Words of Command (Hervey 12) (Matthew Hervey)

by Allan Mallinson

  But although he, Hervey, was – and always had been – content enough with his own company, the mission on which he was to embark seemed to him to demand some interlocutor of sorts. There was a deal of evidence to be gathered and ‘rendered in writing’, there would be supplementary particulars to follow up once the day’s collecting had been assessed; and the sheer size of the county … He would need the properties of St Anthony of Padua to be in two places at once.

  And he allowed himself a smile unexpectedly, such that Malet remarked on it and asked if all was well.

  ‘Not St Anthony,’ he replied, ‘but St Alban.’

  ‘Colonel, I would share your amusement if you would share your joke.’

  ‘I shan’t try your devotion, Malet; I was merely amused by the process by which I’d arrived at the answer.’

  ‘The answer to …?’

  ‘Who shall accompany me. I need an adjutant, and since I cannot spare you – since it is you who will be exercising command for me – I must choose another. St Alban has the capability, and very possibly too a useful standing with the families of the county.’

  And so St Alban was duly warned for duty.

  The Horse Guards’ arrangements were generous, providing for the hire of a hack post chaise, but Hervey had decided to post as well with the regimental chariot and Corporal Wakefield, with Johnson and another, and the two vehicles proceeding in convoy. Malet argued that it would be prudent to have Serjeant Acton accompany them, but Hervey countered that it was hardly a hazardous assignment and he did not want an entourage – just a second dragoon for the hack chaise to ride postilion, a man capable with harness and the like. All was therefore settled for the little party to leave the Berkeley Arms at nine o’clock the following morning, and at ten o’clock that evening Hervey at last left the barracks as confident as might be that he had left no ‘i’ undotted and no ‘t’ uncrossed, and that any unforeseen dots and crosses would be placed precisely where he would wish them.

  ‘Only keep Collins from a court martial until my return,’ he said to Malet on leaving. ‘The regimental inquiry can be spun out a month, and then there will be legal opinion to seek, which ought well to take another month, especially if paid for by the day. And on no account are he and Kennett to do duty at one and the same time. Indeed it would be best for Kennett to be kept at some duty agreeable to him in London, or wherever can be.’

  ‘You may be sure I will arrange it, Colonel.’

  ‘And if there should be anything untoward, I have written to Lord George with an explanation of my absence and the circumstances, so he would be of assistance.’

  Malet nodded, though he felt equally sure that he would not need to call on the assistance of the colonel.

  ‘Well, I bid you good night then. Don’t trouble to come out to see me off tomorrow. You have your parade and all.’

  ‘I do, Colonel. I wish you a calm sea and a prosperous voyage – and a speedy return.’

  ‘Aptly put for so salty a county,’ said Hervey, with at last an easy smile; ‘but I may assure you that the roughest of seas will not detain me there.’

  By the time he returned to the Berkeley Arms the fires and the candles had burned low. Johnson had put a plate of cold chicken on the writing table, and a bottle of port, and Hervey sat down in front of the embers to eat his supper – with more duty than appetite, but pleased at last to be relieved of the work of the day.

  But though content that at office he had done everything that duty and devotion could possibly expect of him, he could not be content that he had treated with Kat entirely honourably – a letter only, and not a very intimate one at that. Could he not have spared but one hour last evening? Except that it would not have been but an hour – though that was a matter for him, not the force of destiny, possessed as he was of free will. And he could hardly claim fear of prolongation as just excuse. Rightly, he could not claim fear of anything at any time, as a soldier, and as a gentleman. And for a moment or two he contemplated – wildly – riding now to Holland Park to put right his ill judgement (or whatever it was), only recalling himself to his senses on imagining the mortification that his knocking on the door in the early hours would occasion (Kat’s establishment were the very models of loyalty and discretion, but there was no cause to try them so sorely). Instead, eased by the port and sobered by tomorrow’s call of duty, he took to his bed.

