Hervey 08 - Company Of Spears (28 page)

‘When I have had a satisfactory parade state for the troop – in a day or so – I believe I should be ready to leave for the frontier. Shall you be able to give me more particular orders?’

‘They are being copied as we speak.’

Through the arched gateway and into the bailey clattered the two mares. The quarterguard presented arms, and Somervile acknowledged, raising his hat high.

‘And there is another thing I would have you look to. Lord Charles Somerset says in his letter of relinquishment to me – which I must acknowledge is a handsome enough memorandum – that there is an officer in Cape Town who might render signal service. If he can be persuaded to bestir himself. I thought it appropriate that he accompany you to the frontier. His name is Edward Fairbrother, of the Royal African Corps.’

Hervey was puzzled. ‘The corps was disbanded some years ago, was it not?’

They came to a halt outside the long, boxlike building that was headquarters of His Majesty’s administration in the Cape Colony. Orderlies standing ready took hold of the bridles, and Sir Eyre Somervile, and Lieutenant-Colonel (Acting) Matthew Hervey, commandant of the new Corps of Cape Mounted Riflemen, dismounted with as little ceremony as possible.

‘Five years ago, to be precise,’ said Somervile, taking the steps to his quarters with impressive bounds, even though his breath was in short measure. ‘The hard cases, I think you call them, were sent to Sierra Leone, and the officers who declined to accompany them were forced to transfer to half pay. One or two stayed here – they were made land grants on the Fish River – but most returned to England.’

‘And so Fairbrother knows the frontier?’

‘Apparently very well, and speaks Xhosa – or Kaffir, as probably he calls it. Or yet Nguni, for that matter.’

Hervey smiled. His own facility with languages was entirely practical, whereas Somervile’s delved deep into their history and character. ‘How is
your
Xhosa, Lieutenant-Governor?’

Somervile did not immediately return the smile. ‘I am not yet fluent, but I can converse perfectly reasonably with my
fundisa.
There was little else to detain me during the passage.’

Hervey nodded, chastened. ‘Then I will speak with this Edward Fairbrother. There was a Fairbrother in the Eighteenth; I wonder if they are any sort of kin?’

XV

ROYAL AFRICANS

Later that day

It began raining in the late morning, at first a mere mizzle, and then more decided, but it was no more to Hervey than the sort of late-winter downpour he had known on Salisbury Plain, though not nearly as cold. Johnson had complained about the weather since arriving. He had received the knowledge of the reversal of seasons in the southern hemisphere with considerable scepticism, believing his informants were intent on some joke at his expense (if anything, his brush with the Bow Street forces of the law had made him excessively wary). He had lit fires and worn woollens at every opportunity, and told Hervey severally that even when the weather took a turn for the worse in Sheffield in August they could at least go about in flimsy.

Hervey had quickly stayed his groom’s grumbling protests this morning, however. He was determined on seeking out Lieutenant Fairbrother as soon as possible; and with the troop engaged on its march to quarters, and the Rifles in the capable hands of Major Streatfield, there was nothing that need detain him. He therefore called for his waterdeck cape and set off on foot for Fairbrother’s lodgings, dismissing Johnson at the last minute, seeing how close were the lodgings and that he would not have need of the saddle.

He could reasonably have summoned Fairbrother to the castle, he told himself as he set off: the lieutenant was not on the Active List but he was still subject to military authority. And it might have served to do so, for it did no harm to remind a man of his duties. By convention, however, an officer on half pay was allowed the courtesies of formal retirement, and in any case, Hervey took the pragmatic view that persuading a man to do something he might find disagreeable was much the more likely if the persuader did not stand on his dignity.

The rain began to run down the back of his neck, and it troubled him that he was troubled by it. A soaking – like a baking, or a dusting or a freezing – was but a part of the soldier’s life. Had he become soft of late in Hounslow? He wished he wore his shako instead of the forage cap, for it would have kept his neck dry. And he wished too that his new tunic were made, for he had a mind that Rifle green might make more of an impression on Fairbrother than would blue – unless Fairbrother was indeed related to the cornet of that name in the Eighteenth (whom Hervey had known in the Peninsula as a very dashing sabreur).

