Words of Command (Hervey 12) (Matthew Hervey)

by Allan Mallinson

  Malet raised an eyebrow, acknowledging the further chaffing. ‘It seemed … perverse to include it with the first sips of your coffee, Colonel. I have as yet scant detail, but it would appear that he is detained in Dublin on charges that may amount to bigamy.’

  ‘Oh, good God!’ He’d never much cared for Tyrwhitt, not that he’d ever served with him in any sense that made for the term ‘fellow officer’. ‘Bigamy: better it were …’ He was going to say ‘buggery’, but thought better of it. ‘Better it were evading debts at the tables.’

  ‘It is not edifying, Colonel; no.’

  In this Hervey knew full well that the opinion of his mess would not be unanimous, for it was a truth universally acknowledged: what female heart could resist a red coat (or a blue one atop a cavalry mount)? It was an essential part of female education, said that clerical wit, Sydney Smith: ‘As you have the rocking horse to accustom you to ride, I would have military dolls in the nursery, to harden their hearts against officers and red coats.’ Caveat virgo was the motto of many a wearer of the King’s coat, red or otherwise.

  ‘Though he must have the benefit of innocence until proven otherwise,’ he said, trying to convince himself as much as Malet. ‘Who is the lady – the other lady, I mean?’

  ‘Colonel, the business is one of some convolution, and there is nothing that may be done this day. Might we suspend it until I have better intelligence, and more pressing matters are dealt with?’

  Hervey was more than content to. His first cup of coffee was not yet drained. ‘Very well. And is that the worst?’

  ‘I think … yes.’

  ‘Mm. Then by all means let us have things as you see fit.’

  ‘Thank you, Colonel. Shall I warn Vanneck for Brussels instead?’

  ‘He or Worsley … No, let it be Vanneck. None of them was there that day, but his sar’nt-major was.’

  Malet nodded. ‘Which brings me to the very question. Yesterday I received a communication from Lord Hol’ness expressing the wish that Mr Rennie join him as soon as may be. He’s secured for him a commission, which in turn of course presents a vacancy …’

  ‘Ah, the very question indeed, but not entirely unexpected. I’ll make no remark now.’

  ‘Of course.’

  But the prospects, he knew, would be diverting to all and sundry – a new commanding officer and a new regimental serjeant-major. What sayeth Scripture? – For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law … ‘Kick on.’

  Malet changed the subject, as bid, much as he would have liked to speak his mind (which for the time being could perfectly well wait). ‘Did you call on Lord Hill, Colonel?’

  ‘No, I had not the opportunity. He’d lately taken leave.’

  ‘You are requested to meet with him on Thursday seven days. I’ve tried to discover to what purpose, but with little success, other than, I believe, it is in connection with aid to be given the civil power in the expectation of unrest this year.’

  ‘I wonder that the commander-in-chief himself should want to speak with me on such a matter …’

  ‘I understand that others have been summoned too.’

  ‘Most odd. Well, we shall see what we shall see, but it would be useful to know who other is to attend. What else?’

  Reports, returns, reckonings, states, orders, courts of inquiry, redresses of grievance – all the administrative baggage of a regiment in peace, whose expenditure and regulation was the earnest concern of the Ordnance, the War Office and the Horse Guards: these must pass under the eye of the commanding officer. Malet himself had no wish to burden him – this was, after all, an adjutant’s commonplace – yet the lieutenant-colonel’s signature must ultimately attest to the sound management of the public purse and adherence to King’s Regulations. He must at least apprise him of the matters on which the increasing army of clerks in Whitehall sharpened their quills for battle.

  ‘I’ve warned the regimental staff to be ready for your inspection this afternoon, or tomorrow.’

  The regimental staff, the not-quite-gentlemen (or not-at-all gentlemen) – the quartermaster, riding-master, paymaster, surgeon, veterinarian: these were the men on whose good artisan skill and housekeeping the regiment depended (and in great part his own reputation relied). Their ledgers were indeed bulwarks. Yes, he would see those books and their bearers presently. Besides, it was as good a way as any to acquaint himself with the latter three, who had joined only lately (the sawbones and the horse doctor since his leaving for the Levant).

  He nodded.