  They were away sharp at nine. It was his birthday, which he had only lately remembered, rather after the fashion of most years. Indeed, the last time he had marked the day had been in the icy fastness of Fort York, in Canada – a dozen years before, when Henrietta had got up a party, though heavy with child (or had it been when Georgiana was born, for he had been elsewhere on patrol in the weeks before her time was come?). Well, it mattered not; not in the least. There would never again be such a marking, he felt sure. Nor was it worth his regrets. This day was as yesterday or tomorrow; no more, no less. And there was business to be about.

  They posted by way of Harrow to the Great North Road, changing again at Hatfield and Stevenage (passing close to Walden Park, where he supposed Kezia must be in residence yet – and with little more sentiment than mere recognition); and all the time keeping a steady trot, and with never more than two horses, in tandem, so that he was able to talk to St Alban without effort, while Johnson and Private Gilbee, St Alban’s groom, enjoyed the comfort of the hack chaise, apprising him of the task in hand, how he intended going about it, and what difficulties might arise, until as the light was beginning to fail they reached Royston, and there spent the night at the Old Bull. And then, on the second day’s posting, when St Alban had taken his place in the hack, and Johnson and Gilbee theirs in the respective baskets, he had been able to browse Pigot’s Directory of Norfolk, Leicestershire and Rutland, make a beginning on Stacy’s new A Norfolk Tour and study the maps which the Horse Guards had with commendable foresight procured for him – Bryant’s newly issued sheets, ‘Respectfully Dedicated to the Nobility, Clergy and Gentry of the County’, 12¼ inches to 10 miles, from an ‘actual survey’ very lately, consisting in the most admirable and well-defined detail (though the Board of Ordnance had completed their own survey, their maps were still in draft). All in all, he trusted, Pigot, Stacy and Bryant presented him with a very fair portrait of the county.

  The snow lay deep in the fields yet, but the ways were tolerable going, even after leaving the Great North Road, for the turnpike companies had set parties to work with the shovel, not wanting undue loss of revenue, and there had been no fresh falls for two days. When they resumed their journey, therefore, on the Newmarket turnpike, even though the country became more undulating their steady pace of the first day continued unchecked. They changed horses at Sawston and then Newmarket Heath, and again at Mildenhall, where they ate a fine venison stew, and then at Thetford before the lonely run to Attleborough, changing there for the last stretch to Wymondham, where with creaking leather and stiffening joints they at last pulled up for the night at the White Hart. Fresh horses were got at once for the hack chaise, however, for Hervey wanted St Alban to go that evening to Kimberley Park nearby (the moon was full and one of the White Hart’s postboys knew the road well) to see if the lord lieutenant were at home, for he lived also beyond Norwich, and if he would receive him next day; otherwise he would drive to Norwich in the morning to see the Royals, the 1st Dragoons, the only regular troops in the county, save Marines, and thence to his seat at Witton. St Alban had returned by eight, however, with the news that the lord lieutenant would be glad to receive him at Kimberley at ten in the morning.

  Kimberley Park, three miles north-west of Wymondham (which only now did Hervey learn was pronounced with a short ‘y’, and the ‘m’ and ‘o’ entirely silent), was the ancient seat of the Wodehouses, Tories among broad acres of Whigs. The hall was set amid some of the greatest oaks he could ever recollect, with a fine stream and lakes, and a park whose nobility – thanks to ‘Capability’ Brown – was evident even under its sn
owy blanket, with pleasances he would have wished to explore had it not been for duty. The carriages came to a halt on the hour, and servants were at once on hand to attend them.

