Hervey 10 - Warrior

by Allan Mallinson

  'I should have thought the recent affair at the frontier enough to satisfy anyone, at least for a while,' said the Fifty-fifth's colonel, looking like a man who considered such things occupational hazards rather than sport.

  Emma sighed. 'I fear it has merely whetted his appetite.'

  A khitmagar advanced with a tray of champagne.

  As Hervey took a glass, Emma turned to him, confidentially. 'I am so very sorry to hear about poor Caithlin Armstrong. Most distressed, indeed. The loveliest of people. And the serjeant-major . . . You have told him by now, I suppose?'

  Hervey nodded.

  'I simply cannot imagine what will now be the fate of those children. Shall they go back to Ireland, do you think?'

  Hervey's sigh echoed Emma's. 'I don't know. For the time being the Lincolns – you remember? – have charge of them, but I fancy it can't be too long an arrangement. The elder boy will go to the Duke of York's school, and the second one in a year or so. The girls . . .' (he shook his head) 'Armstrong has no family.'

  'Shall he have to leave the service?'

  Hervey's eyebrows rose. 'Great heavens, I hope not. The service is exactly what he needs to bind himself to after such a thing!'

  Emma was a little taken aback at Hervey's surprise, for he himself had quit the service in like circumstances (not that it was a course she approved of). 'Well, he is fortunate in having such friends as the Lincolns. And, I might add, you.'

  Hervey swallowed. What friend might he be in Canada with the Eighty-first?

  'And now,' said Emma resolutely, squeezing his arm, 'I must introduce you to our new arrivals.'

  'Colonel Smith?'

  'And his most intriguing wife!'

  But Emma's guests scarcely needed introduction. Although 'Smith' was a commonplace of the Army List, and Hervey had not seen the colonel's lantern-jaw in many a year (and certainly not since Waterloo), he would have known him anywhere. As for the arresting Latin features of Mrs Smith, a Peninsula-bride of just fifteen, his acquaintance was entirely by repute. But everyone in the army knew Harry and Juana Smith.

  'May I introduce Colonel Hervey, who commands the Cape Mounted Rifles,' said Emma.

  The colonels bowed, and Mrs Smith curtsied.

  'Hervey, I fancy we must have met?' said Colonel Smith confidently.

  'We have. I think at the Bidassoa.'

  Colonel Smith was perhaps half a dozen years Hervey's senior, and wore the dark green of the 95th Rifles, in which corps he had risen largely by field promotion in the thick of the fighting in the Peninsula and the two Americas. 'I fancy it must have been,' he replied. And then, breaking into a wry smile, added, 'You, however, would have kept your feet dry, I imagine?'

  The army had crossed many rivers in Spain, but the Bidassoa had been a considerable splash. 'I imagine I did,' conceded Hervey, content on this occasion to allow the infantry its customary sense of superiority in bearing privations.

  But Colonel Smith was no conformist in that regard. 'I read of your exploits of late at Badajoz. An extraordinary business.'

  'You could call it so, yes. I had not thought to see the inside of that place again.'

  'Indeed.' Colonel Smith turned to his wife. 'My dear, Colonel Hervey was made captive by Miguel's men last year, and had to cut his way out of the castle.'

  Juana gave a little gasp. 'Madre mia! You must tell me of it, Colonel.'

  Emma was quick to oblige. 'I have placed you together at table, my dear Mrs Smith. Colonel Hervey will be able to tell you all. It is, in truth, a most thrilling story!'

  The Somerviles were yet maintaining their Indian habit, observed Hervey as they went into dinner. On the table were grapes and jujubes, pawpaw, oranges peeled and dusted with ginger, fingerlengths of sugar cane, and slices of coconut and Bombay mango. It troubled some, he knew – Kezia was one of them – to begin a dinner with such sweet things, but in truth he was never much bothered with the precise progression of tastes. He recognized, certainly, the culinarian art when at its highest, but he did not fret for the want of it. Indeed, a dinner had to be of the most pronounced indifference – the meat rank, perhaps, the side dishes salty as sea, the bread very stale, and the sauces utterly congealed – before he would admit any remark. How might it be otherwise after years at Shrewsbury and then on campaign?

