A Call To Arms (15 page)

Colonel Lankester looked discomfited. ‘I regret there are no cornets either, Hervey.’

‘Oh.’ Hervey could not conceal his surprise at the squadron’s being without any officers whatsoever.

‘No, well … you see, Hervey, I’m afraid there is no troop in being. Third Squadron was disbanded nine months ago. I rather thought you might know this. I imagined that … well, no matter. We must raise a full troop inside five months before we embark for Hindoostan. That is why the colonel was so very particular in wanting you to return to duty.’

Hervey’s heart sank fast. A troop of widows’ men to command, and five months only to find recruits and remounts: he might as well be with the Eighty-second and yellow jack in Jamaica after all.

They left the barracks an hour later, Elizabeth in good spirits, her brother tolerably so. He leaned out of the window when they were well clear of the gates and called to the postilion to ask if he knew the Windsor road. He did, and so Hervey bade him put the pair into a trot as soon as possible for the Spread Eagle at Datchet.

Well might Elizabeth look pleased, Hervey mused. She had received much flattering attention, and seen the regiment in hale condition. All
he
had been able to see was blank troop-rolls and empty stalls. True, he had been told that he could draw on Mr Lincoln’s seniority list of corporals, and that Lincoln also had a promising list of chosen men. And Sir Ivo Lankester had been straight and fair with him. ‘I will sign any reasonable promotion order,’ had he not said?

At once Hervey had sought to probe what was reasonable to Sir Ivo’s mind. ‘I should wish for Serjeant Armstrong to be my serjeant-major, Colonel. I trust that would not
go badly with the seniority rule?’ he asked squarely.

Sir Ivo had shaken his head. ‘Promoting Armstrong would
not
go badly with the seniority rule,’ he had replied. ‘That is, it would not go badly if Armstrong were with us still.’

Hervey was stunned. The colour drained from him in an instant. ‘I … I had no idea that … When did he die, Colonel? Where is his family?’

‘No, no – not dead, not at
all
dead. I mean that he was discharged these six months and more.’

Hervey’s relief was palpable, but the very idea of Armstrong unbooted was only a partial consolation. ‘Why did he have his discharge, Colonel? He had made a fine recovery, had he not?’

The lieutenant-colonel furrowed his brow. ‘I don’t rightly know. I had not been in command many months – weeks, indeed – when he applied. Mr Lincoln says he had become listless. Perhaps if he had returned to a troop instead of light duties with the quartermasters …’

‘And how goes he now? Do we have word of his family?’

‘Again, Mr Lincoln would best advise you. I know that he keeps a posthouse near Eton.’ Sir Ivo knew because he had himself arranged for it, though he did not say so.

Hervey knew that it was not a time to explore his own culpability in Armstrong’s listlessness, nor in Armstrong’s estrangement from the regiment, which he had made his family when his own had been destroyed by a firedamp explosion fifteen years before. But guilt pricked him hard nonetheless. No matter how pressing his duty here, and to his own family in Wiltshire, he must see for himself that Armstrong was sound in soul as well as body. He glanced at Elizabeth. ‘With your leave, Colonel, I should like to take a look at Mr Lincoln’s promotion lists and then make a start for Wiltshire. I should like, if I may, a fortnight in which to set affairs right at home, and then to report for duty.’

Sir Ivo smiled indulgently. ‘Of course, Hervey, of course. Take as long as you need. There’s no profit in having you begin before you can give it your heart.’

Hervey had known Sir Ivo but a half-hour, yet he thought he had known him an age, so thoroughly regimental was his view. He could have been Lord George Irvine, Joseph Edmonds or Sir
Edward
Lankester for that matter. How right Lord Sussex had been, if not entirely fulsome with detail, when he had said that he was certain the Sixth were restored. Hervey rose and took up his
hat, and held out a hand to Elizabeth. ‘I shall spend a little while with the adjutant and Mr Lincoln, then, Colonel, and afterwards drive west.’

‘I cannot prevail on you to stay to luncheon?’

Hervey had glanced at Elizabeth, as a courtesy, but he had then declined.

‘Then while you are with Assheton-Smith and the RSM, allow me at least to show your sister the horse lines.’

Elizabeth had accepted without waiting for her brother’s leave.

Hervey left his sister to take in the sights of the Berkshire countryside while he himself sat back to contemplate the reunion ahead. He had no very clear idea of what it was he would say to Armstrong, a man he counted more than just his erstwhile serjeant. There was so much he could say: what he owed him, what he had failed him in, what he might do for him yet – confused notions which swam before him as the chariot picked up speed on the Windsor turnpike.

And what a very agreeable mode of posting was the travelling chariot. Had he but had one in Italy, where the full vision forward would have afforded them many a longer preview of the glorious sights of that country! He knew full well it was an indulgence he was unlikely to be able to afford for many a year. Indeed, he had only been able to engage the chariot for the two days, which would mean their changing at Andover, or perhaps even Newbury, to something altogether more utilitarian. They sped past fields of ripening barley, empty now of the hoes which for months had tramped up and down the drills. In a few weeks or so they would be filled again, with scythes and rakes, by men and women who like as not had known nothing other than husbandry, and never would, and yet seemed content that it was so. It was from men such as these that Hervey must find his recruits, willing volunteers. He could go to the courts and arrange with the bench for felons to be given the choice of being sent down or taking the King’s shilling, but all he had seen of that sort of recruit was trouble. No, not all of them, not every one, for was not Private Finch called ‘Chokey’ for the manner of his enlisting? And could anyone doubt there was a truer man in a fight than Finch? But the effort in finding one good man was too great. Hervey had never been
enamoured of those ‘paying with the drum’, nor had any of the Sixth’s officers or serjeants for that matter. And Armstrong had always added a practical as well as a principled objection: if a man were caught at petty crime, he would not have the wit to be a good light dragoon.

