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.
Johnson was now about thirty-seven years old (the details of his birth were not recorded comprehensively), a year Hervey’s senior, a single man still, with no home but that of the 6th Light Dragoons, which some were still pleased to call ‘Princess Caroline’s Own’ although the title had long since been officially withdrawn out of deference to the Prince Regent, now King George IV. Johnson was a contented man, on the whole, given to speaking his mind, not always with optimism but unfailingly with honesty and absolute loyalty. He had joined the Sixth before the Peninsular campaign, a boy of fifteen-ish, lately of a Hallamshire orphanage and the Barmby Furscoe deep coal mine. Twice, when fire damp had ignited, and the explosion had brought down the roof, Johnson had been buried along with the pit pony he had been leading, and so after the second explosion, two months before Trafalgar, he had joined the army, certain that it must be an altogether healthier and safer occupation. His subterranean connection with equines had led him into the ranks of the Sixth rather than to the infantry’s recruiting serjeant, though at that time there was more enlistment money to be had for a red coat than for a blue one.
Johnson had refused any promotion in the two decades since then, which seniority alone should have brought him (although he was not entirely without merit for corporal), convinced as he was that the extra duties and responsibilities were not worth the additional pay. In any case, he was content with his billet, so to speak, and the intimacy – the increasing intimacy – with the man to whom he had been groom for near a decade and a half. When Henrietta had died (he had been devoted to her in very high degree) he had left the colours in order to remain with ‘his’ officer; and when Hervey had rejoined the Sixth a year or so later, he had rejoined too without demur even though he was exchanging an agreeable life in a pleasant Wiltshire village for the uncertainty of one in the cantonments of East Bengal. As commanding officer’s orderly now, although ‘acting’ because Hervey himself was acting in that appointment, he enjoyed a position of some prestige, elevated above the ranks while still ‘Private’ Johnson, beyond the effective reach of any NCO since none would wish to incur the proxy wrath of the commanding officer, and yet with no responsibility beyond that which he had shouldered these past years attending to Cornet, now Acting-Major, Matthew Hervey.
Hervey handed Gilbert’s reins to him, and Johnson in turn handed them to Private Toyne.
‘There’s an express for thee, sir.’
Hervey froze. ‘From Wiltshire?’
‘Ay, sir.’ Johnson’s tone was subdued. He knew that no one sent good news express; not that anyone had ever sent him an express.
Hervey knew it too: For evil news rides post, while good news baits. He breathed deeply. ‘Who has it?’
‘Adjutant, sir.’
It was a mark of the gravity of the news that Johnson was being punctilious in the formality of his address, and it did not escape its hearer. ‘Do you know what it says?’
Johnson was surprised: Hervey must know that an express from Wiltshire, especially one held by the adjutant for his commanding officer, would not be revealed to a mere private man, for all the elevated position of his officer. Yet he continued evenly in his reply. ‘No, sir, I don’t.’
‘Very well. You’d better come with me to orderly room. There might be need of … I might have need of you.’
Ordinarily Johnson would have protested at such an invitation. Regimental headquarters was no place to be when the commanding officer was dispensing summary justice to defaulters, which was what the day’s Routine Orders said was to follow on the morning’s drill. But he fell in behind Hervey without a word.
Hervey was not relishing this aspect of orderly room either. The Sixth, by long custom, did not ‘touch over’, as the rank and file, with delicacy, referred to flogging. Not, at least, flogging on the square, with triangle and cat and the whole regiment paraded to witness punishment. A light-fingered dragoon, or a laggard, might find himself sentenced by a ‘barrack-room court martial’, presided over by the oldest soldier, to a good strapping, sometimes on the soles of his feet. But however humane the regiment’s practice, the threat of flogging remained, for if the offence were grave a man might be remanded for a district, rather than a regi-mental, court martial; and since that court would invariably consist of officers from other regiments whose scruples might not be the same as the Sixth’s in the matter of corporal punishment, the lash did indeed sometimes ‘touch over’ a dragoon. And it was not always within a commanding officer’s discretion. The civil authorities had a right to jurisdiction for non-military offences, and where that was surrendered to the military, the courts would frequently insist on condign punishment.
‘Atte-e-enshun!’ bellowed the regimental serjeant-major as Hervey (and Johnson) entered the Sixth’s smart, new, brick-built headquarters. The RSM’s mirror-like leather and silver belied his morning’s industry, for although he had not attended the field day, remaining in barracks instead to prepare for a proper orderly room, his feet had trodden every quarter of the lines, where his eye had alighted on legionary instances of dereliction of duty, and his bark had set reverberating the spines of the rear details.
