A Close Run Thing

by Allan Mallinson

  ‘Shot by me on Summer Down this last week,’ said Coates with evident pride as Hervey remarked on its tenderness. ‘And when dinner is finished I’ll show you the means by which I dropped her.’

  That morning’s ride had given them both prodigious appetites, and it was not until a custard of some size had come and gone that Coates revealed the means by which he had taken the venison, fetching from the hall an ordinary-looking carbine. ‘It’s not what it seems, though –well, not what you might think,’ he explained.

  ‘Rifled?’ suggested Hervey.

  ‘Ay, that, too,’ said Coates, delving into a leather bag and pulling out a cartridge that looked longer than usual. ‘This here is powder and bullet, and it’s fired by an initiator in the base – I mean a cap which gives off an igniting spark when this pin here strikes it,’ he continued, pointing to the firing pin. ‘The pin’s held in this block,’ he continued, ‘and is struck by a cocking hammer – see?’

  Hervey did see, and quickly enough: ‘A breech-loader? I had heard there were such but never saw one before.’

  ‘The breech-loader is nothing new – we had ’em in America!’ Coates laughed. ‘They had their problems – they were slow, for a start – but instead of trying to improve them the Ordnance gave up! You see, you can lie down, behind cover, and load one of these easy enough. You can’t very well with a muzzle-loader.’

  ‘But I have never heard of this initiator,’ said Hervey, still puzzled.

  ‘That is the most significant part – more so merely than breech-loading. The piece is called a percussion lock. Come, see.’

  They went to the paddock beyond the stables where Coates handed him both carbine and cartridge-bag. ‘Try it first and then I shall tell you the story of how I came by it,’ he said, lifting the hinged firing mechanism at the point where stock and butt met, and placing a cartridge in the breech for him. ‘You pull back the hammer – it locks itself back, see? There’s a safety catch here, too – and then the trigger releases the hammer just like a flintlock. No exterior spark – nothing. And the cartridges are waterproof, too, made of goldbeaters’ skin.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Well, not strict as: goldbeaters’ skin is from ox gizzards. These are sheepgut; I make ’em myself.’

  Hervey tried the carbine, firing at a tree a hundred yards distant and watching with satisfaction as pieces of bark flew off with some velocity. Coates even dropped several cartridges into a bucket of water, and these fired instantly, too. It took only a fraction of the time to reload that it would a loose charge, and the accuracy compared well with the Baker service rifle.

  ‘Dan, such a weapon – it is astounding. Tell me how you came of it.’

  ‘From a minister of the Kirk, would you believe!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Reverend Alexander Forsyth, doctor of divinity no less, the minister in Margaret’s village near Aberdeen. He made it in his own workshop! And you know what, Matthew? He took it to the Board of Ordnance, and they said they had no use for it! No use! Bonaparte had use for it right enough – offered him twenty thousand pounds for the secret. But he would not sell it, so the Ordnance have promised him a pension for keeping silent! He now has a shop in London – sporting-guns and the like.’

  ‘Yes, Forsyth’s in Piccadilly – I saw it only days ago! So this is from London?’

  ‘No, he has no permit to sell them yet. This I made myself after he’d shown me the principle!’

  ‘Dan, at every river in Spain it was the same – the Devil’s own job just to keep powder and fire-locks dry. Then we would have to prove the carbines although we were meant to be scouting: you risked either giving yourself away or a misfire when you least needed it. I’ve seen every carbine in a troop flash in the pan so.’

  ‘Well, the carbine is yours, Matthew – I have a pair. There’s no reason why you should not have dry powder at least. Though, now that Bonaparte is done for, His Majesty’s Ordnance will no doubt consider it timely to make it a general issue!’

