Hervey 10 - Warrior (21 page)

Brereton shifted slightly in his chair, but only to let his sword hang a little freer. The troop office was not the best of places for such a conversation, Hervey knew, but the officers' house would have been altogether too cosy.

'It is certainly a very sad one.'

And Brereton said it in such a way as suggested true compassion.

Hervey did not doubt that Stafford Brereton, for all that he was an extract, had formed the highest regard for his – their – serjeantmajor. What
affection
there might be was another matter; such things came only with time, perhaps.

'I mean that I was wondering what recognition might be had for his conduct at the frontier. The lieutenant-governor is certain he owes his life to the sarn't-major's address.'

This was something of a challenge to Brereton (as Hervey knew full well), for if Armstrong had saved Somervile's life, it had been Brereton who had first placed it in jeopardy by his decision to divide his force. When Hervey had spoken to him of it yesterday, but briefly, Brereton had given him a plausible enough explanation of the decision; but since the action had not achieved its object, and the lieutenant-governor had almost died (not to mention the dragoons), the decision was hardly vindicated.

'I had heard that Sir Eyre has commissioned a gold medal.'

Hervey had not known the intention was out. 'Indeed. But I meant something rather more elevating than ribbons.'

The point was a little unfair, and again he knew it: neither promotion nor the grant of seniority was within Brereton's gift. And so lately come to the acting command of a troop, he was scarcely in a position to press the matter with Lord Holderness. In any case, Brereton had written a full account of the action and had forwarded it to Hounslow, as Hervey knew because he had already told him.

'I feel sure the commanding officer will take all due note of his conduct. Is there anything you believe I myself might do, Colonel?'

'I think . . . if I were to see a copy of your report . . .' Hervey checked himself, for he was otherwise close to imputing dishonour. 'There might occur to me something.'

He had nicely reached his objective. He had given E Troop's captain the reassurance that he wished to read the report for a reason other than that he doubted either his actions or his frankness in relating them. He paused to study Brereton's reaction, before adding a further emollient: 'I think it behoves us to look at everything.'

'Indeed. I will have the clerk fetch it,' replied Brereton, making to rise.

'Later,' said Hervey, equably, raising his hand to stay him. 'Let us first speak of the arrangements for the Shaka expedition. There's a good deal to consider.'

*

They spoke for an hour or so, and then went to evening stables. Hervey was glad to be back among faces he knew by name, and so many of which he counted friends: they had been in scrapes enough together in India, and the odd old hand in the Peninsula, to be too particular in recalling the occasions for rebuke or punishment.

He knew he would miss them. He knew he would miss
it
– the fellowship of the stable – when he took up command of the Eightyfirst.
If
he took up command. In command even of a company he would have felt the distance between the ranks, let alone of a whole battalion. Lord John Howard had once said to him, in jest, but with just such a measure of possibility as to sound true, that in going on parade he could never recognize which was his company unless the serjeants were posted. Here, in the formal but shabby ease of the evening stables parade, a man would touch the peak of his forage cap in salute, with a smile of recognition and an 'evenin sir' in greater or lesser degree according to his length of service. And he, Hervey, could return that greeting with an intimacy which defied the understanding of all but an insider. Yet on parade, in the field, in the face of the enemy, he could give the same man an order to charge – even unto death – knowing that it would be obeyed without question.

Obeyed not through fear of the lash (for the Sixth did not flog) but through trust that a man's life was not thrown away merely because his rank was lowly; and, too, that no one – officer or NCO – would ask a man to do a thing which he himself would not. Trust, mutual trust, was the secret of light cavalry discipline. This he had learned, before ever seeing a dragoon, from his old and late friend and mentor Daniel Coates, sometime Trumpeter-Corporal Coates of His Majesty's 16th Light Dragoons (and now in death his magnificent benefactor). And that trust he had cultivated throughout the years of the Peninsula, and since. It would be deuced hard to exchange it all for the world of the serjeant's half-pike and the cat-o'-nine-tails. Likely as not, he would never speak directly to a private man again . . .

