On His Majesty's Service mh-11

by Allan Mallinson

  ‘Where do you suppose one might buy a pistol like that cabman’s? I’m resolved never to go on campaign again without a capped weapon.’

  Hervey smiled knowingly. He owed his life to the percussion cap – at Waterloo, possibly the only capped carbine in the field that day. Yet the Board of Ordnance saw no reason, still, to put it into the hands of the rank and file. ‘Flayflints,’ he said, with a sardonic smile at his pun – and to Fairbrother’s mystification. ‘There’s a gunsmith’s in Leicester Street, the other side of Covent Garden – Forsyth’s. We might visit there later. Did the cabman say who was the maker?’

  Fairbrother inclined his head. ‘In truth I found him difficult to comprehend, for he said several times that it was dirigé, but I could not understand dirigé by whom. It is French, we may suppose?’

  ‘It’s possible. Forsyth’s will know.’

  Fairbrother helped himself to more burgundy, and became contemplative. ‘But let us suppose we return from this war twixt Turk and Russian sound in wind and limb; what then? Shall you put on a red coat, for it seems clear to me that a blue one will scarcely be worthwhile if all you shall have to command is a hundred dragoons?’

  The matter was unconvivial, but Hervey welcomed the opportunity to rehearse aloud the arguments he would otherwise have to make to himself. ‘I confess it is a bitter blow. And if the die is cast, then so be it, but I have a mind that there’s much water yet to flow under this particular bridge. Lord George Irvine may yet make his weight felt. I shall go to see him as soon as may be.’ The colonel of a regiment, although no longer the proprietor he once was, carried nevertheless a deal of influence, with the King especially; and Lieutenant-General Irvine, a Waterloo man and now entrusted with command in Ireland, was not an officer whose opinion could be set aside lightly.

  ‘But if all else fails and your regiment is indeed reduced, what then? You surely wouldn’t wish to preside over a squadron?’

  ‘I would not wish it, no, but I might bear it,’ answered Hervey cautiously.

  ‘But what would it profit you, in both satisfaction and advancement? I’ll wager it would profit you nothing in either.’

  Hervey took a deep breath. ‘There would always be some satisfaction in the proximity of men with whom I’d served long years.’

  Fairbrother nodded, almost spilling his wine. ‘That, I grant you, but you wouldn’t wish their captain to be forever looking over his shoulder? And might not you and they tire of the proximity, confined to Hounslow, even with an occasional calling to clear the streets of “tumultuous assembly”?’

  ‘I think, were that to threaten, I should seek a temporary assignment elsewhere – as this mission to the Russians.’

  Fairbrother nodded again. ‘That might serve. What, though, would it do for your prospects?’

  Hervey thought especially carefully before answering. There was nothing base in the desire for promotion; it was woven, so to speak, into the fibre of every officer’s coat – or ought to be. ‘Sir George Don would be, no doubt, an agreeable commander at Gibraltar – as Lord Hill said – but he is a man of fortifications and suchlike. He spent the whole of the war on Jersey. I am not a man of fortifications. What do you suppose I should do to distinguish myself there? In which case, what would be the difference if I were to stay at Hounslow?’

  ‘That, I grant you.’

  ‘And besides, would I persuade you to serve at Gibraltar?’

  Fairbrother smiled. ‘Its climate, I fancy, might suit me better than here; I should not wish to grow pale!’

  Hervey scowled. ‘But does the thought engage you sufficiently? You agreed to come with me to the Levant, and then to stay awhile at Hounslow.’

  Fairbrother’s brow furrowed; he was much bemused. ‘Hervey, I am excessively diverted by the notion that I should have any determination in the matter. But are you quite sure? I would not wish you to calculate for any preference on my part.’

  Hervey did his best to make light of it (how he envied his friend’s easy way with matters): ‘I should value your … company … advice … and so on.’

  Fairbrother reached for the burgundy again. ‘And what of the distaff side? Would Gibraltar be agreeable?’

  Hervey checked the movement of any muscle that might convey an unhappy inability to speak for his wife. ‘I very much hope so.’

  Kat had once followed him to Lisbon; his own wife might reasonably be expected to travel the few miles further. It did not occur to him that his friend’s answer might be consequent on it.

