Company Of Spears

Hervey was pleased to hear it: the mails were ever the soldier’s cheer, but he was especially hopeful that his bag contained the percussion cartridges he had ordered from Forsyth’s in Piccadilly. But beyond the information of the mails, Colonel Somerset was not especially communicative, and certainly not warm. Hervey knew that the business of the Cape Corps estimates was of some family concern to him: Eyre Somervile had told him that General Donkin had left a quarter of a million pounds to the credit of the colony, whereas Lord Charles Somerset had left a deficit of almost a million. General Bourke had therefore set about the economies necessary for the restoration of the budget, including taking down the signal towers communicating with the frontier, leaving only those to Simon’s Town from the castle, and the reorganization of the Cape Corps into something more akin to Mr Peel’s Irish constabulary.

‘Colonel Hervey has had a most interesting time of it at the frontier,’ said Somervile, in the pause during which Colonel Somerset took his glass from the khansamah. ‘Quite a sharp encounter with the Xhosa indeed.’

Hervey had no desire to conceal it, and certainly not to deny it, though he would have wished for it not to have arisen so soon.

But it was a vain hope on both counts. ‘So I heard,’ replied Somerset, not at all approvingly. ‘And with that planter’s bastard from the Africans.’

Somervile remained blithe. ‘Rather a useful planter’s bastard, though: he appears to have saved Hervey’s life here, and rendered rather valuable service in other directions too. He collared one of the Xhosa in the middle of the night, who turns out to be no less than one of Gaika’s own sons – and a favoured one at that.’

‘Ah,’ said Emma, suddenly returned to the conversation. ‘You did not tell me that, my dear. Was the man therefore held to ransom?’

Somervile looked at Hervey. ‘I think you should have the pleasure of the story, for it was your enterprise that brought about the happy end.’

Hervey tried not to appear reluctant. ‘It was Fairbrother’s enterprise, in truth. I confess I know of no one in the army who would have been able to crawl about in the black of that night and do what he did. Plenty, perhaps, with the courage, and some with the skill; but to dispose of two and then bring in a third prisoner – hostage – shows a rare presence of mind.’

Emma had not the slightest doubt that in her very drawing room stood a man who could have accomplished the same. ‘I am all admiration for you both, Colonel Hervey – and indeed for your corporal – but I would that you were not so unforthcoming about things and let us have all the intelligence!’

Somervile smiled. She saved him the trouble of expressing the same sentiments, and she did so more bluntly.

Hervey resolved to trouble himself no longer on Colonel Henry Somerset’s behalf. ‘We took the Xhosa to Gaika two days following, and Gaika put his son into confinement in his kraal, and called for the others of the party to be arrested, professing of course that he had no knowledge of the raid.’

He was about to say next what had been Gaika’s sentiment, but Colonel Somerset was already agitated. ‘Whose was the discourse with Gaika?’

‘Mine, principally,’ replied Hervey, not altogether concealing his irritation at the tone of the questioner. ‘Fairbrother was interpreter, though he made a number of judicious remarks of his own. It was an altogether rather effectual method of parley.’

‘Indeed it appears so,’ said Eyre Somervile, seemingly oblivious of the signs of rancour. ‘For I believe we have the makings of a little peace on the frontier, at least for the time being. But see, dinner is announced’ (he nodded to the khansamah). ‘Let us adjourn to the table.’

When they were seated, Somervile resumed the conversation but in a more emollient tone. ‘Colonel Somerset, I do not wish to interfere with strictly military matters; those are the preserve of General Bourke, and in his absence you yourself, and I am well aware that command of the eastern frontier is devolved upon you, but in those matters which are not strictly military I do, of course, bear ultimate responsibility to His Majesty’s ministers.’

Somerset did not reply; there could be no question but that it was so.

‘I have been in the colony a mere two months, and have yet to leave Cape-town, but it seems to me – indeed it did seem to me before even I left England – that the future of the Cape Colony would be best secured by a vigorous but enlightened policy towards the native people. That was, I understand, what your own father believed.’

He tasted his wine, nodding with approval at the khansamah’s choice. Hervey was never entirely certain whether Eyre Somervile was diverted naturally or by design on these occasions for there was by no means eccentricity in his ways.