Hervey 10 - Warrior (15 page)

'Indeed.'

'Prudence is to apply one's mind in affairs of this world to discern what is virtuous and what is not, and how to address the one and avoid the other. Its intention is to perfect not the will but the mind in its practical decisions, seeking where the essence of virtue lies.' She smiled, as if the search for virtue were pleasing in itself. 'But it is not enough simply to will the good which it discerns. Prudence bids us do three things: to take counsel to discover the means of securing the virtuous end, and then to judge soundly the fitness of those means; and, finally, to command their employment.' She laid emphasis on the word 'command', as if knowing it would strike a chord.

He nodded again.

She rose.

Hervey rose too, but in some despair: his own prudence had led him to do its first bidding – to seek counsel – and he trusted he knew how to command; what he wanted now of Sister Maria was to know the means.

She clasped her hands together, and looked grave. 'The end of all moral virtues, Colonel 'Ervey, is human good. I must first ponder on the matter, and pray, before giving such counsel. Are you able to return tomorrow, at this time?'

'I am.'

She smiled again, though with a suggestion of disquiet. 'And now I must say another thing, but briefly for the vespers bell cannot be long away. It distresses me to see such confusion of mind over your opportunity for promotion and command of this new regiment. It is not a matter of prudence in the sense that I have just spoken of, but I believe it to be of the first importance in the proper ordering of your affairs, which itself is at the heart of the virtuous life. You are a soldier, Colonel 'Ervey. I understood that perfectly at Toulouse.'

He smiled by return. 'It is a matter to which I am giving the most particular attention, I assure you, Sister.'

'Then I think that before you return to the Cape of Good Hope we might speak of these – and other matters – too.'

It was a most generous invitation, and one which he had not supposed he might receive. 'I should be ever grateful, Sister.'

She made to lead him from the room, when another thought occurred to her. 'I should like very much to meet your wife, Colonel 'Ervey. Do you think I might call on her?'

He was surprised by the question, not so much alarmed, for they had spoken under what he knew as the seal of the confessional, but rather that Sister Maria imagined meeting with Kezia might in any degree inform their intercourse. 'You may call at your liberty, Sister.'

'Then I will do so tomorrow morning.'

He put on his hat.

Sister Maria sighed, and looked at him in a sort of frowning perplexity. 'Colonel 'Ervey, I full well understand what are your travails, but I am truly saddened that there is no joy in you, as once I recall there was. The gift of a child, even if in unfortunate circumstances, is a matter for rejoicing. Sursum corda: lift up your heart!'

He smiled, if not wholeheartedly, then thankfully. 'I will indeed, ma'am.'

The vespers bell began chiming. It was nearing five o'clock. Holland Park was but a mile away: he could call on Kat, and begin to prepare the ground. And he could return thence to Hanover Square before the evening invited too much intimacy.

He took his leave, and for all his earlier despair, he rode from Hammersmith with a heart that was indeed beginning to lift.

PART TWO
THE GATHERING STORM

VII
INDEFINITE LEAVE OF ABSENCE

Cape Colony, early September

The great paddle wheels began churning in the swell off Robben Island, whither the colony's worst miscreants were banished. The noise, like a giant blanket, smothered all conversation on deck.

Hervey braced himself to the vibration of the engines, which took a minute or so after firing to reach their full speed. The
Enterprise
had not had much recourse to them during the passage. The wind had been favourable. The engines' purpose, explained her captain, was to get them in and out of port against contrary airs (they would have been waiting at Gravesend, still, so strong had been the south-westerlies). The captain was very decided in his opinion, and although a man of scientific bent, he was certain that the wind would ever be the motive power of the high seas, for it failed only rarely, it was health-giving (no one, not even Peto, who was convinced there was more to steam than they saw at present, would laud a sulphurous chimney stack) – and it was free.

Hervey was gladdened by the sight of Table Mountain. It had been fifty-four days only – faster than he had first come out with
Leviathan,
but slower than his return home six months ago. The
Enterprise
would continue on to Calcutta in a day or so, another six weeks, perhaps, making the India passage in fourteen, a good month quicker than the rule, especially at this time of year before the south-west monsoon was come.

For a moment he wondered how he would feel if he were going on too, back to Bengal, to take command of the Eighty-first – had they been there and not Canada. Did he wish that they were? He had spent the better part of seven years in India. They had been extraordinary years, impossible to explain to any who had not set foot in that land. But it had been, as it were, a parade which was marking time, waiting interminably for some part of it (which he could not see) to come into line, and only thereafter the order 'Forward!'

And while they had been marking time in Bengal, the ranks had thinned. Some had fallen nobly, like the commanding officer, Sir Ivo Lankester (Kezia's husband), leading his men in battle. More –
many
more – had died of the cholera, or of any number of strange diseases which defied the surgeon's learning. Some had died by their own hand, to lie in everlasting dishonour in the suicides' corner of the cantonment cemetery. And yet, no matter how they met their end, they would all be but bones now – the ultimate comradeship of the regiment, of every one of the dragoons who had died with the colours in four continents:

Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, And we shall be changed.

And he wondered, as often he did, how, when the trumpet sounded, they would all be mustered.

No, he did not wish the Eighty-first were in India, for all the country's easy pleasures and the thrill of its warfare. He was glad – at least for the time being – that the regiment slept in their beds at Fort York. Canada would be a painful return for him, of course, the place of Georgiana's birth. But then, when he had told her, she had been animated by the prospect. And if Georgiana was content in going to the place whence her mother had marched for that fatal reunion, then he must be too – for all that it might remind him of a bliss too great.