  * * *

  The next morning, before seven, Hervey drove with his mother into Warminster for the Saturday fair, where she bought turbot and lobster fresh-caught from Weymouth. On settling for the fish, as had been her routine for as many years as he could remember, she took a letter for her sister in Hereford to the letter office in the high street, and afterwards they drove home, returning to the vicarage before nine. Each way she spoke of little but Henrietta Lindsay – how fine a lady she was grown, what society she kept, how distinguished a peer was her guardian, the marquess, and on what close terms Henrietta and Elizabeth had remained. She urged him to pay her a call at Longleat that day, and lamented that she had not the servants to ask her to dine with them at the vicarage. What thoughts Hervey entertained in that direction he now sought hard to conceal; for, much that he might look forward keenly to meeting once again the sparkling child whose schoolroom in Longleat House he had once shared, he knew that both the years and the society in which she moved must place a distance between them. No, he insisted politely, and to his mother’s consternation, he would wait a little while more before calling. Instead, when they had breakfasted, he took out his new bay, intending to put the gelding through its paces in Longleat Park.

  The yeomanry were being put through their paces in the park also. Hervey saw them from some distance as he rode towards the deer enclosure, and first impressions of their manoeuvring were of handiness. He knew well enough the difficulties with which the volunteers were beset – largely the want of anyone to train them, since all the regulars had been sent to the Indies or Spain, or to Ireland or the coast at the supposed invasion-points. He halted fifty yards or so from them as they drew up in double rank on the edge of a piece of open ground which evidently served as their drill field.

  ‘Telling off, by files, number!’ began the troop serjeant-major. The words of command were somewhat eccentric, not strictly the Dundas manual, but effective none the less. But then the serjeant-major began telling off by sub-divisions, and after that by quarter-ranks. The process seemed interminable, and to what end Hervey could scarcely imagine: had they been militia there might have been some benefit in numbering aloud (for many a militiaman would not have been able to count beyond a dozen), but there hardly seemed the need in the solid citizens of the yeomanry.

  Beyond the troop was a vocal gathering – several carriages and half a dozen blades astride quality horses, the kind of group that assembled anywhere the military paraded. And, if these yeomen troopers had not the edge in drilling that the regulars had, they were a diverting enough sight to any who would admire a fine uniform. Indeed, Hervey began to wonder at whose expense they had been clothed: the fur-crested Tarleton would have cost double, perhaps treble, the new shako. Whoever had paid was also of an independent mind, he concluded, for the plume was still in what he presumed must be the yeomanry’s facing colour – blue – rather than the national white over red to which other corps had changed a decade before. He could not but admire the skirted, tailless blue dolman jackets, slightly longer than the new-pattern coat which his own regiment wore. And he noted with approval that the jackets were worn with just a sword-belt and snake-fastening instead of with the barrelled girdle which used to be popular: this way their belts would be kept tight even if the effect were not as eye-catching. But it was clear that in white breeches and boots these men were not meant for serious field service, for overalls were what anyone who spent whole days in the saddle would choose.

  His eye moved to the drill ground, where two parallel rails, set on posts about four feet high and painted white, ran for fifty yards down the middle of the open area, and to which the troop was drawn up at a right-angle. The rails were about three feet apart and, at intervals of ten yards, and three feet from the rails on both sides, there were posts about the height of a man, on each of which was fixed a sheaf of straw. It was much like any cavalry skill-at-arms field, but the rails gave it more the look of the medieval tiltyard. By Hervey’s rec
koning, two troopers would gallop towards each other, safely separated by the rails, and in a backhand cut would slice the sheaves. Indeed, he would soon have a demonstration, for the first pair were trotting out to their starting positions – two corporals, the chevrons on their sleeves larger even than a regular’s.

  They began their approach at a trot, and he judged that they would go forward to canter at the start of the rails and then gallop a couple of lengths before the posts. To his astonishment, however, they maintained the trot throughout, and – worse – they simply held out their swords to cut at the sheaves with forehand swipes. Even at that modest pace, however, it should have been possible to cut them, but the swords were so blunt that they knocked all but one off the posts. The corporals seemed pleased with their demonstration nevertheless, as did their officer, the same pallid lieutenant of the Imber road. Hervey groaned. There then followed a ponderous half-hour while the thirty or so troopers went through these same evolutions. Why he stayed was uncertain. Perhaps he hoped for some redeeming feature of drill before the parade was over; but there was not, and he was puzzled why. If it were too much to expect these volunteers to learn to cut at the gallop (and he would be the first to acknowledge the skill in that manoeuvre), surely it were better then to point with the sword and quicken the pace? But, without anyone of experience to drill them, how might such a practical solution be advanced?

