Words of Command (Hervey 12) (Matthew Hervey) (4 page)

And so it was that in due season – though ‘the harvest be overlate’, said some – Lieutenant-Colonel Matthew Paulinus Hervey, younger and surviving son of the Archdeacon of Salisbury, was now come to command. And just as others had come to that appointment, it would be without ceremony, without even the shake of a hand, for Lord Hol’ness had relinquished command on 12 October, while he, Hervey, had in the eyes of the Horse Guards and those who read the
London Gazette
succeeded to command that very day.

So there would be no formality – for which, anyway, there would have been no precedent and therefore no form of parade in the regiment’s drill book. And it suited him, for so bitter-cold a day hardly lent itself to ceremonial; and certainly no words from the saddle – not, at least, very many (and so what would have been the good of it?). Had he been taking command of a King’s ship he would have called together some of the petty officers and senior hands and ‘read in’ – held before them the Admiralty orders appointing him to command, and spoken out loud the exact words of the commission, so that his assumption of command was definitely marked, and his dominion over life and limb, as well as guardianship of the vessel herself, would in turn be notified to every part of ship by those gathered apostles. This he knew from his long friendship with Captain Sir Laughton Peto RN, who some three years before had taken command of the only first-rate in commission, in which he had then been rendered an invalid in the affair at Navarino (and, oh, how he looked for an occasion soon to visit with his old friend in his Norfolk convalescence!).

And, indeed, Hervey had thought the navy’s a rather admirable practice, one that was perfectly adapted to the confining space of the wooden walls, and which might even be imitated in a barracks – except that, as it was not customary, it could not serve. He was perfectly sensible that custom only proceeded from practice, but he was inclined to believe that any practice instituted with the intention of beginning a custom was certain to founder; for if it were a good practice it would already be customary. He had decided ideas about how he wished things done – indeed, he had ideas that were wholly novel – but he did not suppose that they would necessarily endure beyond the tenure of his command, however long that might be …

Brentford came and went with scarcely his noticing, and then Hounslow was upon them, quite prettyish in its snowy blanket – post-house after post-house, coaching inn after coaching inn – and then on towards the heath, once the place of highwaymen (and from time to time even now the gibbet), turning north by the drilling ground to the cavalry barracks. Handsome barracks, in their way – begun forty years ago, near enough, when soldiers were suddenly no longer a burden on the exchequer but fine fellows deserving of respect, the country being in dread of Robespierre and fearful the wooden walls would not be strong enough to keep out the revolution. There were three well-found buildings at right angles to each other adjoining the parade ground, the central one – forming the orderly room and the offices of the regimental staff – built of London stock and topped by a pediment, which at a distance might have been taken for a gentleman’s seat, the other two being plainer, longer blocks housing both stables and barrack-rooms. In the early years the whole had been surrounded by what was no more than a park fence, but which sometime before Trafalgar had been replaced by a wall ten feet high, which, said the wags, made it more of a piece with the barracks built for the captive French on Dartmoor (closed though they’d been these past dozen years) than nearby Osterley Park, with which the pedimented headquarters might just have been compared from not too close a viewpoint. (The strangest notion came into his head: might he, like Joshua, throw down the walls – or, at least, fling wide the gates? Might he not give his men their parole? ‘Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive’ … He smiled balefully at his irreverence. He could imagine the face of the sar’nt-major at such a proposition.)

The gates were indeed open. The quarter guard – the ‘picket’, as the regiment still preferred – was already turned out in front of the guardhouse, carbines at the ‘present’, the picket serjeant with sabre drawn. The chaise slowed to a walk, for no one passed the guardhouse at a trot, so that Hervey, on the nearside, had a moment to take in and return the compliments.

The dragoons’ crossbelts were pipeclayed white as the snow on the roof, and their boots beeswaxed to a looking-glass shine. It was no common picket.

‘Good morning, Malet; I trust I see you well!’

Hervey advanced on his adjutant with hand outstretched and a look of satisfaction.