Hervey passed him by with a courteous ‘Good morning, Sarn’t-major’, but otherwise with a certain detachment, as befitted the commanding officer before orderly room. And in that form of address – ‘Sarn’t-major’ – Hervey also displayed a proprie
torial right, for by long custom the regimental serjeant-major was addressed as ‘Mr’ by all but the colonel and lieutenant-colonel. When the rank of quartermaster was replaced by that of troop serjeant-major halfway through the campaign in the Peninsula, ‘Sarn’t-major’ was on the lips of every troop officer. There had never been cause for confusion or abashment, however, for although there were now eight ‘sarn’t-majors’, there remained but one ‘the sarn’t-major’.
Johnson, seeing no door through which to escape, stuck close to Hervey and hoped thereby to become invisible to the one man in whose sight he ventured only with trepidation. But vainly.
‘Private Johnson!’
Johnson spun round and jerked to attention, back straight, head up, eyes front, hands pointing to the ground along the double stripe of his overalls, as perfect a figure of a dragoon as ever stood on defaulters’ parade. But then, the summons had been unmistakable.
‘When you have a minute,’ said the RSM dryly.
‘Sir!’
The RSM turned about and stalked to his office, leaving Johnson at attention in the corridor like a petrified tree. ‘Carry on, Serjeant Plug!’
‘Sah!’
The regimental orderly serjeant advanced on Johnson, licking his lips.
Johnson felt keenly the absence of his accustomed protection, but his only movement was an involuntary gulp as the ROS bore down on him.
Serjeant Plug halted half a sabre’s length from the anxious Johnson and leaned forward so that the peaks of their shakos were almost touching. ‘‘Ow’d yer like a little trip … dahn under, way of the ‘ulks in the Thames!’
‘Serjeant?’
‘We’s ‘eard as there’s some gen’l’men coming what wants a word with you … from Bow-street!’
What colour was left in Johnson’s face drained away instantly.
‘Nah, you little shirker, while we’s waiting for ’em … ’op it!’
Johnson blinked, spun round like a top, scuttled down the corridor, and seeing the open door of the commanding officer’s room, rushed in like a fugitive for sanctuary.
Hervey smiled wryly as he held out his shako for Johnson to take. ‘Was that Mr Hairsine’s voice I heard? And then … Sarn’t Plug’s?’
Johnson shifted awkwardly. ‘It were, sir.’
‘I didn’t catch what he was saying. Are you quite well?’
‘Sir.’
‘Don’t “sir” me like that; I can see perfectly well that something’s up.’
‘Nothing, sir. Nothing.’
Hervey now knew otherwise; ‘nothing’ was most unusual idiom for Johnson.
‘Sit down.’
‘Ah’d rather not if yer don’t mind, sir.’
Hervey sighed. This was rum indeed. Few men ever received an invitation to sit down in the commanding officer’s office, and there were surely none who refused it.
‘Sit down!’
Johnson looked for a chair, found the least comfortable-looking and did as he was told.
‘How long have we been together?’
‘Don’t know, sir.’
Hervey sighed again. Heavy going indeed. ‘Fourteen years, isn’t it? Just before we crossed into France. Or perhaps a little before?’
Johnson made no reply.
‘I could have you flogged,’ he tried, thinking a little gallows humour might help.
‘Ah’d better be getting thi stuff for tonight ready, sir,’ was all that Johnson replied, making to rise.
Hervey shook his head, mystified. ‘Well, I must say that I’m surprised. I do believe that if something had turned me the colour of the regimental facings I might confide in you.’
The adjutant interrupted Hervey’s enquiries. He looked not entirely disapprovingly at the seated Johnson, but with something of a frown nevertheless. ‘If I may, sir – the express.’
Hervey took it, saw the unmistakable, neat, round hand, and forced himself to keep the mask at his face for a little longer. ‘Thank you, Mr Vanneck,’ he said, with a polite note of dismissal. ‘And you, Johnson.’
The adjutant waited for Johnson to leave, however, and then approached Hervey’s desk, confidentially. ‘Just before you read the express, Hervey, I thought I should say that apparently there are two Bow-street men coming here to interview Johnson.’ He had to clear his throat. ‘I understand in connection with a serious crime against the Revenue.’
Hervey was astonished. ‘Johnson? Revenue? He’s …’
‘As I said, it is only what I understand. Until they come I can have no perfect idea. In the meantime you might like to ask him … there again you might not.’
Hervey shook his head. ‘I thought there was something, but hardly serious. The most I’ve ever known him do is take a case of brandy from a commissary waggon – and that was in snow up to your belt.’
‘Let us hope that Bow-street and the Revenue have mistaken their man then.’
Hervey nodded, but none too assured. Vanneck took his leave.
