On His Majesty's Service mh-11 Page 6

  Nearing four o’clock, he rose and put on his dressing gown, and over it his greatcoat (the fire was long out), lit the lamp on the writing table and took up a pen. Yesterday, before going to the Horse Guards, he had written to Wiltshire, expressing some hope that he would be able to return for Georgiana’s birthday, but that it would be consequent on his marching orders (had it ever been otherwise?). He had written to Hertfordshire too. Now he must write to Kat, if only to tell her that he had been to Holland Park.

  Some force stayed his hand, however. He found it impossible to write even the salutation. Each time he dipped the pen in the inkwell, carefully draining off the excess on the rim of the glass bowl, he found that no words formed in his mind. Or rather, that several words formed themselves, but none of them he judged apt. He could not begin ‘My dear Kat’, and certainly not ‘My dearest Kat’ (as once he would), nor simply ‘Dear Kat’; and most assuredly not ‘Dear Lady Katherine’. But without a beginning, how could anything follow? The salutation was indeed the encapsulation of his predicament: what now was his connection with Kat? It was not even that of last summer, when she had told him she was with his child. There had been an interval of full six months; feelings might intensify or abate in that time, but they did not remain as they had been. What indeed were his feelings? What were the proprieties to observe in his peculiar circumstances – a new-married officer and the wife of a general who secretly carried his child? He put down the pen, sick to the pit of his stomach.

  There was, he knew from long years (the debilitating contemplation of Henrietta), one antidote to this condition – activity, any activity. It did not cure, but it did relieve. And sometimes the relief continued long after the activity ceased, by placing the demon-cause out of mind’s reach. He dressed quickly, slipped silently from his room, descended the stairs of the sleeping club, and stepped out into an empty Pall Mall. A horse, a gallop, would have been his natural support, but in its absence the most vigorous walking – marching – would suffice. He would imagine himself a cornet in Spain again, dismounted, forging through snow which the infantry had not yet trod. And beneath his frosty breath he would keep repeating the line of scripture: For I also am a man set under authority, having under me soldiers. It would call him to duty. It never failed.

  He set off towards St James’s Palace, hastening past the watchmen’s braziers and the guards, through Milkmaid’s Passage and into the darkness of the Green Park. Here, shortening step, he broke into a double, clenching his gloved hands to his chest and matching his breathing to the four-pace rhythm. With the snow underfoot, the moon was bright enough to light his way once his eyes had disaccustomed themselves to the gas lamps of St James’s, and he doubled confidently to the wall which enclosed the gardens of the King’s new palace at the other side of the park, except for running into a goose-girl whose terrier then snapped at his heels for twenty yards, the geese honking noisily as if in encouragement. At the wall he turned right and lengthened the step to challenge himself the more on the grade to the Piccadilly-bar, where gaslight once more lit the scene – a few empty cabs plodding east, and night-soil carts passing both ways. He doubled on the spot for a while, taking in the torch-lit façade of Apsley House, where first he had met Kat. It had then been the residence of the commander-in-chief, and now it was that of the prime minister. He would not see its inside again; what there had once been was now gone, and would never be again …

  He doubled across the road at a cinder crossing, giving the lonely sweeper a penny without stopping, and on into Hyde Park, wary now of footpads, then along the New Road, where poor Strickland had met his end when his chariot ran into the Oxford Mail, then turning off south down an interminable rutted path to the Royal Military Asylum, and thence along King’s Road, catching the toll-booth napping, and back round the south side of Buckingham House into the Mall as far as the Duke of York’s Steps, which he took two at a time into Waterloo Place, where he finally ceased doubling and for the last fifty yards walked on a long rein to get his breath back.