For now, however, there were other things to disquiet him:
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Before long, he would see Serjeant-Major Armstrong. And an evil it most certainly would be. He had tried to imagine how he would tell him of Caithlin; but there was nothing he could with confidence settle on.

The crew were shortening sail. The wind seemed to be a point or so east from south, but he always found it difficult to judge these things. And for all that Peto had attempted to instruct him in the science of sailing, in the setting and trimming of sails his old friend had merely shown him a mystery.

Yes
: he had a high regard for the naval profession, even when it was made easy by steam engines and paddle wheels.

He cupped a hand to his mouth. '
Ngathi kuza kunetha,
' nodding to the threatening cloud.

Fairbrother screwed up his face and shook his head. The cloud was too high; it would not rain today – '
Akuzi kuna namhlanje!
' He clasped a hand to Hervey's shoulder, and then looked down at the water. '
Siyacothoza.
'

Hervey had to think before he could compose a worthwhile reply: the ship was indeed running in slowly, but . . .

For six weeks his friend had instructed him daily in the language of the Xhosa. Hervey did not expect that he would stay long in the Colony (the troop had orders to return to England in the new year) but Somervile's letter had prompted him to acquire what in India they called a 'scouting tongue' – enough of the language to enquire the way ahead and what it held. In fact, Hervey had acquired rather more than the scout's portion: while he could hold no discursive conversation, his vocabulary was broader than the here and now. He had in fact found the language of the Xhosa, while not easy, surprisingly rich and subtle. He would have chosen to learn that of the Zulu instead, had there been the means; but the two were close enough, as he had discovered in the prelude to the affair at the Umtata River.

In another quarter of an hour the crew had taken in all but the topgallants as the
Enterprise
turned to larboard and, with the wind abeam and the cold Benguela Current no longer directly opposing her, picked up speed.

Hervey smiled to himself. How effortless this all was. How different it would have been aboard one of Peto's ships: all hands on deck, alternately making and shortening sail, the activity constant. And then they would have had to anchor out in the bay and come ashore by lighter, and boats would ply to and fro all day with supplies. Yet inside the hour, the
Enterprise
would moor in Cape Town, and they would descend by gangway to the quay. Here, most certainly, was the future. At least of merchant ships: he did not suppose you could make war with a paddle wheel.

'
Ubusika abufuni kumka,
' – winter does not want to go away – said Fairbrother, pulling his cloak closer about him.

Hervey nodded. He too felt the chill in the air. But it was
eyomSintsi,
the month when the coast coral tree flowered: summer was not so very far away. Indeed, as he took up his telescope to observe the landmarks of the Cape, there on the slopes of the Table Mountain he thought he could make out the yellows and whites of early spring. He took a deep breath, but it was the sea air only; there was nothing to be smelled of the land yet. He would never forget that first time, with Peto, when he had stood on the quarterdeck of
Nisus,
the fleetest of frigates, and the scent of Coromandel had drifted across the still, Indian waters.

Peto
– would he ever venture with him again? No, it could never be. For his old friend was as much an invalid, now, as those of the lower-deck who limped and coughed their way about Greenwich. If ever there was a man with whom to hazard, and then to share a table, it was Peto. Long years at sea, in daily battle with elements that would overwhelm his wooden world if he were once to nod, and periodically with the King's enemies, who sought more particularly to destroy him, had made of Peto an officer in whom boldness and discretion were admirably combined. Fairbrother's brilliance was of an altogether different nature; and Somervile, although he would shoot tiger with him, as the saying went, was not a soldier or a fighting captain. Somervile was first a man of letters; his love of powder smoke was like that for tobacco, to be taken up or put down as occasion had it. Somervile was a good, and old, friend; Hervey looked forward eagerly to seeing him again. Doubtless there would be some beating up and down in Kaffraria (and he would be first to admit, from painful experience, that the warriors in that place could fight), but it would not be the same as India with Peto.

But if he had to keep his cloak tight closed now, it was indeed
eyomSintsi,
and with the flowering of the coral tree would come warmer weather. It would soon be the time to begin the mission to Shaka Zulu, before the summer's parching heat made the cattle thin and thirsty, and Xhosa and Zulu, and all the others of Kaffraria and Natal, in no humour to parley.

'Hervey! Capital, capital!' Sir Eyre Somervile, lieutenant-governor of the Cape Colony, rose from his desk to meet his old friend with outstretched hand.

Hervey took it, smiling. It was, indeed, good to see him, truly one of his most constant friends, his company ever enlivening. And he looked so much better than when he had seen him last. The spreading girth, the result, no doubt, of the ample table of the Court of Directors of the East India Company, and the scarce provision of exercise in the City, was very much reduced, and the claretcomplexion was no longer so pronounced. In fact, he looked quite his old self of ten and more years ago, when first they had met in Madras. 'It has evidently been a lean winter!'

Somervile patted his stomach, convinced it was no longer any handicap to exertion. 'Indeed, indeed. After the contest with those infernal Xhosa reivers I deemed it expedient to reduce my store. I trust I am campaigning fit!'

Hervey nodded. 'You have every appearance of it, I assure you.'

Somervile glanced over Hervey's shoulder, and seeing Fairbrother waiting, threw up his hands and made noisily for the door. 'My dear sir! Forgive me: come in; come in!'

They shook hands. And Hervey noticed how much less guarded was Fairbrother now. His manner was ever unhurried, in contrast to Somervile's, but before the two friends had gone to England, Fairbrother had always seemed watchful, almost resentful (if there could be resentment in languor). Perhaps his friend might at last recognize that the lieutenant-governor held him in nothing but the best of opinion.