A sudden hubbub to the left of the line made him turn, and testily, imagining another dragoon had involuntarily dismounted (such an unfortunate was always the butt of ribald advice, even if he were an officer – more so, indeed, for greater would be the sconce on return to barracks). He smiled, however: a big dog fox trotted parallel to the line not fifty yards off, stopping every so often and giving the ranks a glance, wary rather than timorous, then trotting on with an air of indifference. It was strange, thought Hervey, that he should break cover so close, when there was nothing before them but a mile and more of heath. Perhaps the sight of several hundred horses was not of itself alarming if they were not accompanied by hounds? Or perhaps here was one fox who had never been hunted, and therefore inclined to see a regiment of cavalry rather than a field of hunting men? He now halted directly to the front of where Hervey stood, as if one horse in advance of the rest deserved particular scrutiny. Hervey saluted him: he was a fine fellow, clean-coated, full-brushed – last year’s cub, possibly. Many a time on Salisbury Plain with Daniel Coates he had observed the fox as close, and even in Spain, but he did not think he had seen a finer specimen. He could have sworn Reynard looked him straight in the eye. He took hold of his shako peak and bid him goodnight.
Another of the Chestnuts’ guns fired. The fox turned at once and ran left away from the line. Gilbert began dancing and pulling: there may have been no hounds, but a running fox surely spelled a chase. Horses the length of the line evidently thought the same, judging by the hallooing behind, until the cursing of the troop serjeant-majors brought back proper order. Spirits were high enough, reckoned Hervey; he could be content in that at least, even if the greenness of so many horses and dragoons dismayed him. But then, was that not a part of the satisfaction of command, the drilling of a regiment? He might have them for a few months only – six, the regiment’s colonel, Lord George Irvine, had thought likely – but that was sufficient time to drill them to a certain handiness; even to the satisfaction of the lieutenant-colonel who would in due course assume the substantive command. There might be no immediate prospect of active service (he thought it most unlikely there would be any reinforcement of the expeditionary force in Portugal, for there were five thousand redcoats there already, and the Duke of Wellington was most anxious to have them back), but – fortis fortuna adiuvat – opportunity there could come. The Greek war, for one, was unresolved; there was too the enduring promise – or threat – of aid to the civil power, and, of course, there was that combustible place Ireland. And if no one but he could be persuaded that the Sixth might have to draw sabres in earnest, there was the annual inspection in July: the major-general commanding the London District was known to be a man for the most exacting standards.
No, concluded Hervey, his six months’ tenure would not be a sinecure. He was even beginning to wonder what chance he might have of seeing his people in Wiltshire, his daughter especially. Georgiana was nine, and he had scarce seen through one month with her. He left her in the willing care of his sister (at least, in the dutiful care), and by so doing he blighted what remained of Elizabeth’s prospects, for she was closer now to forty than to thirty. Indeed, if there had been a silver lining in the black cloud of Badajoz it was the resolve that had grown out of his incarceration to put all this side of his affairs in order, to assume a decent responsibility for his daughter. It was hardly unusual to place a motherless child in the care of a guardian, but Georgiana was Henrietta’s daughter: he dishonoured his late wife’s memory, and their former love, by putting away their daughter thus. And so it was that he began to fret for leave to be with them – and, indeed, for the opportunity to press his suit (if he could put it as decidedly as that) with Sir Ivo Lankester’s widow. He had met Lady Lankester but twice, first in Calcutta when she was in new mourning weeds, and then at dinner at Lord George Irvine’s, but he had concluded that she would make him an admirable wife, and more especially an admirable mother to Georgiana, for she had an infant of her own. He could only hope that their differences in station, though in certain respects truly not great, and disparity of age (she was ten years his junior, perhaps more), would not incline her to set her face irrevocably against the notion.
Another gun fired, and a horse from F Troop bolted the ends of the line – towards the guns rather than away. Hervey groaned as he saw the wretched dragoon lying back almost flat in the saddle, reins at full length, while the trooper charged through the Chestnuts’ limbers. Thank God they had been dismounted at the Duke of York’s funeral! He could never have been confident of their steadiness otherwise. It was no surprise that Strickland had been so determined to return to Hounslow that night of the smash, to be ready for first parade. Foot drill was a not altogether alien practice for cavalry but it required very strict attention, especially when mustered with the Foot Guards under the eye of so many senior officers – the Duke of Wellington included. To dismount a regiment of cavalry had been an extraordinary rebuke to the nation, however. Everyone said so. The duke had been at the Horse Guards a month, now, insistent on withdrawing the troops from Portugal as soon as may be, for the dispatch of a mere five thousand men to Lisbon was these days a heavy drain on the disposable force of the country. Indeed it had been the cause of delay in the Duke of York’s funeral arrangements: there had simply not been enough soldiers to bury a field marshal. Hervey could still barely credit it, for Waterloo had been but a dozen years before!