  'And so were you long kept in Badajoz, Colonel?' asked Juana, her accent in large part gone but still with the exaggerated aspirates of her native tongue.

  'A few weeks, ma'am. Not long, but it seemed longer.'

  She shook her head sympathetically. 'It is a place formidable.'

  Hervey did not feel much inclined to speak of his own discomfort at Badajoz, but knew he must be patient with one so well acquainted with the fortress-town. 'It was all a most distressing affair, concerning as it did two former allies.'

  'Oh, but I trust not just former allies,' said Juana, raising her eyebrows as she took a pleasurable sip of Sauternes, which was chilled so much as to bring a mist about the glass.

  Indeed, Hervey was not sure if she raised her eyebrows at his remark or the wine, but he would say 'amen' to her optimism. Perhaps it was for this reason that the Duke of Wellington, as soon as his new office had given him the power to do so, had recalled the force of intervention which Mr Canning had sent to Portugal the better part of two years ago, for trying to secure a peace between the two factions was as likely to end in the alienation of the victorious party as in earning its gratitude. And whatever the outcome of the Portuguese imbroglio, Spain would not be unmoved. 'Let us say that I should not like to have the Spanish guerrilleros on any side but my own!'

  Juana appeared to study him for a moment. 'You do know, Colonel, that I too am Spanish?'

  'Indeed I do, ma'am.'

  'And I claim a connection with Badajoz, for it was there that I met my husband.'

  Hervey smiled. He had wondered when, and quite how, it would out. 'Madam, I do not believe there is an officer in the old Peninsular army, nor many a private man either, that does not know of the circumstances of your meeting.'

  Juana returned the smile. 'You flatter us, Colonel Hervey. But tell me, were you at Badajoz – at the time of the siege?'

  Hervey nodded, gravely. 'I was. And – I speak plainly – I was never more proud of the bravery of our troops, nor yet so grieved by their conduct afterwards. I fancy you do not like to recall it much, either. An infamous episode.'

  He decided, however, that he would tell her the whole story of his part in the siege a decade and a half ago, and its 'Androclean' outcome but eighteen months ago.

  She listened, rapt. He told her how he had followed the storming divisions through the breaches and over the walls, how every regiment seemed to be without its officers, who had fallen in the van of the assault, and how some diabolic blood-lust then overcame those men, so that they fell upon the town and its wretched people like wild beasts. He told her how he had had to shoot a Connaught soldier who had despoiled a girl and slit her throat and had then tried to kill him, and how last year, when he had been taken prisoner in the confusion of the incipient civil war in Portugal, he had escaped from the fortress of Badajoz by the help of that very girl's father.

  He related all this knowing, too, that Juana's own rescue had been scarcely less dramatic. The protecting arms of a captain of Rifles, as Harry Smith then was, must indeed have been welcome, and marriage to him, within days, sweet. Well, it was amour courtois; amour en guerre. Except that seeing Juana and Harry Smith now, the looks between them, their mutual ease, it was evident that what might at first have been mariage urgent, was now a marriage of the very deepest affection. And he was at once both warmed and discomfited by it.

  After a plate of ackee, which neither of them had tasted before, Hervey turned to the wife of Colonel Bird, the colonial secretary. They were not unacquainted. He liked Bird, a shrewd and gentle man, to whom Colonel Somerset had frequently taken an open dislike (it was said partly on account of Bird's being a Catholic).

 
Mrs Bird, a woman in her fifties, and of maternal disposition, laid a hand on his forearm. 'I am sorry Mrs Hervey was unable to accompany you, Colonel. Her society would have been most welcome, especially now that Lady Somervile is to leave.'