  At a quarter before seven o’clock he reached the doors of the United Service, his face glowing, the blood coursing through his veins, feeling as if he were being scrubbed by a tellak in a Mogul steam bath. The invigoration was complete, the demon gone. In its place there was resolution, clear-sightedness, energy. He took the stairs at a bound, flung open the door of his room, threw off his clothes, put on his robe, gathered up his razor, brush and soap bowl, and took possession of one of the bathrooms, to emerge in half an hour clean-shaved and cleansed. He put on the frogged coat he had not worn in months and then assailed the room in which his good friend was still sleeping.

  ‘In God’s name!’ protested Fairbrother at the intrusion of daylight as the curtains were pulled roughly back.

  ‘“Sick Call” at Hounslow was half an hour ago,’ said Hervey breezily.

  ‘I told you last night I would sleep long and then see a barber.’

  ‘I don’t recollect,’ replied Hervey, picking up his friend’s coat from the floor.

  ‘That’s because you were paying no heed. It was like supping with a waxwork.’

  ‘I am sorry for it, but I am all attention now. Let me draw your bath while you shave. Then we shall eat a hearty breakfast and go to Hounslow.’

  They took a hackney, although the cabman drove a hard price; Hounslow was a deal further than he ranged as a rule, and Hervey could only persuade him by agreeing the fare back, even if in the end they might not take it – for the cabman must return by dusk, he insisted, or else he would not get home to Southwark before his licence required. Nor did he prove inclined to go at more than a half-hearted trot: the ways, though not exactly deep, were, to his mind, treacherous, and ‘I’ve me hosses’ wind to consider’, so that it was late morning by the time they arrived at the barrack gates.

  The picket turned out even before Hervey had paid the fare and agreed what hour they should journey back. His heart warmed at the sight of his own uniform again. His troop at the Cape were as ‘regimental’ (as the sweats called it) as any – for first Armstrong and then Collins had made sure of it – but there was something about detached duty which was never quite … entire: it was the absence of the regiment’s god-head, the commanding officer, its high-priest, the adjutant – and, not least of the trinity, the serjeant-major, the apotheosis of the rank and file. It was they who set the tone, regulated the routine, and chose the NCOs, the apostles of the regiment’s creed. A detached troop was a fine command, but not sufficient unto itself. And, in truth, he could not see how a regiment en cadre could be so either.

  ‘Guard, pres-e-e-ent arms!’

  It was sharply done: seven dragoons and the picket commander fallen-in at ‘Attention’, carbines at the ‘Shoulder’, a drill which, uniquely, the Sixth had adopted in the Peninsula so that in one movement they could pay compliments to either field or regimental rank – ‘present’ for the former, butt-salute for the latter. Hervey touched the peak of his forage cap in return as he and Fairbrother came through the gates.

  And unlike in many another, in the Sixth the picket commander did not wait to be spoken to. ‘Good morning, Colonel Hervey, sir!’

  Hervey recognized the man as one of the dwindling number of dragoons who wore the Waterloo medal, an NCO who knew the regimental form as well as any. He wondered if he would ever hear, simply, ‘Good morning, Colonel’ – the acknowledgement of the all-important detail, that he commanded the Sixth rather than merely possessed the same rank as the commanding officer. ‘Good morning, Corporal Adcock. There’s a good fire in the guard-house, I trust?’

  ‘There is, sir!’

  ‘Is the colonel at orderly room?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘The adjutant?’

  ‘He is, sir.’

  It was one of the proprieties, unwritten, learned only in the school of regimental soldiering, that the picket answered to none but the commanding officer – and in his place the adjutant and, in silent hours, the picket offi
cer; and so although a sentry paid compliments, and the whole picket turned out for a visitor of rank, it was never inspected, reproved, commended, assigned or dismissed by any other but the commanding officer or his deputy. It was therefore with neither arrogance nor negligence that Hervey walked on without ado, leaving Adcock to fall-out the attendant dragoons by his own authority.

  ‘Quite a show,’ said Fairbrother good-humouredly. ‘Had they word of our coming, do you suppose?’

