Nizams Daughters mh-2 Read online

  He was beginning to think there was always one more thing in staff affairs. How straightforward was regimental life by comparison. ‘Sir?’

  Colonel Grant cleared his throat and glanced down at his papers again. ‘You are acquainted with a Mr Selden, I believe — lately veterinary surgeon to the 6th Light Dragoons?’

  No other name could have come as quite such a surprise. ‘Ye-es,’ he replied cautiously.

  ‘Selden had to take his leave from Ireland owing to… ill health,’ said Grant, looking up at Hervey for confirmation of this apparently official rendering of events.

  Hervey would not confirm or gainsay it. Rather, he returned Grant’s gaze in anticipation of what was to follow.

  ‘And he has gone back to India, where he spent the early part of his service, as I understand it?’

  ‘I did not know he had gone back, sir,’ replied Hervey, now wholly intrigued.

  ‘Mm,’ nodded Grant; ‘our agents report that he has an appointment at the court of the Rajah of Chintal.’

  There seemed no end to Colonel Grant’s information. Hervey, again, made no reply.

  ‘Chintal is a very minor princely state to the east and contiguous with Haidarabad. It would be an entirely regular thing for you to make contact with Mr Selden during your travels, would it not? Chintalpore, where is the rajah’s palace, is close to the Godavari river, downstream of the nizam’s territories.’

  ‘Make contact for the purposes of acquiring his assessment of affairs?’ asked Hervey.

  ‘That might be helpful,’ nodded Grant; ‘but there is another matter — a matter of some delicacy.’ He looked down again and rearranged the papers. ‘At the conclusion of the Maratha war the duke was given title to certain jagirs — estates, if you will — which lie within Chintal. It is now prudent that these jagirs be… alienated.’

  Hervey did not at first know what to make of this.

  ‘And I am to be an instrument in alienating them?’

  ‘Just so, Captain Hervey. But it is a trifle more complicated than that. You see, it were better if the duke had never had title to these jagirs in the first instance. It were better if all trace, in terms of deeds and the like, were… no more.’

  Hervey understood right enough, but not why. Colonel Grant lowered his eyes and his voice. ‘Captain Hervey, it is one of the precepts of intelligence work that if it be not necessary to know, then a person should not be made privy.’

  Hervey looked suitably chastened.

  ‘Well then — let us address ourselves to the particulars of your mission.’

  ‘Hell and confound it!’ cursed Hervey, startling even Private Johnson. ‘How long has she been like this?’

  ‘A week, sir. She came down wi’ it last Saturday after drill.’

  Jessye was, it seemed, feverish. She had been coughing a good deal and was off her feed. ‘You didn’t get her into a muck sweat and then just put her away?’

  ‘No ah didn’t, Mr ’Ervey!’ Johnson was deeply offended, his broad Sheffield vowels stretching to twice their usual length.

  ‘Oh, I… I beg your pardon, Johnson. I said the first thing that came into my head.’

  There was no-one else about in the infirmary stables, just a couple of box-rest cases. Jessye need not have been there, strictly, but Johnson had been pleased to remove himself from the supervision of the riding master and to give her a bigger stall and more straw. These were fine stables, thought Hervey — the best he had ever seen. ‘The King of France’s horses are better housed than I.’

  ‘Eh, sir?’

  ‘I was just thinking on something the Elector of Hanover is supposed to have said,’ he replied absently. ‘It was a good move of Lord George’s to get this billet. I’d rather her sweat out the fever here than in the first place we had.’

  ‘It’s nowt but a chill, anyroad,’ said Johnson confidently. ‘Not as bad as that one she got in Ireland last Christmas, either.’

  ‘No,’ sighed Hervey, ‘I can see that now, but I had a mind to ride her to Le Havre.’

  ‘Where’s that? Ah wouldn’t take ’er nought but a mile or so.’

  ‘On the coast.’

  The coast. Johnson looked at him searchingly. ‘Is tha gooin’ t’tell me abaht it then Mr ’Ervey?’

  He had wished for a better moment, but… ‘How would you like to go to India, Johnson?’ he tried bluntly.

  ‘Wi’ thee, Mr ’Ervey?’