'Sir?'

He snapped to. 'Sar'nt-Major.'

Collins was standing at attention in front of him.

Hervey recollected himself as best he could with a 'How do you find things?'

Collins took his whip from under his arm and moved to Hervey's side, ready to continue the progress through the lines. 'Just as I expected, sir.'

Which was indeed exactly as Hervey himself expected, for both Armstrong and Collins had been raised in the same school – RSM Lincoln's.

'Every last item in the ledger accounted for, all of it in good condition, and a satisfactory store of
backshee.
'

The regiment had picked up the word in India, where the native regiments used it to describe those items held in excess of what the ledger specified – the 'working margin', as the quartermasters and serjeant-majors more usually officialized it. Except that as a rule none would ever declare the existence of
backshee,
since by rights any excess belonged to the superior account holder.

Hervey nodded, perfectly appreciating the candour: Collins wanted him to know that Armstrong had run the troop exactly as it should be run. 'I trust that Sar'nt-Major Armstrong will be able to report the same in due course,' he added, though in truth with no certainty, now, that Armstrong would indeed take back his troop (Private Johnson's conviction that he would 'chuck it' for the sake of his children seemed no longer impossible).

'Evenin, sor!'

Hervey was taken aback. 'Corporal McCarthy!' (He had last seen him in the quartermaster-serjeant's office in Hounslow.) 'It is
still
"Corporal" isn't it?' he enquired, with mock severity.

'Sor!'

'What do you do here? The stores not to your liking?'

'Sor, they was askin for men for E Troop, sor, an' I thought as I might volunteer. Sor!'

Hervey tried hard not to smile, which he always found difficult when dealing with this irrepressible Cork man. 'What happened to the principle of "never volunteer for anything"?'

'I make an exception, sor, in connection with E Troop.'

Hervey recalled well McCarthy's special devotion: on one occasion in India it had cost him the stripes on his arm, when he had broken the nose of a pug from another troop who had impugned E Troop's honour. 'I'm sure you are very welcome.'

He moved on to the next stall. The dragoon was bending with his back to him, but Hervey had known the man's thick, black curls for ten years. 'Corporal French!'

The NCO rose and turned, bringing his hands to his side in salute. 'Good evening, sir.'

French was almost a gentleman. Indeed he was a gentleman by the usual measure; the 'almost' was the regiment's customary form of allowing him a kind of half-way status between other rank and officer, though he answered to a serjeant as any other. He was a gentleman by birth, a son of impoverished Welsh gentry and the parsonage, but he lacked any means to support himself as such, and had been a counting-house clerk before enlisting. Had he been five or six years older he would almost certainly have had a free commission in a battalion of the Line, for the ensign ranks of the Peninsular infantry had suffered sorely. With peace come, however, and with it retrenchment, there were sons enough of the gentry who could pay their way. But Corporal French had always appeared content with his situation; and he was liked by all ranks.

'I was thinking, sir,' said Collins quietly as they moved on. 'With Wainwright still poorly, French would be a good coverman.'

Hervey nodded. 'In any case, with Wainwright now serjeant he shouldn't be covering.' And then he remembered. 'But the troop's under Captain Brereton's orders, Sar'nt-Major. I shouldn't be making these decisions.'

'No, sir,' agreed Collins. He said nothing for a few paces. 'But if you are content on French, sir, I'll arrange it.'

Hervey nodded again. 'That would be the way. Thank you.'

And he found himself nodding to dragoons in turn as if for the last time, looking at each with an eye almost paternal. Most of them he had first seen as green recruits; some he had himself enlisted; a few were old sweats, Peninsular veterans who remembered
his
arriving. He would miss them – more than he had imagined. But he thanked God there was this one last ride together: if not actually a campaign, then an expedition promising something unusual, something to remember, even if it were only the face of this intriguing chief, Shaka.