  Malet now smiled, a shade warily. ‘And Mr Pearce requests an interview.’

  In the Sixth, as a rule, a subaltern officer requesting an interview of the commanding officer did so for one of four reasons: to resign his commission; to exchange with an officer in another regiment; to purchase his promotion; or to marry. It was no more than a courtesy that he should do so. To resign he merely had to send in his papers to the regimental agent in Craig’s Court, off Whitehall, and wait for a buyer. To exchange, the same. Likewise promotion. There was nothing that Messrs Greenwood, Cox and Hammersley could not arrange for the appropriate fee. Marriage was quite another business. It was indeed no business of anyone’s but the contracting parties, but for a reason that no one could ever recall an officer sought a blessing. It could scarcely have been imagined that a commanding officer might withhold it, though there had been talk once in the mess of a colonel who took an objection to the lady …

  ‘You’re not inclined to tell me why?’

  Malet thought for a moment. ‘I’m not able to tell all, for I simply don’t know. But he’s asked for the hand of Lincoln’s daughter.’

  Hervey was taken aback, for Lincoln was quartermaster. When Tom Weymouth, heir to Henrietta’s guardian, the Marquess of Bath, eloped with the daughter of the Warminster turnpike-keeper the Longleat heavens had fallen – and remained so still. Edward Pearce had come to the regiment five or six years ago straight from Eton, where his learning, looks and graceful bat had by all accounts made him one of the most popular Oppidans of his day. He had charmed Calcutta and the regiment alike, as well as throwing himself into the fight at Bhurtpore with commendable zeal. His future seemed assured – as befitted the son of one of the most respected of men. And now …

  But Hervey had met Lucy Lincoln, in India – a girl of fifteen, her mother not long widowed (her late husband a quartermaster of Foot) and soon to be married to the Sixth’s then regimental serjeant-major. That was five, nearly six, years ago. Yet how he remembered the Lincolns’ wedding – four hundred dragoons confounded, who had each believed that the bachelorhood of the finest, longest-serving sar’nt-major the regiment had ever known was somehow a condition of his service. The Lincolns had sent Lucy to England soon afterwards to an academy for young ladies (Mr Lincoln was not without accumulated means, and on her mother’s side Mrs Lincoln was from a respectable family of yeoman farmers, and ran a ragged school for the children of the sepoys in the neighbouring lines). Lucy Lincoln, he’d heard say, was now as pretty as the daughter of any earl, and twice as clever. Nevertheless …

  ‘I wonder what says the quartermaster.’

  ‘Lincoln says next to nothing even when he’s talkative.’

  Hervey smiled. ‘Indeed, indeed. And what will say Pearce’s father?’

  Lieutenant-General Sir James Pearce was Assistant Secretary at War. There was no knowing his temper. But his younger son was intelligent and clean-limbed – Hervey had taken to him at once when he joined – and he supposed him perfectly sensible.

  Malet merely inclined his head.

  ‘Then I should see him without delay.’

  ‘And Rennell.’

  ‘Rennell intends committing matrimony too?’

  ‘No, I may say that with assurance. Quite the opposite indeed.’

  ‘Is this to be a game of guessing, Malet? Rennell was taking instruction from a priest when last I heard.’

  ‘He was. And he is now o
f that persuasion; and he intends going to Rome to seek his ordination.’

  ‘Well, what a rich tapestry of cravings is the subalterns’ list. I must see him too without delay.’

  The orderly trumpeter sounded ‘Stables’ from the middle of the parade ground – faultless quavers, middle and then treble C, carrying into the room as if nothing stood between bell and ear.

  ‘The trumpet-major, Colonel. He was insistent that he do duty.’

  Hervey smiled to himself. This was indeed no common day. But you couldn’t fault a man who risked his own reputation for no need (sounding calls on a cavalry trumpet on a day so cold was a hazardous affair).

  ‘Law?’

  ‘Just so. He has the trumpeters in excellent fettle, mind.’

  ‘And the band?’

  The trumpeters were dragoons, ‘on the strength’; the band was a more or less private affair, kept at the officers’ expense – a few men who showed an aptitude for the clarionet, horn or some such, but who under a decent baton made pleasant music.