  Hervey smiled with some satisfaction. ‘You mean that going half-way round the world would be conditional only upon the officer you groomed for?’

  ‘Mr ’Ervey, outside Sheffield it’s all t’same t’me!’

  ‘Then I take it you will come with me?’

  ‘I’m thy groom!’

  Hervey smiled again, with much relief: there would be one familiar face at least, but above all a man he could trust in what was bound to be the occasional tight corner. ‘And you have heard that it is “Captain” now?’ he added rather proudly.

  ‘Ay, I keep forgettin’. It’s a bit of a bummy fer me, though, since I’ll now ’ave to stand in t’front rank at stables parade.’

  Hervey’s smile widened yet more. ‘You may not be here that long!’

  Johnson scooped up a fresh pile of droppings with the clapboards and threw them into a wicker skip.‘When do we ’ave t’go?’

  ‘Tomorrow. And we take Jessye with us. Do you think you’ll be able to lay hands on a horse ambulance?’

  ‘In France?’ gasped Johnson in astonishment; ‘they eat their ’orses ‘ere as soon as they go lame!’

  Hervey frowned, unsure if this half-truth were to Johnson’s mind a serious objection. ‘There must be an ambulance at the duke’s headquarters — or sprung tumbrils for racehorses somewhere in the city.’

  ‘All right, sir: I’ll ask one of t’other grooms to go ’n ’ave a look. I’d go meself but tha’ll want all thee kit gettin’ ready. If there is one we’ll find it.’

  ‘Thank you, Johnson,’ Hervey replied softly, gripping his shoulder; ‘I would not have split the two of you, and I would not wish to go to India without her.’

  ‘Well,’ said his groom with a shrug, ‘it’s nice te know which of us counts fer most!’

  ‘You know very well what I mean,’ replied Hervey, not inclined to flatter him any more.

  ‘And can I ask why we’re gooin’ t’India, sir?’

  ‘You may ask, yes, but I would rather you didn’t.’

  Johnson whistled beneath his breath.

  ‘Don’t make that silly noise. It’s just that I am not able to speak of it at present.’ He had no wish to deceive his own groom (though he recognized what an inauspicious beginning to covert work that was).

  ‘Right enough Mr — Cap’n — ’Ervey, sir! I’ll not say another word abaht it.’

  All this had been conducted from either side of the bar of Jessye’s stall, and Hervey now ducked under it to take a closer look at her. She gave him a snuffling welcome which flecked his jacket, and then proceeded to rub her nose dry on his sleeve. ‘Her eye is bright enough,’ he concluded: ‘she’s certainly on the mend. Have you been giving her anything?’

  ‘Mothballs and nightshade for ’er cough to start with. Then iron tonic.’

  Hervey nodded. ‘Has there been anything else?’

  ‘No, she’s been as right as rain. An’ if yer ’ave a look, them windgalls ’ave got no worse.’

  He felt down each fore cannon to the fetlock joint. The swellings which had been so prominent after they had reached Paris — as with so many of the regiment’s horses after the work they had been forced to do in the preceding weeks — were, if anything, less pronounced. ‘See,’ said Hervey, with a mild tone of triumph, ‘I told you blistering wouldn’t be necessary. Windgalls generally look after themselves if you leave well alone.’

  Johnson smiled thinly.

  Hervey recognized the admission. ‘Come, then, man: what have you been doing with them?’

  Johnson spoke boldly again. �
�Tha knows that iodine stuff that Mr Selden were always on abaht?’

  It was strange how Selden’s name should crop up again so soon. ‘Ye-es?’

  ‘Works a treat.’

  ‘How did you find iodine?’ asked Hervey, dubiously. It had never been freely available before: Selden had had his smuggled from France as if it were brandy.

  ‘Them Frenchies use it all t’time.’

  ‘You have been… progging — in the French lines?’

  ‘Ay.’

  Hervey smiled as he shook his head.

  ‘An look at ’er shoes: they’s saved ’er a lot of strain.’

  He picked up her near fore. ‘Calkins! You know I don’t trust calkins.’ But he was much taken by the workmanship. ‘Who made them? I’ve never seen neater!’

  ‘Oh… a farrier.’

