‘I should not dream of it,’ he laughed once more: ‘not now that you’re a good Catholic!’
‘Now there’s a rum snitch for you! You know I had no choice!’
‘No, indeed,’ replied Hervey, smiling still. ‘Caithlin was worth a mass!’
‘Bugger the Pope!’
Hervey frowned in a sort of dutiful disapproval.
Two passing dragoons lost step as they saluted, bringing a blistering rebuke from Armstrong and sending them doubling away as if the sutler were after them at pay parade. ‘This new draft from Canterbury — can’t even walk in a straight line. I sometimes wish I had that depot squadron!’ He took another long draw on his pipe, spat with impressive force and direction into a gutter, and all but emptied his tankard. ‘How are things at hind-quarters? Still pushing out horse-shit are they, sir?’
Hervey smiled at the old joke. ‘The duke looked well, the little I saw of him. He had a very handsome young lady on his arm — that much I can tell you.’
‘Ah,’ exclaimed Armstrong knowingly; ‘that’d be Lady Shelley. She’s hot-arsed for him!’
‘How do you know that?’ he asked, quite taken aback. ‘Is it common knowledge?’
‘Because I did a stint as brigade orderly serjeant last week and saw ’em every day in the Shamsel Easy. He lets ’er ride that chestnut of his.’
‘Well, doubtless it’s all innocent enough,’ Hervey shrugged. ‘He’s earned a little recreation, has he not?’
‘Ay, no-one would deny that. But there’s many as wish that he’d put pen to paper again and do his cavalry justice for yon battle. Have you read his despatch yet?’ He pointed to the old canteen copy of the Times. ‘A lame affair if you ask me: you’d think there’d not been a British horse within a dozen miles of the place!’
‘No, I have not yet read it — but I have heard say that the duke regrets he did not give more praise. Besides, we know the truth, and that is what matters in the end, does it not?’
‘Ay,’ he sighed; ‘and some of it is best not come out, I suppose.’
Silence followed. At length, when Hervey had forced himself to stop thinking of Serjeant Strange and the French lancers (for he could still not wholly rid himself of guilt in allowing Strange to pay with his life so that he might reach the Prussians in time), he steeled himself to his other purpose. ‘I have a favour to ask. It may not come to it, but I have to be prepared.’
Serjeant Armstrong looked intrigued. ‘Ay, anything sir.’
Hervey recounted the long, involved story — the leaving of Horningsham, the business at the Horse Guards, the frigate, Henrietta’s letter, Corporal Collins’s dash to the Channel… He was beyond being abashed at the muddle and misunderstanding, as once he might have been: life could not be regulated as if it were a handy troop. He sighed and raised his eyebrows, though, for the muddle was unedifying. ‘So you will see that things are explained to her, and seen to, if she arrives after I’ve gone?’
‘Of course, sir. And as soon as you can fix for me an’ Caithlin to come out and join you—’
‘There is nothing I should like better.’
‘Ay, enough said, Mr Hervey — Captain, I should say. I ’aven’t even said “congratulations” yet. It’s grown-up stuff being an ADC. You’ll be colonel one day soon. Everybody’s pleased for you, but sorry you’re not staying.’
‘I’ll be back right enough, Serjeant Armstrong; don’t you worry. It’s for the best. I know that’s what Lord George says. Grown-up stuff, you think? There has to be a time to leave the regimental nest, at least to flap around for a while.’ He did not sound wholly convinced.
‘Well just don’t shite on the Line, as some of them staff seem to like doing when they fly about!’
‘No indeed, Serjeant Armstrong,’ he laughed; ‘I shall be sweetness itself. And I shall be back!’
‘Ay, well there are going to be too many new faces for my liking — and all as ugly as them two greenheads from the depot just now. So long as Lord George stays commanding we’ll be all right, I suppose. But if he goes I’ve a mind to hand in me bridle.’
‘I should be more than sorry if you did that. And in any case, there’s bound to be promotion soon.’
‘Troop serjeant-major? By God I’d roust some of them corporals about!’
‘Just so, Serjeant Armstrong! I’ll wager you’ll have your crown by the time I get to India.’