  ‘We’ve not much seen them of late. They’ve been greatly in demand in the theatres. The new bandmaster is spirited – German again – and the band fund stands in good health. And they were re-clothed for the King’s visit, in large part at Lord Hol’ness’s expense.’

  Hervey sighed inaudibly at yet another reminder of his predecessor’s deep pockets. ‘Capital. But the King: the talk at the United Service is that he will not see another year. Does he truly intend going to Brussels?’

  ‘His very words, it seems, were that he intended once more to ride at the head of his cavalry in a charge over the battlefield again, as he had that day in June.’ (Malet raised his eyebrows yet again, for the fanciful notion that the Prince Regent had been at Waterloo was rapidly becoming a subject of mirth.) ‘In truth, though, I don’t suppose there’d be a horse capable of carrying him, and I can’t suppose, either, that the exertion would be healthful. After his visit here the surgeon observed that so great must be the excessive demand on every limb and organ that he could not hope to see another six months.’

  ‘Well I am sorry for it, for I cannot abide the uncertainty that will hang on the new order.’

  ‘Indeed, Colonel. The new King would have us all dressed in red.’

  ‘What? How so?’

  ‘I have it on the best authority that he is violently of the opinion that only sailors should wear blue.’

  Hervey frowned. The Duke of Clarence had of late been Lord High Admiral, an honorific that he’d taken with excessive zeal. ‘I fancy he might moderate his opinion once the estimates go before parliament.’ (He most certainly hoped so, for he had just laid out a small fortune with the regiment’s tailor: His Majesty clothed his soldiers at the public expense, but not his officers.) ‘Incidentally, I was sorry that old Gieve had shut up shop. He made my cornet’s uniform. But your assurances of Herr Meyer I thought were well found.’

  ‘I believe that Lord George had little discretion in the matter of Herr Meyer: the King was most insistent that his tailor was without peer. I believe His Majesty would have taken the sealed patterns there himself that very afternoon had he not been indisposed.’

  ‘Brummell’s tailor too, I think.’

  Malet smiled. ‘Indeed, Colonel. The cornets were most reassured on hearing that.’

  The coal burned low in the grate as the agreeable march through the agenda of command was reaching its end – save for the affair of Tyrwhitt’s two wives – and Malet rose to pick up the scuttle.

  ‘Not too great a blaze,’ said Hervey. ‘I don’t intend returning after mess. I’ll see the regimental staff in due course – Friday, let us say.’

  ‘Very good, Colonel.’

  ‘Now, Malet, your own affairs: I should deem it to be the greatest benefit were you to continue in your present position, though I know there will be a vacancy soon and you would wish for a troop.’ Hervey had not intended allowing his adjutant to question that supposition, but he paused momentarily, and Malet was eager to correct him.

  ‘I would wish for a troop, Colonel, only were the regiment more actively engaged; I am very content where I am.’

  Hervey inclined his head, a little show of gratification. ‘But be that as it may, I would not have you forfeit promotion. By my reckoning – and yours, if I have understood matters rightly – F Troop will be but a statement of intention for six months at least, with neither the men nor horses. We may as well have its captain in the orderly room. I’ve spoken of it with the Horse Guards, and they have no objection. The rank is yours for the payment of the regulation price.’

  Malet was temporarily overcome. Officers of the artillery and the engineers were promoted without purchase on seniority and merit, inordinately slowly. Those of the cavalry and the infantry, with rare exceptions, purchased theirs – and, though increasingly regulated (or so the Horse Guards thought), at sometimes astonishing prices through private treaty, and with equally astonishing celerity. Only on the death of an officer on active service did a vacancy pass without purchase to the next senior.

  ‘I am in your debt, Colonel.’

  Which was, in some part indeed, Hervey’s intention.

  But he waved it aside. ‘I think we might repair to mess now?’

  Malet looked at his watch. It was past one o’clock. ‘I think you’ll find all the officers in barracks will have assembled, Colonel.’

  ‘I rather thought they might have,’ said Hervey, with a wry smile. ‘And Monsieur Carême brought from Paris to cook?’

  Malet’s smile reflected Hervey’s. ‘So you’ve heard of our triumph.’