  ‘In principle I have no objection to service – however unofficial – in Gibraltar, nor in proximity to men in red,’ his friend replied, smiling wryly. ‘Indeed, I have no principled objection to anything after service with the Royal Africans!’

  Hervey reflected the smile. ‘Quite. Just imagine had Lord Hill appointed me to a penal battalion!’ He took another good measure of burgundy, and signalled a change of course. ‘This pudding is uncommonly good, is it not?’

  Fairbrother understood at once. He invariably did. He did not always heed the signal, but he recognized it, and on this occasion he was happy to oblige. ‘What did you make of Youell?’

  And Hervey smiled the more for his friend’s understanding.

  They left the warm upholstered comfort of Rule’s just after four o’clock, and set a hopeful, if indirect, course for the gunsmiths. It was darkling, but the streets were well lit, the gaslight made brighter by the snow, and the builders were still at work in Covent Garden, where the plan of the new market was now manifest – a great classical temple on a scale Hervey had seen only in Paris.

  Fairbrother remarked again on the ubiquity of London masons.

  ‘The King is a great builder, I believe,’ said Hervey, slowing to admire the work on a section of Corinthian pillar about to be hoist. ‘Or so he was when regent.’

  ‘Urbem lateritiam invenit, marmoream reliquit,’1 declaimed Fairbrother magisterially, if a shade slurred.

  Hervey looked at him with an approving smile. ‘My old cornet-friend Laming was fond of quoting Suetonius – and any number of others whose words seemed apt to our predicament. You would have liked him – a very excellent fellow. But then so are you; Gibraltar would be the duller place without you – brick instead of marble!’

  His friend merely inclined his head.

  ‘I lay emphasis on the conditional, mind. I might add that so would Hounslow be – the duller place, that is.’

  Indeed he was certain of it. He did not doubt there were agreeable officers in Gibraltar, and he supposed there would be too at Hounslow – though he fancied that no officer of spirit would stay in a depot squadron, which is what it would amount to if the regiment were placed en cadre. But with Fairbrother he knew he might speak his mind, and in turn receive unvarnished opinion. He had never felt the want of that resource before, but he had lately, at the Cape, felt its beneficial qualities keenly, and he did not wish to be done with it now.

  ‘I am greatly flattered.’

  But Hervey intended no flattery, only the truth. ‘Fairbrother, let me speak plainly. I should esteem it the greatest good fortune if you accompanied me either to Hounslow or to Gibraltar – or, frankly, to anywhere else His Majesty is pleased to post me.’

  Fairbrother, for once inclined to cast off insouciance, clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder. But there was increase in his sportive humour nevertheless. ‘Might we conditionally visit the Fifty-third’s tailor then, and lay a swatch of red cloth across your breast?’

  Hervey was inclined to enter the spirit of archness. ‘Scarlet cloth.’

  Fairbrother smiled, conceding the point. ‘Ah, yes – scarlet. It seemed to me in the Royal Africans that the distinction lay solely in the fastness of the dye. A private man’s red coat was a pale affair after a good soaking, whereas an officer’s scarlet remained true – an allegory, as it were, of devotion to duty.’

  ‘The burgundy makes you excessively poetic. I have no intention of visiting the Fifty-third’s tai
lor. A red coat’s a red coat, and I fancy I can imagine what a button with “fifty-three” on it looks like – as opposed to one with “fifty-two”, or whatever it might otherwise be.’

  The calls of the flower sellers – which with little other than greenery to sell were more importunate than those of the costers – were now intruding on their conversation, so that both men had to raise their voices to continue. ‘Even so, what a world apart are those two buttons. Would not the Fifty-second tempt you dearly?’

  The Fifty-second – the ‘Oxfordshire Light Infantry’ – had been with Moore and the Light Brigade at Shorncliffe, and then Corunna; they were (they considered themselves, at least) an elite. Hervey was certainly tempted to agree with his friend – if only for the purpose of silencing him on the subject of red coats. ‘The Fifty-second would tempt anyone.’

  A flower seller, pretty, Italian-looking, in a cloak with the hood thrown back, stepped in front of Fairbrother, bringing both men to a halt. ‘Buy these snowdrops from a poor, frozen flower girl, captain,’ she said, in a curious mixture of the accent of the streets and somewhere more distant. ‘It’s bitter cold, captain, and I needs buy a hot supper.’