‘Maybe, but I hear we’ll be dropping to four troops soon enough, and that’s not a bonny prospect. There are a few ahead of me still.’
‘In seniority, perhaps.’
‘Now as it’s peace, that’s the way things will go,’ he muttered, cocking an eye: ‘seniority tempered by merit, don’t they call it? Seniority tempered by dead men’s boots more like!’
‘Well let us pray not: that’s one lesson that has been learned these past six years, surely?’
‘Ay, perhaps so. At least it’s not seniority tempered by arse-licking, like in some regiments! To dead men’s boots, then,’ he added, thoughtfully, raising his tankard.
‘Yes,’ agreed Hervey, nodding and lifting his own. ‘To absent friends!’
Armstrong tapped it with his: ‘To ’Arry Strange.’
‘To Harry Strange,’ repeated Hervey, his voice muted; ‘and Major Edmonds.’
‘Ay, an’ all the others.’ Armstrong emptied his tankard, rose and placed it carefully on the table outside the canteen door. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, Captain Hervey, sir, I’ll get along to evening stables.’ He fastened the button of his collar flap, replaced his shako and saluted. ‘Good luck, sir. And don’t you worry about Miss Lindsay. She’s as good as on the strength now.’
* * *
The Duke of Wellington entered Colonel Grant’s office without formality and sat in the same chair that Hervey had occupied that morning. His face was a little flushed, as it always was when he had taken leave of Lady Shelley, and he had on a dark blue coat rather than uniform, for he was ambassador as much as he was commander-in-chief. ‘Well, how went things with young Hervey?’
‘Favourably, I believe, duke,’ replied Grant, pouring a glass of hock for him.
‘How much did you have need to tell him?’
‘He has his general mission and cover with the nizam
— he was much taken with it, too. As to the Chintal business, I told him only what he needs to know at this time.’
‘And you can trust this agent of yours in Calcutta? Bazzard, his name you say?’
‘Well, duke, you will not let me go there in person, so Bazzard shall have to do. And I’m sure he will: he has served me well in the past.’
‘You do not think Hervey is in any danger by not knowing all? He did us damned fine service at Waterloo: he doesn’t deserve to end as tiger bait — unlike a dozen I could name three-times his rank!’
‘I don’t see him in any danger, duke. All he has to do is go to Calcutta, and Bazzard will arrange the rest.’ The duke took a sip of his hock, and grunted. ‘Who
in heaven’s name would have thought a bit of dusty land in a place you’ve scarcely heard of should be such a thorn in the side! Those damned Whigs will have me if they possibly can, and since Warren Hastings’ impeachment there isn’t anyone safe who’s made the slightest profit in India!’
Grant raised his eyebrows in sympathy.
‘They’ll block any appointment of me to Calcutta however they can. And once I’m back from Vienna they’ll want me out of the way here too. Finding me with estates in India will be just what they need.’
‘Don’t be too cast-down, duke,’ said Grant, frowning. ‘The mood is swinging against the present administration in India. The calls for you to go back are being heard, I believe.’
The duke grunted again. ‘Well, perhaps so. But, in any case, I’m still unconvinced that anything can be done there without Haidarabad wholly in our pocket. And it will hardly do if I am seen to be in any way beholden to Chintal because of those jagirs — which, I might add, have barely kep
t me in decent claret these past five years!’
‘I have always believed that were Chintal in the Company’s pocket too, there would be greater room for manoeuvre as regards the nizam.’ Grant poured more hock and lit a cheroot. ‘A small place — yes — but the rajah sits on commanding ground. The nizam could scarcely forbear to take note.’
‘Just so,’ agreed the duke. ‘I should never wish to see Chintal fall to any but the Company. But then neither should I wish to undertake any enterprise against the country powers without the nizam at hand. We need both of them.’
Grant concurred.
‘And you are confident — even though we have not told him all — that Hervey will get those damned jagirs disposed of, and without trace? And will come to no harm?’
‘There is no cause for disquiet on either count, duke,’ replied Grant, shaking his head. ‘The fewer who know these things the safer it must be: that has always been the principle on which I have worked. All he has to do is take a pleasant enough cruise to Calcutta, and then Bazzard will arrange things.’
