A Regimental Affair

by Mallinson, Allan

  ‘He will signal to Corporal Sykes at the picket, sir.’

  Hervey turned to Broadhurst. ‘Your signal code?’ He knew he hardly needed to ask.

  ‘Might Wick give it, sir?’

  Hervey nodded.

  ‘Go on then, Wick,’ said Broadhurst with a smile.

  ‘I go to the back of the spinney, sir, where I can be seen by the corporal at the picket, and put my horse to walking in a circle. Clockwise if the enemy is a cavalry patrol, the other way if infantry. And I put ’im into a trot if there are a lot of ’em.’

  ‘Well done, Wick,’ said Hervey. ‘How shall you know if they are cavalry or infantry at the furthest distance?’

  ‘Because the dust rises higher from cavalry, sir. And for infantry it is lower and thicker.’

  ‘Good! And what if it is artillery and wagons?’

  ‘Then the dust isn’t even: it’s all over the place, sir.’

  Hervey was pleased. ‘And how might you judge the distance to the enemy?’

  ‘At seven furlongs you can tell if the enemy is cavalry or infantry, sir. At three, sir, you can count ’eads. And between one and two you can see what uniform they is wearing.’

  Hervey turned to Private Broadhurst. ‘You’ve drilled him well. And I think you’ll be the first to put the drills to the test, for this is the enemy’s main route of advance, by my reckoning.’

  ‘Will he go on through the night, do you think, sir?’

  Hervey tilted his head. ‘We have to be ready for the possibility. You are clear as to the signals then?’

  ‘Ay, sir: unshaded red lantern for enemy approaching, carbine shot for alarm.’

  ‘And when do you make the alarm, Wick?’ said Hervey, turning back to the young dragoon.

  ‘If we’re surprised—’

  ‘Which we shan’t be,’ said Broadhurst emphatically.

  ‘Or if the red light isn’t repeated back to us by the picket,’ added Wick.

  ‘Just so, just so.’ There was nothing more for Hervey to test. He was sure that if the Duke of Wellington himself were to ride up he could not find fault with this vidette. He turned to leave, but then a notion came to him. ‘Are you a Shropshire man, by any chance, Wick?’ Perhaps it was the way he pronounced ‘light’, as C Troop’s serjeant-major did, and the town boys when Hervey had been at school.

  ‘Ay, sir,’ replied Wick, with a proud smile both at the fact and at its interest to his officer. ‘From Shrewsbury, sir. Have you been there, sir?’

  What Hervey liked about the Sixth – one of the many things he liked – was the way the private men would speak up. He had once tried to coax the most innocent opinion from one of d’Arcey Jessope’s guardsmen, only to be met with incomprehending silence. And here was the youngest dragoon asking him a question. ‘I was at school there,’ he replied.

  ‘At Shrewsbury school, sir? The big school?’

  Private Wick’s first syllable of Shrewsbury rhymed with ‘shoe’, and Hervey was tempted to make a little sport, for many a time he had got close to blows with the town boys over the matter. He thought better of it, though. ‘Yes,’ he said, simply.

  Wick positively beamed. ‘My father kept the gate there, sir.’

  ‘Indeed, yes, I remember now. “Gaoler” Wick, as we called him.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I knew as that was ’is name among the gentlemen,’ replied the young dragoon, proudly.

  Hervey shook his head. ‘Well, I may tell you, Private Wick, your father had a heart of gold. But you will know that already. Many was the time I thawed myself by his fire, and drank his tea.’

  Wick was beaming with pride now.

  ‘Is he well still?’

  A frown at once replaced the smile. ‘No, sir. He died two years ago.’

  ‘Oh, I am sorry,’ said Hervey. ‘Your mother is well provided for?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir. The school has given her rooms and everything. She does for one of the masters.’ The beam had returned.

  Hervey was doubly pleased, for as well as making for a contented dragoon it was what he would have hoped from his old school. ‘Well, Wick, we can continue this at another time.’ He pushed his telescope into its saddle holster. ‘There are things pressing elsewhere, don’t you think, Broadhurst? How long would you suppose it was after us that the regiment left barracks?’

