Warrior

'Sir?'

He snapped to. 'Sar'nt-Major.'

Collins was standing at attention in front of him.

Hervey recollected himself as best he could with a 'How do you find things?'

Collins took his whip from under his arm and moved to Hervey's side, ready to continue the progress through the lines. 'Just as I expected, sir.'

Which was indeed exactly as Hervey himself expected, for both Armstrong and Collins had been raised in the same school – RSM Lincoln's.

'Every last item in the ledger accounted for, all of it in good condition, and a satisfactory store of backshee.'

The regiment had picked up the word in India, where the native regiments used it to describe those items held in excess of what the ledger specified – the 'working margin', as the quartermasters and serjeant-majors more usually officialized it. Except that as a rule none would ever declare the existence of backshee, since by rights any excess belonged to the superior account holder.

Hervey nodded, perfectly appreciating the candour: Collins wanted him to know that Armstrong had run the troop exactly as it should be run. 'I trust that Sar'nt-Major Armstrong will be able to report the same in due course,' he added, though in truth with no certainty, now, that Armstrong would indeed take back his troop (Private Johnson's conviction that he would 'chuck it' for the sake of his children seemed no longer impossible).

'Evenin, sor!'

Hervey was taken aback. 'Corporal McCarthy!' (He had last seen him in the quartermaster-serjeant's office in Hounslow.) 'It is still "Corporal" isn't it?' he enquired, with mock severity.

'Sor!'

'What do you do here? The stores not to your liking?'

'Sor, they was askin for men for E Troop, sor, an' I thought as I might volunteer. Sor!'

Hervey tried hard not to smile, which he always found difficult when dealing with this irrepressible Cork man. 'What happened to the principle of "never volunteer for anything"?'

'I make an exception, sor, in connection with E Troop.'

Hervey recalled well McCarthy's special devotion: on one occasion in India it had cost him the stripes on his arm, when he had broken the nose of a pug from another troop who had impugned E Troop's honour. 'I'm sure you are very welcome.'

He moved on to the next stall. The dragoon was bending with his back to him, but Hervey had known the man's thick, black curls for ten years. 'Corporal French!'

The NCO rose and turned, bringing his hands to his side in salute. 'Good evening, sir.'

French was almost a gentleman. Indeed he was a gentleman by the usual measure; the 'almost' was the regiment's customary form of allowing him a kind of half-way status between other rank and officer, though he answered to a serjeant as any other. He was a gentleman by birth, a son of impoverished Welsh gentry and the parsonage, but he lacked any means to support himself as such, and had been a counting-house clerk before enlisting. Had he been five or six years older he would almost certainly have had a free commission in a battalion of the Line, for the ensign ranks of the Peninsular infantry had suffered sorely. With peace come, however, and with it retrenchment, there were sons enough of the gentry who could pay their way. But Corporal French had always appeared content with his situation; and he was liked by all ranks.

'I was thinking, sir,' said Collins quietly as they moved on. 'With Wainwright still poorly, French would be a good coverman.'

Hervey nodded. 'In any case, with Wainwright now serjeant he shouldn't be covering.' And then he remembered. 'But the troop's under Captain Brereton's orders, Sar'nt-Major. I shouldn't be making these decisions.'

'No, sir,' agreed Collins. He said nothing for a few paces. 'But if you are content on French, sir, I'll arrange it.'

Hervey nodded again. 'That would be the way. Thank you.'

And he found himself nodding to dragoons in turn as if for the last time, looking at each with an eye almost paternal. Most of them he had first seen as green recruits; some he had himself enlisted; a few were old sweats, Peninsular veterans who remembered his arriving. He would miss them – more than he had imagined. But he thanked God there was this one last ride together: if not actually a campaign, then an expedition promising something unusual, something to remember, even if it were only the face of this intriguing chief, Shaka.

But there must be no sentiment; it did not serve. 'Have you seen Wainwright yet?' he asked, to be more purposeful. 'I must say he looks in better condition than I'd dared hope.'

'I saw him last night, sir. He'll mend right enough.'

Hervey smiled to himself. He might have known that Collins would lose no time in calling on a brother NCO. 'Anything more?' Collins sighed. 'Quilter.'

Hervey sighed too. Serjeant Quilter looked the part, but he had risen more by seniority than merit. He was not an E Troop man: he had come on promotion from B. At eighteen years' service he was one of the oldest corporals to be made serjeant, and for the two years since then he had never looked at ease in the rank.

Collins, who had known him many years, shook his head. 'He does his best, mind.'

Hervey raised his eyebrows. 'That in its way is discouraging.'

'Ay, sir. Even if I decided everything for him, he'd still make a muddle of it. Armstrong said as 'e was fed up with putting him on report. And what with Wainwright on box rest, it makes things twice as bad.'

'You would prefer Corporal Hardy to stand duty, I imagine.'

'I don't know Hardy well enough to say, sir, but Armstrong rates him.'

'He did well in the skirmish at the frontier, by all accounts – very cool-headed, and economical with the sabre.' Hervey nodded slowly. 'I'll speak with Captain Brereton. And we should have someone slated for rear details – Quilter, I mean. I can't have him in the field. Though in fairness I should say he did not disgrace himself at Umtata.'

When they had walked the huttings, Hervey dismissed Collins and took his leave of Brereton, telling him that he would dine in the officers' house, but that first he must call on the lieutenantgovernor. He went then to the charger stables, which was hutting no different from the troop lines, but with the usual extra space for loose boxes rather than standing stalls. Here he found Private Toyne, his second groom. Toyne, a quiet-spoken Westmorland man who had learned horses at the gypsy fair in Appleby, had joined the Sixth in India. Hervey had liked him at once, as (more importantly) had Johnson; he felt confident always of leaving a horse in his charge.

Toyne greeted him as if he had seen him but an hour ago. 'Both of 'em's doin' right, sir,' he added, nodding to Hervey's two mares.

Hervey had not doubted it would be so; not, at least, as far as husbandry was concerned (the perdesiekt was another matter). He looked into Eli's box. Eli – Eliab – was Jessye's foal, nine years old, fifteen hands three, a pretty bay and now a handy charger, with all her dam's sturdiness, and a fair bit of bone. She was a 'good doer', as the saying went: she did not lose condition quickly when her rations were changed or reduced. But he had yet to take her into the field. Gilbert had been his battle-charger, a fast and seasoned one, and for the foray into Kaffraria he had taken Molly as his second, for Eli had coughed once or twice the day before, and he had decided not to risk it. But now Eli was his second, for he had had to put a bullet in Gilbert's brains when an aneurysm brought him down only yards from the Zulu.