A Regimental Affair (13 page)

I am ever grateful to you, sir, for your kindness in writing, and if this appears to be but a very inadequate expression of it, then be assured that it is caused only by a heart that I fear may be for ever broken
.

             
I remain, sir
,

                    
Huntingdon

The problem was the quite obvious untruth in the assurance that the Duke of Huntingdon had received from the lieutenant colonel – although Hervey could not be sure what the Earl of Towcester had actually written. He had no reason to doubt that Lord Henry Manners was ‘the finest of officers’, but Manners had not been in
Skinner Street. And although Serjeant Noakes could certainly be described as experienced, in that twenty years’ service was vastly more than most soldiers could lay claim to, the greater part of that service had been spent with the quartermasters. Had it been one thing or the other, Hervey might have been inclined to think that the Duke of Huntingdon – perhaps even fortuitously – had got hold of the wrong end of the stick. But
two
misapprehensions was altogether different.

Hervey turned it over again in his mind. Was it proper to ease the suffering of the next of kin by such an artifice? Had he not, himself, spared Margaret Edmonds the details of her husband’s shocking death at Waterloo? Had he not sought to spare Mrs Strange the anguish of knowing that her husband had died in the way he had? Yes – but not in order to conceal some neglect. Indeed, had he not been at pains to tell her of the sacrifice Serjeant Strange had made, so that he, Hervey, might get his despatch to the Prussians?

But it was a dreadful thing indeed to imagine one’s lieutenant colonel capable of so ignoble a deed as covering up a misjudgement in this way. And this was the man on whose favour his promotion rested. Was there not, as ever, more to things than met the eye?

Hervey laid both letters aside and looked out of the window at the delightful corner of Creation that was his father’s garden. He had enough things with which to occupy himself at present, and pleasurably so. By the time the regiment decamped to Brighton, Lord Towcester would be content, and the regiment, too: was that not the Sixth’s way? He really shouldn’t make it his business to worry, he told himself.

Salisbury Plain, St George’s Day

Hervey set his horse at the fence and kicked on. The big gelding took off long and pecked on landing. Hervey was so off his balance he was on the ground in a trice. It had been so quick he could do nothing to save himself, but not quick enough to spare him the exasperation of knowing it was happening. His hat fell the other side of the hedge, an iron missed his head by an inch and the gelding galloped off across the vale. Winded and bruised, but with no bones broken, furious with himself but not humiliated, for there was no one to see, he cursed everything – himself most. All the leaps for the King he’d made, or for his life, and a hedge in Warminster Bottom put him on his backside! Thank God it hadn’t been a field day with the regiment, where ‘dismounting involuntarily’ was an occasion for damage to both pride and pocket. He couldn’t blame his horse, and he didn’t. He’d put him at too big a fence for a youngster, a horse he didn’t know well enough, and his mind had been elsewhere. But the sound of liberated hooves now pounding the chalk would turn every eye for miles. ‘Hell,’ he cursed again, this time moderating the oaths. ‘Hell, hell,
hell.’ He rubbed his shoulder, which had taken his weight as he hit the ground.

There was so much Hervey liked about this gelding, though, not least because he was a grey, iron grey, and he had always liked that colour, especially when the quarter dappling was as pretty as this one’s. He sat up to see those quarters disappearing at a great pace in the direction of Drove Farm, where Daniel Coates had stabled him for a fortnight since the dealer had brought him from Trowbridge. It could have been worse: he might have been in the middle rather than on the edge of the downs. But, there again, had he been in the middle he wouldn’t have found a hedge to jump. There was no point ruing his luck: the gelding had dumped him and that was that. Better to stride out for Coates’s place while there was still light enough to see him back to Horningsham afterwards.

What he had intended to do was take back the repeating carbine, which Coates had been trying for the better part of the month, and with it the old soldier’s opinion too, for Hervey felt it time to make some report to its supplier. For his own part he was very much impressed with the weapon. A day or so after arriving home, he had taken three rabbits near the hanger above the glebe before the rest made it to their burrows – something he had never managed even with his percussion-lock. And though it had jammed on one occasion he had righted it easily enough. But Daniel Coates’s opinion would be the long view, and that he must surely prize above his own. And soon he would be having it, for scarcely had he walked half a mile when he saw Coates trotting towards him on his old chestnut cob, the grey in hand.

‘Good afternoon, Master Matthew!’ hailed Coates as he neared. It was the old greeting, the way Daniel Coates used to address him when they had been together all those years ago, Hervey on the leading rein. And many had been the time the young Master Hervey had failed to keep his pony between himself and the grass, and ever grateful had he been that it was as springy on the plain as bogmoss in Ireland.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Coates,’ Hervey replied, humouring the old dragoon. ‘Do you have a hobby-horse I might try?’ If anyone was to bring him his loose horse, better that it were Daniel Coates. But Hervey’s equestrian pride had taken a fall, and though he
might make a joke of it, that pride which remained was a sight more hurt than his bones. In truth, he would have been content to pick his way back to Horningsham at once.

At Drove Farm, however, Coates was keen to show him his usual hospitality, and the jug of purl was brought. ‘Sit you down, Matthew. I have something important to tell you.’

Hervey sat in his usual chair; Coates’s manner had a note of warning he had heeded with profit many a time before.

‘Your carbine, Matthew. Before I give you my opinion, I should like very much to know what is
yours
.’

Hervey gave it simply. ‘I should choose it for myself.’