When the door had closed, Hervey broke the seal on the express and opened the waxed envelope, steeling himself to the death, or expected demise, that it would reveal. Both his parents, though active still, were beyond their allotted span. It could not have been his sister, for hers was the hand. He trembled at the alternative; but Georgiana had been in good health for all of her nine years…
Horningsham
11th March 1827
My dear brother,
Do not be troubled for your kin by this letter, for we are all in the halest condition and most excellent spirits. I am sorry to have to tell you, however, that Daniel Coates is grievous ill and Dr Birch does not consider he will survive the week. He was found by one of his men the day before yesterday on the plain near Wadman’s Coppice, where he had fallen from his horse, Dr Birch believes of a stroke. He was brought back to Upton Scudamore but has scarce spoke a word nor eaten anything since, and Dr Birch is of the decided opinion that his condition cannot amend. I do not imagine that your duties will permit of any early visit, and I shall, dearest brother, endeavour to let you know by the speediest means if there is any change to Daniel Coates’s condition.
Be assured of our love now and at all times,
Ever yr most affectionate sister,
Elizabeth.
Hervey sat down. Dan Coates: ‘the shepherd of Salisbury Plain’ as Archdeacon Hervey had dubbed him in the image of Hannah More’s creation of pastoral wisdom and simple piety; first, foremost and forever to Hervey, though, riding-master, instructor in sabre and firelock, in fieldcraft, drill and in the lore of campaigning – a priceless understanding which Coates had gained in the ranks of the 16th Light Dragoons and as trumpeter to that able but much maligned general, Sir Banastre Tarleton. Could Daniel Coates be brought to this – a fall on Salisbury Plain – after the American war and the sick and muddle of the expedition to the Low Countries? Daniel Coates was not so very old; not an ancient, not so many years his father’s senior; and he rode the plain every day tending his sheep. His flocks were not so extensive now, not since the end of the French war when demand for wool had fallen; but Daniel Coates had made his fortune during that ‘never-ending war’ and he had been astute enough too to sell half his sheep before Waterloo. He lived a godly and sober life, prudent – modest even. Poor Dan Coates: his fortune had in many ways made him unhappy, for he always felt keenly the loss of his wife, the more so because she had died so many years before he had been able to afford her more than a shawl and a mean grave.
‘Mr Vanneck!’
The door to the adjutant’s office opened. ‘Hervey?’
‘I shall go to Wiltshire this afternoon, after orderly room. Would you give my compliments to Captain Shute and inform him that the regiment will come under his orders?’
III
LAST POST
Horningsham, 13 March
The journey to Wiltshire, a hundred miles almost to the furlong, took nine and a half hours, the fastest time he had ever posted. The regimental chariot, ligh
tly loaded, two excellent roadsters from Leicestershire for the first twenty miles, fair flew along the turnpikes, the estimable Corporal Denny astride the leader with scarcely a half-hour but in the saddle. Denny, a twenty-year dragoon who had been the chariot-man for the past five, knew the road as far as Andover well, so that Hervey had only to be alert for the last stretch across Salisbury Plain. Fortunately there was a good moon and the way was clear. They changed horses at Amesbury, the last posting house before the dozen miles of barren, hard chalk downland, a lonely tract of sheep and of isolated settlements where families kept themselves to themselves in a sturdy but sometimes unholy way.
They passed the Great Henge, an eerie, heathen place of, it was said, ancient sacrifice, though now but a silent, woolly fold. Then, slowing to a walk, they descended to misty Shrewton, still and dark but for the odd candle in a window, and the oil lamps of its empty inn. The loneliest stretch came next, five miles of high, windblown, rough grazing, the road rutted and pot-holed, only partially mended after the icy winter rains. They took it at a jogtrot, scarcely better than a good, stretching walk on metalled going, and in an hour slowed again for the steep descent into forlorn Chitterne, not a light to be seen, not a barking dog to proclaim any life at all, passing the dark shapes of dwelling houses every bit as ghostly in their stillness as the monoliths at Stonehenge. Then it was up to the high chalk again for the straight league and a half to graceful Heytesbury, off the plain at last and on to the rich plough of the Wylye valley, a village as different from its downland neighbours as a blood to a cob. In Heytesbury there were lights, in the street, in the upper windows, and in the lower ones too; and the sound of the fiddle from one of its inns, despite the steady approach of midnight; and one whole window of Heytesbury’s abbey church was lit as if a dozen monks were yet saying compline within. The chariot picked up speed, on turnpike once more, rattling into Warminster as the clocks were beginning to strike the hour, and thence to skirt the great estate of Longleat, the seat of Henrietta’s guardian, until at twenty minutes to one o’clock of the new day they were in Horningsham poor, pretty, well-regulated Horningsham, the village of the Bath estate, the parish of the Reverend – indeed, the Venerable – Thomas Hervey M.A. (Oxon.).
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