  Fairbrother reached instinctively inside his coat for his pocket-book, before realizing that coin was more appropriate.

  Hervey wondered why the girl had made his friend the object of her entreaty and not him. Was it the affinity of a similar complexion (for he observed that hers was not much lighter than Fairbrother’s), or did his friend possess a more generous countenance? More susceptible, even?

  ‘How much?’ asked Fairbrother, purse in hand.

  ‘Sixpence, if you please, captain.’

  ‘Sixpence?’ said Hervey, astonished.

  The girl turned to her questioner. ‘Why, sir, they’re picked this morning and brought a good long way,’ she replied disarmingly.

  ‘Here’s a shilling,’ said Fairbrother, taking no notice. ‘Two bunches, if you please. That will buy a hot supper will it not?’

  ‘It will, captain. God bless you.’ She handed him the snowdrops with a smile that might have been genuine.

  He took them and then gave a bunch back to her. ‘Put these in a window to brighten it.’

  ‘Oh, thank you sir,’ she thrilled. ‘And a very good evening to you.’

  Fairbrother raised his cap as she stood aside to let them pass.

  Hervey said nothing until he was sure they were out of earshot. ‘I will say that I have been similarly done to in the past, but never more charmingly. I dare say we’ll be lucky to make it from the market without having to give a shilling to every girl. She’ll be telling them all this very moment.’

  ‘Oh, I’d reckon not,’ replied Fairbrother, in a knowing sort of way. ‘She’ll wish to sell us a bunch tomorrow if we’re passing. Why tell others and spoil her trade?’

  ‘Upon my word, you are reading London keenly!’

  ‘Not London, not especially. I observe it as universal nature.’

  ‘Well, she was bold and it was nicely done by both sides.’

  ‘None but the fair deserve the bold!’

  ‘That is very droll. The cold evidently neither dulls your brain nor cools your heart. I am all envy. Or is it the burgundy again?’

  Fairbrother smiled. ‘You make matters easy for me. Recall the rhyme? – “Drinking is the soldier’s pleasure/ Rich the treasure/ Sweet the pleasure/ Sweet is pleasure after pain.”’

  Hervey nodded. ‘I allow that you are in excellent form. London agrees with you.’

  ‘Oh, indeed,’ his friend assured him, as if the contrary notion were impossible. ‘My heart swelled as soon as we landed and began posting for here. Did not you see?’

  Hervey had not seen. He had been far too preoccupied with his own thoughts. It was not London that swelled his heart, but what bounties London could bestow – at least, what the Horse Guards could bestow. For the rest … too much was changed for him to throw himself into the arms of the city as readily as Fairbrother seemed able.

  And not a minute later they were reminded of the welcome those arms could take.

  ‘Would yer like a nice time, dearies?’ came the familiar invitation from beneath a gaslight as they turned into (of all places) Bow Street.

  Hervey glanced across the road at the two swaddled doxies, and felt emboldened to sport. ‘Oh, girls, desist; I am a married man!’

  But they were not to be played with by a couple of tipsy officers. ‘Begging yer pardon, I’m sure, but we’re only after yer money!’

  In Leicester Street, which they found quicker than Hervey thought they might, the cold air sobering them, Forsyth’s was barred and bolted, though otherwise the shop was open for business. As they were let in, Hervey expressed himself surprised by the precaution. The presiding gunsmith, a corn-fed man with beady eyes, was in no doubt of the necessity, however: ‘Popery, sir! This popish Act of Parliament. Gordon, sir; riots!’

  Hervey was a deal taken aback. ‘The Gordon riots are fifty years gone!’

  ‘Ay, sir; but memories are long of these things!’

  Fairbrother was surveying the shop’s formidable contents, faintly bemused. ‘Might you not put your trade to use rather than barricade the premises?’

  The man looked offended. ‘That, I believe – the public order – is your business, gentlemen. I should not wish the occasion to fire on staunch Protestants, however misguided!’

  Hervey judged it better to withdraw. The sooner the Police bill was enacted, the better (although it was undeniably to the interests of the regiment that it was not). ‘Speaking of guns, we saw today a coachman with a very handy capped pistol. He said of it, we believe, that it was dirigé. I am not acquainted with the term; are you?’

  The gunsmith thought a while, then shook his head, until suddenly the furrows in his brow disappeared. ‘The cabman did not say, perhaps, that the pistol was made by Deringer?’

