Hervey 08 - Company Of Spears (13 page)

Nasmyth did not reply.

Major Dalrymple spoke instead. ‘Hervey, I hardly think it apt—’

But Nasmyth had second thoughts. ‘No, Dalrymple, I can admit to that. I answer directly to Mr Peel, Major Hervey. That is all you need to know.’

Indeed it probably
was
all he needed to know. Robert Peel, Home Secretary, one-time Chief Secretary for Ireland, and as strong an opponent of emancipation as any man in the Cabinet – his intelligence would be assiduous. ‘I’m obliged, sir.’ He turned again to Major Dalrymple. ‘You have details of the rendezvous?’

Dalrymple nodded. ‘The mills are some twenty-five miles distant. Mr Nasmyth and I shall accompany the troop, and one of the Bow-street horse-patrolmen will take us by the most expeditious route. We are to make contact with Colonel Denroche by last light.’

Hervey considered the details. Twenty-five miles, by the regiment’s standing orders for marching, would take them four and a half hours. His instructions from district headquarters specified a troop, but that would suppose a mounted strength of at least eighty, whereas at present no troop could mount more than fifty. He would have two troops do duty – a squadron; and
his
squadron, with him at its head (this was not an occasion for any mishap). He was glad, at least, that there would be a ‘redbreast’ as guide, for it was a road he did not know. Nevertheless he must allow a little extra time for the unforeseen.

The door opened, and Private Johnson edged in carefully with a silver service and the best of the china taken from Joseph Bonaparte’s carriage after Vitoria.

‘Coffee, gentlemen,’ said Hervey, with a suppressed smile. He looked at his groom, solemnly. ‘Johnson, you shall have to postpone your business in town. We march at one o’clock.’

When his visitors had retired to the officers’ house, Hervey called for the regimental serjeant-major and told him of the night’s assignment.

‘Third Squadron shall do duty, Mr Hairsine, under my orders, but I should like you to accompany; I believe it may be a tricky affair.’

‘Very good, sir.’ Mr Hairsine was pleased. It saved him the trouble of insisting he should go, for although the squadron was Troop Serjeant-major Armstrong’s business, Hervey was commanding officer as well as squadron leader, and the RSM’s place was therefore with him.

‘And this summons for Johnson to attend at Bow-street: I would that you send word to say that he’s required for duty and cannot attend. I’d like him with me tonight. Are you any the wiser as to his offence?’

The RSM shook his head. ‘Sir. The summons came last night, and said nothing other than that he was to present himself at Bow-street today. He won’t say a word, sir, and neither would the Bow-street men when they came. They insisted on seeing him by themselves – a good two hours, they were. I confess I’m mystified. Generally you can have it out of the one or other.’

‘By which we can assume this is no little affair.’ ‘Those was my thoughts, sir. But
Johnson?
Difficult to believe.’

‘One of the Bow-street men hinted at worse to come,’ said the adjutant, raising an eyebrow. ‘He more or less accused us of having an outpost of the Seven Dials rookery here.’

‘Did he, indeed?’ Hervey could not credit it: the regiment had scarcely been returned from India six months. ‘I don’t want Johnson locked up for even a night.’

The RSM’s brow furrowed deep. ‘Sir, I can’t see as how we can throw them off their line for ever.’

‘They want names from him,’ explained Vanneck.

Hervey now realized that the usual practice of not cooperating with the civil authorities when it looked as if the regimental strength might be diminished was not going to work in Johnson’s case. He sat down, heavily. He could have no thoughts of Gloucestershire with his groom detained at Bow Street – nor, indeed, with the notion of a thieves’ kitchen somewhere in his own barracks. ‘Do we know what is the evidence against him? How was he collared?’

‘I’m afraid we don’t,’ replied Vanneck. ‘The Bow-street men would give away nothing.’

The RSM shook his head too.

‘What do you make of the idea of the fencing?’

The RSM shook his head again. ‘Sir, at any one time there’s half a dozen little schemes going on.’

‘True,’ said Hervey. And providing they did not come very publicly to light or touch on the welfare or the pockets of other dragoons, no great efforts were made to extirpate them (the King’s pay was mean enough). ‘But I want to know what it is that Johnson’s involved in. I can’t believe his guilt in anything is bad enough to rouse the City magistrates.’

Vanneck raised his eyebrows, unseen.

