Peto smiled – not triumphantly, for that would have been to overvalue his success, but certainly with a degree of satisfaction that alerted Hervey to another imminent revelation of his innocence of the ways of the ‘wooden world’. ‘My dear Hervey, know you not that prime eight-tooth mutton – wether mutton – fuddled and rubbed with allspice and claret, may be ate with as much satisfaction as the King’s own fallow deer?’
It was not as disconcerting a revelation as might be supposed, and Hervey professed himself most pleasantly surprised by the discovery. ‘Especially so since I come from a county with a great many more sheep than people. I have scarce dined so well, ever, as I have aboard your ship,’ he concluded.
Peto seemed more than happy to leave weightier matters aside for the moment. ‘I have, I fancy, one of the best cooks in the fleet. He was in the service of the Duke of Northumberland until there was some . . . misunderstanding. My coxswain found him adrift in some alehouse on the Tyne. He has been with me over a year and seems content. But here, some more burgundy: what do you think of it?’
‘I think very much of it,’ he replied, feeling its warmth reach the extremities.
‘I am glad, for it is one of my best – a Romanée-Conti. So much so-called burgundy has been passed off during this war. Any old sugared red wine laced with brandy seems to take the name. And nauseous it is – frequently poisonous, too. Ever to be avoided, Hervey – ever.’ He took another large draught. ‘But I am careful of its taking: it is a very manly warmth that a Nuits-Saint-Georges brings – invigorating, whereas claret merely . . . enlivens.’
Hervey chuckled. ‘I am astonished that, with such good provender, you avoid any tendency to stoutness. I fear much for my own figure these coming months.’
They both laughed, vigorously.
‘But what of this commission of yours?’ demanded Peto, though his manner was now thoroughly congenial. ‘Why must you go in advance of the duke to India – before, indeed, his appointment has been made?’
Hervey was wondering how best he might explain, when the door opened again. The silence continued as Flowerdew cleared away the remains of the pudding, returning at once with an even larger tray, from which, with considerable ceremony, he placed on the table a greengage tart, an almond cheesecake, several custards and a bowl of figs. Hervey made more appreciative – and despairing – noises, and Peto again reached for the decanter of Madeira. But before he could remove the stopper – or Hervey begin his explanation of his early passage – there was a knock at the door.
‘Come!’ called Peto, as Hervey sliced large into the cheesecake.
The first lieutenant entered, his fresh face and fair curls making an even greater impression of youth than before. ‘I beg your pardon, sir: I had not thought you were dining. The carpenter is knocking up a stall for Captain Hervey’s horse in the waist. Might I ask him to approve the dimensions when it is convenient?’
Peto looked at Hervey.
‘If you will permit me, sir, I shall do so at once,’ he replied, rising (and none too steadily). ‘My groom should be here with her before the evening.’
The Marines sentry at the doorway presented arms as Peto emerged. Hervey took the opportunity to speak to the first lieutenant, whose acquaintance he had made only briefly during the crossing a week before, while Peto bantered with the sentry about some amiable business of the shore. ‘Mr Belben, we have not yet been able to exchange more than formalities. I hope I have not made impossible demands. No doubt it would have been better for me to seek passage for my horse on a ship of higher rate.’
‘Not at all sir: unusual demands, perhaps, but not impossible. Nor indeed would a first-rate have been any more commodious – quite the reverse, in fact.’ Hervey looked at Peto, puzzled by the notion that a frigate offered as much space as a ship-of-the-line. ‘That is so,’ the captain affirmed. ‘The biggest first-rate is two thousand and three-fifty tons, with a complement of nigh eight-fifty. She has less than three tons per man, whereas we are a thousand tons and two-fifty.’
‘It sounds as though I might have brought my second charger,’ tried Hervey, and he was pleasurably surprised to see Belben smile.
‘Captain Hervey, we are at your disposal,’ said Peto from behind, smiling equally. ‘However, in the event of our having to clear for action then I am very much afraid that your charger will go overboard!’
At this Hervey looked plainly ill, and said no more. Lieutenant Belben led them along the waist towards the forecastle and stopped between the third and fourth gunports on the larboard side. ‘I thought we might construct the stall here, sir, between numbers three and four guns,’ he said to the captain.
