Company Of Spears

‘That too! But the Waterloo Somersets were deuced fine. I met Lord FitzRoy a little before the battle, a most agreeable man; and Lord Edward had the Household brigade.’

‘Well, FitzRoy is now Wellington’s man at the Horse Guards. The Somersets’ reach will be ever long, therefore.’

Hervey raised his eyebrows as he looked directly at his old friend. ‘You could say, on the other hand, that since the duke is at the Horse Guards my reach is therefore long!’

Somervile was not sure what to make of the proposition. Was Hervey being entirely serious? ‘At any rate, I should not wish anything untoward there. We must not forget that the reason I am here is that Lord Charles Somerset was recalled, and peremptorily. He will be brooding, still, in London, and there are plenty of ears there all too ready to be beguiled. He will be especially solicitous of his son, and, no doubt, the son will be assiduous in writing home his opinion of affairs here – Waterloo man or not. Caution, Hervey; that is my counsel.’

Hervey shook his head. ‘Of course; caution. You may depend upon it.’

They rode on up the cobbled ramp without speaking, until Somervile gave voice to his other concern. ‘It would have been well that General Bourke were here, and not just to welcome your troop. There are things I would know as to his thinking, although I must say that he has made admirable economies.’

‘Better, I think, that we are able to lay on a proper parade for him in a month or so.’

‘Just so,’ agreed Somervile. ‘But I do wish he’d not gone off to St Helena at the very time he knew I must arrive here. What in heaven’s name possessed him to think there was any requirement for him there?’ His mare began slipping and sliding on the cobbles, quite diverting him for the moment until she was back in hand, by which time he had resolved to change the subject. ‘Quite a scientific sort of man, by the look of it, your veterinary surgeon. Quite particular he was about his urine samples.’

Now Eli stumbled. ‘Damn!’ Hervey was thrown off balance, and doubly to his chagrin since he had presumed her so capable. ‘Not fit enough by miles. What? Sam Kirwan? Yes, exactly so. He’d applied to go to India, to study tropical infections, but I persuaded him here instead – for the time being at least.’

And already, he explained, thanks to his lieutenant’s telling, he had cause to be grateful for those powers of persuasion, for Sam Kirwan had saved one trooper from choking when it swallowed its tongue in a gale off the Azores, and saved another’s sight when it dislodged an eye from its socket. The War Office did not like sending horses to the Cape Colony. In the early years they had shipped them in their many hundreds, and a large number of those that survived the passage had broken down before they could be got fit for work (one in three did not see a second year in service). The alternative, which the War Office now preferred, was to buy the country-breds and native ponies, which, they believed, increasingly served. It had indeed been the War Office’s intention in the Sixth’s case to authorize local purchase rather than take on the expense of shipping, but Hervey had been able to persuade the Duke of Wellington’s staff, and they in turn Lord Palmerston’s, that the cost of shipping might easily be offset by the reduced time the reinforcement would need to remain in the colony training the coun-try-breds to the trumpet.

‘Much depends now, therefore, on Sam Kirwan’s supervision of the regime of acclimation: three to four weeks, we reckon. Which is why I feel able to undertake your reconnaissance of the eastern frontier.’

‘The Mounted Rifles will give your men a good run for their money in a couple of months, I imagine?’

Hervey nodded. He was not inclined to see any mischief in his old friend’s suggestion. In any case it was undoubtedly true (neither was it a bad thing). The Rifles were already well found: there were eighty or so men enlisted, some from the former colonial corps, and a hundred-odd cob-ponies had been broken and backed thanks to the zeal and capability of the dozen rough-riders from the old Cape Regiment. Recruits had begun their drill with the double-barrelled rifles which Lord Charles Somerset had of his own initiative ordered from the Westley-Richards factory in Birmingham, and there were enough NCOs of sound experience to teach sharpshooting.

‘When I have had a satisfactory parade state for the troop – in a day or so – I believe I should be ready to leave for the frontier. Shall you be able to give me more particular orders?’

‘They are being copied as we speak.’

Through the arched gateway and into the bailey clattered the two mares. The quarterguard presented arms, and Somervile acknowledged, raising his hat high.