Lieutenant Malet took it with a look of equal satisfaction, and a measure of relief. He wore his best undress, hessians gleaming no less bright than the boots of the picket, whose dragoons had evidently spent the night with bone and blacking. ‘Very well, Colonel. I don’t know what is customary on these occasions … but it is good to see you.’

‘The custom is that there is no custom, is it not? The regiment today is as it is every day, I trust,’ replied Hervey with a wryish smile. ‘No ceremony, nothing got up special?’

Malet composed himself as best he could, the game up, it seemed. ‘But of course, Colonel … Coffee?’

‘Yes, indeed. And your order book. We must make a beginning without delay.’ He said it more with relish than urgent necessity. Regiments in a state of, as it were, interregnum, were not in peril of collapse; only of a little weathering, and then perhaps of some erosion.

The door of his room was open (it was closed only when the lieutenant-colonel was at office). The room itself was greatly changed. There were some handsome prints in deep, gilded frames – Wolfe at Quebec, Clive at Plassey, and such like; whatever had hung there before could not have been of much distinction, for he had no recall. Fine damask curtains had replaced the heavy green velvet. The old leather tub-chairs were gone. So was the battle-scarred writing table that had come home from India with the regiment, and the Harlequin booty-chairs from the French wars. In their place were altogether less bellicose pieces – two fancy armchairs, a painted and gilt sofa, silk-covered in blue and gold stripes, and a mahogany pedestal library table. A fine Adam fireplace with eagle victrix moulding had replaced the heavy cast-iron stove, in which coals burned cheerily. Before, the place had resembled the business room of a ducal house; now it looked like the duke’s study.

‘Lady Hol’ness got up the room last spring,’ said Malet. ‘And Lord Hol’ness was not minded to take anything away on his leaving.’

‘Deuced civil of him,’ replied Hervey, glancing long at the inkstand, which looked as if it had been polished that morning.

‘That, however, came only yesterday,’ explained Malet. ‘And this to accompany it.’ He handed Hervey a letter – or rather, an envelope on which was embossed the eagle with spread wings, and ‘L’Ambassadeur de Russie’.

Hervey laid it down on the library table without remark. It might be anything. Since his mission of observation with the Russian army in their war with the Turks (in which he had had to draw his sword more than once – and received a handsome ribbon for it) he was well acquainted with the Imperial eagle. If this were another token of the Tsar’s appreciation it was well enough, but he had a suspicion that the gilded inkstand was not from Count Lieven but from his ambassadress, whose ways, if not serpentine, were certainly ones to be wary of. And he thought that some seclusion was therefore preferable when examining the letter’s contents.

‘The Bhurtpore table is in the major’s office, if you would prefer its return.’

Hervey smiled. ‘I am quite content. I should in truth prefer the return of the
major
.’

Malet raised his eyebrows just enough to signal that it was a matter that had not escaped note.

‘How long is his furlough?’

‘Until the first of July, Colonel.’

When his own majority had been topped by a brevet and temporary command of the Cape Mounted Rifles, the Sixth had been authorized a new major, and the Honourable William Staniforth had exchanged, on paper, at least, from the Fifteenth, who were warned for India (though the Fifteenth’s change of station was, in the event, postponed, much vexing him, seemingly). ‘Mm. Doubtless it was reasonable enough when the regiment was placed
en cadre
…’

Malet said nothing, but eloquently.

‘Come, man; it is no use your being adjutant unless you know my mind, and that you may – must – always speak yours.’

‘Quite so, Colonel. I was merely trying to discern with what delicacy I should speak. I’m afraid Major Staniforth was wont – is wont – to be rather free in his criticism of Lord Hol’ness. He made his dislike of him very plain. I could never grasp the why – although the why was scarcely the point.’

‘Indeed so. But I had not heard of it. You are saying therefore that Lord Hol’ness sent him away?’

Malet raised an eyebrow again. ‘Let me put it this way, Colonel: the major entered a request of absence of eleven months in the leave book, and Lord Hol’ness signed it without delay.’