Lieutenant Fairbrother’s lodgings were about half a mile from the castle next to an expanse of greenery known as the Company’s Gardens, originally a market garden for the Dutch East India Company but now a handsome park filled more with exotic plants and the makings of some sturdy oaks. Hervey’s instructions took him through the gardens to one of a dozen brightly painted timber houses on the western side. A Hottentot woman answered the bell. She was not a great age, but her hair was white; she wore a print dress of European fashion, but no cap. There was about her both dignity and authority. Hervey explained who he was, and she admitted him and showed him to a flower-filled sitting room.

‘I am Master Fairbrother’s housekeeper, sir. I will see if he may receive you,’ she said, with a certain formality. ‘Please be seated.’

Hervey took a seat by a window with a prospect of Table Mountain. He sat for more than a quarter of an hour trying to remain composed, though inclining to exasperation at the delay in any sort of reply. There was a fire in the hearth, which at least began the process of drying out his trousers. He wondered what Sam Kirwan would be thinking of the prospects of studying his science in a tropical climate.

At length the housekeeper reappeared, and with a look that said she had had some difficulty. ‘Master Fairbrother will come very presently, Colonel Hervey. May I offer yourself tea?’

Hervey was very content to take tea: the fire was drying him well enough, but he felt the need of something warming to the inner parts.

When the housekeeper returned, with a silver teapot, and blue china which looked as if it had come from the East, Hervey asked if she knew whether Master Fairbrother had any engagements in the coming weeks, to which she replied that as far as she knew there was nothing to detain him in Cape Town or elsewhere, explaining that he was engaged only infrequently in business, and that he spent his time with his books. Hervey was appreciative of her candour, and intrigued by the suggestion of a bookish disposition.

After five more minutes the half-pay lieutenant appeared, in a long silk dressing gown over day clothes, and perfectly shaved. Edward Fairbrother was a man of about Hervey’s own height and not many years his junior. He had large brown eyes, thick black hair and noble cheekbones. Hervey rose, and in evident surprise.

‘Mislike me not for my complexion, Colonel Hervey,’ said Fairbrother, with a look almost haughty.

Hervey was no little discomfited. In India he had had so many native friends (and a lover) that a brown complexion had been nothing more to him than the clothes a man chose to wear. ‘I beg your pardon, Mr Fairbrother,’ he near stammered. ‘I had not thought—’

‘I take no offence, Colonel. It is of no consequence, and your surprise is hardly a thing of novelty.’

Hervey was uncertain on the first two assertions. Quite plainly it was something to which Fairbrother was sensible. Even in a corps so far removed from the regular order of battle as the Royal Africans a skin the colour of coffee, albeit with a good splashing of cream, would tell against a man. ‘You speak Xhosa, Mr Fairbrother, as I’m given to understand,’ he tried briskly. ‘How did you acquire it?’

Fairbrother now looked positively disdainful. ‘ “I am as free as nature first made man, Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in woods the noble savage ran.”‘

Hervey sighed, and held out a hand, wondering if the bookish disposition was entirely favourable. ‘Let us begin anew, if we may. Hervey, lieutenant-colonel-commandant of the Cape Mounted Rifles.’

Fairbrother took the hand, and smiled, conciliatory. ‘Edward Fairbrother, late of His Majesty’s Royal African Corps, and before that ensign, Jamaica Militia.’

Hervey now supposed he had a better understanding of Fairbrother’s circumstances: a planter’s family, English, with that admixture of the native blood which over long centuries shaded the complexions of many a good family there (or so Peto had once informed him, for he himself had never been to the West Indies).

‘Well, Mr Fairbrother, I am much obliged to you. I have come to ask if you would be so good as to accompany me to the eastern frontier. I am to make a reconnaissance, and I should be grateful for the company of guide and interpreter.’