  Private Broadhurst thought hard for a moment. ‘Well, sir, knowing ’ow things is at present, they wouldn’t ’ave left until everything were perfect . . . At least three hours, I’d say.’

  Broadhurst didn’t miss much, either, thought Hervey. ‘In which case we should expect them within the hour, and then there’ll be two more of good daylight left. They could advance a fair distance before last light – well beyond the Bourne, indeed.’

  The estimate proved right. A little after six o’clock the warning sentries began reporting that the videttes were circling. The pickets stood to, the relays brought the intelligence to Hervey’s flag post, and a galloper set off to the notional army headquarters with a first-sighting report at twenty-two minutes past the hour. Later the inspecting staff would compare timings thoroughly, but Major Jago was already noting in his pocketbook that reports arrived with impressive speed and were handled with confidence and despatch. Hervey’s orders to the contact troop were that videttes should fall back on the warning sentries when the enemy came within carbine range (for to remain any longer risked a ball in the back on retiring), and there form a second vidette line while the sentries fell back on the pickets. The pickets would engage the enemy’s scouts, only withdrawing if the advance guards came up in force, by which time the videttes and warning sentries would have taken post on the new observing line behind. These lines Hervey had carefully chosen from the map and confirmed from the saddle with his two troop officers, and, because they had practised the manoeuvres the week before, he was sure they would be able to keep close track of the regiment during its passage of the common – greatly outnumbered though his troop was.

  It had taken the firmest resolve on Hervey’s part not to be drawn forward himself. His every instinct was to get a sight of the enemy, and he had thought long about placing himself with Corporal Sykes’s picket. But the best place for a commander, Joseph Edmonds had always said, was where he could best command from. And with videttes and pickets thrown across the most part of a mile of bosky heathland, that place was at the apex of a triangle which allowed reports to come almost as quickly from the flanks as from the centre line. Heavens, it was frustrating though, especially when shots began ringing out along the front. But he knew he could trust his corporals not to allow their pickets to be overrun. What about the flanks, though? Hervey knew that if this were real battle he could expect to count on squadrons abreast of him, but on this scheme there were none. This did not matter, the inspecting officer had said, because the regiment would not be allowed to stray outside its boundaries. What would happen at night, though, or with the dawn’s mist? The enemy could stray, intentionally or not, and Hervey’s flank pickets would have the devil of a job. At night or in mist, keeping station with the observing line two or three furlongs to the front would take the greatest address, too (on his own scheme the week before, his flanks had been easily turned). He had therefore insisted on two of the most experienced NCOs being put to the task. But still he was unquiet.

  Hervey now determined to employ observers behind the enemy’s line, as the duke himself had employed them in Spain. The trouble was that he had scarcely men enough for the vidette and picket lines, so he decided to take a gamble by detailing Serjeant Armstrong to the task. This was a costly wager, for he had wanted to place Armstrong at the rally point instead, behind the notional line of infantry two leagues to the rear, where the troop would reunite and be revived, ready for what the inspecting officer might order them to do next. Serjeant-Major Kendall, Hervey feared, was not up to seeing to a rally point by day, let alone by night, but Armstrong behind the enemy was a premium he felt unable to default on. There was nothing for it,
then, but to trust the rally point to the troop serjeant-major. That Kendall had botched it on last week’s scheme was a worry, but was not that the purpose of the exercise – that shortcomings could be rectified before today?

  At eleven it had been dark for three hours, and the action was still going well. The good moon was working in A Troop’s favour, aiding both detection of the enemy and fast movement by the relays. Major Jago’s own observers were reporting that the picket line continued to retire steadily but without penetration, while from Hervey’s own dragoons there was a continual flow of intelligence on the enemy’s progress. There had been a lull in the last quarter of an hour, though, and Hervey was beginning to get anxious that something was amiss. Major Jago had pressed him for his assessment, and he had had to admit the possibility that the enemy might have trickled through his line here and there: after all, they were hardly greenheads. But it was also true that by now the regiment had been advancing for six hours – tiring for both men and horses, perhaps more so than withdrawing in the face of that advance. Might it be the short halt, then, suggested Hervey: saddles fast, bridles off and nosebags on, and water from the Runnymede ponds where the last reports said the advance guards had reached?