The RSM frowned. ‘He was the biggest progger in his squadron, sir!’

Hervey sighed. ‘That I grant you, but only by the exigencies of field service. I don’t recall we ever counted vigorous foraging to be theft.’

The RSM nodded. ‘No, indeed not, sir. I meant merely that he is not without expertise when … exigencies are exigencies.’

‘You will put the word out, then?’

‘Ay, sir. There’ll be canaries enough once they knows the
real
clink’s beckoning.’

Hervey nodded appreciatively. ‘I would sooner believe that …’ Well, better not to say whom he thought more capable of miscreancy. ‘I can’t but think Johnson’s unwitting of something. I confess it would go hard with me to learn otherwise. I’d go myself to Bow-street had not tonight’s business come on.’ He sighed, and made to change the subject. ‘Have you seen Mr Kirwan?’

‘Not since stables last night, sir.’

Hervey turned to the adjutant.

‘I’ve not yet had the morning states.’

‘Would you have him come at once. I believe we must destroy any horse showing the symptoms of the farcy … or of glanders.’

The RSM sounded a note of caution. ‘Serjeant-majors report all’s well, sir, barring those three in the infirmary.’

‘I’m very glad to hear it, Mr Hairsine,’ said Hervey, sitting down. ‘But those three have something, and I’m damned if I’ll have a yellow flag flying at the gates!’

The RSM put his hands to his side. ‘With your leave, sir?’

Hervey nodded. ‘Yes, Sarn’t-major, thank you,’ he said, then motioned the adjutant to stay.

‘You will want me to accompany you this evening too, of course,’ said Vanneck.

Hervey shook his head. ‘No, I have something else I would have you do, which I confess is more in the way of personal duty for me than regimental.’

The Honourable Myles Vanneck, sometime lieutenant in Hervey’s troop, but adjutant of three years now, had seen enough action in India not to crave a scrap with a rabble of Irish navvies. ‘Very well, sir.’

Hervey’s sabretache lay on his desk. He opened it and took out two letters. ‘Would you deliver this personally into the hands of Colonel Howard at the Horse Guards. And this … would you have it sent at once to Lady Katherine Greville?’

The adjutant took the letters. He had not himself been to the Horse Guards before, but he needed no instructions in that direction. As for the letter for Lady Katherine Greville … the orderlies were practised enough to know where was Holland Park. ‘Is there anything else, sir?’

‘No, I think not; only the veterinarian.’

The adjutant bowed, sharp, in the regimental fashion, and made to leave, before turning with an afterthought. ‘Once I have the orders out for tonight, I may as well drive for Whitehall … with your leave, sir?’

Hervey nodded, almost absently. ‘Yes, thank you, Vanneck. I don’t mind telling you that Howard’s letter is one of some moment.’

‘It will be in his hand before noon, sir.’

Hervey smiled appreciatively again. ‘And would you have Sarn’t-major Armstrong come.’

He always had a care when he might appear to be favouring his troop serjeant-major, not least because he knew it would do Armstrong himself no good. Not that that would have been of the slightest concern to Armstrong; indeed, he might even have held the notion in contempt. But Hervey knew there were jealousies, and with precedence not in Armstrong’s favour as far as promotion went (with a man his senior, his years left in service might not see him RSM) it was not wise to load things against his interests.

Armstrong came at once and was ushered into Hervey’s office without ceremony. He saluted and bid his commanding officer, squadron- and troop-leader good morning. ‘I was sorry to hear about Mr Coates, sir. A grand man.’

Hervey looked at his old NCO-friend. Armstrong was not a tall man, imposing by his frame alone; rather was there something in his air that commanded an immediate respect. He was compact yet powerful, and his face spoke of long experience and capability. He had a broken nose (not, as many supposed, the work of another’s fist, but of the mêlée at Salamanca); there was a powder burn on his chin, from a desperate struggle outside Vitoria, and a short but vivid scar on his left cheek from the tunnel’s collapse at Bhurtpore. In time the scar would grow fainter, to be just another mark on the tally stick of his service, but there were others, unseen, which might trouble him more than these mere blemishes. A little patch of grey hair on the back of his head marked the fracture, nine years old, memorial to the forlorn hope of saving Hervey’s wife in the white wastes of North America. Hervey reckoned that Armstrong was the embodiment of the regiment: imperfect, as was any man, yet fighting-faithful.

‘The funeral was a fine affair. General Tarleton showed.’

