Warrior

'They keep well to the north, as a rule. A regular little band. They must have thought us merchants, easy pickings.'

'I'd've given 'em silver to change the blessèd wheel,' rasped Colonel Smith, turning back to the whiskey.

And then he turned again, as if he had come to some particular resolution. 'Hervey, I will say it here, without ceremony. I would that you keep the lieutenant-governor out of harm's way in like manner. In Natal, I mean.'

'Do you doubt that I might?'

Colonel Smith shook his head. 'I mean that yours shall be the entire responsibility.'

'Depend upon it.'

'No, Hervey: I mean that you shall command the escort. I shall remain here.'

Hervey thought to turn the tables a little. 'Ah, so duties at the castle do not permit of riding with us after all?'

But Colonel Smith was not to be baited. 'There's no question of it. With Bourke away I mayn't so much as come out to buy a horse without wondering what I shall find on return.'

'You have my sympathies in that regard.'

A smile came to Colonel Smith's lips, broadening by degrees until his whole face was creased.

'Evidently not all is care,' said Hervey, drily.

'My dear fellow, I suggested I might take charge only to see what was your rejoinder.'

Hervey was, if in the smallest measure, put out. It was not as if he knew Colonel Smith well, or even that the colonel had shown any predisposition to pranking. 'Occasioned merely by sport, or some particular purpose?'

Colonel Smith continued to smile, but rather less broadly. 'You know, Hervey, with Bourke away I must act in his name. If I considered something to be ill founded – or, indeed, if I were to be convinced that the general would consider it to be thus – I should have to object.'

By which Hervey knew that if the general's deputy objected, there would be no expedition. It was, of course, perfectly reasonable that Colonel Smith should wish to test the mettle of a man in whom he would be placing such confidence. 'I trust you do not believe the expedition to be ill founded.'

'No. Your assurance in the matter is everything. Had you somehow welcomed a superior, I should have been uncertain.'

Hervey smiled, but thinly, for his self-assurance had more often than not stood to his disadvantage. There was no need of reply; he simply nodded.

'And for my part, be assured you will have my very best support at the castle.'

X

A MOST AGREEABLE THINGThat afternoon

'I have been pondering on Sarn't-Major Armstrong's situation,' said Hervey, trying not to grimace at the rank coffee which Captain Brereton's man had brought them.

Brereton shifted slightly in his chair, but only to let his sword hang a little freer. The troop office was not the best of places for such a conversation, Hervey knew, but the officers' house would have been altogether too cosy.

'It is certainly a very sad one.'

And Brereton said it in such a way as suggested true compassion.

Hervey did not doubt that Stafford Brereton, for all that he was an extract, had formed the highest regard for his – their – serjeantmajor. What affection there might be was another matter; such things came only with time, perhaps.

'I mean that I was wondering what recognition might be had for his conduct at the frontier. The lieutenant-governor is certain he owes his life to the sarn't-major's address.'

This was something of a challenge to Brereton (as Hervey knew full well), for if Armstrong had saved Somervile's life, it had been Brereton who had first placed it in jeopardy by his decision to divide his force. When Hervey had spoken to him of it yesterday, but briefly, Brereton had given him a plausible enough explanation of the decision; but since the action had not achieved its object, and the lieutenant-governor had almost died (not to mention the dragoons), the decision was hardly vindicated.

'I had heard that Sir Eyre has commissioned a gold medal.'

Hervey had not known the intention was out. 'Indeed. But I meant something rather more elevating than ribbons.'

The point was a little unfair, and again he knew it: neither promotion nor the grant of seniority was within Brereton's gift. And so lately come to the acting command of a troop, he was scarcely in a position to press the matter with Lord Holderness. In any case, Brereton had written a full account of the action and had forwarded it to Hounslow, as Hervey knew because he had already told him.

'I feel sure the commanding officer will take all due note of his conduct. Is there anything you believe I myself might do, Colonel?'

'I think . . . if I were to see a copy of your report . . .' Hervey checked himself, for he was otherwise close to imputing dishonour. 'There might occur to me something.'

He had nicely reached his objective. He had given E Troop's captain the reassurance that he wished to read the report for a reason other than that he doubted either his actions or his frankness in relating them. He paused to study Brereton's reaction, before adding a further emollient: 'I think it behoves us to look at everything.'

'Indeed. I will have the clerk fetch it,' replied Brereton, making to rise.

'Later,' said Hervey, equably, raising his hand to stay him. 'Let us first speak of the arrangements for the Shaka expedition. There's a good deal to consider.'

* * *

They spoke for an hour or so, and then went to evening stables. Hervey was glad to be back among faces he knew by name, and so many of which he counted friends: they had been in scrapes enough together in India, and the odd old hand in the Peninsula, to be too particular in recalling the occasions for rebuke or punishment.

He knew he would miss them. He knew he would miss it – the fellowship of the stable – when he took up command of the Eightyfirst. If he took up command. In command even of a company he would have felt the distance between the ranks, let alone of a whole battalion. Lord John Howard had once said to him, in jest, but with just such a measure of possibility as to sound true, that in going on parade he could never recognize which was his company unless the serjeants were posted. Here, in the formal but shabby ease of the evening stables parade, a man would touch the peak of his forage cap in salute, with a smile of recognition and an 'evenin sir' in greater or lesser degree according to his length of service. And he, Hervey, could return that greeting with an intimacy which defied the understanding of all but an insider. Yet on parade, in the field, in the face of the enemy, he could give the same man an order to charge – even unto death – knowing that it would be obeyed without question.

Obeyed not through fear of the lash (for the Sixth did not flog) but through trust that a man's life was not thrown away merely because his rank was lowly; and, too, that no one – officer or NCO – would ask a man to do a thing which he himself would not. Trust, mutual trust, was the secret of light cavalry discipline. This he had learned, before ever seeing a dragoon, from his old and late friend and mentor Daniel Coates, sometime Trumpeter-Corporal Coates of His Majesty's 16th Light Dragoons (and now in death his magnificent benefactor). And that trust he had cultivated throughout the years of the Peninsula, and since. It would be deuced hard to exchange it all for the world of the serjeant's half-pike and the cat-o'-nine-tails. Likely as not, he would never speak directly to a private man again . . .