Warrior

And so Hervey was able thence to ride to Eerste River, fifteen miles or so east of Cape Town, by the mid-morning, and in good spirits, arriving at the stud farm not long after Colonel Smith himself.

The farm was well set up. There were some handsome buildings, all of one storey, whitewashed, with the distinctive Cape Dutch gables. The fences were solid, straight, pleasing as well as serviceable. And beyond was pasture as green as he would find in his own corner of Wiltshire. Here was a place to foal remounts.

Colonel Smith was admiring a good-looking blood.

'A handsome fellow,' said Hervey, coming up on them unseen.

'Indeed, Hervey, but we would say in the Rifle Brigade that handsome is as handsome does.'

'A phrase I have myself used. A blood might be needless fire, and an entire altogether too . . .'

'I thought the same.'

The breeder became anxious. 'I have another, three-quarter bred,' he tried, his English thick with the accent of Cape Dutch. 'A gelding. I will have him brung, sir. And I have any number of Cape horses.'

Colonel Smith said he was obliged. 'You know these Capers, Hervey?'

Hervey told him how they had lost so many troopers to the perdesiekt when they arrived that they had been forced to buy Capers, though not from this breeder. 'There's much to be said for them, since they're salted.'

'How so?'

'In truth I can't say. They haven't all had the sickness. Our veterinarian, an excellent, scientific man, believes it to be some sort of . . . immunity, so to speak, passed from dam to foal. In the blood.'

Colonel Smith looked at him cautiously. 'Very well, Hervey, since you are a colonel of mounted rifles and I merely of the pedestrian variety, perhaps you will tell me what it is that you look for in a horse.'

Hervey checked himself for a moment. Colonel Smith bantered with him, but a man did not lightly admit himself the inferior judge of horseflesh. 'You will know as I that a chain is but as strong as its weakest link, and it is that link which I always endeavour to discover. Mind, if a chain is not tested to the utmost, that link may not fail. Do you intend working the horse hard?'

'I do not see my duties especially requiring it.'

Hervey nodded. 'It's as well to determine these things first.'

One of the breeder's men trotted up the three-quarter bred, a second man behind it with a whip.

'A handsome gelding, Kuyper,' agreed Colonel Smith. 'And he moves well.'

Hervey recollected himself again, for if it were the old trick (and he felt sure it was) it would not do to suggest that his companion fell for it too easily. 'I think we might see how he goes at the walk.'

The breeder bid his men do so, sounding a little piqued.

'I thought it was the trot which revealed the most in a faulty action,' said Colonel Smith, but quietly.

'I don't dispute it,' replied Hervey, likewise lowering his voice (the breeder stood closer than he ought). 'But I doubt the action is true. There'll be a severe bit in his mouth, and the whip cracking behind makes him go forward, and the leader then checks him sharply, so the animal's knees go up because his progress is arrested and the impulse is all from behind.'

The leader walked the gelding up to them, and then away again.

'He looks to me straight and level, Hervey,' said Colonel Smith, doubtful.

'I've seen many worse. Yet to me the action is not free enough. He raises his knee too much. And see how he winds his foot. A horse with such an action tires early, and is prone to stumbling. And – here's the thing – I'm certain it's not his natural action.'

Colonel Smith frowned. 'How so? There's no whip behind him now.'

'I'll warrant that if we see inside yonder stable there'll be a set of heavy shoes taken off this morning, and a couple of shot-bags which have been fastened round his fetlocks.'

'Ah.'

'And quite probably for no good cause, for the horse to me does not look as if he should be otherwise excessively flat.'

'Then we ought to leave at once; find another dealer,' said Colonel Smith decidedly.

Hervey shook his head. 'It doesn't follow that his horses are unsound. He'll have learned the English like a showy action, and that's what he's producing. Neither may he know exactly – strange to say – that it's not how high a horse picks his feet up which causes him to stumble, but how he places them down. Let us see his Capers.'

To the breeder's evident disappointment they dismissed the gelding and asked to see instead his Boerperds (which would command only half the price of the bloods).

Five minutes later he brought out half a dozen, in-hand, all much the same to look at in height and general conformation. The Hottentot stable-lads began walking them and then trotting in a large circle about the manège.

'You see, they all move true,' said Hervey after studying them a minute or so. 'No bridle, just a halter – no tricks.'

'But rather slighter than I had imagined for myself,' replied Colonel Smith, in a way that suggested he agreed but with some reluctance still. 'You think them up to weight?'

'Try the grey,' said Hervey (the mare with pronounced iron dappling looked the most active of the bunch). 'I fancy you would weigh in at fourteen stone' (he meant with saddle) 'and there's plenty of arab in them. They'd carry eighteen without complaint. And that black mane will go well with Rifle facings,' he added a shade drolly.

'I think I might.'

'But let's first see her run free.' He asked for the mare to be loosed in one of the turnouts.

The breeder seemed reluctant.

'Come, man; let her have her liberty.'

When the halter was off, the mare trotted confidently to the middle of the turnout – dusty even at this time of year – and began to roll. She got up, shook herself, looked about, and then walked to the far side.

'Would you call her, please, Menheer Kuyper?' asked Hervey, pleased so far with what he saw.

The breeder barked an order to one of the Hottentots, who cupped a hand to his mouth. 'Kuni!'

The mare turned her head.

'Komm, Kuni, komm!'

She began trotting back to the gate. The breeder looked pleasantly surprised.

Hervey smiled. 'Well, Colonel, if she's as well mannered under saddle, I would say that there is your hack.'

And to the breeder's evidently even greater surprise, the mare then went well in a simple snaffle. After five minutes of serpentines, Colonel Smith handed her back with an approving nod, and expressed himself pleased. 'Well, Hervey?'