  The Honourable John Wodehouse, Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk, Custos Rotulorum, Vice Admiral of the County and Lord Steward of Norwich Cathedral, received them in the library before a good fire. He was a big, active-looking man of about sixty, with grey hair brushed forward covering his temples, kind eyes and a general expression of amiability. He began by saying that he feared Hervey’s journey was ‘somewhat otiose’, for on receiving a letter from the Home department last month he had at once instigated measures for the re-raising of the yeomanry: ‘I have only yesterday written to Mr Peel informing him that I have placed matters in hand to re-form four troops each with a strength of – to begin with – fifty officers and yeomen, and that these will be accoutred by subventions from the Militia vote and armed with the sabres which were placed in Norwich castle on their disbandment, requesting also the necessary letters patent and the firelocks, powder and shot, and instructions as to pay.’

  Hervey thought it all very admirable, but rather in advance of what he understood the Home department was intending – except, of course, that at the time of disbanding, His Majesty’s Government had only been anxious to avoid the expense of keeping in being such of the yeomanry as had not been called out for some time, leaving it for the gentlemen of the corps to decide if they would continue in being entirely at their own expense. But it was no part of his remit to argue the Home Secretary’s case; if the lord lieutenant were placing certain matters in hand then all he had need to do was judge their efficacy against what he knew to be the War Office’s intentions.

  ‘So you’ll see, Colonel Hervey, that events have, as it were, overtaken your purpose in coming here. Within a month or so we shall have a troop once more at Downham, and at Dereham, Yarmouth and Halesworth.’

  Hervey put him right regarding his mission, in particular the regular reinforcements that he was to judge expedient.

  ‘Of course,’ the lord lieutenant conceded affably, ‘the regulars aren’t my business, but I’m at a loss to understand how you are to decide matters before an application is made by the civil power. Do not mistake me, Colonel; I am heartened by this evidence of the authorities’ forethought – the Horse Guards’ forethought – which must proceed from the impulse of government; I detect the duke’s hand in this for sure, and I’m glad of it – overdue as it may be.’

  Hervey assured him that the Horse Guards’ purpose was to be more ‘anticipatory’ than merely answering to the civil power, some degree of ‘deterrent’ effect perhaps – while, of course, the authority of the magistrates and the other officers of the law was in all things absolute: a regiment sent from London, say, might replace the Royals at Norwich, who in turn might disperse to support the troops of yeomanry, or they might disperse themselves throughout the county to give that support instead, or even in addition to, but also to act independently if the need arose – but be able to combine rapidly that they might scour the roads, for example, by day and by night, relay information, ‘master’ the country. His own assessment, from study of his maps and the census returns, had led him, he explained, to the same conclusions, broadly, as the lord lieutenant – that Yarmouth, Dereham and Downham were the appropriate towns in which to place the major elements of any reinforcement, but also Thetford, rather than Halesworth; and he wondered, too, about the influence the Royals – or whoever were the regular cavalry – would be able to retain in Norwich if there were a general tumult elsewhere in the county and their squadrons dispersed; for a city of sixty thousand could not be left to a mere depot troop.

  And the lord lieutenant, seeing the evidence of the War Office’s earnest and the address of the Horse Guards, told him that he placed himself at Hervey’s disposal in the coming days – indeed, that his party should stay at Kimberley Park until he felt their work was done. And at a stroke Hervey perceived that his work thus changed from inquiry to confirmation – more exact, immeasurably easier and greatly quicker; and, indeed, altogether more agreeable.

  So it proved. For a fortnight he travelled the county, though Halesworth he left to St Alban, and the northernmost parts he was assured were under the best regulation by the great families, and not therefore needing his personal attention. Everywhere he was received hospitably and with intelligence, so that he not only completed the assignment ahead of his best expectations but also formed a considerable attachment to the county – which he freely admitted was not that of his imaginings; at least, the ‘slowness’ of the people he instead began to see as more a worthy instinct for the better ways of times past than innate dullness – of times before, as one of the recusant gentry put it to him, ‘the stripping of the altars’.

