A Close Run Thing (25 page)

And then he saw it.
There
, at the bottom of the first page, veritably
leaping
from the page! ‘They could talk of nothing but officers; and Mr Bingley’s large fortune, the mention of which gave animation to their mother, was worthless in their eyes when opposed to the regimentals of an ensign.’ He cursed himself for not having looked up the passage before. It was no riddle. Why had he not seen beyond the here-and-now when first he had heard those words? If Henrietta Lindsay were not apt to regard Styles as an
officer
– and, indeed, how
could
she? (it was plain to him now) – then the passage made perfect sense. True, the militia were no more or less soldiers than the yeomanry; but if she likened this Bingley and his large fortune to Styles and
his
large fortune, then the approving reference to an
ensign
(for she must be wholly sensible of the difference in name only from
cornet
?) must surely mean …

He sprang out of bed and took the lamp to the table where Johnson had laid his writing-case. Now was the time for resolute action. His earlier uncertainty, his vacillating, his downright incapability (the very contrary to what was, in his understanding, the essence of the cavalry spirit) – all this must be a thing of the past. He must make up ground. He had heard, as it were, hounds speak, or the sound of the guns: as both a sporting man and a soldier he knew he must gallop at once towards that music.

IX

BEYOND THE PALE

4 September

AT SIX A.M
. a drummer began to beat reveille in the Fusiliers’ lines, echoing around the barrack squares so as to wake even Hervey in the next-door quarters. He stretched his arms wearily in the chair where he had spent half the night, his greatcloak falling from his shoulders to reveal one of the cotton shirts he had brought from the Peninsula. Around him on the floor lay crumpled sheets of writing paper, testament to his hard cross-country ride to rejoin hounds or to reach the field of battle. In front of him, on the desk, lay one sheet three-quarters filled by his careful handwriting. Only two clean sheets lay in reserve. When he had begun his bold dash, in the early hours, he had written freely, expressively, with some passion even. But when he had read that first draft he had been unhappy with its presumption and had taken a new sheet. Each subsequent draft had lost a little more in candour until,
shortly
before dawn, he had settled for something not unlike a dispatch from the Duke of Wellington’s headquarters. He had omitted any exegesis of
Pride and Prejudice
and had instead contented himself with inviting Henrietta to come and hunt with him and his brother officers. Picking up the pen, as the drummer finished with a long roll and emphatic tap, he signed the letter
your humble servant
.

An hour later he was in the stables telling Johnson he would take out Harkaway. ‘But a hunting saddle, not the Hungarian,’ he insisted, ‘and no shabracque, just a sheepskin.’

‘
Right
, sir,’ said Johnson in a resigned but reproving tone. ‘If t’adjutant were ’ere, though, there’d be words.’

‘Look, the horse has never seen an army saddle; I want to stretch his legs after the crossing and I have not the time to start fitting one now. The RM would understand, even if the adjutant would not.’

But the riding master would not be able to save Johnson’s skin. ‘Why does tha ’ave t’ride in uniform, though?’

‘Because I think the adjutant would want me to, that is why,’ replied Hervey, tiring already of his groom’s primness in matters of saddlery.

Johnson was quick to recognize the hopeless circularity of the argument and shuffled off to the harness room, muttering.

‘And just a snaffle – no curb,’ Hervey called after him. But if he thought it prudent to ride out in uniform (and it was not merely the adjutant’s expectations
which
had decided it) he had at least resolved that it would be undress. That way he showed himself to be a soldier yet without the appearance of being on official business. This had been the practice in the Peninsula, and was, for the most part, a modest guarantee of being able to ride unmolested by the provost-marshal’s patrols. But he would go armed nevertheless. After Johnson had saddled up the bay, therefore, Hervey fastened his double pistol holsters on to the saddle arch. It was not easy with a hunting saddle, but he managed by improvising straps through the D-rings meant for the breastplate. He then unhitched his sword and sabretache from his sword-belt and mounted with his customary vault. Johnson let go the bridle and then waved him off. Hervey sighed to himself. Three months in barracks had seen no conspicuous amendment in his groom’s bearing; an ostler might wave off a postboy, but Johnson was meant to be a trooper. There seemed little to be gained by reminding him of that, however, and formality was left instead to the fusilier sentry at the gate who presented arms briskly, though quite unnecessarily since a butt salute was all a lieutenant was entitled to.

The map he had studied earlier that morning suggested a route to the south of the River Lee, along the road due west which, in a day’s hard riding, would take him to the Atlantic. Then there would be nothing beyond but America, with whom the nation was still at war. But this was to be a morning’s ride only, a preliminary reconnaissance in order to gain some feel
for
the country. He thought he might go as far as Macroom, eight leagues or so distant, and if Harkaway were supple enough perhaps a little beyond to catch a glimpse of the mountains dividing County Cork from Kerry. Then, crossing the Lee, he would return to Cork city along its north bank.

It was a fine morning. It had been fine for weeks (Johnson had told him), and the stubble fields were witness to this soon after leaving the city. The road was not unduly busy but, even so, no one gave him so much as a second look. That came as no surprise: there had been a large garrison in Cork for centuries, and it could not have been unusual to see individual officers riding out. He hoped, however, that soon his appearance might be rather less familiar, for he wanted to see the Ireland of which they had spoken the night before rather than what seemed to be just an outpost of the Pale.

