A Regimental Affair (29 page)

The inquest into the deaths of Privates Hill and Greenwood was pleasingly brisk. The coroner was a no-nonsense sort of man who seemed not in the least dismayed by the attention the proceedings had generated, especially the reporters from the London broadsheets who with others of the provincial press filled one of the galleries in the assembly rooms. At the end of a brief deposition by the surviving revenue riding officer, he directed the jury to bring in a verdict of unlawful killing in the case of both dragoons, and adjourned the proceedings without elaboration. In an instant the London and provincial hacks besieged the uniformed observers for some titbit to enliven their day’s copy: for once, Hervey was glad to be in plain clothes and apart from his fellows. All the hacks, that is, but
The Times
’s man, who raced from the court to a waiting chaise and made off with great haste to the capital.

Dawn the next morning saw Hervey and his groom on the downs above Brighton. The air had a taste of salt but was invigorating, and with no one as far as the eye could see but the riding master, Lieutenant Broad, and Broad’s groom, Hervey could forget his woeful condition for the time being.

Mr Broad was another extract, but Hervey had taken to him from their first meeting. Broad had been in the ranks of the 1st Dragoons – Lord George Irvine’s former regiment – for fifteen years before Lord George had arranged his commissioning into the Sixth after Waterloo. His predecessor as riding master, who had been a rough rider under three RMs, had been diligent but somewhat rigid. And though he had been generally respected, there were some (including Hervey) who thought he had become too averse to new ideas, so that the regiment’s equitation, though sound enough, did not rise beyond the commonplace.

Mr Broad, however, was both his own and a Woodbridge man in the question of the riding school. He had surprised some in the Sixth by his assertion that each horse and each rider was an individual, and that it was his duty as RM to bring on both
as
individuals, yet for the common task of the regiment. These were progressive views indeed, and Hervey had wondered at first how well the RM’s own staff took to them. The answer, he had soon learned, was well; when he had first visited riding school on returning to the regiment, it was evident how quickly the recruits absorbed their instruction. Broad must therefore have been as sympathetic with his rough riders as he was with his other charges, for they it was who had the close care of ‘the babies’.

But Broad was not without his detractors. The adjutant, especially, abhorred his system, calling it too comfortable. And since the RM was directly subordinate to the adjutant, there had been many turn-ups.

‘You see what I mean, Hervey?’ he called from the chestnut blood circling at the trot. ‘He’s just a fraction unlevel. And I can’t tell if it’s bridle lameness or the real sort.’

Hervey watched keenly as the RM schooled the troublesome chestnut. Broad had the lightest hands he had seen in many a year: bridle lameness seemed unlikely with hands such as these, although, there again, it was a very indefinite condition at the best of times.

In five more minutes, Broad rode up to him and dismounted. ‘I’d like to see him from the ground, if you will. Drive him forwards in a long, low outline. Get him to step under more with his hind limbs to get more impulsion from them, and his back to swing more freely. Then I should be able to tell.’

Hervey lengthened the stirrups two holes and, with Johnson’s help, lowered himself carefully into the saddle, wishing to judge the horse’s temperament by degrees rather than risk shocking him with a spring.

He began with shallow serpentines, changing the diagonal each time for Broad to judge the soundness of the leg. But ten minutes of this revealed nothing.

‘Good!’ called Broad. ‘I got nothing either. What do you think?’

‘I think there’s some resistance in going forwards properly . . .’

‘So did I. Can you start driving him, then?’

It was hard, but Hervey did so for a quarter of an hour, until both he and the horse were sweating prodigiously. Then he brought him back to a walk to let him down. ‘I really don’t think there’s chronic unsoundness in this animal. I rather like him, indeed. I just think he’s been badly schooled.’

‘Bravo, Hervey. My sentiments, too. He’ll have got butcher’s hands at a Tattersalls doer’s: they won’t give a young horse
time
.’

Hervey jumped from the saddle and patted the gelding’s neck. ‘And so?’

‘I shall buy him, then. A fortnight of this and he’ll have a proper rhythm back. I’ll lunge him in a
Chambon
tomorrow. Would you like to come again the day after?’

‘Thank you, Broad,’ said Hervey warmly as the RM’s groom took the reins. ‘Thank you very much indeed.’ In the hour he had been there he had not thought of their commanding officer once.

‘It’s a bad business, Hervey,’ said Broad abruptly, offering him a cheroot.

Hervey declined it. ‘What is a bad business?’

‘Everything. The serjeants aren’t happy, or the corporals.’

It was a rude return to regimental matters. Hervey sighed. ‘An officer is owed loyalty,’ he replied rather flatly. It was the principle on which they had all been nurtured as cornets. But then it had been easy enough. Hervey’s first troop leader had been Joseph Edmonds, his last Sir Edward Lankester. And for the most part
the lieutenant colonel had been Lord George Irvine. It was not difficult to be loyal to men like these. ‘We have to remain faithful, Broad, if for no other reason but that matters will be worse for our dragoons if we do not.’

‘I know,’ said the RM, speaking with more than a little experience. ‘I’ve seen from below the trouble that’s stirred when the officers are unhappy.’

‘Happy officers, happy regiment?’

‘Exactly.’

Hervey stopped and turned to him. ‘What is it you are saying, then?’

‘That there has to be some prospect of improvement, else nothing will reverse the ill spirits.’

