Henrietta had spent the day writing letters to those with whom she was on calling terms, to inform them of her new quarters. These were small but comfortable, in a terrace near the heath, with a coach house to the rear and a well-tended garden. She had been content, but now she was not at all pleased.
Hervey promised it was strict necessity. ‘I have to have the troop out for a night. None of them seems to remember when last they did anything in the dark, and with the major general threatening to put us all through some scheme or other instead of just a review next week, there’s really no time to be lost.’
‘You will not be gone more than a night? I don’t much care for this place on my own.’
He assured her he would be back by the time she was breakfasting. ‘Have you taken against the house?’
‘No, not the house,’ she said, shaking her head.
‘Then what?’
‘I just do not like our being parted so soon.’
‘My darling, you would not have me sit at home when I know that my troop is in need of turning out?’ He pulled the bell rope.
She shook her head. ‘I told you at Longleat, Matthew. When you go away, I have a presentiment of your not coming back.’
Their manservant was at the door. Hervey smiled at him. ‘That will be all for the evening, Hanks. I shall not be home tomorrow. Please be especially attentive to the shutters and locks.’
When Hanks had gone, Henrietta poured more tea. ‘How important is Private Johnson to your nocturnals?’
Hervey looked at her curiously. If only he could tell her of Johnson in the Pyrenees, on Waterloo eve, or the night in the forest at Jhansikote. ‘He is indispensable!’
She frowned again, and Hervey saw her intention. ‘You mean you would feel more secure were Johnson in the house?’
‘If he’s indispensable then it is of no matter.’
‘You think you might hold him hostage to my return?’
‘You would have no harsh choices to make if he were here! Although Jessye, of course, is some miles away.’ The smile was now fully returned, for Henrietta was pleased with her tease.
‘Then you shall have him,’ Hervey replied, teasing her in turn with the impression of giving it careful thought. ‘And he would certainly prefer it to beating about the heath, especially if this rain continues.’
‘But you said he was indispensable!’
‘Perhaps I should have said that I wouldn’t be without him when the time came.’
She furrowed her brow. ‘You are funny. You are so certain of things. I could never be afraid if you were at hand.’
‘You mistake me there, my love. I’m certain of just a very few things to do with soldiery – learned the hard way, I might add. But beyond that . . .’
‘Shall you tell me of them?’
That surprised him. ‘Tell you of soldiery?’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, I . . .’
‘You have never spoken of it!’
He had never spoken of it because it had never occurred to him to do so. It was one thing to like pretty uniforms and bands, quite another to be interested in their purpose. It was true that many a fashionable female would try to get a view of a battle, safe on a hilltop, but he had never met any who wished to speak of war. What a month it had been, and what a change there came in things when lovers shared at last the secrets of the marriage bed. How differently they looked to each other, and others to them. How differently they spoke, and of what things (which sometimes the morning would blush to hear). And now Henrietta would have him speak of things so wholly beyond her comprehension that he feared she might loathe a part of what he did. But they daily became more intimate, whether by a look, a word or a caress, and so he must trust now in what she had said about there being no secrets.
They sat late into the night talking. He began with thoughts, and then, secure in her estimation as he had never been before, he told her at last of deeds. He told her all that had ever troubled him – or as much as she would permit, for once or twice she stopped him and said with great tenderness that she did not have to know any more. They retired well after midnight, after some of the candles had given out, but they slept little.
It rained all next day. Hervey and Barrow were together in A Troop office ruing the weather, while outside, some distance away at the guardroom, the orderly trumpeter was struggling with the semiquavers below the staff for afternoon defaulters. A knock at the office door covered his final C, which cracked as he overblew, trying to be heard above the torrents.
‘Come!’ called Hervey, hoping it might be Johnson with something hot. But it was only the squadron subalterns come to ask if the scheme were still to be had, at which Hervey looked at his fellow captain and smiled. ‘Nothing so bad, d’ye suppose, as that day in –’ He could have said any number of places in Spain, sluiced top to toe with water colder than ice, but instead he chose to include them all, ‘– before Waterloo.’
Barrow nodded, but could not quite forbear to humble the lieutenants and cornets by saying that neither would there be lance-points pricking at them through the rain. They left sheepishly, no doubt to repeat the admonitions when they in turn received the enquiry from their juniors. When they had gone, Barrow declared that their concerns had been proper enough: the weather would take its toll of the men’s uniforms, and with the major general’s inspection so close it would mean more expense and trouble. In truth, Hervey had already been minded to abandon the scheme, but, on the other hand, so torrential a downpour – especially if it continued during the night – would test the squadron more than any general could. It would reveal what he must do in the short time before the inspection.
And so, in the middle of the following morning, they left the barracks, marched on parallel lines of advance to Chobham Common, throwing out scouts for five miles along the River Ash, finding fords and swimming points, and eventually occupied a vidette line on Oystershell Ridge at last light.