‘Are you going to say what is on your mind, Matthew?’

Hervey sighed. ‘I had so hoped that the troop would be wellfound.’ He would admit to no more.

Elizabeth said nothing. She could not be certain, but she supposed her brother’s despondency was caused not so much by the absolute state of numbers, but because he would not have around him those who had previously been his succour. His mind had been set on boot and saddle for a full month now, and to find a troop of widows’ men, as it was known, was disappointment indeed. That his serjeant and others of the like were gone was even greater discouragement to him. And yet Elizabeth was not so sure that this was necessarily for the bad, for she had observed in her brother over many years that he was not content with things as he found them: there was always the urge to adjust, to change, to
improve
. In fact, she was very much of the opinion that raising a troop – recruits and remounts alike – was just what her brother needed to engage every atom of mind and body these next five months. It was a high price for her, and their parents – that she knew well enough, for his time would not be theirs – but it was a price which any who truly loved him would pay willingly.

‘And Serjeant Armstrong,’ added Hervey suddenly, after a full minute’s silence. ‘I cannot bear to think of him as … diminished.’

Elizabeth looked puzzled. ‘By his taking a posthouse, you mean?’

‘No, not that especially. By the loss of vigour, I suppose – mental
and
physical. When last I saw him he walked slowly, and had fearful headaches.’

‘And what did Colonel Lankester say of him now?’

‘Oh, he has not seen him in many months. It seems he went to Ireland in the summer with Caithlin to see her people and has not been near Hounslow since.’

‘Well, you could scarce blame him for wanting to put a little distance between himself and the regiment.’

Hervey raised his eyebrows: didn’t he, of all people, know about
wanting that? ‘Ay, that’s fair enough. But Armstrong so likes the company of his peers … it’s difficult to imagine him—’

‘He has his
family
, Matthew.’ It was perhaps a little cruel to remind him of that, but Elizabeth considered it important that her brother should approach this reunion with a proper understanding.

He turned to her, half smiling, and placed a hand over hers. ‘You are very good to me.’

‘I always was,’ she insisted, smiling back. ‘And see where it has got me. I shall end an old maid in your service!’

‘I should not mind that,’ Hervey teased. ‘Indeed, I shall call you Dorcas, for you are full of good works.’

‘I suppose I would rather be called Dorcas than Tabitha!’ replied Elizabeth, frowning.

Hervey admired as well as loved his sister. It was not just her public charity and her devotion to him; it was the daily evidence of a good mind – a self-improved mind – yet a mind that was prepared to sacrifice what it might become for the sake of the rest of her family, whose needs had varied with the years, and whose number had so lately seen increase and decrease. He had left her with scarcely a thought when he was little more than a youth, and had now returned in the unspoken expectation that she would accomplish whatever he required of her. He had seen how Commodore Peto had been gladdened by her company, and she by his, and yet he had sped his sister away from Rome the instant he decided to answer the colonel’s call. And he would leave Georgiana in her care just as he had Jessye with Private Johnson, exonerating himself by the notion that it was his own life that had greatest need of amendment. But he was still half afraid the worms might eat at him from within, for Dorcas had died a maid doing her good works, and he was not Peter to raise her up again.

The Spread Eagle was a smarter-looking establishment than Hervey had feared. As the chariot hove into the yard a pair of ostlers ran out from the stables and had the leader out of the traces almost before the postilion had dismounted; these were men practised with the mails, whose proud boast it was never to touch the same strap twice. But Hervey wanted no relief team this minute. He intended to dine here, he said, and then they would take four horses, not two, for the longer haul to Newbury – or, if
fortune favoured them, Andover. And he wanted to settle the amount now, before seeing Armstrong.

‘Three shillings per mile, sir,’ said the horsemaster. ‘With two postboys, that is.’

Hervey groaned to himself. Posting to Newbury, let alone Andover, would cost him the best part of five pounds. He had better reacquire the habit of thrift soon, else the expenses of the Sixth would oppress him sorely. ‘Very well, in an hour, say?’

They left the yard to the ostlers and headed for the postentrance. Inside, a cherub-faced bootboy showed them to a private sitting room, and Hervey asked for the postmaster. The boy bowed and tugged at his forelock enthusiastically, but with a clumsiness that suggested he was still a novice; after a fumbling encounter with the door handle, he took his leave.

‘The Armstrongs are evidently well set up here,’ Hervey ventured.

Elizabeth nodded, glancing about the room. The wainscotting was newly polished – a fair enough test, she thought.

Hervey was pleased for them, pleased that they should have found so fitting a billet. On the other hand he was displeased for himself, for there was scant likelihood of Armstrong leaving such a place for the uncertainties of the regiment.

Within the minute the door opened again, to Caithlin Armstrong. Her copper-red hair was pulled back severely, yet still not enough to make her face anything but as warm and welcoming as when Hervey had first seen it those five years ago in Kilcrea, the time she had soothed his blistered hands with balsam.

‘Captain Hervey, and Miss Hervey ma’am, what an honour this is!’ She did not curtsy, but her pleasure was real enough. Caithlin Armstrong, even Caithlin O’Mahoney, had never revealed a trace of guile in all the difficulties she had faced since first encountering the Sixth.