  Major Jago had smiled appreciatively on hearing the assessment, and said he would leave him to his own devices for a while.

  ‘Sir,’ whispered Johnson as he came into the old pannage hut which now served as Hervey’s command post.

  Hervey thought it strange he should be whispering with quite so much effort.

  ‘Sir,’ he repeated, and with some insistence, gesturing towards the door.

  The lantern was bright enough to read a map by, but it only cast shadows across Johnson’s face, and Hervey could not make out what it was he wanted. The door scraped open, and Hervey shot to his feet at the sight of the general officer’s cloak.

  ‘You did say I might share your bivouac,’ said Henrietta, pulling off the Tarleton and smiling wide.

  ‘What in heaven’s name are you doing here?’ gasped Hervey. ‘Where did you get that cloak? And those plumes! How did you get here?’ He was about to ask a dozen more questions when she stopped him with a kiss. He glanced awkwardly at Johnson, who was making a show of looking the other way.

  Henrietta, still smiling, began to rearrange her hair, as if nothing were more normal.

  Hervey glanced anxiously at the door. The last thing he needed was to have the inspecting officer find dalliance instead of alertness. ‘My dear, we are in the middle of a battle—’

  ‘What are you doing in a hut, then?’

  ‘Well, we are—’ He realized the absurdity of trying to explain. ‘Johnson, would you—’

  ‘Ay, sir,’ replied his groom. No need to spell it out – sentry duty, the other side of the door. He allowed himself a grin as he squeezed through, and Henrietta grinned back.

  When the door was pulled shut she kissed him again, but longer. Hervey pulled open her cloak and slipped his arms around her. ‘What—’

  She kissed him again. ‘I couldn’t very well ride in a skirt!’

  He was too nervous of discovery to be shocked. Whose breeches they were he simply could not imagine, and in truth he didn’t much care, for she filled them very handsomely.

  ‘Don’t pretend you disapprove. Didn’t the Queen of Scots ride like this?’

  Hervey shook his head in half-despair.

  ‘I am very tired.’ She smiled.

  ‘I am not surprised!’

  ‘Where shall you lie down tonight?’

  He shook his head again. He would dearly like to lie down this very instant, to put out the lantern and trust to Johnson’s vigilance. ‘I cannot lie down for a minute! The enemy could be close by us even now!’

  ‘Well,’ said Henrietta. ‘A cavalry bivouac is a chaster place than ever I have heard of. And very dull!’

  ‘Does anyone know you’re here? Who brought you?’

  She gave a little laugh. ‘The regiment was so taken up with getting itself to Chobham I just followed them. No one seemed to notice me.’

  How that could be so, he simply couldn’t conceive. ‘But how then did you find me?’

  ‘When we got to Egham there were a great many spectators. And all the regiment were telling them what they were about to do.’

  Hervey shook his head. A dragoon loved to share his secrets.

  ‘And I heard one of the officers saying that he was off to give you a surprise.’

  ‘What did he mean, I wonder?’

  ‘I don’t know, but about twenty of them left soon afterwards and so I followed them hoping to see you.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Well, at length they just turned into an inn yard, and the officer said they were to stay there until night.’

  ‘Where was this?’ Hervey began to feel anxious again.

  Henrietta look puzzled. ‘The Plough at Addlestone, I think it was. I rode on a little way, hoping to find you, but I became quite lost. And then an officer from another regiment happened by, and he seemed to know exactly where you were, and he brought me here.’

  ‘What was his name?’

  ‘He didn’t give it,’ she said blithely. ‘He had no idea who I was, and I thought it better not to say.’

  Quickly he found Addlestone on his map. ‘Johnson!’

  His groom opened the door gingerly. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Ask Mr St Oswald to come here at once.’

  ‘What is it, dearest?’ Henrietta seemed puzzled that her scanty report should have caused such alarm.

  ‘Addlestone is well outside the boundaries of the scheme. From there those dragoons will be able to slip behind my picket line, and they’ll avoid even the flank picket if they strike a little further south first. Who was the officer with the party that you followed?’