  Hervey smiled indulgently. He understood how Mrs Bird must find Cape society somewhat confined and unvarying. In Bengal it had been different: although there the conventions were perhaps a good deal stricter, the society itself was also a good deal larger. 'I am afraid the fault is all mine, ma'am. My return here was somewhat precipitate, and it was not expedient for my wife – or indeed my daughter – to sail with me. And, you may know, my own assignment here with the Cape Rifles, and my troop of dragoons, will come to an end in the new year. So I am afraid it would not serve for them to make the passage at all, now.'

  'Well, my dear Colonel Hervey, I shall pray that you are all three restored to each other soon and in perfect health. Bird and I have had the great good fortune to spend the better part of our days in each other's company. It does not do, you know, to become too accustomed to these absences, although it is of course the lot of any of my sex that marries a soldier.'

  Hervey shifted awkwardly in his chair at the marital contentment on his either hand. He might have replied to Mrs Bird that it was the determination to accompany her husband that had killed his first wife, but he could not be so cruel (to her nor himself). 'Just so, ma'am,' he replied softly, instead.

  'And what do you do then, on return to England, Colonel?'

  He brightened at the opportunity to change the subject, before realizing he would be giving further evidence of marital imprudence. 'I go to the Levant, to observe the war with Turkey.' And then, as if a plea in mitigation, he added, 'But I do not suppose the war will last beyond the spring.'

  Mrs Bird nodded, and smiled understandingly. 'You are a young man, Colonel Hervey; you need to hear the sound of the guns. Bird was long ago reconciled to his calling with the quill.'

  After two curry dishes (fish and mutton), a bêche de mer, a savoury of guinea-fowl, Constantia wines of very fine vintage, and easy conversation, the ladies retired and the officers congregated at the head of the table. Port and brandy were brought, and then Jaswant ushered out the khitmagars and the Hottentots.

  'Well,' began Somervile, lighting a cigar with the silver grenade which Jaswant had placed on the table before himself retiring. 'This is a most felicitous gathering.'

  Hervey fancied he knew precisely what his old friend meant. General Bourke was absent on leave, and Colonel Somerset was absent on duty. There was therefore no impediment to his gathering together those he could trust for, if not exactly a council of war, then a council of something most hazardous. He supposed that Somervile might have had qualms about the presence of Colonel Smith, an upright, professional officer whose responsibilities as deputy quartermaster-general at the Cape would have him look to Bourke, the general officer commanding, rather than to the lieutenant-governor. Indeed, as the general's chief of staff, Colonel Smith was in a position to refuse all military assistance to the venture, and it occurred to Hervey that the Shakan conception might well be stillborn this very evening. He shrugged, pushed his chair back to extend his legs, and lit a cheroot.

  Somervile, having sent a small cloud of cigar smoke ceilingwards, gestured with his glass to the colonial secretary. 'Colonel, will you be good enough to tell these gallant officers assembled what it is that you and I have contemplated these past weeks – the cause of it, I mean.'

  Colonel Bird, sitting erect and with neither cigar nor glass to hand, bowed. 'I will, Sir Eyre,' he replied, crisply. 'Gentlemen,' (he glanced at each in turn) 'I first came to the Cape in eighteen hundred and seven, and in every year since then there has been trouble with the Kaffirs in the eastern settlements. Not ten years ago there was a most savage, if mercifully short, war – there is no other word to describe it – with the Xhosa. As a result of which the frontier was more thoroughly delineated, and to the advantage of peace. For a year or two the frontier was indeed quite settled, but it has of late – as I hardly need tell you – been troublesome.'

  Somervile interjected by waving his cigar at the assemblage. 'For which I will admit that the land grants in the Eastern Cape have been part cause. The settlers there in late years have too frequently been of a low sort; they have not abided by the terms of the grants, and there's cattle beyond the Great Fish River, where there should be none.'

