Hervey 10 - Warrior (16 page)

'Good morning, Sir Eyre,' he replied, taking his hand freely.

'Now, are you just landed? I had not yet had word of a ship. And the fortunate Mrs Matthew Hervey, and Miss Georgiana Hervey: are they gone directly to the residence?'

Hervey tried not to look too uncomfortable. 'We came by the
Enterprise,
yes. Kezia and Georgiana remain in London, however.

In the circumstances I thought it best. Fairbrother and I came at once when we were landed to let you know of our return, though I have a sad and urgent duty to perform elsewhere.'

'Oh? Sit you both down. Some coffee?'

'Thank you, yes.'

Somervile nodded to his clerk.

'Armstrong,' said Hervey, his voice lowered. 'Caithlin Armstrong died two months ago.'

The joy at once left Somervile's face. 'Oh, great gods!' he groaned. 'He was of most excellent bearing at the frontier, as I told you in my letter. I owe my life to him. It is as simple as that.'

Hervey shook his head slowly. 'These things . . .'

Somervile shook his head too. 'You know that if there is anything at all that I or Emma may do . . .'

Hervey nodded. 'Thank you.'

'The children – how many? – they are taken care of, I imagine?'

'They are. The quartermaster's wife, Mrs Lincoln – you remember?'

'How could I forget? Such a wedding.'

'There are five.'

'And what will Armstrong do, therefore?'

'Return at once to England. There's an Indiaman which leaves tomorrow. I have brought Sarn't-Major Collins with me to do duty instead.'

Somervile nodded. 'A capital fellow, too, as I recall.'

'I was half minded to have one of the serjeants stand the duty, but if we are to take to the field I want a head such as Collins's with me.'

Somervile placed his hands together, as if to beg indulgence. 'It is not my business, but I might add that Serjeant Wainwright's conduct was as noble as the serjeant-major's.'

'So I read in your letter, and so I would have expected. Were he not so junior a serjeant, and were the troop to remain in its lines until we sail for home, I would give him the fourth stripes for the duration.'

A bearer brought coffee.

'Something fortifying to accompany it?' asked Somervile, glancing at one and then the other.

Hervey certainly felt the need of fortification, but he had resolved to face Armstrong with a clear mind and clear breath. He shook his head.

Fairbrother nodded to the offer of Cape brandy.

Hervey composed himself. 'What must I needs know this minute about your intentions for the frontier?' he asked, taking a good sip of his coffee before resting the cup and saucer in his lap. 'I would give preparatory orders to Brereton and Collins. It will be best that the troop is active as may be when Armstrong takes his leave of them.'

Somervile sighed heavily. 'Ye-es;
Brereton.
'

Hervey's brow furrowed.

'Forgive my civilian interference, Hervey, but it is my opinion that the peril which beset us at the frontier was the direct consequence of Brereton's incapability. And, I might add, his conduct in the face of the Xhosa stands poorly in comparison with Armstrong's and Wainwright's.'

If Hervey had had the least indignation at 'civilian interference' it was wholly dispelled by the knowledge of Somervile's own zeal in the field. His friend wore the same ribbon at his neck as he, and for deeds with sword and pistol, if twenty years ago. If his deeds frequently showed more impetuosity than true capability, it scarcely mattered here.

He glanced at Fairbrother, a touch uneasily, for this was regimental business of the most intimate kind. 'Are you saying that he wants courage?'

Somervile hesitated before replying. 'No, I am not. I saw nothing that could be construed
only
as want of courage.'

'It is true that he wants for experience. He himself was eager to come to the Cape to remedy that.'

'I believe I made due allowance on account of that. It is merely that . . . judgement is not exclusively a matter of experience. I fear that his instinct is faulty.'

Hervey raised his eyebrows, and sighed in his turn before draining his coffee cup. 'I shall observe him carefully. And speak to him. And to Armstrong.'

Somervile finished his brandy and held up his hands. 'It is, as I believe I have made clear, entirely your business, Hervey. I make no formal complaint.'

'Thank you.' Hervey laid aside his cup and saucer, and made as if to rise. 'And by way of a preparatory order?'

Somervile nodded. 'Very well. We leave for Port Natal in five days' time. There is the
Reliant
transport at hand, and a towsteamer making repairs. Are you able to furnish fifty sabres?'

Hervey rose. 'I cannot say, for I have not been to the lines yet. But I should be dismayed if we could not. The
Reliant
is evidently big enough?'

'Serjeant-Major Armstrong believes so.'

'Then you may believe it.'

Somervile now rose. 'Dine with us this evening, Hervey. And you, Captain Fairbrother.'

'Thank you,' said Hervey, taking up his cap. 'But . . . May I first see what Armstrong wishes?'

Somervile frowned at his own insensibility. 'Of course, of course.'

The lieutenant-governor had bid one of his dogcarts come for them, and Hervey quit the Castle of Good Hope directly for E Troop lines, taking Fairbrother en route to his quarters near the Company's gardens. They made arrangements for the evening, and then Hervey steeled himself to his duty.

He had not had to do its like before. After Waterloo he had travelled to Norfolk to condole with the widow of his former troop leader, and lately commanding officer, Major Joseph Edmonds; and thence to Suffolk to give an account of the heroic death of his serjeant-escort, Strange, to his widow. But both women had known already of their loss. Some weeks indeed had elapsed between receipt of the news and his visiting, so that there was some measure of joy in being able to recount happy memories (and in the case of Mrs Strange he had been able to arrange for her to take charge of his father's school, a position she held still).