  ‘Good morning, my fine fellow; so you are taken by the sight of regimentals, eh?’

  Wrapped in his thoughts, Hervey had not noticed the lieutenant ride up to him.

  ‘Well, you look as though you could be made to sit well and be useful with a sword. Want to try your hand on the gallops?’

  Hervey could but stare at the lieutenant’s leg, stretched in regulation fashion, the very tip of the toe, only, in the stirrup, and it took the greatest effort to suppress his smile at the word gallops. A less appropriate one he would have found difficult to imagine, and, in the face of such delusion, laughter was tempting in the extreme. ‘I thank you, no,’ he managed instead.

  ‘Oh, now, come: there is nothing to be afraid of. My men will applaud your efforts, be what may.’

  Had this milksop assailed him with any kindness, then he might have hesitated, but the lofty treatment of Daniel Coates on the Imber road the day before sealed it. Now was the time for Lieutenant Hugo Styles, the slightly too corpulent leader of men, to learn a little humility. ‘Very well, then,’ Hervey conceded.

  Oh, to have Jessye, or Nero, or even a troop horse! But he knew this little gelding, though green, had a turn of speed, and he guessed that with a strong leg he would not shy at another horse bearing down. He wished he were wearing a shorter coat, not his father’s long grey one; but this, too, was beyond amendment, and he contented himself instead by shortening his stirrups two holes. One initiative he might take, however, was to find a sharp enough sword. He declined the first one offered and rode over instead to the only yeoman whose sabre had cut cleanly. Styles eyed him quizzically. The lieutenant of yeomanry may even have begun to have second thoughts as he himself rode to the other end of the gallop, two hundred yards distant. But there he drew his sword with an exaggerated flourish, and his chestnut thoroughbred, an entire, began prancing and snorting. The serjeant-major gave the signal, and Styles plunged forward, containing the charger in a steady canter only with difficulty.

  Hervey was not without his difficulties, too, as his young horse began bucking, but he managed to get him back into his hands and thence to a goodish canter – and then gallop – and closed with the posts before Styles had even reached the check rails. But instead of running down the outside of his posts he went between them and the rails. Ignoring his own sheaves, and leaning far out of the saddle and stretching over the parallel rails, he sliced each of Styles’s cleanly with economical backhand cuts. At the end of the rails he turned the gelding on its quarters and, with Styles shouting after him incomprehensibly, galloped back down the line on the outside of the posts, slicing each of his own sheaves equally cleanly with neat backhand cuts to the nearside.

  The troop’s acclamation was immediate but just as quickly silenced by Styles’s rage: ‘What the deuce d’ye think yer playing at! Who the deuce d’ye think ye are!’

  Hervey, who made no reply, had not noticed one of the open carriages drive up to them, and nor had Styles, whose language was rapidly becoming that of the proverbial trooper. Its occupant, a young woman of obvious fashion, with dark tresses and large eyes the colour of the yeomanry’s mid-blue facings, knew exactly who Styles’s recruit was.

  ‘Hugo, this is Cornet Matthew Hervey of the Sixth Light Dragoons, just back from France,’ she said with some solemnity, but with the suggestion of a smile, too. ‘Have you not met?’

  Hervey was taken aback, though he did not at first see the full import of that recognition. Poor Styles, he thought – not only distressed (humiliated was perhaps too strong a word) in front of his troop, but in front of a lady with whom evidently he had some connection. He could hardly take satisfaction in that.

  Styles struggled visibly to bring his rage under control as he turned and saluted the carriage. ‘Good morning, Lady Henrietta,’ he spluttered, and, turning to Hervey, he bowed slightly: ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir.’ But it carried no conviction.

  Hervey was at once mortified by the discovery of who occupied the carriage. Much though he had contemplated the manner of his re-acquaintance with Henrietta Lindsay, he could never have imagined this. She would, he felt sure, think his display showy and vulgar, and would be angered by the discomposing of Styles. He raised his hat but could find no words, not even a commonplace greeting. He might not, indeed, have recognized her at any casual meeting, but a second or so’s study of her eyes left him in no doubt. His stomach heaved and his head swam.

