Hervey 06 - Rumours Of War (14 page)

Hervey smiled because he had not thought so rough an NCO would find favour with the punctilious Lankester. And he liked Armstrong. It was difficult not to like a seasoned dragoon who looked you in the eye as he saluted, and did so with a ready smile. There was never any sense of resentment in the man, as he detected (or thought he did) in others. True, Armstrong spoke in the strong voice of Tyneside, but he was never unintelligible, as some of the dragoons from the northern parts. Armstrong was, in fact, a cornet’s godsend.

But it had been a wearying day, and worse than need have been. If only Corporal Hood had been able to find his way back to the brigade’s rallying point; they could now be taking their ease, the horses fed. And it was not even dark. Doubtless all the billets would be bagged, Martyn said, and they would have the taunts of the other columns ringing in their ears as they improvised a bivouac somewhere. Sir Edward Lankester was not a happy man.

Hervey did not relish the idea of a bivouac. He wanted to ride through the night until they met the French. For six months and more he had imagined this day; since before his father had even lodged the banker’s draft with the regiment’s agents, whereby Master Matthew Hervey had become Cornet Hervey when still but sixteen save for a few months. He had prepared himself assiduously, indeed. Five years and more Daniel Coates had been his riding-master, saddler, armourer, master-at-arms, trumpeter and tutor in drill. By the age of twelve he had known the guards and cuts in Le Marchant’s manual, practising them hour after hour against the chalked face on the stable wall. He likewise knew every trumpet call. And even before going to Shrewsbury he had read Captain Hinde’s
Discipline of Light Horse.

He did not want to halt for the night. He wanted to see action so that he could write home to Daniel Coates and tell him that at last he counted himself a true soldier. But if they marched, counter-marched and re-marched, as they did now, they would never close with the French in a month of Sundays, and the laurels would go to the other regiments. He sighed; this must be what vexed his troop-leader so.

And then he had the most disturbing thought of all: what would happen if the French sued for peace before the Sixth could cross swords with them and claim a battle honour?

*

Hervey had no occasion to write to ‘Trumpeter’ Coates for nearly a month, however. And even then he was not able to declare himself a true soldier. Save, perhaps, in the sense of learning the difference between the glamoury of reviews at home and the true nature of soldiery, the one in parade dress with every man peacock-smart and alert, the other with all its sweaty grime and the inadequacy of many a man who had otherwise looked the part in barracks.

Vila Vicosa
24th October 1808

My dear Dan,

We left Lisbon, whence last I wrote you, on 21st ult, and are now camped near the Spanish border, near the great old fort of Elvas. You must forgive me for a very inadequate description of this city, for it is quite beyond anything that I have ever seen. They say it was first a Roman city, and there is a very high aqueduct, four arches on top of each other to a height of a hundred feet, which brings water a great distance to the town and it serves still but no one says that it is Roman. And then it was a Moorish castle according to the people who come to our camp to sell us the produce of the place. There are very good blankets, which I have bought, for our guides say that it will be excessively cold these next months, and the most delicious sugar plums you would ever taste, which are a great specialty here, and are sent to England too, though I never heard of them. The whole city is fortified, and I think on the design of Marshal Vauban, or if not then his design is copied by the Portuguese themselves. I rode all around its wall yesterday, and there are ravelins and hornworks and lunettes, just as in the books in Ld. Bath’s library, and much work there is in building new and strengthening the bastions against siege guns. Within the wall and ramparts the city is quite
fine, with some tall handsome buildings, white houses mostly and everywhere narrow whitewashed alleys, quite clean compared to Lisbon, and most of the houses with little balconies as in Lisbon where the families like to sit of an evening, especially the ladies, even when as now it is coming cold. There is a fine Gothick cathedral, which I have not yet been able to see beyond its exterior, and a most curious but pretty chapel which has eight sides and stands on eight painted columns, with tiles lining the walls up to the lantern, and is unlike any other thing in the whole of the country says its guardian. There are hills all about the outside of the city, but none, I think, overlook the fortress to any great extent, so that I think it must be the very strongest of places, as indeed it must be for it sits astride the road to Lisbon. However, the French took it in the Spring, by what means I do not yet know. There is no sign of the French now, neither has there been the entire distance from Lisbon. It is said that they have not re-entered the country, as was required of them by the treaty at Sintra, though all along they were expected to oppose our march when they had intelligence of it. But now we are to enter Spain and search for them, which will be a capital thing.