  Henrietta didn’t know, for she had yet to meet them all.

  ‘What colour were the horses?’

  She smiled. ‘Chestnuts, all.’

  ‘E Troop – Strickland.’ He nodded. ‘He will have drilled them keenly. It could be Sandys or Binney with them, the troop officers. Both are capable enough.’

  The cornet came into the hut, squinting a little in the sudden, if dim, light. He saw Henrietta, and then looked at his troop leader curiously.

  ‘Not a word, St Oswald, not a word.’

  ‘No, sir, I . . . of course.’

  ‘I’ve just learned that about twenty men from E Troop, under Sandys or Binney, were lately assembled here,’ he pointed to Addlestone on the map, ‘which makes them very well placed to slip behind our line, if, indeed, they are not already doing so.’

  Cornet St Oswald glanced at Henrietta again. His admiration for his captain grew daily. Whoever would think of sending his wife as an observing officer!

  ‘The flank pickets ought to pick them up, but if they ride south any further then they’ll be missed.’

  St Oswald nodded. ‘Do you want me to go there?’

  ‘Yes. It looks to me as though their best move would be to come in on this road here, about half a mile behind where our line now is.’ He pointed out the lateral road which cut right across the area of the scheme. It was one of his own reporting lines – a line which would serve to get his pickets back in hand if they were pushed too badly before it.

  The more Hervey studied the map, the more it occurred to him that the slackening of pressure all along his front was more than just fatigue. The regiment had checked just sufficiently forward for E Troop’s party to get in behind his own line without Colonel Freke Smyth’s staff suspecting they had come from outside the boundaries, for he might be persuaded that they had found a gap in the picket line and slipped through. That was cunning, Hervey thought. No, on second thoughts it was devious; there was a difference. He looked at Henrietta. Thank God she had come that way. Armstrong had missed Strickland’s men, but then he could not have been expected to be everywhere at once.

  ‘Sir!’ called one of the dragoons outside, excitedly. ‘A rocket
!’

  Hervey dashed from the hut. The firework was just beginning to fall, but its smoke trail was clear enough. It came from the right flank, from almost exactly where he made the lateral road to be.

  ‘Armstrong! He’s there after all!’ cried Hervey, with a little note of triumph, and grabbing his cornet’s arm. ‘Thomas, take your half-dozen dragoons and make the biggest demonstration you can. Take my repeating carbine – you know how it works well enough. It will make your party sound twice the size. Let me get one of Major Jago’s men first, though. The affair will need an umpire!’

  Cornet St Oswald was pleased no end with the plum.

  Major Jago himself now appeared with his lantern. ‘What do you make of that rocket, Hervey?’ he enquired suspiciously. ‘It isn’t a Congreve, that’s for sure.’

  ‘No sir,’ admitted Hervey, noticing Henrietta concealing herself from Jago. ‘I bought it two weeks ago in London.’ And then he wondered why he was being so guarded. ‘It is the alarm signal from one of my videttes on the flank. I believe there is an incursion. I am sending Cornet St Oswald and six men to intercept it. Would you send one of your staff with them?’

  ‘I shall go myself. Come on, young man!’ Jago called to St Oswald.

  ‘Matthew!’ whispered Henrietta when he had gone. ‘That was the officer who brought me here when I lost my way.’

  Hervey groaned. Major Jago, he suspected, was not a man to miss much. ‘The question now, my love, is how we are going to take you back again.’

  That question presented much less of a problem than he expected, for soon after Cornet St Oswald’s successful affair on the flank, Major Jago received word from Colonel Freke Smyth that the scheme was at an end, and that all of the regiment was to assemble at first light on the green at Addlestone so that the condition of the horses might be assessed by the veterinary surgeons and farriers of the Blues. Hervey had no doubts that the regiment would be adjudged exemplary in this, but he was surprised that the officers received a separate order to assemble at the Plough Inn, for it had been the invariable practice for them to attend at any such parade. But General Browning wished to breakfast with them, and that was that. Hervey was therefore able to ride with Henrietta as far as the crossroads short of the village, from where Johnson would escort her back to Hounslow.