Hervey looked worried. ‘Between the guns, Mr Belben? But that will give about eight feet at most.’
The lieutenant looked puzzled. ‘I cannot very well move the guns, Captain Hervey. How much room does your horse need?’
‘She must have twelve feet square, with a good strong bar to shorten it into a standing stall if the sea gets too high.’
‘Twelve feet!’ said Belben with dismay; ‘I only get eight, sir!’
‘Yes, but you at least have freedom to exercise over the rest of the ship. My mare will be confined thus for six months.’
‘Mr Belben,’ said Peto, wishing to bring the issue to a resolution, ‘dismount number four gun and be ready to remount it if we clear for action. The crew can take turns to exercise on another.’
‘Ay, ay, Captain!’ replied the lieutenant. There was no dissent: he was not responsible for the captain’s decisions, only for implementing them.
‘And might some padding be fastened here?’ asked Hervey, touching the beam above. ‘Her head will be—’
‘Mr Belben, canvas and straw, if you please,’ sighed Peto. ‘We addle enough men’s brains with timber; let us not have a cavalry charger strike its head too.’
And with stabling thus arranged, Peto and Hervey returned to the cabin and the table – and began on the plum tart with renewed appetite. However, Hervey was still troubled by the captain’s warning of Jessye’s fate should they clear for action.
‘Do not distress yourself,’ replied Peto reassuringly as he took another slice of the greengage; ‘the most that could disturb us is a pirate or two, and we shall be standing too far to the west to encounter those who swarm from the Barbary Coast. And in any case, there is not a pirate afloat who – in his right mind – would tangle with a frigate!’
Hervey was now reassured.
‘So, as we were saying, what is the imperative behind your early despatch to the Indies?’ Peto was not to be deflected from any course, once set.
‘Well,’ sighed Hervey, ‘as you recall, the duke expects that the government will shortly replace Lord Moira and appoint him in his place to carry through the policies of his brother in the decade before. The duke is especially keen to know the condition of the forces of the state of Haidarabad, which he regards as crucial to any enterprise by the Company. I am therefore to make a tour of that place in order to be able to report to the duke immediately on his arrival in Calcutta.’
Peto’s brow furrowed again. ‘Do not mistake me, Hervey, but is there not an official of the Company’s in Haidarabad? Would he not be infinitely better placed to render such intelligence? I hazard a guess that at this moment you would be hard pressed to point to where is Haidarabad on a map!’
Hervey nodded and simply raised his eyebrows. The ancillary duty in Chintal was not something he intended to divulge, for it was in his judgement of little moment to the mission as a whole.
‘Doubtless the duke knows his business,’ tutted Peto, ‘but treating with Mussulmen is a risky enterprise at the best of times.’ He poured himself another glass of wine.
‘You have experience?’
‘Indeed I have – at both ends of the Mediterranean! But that is of no consequence. The material point is that the nizam’s religion is alien to the continent of Hindoostan. The importation of the Mughal invaders – and not so man
y centuries ago at that. As I understand, it does not go well with the native Hindoos, and there is ever a restiveness. You must be at great pains to avoid its worst effects, Hervey.’
He assured him that he had every intention of doing so.
‘But how shall you keep this enterprise secret?’ pressed the captain. ‘Do you intend dressing as a native or some such thing?’
Hervey smiled. ‘No! If news of the duke’s appointment precedes us – as well it might – I shall go about my business openly. If, however, there is no such news then I have letters from the duke requesting that Calcutta lend me every facility to make a study of the employment of the lance. The duke was much taken by the French lancers at Waterloo and wishes to equip some of our regiments of light dragoons so. And in India are some of the most proficient lancers – in Haidarabad especially.’
Peto looked sceptical. ‘You do not think that some might suppose it would have been easier to go to Brandenburg to see the Uhlans, or even to Warsaw?’
‘That is as maybe, though we are not on entirely the best of terms with the Prussians. However, I think mine a plausible enough mission – do not you?’