  Hervey was undeniably pleased by the ‘show’; it spoke of good order and military discipline, as well as of his recognition (he had, after all, been on detached duty for eighteen months, even if during that time he had been home on marriage leave). ‘I fancy it was part chance. I rather suspect that Adcock’s expecting Lord Hol’ness at any minute.’

  He looked across the square to the flagpole, but the pennant was not fixed for hoisting: the commanding officer was ‘not at orderly room’, as the saying went, nor his arrival imminent, it would seem. ‘There again, Adcock’s a seasoned NCO. And the sar’nt-major’s wrath’s not worth risking. I should beg his pardon for doubting his address. Come, let’s see how things are within.’

  Fairbrother was not strange to Hounslow. He had dined triumphantly with the officers six months before. He had admired the barracks’ generous proportions and the solidity of its buildings, and the more so on closer inspection, for the brickwork and all the furniture was of quality. He recalled, too, that the slate roofs were good and solid (though this morning they were white-clad), and the workmanship inside and out very neat – all bespeaking a high regard for the common soldier. Or so it might seem, but in truth the date ‘1793’ above the gate arch told the fuller story, as it did on many of the barracks about the capital. On the first day of February that year, Britain had declared war on France: the soldier could no longer be despised and billeted on reluctant innkeepers if he were to be the safeguard of the nation when the French came (or else be a bulwark against Jacobin ambitions within); he needed the constant drill and regulation of men in barracks. And so Mr Pitt would beggar the Treasury and build them their martial homes (and make an income tax to continue his war).

  But this morning the barracks were not the bustle as before. There were no signs of actual dilapidation, yet the absence of dragoons was all too plain – no band, no foot drill, no skill-at-arms, no sound of the blacksmith’s forge. And Hervey could not but admit to himself that this was how it would be every day with the regiment en cadre. The adjutant was at orderly room, however (and had been for many hours), for the work of the lieutenant-colonel’s executive officer was scarcely diminished when the squadrons were out of barracks; here, at least, they would find, so to speak, the regular pulse of the 6th Light Dragoons.

  For some years the Sixth had employed ‘regimental’ officers as adjutant rather than those commissioned from the ranks, the more usual practice, and in Lieutenant Thomas Malet, though he had but a fraction of the service normally accrued by a former serjeant-major, they considered themselves possessed of a most diligent executive.

  ‘Good morning, Colonel Hervey. I knew you would be come, though I only lately saw your name gazetted,’ he said, rising, and smiling with evident pleasure at seeing the man soon to take the place of Lord Holderness. ‘And you, Captain Fairbrother: it is good to see you again.’ He called one of the orderlies to bring coffee. ‘Or Madeira, perhaps?’

  ‘Coffee,’ replied Hervey.

  ‘Captain Fairbrother?’

  ‘Coffee, thank you. Or should I withdraw?’ Hervey had said neither one thing nor the other, but Fairbrother had no wish to intrude on regimental business.

  Malet looked at Hervey, who shook his head, and the three of them sat down.

  ‘Your groom is safely arrived, by the way, sir. He is making himself useful to the sar’nt-major, it seems.’

  ‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Hervey, returning the now distinctly ironic smile. ‘But I shall reclaim him presently, the sar’nt-major will be pleased to learn.’

  The orderly returned with a silver tray and the regimental Spode.

  Once he had dismissed, Malet turned to the serious business of the orderly room. ‘Let me own at once that I fear you will find things rather … straitened. Every troop but Vanneck’s is called away. First has gone to Bristol, no less.’

  ‘The price of light cavalry,’ replied Hervey, with a gesture of resignation. Dispersal in penny-packets, the commanding officer left with no more to command than clerks and bottle-washers – such was the cross to be borne. ‘Where is the colonel?’

  ‘York. A court martial.’

  He raised an eyebrow. That, too, was the price of light cavalry – the commanding officer at first call for the administration of military law, for others were thought more indispensible to their corps.

  ‘A deuced tricky court martial, it would appear,’ explained Malet. ‘The adjutant-general particularly requested his lordship as a member.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Hervey took a sip of his coffee. ‘What have you heard of the measure to place the regiment en cadre?’