The duke took another sip of hock before standing and making to leave. ‘And he knows he must make contact with your man before he begins beating about the country?’
‘Sir, he has his orders. The reason we chose him for this mission is that he has proved himself devoted to his profession. In any case,’ he smiled, standing to open the door for his principal, ‘Nisus is under orders to join the East India Squadron, and their station is Calcutta. I do not think we should have any fears about Captain Hervey’s aptness for this.’
II. A STAR IN THE EAST
Le Havre, two days later
‘Captain Hervey, in my twelve years or more in one of His Majesty’s ships I have never heard the like!’
There was no reply.
‘Never before have I been asked to give passage to a horse!’
Still there was no reply.
Captain Laughton Peto, RN, struck the taffrail with his fist in a theatrical gesture of exasperation. ‘Confound it, sir, she is a frigate, not a packet!’
Captain Hervey smiled sheepishly. ‘Sir, you have aboard a goat and several chickens. And I hear that it is not uncommon to see a cow under the forecastle. To what do you object in equines?’
‘Damn your impudence, sir!’ roared Peto, striking the rail again. But he knew well enough that his protests were to no avail. The frigate Nisus had been placed at the disposal of the Duke of Wellington’s aide-de-camp — and that was that. ‘Mr Belben!’ he shouted.
The first lieutenant rushed aft and saluted. ‘Sir?’
‘Mr Belben, be so good as to find a berth for a cavalry charger,’ said the captain briskly.
‘Sir?’ replied the lieutenant, his youthful face contorted by incomprehension.
‘Do I have to repeat myself, Mr Belben?’ rasped Peto. ‘Do you not understand plain English?’ And, as his first lieutenant hurried away to contemplate his unprecedented orders, Peto turned back to this agent of the victor of Waterloo. ‘Come, Captain Hervey,’ he resumed cautiously; ‘I think we may better discuss this extraordinary commission of yours at my table.’
Matthew Hervey was, in outward appearance at least, a man transformed from that of a year ago. Then, he had been a lieutenant for but a month, following the deposit of the better part of his savings, and the prize-money accrued over six years’ campaign service, with the regimental agents. Into the premises of Messrs Greenwood, Cox & Hammersly of Craig’s Court in Westminster he had walked a cornet on his first occasion to visit the capital, and there he had signed an instrument for the purchase of a lieutenancy in the 6th Light Dragoons. He had signed another for the sale of his cornetcy to an officer in the Twentieth anxious to avoid service in India, whither that regiment was posted, and had put his signature to a further instrument for the assignment of arrears of pay, held by the agents, towards the difference in price — £350. Other regiments were cheaper (and a few were markedly more expensive), but Hervey would never consider the option of changing horses. He loved the Sixth as if it were his family — which, in all but the literal sense, it was. Its commanding officer, Lord George Irvine, had always shown him the greatest kindness. Its choleric major, Joseph Edmonds, a soldier who had known almost nothing but campaigning in his thirty years’ service, had encouraged him in every particular of the profession, and had exercised a protecting, paternal hand on many an occasion. Sir Edward Lankester, his troop leader — urbane, coolly, almost contemptuously, brave — had been his idol, like an older brother. His fellow cornets, and lieutenants too, who had filled the mess with laughter and good company in the darkest of times, had been his people as surely as were his blood family in Horningsham. And Hervey would add yet more to that family, for in it he counted, as did any officer worth his salt, the companionship of the ranks — the non-commissioned officers who put his orders into action, and the dragoons, the private men, whose life turned and occasionally depended on those orders, and whose daily routine was either miserable or tolerable depending on the aptness and humanity of the officers. The Sixth, however, were a family that had seen misfortune. Waterloo, though a battle gained, had been, in the duke’s own words, hardly better than a battle lost. True, the Sixth had suffered not half as much as the infantry, but shot, shell and lance had plucked some of the best from its bosom. Hervey may have been in two minds about his new appointment — this mission especially — but before Waterloo he could never have contemplated having a choice at all.
