A Regimental Affair (19 page)

The rain had continued throughout the night with little respite, but it had stopped after first light. The sun soon had men and horses steaming before even the final gallop, so that if spirits had been at their lowest ebb before the false dawn, they were restored by the time Hervey’s trumpeter blew ‘cease firing’ just after nine. And those restored spirits were lifted still further when, after a short trot to the Red Maid at Bedfont, the quartermaster-serjeants turned out a warm bran mash for the troopers, and tea, rum, beef and potatoes for the dragoons.

On the ride back to Hounslow, Hervey and Barrow gave each other their opinions of the work. For the most part, Hervey’s estimation of B Troop was favourable, but Barrow’s of A Troop was markedly less so.

‘You’ve some clewed-up corporals,’ he said. ‘And Armstrong’s price’s beyond reck’ning, but it’s that serjeant-major of yours. Kendall just hasn’t the zeal for a troop, and it gets to the men. You need rid of him, and quickly.’

There was much else besides, little of it agreeable, so that stables
was a muted affair when they got back to Hounslow; though Hervey’s dragoons seemed pleased enough, brightened by the exercise and the encouraging words he had managed to find to finish his otherwise critical peroration at stand-down.

He left the barracks an hour before watch-setting. He was late for dinner – very much later than he had anticipated – and he was discouraged by how unhandy the troop had become since Paris. If only the fourth piece of tape could be Armstrong’s instead of Kendall’s. He resolved to make it his first objective with Lord Towcester. And between now and the major general’s inspection he would have to use every spare minute to lick his troop into shape. And all he would have to do it with was the sand-table and his imagination.

Henrietta was already reconciled to the lateness of the hour, and she listened tolerantly to her husband as he scarcely drew breath while recounting the battle of Chobham Common, bidding her stay even as he took his bath, and then denying his hunger to explain how he intended arranging things better for Thursday’s inspection. She had long since dismissed her servants, and arranged a sideboard that would not greatly deteriorate by the hour: braised crab, fig-peckers, cheese, strawberries and claret.

‘Come,’ she insisted, when Hervey had said he would take only a minute or so to dress. ‘Put on your gown and come to eat. I have something to tell you.’ She kissed him on the lips, smiling conspiratorially, and led him to the dining room.

He took in the sideboard with some delight, if also with dismay, for while the champagne he had been sipping was an extravagance he might justify as a reward for his exertions, their supper seemed rather more than he deserved, or, indeed, could rightly afford.

‘Well, what is it which prevents my dressing?’ he teased, as he spooned some crab onto her plate.

‘Private Johnson is a very good sort,’ Henrietta began. ‘He spoke very freely, you know. He was not in the least bit ill at ease.’

Hervey smiled. He could well imagine it.

‘He told me that things are not at all happy in the barracks.’

‘But
I
told you that.’

‘But do you know that your Serjeant Armstrong’s wife has been teaching in the regimental school?
Running
it by all accounts, since the regular teacher is ill.’

Hervey knew that, too. ‘But how does this make for unhappiness?’

‘Because Lord Towcester, when he learned of who she was, declared he would not have a papist – and an Irish papist at that – teaching the regiment’s children. Except that he apparently used words altogether too coarse to repeat.’

Hervey put down his knife and fork. Caithlin Armstrong was a well-read woman. He himself had introduced her to Greek. The regiment’s children would find no kinder or cleverer teacher – at least, for the modest outlay it was prepared to make. ‘I wonder that Serjeant Armstrong has not spoken of it.’ He sighed, a little bruised.

‘He has too strong a regard for you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that he would not wish you to risk Lord Towcester’s wrath when there is quite evidently little chance of his changing his mind.’

Hervey looked at Henrietta for a few moments, contemplating the suggestion. ‘What do
you
think? Is it so foul a thing that the children be taught by a Catholic?’

Henrietta did not answer at once, having achieved her purpose in alerting him to the news he would soon hear, while warning him against precipitate action. ‘Your Duke of Wellington would say so.’

Hervey was not so sure of that proposition; the duke’s views were sundry in the matter of Ireland. ‘How do you know?’

‘My guardian dined with him last year, and he was root and branch against removing the Penal Laws there.’

Hervey realized he had strayed from the point. ‘But I first asked what
you
thought, my dear.’

‘Matthew, she is Irish, of the meanest sort. How can you presume her loyalty in all things?’

‘But plenty of Irishmen have spilled their lifeblood for England these past twenty years.’

‘And she is a Catholic. What sort of notions might she fill the children’s heads with?’

‘Oh, Henrietta –
dearest
! You don’t suppose she would teach them that their parents are all damned to hell?’

‘I don’t suppose anything, Matthew. All I suggest is that with
two such grounds for anxiety, Lord Towcester might be said to have just cause to be cautious.’

Hervey saw that yet again she had skilfully evaded his question. ‘You have
still
not given me your opinion, truly!’

‘Ah!’ she smiled. ‘My opinion is that Caithlin O’Mahoney – Caithlin Armstrong – is a very dangerous woman. Look at the trouble she caused in Cork!’

Hervey went bright red and almost stammered. ‘That is very unfair – on
all
of us!’

‘Matthew, sweetest, I only tease!’ Her smile revealed it, too.

He picked up a crab claw to compose himself. ‘Then tell me what is your true opinion.’

