archibald, kindly. ‘It is not the good fortune of every officer to hear the sound of the guns every day. These are diligent young men with much to offer the staff. Especially now that peace is come.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ conceded Sir Horace. ‘But there is ever a need for men on the staff who know what it is to fight. If peace is indeed come then it’s even more important that there are officers in positions of influence who know what is the true business of war. Peace will not be with us for ever, and the devil in a long peace is that the army forgets how to fight!’