The lines were all activity when he arrived. It was late morning, the horses had been exercised, and the hour before the second feed was a time of making and mending. Hervey noted the improvements in the appearance of the lines, and not merely the new application of paint: the roofs were now well thatched, both barrack and stable, and the water troughs served by pipes rather than buckets. He would at least be able to commend Captain Brereton for his address in administration, though he had no doubt that the improvements would have been chiefly by Armstrong's efforts.

The picket corporal came doubling as the dogcart drew up. 'G'mornin, Col 'Ervey, sir!' he yapped as he halted at attention and jerked his right hand to the salute. 'Trust you's well, now, sir.'

Hervey smiled. Sad duty or no, it was therapeutic to be back with dragoons, especially dragoons under his orders. 'Wholly restored, Corporal Battle. But more to the point, how is E Troop?'

'Gradely, sir, gradely.'

'The sar'nt-major?'

'He were poorly for a bit after us fight wi' them Kaffirs, but 'e's in right fine fettle now, sir.'

Hervey saw 'Bugle' Roddis emerge purposefully from the orderly room to sound the midday watering call. Roddis had been a recruit when they came out to the Cape, but he was troop trumpeter now, since Corporal Dilke's death by the Zulu spear.

He watched him take post like a veteran. The man was not yet twenty, but he had been uncommonly steady in his first action; he had blown accurately when the lives of many had depended on it. And the dragoons had christened him, thus, 'Bugle', for the bugle rather than the trumpet was used for mounted calls on account of the carry of its extra octave.

The noon gun fired from the signal hill a mile to the north-west, though it sounded closer in the giant bowl that was Cape Town. Roddis began the call – by no means an easy one with its low 'G'.

Hervey had no great ear for music, but he knew the difference between a good and an indifferent call; and 'Bugle' sounded it well, with not once a cracked note. Here was efficiency, he marked with satisfaction. Somervile's strictures were not wholly deserved.

The troop mustered by divisions in front of their stable blocks.

'Parade state, Corporal Battle?'

It was not strictly the picket corporal's business to have the morning parade states to hand, but Battle took out his notebook. 'Seventy-five rank and file on parade, sir, and six officers. Fourteen rank and file sick. Total ninety-five, sir.'

Hervey nodded. Not too bad a muster.

'Sixty-eight troop horses and five chargers fit for duty, sir. Thirteen troopers sick. Total eighty-one, sir.'

That number again:
eighty-one
! A world away from
Six
. . . 'Thirteen sick?' he forced himself to ask.

'Sir. Nought special, though.'

By which Hervey knew he meant nothing too life-threatening. 'End of winter . . . It could be worse. Thank you, Corporal Battle. Dismiss.'

'Sir!' Battle sprang back to attention and saluted with the same vigour as before.

Hervey returned the salute less formally, and smiled to himself. Battle, he knew, wanted his third stripes more than most dragoons wanted a drink after stand-down. It must daily go hard with him to have a man five years his junior – Wainwright – give him orders. But Battle, for all his cheeriness and capability, had liked a drop or two as a younger man, and occasionally a drop too many. And so the stitches of his single tapes – always a lonely and precarious badge of very limited authority – had been unpicked two or three times before finally he had mastered his temper long enough to gain a second, which substantive authority had then induced in him a determined ambition.

Watering was not a formal parade, more a count of heads. Every man knew his duty, which did not as a rule vary from day to day, and so there was no call for the snapping and barking which characterized the morning muster. It was an occasion for the officers to speak words of encouragement or impart news. They were not on parade, but attended by custom, and Hervey now saw the little group of lieutenants and cornets, and Captain the Honourable Stafford Brereton, come out of the orderly room. They were deep in confabulation.

And then from behind the nearest stable block appeared Armstrong, marching briskly in his direction. Hervey smiled. It amused him to think how, in the space of mere moments, Corporal Battle had found and alerted the serjeant-major to the return of the officer commanding. For a second or so it made easier what was to come.

Armstrong halted and saluted – sharp, but not the exaggerated manner of Battle's. 'Good afternoon, sir! Leave to carry on, sir, please!'

'Carry on, Sar'nt-Major,' said Hervey, nodding his greeting by return.

It was good to be able to say that again, knowing that this old NCO friend (of more years' close acquaintance than most officers now with the regiment) would carry on whatever that duty – like Bathsheba's husband, faithful unto death. Except that that was the least apt of comparisons, Bathsheba and Caithlin Armstrong, for Caithlin's life had been without blemish.

He shook himself: Brereton and the officers approached.

He returned their greetings with as easy an air as he could manage, though he found himself searching Brereton's face more intently than he might normally.

There were the usual exchanges, and then Brereton said, 'It is well that you are back, Colonel. We hear rumours of a campaign.'

'Not so much a campaign as an expedition,' replied Hervey, wondering if Brereton's tone revealed disquiet. And the honour 'Colonel' discomfited him, too. It was correct enough, in that he held the rank of acting lieutenant-colonel, but the rank came with his appointment to command of the Mounted Rifles, and thereafter the substantive rank would be with the infantry; he would not now,
rightly,
hear the honour on the lips of a dragoon.

But what was all this compared with the calamity that was about to befall Armstrong? From the corner of his eye he could see him, watching like a hawk as the dragoons dismissed to their watering duties. Armstrong was master of his world; and in a few minutes that world would be no more. He could hardly bear the thought of what he must do – like going to an old horse with a peck of corn in one hand and a pistol in the other.

'Brereton, I would speak quietly on a matter with the sar'ntmajor, and then perhaps you would be good enough to join me in the officers' house?'

'Of course.'

Hervey left them and made his way to where Armstrong stood eyeing the farrier's struggle with one of the stallions, which needed twitching to take the tooth rasp.