Strickland had not been the only casualty of the Duke of York’s funeral. Hervey had been taken aback by the severity of the cold that night; the ceremonies were greatly delayed on the day itself, and the service had not finally got underway in St George’s chapel until evening, by which time several dragoons had succumbed. They at least had been revived by the guardhouse braziers; several of the mourners, it was held, did not survive the week. The Duke of Wellington (so Lord John Howard, Hervey’s ‘friend at court’, said) had been indisposed by the freezing air, and had not been able to attend the Horse Guards until two days following, so that there had been much industry in those first weeks, for the duke insisted always on the work of the day being done in the day. The accumulated work of several months could not be so quickly disposed of, however; not least the promotion lists which mounted by the day on the Military Secretary’s desk. Hervey shook his head. It was the very devil of a business, for his stock stood never so low. The affair in Portugal had seen to that. And he needed his stock to be high, for he had lately applied for his majority. It was ironic that for so many years, when he had not had the means to purchase, the business of promotion had been merely actuarial, to be transacted between the regimental agents without reference to any other, and that now he had the money, the Horse Guards was scrutinizing every transaction. All because of the scandal over the Duke of York’s mistress selling commissions. In truth, he assured himself, the scrutiny was but a formality, and he need not worry. What he ought to be addressing his thoughts to was the business of the lieutenant-colonelcy. There were always more buyers than sellers, in the cavalry especially, and the price would no doubt be hiked up improbably, beyond reach of but a few of the very richest peers. Except that if there truly were an Augean stream now flowing through the Horse Guards, it might be possible once more to have the lieutenant-colonelcy at regulation price. And since he was senior officer on full-pay duty … Though where he might find even the regulation price – £6,175 – was quite beyond him.
‘Hervey?’
He woke from his troubled contemplation to see the Chestnut Troop’s captain saluting. ‘Dalbiac, you are finished?’
‘There is one round left per gun. I would have them limber up and come into action again on that ridge yonder. Shall you charge?’
It was the usual way, and it would go hard with the dragoons if he said ‘no’, especially with the Chestnuts galloping half a mile to the ridge, but he was determined to work the regiment by degrees rather than give every trooper his head and then count the fallers. ‘We shall not charge; we shall advan
ce deliberately, with skirmishers out. Thank you for your support. How are your injured gunners?’
Captain Dalbiac frowned. ‘The number seven’s not long for this world, and the ventsman will likely lose his thumb.’
‘Then I am sorry for them both.’
‘The number seven occasioned his own misfortune, and if the ventsman hadn’t burned his thumb to the bone there’d be the devil to pay!’
Hervey nodded. Fireworking was a hazardous affair, and it could only be done with the most faithful of drill. If the ventsman had not burned his thumb to the bone it would have proved he had not held it to the vent diligently. ‘Very well. Perhaps you will let us occupy the ridge first and then join us for a final discharge?’
Captain Dalbiac saluted, reined about and cantered back to his guns.
Hervey glanced left and right. The line’s dressing was good enough. ‘The regiment will fire by half squadrons! Draw carbines!’
Four hundred right hands reached to the leather ‘buckets’ on the offside of the saddles to draw the short muskets – the cavalry carbines – just as Hervey had so often seen in the French war. There were not many veterans of those days now: the serjeants, for the most part, had been at Waterloo, and the majority of them were seasoned Peninsular men, though fewer than half had been at Corunna. Of the corporals, there was but a handful who had clambered into the boats at ‘Groyne’ that day. It had been almost twenty years ago; what else did he expect? The old order changeth.
Except that in too many respects the old order did not change fast enough. Here they were with the exact same weapon their fathers – even grandfathers – would have been handy with, dependent on a piece of flint to spark loose powder in the pan. The primitives who had lived on Salisbury Plain had worked flints; as a boy he himself had played in the pits. It did not seem to him that the techniques of war had advanced with the dispatch possible. He had lately returned from Portugal in a ship whose power came from steam as much as from the wind, and he knew there were locomotives which derived all their traction from that source. Why, therefore, could science not serve the soldier better? The answer was – and he knew it – that science was perfectly able to serve the soldier, if only the Board of Ordnance would let it. His own life at Waterloo he owed to the merest drop of fulminate of mercury, a percussion cap instead of a flintlock, which had allowed him to fire his soaking carbine when a flint, even if it had sparked, could not have ignited damp powder in the firing pan. Later he had petitioned the board on behalf of an American inventor who had shown him an astonishing revolving-chamber pistol. The authorities had not been impressed, however. Other than for a few riflemen to act as skirmishers, they required an army that could volley, on command, for it was volley fire that broke up massed ranks and columns. Would the enemy be always so obliging as to come on in such a manner?
The Sixth were handy with their carbines at least, observed Hervey as he took post on the right flank with the other officers, allowing the dragoons a clear line of fire, for unlike the gunners they would load live cartridge. ‘By squadrons, carry on!’
The squadron officers now took over the practice.
‘Load!’
Ramrods clattered as dragoons tamped the one-ounce balls.
‘Front rank, even numbers, advance!’
One hundred dragoons pressed their troopers to the walk.
‘Halt!’