  But how had she recognized him?

  ‘Have you not read of Mr Hervey in the Miscellany?’ she asked Styles with what seemed mock surprise.

  ‘I have not seen the Miscellany yet,’ Styles replied coolly.

  ‘Why, indeed, it is printed this very morning, and up with the latest news. Here, let me read you a little.

  ‘“Matthew Hervey, Esquire, the only son of the Reverend Thomas Hervey, Vicar of Horningsham, has lately returned from the French war in which he has been nobly serving as a cornet in His Majesty’s 6th Light Dragoons. Mr Hervey accompanied his corps to Spain soon after the commencement of Lord Wellington’s campaign and has seen much fighting in the four years thence. It is understood that this gallant officer will remain in the district upon furlough for some two months before returning to the Dragoons who are to be garrisoned in Ireland.”’

  Styles glowered, and Hervey shifted uneasily in the saddle.

  ‘And what do you think of our yeomanry’s appearance, Mr Hervey?’ she added.

  ‘Very fine, very fine indeed, madam,’ he replied. If she had chosen the word appearance in order to restore the wretched Styles’s self-esteem (and she had a look that said she might), then he did not wish to risk any discourtesy by a critical remark. In any case, his reply was honest enough if by appearance she meant only their fine uniforms.

  ‘And do you not agree with Miss Austen that there is nothing finer than the volunteers in their regimentals?’

  ‘I do not know Miss Austen, ma’am,’ replied Hervey, puzzled.

  ‘You do not know of Jane Austen?’ Her incredulity again had the ring of mock surprise. ‘Miss Austen is our foremost authoress,’ she explained, holding up a small volume. ‘Pride and Prejudice, Mr Hervey, published only recently. It tells of how the militia win the hearts of the ladies when they come into the district.’

  Hervey confessed that neither had he heard of the title.

  ‘Upon my word, Mr Hervey! You are not so conceited a regular as to disdain the affairs of the volunteers?’ she chided.

  ‘No, madam,’ he stammered back, ‘not at all. I—’

  ‘Then, do permit me to read some,’ she interrupted
. ‘Miss Austen is so keen an observer of human nature. Here, I have it.’ She leafed through several pages until a little smile of triumph overcame her. ‘I must first tell you, Mr Hervey, that the book’s heroines are five sisters of singular intellect and sensibility, but all are enraptured by the presence of the militia officers – just as our own yeomanry steal the hearts of all they meet. Now, here is what she writes: “They could talk of nothing but officers; and Mr Bingley’s large fortune” – Mr Bingley is a coarse-bred sort, Mr Hervey, much given to show’ (she smiled, but her continuing irony eluded him – how was he to know Bingley’s true character? – and he presumed this to be some sort of rebuke) – ‘“Mr Bingley’s large fortune, the mention of which gave animation to their mother, was worthless in their eyes when opposed to the regimentals of an ensign.”’

  Hervey felt the deep water into which he had stumbled about to close over him. Here again was the mocking child of the schoolroom, of the fallen tree and the captured hat. The message was as clear as it might be: she indeed thought little of his show, and the yeomanry were as close as she chose to come to the profession of soldiering. ‘Forgive me, madam,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘but I must be away. It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance.’

  Even as he spoke he thought the words absurd, but he was angry that she had enabled Styles, this pompous ass of an ornamental officer, to reinflate himself. But, more, he had made her re-acquaintance in such a manner as to appear both brash and artless. As he trotted away he knew they would be laughing, and great was his relief when, out of sight beyond the trees, he could spur into a gallop.

  He stayed a long time in the stable rubbing the gelding down, cleaning saddlery, filling hay-racks – anything, in fact, which might distract his thoughts from the encounter in the park. It was a full hour before he felt ready to go inside. ‘Matthew,’ began his sister the moment he did, and with the air of someone about to impart good news, ‘we are to dine with Lord Bath this evening.’