Warrior

'Truly?'

'Not content with sending the old King packing, they now disdain the King's English!'

'The devil!' Hervey found the report.

'Fine fellows. I should very much like to see the country,' declared Fairbrother, laying down the towel and picking up the bowl of coffee. 'Hervey, my good friend, if your offer still stands, I should like to come with you to Canada.'

Hervey's surprise was marked.

Fairbrother ignored it. 'You're sure an exchange can be arranged?'

Hervey stood up, and with a look not merely of satisfaction but of admiration. 'Of course the offer stands. And I'm sure the agents can arrange an exchange with no difficulty. As I told you, these things are perfectly easily done when it is known how.'

Fairbrother cast off his robe, though the door was full open, and took up the clean linen laid out on a chair next to the press.

Hervey observed the sinews of an athlete, and wondered, again, how his friend kept such condition when he took no exercise and chose his food and drink entirely at will. It could only be, he concluded, some blood-gift of his mother's line. Ex Africa . . .

There was Madeira and seedcake on a sideboard in the lieutenantgovernor's ante-room, a breakfast for which both Hervey and Fairbrother were grateful.

'Sir Eyre-sahib will be coming shortly, Colonel Hervey sahib,' Jaswant assured them.

They were soon joined by the colonial secretary, Colonel Bird.

'I am sorry we had no opportunity to speak last evening, Hervey,' he said, taking coffee rather than Madeira. 'These are singular times, are they not? Who would have supposed that Jackson would be president of the United States?'

Hervey was somewhat taken aback by this early corroboration of his friend's superior intelligence gathering. 'Quite so.'

'Or, for that matter, the Duke of Wellington prime minister?'

'Who indeed.' Hervey helped himself to more cake, wondering what the supplementary question might be, for he knew Colonel Bird to be as shrewd as he was gentle.

'And that he, of all people, should champion Catholics?'

The cadence suggested that this was Colonel Bird's material interest, and the omission of the definite article before 'Catholics', though not determinative, served nevertheless to remind Hervey of Bird's own religion (and of the consequent animosity, it was said, of some in the colony).

'Shall the emancipation measure be carried, do you suppose?'

Hervey took a deep breath. In truth, emancipation was not a matter in which he was given to much thinking. Catholics or slaves, he was uncertain how the country had come to deprive them of their liberty in the first place. He concerned himself only with the practical questions arising – the murky affair of the gunpowder mills, the obsequies of his serjeant-major's wife. 'I think I would say that there appear to be two types of Catholic: the Irish and the English. I had occasion to attend a requiem mass in London, the whole regiment indeed, and it seemed no more remarkable than if we had been in Lisbon. Well, perhaps a little more so. The Irish, on the other hand . . . Let us say that if the emancipation bill is passed, and the parliament in Dublin restored – and that is their object, is it not? – it would be a Catholic parliament.'

Colonel Bird looked doubtful. 'That is assuming the franchise were extended. I cannot suppose that even the duke wishes the demands of Reform to be extended so far.'

Hervey raised his eyebrows. He knew (or supposed he knew) that the duke had little time for Reform in any part of England, let alone Ireland.

'It seems to me all of a piece – Ireland or Jamaica,' remarked Fairbrother drily from a corner, and between sips at his Madeira. 'Free the devils and they'll next want the vote.'

His friend had cast a fly on the water, so to speak, and Hervey was resolved not to rise to it. He returned to Colonel Bird. 'You must understand that I speak not for myself in this.'

'Of course, my dear Colonel, of course,' replied Bird, with a positively benign aspect. 'Captain Fairbrother's comparison with slavery, though I suspect he spoke with tongue in cheek, prompts me nevertheless to recall that Shaka has remarked unfavourably on the British as a consequence of it.'

Hervey frowned. 'I wonder at Shaka's moral perturbation in light of his marauding. How, indeed, does he know of the practice? The slavers never took from his part of the country.'

'No, but he will know well enough of the slaves here.'

'Brought by the Dutch, not by us.' But even as he said it, he knew what must be Fairbrother's rejoinder.

But Fairbrother surprised him. 'Whence comes this intelligence?' was all he asked.

'From one of the British trading party at Port Natal. You doubt its accuracy?' The question was genuine rather than challenging; Colonel Bird had a high regard for Fairbrother's independent mind (which many another in Cape Town thought merely resentful).

Fairbrother shrugged. 'Since when has any native chief been opposed to the trade? And Shaka has crushed so many tribes he would not have hesitated to sell them off to the slavers, just as he took their land and cattle. Vae Victis!'

Hervey cleared his throat. 'Somervile speaks of ripe intelligence from Natal . . .'

Colonel Bird smiled. 'I see what you are thinking, Hervey, but the intelligence on which the lieutenant-governor is pondering is of a more substantial kind than this sort of speculation.' He then appeared to recollect himself, becoming quite grave. 'Shaka's kingdom is, I fear, in a condition of desolation, and no good can come of it.'

Hervey was about to enquire further when Colonel Smith appeared, with Jaswant.

'Good morning, gentlemen. The lieutenant-governor awaits us.'

They all voiced their 'good mornings' and made to follow, Colonel Bird laying aside his cup, Hervey draining his glass, and Fairbrother pouring a further measure with which to wash down the remaining seedcake.

Jaswant led them with his usual insistent formality to the state study.

Somervile, smoking a strong cheroot, rose to greet them. He shook hands in the way of men transacting business, and then took a chair in the circle of five beside the east window. 'Thank you, Hervey – and you, Fairbrother – for coming so promptly upon the summons. Sit you down, gentlemen; sit you down.'

Major Dundas, the military secretary, who was already in the room, took his seat at a table in the corner, where pen and paper lay ready for his minute-taking.

'I have asked Dundas to make a record of this meeting for the purposes of a despatch to Huskisson at the War and Colonies Office. You are at liberty, of course, to peruse the record before it is complete. I would have this adventure properly minuted to London in case, shall we say, of any mischance and subsequent misunderstanding.'

Hervey nodded. It was principally to him that Somervile appeared to be directing his remarks.

'And so, let me begin by telling you of what we have just lately learned respecting Shaka. Some weeks ago there arrived at Port Elizabeth emissaries, several Englishmen who trade from Port Natal, and some of Shaka's dignitaries. They were conveyed by an officer of the Royal Navy – or former officer: his status is yet wholly unclear to me – in a country-built and unseaworthy vessel. I regret to say that the mission does not appear to have been met with any great address. Indeed it was botched; but that is by the bye. As soon as I learned of their parlous condition yesterday evening, and of their wish to return to Natal forthwith, I despatched the Helicon to Algoa Bay with presents for Shaka, to convey the embassy back to Port Natal with the declaration of our intent to visit with him.'