  'Just so,' said Colonel Bird, nodding slowly but emphatically. 'The presence of cattle at the frontier, though no justification for the Xhosa raids of course, is a definite cause of the nuisance. Now, if I may address what might be the perfectly reasonable deduction that if we enforce the terms of the land grants, and rid the frontier of cattle, we will eliminate the Xhosa threat . . . Firstly, such a course would be difficult in the extreme. I do not say that it cannot, or should not, be done, but it would bring the government here in Cape-town into a most invidious and possibly bloody quarrel with the colonists – on whom we rely for militia service, I need hardly add. It would be bound to exacerbate, too, the already brittle relations with the burghers.'

  Somervile thrust his cigar out again. 'And the whole Dutch question is of course one that must constantly exercise the government here.'

  'The second reason,' (Colonel Bird's tone of voice changed to suggest something more discursive) 'is that it might be argued that the terms of the land grants were too restrictive in the first instance. Parliament cannot on the one hand encourage emigration to those wild parts, and on the other restrict the means of subsistence. It is the considered opinion of the lieutenant-governor that the terms are contrary to natural justice, and that they must soon be formally set aside.'

  'It is,' echoed Somervile. 'And although I cannot of course speak for Sir Lowry Cole, I confidently expect that very shortly I shall receive authorization from the War and Colonies Office to rescind the terms.'

  Hervey took another sip of his brandy. It seemed to him only right that a farmer be allowed to decide for himself what best to do with his land. But what was the object of all this? It appeared that Somervile intended a course which would bring the Xhosa to a fight. Did he wish to enlist Shaka's support?

  Somervile suddenly struck the table with his hand. 'Now, to the meat of the matter! It is my opinion, formed of the no little intelligence received, and' (he smiled) 'personal reconnaissance, that the cattle reiving is what I might call a constabulary affair – of no great moment, though undeniably vexing. It poses no threat to the general peace, nor is it necessarily prelude to hostilities of the kind Colonel Bird describes of ten years ago. No, gentlemen, that is not where the threat to the King's peace lies. It lies further east, towards Natal, and with the ambition of Shaka. He is the true cause of the unrest in Kaffraria.'

  And for close on an hour, Somervile expounded on his 'colonial stratagem', and his design for the embassy to King Shaka Zulu.

  IX

  A GOOD JUDGE OF HORSEFLESH

  Next morning

  A fresh south-easterly was whipping up a swell as Serjeant-Major Armstrong descended to the lighter waiting to take him to the East Indiaman Surat. In this wind, she would get out of the bay without a steam tug, and with not too much work with canvas. Hervey was glad of it; a laboured farewell would be yet another trial for his old NCO friend.

  Armstrong turned to look back one more time. Hervey touched the peak of his forage cap, and then Armstrong braced himself, and set his eyes resolutely to seaward, as the lighter cast off.

  Hervey watched until it rounded Surat's stern, and out of sight, before turning back for the castle.

  Colonel Smith was standing a few feet away.

  Hervey saluted in the gentlemanlike manner of officers of the same rank – not so very different from the way he had said farewell to Armstrong.

  Colonel Smith returned the salute, and inclined his head. 'Tell me, Hervey; I am intrigued.'

  'My serjeant-major. His wife died when I was in England.'

 
; 'Your bringing him to his ship tells me much.'

  'We have been in the same troop since I was a cornet.'

  Colonel Smith nodded.

  'And you?'

  'To say farewell to a King's messenger, an old friend.'

  'Ah, yes; he was in the lighter too.'

  Colonel Smith hesitated. 'What do you do now?'

  'I . . . I think I shall probably go and see what maps there are in the castle. Of Natal, and the Zulus' country.'

  Colonel Smith was a severe-looking man, but his face softened just perceptibly. 'I am going to a stud near Eerste River to see a saddle horse. If you would spare me the time, Hervey, I should esteem your advice – a second eye and such like. And there are certain matters touching on what the lieutenant-governor spoke of last night. I would likewise have your opinion.'

  Hervey scarcely needed to consider it: the diversion would be welcome. 'I shall be glad to. But I will join you there, if I may. I must first see Edward Fairbrother on a pressing matter.'