The RM’s discretion did him proud, thought Hervey. He – more than the quartermasters, even – would know the minds of the senior ranks. Not that that was supposed to be difficult. Joseph Edmonds used to say that you always knew what your dragoons were saying, and usually what your NCOs were thinking – but the officers, rarely. ‘You know, Broad, I believe we’re missing Mr Lincoln rather more than we might think.’

The RSM’s long leave of absence was the single most aggravating factor, some were saying. ‘It would be as well to promote another now,’ said Broad decidedly.

Hervey frowned. ‘I can’t see how—’

‘You don’t imagine he’ll return to duty, do you?’

‘Why on earth would he not? Besides aught else, he surely has hopes of being promoted.’

Now the RM frowned. ‘
Commissioned
, Hervey, not promoted!’

Hervey reddened. No officer commissioned from that august rank ever considered he was
promoted
. ‘Very well. But I for one would be dismayed if Mr Lincoln were not back at his post before the year is out. Unless, that is, you know otherwise.’

‘What I know is that Hopwood’s flogging tested his loyalty to the utmost. Lincoln was more opposed to flogging than you could have supposed. The orderly room serjeant overheard the RSM in with the colonel. And all I’ll say is that his lordship left him in no doubt that his opinion was of little value.’

‘Then it was very wrong of the orderly room serjeant to speak of it.’

‘You’re right of course, Hervey. But only up to a point. Who can the orderly room serjeant turn to when he believes his loyalty to the RSM demands some action? You might say that he showed more courage in coming to me than in remaining silent – for he didn’t know what my answer was going to be.’

Hervey conceded the point. ‘And what was your answer?’

‘I told him he’d discharged his duty to the RSM in telling me, and that he must now discharge his duty to the colonel by telling no one else.’

Hervey hoped that he himself would have had the presence of mind to put it thus. ‘And so you are now telling me.’

‘Yes, and I shall consider my duty completed in that, too.’

Hervey nodded. ‘But one more thing. Why didn’t you speak to the adjutant? He is your proper superior, and it’s his duty to advise the colonel.’

‘Hervey, you ought to know full well that it would have been to no avail whatever – a hollow gesture. I exercised my judgement. Isn’t that what an officer’s meant to do – use his judgement rather than just carry out orders? Even officers from the ranks.’

Hervey thought it devilish unfair that an extract – and from the ranks, at that – should have to make such a judgement. ‘You didn’t consider approaching the major?’

The RM frowned again. ‘
You
, Hervey, are the senior squadron leader.
And
you’ve a brevet.’

Hervey remained silent for few moments. ‘What would you have me do?’

‘Nothing, for sure, that would make things worse.’

Hervey smiled despairingly. ‘I think almost anything would make things worse. And what you have quite forgotten is that as long as I’m in arrest my motive in doing anything will be questioned.’

The RM did not reply at once, seeming to search for his words. ‘Hervey, if it comes to a court martial, you must defend yourself with every ounce of guile you can summon. You must not think of it as a game of cricket.’

‘My dear Broad, do you truly think that—’

But the RM was in no mood for nicety. ‘And if things go against you, you must make appeal to Lord Sussex.’

The very words ‘court martial’ chilled Hervey to the marrow.
But the threat of it could play no part in his actions respecting Lord Towcester. The RM’s counsel was brave. Many in his position would have kept it to themselves, but in the end it gave Hervey no true line to take. He would just have to pray that he could determine what duty demanded – for he knew well enough where it lay.

When Hervey returned to breakfast, he found Henrietta smiling, and with just a suggestion of triumph.

‘Do we have good news at last?’

‘I think it may be so,’ she said, smiling even wider. ‘You will not have seen
The Times
, I think?’

She handed him the paper, folded open to reveal the leading piece.

THREAT TO THE REGENT’S PAVILION

Brighton

We are most reliably informed that Tuesday’s affair with the Frenchmen bent on depriving His Majesty’s Revenue of their just receipts, and which occasioned the deaths of an officer of the Revenue and two private men of His Majesty’s Sixth Light Dragoons, as well as a number more very grievously wounded, was a most desperate contest between the dragoons and upwards of one hundred heavily armed smugglers who greatly outnumbered our brave fellows. The Dragoons, led by their noble and gallant lieutenant colonel, the Earl of Towcester, had ridden through the foulest of weather and the blackest of nights to answer the Revenue’s urgent request for assistance. And had it not been for the extraordinary address shown by His Lordship and his gallant officers and men, it is thought that the French might even have despoiled that part of the town of Brighton nearest their landing. We need scarcely add that His Royal Highness’s own pavilion residence is within but a short distance, and, though it shall not be our business to provide intelligence of His Royal Highness’s comings and goings so as to be of use to malefactors of any nationality, we may say with safety that it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that a most exalted personage might have been taken captive in such an
expedition had it not been for the prompt action of the Regiment. We may further say, with the same assurance, that not even in their late campaigning in the Peninsula and at the Battle of Waterloo, have the Sixth Light Dragoons rendered His Majesty and the Nation greater Service, and that we expect confidently to report in due course the honours which must surely be bestowed on the regiment
.

‘How in heaven’s name did such a piece come to be written?’ Hervey’s tone could not have been more incredulous. ‘I’ve never seen such a concoction of falsehoods! “Inaccuracies” would be too charitable a word. And such speculation!’

‘But it serves very well, does it not?’

‘It serves to make of Lord Towcester a hero, for sure.’

‘But does it not serve to absolve
you
, Matthew?’