  And what altars – what churches. He was compelled so many times to stop and gaze, or to enter and be astonished. It was as if he travelled in foreign parts, on some grand tour. What manner of place must this county have been five centuries ago, when these pinnacles, buttresses, clerestories, fan vaultings and hammer beams were fashioned – the people more numerous, the wealth much greater. And the towers – solid-square, as a keep, or round, like a turret; and reaching so high above land so plane that it seemed every prospect encompassed a dozen half-castles framed against a vast sky.

  But his true instincts were never long repressed by mere sightseeing. Was there ever such opportunity to master a country, to place it, as the French said, sous surveillance, as here? From the top of each tower, square or round, a corporal with a telescope might see everything that passed between him and the next. And, with but a little extemporization, some system of signalling might be devised to summon help rapidly in the case of mischief. He began relishing the possibility, the trial – pitting his regiment over such a distance against the dark forces of riot, mutiny, rebellion. And he put St Alban to work for a morning in the library at Kimberley to make a survey – the result heartening; indeed he thought it so promising that even had his survey of the yeomanry yielded nothing auspicious he could assure the Horse Guards they need have no fear of Norfolk. There were, outside the towns, a little short of five hundred churches. If half of these were to be made videttes it would render the better part of the whole county under the eye of authority – the work of but one battalion of Rifles, or, indeed, of any battalion of the Line practised in outpost duties. It was, he felt sure, a proposal that itself justified the entire wintry exercise, even had he not been able to make so expedient a report on the yeomanry.

  And so after his grand tour of the county, during which the spring’s thaw set in – which, though it made some of the roads heavy going, allowed him to observe how much of the country was under the plough rather than pasture – he visited the Royals once more to talk with their commanding officer, and then spent three days before the fire in the library at Kimberley compiling the report for the War Office, making a copy for the lord lieutenant and a second for himself, so that he could send his findings at once to the Horse Guards.

  It was on the last day of the month, therefore, that with the greatest sense of satisfaction as well as of anticipation he at last felt able to visit his old and very dear friend Laughton Peto.

  XIII

  THE COMMODORE

  1 March 1830

  ‘I will tell you about Captain Peto,’ he said, as they bid farewell to Kimberley Park and set off on the thirty miles to Houghton Hall in the north of the county. ‘I met him when he was a frigate captain, almost fifteen years ago, and I was taking passage to India. And then again ten years on when he was commodore of the flotilla which attacked Rangoon, though we’d seen each other in the years between. And for Rangoon he was knighted, and very properly, for the business was done with great despatch. And then, with the reductions in the navy, he was for some time without a ship, until summoned to command of the Prince Rupert, the only first-rate in commission, and to take her to join Admiral Codrington’s squadron in the Mediterranean.’


  ‘Ah – Navarino.’

  ‘Indeed – the “untoward event”.’

  Poor Codrington: told to cooperate with the French and the Russians to compel the Turks to leave Greek waters – but without resort to force – he had sought to overawe the Ottoman fleet in the bay at Navarino, in the Peloponnese, but it had come to a fight and the Turk had been sent to the bottom. London was furious: ‘I send you the ribbon of the Garter,’ the King wrote to Codrington; ‘I should be sending you the rope.’ But Peto was most grievously wounded in the battle.

  ‘Indeed he is a cripple, a chair-bound invalid,’ said Hervey, shaking his head. ‘When I saw him last, two years ago or thereabout, it was the most pitiable sight, for he had lived for the sea … But there’s evidently much fellowship in the county, and Peto’s being a Norfolk man – his late father a parson, like Nelson’s – the Marquess of Cholmondeley took him in at Houghton.’

  He did not say that Kat had made the arrangements, though he remembered her words as if yesterday – ‘And George has most eagerly contracted to attend to all dear Captain Peto’s needs until such time as he is able to return to his own house.’

  She had never met Peto but knew of her lover’s strong affection for him. Indeed, Hervey had wondered at her efforts on his old friend’s behalf, so close to his wedding with Kezia, but had promptly dismissed his worst thoughts as unworthy. Besides, what did it matter what motive had secured for his friend such a comfortable convalescence?