But there must be no sentiment; it did not serve. 'Have you
seen
Wainwright yet?' he asked, to be more purposeful. 'I must say he looks in better condition than I'd dared hope.'

'I saw him last night, sir. He'll mend right enough.'

Hervey smiled to himself. He might have known that Collins would lose no time in calling on a brother NCO. 'Anything more?' Collins sighed. 'Quilter.'

Hervey sighed too. Serjeant Quilter looked the part, but he had risen more by seniority than merit. He was not an E Troop man: he had come on promotion from B. At eighteen years' service he was one of the oldest corporals to be made serjeant, and for the two years since then he had never looked at ease in the rank.

Collins, who had known him many years, shook his head. 'He does his best, mind.'

Hervey raised his eyebrows. 'That in its way is discouraging.'

'Ay, sir. Even if I decided everything for him, he'd still make a muddle of it. Armstrong said as 'e was fed up with putting him on report. And what with Wainwright on box rest, it makes things twice as bad.'

'You would prefer Corporal Hardy to stand duty, I imagine.'

'I don't know Hardy well enough to say, sir, but Armstrong rates him.'

'He did well in the skirmish at the frontier, by all accounts – very cool-headed, and economical with the sabre.' Hervey nodded slowly. 'I'll speak with Captain Brereton. And we should have someone slated for rear details – Quilter, I mean. I can't have him in the field. Though in fairness I should say he did not disgrace himself at Umtata.'

When they had walked the huttings, Hervey dismissed Collins and took his leave of Brereton, telling him that he would dine in the officers' house, but that first he must call on the lieutenantgovernor. He went then to the charger stables, which was hutting no different from the troop lines, but with the usual extra space for loose boxes rather than standing stalls. Here he found Private Toyne, his second groom. Toyne, a quiet-spoken Westmorland man who had learned horses at the gypsy fair in Appleby, had joined the Sixth in India. Hervey had liked him at once, as (more importantly) had Johnson; he felt confident always of leaving a horse in his charge.

Toyne greeted him as if he had seen him but an hour ago. 'Both of 'em's doin' right, sir,' he added, nodding to Hervey's two mares.

Hervey had not doubted it would be so; not, at least, as far as husbandry was concerned (the
perdesiekt
was another matter). He looked into Eli's box. Eli – Eliab – was Jessye's foal, nine years old, fifteen hands three, a pretty bay and now a handy charger, with all her dam's sturdiness, and a fair bit of bone. She was a 'good doer', as the saying went: she did not lose condition quickly when her rations were changed or reduced. But he had yet to take her into the field. Gilbert had been his battle-charger, a fast and seasoned one, and for the foray into Kaffraria he had taken Molly as his second, for Eli had coughed once or twice the day before, and he had decided not to risk it. But now Eli was his second, for he had had to put a bullet in Gilbert's brains when an aneurysm brought him down only yards from the Zulu.

Eli turned at his voice, and whickered. She came up to the door of the box and put her nose out to him. Hervey took her head in his left hand and rubbed her muzzle with his right. 'Well, my girl, how good it is to see you. I hope you still have your sea legs.'

'She'll 'ave em, sir, right enough. I 'eard we were goin, an' I've been puttin Stock'ollum on 'er feet.'

Hervey nodded approvingly.

'And on Molly's,' added Toyne, turning to the adjacent box. 'She went lame a bit when you were gone, sir, but it were nothin' really – just a week's box rest an' she were back on t'road soon enough.'

Molly did not immediately turn, finding the hay rack altogether more compelling than her master's voice. It was in any case not nearly as familiar to her as it was to Eli, for Hervey had bought her only just before leaving England, and although she had carried him faithfully at Umtata they were not yet truly acquainted. Molly was nearer black than dark bay (she had certainly looked so in her summer coat and a good sweat), and stood half a hand higher than Eli. She had been an officer's charger, in the Tenth, a good five years before coming to him, and at rising twelve she was a sound prospect for what lay ahead.