Peto took this to be rhetorical. ‘Here, have one of these sweet sisters of the vine; they are come from Turkey – the Locoum variety, very much better than the pressed ones.’
Hervey took a fig and again voiced his appreciation of the quality of the captain’s fare.
‘Well, I must tell you that it’s unlikely to remain thus in so long a voyage. It will be pocket soup and biscuit by the time we reach the Cape.’
Hervey replied that, for his own part, he was perfectly accustomed to any hardship in respect of rations, but his horse could not be expected to fare well on a long voyage without a proper regimen. ‘And I must ask your leave to go ashore soon, sir, to attend to it. I need to find hay and straw, and hard feed.’
Peto said he was happy to accompany him, ‘For there are things of which I have need, too.’
‘Shall you have to find extra provisions?’ asked Hervey without thinking.
The arched eyebrows told Hervey at once that he had somehow impugned Admiralty efficiency. ‘Captain Hervey, I have heard of the dilatorious condition of the army’s commissary department, but I would have you know that a frigate is provisioned so that she might sail without interruption for six months!’
‘Very well, then, Mr Ranson,’ said Peto once he had seated himself.
The crew of the captain’s gig pulled with a good rhythm, seen to by a midshipman who looked not very much older than Hervey when first he had left Horningsham for Shrewsbury. Nisus lay three cables from the quay. Peto kept his eyes fixed ahead and said not a word during the seven minutes which it took for Ranson to pilot the gig through the slack water. As it neared the quayside steps, Peto rose before the midshipman had ordered ‘easy-oars’, and then stepped confidently to the landing stage even as the gig ran alongside with oars just raised. He was almost at the top of the steps before Hervey dared trust himself to alight from the now motionless boat. Hervey thanked the midshipman, who looked startled by it, and raced up the steps to regain Peto’s side, pausing at the top to replace his spurs which, as was the custom, he had removed aboard ship.
‘From your parts, young Ranson,’ said Peto as Hervey caught him up; ‘Somerset. A pity he’s unlikely to see a fleet action ever. But it can’t be helped. He cut his teeth in the 1812 affair: blew off a Yankee’s head with his pistol, right in front of me, though the damned thing broke his wrist! And he club-hauled a prize lugger from a lee shore off Madeira. A little too inclined to drop his head and escape the bit, as you would say, but he’ll do.’
Oh, such a man would do all right, thought Hervey. Some officers needed driving with long, rowelled spurs; most with the touch of the whip; very few needed the curb. And it did not do to judge from a man’s aspect which were the proper aids. Ranson, for one, looked no more like a plunger than did his father’s first curate. Peto’s matter-of-factness intrigued him, though. Studied, perhaps? He had not seen the like except perhaps in Adjutant Barrow. And with Barrow it was more a device to compensate for having risen from the ranks. With Peto he could only suppose it a self-imposed distance, a necessity for command in otherwise close and familiar quarters. It seemed he might be in for a somewhat oppressive six months, the hospitality of the table notwithstanding.
Hervey changed step to walk in time with his senior, spurs ringing on the cobbles while Peto’s heel struck the ground in the less emphatic way that was the sailor’s. It was a sound that always gave him a certain prideful satisfaction. ‘I saw a corn merchant on the way here, a little further along this street,’ he tried.
‘Space is pressing in a frigate, Captain Hervey – even in peacetime. I do not wish it too filled with oats,’ replied Peto peremptorily.
‘No, indeed not,’ said Hervey, taken aback somewhat. ‘I have calculated very precisely how much she – my charger – shall need for a six-month passage.’
‘She? Captain Hervey – a mare!’
Hervey sighed to himself. This was to be heavy going. ‘Yes, a mare, but not a chestnut, you will be pleased to know.’
‘Captain Hervey,’ frowned Peto, ‘any mare, with any number of legs, is much the same to me: I have little use for them.’
He chose to ignore the proposition. ‘I trust that mine will be no trouble, sir.’
‘I trust not, too,’ replied Peto, still looking straight ahead. ‘Just so long as you do not fill the orlop with oats.’
‘I shall give her no oats whatever,’ replied Hervey, sounding surprised, ‘otherwise she will likely as not suffer setfast.’