At midnight, Hervey and Barrow rode the line, finding varying degrees of vigilance, and at dawn they began a rearguard which took them back again to the river. There they picketed its bridges, ‘blowing’ them and retiring in the face of the ‘enemy’, and then galloped to seize them again. They proved their carbines soon after (the old hands largely with success, the young ones largely without), then Hervey and Barrow inspected every shoe, and were agreeably taken by the permanence of the farriery.
The rain had continued throughout the night with little respite, but it had stopped after first light. The sun soon had men and horses steaming before even the final gallop, so that if spirits had been at their lowest ebb before the false dawn, they were restored by the time Hervey’s trumpeter blew ‘cease firing’ just after nine. And those restored spirits were lifted still further when, after a short trot to the Red Maid at Bedfont, the quartermaster-serjeants turned out a warm bran mash for the troopers, and tea, rum, beef and potatoes for the dragoons.
On the ride back to Hounslow, Hervey and Barrow gave each other their opinions of the work. For the most part, Hervey’s estimation of B Troop was favourable, but Barrow’s of A Troop was markedly less so.
‘You’ve some clewed-up corporals,’ he said. ‘And Armstrong’s price’s beyond reck’ning, but it’s that serjeant-major of yours. Kendall just hasn’t the zeal for a troop, and it gets to the men. You need rid of him, and quickly.’
There was much else besides, little of it agreeable, so that stables was a muted affair when they got back to Hounslow; though Hervey’s dragoons seemed pleased enough, brightened by the exercise and the encouraging words he had managed to find to finish his otherwise critical peroration at stand-down.
He left the barracks an hour before watch-setting. He was late for dinner – very much later than he had anticipated – and he was discouraged by how unhandy the troop had become since Paris. If only the fourth piece of tape could be Armstrong’s instead of Kendall’s. He resolved to make it his first objective with Lord Towcester. And betw
een now and the major general’s inspection he would have to use every spare minute to lick his troop into shape. And all he would have to do it with was the sand-table and his imagination.
Henrietta was already reconciled to the lateness of the hour, and she listened tolerantly to her husband as he scarcely drew breath while recounting the battle of Chobham Common, bidding her stay even as he took his bath, and then denying his hunger to explain how he intended arranging things better for Thursday’s inspection. She had long since dismissed her servants, and arranged a sideboard that would not greatly deteriorate by the hour: braised crab, fig-peckers, cheese, strawberries and claret.
‘Come,’ she insisted, when Hervey had said he would take only a minute or so to dress. ‘Put on your gown and come to eat. I have something to tell you.’ She kissed him on the lips, smiling conspiratorially, and led him to the dining room.
He took in the sideboard with some delight, if also with dismay, for while the champagne he had been sipping was an extravagance he might justify as a reward for his exertions, their supper seemed rather more than he deserved, or, indeed, could rightly afford.
‘Well, what is it which prevents my dressing?’ he teased, as he spooned some crab onto her plate.
‘Private Johnson is a very good sort,’ Henrietta began. ‘He spoke very freely, you know. He was not in the least bit ill at ease.’
Hervey smiled. He could well imagine it.
‘He told me that things are not at all happy in the barracks.’
‘But I told you that.’
‘But do you know that your Serjeant Armstrong’s wife has been teaching in the regimental school? Running it by all accounts, since the regular teacher is ill.’
Hervey knew that, too. ‘But how does this make for unhappiness?’
‘Because Lord Towcester, when he learned of who she was, declared he would not have a papist – and an Irish papist at that – teaching the regiment’s children. Except that he apparently used words altogether too coarse to repeat.’
Hervey put down his knife and fork. Caithlin Armstrong was a well-read woman. He himself had introduced her to Greek. The regiment’s children would find no kinder or cleverer teacher – at least, for the modest outlay it was prepared to make. ‘I wonder that Serjeant Armstrong has not spoken of it.’ He sighed, a little bruised.
‘He has too strong a regard for you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that he would not wish you to risk Lord Towcester’s wrath when there is quite evidently little chance of his changing his mind.’
Hervey looked at Henrietta for a few moments, contemplating the suggestion. ‘What do you think? Is it so foul a thing that the children be taught by a Catholic?’
Henrietta did not answer at once, having achieved her purpose in alerting him to the news he would soon hear, while warning him against precipitate action. ‘Your Duke of Wellington would say so.’
Hervey was not so sure of that proposition; the duke’s views were sundry in the matter of Ireland. ‘How do you know?’
‘My guardian dined with him last year, and he was root and branch against removing the Penal Laws there.’
Hervey realized he had strayed from the point. ‘But I first asked what you thought, my dear.’
‘Matthew, she is Irish, of the meanest sort. How can you presume her loyalty in all things?’
‘But plenty of Irishmen have spilled their lifeblood for England these past twenty years.’
‘And she is a Catholic. What sort of notions might she fill the children’s heads with?’
‘Oh, Henrietta – dearest! You don’t suppose she would teach them that their parents are all damned to hell?’
‘I don’t suppose anything, Matthew. All I suggest is that with two such grounds for anxiety, Lord Towcester might be said to have just cause to be cautious.’
Hervey saw that yet again she had skilfully evaded his question. ‘You have still not given me your opinion, truly!’
