A Call To Arms (16 page)

Hervey bowed, a shade self-consciously. Not so long ago he would have kissed her, but things were different now. Elizabeth smiled full and easy. Although they had met but half a dozen times, she admired her independent spirit, her cheerfulness (for it was plain to all that Caithlin had wits far beyond the run of things, and that these were scarcely tried). And, what was more, Elizabeth would concede that for all the difference in their respective traditions, Caithlin’s devout religion was heartening in the extreme.
‘Good afternoon, Mrs Armstrong,’ she replied for them both. ‘I hope we do not call at an inconvenient hour.’

‘Not in the slightest, ma’am,’ replied Caithlin. ‘My Jack will be returned from Windsor at any moment. He has gone to the horse fair.’

Hervey was encouraged the more. This sounded like Armstrong restored in spirits as well as health. ‘And how are you …’ – he hesitated – ‘Caithlin?’

‘Oh, I am very well, thank you, Captain Hervey.’ Caithlin had reverted to the formal way as soon as she had become engaged to Armstrong. ‘We have a son now, too.’

‘A son? Indeed!’ Hervey was very happy for her, for them both. His happiness was almost enough to ease the twisting in his gut.

Elizabeth asked if she might see the children, and Caithlin consented proudly.

They left Hervey to himself and ascended the stairs at the back of the posthouse to a simply furnished bedroom with pretty flowered curtains through which the afternoon sun came softly and warm. Son and daughter were sleeping as Elizabeth and Caithlin tiptoed to the bedside, but Elizabeth saw that they were fine babies. In her heart she knew her brother’s purpose here was futile. Indeed, she wondered if it were at all honourable.

When they were back in the sitting room, tea was brought, and arrangements for a travelling dinner were made. Hervey and Caithlin exchanged reports of Italy with news of Cork, and then, when they were finished with tea, Caithlin asked if they had just come from Hounslow.

‘Yes,’ said Hervey, uncertain as to how she had concluded that.

‘Would you be going back to the regiment, then, Captain Hervey?’

Her manner was as matter of fact as it was candid. Hervey tried not to sound hesitant. ‘Yes, yes I am.’

Caithlin smiled. ‘So you shall be but a short drive from here. My Jack will like that right enough. And you too, Miss Hervey?’

‘No, not I, Mrs Armstrong. I must stay with my parents, I think.’ Elizabeth spoke lightly, as if it were of little moment.

‘The regiment is for India soon,’ explained Hervey. He thought how repellent it must sound to a wife and mother.

‘Oh, India!’ she sighed. ‘When Jack hears he will beg you to take him as your groom.’

Hervey laughed politely.

‘It is true, I assure you!’ protested Caithlin. ‘There isn’t a day goes by without his lamenting for a parade. And when those Life Guards from Windsor go by it’s like seeing an old horse prick up its ears at the hunt passing.’

If this were so – and Caithlin had never been a one for exaggeration or idle gossip – then Hervey was dismayed. True, he had come to Datchet with a half-formed notion of rescuing the Armstrongs from penniless drudgery, taking his erstwhile serjeant back to the regiment with him, restoring his rank and more. But here was neither penury nor menial labour: he had no right to tempt this woman’s husband, even for a moment. Better that he made his excuses now and left with his respects and good wishes for Caithlin’s worthy provider.

But Caithlin would have none of it. Perhaps she sensed Hervey’s purpose. She certainly spoke with fervour. ‘Captain Hervey, you see us very well-found materially. And we are ever so grateful to Colonel Lankester for that. But Jack’s heart isn’t in it. Oh, he does a fine job all right. He does it for me and the bairns, as he calls them, but for himself he is dispirited, and very deeply, I think. It has troubled me a very great deal these last months.’

Hervey could scarce comprehend that Armstrong too had found himself thus, for he had supposed that his own dispirits were occasioned wholly by his widowing. Armstrong, with a wife he adored and two children with a fine mother, could not pine so much for the Sixth, surely? ‘But is he recovered in body at least, Caithlin? Colonel Lankester spoke of headaches and lassitude.’

‘Oh, gracious Mary, he’s as fit as when first he rode into Kilcrea. He throws himself into work just to tire himself out. I’m sure of it.’

‘But the headaches … the colonel said his discharge papers spoke of neuralgia. I think that was the word.’

‘He has not had a headache in months, Captain Hervey. Well, not one whose cause was not manifestly apparent.’ She frowned with a sort of mock disapproval.

‘Caithlin, wait a moment. Are you truly telling me that Geordie
Armstrong, landlord of a going place as this, would exchange it for the ranks of the Sixth?’

‘I am. On condition.’

Hervey looked quizzical.

‘On condition that I did not object. Six months ago I would have hidden all his clothes had he so much as mentioned it. But I see now he is not the man I married. And I can’t be happy if he is not.’

Hervey recalled the selfsame words a year and a half before, when Henrietta had pleaded with him not to accept the sinecure of the yeomanry command.

The landlord of the Spread Eagle returned within the hour. Hervey heard his voice in the yard outside, unmistakable: ‘Them are two bonny mares, me lad. The best hay only for them!’ He rose in anticipation.

‘Caithlin, me love, I—’ Armstrong stood open-mouthed as he saw his captain.

‘Hello, Geordie,’ said Hervey, holding out his hand.

‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ said Armstrong, oblivious to all else but the reunion. But then he saw Elizabeth, and reddened. ‘Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss ’Ervey,’ he stammered, glancing at Caithlin, who was already frowning. ‘I didn’t see—’

‘Nor me either, Jack Armstrong!’ said Caithlin.

‘Oh, I’m sorry for you too, love. Captain Hervey here quite took me aback.’

