‘Indeed, my lord. Will you see him now?’
‘I will.’ The commander-in-chief pushed aside his papers with an air of relish. ‘At what time is the levee at Prince Lieven’s?’
‘Twelve, my lord.’
‘Capital. I would not wish the interview to be hurried.’ He smiled. ‘I might even be able to impart some information to Lieven. He pressed me only yesterday at the Austrian ambassador’s to know who would replace Bingham, and when.’
‘Some might speculate on whether the inquiry were on the Princess’s behalf, my lord.’ Youell’s wryness was all the more for its being infrequent.
‘Indeed. Hah! What schemes Princess Lieven has to her name.’
The door was opened, and Hervey ushered in. He put his feet together noisily in the Prussian style and saluted, a confident presenting to the man who disposed the future of every officer in the army.
‘Daddy’ Hill, as he had been known throughout the Peninsular army for his attention to the comforts of his men, looked for all the world like an elderly cleric, his coat dark, his pate bald and his form somewhat portly. The contrast in appearance with the previous occupant of the commander-in-chief’s office could not have been more profound.
‘My lord.’
‘Hervey, I am excessively glad to see you,’ declared Lord Hill, rising and extending a hand. ‘Nothing warms the heart better on a day such as this than to see an old friend return safe from the fray.’
Hervey was taken aback, but agreeably, by the appellation ‘old friend’, for although he had galloped for the general at Talavera (and Lord Hill was not one to forget a service, especially one so capable as his had been that day), to be admitted to such a sphere, if in words alone, was honour indeed. All he could manage, however, was ‘Thank you, my lord.’
‘I have read your despatches with careful attention, and Sir Henry Hardinge likewise. I dare say there’ll be a ribbon in it.’
The attention of Sir Henry Hardinge, the Secretary at War, and a soldier of some distinction himself – this was recognition indeed, let alone the ribbon (‘C.B.’, with which he had been honoured after the storming of Bhurtpore two years before, was already notable for an officer with so recent a half-colonelcy). ‘I am glad to have been able to do my duty, General. As did others in that expedition – for one, Captain Fairbrother of the Cape Rifles, whom I should very much wish to present to you, sir.’
‘By all means, Hervey. And stand easy.’ He turned to Colonel Youell. ‘Have Captain Fairbrother’s name entered for the next levee, would you?’
‘Certainly, my lord.’
Hervey cleared his throat. ‘My lord, Captain Fairbrother has accompanied me from the Cape, and indeed he is here with me this morning. I had hoped you would receive him.’
Lord Hill frowned. ‘That is most irregular, Hervey. I stand not on great ceremony but I cannot have the business of the Horse Guards conducted with a complete absence of it.’
Hervey felt suddenly discomposed; he had evidently misjudged matters – overreached himself, even. ‘I beg your pardon, my lord.’
Colonel Youell now cleared his throat. ‘There is time before Prince Lieven’s, my lord.’
A smile displaced the commander-in-chief’s frown. ‘Very well. We shall receive your Captain Fairbrother. But first sit you down, Hervey. Take some Madeira.’
Hervey removed his forage cap, took a glass from the tray which an orderly brought, and sat in an armchair half-facing the commander-in-chief’s desk and the windows which looked out on to the parade ground. Snow was now falling so thick as to make St James’s Park at the far side quite invisible.
Lord Hill observed it too. ‘You were not with us on that blessèd trudge to Corunna, were you, Youell?’
‘I was not, my lord.’ Youell did not add that he had been fevered on Martinique with General Maitland, a gentleman volunteer not yet seventeen.
‘Damnably cold, and the army behaved ill – not every regiment, not by any means, but too many. Badly served by their officers, some of them, and scandalously ill-provisioned. But that was no excuse.’
None of this could have been unknown to Youell, reckoned Hervey; and he wondered at Lord Hill’s purpose. ‘All of them fought well at Corunna, though, sir,’ he tried, risking rebuke in speaking unbidden, and seemingly to contradict.
But Lord Hill better than most knew how well they had fought that day, for he had commanded the brigade on the left flank, astride the road to the town. ‘The point is, Hervey, if the retreat had continued another week we’d scarcely have had an army left to fight with at Corunna.’ He looked out at the snow again. ‘Look here, you will dine with me this day week, and we shall speak then of your duties in the east. There’s nothing arising from your Cape despatches of which we need speak now; they are admirably clear. But I have to tell you one thing – and though it is not for me to do so, I feel the obligation since it was I who selected you to command of the Sixth.’
Indeed it was, Hervey knew – and without purchase. ‘I have not had opportunity to thank you, my lord.’
Lord Hill looked uneasy. ‘Yes, yes, that is all very well – and I do not need thanks for doing my duty – but matters are not as they were. I am fighting a damnably bloody war of retrenchment. I have had to give orders for the Sixth and two other regiments to be reduced, to be placed en cadre – a depot squadron, a hundred men, no more.’
Hervey felt his stomach turn as badly as it could before a fight. ‘For how long, sir?’
‘Indefinitely. They’re supposed to be disbanded: that is what Hardinge asked, but I’ve managed to persuade him that the economy in placing them en cadre is almost as great, and the general situation too uncertain to risk complete disbandment – far easier to re-raise than if they had been wholly struck from the list.’
Hervey was now on the edge of his chair. ‘But, sir, why the Sixth? Our seniority, our late service in India, our—’
‘Colonel Hervey,’ warned Youell, firmly but with a note of respect nevertheless.
‘Forgive me, my lord, but it makes no sense to reduce a regiment which has acquired such expertise in its trade. Why cannot those late sent to India be recalled?’
‘Colonel Hervey, remember your place, sir,’ repeated Youell, though more as entreaty than command.
Lord Hill huffed, but with the air of a man challenged reasonably enough. ‘Hervey, let me explain to you the very grave situation the Horse Guards finds itself in.’ (By ‘Horse Guards’ Hervey knew that Hill meant he himself.) ‘The army estimates are in course of preparation as we speak. They require a reduction of eight thousand men. To this end I have it in mind that every battalion is diminished by fifty men, that four companies of one of the penal corps are disbanded as well as the whole of the Staff Corps – some twelve hundred men – though I believe we might transfer a thousand of these to the Board of Ordnance.’ He smiled grimly at the ruse.
Hervey could well appreciate the Horse Guards’ difficulties, for if such sleights of hand to overcome a reduction in supply were being employed, the situation must indeed be disadvantageous. But all the same, if there were not troops enough for every call on them, why reduce the cavalry when they possessed the greatest celerity of movement?
Lord Hill appeared to read his mind. ‘And yet the calls on the army are no less insistent, not least in Ireland and in Canada. I need hardly point out that the cost of a regiment of cavalry is twice that, and more, of infantry. There are one hundred and three battalions of the Line, and seventy-four of these are abroad. It is His Majesty’s government’s policy that troops in foreign stations should be relieved every ten years – that is to say, at the rate of seven battalions a year; but where are the reliefs to be found if there are only enough battalions at home to last for four years? Ministers, as is their wont, put forward makeshift after makeshift. But it will not serve.’