Company Of Spears

Somervile looked dismayed. ‘I do not so imagine! You don’t suppose that Cape Colony is pegged out like a gymkhana. I shall need to beat its bounds! Indeed, I have every expectation of being instructed to extend those bounds!’

Hervey knew that at two bottles Somervile could become positively venturesome, though he had observed the same spirit at nothing more than a cup of arabica. The authorities would know his ardour well, as much as they did his scholarship in native affairs, and so he began wondering if his friend’s appointment to an otherwise undistinguished station did indeed presage more active business.

‘See first this bed, Hervey.’

Somervile had evidently been engaged in earlier practice, since he was able to unfasten and refasten the retaining hooks, pull the several levers and engage the various locking joints with facility, until there stood in the middle of the room a serviceable-looking single (occasional double) camp bed. When he threw the drapes over the canopy the effect was more of permanence than of the field. Hervey felt sure it would have been appropriate for the governor-general of Bengal, let alone beating about the dusty bounds of the Cape of Good Hope. ‘You do expect to take the odd bearer with you?’

Somervile failed to recognize the tease. ‘Yes, yes, of course. But I want to be certain of my equipage.’

Hervey nodded, smiling. ‘That is very proper. What is in those large chests?’

‘Ah, yes: my dining room.’ Somervile lifted a lid to reveal four knocked-down, upholstered chairs. ‘There are twelve in all. And a table in yonder flat box.’

There were also a brass-mounted secretaire, a travelling bookcase with inset-brass grille doors, a caned mahogany sofa-bed, two folding armchairs, a mahogany washbasin, and a travelling bidet which Somervile unfolded from a leather carrying case no bigger than a lady’s portmanteau. The whole effect was, indeed, of serviceability, of practicality and economy of labour (if not of materials), so that, as the blandishments of Mr Durham’s trade card had it, when ‘persons of the highest distinction are obliged to accommodate themselves in such temporary circumstances which encampments are ever subject to’, they might do so in the greatest possible comfort. Hervey smiled even broader. He could picture Sir Eyre Somervile K.H. entertaining nobly both Dutch and English settlers in a style they almost certainly did not enjoy at their own farms – and perhaps even a native prince or two, who would surely be overawed by a demonstration of English cabinet-making skill. Or was the colony rather more civilized than he supposed? It had been Dutch-settled for two centuries and more. ‘Somervile I am all admiration. This will have come at no small a price. Your devotion to duty is ever entire. I might wish, indeed, that I were coming with you!’

His old friend, who had been giving every impression of an eccentric among his collection of curiosities, spun round and fixed him with the same intense look that Hervey had seen in India when the wind of necessity changed suddenly. ‘I wish you were. Indeed, I hope you will. I have need of you.’

Hervey quickened. ‘My dear Somervile, I think you forget all that has recently passed. I have learned a little humility from the Portuguese affair – and a desire for a little ease!’

Somervile began fiddling with the handle to a secret compartment in a dispatch box. ‘If by that you mean you are intent on toadying your way to advancement then I caution you against it very decidedly.’

Hervey frowned. ‘It implies no toadying at all, merely the recognition that to move a mound of clay is better done with leverage rather than taking a kick at it.’

‘And a good deal of money.’

Hervey did not hesitate. Indeed, he almost spat the words: ‘I’ve nothing but contempt for it.’ It was the first time he had admitted it since the prospect of the lieutenant-colonelcy had arisen – even to himself.

Somervile sprang the secret compartment, as in some show of revelation. ‘There! I think you had better come with us to Gloucestershire, and we will discuss the terms of the undertaking.’

Hervey stood bewildered. ‘What undertaking? What on earth do you talk about?’

Somervile narrowed his eyes. ‘The Cape Corps, the colony’s militia and yeomanry. More than just militia and yeomanry indeed, for some are regulars. The Corps’s to be reorganized, and radically. There’s to be a new regiment raised, of mounted rifles. I want that you should have them. It would mean a lieutenant-colonel’s brevet, substantive when parliament approves the plans. And then I should have a man whose judgement I could trust. There are native tribes on the eastern frontier threatening war again. Come and be enlivened by the touch of the spear!’

‘The touch of the spear? Somervile, you’re speaking riddles.’

‘Oh, my dear fellow, I expected better of you. Do you not know the legends of your knightly caste? They were questing for more than the Grail, you recall.’