  Hervey looked at Fairbrother, who shrugged his shoulders as if to say that he might have.

  ‘Deringer of Philadelphia, in the United States of America, sir. He has of late made an art of travelling pistols, but they have not so far been imported in any quantity. We have a pair of capped pistols by Hetherington of Nottingham, sir – a very capable maker.’

  ‘Might we see them?’

  The gunsmith pulled open a drawer beneath the counter and took out a polished case. Inside were two cap-lock pistols, the walnut fittings finely worked. ‘Handsome weapons, think you not, gentlemen?’

  ‘“Handsome is as handsome does”,’ said Hervey, taking one from the case and handing it to Fairbrother.

  ‘Quite so, sir. They are most do-able pistols, Birmingham-proofed, forty-bore.’

  Hervey weighed the other pistol in his hand. It was about eight inches from butt to muzzle, shorter than the barrel itself of the regulation flintlock – handy enough, but still not as compact as the coachman’s. Yet 40-bore was certainly right for his purposes: the ball would weigh about half an ounce, which would do the business at close range. He cocked the hammer – it was a simple replacement of the frizzen, the pistol a converted flintlock – checked there was no cap fitted, brought it up to the aim and pulled the trigger.

  ‘It would serve, certainly, though the trigger guard is close for a glove, and there’s no safety lock.’

  ‘They are travelling pistols, sir.’

  Hervey nodded. He could not expect them to be as robustly made as those for campaign service – and yet if the pistol were to be carried on the person rather than in the saddle holster, and loaded, he did not relish the idea of the hammer’s free movement. ‘I fancy it would not be beyond your workshop to fit one?’

  ‘By no means, sir.’

  Hervey looked at Fairbrother. ‘What say you?’

  ‘I think the pistol will serve, but I too should want a safety lock.’

  Hervey nodded again, this time decisively. ‘Very well, we shall take them – with a safety lock that may be worked with the thumb. I ought, I supp
ose, to enquire the price?’

  The man thought for a moment. ‘Eight guineas, sir, to include the modification. A further fifteen shillings for horn and bullet former – and, perhaps, two dozen bullets and caps?’

  Hervey glanced at Fairbrother, who nodded. ‘That will be in order. A week, then, shall we say? And if you have hearing of a Deringer weapon, perhaps you will alert me?’

  It was full dark when they left, and the glass had dropped five degrees – so marked that they pulled up their collars as high as in the morning, and hastened step to that of the Fifty-second. All earlier thoughts of the theatre were banished in the contemplation of a good fire at the United Service, and an easy supper. In any case, Hervey had work to be about – letters to write, campaigns to plan; and Fairbrother, though thinking how agreeable might be the company of the flower girl who had so charmingly importuned them in Covent Garden, said he was more than content to return instead to a decanter of port and the latest Edinburgh Review.

  Quickened further by the gradient of the Haymarket, they overtook all before them. Two recruiting serjeants saluted from the steps of a public house below the Theatre Royal as they forged past, prompting Hervey to say then what he had been keeping for the United Service – that his thoughts had returned to ‘family’, though not to Hertfordshire, nor even Wiltshire.

  Barely opening his mouth, so bitter now was the cold, he announced plainly: ‘Tomorrow we go to Hounslow.’

  1 ‘He found a city of bricks and left a city of marble.’ Said of Augustus Caesar and Rome.

  IV

  THE DIVIDEND OF PEACE

  Next morning

  Hervey slept little, and even then without rest. As soon as he nodded, unwelcome dreams began shivering him. Each time he woke (and he was scarcely conscious of sleeping at all) his mind was full of the images of estrangement. What had possessed him to visit Holland Park, slipping from the United Service after supper without telling his friend, only to find it barred and shuttered? The cabman, mute until he had seen that there was no one at home to admit him, told him that Kat was well – it was the common knowledge of his trade – that she and the household had gone to Ireland a month and more ago, and that it was only that he supposed his fare to have intelligence of her return that he had carried him to Holland Park in the first place. And so Hervey had returned to his silent club and restless bed, and there, half-sleeping, half-waking, had counted the hours to reveille; and the barring and shuttering which, he knew full well, was only what any prudent household would do on exchanging town for country, became a sort of dreamy symbol of what there had once been but which was now gone and could never be again.