  Hervey frowned: what triumph was this?

  ‘Monsieur Carême.’

  ‘Monsieur Carême what?’

  ‘Ah, I thought you must have heard. Lord Hol’ness had him come for the King’s visit.’

  Hervey made no reply but to shake his head in despair at his ill-judged joke. Who would have thought it – Carême brought from Paris (he supposed from Paris) to make a culinary impression? But Lieutenant-Colonel, and now Major-General, the Lord Holderness evidently reckoned that in want of a bloody war and a sickly season to make vacancies for promotion, rich sauces and pâtisserie beurre would do instead. He could only congratulate the noble earl on knowing the King’s mind – and stomach. For himself, he would have to trust to far plainer fare.

  ‘Hervey, I am passing warm for the first time since leaving London – if indeed I were truly warm there. I cannot fathom why your countrymen ever return hither from sunny climes.’

  Hervey’s ‘particular friend’ stood with his back to the blazing apple-wood, to which he turned from time to time to reassure himself that its hearty crackling was but noise. Edward Fairbrother’s blood was thin, of that there was no doubt, like any of his race; or rather, that half which had come originally from the tropics, Africa indeed – and none too willingly. Of his father’s side Hervey knew little but that he was a planter of some wealth and refinement, though the planter families of Jamaica, he supposed, were so long established that their blood too must have thinned a good deal. But then, in the colds they’d known – he and Hervey – in the mountains of Bulgaria of late, his friend had never once remarked on it; nor had it dulled his instinct with sword and pistol. He liked to play to the gallery rather, though only, it was true, when the gallery had but the single seat.

  ‘They return for the sport, I suppose,’ replied Hervey laconically, without looking up from the writing table.

  The fire spat a sudden shower of sparks, making his friend turn sharply (he was not much acquainted with apple-wood). ‘Yet man is born into trouble – as the sparks. I suppose it must be so,’ he said, rubbing his left arm on some account.

  ‘Born unto trouble,’ said Hervey, pressing his seal into the wax on the folded sheet before him.

  ‘Did I not say that? “Yet man is born into trouble, as the sparks fly upwards.” Psalms – as I recall.’

  Hervey smiled indulgently. ‘Job.’

&nbs
p; ‘You’re certain? Psalms, assuredly.’

  ‘“Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground; Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upwards.” Come, man; admit it.’

  Fairbrother frowned. ‘What deuced ill luck. I hadn’t counted on your knowing chapter and verse, only on not being able with certainty to discount the Psalmist.’

  ‘Then you must try humbugging other than a son of the parsonage. Countless hours in church and chapel … though it’s many moons since I read a psalm a day.’ He said it almost regretfully, handing the letter to Corporal Johnson.

  ‘First thing in the morning, Colonel?’ asked his groom.

  Hervey nodded. ‘And you may dismiss. Thank you for your exertions today. The arrangements have all been admirable.’

  The ‘companion of the colonel’ took his leave cheerfully. The day had indeed gone well for him: he had even been saluted by a dragoon – before the man’s corporal had cuffed him for a nigmanog.

  ‘And thank you too,’ said Hervey to Fairbrother when the door was closed. ‘I am most awfully obliged.’

  His good friend took another full measure of the rum cordial which was doing so much to supplement the work of the fire. Their quarters were commodious by any standards, even those of the United Service Club at which they’d lodged since returning from the Levant, but he’d not spared himself in making them equally comfortable. ‘Say nothing of it. I was fretful, however, at seeing you go alone this morning to your hallowing.’

  Hervey frowned again. ‘You are becoming arch. As I told you, taking command is a matter of no ceremony in the Sixth. And today we kept the custom admirably. You would have found little to divert you, if at all.’

  He got up from the writing desk, took a cup of the cordial for himself and settled into one of the fireside chairs. Fairbrother took the other as a parlour-maid came in with a tray and began laying the table.

  She was a handsome girl, as Fairbrother would observe, and with a look of sufficient wit for Hervey suddenly to become circumspect: he had no desire for his remarks to be tattled back to the barracks. The weather would therefore have to occupy them for a few minutes – and news that was general enough to be of no remark. ‘Do you know the day – I mean, the Church’s day?’