‘Instead of a Paget?’

‘At all times.’

Coates nodded. ‘Instead of the percussion-lock?’

Hervey considered carefully. ‘It would depend on the circumstances.’

‘Ay,’ conceded Coates. ‘Might you elaborate?’

Hervey had not expected to be pressed to a view, but in principle the answer was straightforward. ‘In the wet I should prefer the percussion-lock. When dry, the repeater.’

Coates nodded again. ‘Because the repeater’s advantages are voided by damp?’

‘Just so.’

‘But dry, it has the edge over the other?’

‘Yes,’ said Hervey, quite assured. ‘It can fire at many times the rate of the other.’

Coates thought for a moment. ‘And would you approve it for your dragoons?’

‘Yes.’ Hervey did not feel quite so assured.

Coates made a thoughtful ‘um’ sound.

‘And
your
opinion, Dan?’

The old soldier sighed. ‘Can’t be too careful with your flats and sharps, Matthew,’ he said, shaking his head from side to side.

‘So you have always said, Dan,’ replied Hervey, curious as to what was implied. ‘That’s why I brought the carbine to you. What’s your worry?’

‘For a start, it’s a mite too tangled for a private man.’

‘You mean he might not master the mechanism?’ said Hervey, with a touch of disbelief.

‘No, not that. Any as can be taught to strip and assemble a bridle ought to be able to cope with this. The problem, as I see it, is that the mechanism jams. Just like the first ones I saw years ago. A bit of dirt and the chamber won’t turn. And where there’s a field day and a dragoon, there’s dirt!’

Hervey was disappointed. And, though he concealed it, even a shade exasperated. ‘But Dan, where there’s a field day there’s damp too – nine times out of ten. I’ve told you before that I’ve seen a whole troop’s carbines misfire after a deep fording. And heaven knows you’ve seen it yourself. That was why I prized your percussion-lock so highly.’

Coates nodded. ‘Just so, Matthew. And if this mechanism weren’t a flintlock I should embrace it gladly. But here you have the chance that it will misfire
and
jam.’

Perhaps his shoulder was hurting more than he pretended. Perhaps he was not attentive enough. But Hervey just could not see the logic. ‘But Dan, if it misfires with the first round, you’re no worse off than if it had been the Paget in your hands. And if it jams on the second, then what have you lost?’

‘Looked at that way, it’s a fair bet, I grant you. But it seems to me you’re doubling a man’s doubt in his firearm.’

Hervey was dismayed. Coates was sounding opposed to what was better because it was not as good as it might be. Indeed, he was sounding not unlike the very Luddites he so railed against, fearful of some notion because it was new. Had he aged so much in the past year and a half? It was a loathsome thought, he knew, but Hervey began to wonder if Daniel Coates were not on that cusp where a man turns from being an old soldier to an invalid, from a sage whose wisdom protects to a reactionary whose fear only stifles. He rubbed his shoulder hard, praying for patience. ‘You would not wish to persuade
me
against it, though, would you, Dan?’

‘No, I wouldn’t wish to persuade you against it. But I would counsel you to choose the percussion carbine any day.’

It seemed to amount to the same. ‘And so you do not think I should recommend it to the Ordnance?’

Coates shook his head. ‘I should be very circumspect were I you, Matthew. Urge them to trials, certainly – but no more. Except perhaps to allude to Forsyth’s percussion caps, and say that the
two in combination might make a formidable weapon. Though you cannot say anything of the caps to your American, of course.’

‘No, of course.’ It wasn’t necessary for Coates to remind him of that, but he could hardly blame him for being prudent.

They had a second glass of purl, then Hervey made his apologies and said he must be leaving: he could still get to Horningsham before last light, and the gelding was too green to be passing carts and cattle on a dark road. He realized it sounded rather lame, and hoped it didn’t give offence. He might have stayed for some supper, but he was no longer in the best of sorts, what with the fall and the wary counsel.

Coates was obliging. He called for his man to fetch the grey.

As Hervey climbed into the saddle (he used the mounting block – better not to give the youngster any more surprises), he began to rue his impatience. How short his memory had been for all he owed. ‘Thank you, Dan,’ he said, with a smile that revealed his contrition. He held out his hand. ‘I’ll be sure to write in very measured terms of that flintlock. For certain it would never have done for me at Waterloo – not in that sea of mud.’ He knew he ought never to forget it.

Coates smiled back, a smile of paternal pride, albeit adoptive, and he clapped him on the leg. ‘And one more piece of advice, Matthew . . .’

Hervey waited.

‘Three more days to yon wedding. Don’t go putting any more green horses at oxers!’

When he returned to Horningsham that evening, Hervey was much relieved to hear from Elizabeth that the archdeacon’s visitation, which his ride on the plain was in large part designed to avoid, had gone more than tolerably well. The bishop’s caution to the Reverend Mr Hervey the previous month had required him to submit to an inquisition, as Mr Hervey put it, at the end of thirty days. And those thirty days had passed heavily, for Mr Hervey had not shown any great inclination to abandon the practices which the bishop apparently found so odious. When Hervey had left the vicarage that morning, therefore, it had been in the expectation of hearing on return that there would be proceedings of one sort or another against his father: a summons before the consistory at
least, or even, perhaps, suspension of his licence. Hervey had pleaded with his father to let him stay. He could not be of any help beyond the filial, but that was some comfort to a father was it not? But Mr Hervey had insisted that this was a matter that he himself must bear.