And so now he was Captain Hervey, with aiglets and the patronage of the duke himself, and no longer so impecunious that economy was for him strict necessity. Yet in one respect at least Matthew Hervey was unaltered: to frigate captains he was still in thrall. Captain Peto was, in any case, an officer to whom no ordinary mortal could be other than in thrall. Every reef and hitch, every furl and coil, even in the very extremities of the Nisus, was made in the expectation that his eye might at any time alight on the endeavour. And all was therefore perfection. What was more, however, he achieved this exemplary regimen without resort to flogging. Peto was, indeed, renowned as much for his implacable opposition to the practice as for his boldness in closing with a foe. He had once hanged a man for cowardice in the face of the enemy, but long before the Admiralty had put a stop to it he would not permit a bosun’s mate even to start a laggard.
Captain Laughton Peto was in age two years, possibly three, Hervey’s senior. He was the same height and build, though his back was a little longer, and his hair was dark, full and straight and looked as though it might once have been pulled into a queue. His manner was not easy to fathom — at times the utmost insouciance, and at others zest for the merest detail of his ship’s routine. He might talk discursively one minute, and then in the next his clipped quarterdeck speech would seem almost incomprehensible. Hervey wondered if he were married, for it would go hard with any wife to live with so contrary a man. When they had first met, at Chatham not a week ago, there had been something of an edge to their intercourse. Peto had not been well disposed to the notion of holding his frigate ready for the conveyance of a staff officer, even an aide-de-camp of the Duke of Wellington, and wished only to be about his passage to the Indies before the winds became any less favourable. When Hervey had gone aboard Nisus he had been presented with sealed orders marked, ‘To be opened only at sea’, and so it was off the North Foreland that he had learned that he was to report to the Duke of Wellington with all possible haste, and to request that the ship on no account leave for the Indies without word from Paris — to which Peto had replied, with no little irritation, that he was not in the habit of disobeying Admiralty orders, for those were his instructions too from their lordships. Yet neither man had anticipated that there was to be any congruence in their instructions. So here where the Seine, having flowed peaceably through Bonaparte’s erstwhile capital, became salty by the Channel — for mastery of which Englishmen like Peto had fought since Drake’s day — the captain of the Nisus found himself once more at the
disposal of the captain of light dragoons.
Captain Peto’s quarters comprised a day cabin running to half the length of the stern windows, a dining space — the steerage — and two sleeping cabins, one of which, as on the short passage to France, he now gave up to Hervey. The principal cabins were well furnished. Comfortable chairs, as well as a large desk, occupied the day cabin, while a highly polished dining table of Cuban mahogany, and eight chairs, graced the steerage. There were even some pleasant-looking pictures on the bulkheads, including one or two small oils of indeterminate landscapes, and the table was laid with silver.
‘Take a seat, Hervey,’ said Peto, indicating a comfortable armchair; ‘one of my French Hepplewhites.’
Hervey assumed them to be booty, acquired in one of the many dashing engagements he knew Peto to have seen. ‘I presume they are—’
‘I began with ten, but clearing for action takes its toll.’ He said it almost with relish. ‘There are many who consider the Hepplewhite chair in the French taste to be the acme of English cabinetmaking: there is not a single straight line anywhere in it,’ he continued absently, waving an outstretched palm towards one of the objects of his admiration. ‘I bought them in Bond Street when last I was attending at the Admiralty.’
Bond Street? English cabinetmaking? Another fox’s paw he had nearly made of that!
‘You will take some Madeira with me, will you not?’ Hervey nodded approvingly.
‘A rather fine Sercial, I fancy — an eighty-three,’ continued Peto, pouring from a broad flat-bottomed decanter. ‘And a vintage, mind — not a solera.’
Hervey took a sip and agreed that it was indeed special. ‘It puts me in mind of some German wines, in both colour and taste,’ he said.
‘You are well acquainted with Rhenish, are you?’ enquired Peto, evidently impressed.
‘The wines of Alsace to be precise. I had a governess from there who first told me of Gewürztraminer, and then the King’s Germans gave me the taste for it.’
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