  Hervey’s ear was attuned enough to Johnson’s Yorkshire to alert him at once to the purposeful absence of the definite article. ‘Which farrier?’

  ‘You don’t know ’im.’

  ‘Johnson!’

  ‘Well, when ah were gettin t’iodine—’

  ‘You don’t mean that you have had Jessye shod by a damned Frog!’

  Johnson admitted his delinquency.

  ‘Well, I have to say these shoes appear to do their job well,’ he conceded with a heavy sigh, ducking under the bar again. ‘She’s unlikely to see a set put on so faithfully where we are going.’ There was hardly time, anyway, to be talking about the finer points of farriery. ‘Now, I shall have to be about some pressing matters. Come to my quarters after evening stables, if you will. And try any stratagem to get a box on wheels for her meanwhile!’

  The last thing he expected to see when he returned to the Sixth’s mess that afternoon was an express from Longleat, and it was all he could do to escape the curiosity of the half-dozen other occupants of that superior billet to find a private corner in which to discover the condition of his engagement to Henrietta Lindsay. That message from London, composed in half-bewildered haste in the ADCs’ office at the Horse Guards after he had learned of his appointment, might so easily have been received with ill favour. Before breaking the seal he made a rapid estimate to assess whether it could have been written after receipt of his own, but his calculation was inconclusive, and he therefore opened it with much uneasiness.

  Longleat

  11th August

  Dearest Matthew,

  Be not in the slightest troubled by duty taking you from me once more, for the relief — and excessive pride — which I and all your family feel on learning of your circumstances quite outweighs our dismay at your temporary estrangement from us. We read daily of the difficulties under which the Duke of Wellington labours in bringing a just peace to France, and if your special facilities might be in any way supportive of those efforts then your absence is more happily to be borne.

  He sighed, with considerable relief. Here, indeed, was a handsome understanding of his hasty departure for Paris. That much boded well for when she received the letter he had yet to write explaining that their nuptials must be postponed sine die. His stomach had scarcely stopped churning since Colonel Grant had revealed the immediacy of his mission, and only the urgency of his domestic arrangements had kept him from complete seizure. He read on, cheered by this beginning.

  I know of nothing, however, which indisposes my being with you in these labours, and I shall therefore make haste to Paris as soon as I have my guardian’s leave. I send these brief presents to you now by the speediest means so that you might be assured of our great love and my wish to join you at once. Lord John Howard, who has been all kindness in bringing this news, believes that with a fair wind in the Channel I might be in Paris before the third week in this month is out. Pray that it should be so, dearest!

  Your most affectionate

  Henrietta

  His mind was racing even faster than it had at the Horse Guards. He must make himself compute it properly: what was the earliest she might arrive in France if the marquess gave her leave at once? He had to try his fingers to keep count of the stages. Longleat to… Dover? A day and a night? The crossing — a day, a night? And if she left on the twelfth, early?… Great heavens but it could be done: she might arrive in France this very evening! He rushed from his room to summon the best man for what he had in mind, and then set pen to paper to explain to Henrietta where his new orders were to take him, and their immediacy. Writing at great speed, without time for circumspection, he found himself penning endearments so direct that he blushed as he reread them, unlike some of the lame affairs he had tried hitherto. By the time the knock came at his door, he was positively fired with excitement. ‘Corporal Collins, how is your big French charger?’ he asked, still writing hurriedly.

  The NCO looked at him a trifle askance. ‘In hale condition, Captain Hervey, sir.’ The news of his promotion, as any news of note, had not escaped the admirable Collins.

  ‘Good, I want you to gallop him to Calais, intercept Lady Henrietta Lindsay and escort her to Le Havre, to His Majesty’s Ship Nisus, and by first light on Wednesday! Oh, and I wish you to give her this,’ he beamed, handing him the letter.

  Corporal Collins remained as unperturbable as he had been the day of Hervey’s arrest in the middle of the battle at Toulouse. But he did have questions. ‘I take it, sir, that you do not know by which ship her ladyship will arrive?’

  ‘You are correct, Corporal Collins; I am not even sure that she will arrive at Calais.’

  ‘I see, sir. Nor, I presume, when exactly she might arrive?’