Fairbrother said nothing by reply, turning instead to his housekeeper. ‘Mama Anky, would you bring me tea if you please.’

He sat down and crossed his legs, a gesture of independence that Hervey could not fail to observe.

‘Colonel Hervey, I am a man of some affairs in Cape Town’ (Hervey would learn that he imported rum from his father’s estate) ‘and I am not obliged to be at the governor’s call.’

Hervey at once had to check himself. In law Lieutenant Edward Fairbrother was most certainly at the governor’s call – the governor, the King’s person. ‘There is no question of
obliging
you, Mr Fairbrother. That is precisely why I came in person: to
ask
you. And as to any business interests, you may be assured that you would be properly compensated.’

Mama Anky brought tea. Fairbrother took his time pouring it, not appearing to be contemplating Hervey’s proposition in the least. ‘Colonel Hervey, when Lord Somerset – I should say Lord
Charles
Somerset – was governor, there were frequent opportunities for inter-course, but his lordship not once deigned to ask me to the castle, though he knew full well enough of my capabilities.’

Hervey sighed, though inwardly. He had no recommendation of Fairbrother other than that he spoke the language of the tribes on the Fish River frontier. This resentment of his would be altogether too tedious in but a few days’ marching. ‘I cannot imagine that Lord Charles Somerset would intend any slight on an officer who had served his king as you had.’

Fairbrother smiled pityingly and raised an eyebrow. ‘Do you know the family?’

Hervey was beginning to object to the tone. He fancied he never stood on his rank, but lieutenant-colonel, even by brevet, required
some
respect; Fairbrother had an arrogant presumption … ‘I had but a brief acquaintance with his younger brother, Lord FitzRoy – at Waterloo.’

Fairbrother at once sat up on the mention of Waterloo. He uncrossed his legs, turned his eyes to the teapot and occupied himself in replenishing his merely half-empty cup by way of allowing himself to begin anew. ‘A very noble and gallant man, Lord FitzRoy, by all accounts. Were you there when he lost his arm?’

An understanding of the battle of Waterloo: Hervey was indeed obliged. He intended to press to advantage this unexpected turn. ‘I rather think that at the moment Lord FitzRoy was hit there was so much smoke I could scarcely see the man next to me.’

The half-pay lieutenant’s whole demeanour was now changed. He asked several more questions about the battle, most of which Hervey was able to answer, though not all by his own exact experience. As he explained, the battle was of a scale he could barely contemplate still; quite unlike any of those in the Peninsula – not Corunna, not Talavera, nor Salamanca nor even Vitoria.

At length Fairbrother smiled – a warm, conceding smile which Hervey found himself returning willingly, and thankfully.

‘I believe I might arrange for you to be restored to the Active List, if that is what you wished. There are supernumerary posts in the Rifles.’

But Fairbrother shook his head, though still smiling. ‘No, Colonel Hervey, I should not wish to be so restored. There is, I am afraid to tell you, an impediment – Lord Charles Somerset’s son, whom his father promoted shamelessly during his time here. I do not care for his manners, nor much for his fashion of soldiery. I could not serve in a corps with such a man; and certainly not when he were my superior.’

Hervey now found himself saying what he would otherwise have regarded as improper. His instincts were ever for the correct practice of good order and military discipline (though he had rarely flinched, certainly of late, from respectfully speaking his mind), but he saw no reason to let that stand in the way of what seemed necessary for the execution of the King’s business. ‘Mr Fairbrother, between these four walls, I believe we may share the same opinion of Colonel Somerset. But it is I who have command of the Mounted Rifles, and I enjoy the confidence of the lieutenant-governor. You would need have no concerns on that account.’

Fairbrother said nothing, nodding slowly instead as if weighing Hervey’s words. Then he rose and went to a writing desk and opened a drawer. ‘See here,’ he said, holding out in turn two miniatures. ‘My father.’