It was a disappointment therefore when, after several miles of what he supposed was a road which would soon bring him to ‘real Ireland’, he came across a troop of artillery in the road, trotting towards him at ease as if on morning exercise. He saluted their captain, who acknowledged it as if such a meeting were an everyday occurrence. Puzzled as to where they were going, or where they had come from – for there was no artillery in the city, as he believed, he trotted on another mile or so until reaching Ballincollig. According to his map it was a small town of no significance; but, curiously, there was an artillery picket on the road at the town limit. The gunners saluted him,
but
the bombardier in charge said nothing, allowing him to pass unremarked. Half a mile beyond, however, he was to discover the reason for the picket; gunpowder mills of colossal proportions, and barracks next door for an entire artillery brigade. Little wonder the map made no reference to them, he supposed, for here was a part of the nation’s great war machine which was better kept privy since it lay within such easy reach of a hostile landing. Cork was home and victualling station to the Irish squadron of the Channel fleet, he knew well enough, but
this
… He wanted no tour of the mills, however, nor to dine with the artillery, both of them gracious enough invitations offered the instant the picket officer saw him. He wanted simply to get on.

‘That I would not advise – not alone, that is,’ said the picket officer. ‘A mile or so west of here and it can be as wild as Cantabria; I surmise that you will know my meaning well enough.’

Hervey was encouraged, much to the artilleryman’s dismay.

‘Believe me, we had a courier ambushed not five miles from here last week.’

He had no intention of abandoning his reconnaissance, however. ‘I thank you for your warning, sir, and I will prime my flintlocks. I must see something of the country, though, untamed as it is.’ But he wished he had his folding carbine, and as he took his leave he resolved to have the saddler enlarge one of the holsters at the first opportunity.

* * *

Harkaway, it was soon apparent, was incapable of a fifty-mile march that day, especially in the unexpected heat of that early-autumn morning. A couple of miles further, therefore, Hervey turned south into the gentle hills which formed a watershed between the Lee and the River Bandon, and reconciled himself to a pleasant country hack rather than the more purposeful reconnaissance he had intended. In the event, however, he could not have achieved his purpose more subtly or economically. Had he pressed on towards Macroom, and beyond, he would have seen the English influence gradually diminishing until, had his gelding possessed the stamina, in the Derrynasaggart Mountains he would have found the meanest hovels – every bit as mean as the worst he had seen in the Peninsula. And they would have been as popular imagination supposed them, with turf roofs, filled with peat-smoke, in a remote and hostile landscape beyond the frontiers of the civilized Pale. Instead he entered a less elemental landscape (though he felt it distinctly alien nevertheless) within a few miles of Ballincollig – and thus within but a dozen miles of Cork. What he first noticed here, in countryside which otherwise looked no more remarkable than east Somerset, was the absence of church towers. From a hill anywhere in England, especially from the parts he knew so well, it would be possible to see several towers or spires. But not here. There was, indeed, a curious flatness to the landscape despite the gentle hills. Canon Verey’s history lesson
ought
perhaps to have alerted him to it, but the physical consequences of academic history were not always easy to foresee.

He rode through several settlements –
village
hardly seemed an appropriate word for them – and, although there were some decent stone buildings, the majority were rougher, consisting of timber-framed daub or unshaped stones. Some, especially those lying outside the settlements, were rougher still, no better than he would have seen further west. There were remarkably few people about, too, and none working in the fields that he could see, unlike the busy acres of Wiltshire. He freely greeted those he did come across – touching his cap to the women – but the most he received in reply was an expressionless nod.

At about midday, six miles or so south and west of Ballincollig according to his uncommonly accurate map, he came upon the ruins of a religious house, a small monastery perhaps, standing isolated amid ungrazed pasture. The map told him the place was Kilcrea but nothing more. The heat was now beginning to tell on Harkaway, and so he dismounted and let him drink at a stream nearby. There was not a soul to be seen, reinforcing the impression of isolation. Yet it did not look to him like a Cistercian house; for, although the setting was characteristic of that pastoral and reclusive order, the ruins themselves lacked the grandeur of Cistercian buildings. These had the look of a much later, and smaller, establishment. What was more, and in contrast again with all he had seen in England, the
building
was as a whole intact, the walls high and unbroken. In England a monastic house would have been given, or sold, to some favourite by Henry VIII at the time of the dissolution and converted into a dwelling-house, or else its stone would long since have been carried away for other building. But these remains seemed almost to have been preserved, cherished even. He was uncertain of his history. Were the monasteries dissolved here as in England at the Reformation? Somehow these ruins had the stamp of Cromwell’s work – a more malign destruction, perhaps, a spoiling rather than a dismantling.

He pulled up Harkaway’s head from the water. The stream was cold, even on so warm a day, and he risked the colic. He led him closer to the ruins, loosening the girth and then unfastening the snaffle at the cheekpiece so that the gelding could eat some of the lush grass. Through the arched west entrance he could see that there were many gravestones within the walls – new ones, not the occasional ancient tomb of some medieval knight as in an English church. He took a picket peg, drove it into the ground and then tied Harkaway’s halter rope to it, leaving himself free to explore inside the walls.

The silence was broken only by the call of rooks in a distant coppice and by the faintest whistling of the light breeze through the broken lancets above the arch. It was not difficult to imagine why this must have been – was
still
– a favoured place for the dead. Many of the stones were worn and their inscriptions indecipherable,
although
they were better sheltered from the elements than in most graveyards. Those which
were
decipherable were in English: he had thought some at least would be in Gaelic. Were the Gaelic-speaking poor not buried with headstones? Or perhaps the stonemason’s art was too refined for the language? Was this a place reserved only for Catholics of substance?