‘Ah!’ she smiled. ‘My opinion is that Caithlin O’Mahoney – Caithlin Armstrong – is a very dangerous woman. Look at the trouble she caused in Cork!’
Hervey went bright red and almost stammered. ‘That is very unfair – on all of us!’
‘Matthew, sweetest, I only tease!’ Her smile revealed it, too.
He picked up a crab claw to compose himself. ‘Then tell me what is your true opinion.’
‘Why do you wish to know? My opinion cannot count for anything in such an affair.’
The crab claw shattered noisily, failing in the purpose for which Hervey had taken it up. ‘Why should a man not want his wife’s opinion?’ He was tired and Henrietta was trying him, for some reason or other. It was not the soldier’s welcome he had hoped for. ‘Why should a wife wish to withhold it, indeed?’
‘Because’ – Henrietta drew out the second syllable as if to emphasize her own dismay in his lack of perception – ‘she might be afraid of what her husband would do as a consequence. I mean, Matthew, that if I say I approve of Caithlin Armstrong you will feel obliged – doubly obliged – to take things up with Lord Towcester. And I doubt that this would be . . . felicitous. You think I do not understand your character sufficiently?’
‘But you would surely want me to do what was right? You wouldn’t want me to say nothing just in case I called down the wrath of the lieutenant colonel?’
Henrietta frowned. ‘Oh Matthew, my darling, it is not so simple as that, is it? You of all people know that to fight a battle when there is no chance of success is . . .’ She seemed to be wondering how to finish her challenge.
‘Contra jus ad bellum?’
She smiled. ‘If it is so, then it strengthens my point.’
He sighed heavily. ‘Very well, then. I shall say nothing. I shall speak with Serjeant Armstrong, though, and try to find out if there is more. It’s my intention anyway to speak with Lord Towcester to get a fourth stripe for Armstrong.’
‘Then you must weigh things in the balance very keenly,’ said Henrietta, sounding wise. ‘For his promotion is surely worth more to them than the few shillings the schoolroom would bring. Yes, I know what you will say,’ she added quickly, seeing him make to protest, ‘but let the Armstrongs be able to afford their pride before standing on it.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
TAKING THE FIELD
Hounslow Barracks, a few days later
The major general commanding the London district was a shrewd man. He knew all there was to know about the interior economy of a regiment, and likewise its drill, but all of this knowledge he had gained in the brigades of foot guards. Of cavalry regiments he knew nothing beyond what they had in common with the infantry, which was not a very great deal. He knew what to look for in a horse, as did any general officer. But he was all too aware that Waterloo light dragoons would demand a careful eye. He had therefore assembled a small inspecting staff of officers from the cavalry and horse artillery, under the command of a Waterloo veteran lately promoted colonel. And a month or so before, he had set the colonel the task of devising a scheme by which the Sixth’s handiness in the field might be tested.
On the day of the inspection, General Browning and his staff rode into the barracks promptly at ten o’clock.
‘General salute; prese-e-ent arms!’ Lord Towcester’s voice carried easily across the closed parade square.
The officers’ sabres lowered to the present just a fraction ahead of the lieutenant colonel’s guidon – as was proper – and the trumpeters, dismounted, sounded the first five bars of the lieutenant general’s salute, as was a major general’s due.
The commanding officer trotted up to General Browning on his blood chestnut to inform him that 467 officers and men of the 6th Light Dragoons were ready and awaiting his inspection. The general nodded in acknowledgement and then reined his charger left to begin his ride down the double rank of dragoons, as the band struck up airs from Figaro, reported to be his favourite opera.
The real work of the
administrative inspection had been completed the day before, when the staff had examined every ledger and given every private man the opportunity to raise any grievance. They had found the Sixth to be in good order, and there had been no notices of grievance. The deputy assistant adjutant general – a major of the Coldstream – had reported to the general that the regiment seemed somewhat sullen compared with when he had seen them last in Belgium, but added that there had been so many new recruits that perhaps it was not too surprising that they should lack the old confidence. General Browning was alert to the point, however, and as he rode along the front rank he too thought the men’s eyes lacked just that something he had seen so often in the eyes of light cavalry – a special sort of alertness, eagerness perhaps. Well, he was confident that Colonel Freke Smyth would find out right enough when he put them through their paces on Chobham Common. Then he would know whether he had a regiment he could rely on. For he could not rid himself of the doubt, one way or other, that nagged him still about the affair in Skinner Street: the death of a young cornet in his district (and the Duke of Huntingdon’s son, too) was not something that went easily with him.
After he had gone up and down the ranks the general complimented the commanding officer on the fine appearance of his men. Then the regiment rode past their inspecting officer in troops, first at the walk and then at the trot, wheeling and giving ‘eyes right’ as pleasingly as Browning would have wished to see in his foot guards.
‘Be so good as to have the trumpet-major sound “officers”, Lord Towcester, if you please,’ the general said when he had dismissed the parade.
‘All officers, my lord?’ asked the trumpet-major, saluting as he drove his right foot down at the halt.
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