Eleven months – one more and regulations required that an officer transfer to the retired-pay, and his appointment forfeit.

‘Mm. We’ll speak of it more anon.’

Malet acknowledged, and then nodded to the footman standing at the door.

One of the finest-looking blackamoors Hervey had ever seen – not more than an inch short of six feet, and with a bearing as upright as any on Horse-guards – advanced with a silver tray and the regimental Spode. The livery fitted like a glove, his stockings even whiter than the pipeclay of the guardhouse, and the pinchbeck on his shoes would have passed for gold anywhere – save perhaps with a Rothschild.

‘Lady Hol’ness too?’ asked Hervey, when he was gone.

Now Malet smiled. The Grenadiers had had Moors in their band for many a year – they made uncommonly good cymbalists – employing them also in the officers’ house to lend distinction (or even exoticism), and Lord Holderness had always been close to the Household. ‘It was all got up for Princess Augusta’s visit.’

‘Ah, the Princess Augusta. So much more favoured than her predecessor.’

Princess Caroline would certainly have liked the Moors. She had indeed taken up with one when the Prince Regent rejected her – the Dey of Algiers. And, said the wags, she was happy, as the Dey was long. Hervey smiled to himself. What frippery it all was; except that it was enjoyable frippery.

‘Of Saxe-Coburg-
Gotha
,’ added Malet helpfully, oblivious of the ribaldry, for there was perhaps no reason why the new lieutenant-colonel should know that title had changed. ‘When Lord Holderness announced the Princess’s appointment, I sought her out in the
Almanach de Gotha
, but was unable to find any such house, only that of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and Lord Hol’ness was on the point of writing to Lord George Irvine to enquire if all were as it should be, when I learned that Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, being one of the duchies held by the Ernestine line of the Wettin dynasty, had been re-ordered following the extinction of the Saxe-Gotha line a year or so earlier, the duchy receiving Gotha but losing Saalfeld to Saxe-Meiningen – and the edition of the
Almanach
which I had obtained had not been amended.’

It was not a matter about which Hervey could truthfully claim great interest; nor did he regard it of real moment. But it was a matter that had to be observed correctly nevertheless, and he was only too grateful that in Malet he had someone he might rely on in that regard. But he could not resist a little chaffing. ‘And you are now
au fait
with the
Staatsgrundgesetz
?’

‘Indeed, Colonel. I considered it a penance for giving Lord Hol’ness a moment’s doubt.’

But in truth the
Staatsgrundgesetz
, the ‘house laws’, which governed succession in the multitude of German states, had been to Hervey a source of fascination (and no little amusement) since his Alsatian governess had introduced him to them with pride. And he ever thanked his good fortune that she had given him excellent German (and even better French) and a toleration to the ways of the native speaker – and also that the royal visit was come and gone, for he would not have liked to foot its bill from his own pocket.

‘And Abdel has a twin for whom he might be mistaken,’ said Malet, still intent on the Moorish details. ‘They flanked the entrance to the ante-room with consummate refinement, much admired by our colonel-in-chief’s retinue. Especially Princess Lieven.’

Hervey braced, while keeping (he trusted) his countenance. Princess Dorothea Lieven had pressed him hard on behalf of the Tsar’s cause against the Ottomans – she whose letter (he supposed) now awaited his attention, and whose munificence graced his writing table. Years of intriguing had evidently convinced her that all men were susceptible to her charm; that she could persuade them to undertake commissions which in the cold light of day they would surely have seen for what they were – invitations to disloyalty (or worse). Before leaving for the Levant, via St Petersburg, he had agreed to furnish her with his frank impressions of the Russian army, and likewise of the Turk. And this he had done with the knowledge of the Horse Guards. There was yet unfinished business on her account, however; business requiring some circumspection. Further to rendering his opinion in writing he had agreed then to meet with her, for (in her words) the purposes of clarification and elaboration, though he was yet to tell the Horse Guards of this. ‘Princess Lieven has been here? How so?’