‘Why do you wish to know? My opinion cannot count for anything in such an affair.’

The crab claw shattered noisily, failing in the purpose for which Hervey had taken it up. ‘Why should a man not want his wife’s opinion?’ He was tired and Henrietta was trying him, for some reason or other. It was not the soldier’s welcome he had hoped for. ‘Why should a wife wish to withhold it, indeed?’

‘Because’ – Henrietta drew out the second syllable as if to emphasize her own dismay in his lack of perception – ‘she might be afraid of what her husband would do as a consequence. I mean, Matthew, that if I say I approve of Caithlin Armstrong you will feel obliged –
doubly
obliged – to take things up with Lord Towcester. And I doubt that this would be . . . felicitous. You think I do not understand your character sufficiently?’

‘But you would surely want me to do what was right? You wouldn’t want me to say nothing just in case I called down the wrath of the lieutenant colonel?’

Henrietta frowned. ‘Oh Matthew, my darling, it is not so simple as that, is it? You of all people know that to fight a battle when there is no chance of success is . . .’ She seemed to be wondering how to finish her challenge.

‘
Contra jus ad bellum
?’

She smiled. ‘If it is so, then it strengthens my point.’

He sighed heavily. ‘Very well, then. I shall say nothing. I shall speak with Serjeant Armstrong, though, and try to find out if there is more. It’s my intention anyway to speak with Lord Towcester to get a fourth stripe for Armstrong.’

‘Then you must weigh things in the balance very keenly,’ said Henrietta, sounding wise. ‘For his promotion is surely worth more to them than the few shillings the schoolroom would bring.
Yes
, I know what you will say,’ she added quickly, seeing him make to protest, ‘but let the Armstrongs be able to
afford
their pride before standing on it.’

Hounslow Barracks, a few days later

The major general commanding the London district was a shrewd man. He knew all there was to know about the interior economy of a regiment, and likewise its drill, but all of this knowledge he had gained in the brigades of foot guards. Of cavalry regiments he knew nothing beyond what they had in common with the infantry, which was not a very great deal. He knew what to look for in a horse, as did any general officer. But he was all too aware that Waterloo light dragoons would demand a careful eye. He had therefore assembled a small inspecting staff of officers from the cavalry and horse artillery, under the command of a Waterloo veteran lately promoted colonel. And a month or so before, he had set the colonel the task of devising a scheme by which the Sixth’s handiness in the field might be tested.

On the day of the inspection, General Browning and his staff rode into the barracks promptly at ten o’clock.

‘General salute; prese-e-ent
arms
!’ Lord Towcester’s voice carried easily across the closed parade square.

The officers’ sabres lowered to the present just a fraction ahead
of the lieutenant colonel’s guidon – as was proper – and the trumpeters, dismounted, sounded the first five bars of the lieutenant general’s salute, as was a major general’s due.

The commanding officer trotted up to General Browning on his blood chestnut to inform him that 467 officers and men of the 6th Light Dragoons were ready and awaiting his inspection. The general nodded in acknowledgement and then reined his charger left to begin his ride down the double rank of dragoons, as the band struck up airs from
Figaro
, reported to be his favourite opera.

The real work of the administrative inspection had been completed the day before, when the staff had examined every ledger and given every private man the opportunity to raise any grievance. They had found the Sixth to be in good order, and there had been no notices of grievance. The deputy assistant adjutant general – a major of the Coldstream – had reported to the general that the regiment seemed somewhat sullen compared with when he had seen them last in Belgium, but added that there had been so many new recruits that perhaps it was not too surprising that they should lack the old confidence. General Browning was alert to the point, however, and as he rode along the front rank he too thought the men’s eyes lacked just that
something
he had seen so often in the eyes of light cavalry – a special sort of alertness,
eagerness
perhaps. Well, he was confident that Colonel Freke Smyth would find out right enough when he put them through their paces on Chobham Common. Then he would know whether he had a regiment he could rely on. For he could not rid himself of the doubt, one way or other, that nagged him still about the affair in Skinner Street: the death of a young cornet in his district (and the Duke of Huntingdon’s son, too) was not something that went easily with him.

After he had gone up and down the ranks the general complimented the commanding officer on the fine appearance of his men. Then the regiment rode past their inspecting officer in troops, first at the walk and then at the trot, wheeling and giving ‘eyes right’ as pleasingly as Browning would have wished to see in his foot guards.

‘Be so good as to have the trumpet-major sound “officers”, Lord Towcester, if you please,’ the general said when he had dismissed the parade.

‘All officers, my lord?’ asked the trumpet-major, saluting as he drove his right foot down at the halt.

Lord Towcester looked at the general.

‘Just the troop leaders and their subalterns.’

The trumpet-major saluted again, turned to his right and marched off five paces to blow the officers’ call.

The quartermasters and other non-combatants – the paymaster, surgeons and veterinarians – looked relieved when the call ended with the G, for the next four bars would have summoned them as well as the squadron officers.

Ten minutes later the squadron officers were assembled in the mess ante-room. ‘Sit down, gentlemen,’ said General Browning as he came in. ‘I wished to see your faces before the real business of the day began. And to say that of one troop I hope to see very little, for I have told your colonel that I intend taking it to act as enemy for the entire scheme.’ He glanced at Lord Towcester.

‘A Troop, General. Captain Hervey’s.’