  ‘Just so,’ replied Hervey briskly.

  ‘You wish me, in essence, sir, to patrol the Dover straits and intercept Lady Henrietta?’

  ‘You have had less agreeable scouting missions, Corporal Collins!’

  ‘Indeed, sir.’ Collins’s blithe enquiries could hardly conceal his amusement, though not even Hervey’s broad smile could tempt him from his picture of correctness: with a third stripe, maybe, but he still had to secure that precious piece of tape, and correctness meanwhile would be his order of the day. ‘And I presume that at first light on Wednesday your ship will set sail for wherever she is sailing?’

  ‘India — yes, perhaps even earlier, but not, probably, later.’

  ‘I shall do my best, Captain Hervey, and, if that is all, I shall take my leave and put my gelding for the coast.’

  ‘Thank you, Corporal Collins: this may turn out a deuced more important ride than the time you galloped for me at Toulouse.’

  Collins allowed himself the suggestion of a smile. ‘I shall at least receive more than a glower at the end of it, sir, unlike with the major!’

  Hervey sighed. ‘That you will, though I miss the major’s scowls right enough.’

  ‘There is not a man that doesn’t, sir. I never imagined we would finish that day in June with so few left in the saddle, but never did I imagine we would see such a battle — just pounding all day.’

  ‘Well, Bonaparte is on his way to the south Atlantic, so we are told. There’ll be no escape from there.’

  ‘If I might just say, sir — it’s nice to see you back, and Captain Hervey. I hope you will not be long away, wherever it is you are going.’

  ‘Thank you, Corporal Collins,’ he replied; ‘I am truly very touched.’

  And with that, and the most punctilious of salutes, his erstwhile covering-corporal made off for his gallop, leaving him to the first pangs of regret at promotion away from the family of the Sixth.

  Having put his trust in the best NCO-galloper in the regiment, Hervey now followed with military prudence to set in place a plan should Collins fail in his mission. He would seek out the picket serjeant-major, whose name for duty that day he had read in regimental orders with a smile. First, though, he must apprise his commanding officer — for such Lord George still was until formalities were completed — of all that had happened, and next he must inform the adjutant of his despatch of Corporal Collins and the possible arrival, after he himself had
left for Le Havre, of Henrietta. And then he would look for the man most likely to serve him aptly, for although Lord George Irvine would be all emollience to any wound, Serjeant Armstrong might have a mastery of Henrietta that no officer was likely to gain.

  Hervey found him where in camp he habitually was at that time of the afternoon (whether picket serjeant-major or not), the day’s work largely done, the dog hour before evening stables. The wet canteen was doing brisk trade, and Armstrong sat outside smoking a long meerschaum (the King’s German Legion had made them all the fashion), reading his orders and making entries for such duties as had been completed at this stage of his picket. It was the first they had seen of each other in the best part of a month, and the shared pleasure in the reunion was as much that of friends as of officer and serjeant. Hervey wished first to know how was his arm, for it had taken the glancing point of a lance at Waterloo, and three weeks later — when he had left for England — the wound was not fully closed. Armstrong took off his jacket, pulled up his shirt sleeve and showed him the vivid but dry scar, greatly amused that it was in the shape of a chevron. Which meant, he reckoned, that promotion to serjeant-major was imminent, or — more likely, he sighed — demotion to corporal. Either way, the surgeon had told him that his sword arm would soon regain its full, formidable, power. Hervey told him of his own good news — the promotion and appointment to the duke’s staff (though Armstrong, like Collins, knew of it already) and his India orders. At once Armstrong insisted he be allowed to accompany him.

  That was not possible, said Hervey: he had no authority to engage a serjeant.

  ‘Aw, Mr Hervey, I’d rather gan wi’ ’ee any day than stay ’ere faggin’ aboot like Miss Molly!’

  Hervey laughed. How he could lay on the Tyneside for effect! ‘Geordie Armstrong, let me remind you of scripture — “I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come”!’

  Serjeant Armstrong had recently drawn quarters by ballot for Caithlin to join him from Cork, and he looked sheepish at the reminding of it. ‘But don’t you preach at me, Mr Hervey!’