I did not say anything of the country, which I should. It is very hard on the feet of men and horses alike, for the stone is unyielding, not at all like our chalk Plain, and it is very hilly. But everywhere there are groves of walnut trees and olives and cork, which are very necessary for the winemaking in all the parts of the country, and there are vines always, and sheep in great profusion, I think as much as on our Plain, though in smaller flocks, from which they take milk and make cheese. There are wolves here too, though I have neither seen nor heard one, and such eagles as you never saw.

I have got me a good pye bald mare poney since last I wrote, called Belisarda, to carry the canteens. She is 2 years old and in foal and is but 4 foot high, and also a donkey and a mule, who is very strong.

You will be glad to know that I have made many friends in my new troop. I have a good groom-servant, Private Sykes, a soft-spoken man from Kent, who attends his duties diligently and gets on well with the NCOs which, as you were wont always to tell me, is very important. I have, I believe, made a firm friend of my fellow cornet, Laming, a very excellent fellow who joined not many weeks before me, and I trust that I have gained also the troop lieutenant’s approbation. I was at first sorry to leave Captain Edmonds’s troop (I did not tell you), but Captain Lankester is also a fine man though he has not seen nearly so much fighting as Edmonds (though he was with the Twelfth in Egypt). All the men hold him in high regard . . .

Indeed, a dragoon would brighten at a word from Sir Edward Lankester, baronet and owner of extensive acres. They trusted him not because he had seen more action than they had, but because his manner was that of a gentleman whose birthright and habit was command, the estate in Hertfordshire his training ground. Lankester had a genuine, if paternal, regard for his subordinates, though he exercised the greatest restraint on any tendency to sentimentality. ‘I shall counsel little for the present, Hervey,’ he had said when the mint-new cornet first presented himself at orderly room. ‘But you must be at pains always not to close the distance between officer and dragoon. It will be the harder to send them to their death when the time comes.’

Hervey had felt the advice as a cold douche. If he had had any delusions as to the true nature of the profession of arms – a thrill for the panoply, perhaps, or for a gallop fifty abreast – they were gone in that instant. Indeed, he did not believe he had any misconceptions, save those innocent ones that any who had observed the military only at a distance might have. Daniel Coates had raised him to the trumpet well, and his parting advice had been as ever pertinent: ‘Keep your peace, Matthew, but never overlook a fault; defer to the NCOs in everything that is theirs, but remember that, in the event, yours is the liability.’ Distance, it seemed, was still something that must be cultivated and measured, for all the distance that there was already in their stations both in and out of uniform.

The happy tone of Hervey’s letter belied considerable vexations, however. That month’s march to the border, with its inexplicable halts and whole days spent in watering order, had thrown up the truth about many a man. Most, he reckoned, were fair sorts, and some were very good indeed, but there were the ‘King’s hard bargains’ too, as the shirkers and defaulters were known, and others who rose only to the mark through the exertions of the corporals. That, indeed, seemed to be the corporal’s sole purpose at times, and it surprised him somehow: it came to him as strange that men with lace on their arms were needed just to drive those without. He had understood that it was the corporal’s function to expedite orders, but until he had seen it for himself, in the field, he had not imagined how ‘unscientific’ it usually was. Thus, he supposed, did a cornet learn his trade.

In Daniel Coates’s instruction, though, Hervey had the edge over the other new cornets. But Coates had omitted to tell him of one thing that was as much a part of the Sixth’s routine as any trumpet call – women. Or, if he had, then it had somehow not registered in the way that drill and the riding-school had. Hervey had had first wind of the problem of regimental women at the Canterbury depot, but only now was the thing exposed as a plague on good order and military discipline. The Sixth were not nearly so afflicted as other corps (there were some who said not nearly so well served), but even so, the regimental followers numbered almost fifty, and the morning after Hervey had written his letter to Wiltshire they were told, for the first time, that they would be allowed to come up with the rest of the baggage train. Lankester sent Hervey, squadron officer of the day, to bring in the troop’s party.