Peto turned his head and eyed him quizzically. ‘I can keep a horse between myself and the ground tolerably well, Captain Hervey, but beyond that I make no claim.’
‘Setfast is sometimes called Monday-morning sickness, which describes the symptoms aptly. The horse shows great stiffness; in extreme cases unable to move.’
‘Why Monday morning?’
‘It generally follows from inactivity after vigorous exercise – a day’s rest on Sunday after a Saturday’s hunting is common. There can be muscle damage, which is evident if the blood becomes azotous – discoloration of the urine, I mean. And then the kidneys may fail. Mares seem especially prone.’
‘Captain Hervey, my surgeon would be intrigued to hear of such a systemic catastrophe resulting from a day’s rest, for he is a great advocate of them!’
‘I make no claim to know anything of human physic, sir,’ countered Hervey, not immediately catching the attempt at humour.
‘No,’ smiled Peto at last, ‘I am sure you do not. I am, however, impressed that your veterinary knowledge goes beyond that of many of the run-of-the-mill officers I have met.’
Hervey said nothing.
‘So, your horse—’ he continued.
‘Jessye is her name, sir.’
‘So, Jessye – a fine thoroughbred no doubt – how shall she maintain condition during the passage?’
‘She is not a thoroughbred. Indeed, were she to be one I would as soon see a caged beast aboard. No, she has some good Welsh Mountain in her, and she is, therefore, just sufficiently tractable for the adventure. I shall give her hay ad libitum to reduce the risk of colic or her gut twisting. No doubt we shall have to pay over the odds – it’s not a good time to be buying old hay, and I dare not risk new to begin with. But if we can find good Timothy it should keep her in modest fettle. I shall feed her some barley each day – say, three pounds – and a pound of bran with chop to keep her interested.’ He took out a notebook and opened it to consult his earlier calculations. ‘We shall need, therefore, two hundredweight-sacks of bran and five more of barley, and forty hundredweight of hay.’
‘Great heavens, Captain Hervey! I haven’t the—’
‘I have resolved on deep-littering her, you will be pleased to hear, and so I shall need only the same again of straw. Barley straw unless we can find no other, for she has a partiality to eati
ng it, and wheat straw can blow her up something dreadful.’
Peto halted and turned full towards him. ‘Captain Hervey,’ he said, portentously; ‘I am full of admiration for the attention you lavish on your mare – by your own accounts, a female of not especial breeding. Is that affection returned, do you suppose?’
Hervey wondered where this line of questioning was leading. ‘I do suppose – yes.’
Peto nodded. ‘I had imagined thus. See, therefore,Captain Hervey, the distraction that affection demands,’ he sighed, his head shaking pityingly.
As they neared the head of the great avenue leading from the quay to the Paris highroad, where stood the gendarmerie building as the street turned ninety degrees to the right, they came on a large but silent gathering. Curious as to its purpose, they joined the rear of the crowd, but the onlookers soon recognized the import of their uniforms and shifted to one side, affording them a clear view of the object of interest.
‘Well,’ said Peto after some moments’ consideration; ‘I own that this is the closest I have come to General Bonaparte’s Grande Armée. What a sight they are!’
What a sight indeed, thought Hervey. The last he had seen of officers of the Garde was on the field of Waterloo, in the final moments of the battle when he had led the Sixth up the slopes which had been French ground all day, and on to the inn called La Belle Alliance, far in advance of any others of the Duke of Wellington’s army. What a moment that had been. What a heady mix of joy and sorrow, of anger and pity. ‘Yes,’ he replied; ‘officers of the Imperial Guard – grenadiers and chasseurs à pied, les vieux des vieux.’
They were as he had seen them at Waterloo – the white breeches and top boots, the white facings of the blue coat, with its long tails and bullion epaulettes. Above all the ‘bearskin’, the plateless fur cap with its red-tipped green plume. He had watched hundreds upon hundreds of them advance on the duke’s line in perfect order, and thought that all before must surely be swept away – until the duke’s own Guards, who had lain concealed in the corn to the very last moment, sprang up and opened a withering fire, sending the French columns reeling back down the slopes.
The Nizam's Daughters Page 5