‘Oh ay, sir?’

Hervey nodded. It was time to cut to the point. ‘We’re taking two troops to Waltham Abbey, the gunpowder mills.’

‘I’ve just heard, sir.’

‘I shall ride with them, and the RSM, but Captain Worsley shall have the squadron.’

‘Ay, sir.’

‘There’ll be a deal of confusion tonight: there’s a regiment of rifles as well. I don’t want anybody dismounting unless it’s an imperative necessity. I don’t suppose there’ll be mounted men against us, so the Rifles can know that anyone on foot is fair game. I shall rely on you to keep things from hotting.’ It would be tricky, since Worsley was F Troop leader and Armstrong would not therefore be acting as squadron serjeant-major. That would be the privilege of Troop Serjeant-major Collins, not long promoted and for many years corporal in Armstrong’s troop. However, Hervey was confident that Armstrong would find some way of asserting himself.

‘Ay, sir. An’ who are these men?’

‘Irish.’

‘
Irish
?’

‘It seems they are not content with making trouble in the fair isle.’

‘And they’ve come all the way over here to steal powder?’

Hervey knew he had opened a box, but with Armstrong he did not mind. ‘Not especially for that purpose. They’re working on the navigation nearby, apparently. Doubtless the poor dupes have been talked into it on the promise of drink and a few sovereigns.’

‘Talked into it by who, sir?’

‘O’Connell’s party. It seems they’re to force what they couldn’t get from parliament.’

Armstrong grimaced. ‘Well, sir, if you want my opinion, we’ll be in for a long job of it if they start the trouble again. I don’t see as why they can’t give ’em what they want?’ Armstrong considered himself by no means sentimentalized by his marriage to an Irish Catholic, but he fancied he took an interest in these things more as a consequence.

‘You and I know that to be the sound course,’ replied Hervey, shaking his head, ‘but it’s the dread of repealing the Act of Union – a parliament in Dublin again. There are times when I despair. But, that’s not our concern tonight. We round up these gunpowder plotters as sharp as if they were Bonaparte’s men come ashore!’

‘Oh, we’ll do that, sir; never you fear!’

‘And you’ll look sharp for Mr Fearnley.’ Hervey had a special regard for his troop lieutenant: he was not long out of school, but he had the makings.

‘I will that.’

‘There’s one last thing:
Johnson.
I think this business with the Bow-street men’s no small matter. He won’t say a word. The RSM’s going to send someone there today, but would you see what you can do – here, I mean?’

‘Ay, I will, sir. I heard he’s been fencing.’

‘Fencing?’

‘That’s what the wet canteen says.’

Hervey could scarcely speak, as if a horse had kicked him full with both feet. ‘I can’t believe it!’

‘Neither would I, sir, but word is he’s been doing a bit of running for a dealer in London.’

Hervey rose and went to a window. He looked out at the recruits drilling on the square, a timeless regimental scene. He had begun to think that after all these years he understood everything. But how could he?
The secret things belong unto the Lord,
said the Book of Moses; and something very like it obtained in the regiment. To each rank ‘the secret things’ were revealed differently.

He shook his head, resolved not to despair even if he did not comprehend. ‘I can’t even imagine he had the opportunity, let alone inclination. He was never averse to “progging”, as he called it, but that was a sight different.’

‘Ay, sir. Well, let’s hope it comes to nought, but if you like I’ll put out the word.’

Hervey nodded, slowly. ‘Yes, if you would, Sarn’t-major … Why would he
want
to do it? If he were in need of money he knows that all he need do is ask me.’

It was half an hour before Sam Kirwan came to the orderly room, by which time Hervey had written another letter, to Peto postponing his calling on him. There were vexing things about tonight’s commission – not least the probability that it would turn out to be another false alarm. Paying informers was a sure way of gaining intelligence, but it was also a sure way of gaining false information; and, from what he heard, the ratio of true to false was highly unfavourable. Nevertheless, if there were a plot to obtain gunpowder it could surely mean no other than an outrage was intended?

‘I’m sorry, Hervey, I slept long. I didn’t leave the sick lines until the early hours. There are another two.’

Hervey looked alarmed. ‘Mr Hairsine said the sarn’t-majors had reported all was well.’

‘Two from the same troop, but they’d come in from the pay escort, late, which is why the serjeant-major wouldn’t have known, likely as not.’