*

‘Faith, would yer look; they’re sending boys now!’

The lilting Irish brogue brought raucous acclamation from the rest. Hervey knew at once he had a trial ahead. It had already taken an age to find the regiment’s women, let alone the troop’s, for the baggage train was spread about the meadows outside the town like a tinkers’ fair. He wanted done with the business as soon as may be, but he realized that he had not the slightest idea how to proceed.

But Armstrong had. ‘Come along, ladies,’ he rasped, scarcely forbearing to smile.

‘Isn’t he a fine-made boy, though, the officer, Annie! He’d stay at his post all night!’

There were shrieks from the rest, and more raucous than before.

Hervey stood composed, as best he thought, praying that his mounting discomfort was not evident. Corporal Armstrong poked at the donkeys with his cane, trying to get them separated from the others.

‘Can I do any washing for you, lieutenant?’ came a cheery voice from the Black Country.

Hervey made the mistake of smiling and shaking his head.

‘What’s the matter, dearie – my hands too rough for your smalls?’

‘He don’t look to me as though he’s small, Annie!’

‘Now, girls! If you please!’ tried Armstrong. ‘Mr Hervey is an officer and a gentleman and he expects the regiment’s wives to comport themselves as ladies.’

‘Girls,
is it now, Corporal? Sure we’re not the sort that
you’re
used to!’

‘No, indeed we’re not! We’ll not be insulted by someone just because they’ve a bit of lace on their arm!’

‘Oh ay, Maureen? Who would you be insulted by then?’

‘Will you hear that, Lieutenant! Are you going to stand there and let this man call us whores?’

Hervey was close to total confusion.

‘I’ll call you worse than that, Maureen Taylor, if you and the rest of you don’t get a move on with these donkeys!’

Hervey saw the peculiarly disarming effect that Armstrong’s Tyneside, and knowing smile, had. The troop’s dozen dissolved into giggles, with much winking at him, and more than one lift of the skirt to show a bit of calf (and shapely calf, too, Hervey noted).

‘They’re not bad lasses really, sir,’ said Armstrong as they led them off. ‘Taylor’s wife’s a mite brazen at times, but she means right. I don’t suppose you heard how she was on the ship?’

‘No?’

‘Tended all Taylor’s pals when they were sick as dogs, she did. Washed up more puke than you’d see of a pay night!’

‘That is heartening, Corporal.’ Hervey meant it, even if he could not yet quite understand why.

‘Ay, well, sir, I bet yon Sykes of yours’ll avail himself of her services. She knows how to scrub all right does Maureen Taylor.’

Hervey managed a smile to himself as they rode back. He wondered how to tell of it to Daniel Coates. It was a pity he would not be able to in his next letter home, though in truth the regiment’s followers were not unlike half the women of Horningsham, his father’s nominal parishioners. They were not bad sorts; the quartermaster would not have put their names forward for the draw otherwise. Without the discipline of the barracks, though (or the village), they became as unmanageable as their donkeys. But then, what concern was it to him? This little affair had not injured him beyond the moment, and had indeed revealed depths to Corporal Armstrong. The promise of good laundry was a powerful balm, and in any case, he did not expect any regular engagement with Maggie Doolan, Maureen Taylor and their saucy like.

Private Sykes much approved of the followers. ‘They’re not bad ’uns, sir,’ he chirped as he made up Hervey’s camp kit for the night. ‘They made a bit of a commotion as they came in, but they’ll have a boil on soon as. Would you like me to take ’em your linen, sir?’

Hervey did not hesitate. ‘If you would, Sykes. Is that all the baggage brought in now?’

Belisarda, Hercules the mule and Pedro the donkey had come up with the other officers’ bat-horses behind the regimental women. There had been no shortage of men and boys in Lisbon wanting silver, and there were almost as many batmen, muleteers and donkey drivers as animals themselves. Hervey was glad to hear that his baggage was complete, for he had already decided, with the experience of a month’s powderless campaign, that some redistribution of his equipage was necessary.