They checked, inclining right in the prescribed manner so as to be able to fire to the flank rather than over the horses’ heads.
‘Present!’
Up came the carbines to the aim, though there were no targets.
‘Fire!’
It was a good volley, but there were slow ignitions and misfires. Some of the horses shied; only one bolted. Hervey watched intently as next the odd numbers advanced half a dozen paces beyond the evens, presented and fired. And then the same again with the rear rank. Four volleys in all.
On the whole the horses stood them well, thought Hervey, but he could hardly be satisfied with the rate of misfires, and on a morning with not a touch of dampness in the air. ‘Very well,’ he said to the adjutant, as grey smoke drifted towards them. ‘Have them re-form in double rank.’
‘Sir.’
The adjutant moved to the front to give the executive commands, while the smoke rolled the length of the line, quite obscuring the front rank’s line of sight. Hervey wondered if here, too, science might not serve them better. Was it contrary to the nature of the elements to require powder to burn without excessive smoke? Was there such a thing as fire without smoke? Smoke stood in the way of observation on the battlefield; he had only to recall the day at Waterloo, when it had been the very devil of a job to see what the French did. More than once had the duke’s infantry fired on his own cavalry. But it was more than mere obscuration: every time a dragoon discharged his carbine he gave away his position. In line it mattered not at all, but on outpost duty it might make the difference between staying put or having to withdraw. Except that the weapon in these men’s hands possessed neither the range nor the accuracy to exploit the advantage of smokeless powder. Hervey shook his head. Here they were on Hounslow Heath going through the exact same evolutions of that day a dozen years ago, which was supposed to have been an end to the Grande Armee and the system that had need of it. There was no denying that there were armies still on the Continent, but he had seen enough in India these past six years to know there were other ways of war. If he, a mere acting-major of light dragoons, could see it, then there were sure to be those in the armies of France, and Russia and Austria – even Prussia – who could see it too. What if those armies were to embrace science (England had no monopoly in this field, even if she had the lead) and put to nought the superiority in drill and courage of His Majesty’s men? He was sure the Royal Navy would be thinking ‘scientifically’, for in the navy there was no disdain of innovation. Quite the opposite, indeed: he could not easily forget the steamship in the Rangoon river in the late war with Ava.
But now they would end the field day with an advance in line, sabres drawn, exactly as they had done at the close of Waterloo. At that glorious moment, too, Hervey had been at the head of the Sixth, the senior officer remaining in the saddle, though still but a cornet. Well, he had them again now, and on the same terms (for as long as it took to replace him); he had better let them have their gallop after all! And he had better do it exactly as the drill book prescribed.
He turned to his trumpeter, whose mare stood composed at last. ‘Draw swords!’
Corporal Parry, commanding officer’s trumpeter since the Sixth had come back from India, put the bugle to his lips and attacked the arpeggiando quavers and semi-quavers as if the enemy were before them. It was not the hardest of calls, but neither was it one to falter over at the end of a field day.
Out came four hundred sabres, more or less as one.
‘Forward!’
The simplest of the calls – just an E and a C, two semis and a quaver, repeated the once.
The line heaved forward, and the cursing began at once. Hervey fancied he recognized the NCOs’ voices – ‘Sit up, there!’ ‘Get back!’ ‘Close up, you idle man!’
‘Trot!’
Short, bumping quavers on C, E and G.
Every horse recognized the call, but on different notes. The line billowed like sheets in the wind. ‘Hold hard, damn you!’ ‘Get up, there! Get up!’ ‘Steady!’
Hervey glanced back. The sight was not propitious. But it was too late now. ‘Gallop!’
Corporal Parry blew creditably – the same notes, but in different time.
Hervey glanced over his shoulder again. The line was about as straight as a gaggle of driven geese. He might as well prove to them just how much drill they still had need of: ‘Charge!’
Corporal Parry managed the triplets admirably until the third repetition when he was bumped hard by a dragoon behind, and nearly lost a tooth.
Hervey heard him curse the man as foully as ever he’d heard from
Armstrong. He glanced behind once more, saw the line of lofted sabres, and put his spurs into Gilbert’s flanks for more speed: he was damned if he was going to be overtaken by what looked like a band of irregulars. Great God, what work there was to be done yet!
II
THE GRIM REAPER
Later
When they were come back to Hounslow barracks, Hervey handed over the parade to the senior captain and rode to the commanding officer’s stables at the back of the officers’ house. Here were four loose boxes, altogether quieter and more comfortable than the standing stalls of the troop-horse lines. Private Johnson was waiting.
These days, Hervey considered Johnson more soldier-servant than groom; except that the RSM would dispute that he answered any longer to the description ‘soldier’ (and even ‘servant’ would not have done in any proper establishment). The care of Hervey’s two chargers, Gilbert, who had survived two crossings of the Equator and the siege of Bhurtpore, and Eliab, Jessye’s foal, was largely given to Private Toyne, a good coper who prior to joining the Sixth three years past had learned his business around the horse fairs of Westmoreland.
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