Hervey was almost laughing. It was not every day he could see a serjeant – even one no longer serving – so completely abashed. ‘It’s very good to see you, Geordie. And so obviously at home!’

Armstrong grinned. ‘Ay, sir. I’m at home all right. And right pleased I am an’ all to see
you
. And you, too, Miss Hervey. You’re looking proper well, ma’am.’

Elizabeth smiled. Armstrong had charmed her from the first moment he had visited them at Horningsham. ‘Thank you, Serjeant Armstrong. Or “Mister”, I should say.’

‘Either way, ma’am, either way. Most folks as know me round here still call me by rank. “Mister’s” too much like an officer for my ear! Have you had some tea, by the way?’

‘Yes we have, thank you,’ replied Elizabeth. ‘And seen your beautiful children.’

Armstrong beamed with pride. ‘Ay, they’re two bonny bairns as ever there were.’

Caithlin now determined to take charge of matters. ‘Miss Hervey, would you like to look at the garden? It is not very large, but quite pretty.’

‘Yes, I would indeed,’ said Elizabeth eagerly, knowing full well the purpose in the invitation.

When they were gone, Armstrong bid Hervey sit down. ‘Something to drink, sir?’

‘In a minute, maybe. But I want to ask you something first.’

‘Can I ask
you
something first, sir?’

‘Of course.’

‘Have you just come from Hounslow?’

‘Yes.’ Hervey said it cautiously, not sure what Armstrong might be getting at.

‘Then I know what you’re going to ask.’

‘
How
do you know?’

‘Oh, there’s always NCOs coming here for a wet. It’s E Troop, isn’t it! You’re going back and taking over the Chestnuts!’

Hervey smiled and nodded. ‘Except that it’s D, now, that has the colour.’

‘And you want me to come back an’ all as your serjeant!’

Hervey let the smile go. ‘No! Indeed I do not. You are quite wrong in that!’

Armstrong looked perfectly crestfallen. So much so that Hervey at once felt heartless for the joke. ‘I do not want you as serjeant. I want you as serjeant-major!’

Armstrong now looked wholly taken aback, though less pained. ‘Good God, sir. I never thought I’d hear such a thing. Never in a lifetime.’

Hervey was puzzled. Promotion was never easy, especially for an NCO of Armstrong’s stamp, but he never imagined it would not have been forthcoming had Armstrong stayed with the colours. ‘I don’t think I want to have command of E Troop
unless
you’re its serjeant-major. There isn’t a man better suited. It’s as simple as that.’

‘Can we have a drink now, sir?’

‘Yes, I should like that. A little port if you have it to hand.’

‘I do.’ He went to the door. ‘Port and a flagon, pots-lad!’ he called, then returned to his chair. ‘I have two a day, only. That much is better at least than when we were serving.’

Hervey nodded. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t say this, but Caithlin gave us to believe she would not be sorry to return to the regiment, else I should never press you to it now.’

Armstrong sighed. ‘Caithlin’s said it a dozen times if she’s said it once, that I’d only be happy wearing blue again.’

‘
You
don’t sound so sure.’

Armstrong shifted in his seat. ‘Look, sir, every man in the Sixth knows what went on in Canada – and before, for that matter.’

‘Well? You’ve nothing to fear in that respect.’

‘I’m not afeard of anything, least of all what the canteens are saying. I’m just not sure it’d be the same.’

Hervey was even more puzzled. ‘Nothing’s ever the same. But you and I are no worse soldiers for all that happened.’

Armstrong shook his head. ‘I’m not so sure about that. That savage got the better of me, from behind – me not seeing him even. That should never have been. I’d have bawled out a recruit for not watching ’is back like that. And they all know it at Hounslow. It wouldn’t be fair on you.’ He did not say that in that lapse he had let his captain down. But Armstrong believed it. That no one else even thought it, let alone believed it, would never be consolation to him.

Hervey pictured the scene of Armstrong’s undoing – his raging, perhaps for an instant losing that field sense which keeps the good soldier alive. And he saw Henrietta, perhaps more terrified still by the invincible Armstrong’s destruction before her very eyes. He shook himself. ‘Look, we had all this out a year ago. Theory’s one thing, but it can’t always
be.
I got that spontoon in my leg at Toulouse in the same way, but it didn’t mean I was finished in the eyes of the troop. Everybody knows you went single-handed at a bunch of savages and fought like a tiger.
That’s
what they think of Geordie Armstrong, not that one of them got the better of him.’

‘Ay, maybe.’

‘Look, you used to admonish me when I said I couldn’t be done with the shame of Serjeant Strange’s death. Well, it’s the same now with you.’

The pot boy came in with a tray. Hervey took his glass in silence, Armstrong likewise. A long time they sat, without a word, sipping occasionally. This was not a matter to be rushed, and Hervey was not inclined to be the first to speak. He would wait, however long, to hear the evidence of what had truly become of Geordie Armstrong.

Salisbury Plain, a week later

Hervey eased himself into the ash dugout which Daniel Coates regarded as the chair of honour. The room had moved on to oak and then mahogany over the decades, but still that piece was Coates’s pride, for he had fashioned it himself from windfall when first he had married. It was all, indeed, that now materially remained of those days. There was a way of sitting in it which was tolerably comfortable, and Hervey, having bent to take off his spurs, shuffled until he found it, and then took the glass of purl which Coates’s manservant brought.

‘Tell me what are the designs regarding your widow’s troop,’ Coates asked.

Hervey looked at him, quelling a smile. They had just ridden the downs together and the old soldier had pressed him every minute of it to details of the regiment and his imminent fortunes. Yet, even now, there was more that Coates would know. It was the same Daniel Coates of his boyhood, without a doubt. The hair was white and thinned, the cheeks sunken and the back a little bent, but in all else Coates seemed as he had always been.