  Malet looked surprised. ‘I had not imagined the news was abroad. Lord Hol’ness was told only when he called on the Horse Guards before proceeding north.’

  ‘I was at the Horse Guards yesterday. I am glad the news is not yet abroad. It could do untold harm.’

  Malet nodded. ‘May I enquire what are your prospects, therefore, sir?’

  ‘They are not yet clear,’ replied Hervey, truthfully (he saw no occasion to add to the untold harm by saying that he had been offered the Fifty-third). ‘I have first the commander-in-chief’s assignment with the Russians. You knew of that?’

  ‘I did.’

  In any case, Hervey had other concerns before his own at this moment. ‘How is Sar’nt-Major Armstrong?’

  Fairbrother had wondered how long it would be before he enquired: Hervey had brooded on the matter during the passage home, but had said nothing since coming to London. He knew that Armstrong stood as strong in his friend’s particular regard – affection, indeed – as any. And Malet’s face, lifted by the mention of the name, was testimony too to the high opinion generally in which the sar’nt-major was held. Here, if he had ever needed it, was clinching evidence that the Sixth held themselves in peculiar mutual affinity. There were the rogues, the villains, the ‘bad hats’, to be sure, but he had never had the sense that officers and men stood in constitutional antipathy to one another, as sometimes they did elsewhere. In his own former corps, the Royal Africans, the officers had had a sense of ownership – though with little enough pride of ownership – the other ranks merely serving out some wretched indenture. Yes, a good many of those were ‘options men’ – prison or the King’s shilling (and often enough without even the option) – with little good character to which a decent officer might appeal, but, even so, the discipline of the Royal Africans and that of the Sixth were as the proverbial chalk to cheese. Would it be so with the Fifty-third? From what he had seen and heard of Lord Hill, their colonel, he could not suppose that it would be exactly so, but he perfectly understood his friend’s desire to command these dragoons. The only question was at what point the Sixth ceased to be the regiment of his understanding.

  But meanwhile there was good news of Armstrong to buoy the spirits. When last Hervey and Malet had spoken of him it was in connection with Caithlin’s funeral. Hervey had himself made the arrangements, for Mrs Armstrong was a Catholic, and there was no one else to deal with the unfamiliar obsequies; and then, on return to the Cape, he had broken the news to his old NCO-friend, seeing him afterwards, brave but bowed, onto a steam packet home. ‘He is married and very well.’

  Hervey was all astonishment. ‘Married? To whom?’

  ‘Serjeant Ellis’s widow.’

  ‘I didn’t know Ellis was dead.’

  ‘An aneurysm, while on revenue duty.’

  Hervey did not know Ellis well, and his wife even less. But if Armstrong had found a mother for his children then he exult
ed for him. ‘Where is he – Armstrong, I mean?’

  ‘With Worsley’s troop in Bristol, doing duty for Cox who’s gone to St John’s Wood for three months.’

  Hervey looked quizzical.

  ‘I have a mind to put Cox in charge of rough-riders. If, that is, the regiment has an RM when it’s reduced.’

  Fairbrother was as silently thankful for Armstrong’s good fortune as any man might be who knew him only very partially but with infinite admiration. He wished he could intrude on this easy regimental conference, but was wary of breaking the spell. What was St John’s Wood?

  By some intuition, his friend turned to him. ‘St John’s Wood is the new Riding Establishment. I say “new”, but it was first at Pimlico. They’ve built a fine school there, roofed-over for winter.’

  Fairbrother nodded appreciatively; he had no idea where was St John’s Wood, but that could wait.

  ‘Well, I am excessively glad that Armstrong is back at muster,’ declared Hervey, warming once more to the news.

  ‘So are we all,’ said Malet, but with a note of caution in his voice. ‘Though he is not rightly himself, I fear.’

  ‘It will take time,’ said Hervey, sounding unsurprised. He had his own experience, after all.