A Regimental Affair (5 page)

One of the first casualties was the cornet himself. A piece of guttering hit the brow of his shako and then his charger’s head. He managed at first to stay in the saddle, but before his coverman could close to support him the horse reared full upright, paddling with his forelegs as if at a prizefight. The cornet, half dazed already, had no chance. He fell heavily to the ground, hitting his head hard on the cobbles. The dragoons behind tried desperately not to trample him, but more than one iron struck.

‘Christ!’ cursed Hervey as he pushed through the crowd to reach him.

Some dragoons had stopped, trying to shield the cornet where he lay. Some were still pushing forward at the crowd, and those behind were falling into confusion, not knowing what was happening in front. Serjeant Noakes looked at a loss, while Hervey could see Corporal Collins shouting something to the front rank, whose dragoons began returning sabres to the carry and kicking their horses’ flanks to urge them forward.

Good
, thought Hervey. Get the front rank forward five lengths to make space!

Corporal Collins was now a length ahead of the others. He turned his trooper sideways and put him into a trot close along the edge of the crowd. It seemed to do the trick. Panic for a second or so silenced the missile-throwers and allowed Collins to re-dress the front rank so they could press forward knee to knee. ‘Keep them swords
sloped
!’ he shouted the while.

‘Well done, well done, Corporal Collins!’ said Hervey. One of the crowd eyed him suspiciously. He had better be careful. This was not the place to be taken for an agent.

The solid line of horses pushed the crowd steadily back until the missile-throwers on what remained of the scaffold suddenly realized they were within range of being captured, and started to
scramble down the far side. Collins called to the corporal of the second rank to show a front to the Newgate end to discourage reinforcements. In another ten minutes they had reached the Essex Road, and Skinner Street was clear. Serjeant Noakes now reasserted command (he could scarcely pretend any longer that the confusion prevented his getting to the front) and posted videttes to which the City constables could rally.

Cursing to himself, Hervey pushed through the looser knot of onlookers to the picket line of dragoons at the ingress to Sekforde Street, where the unconscious cornet and injured dragoons had been taken. He had a mind to take the command himself, but seeing order restored among the ranks, pressed on down the street instead.

Several of the men recognized him and called out with the enthusiasm that always came with the end of a bloody affair. ‘Good day, Mr Hervey, sir! We thought you was gone for good.’

Hervey raised his hat and smiled as best he could, but did not stay to exchange banter. Round the corner in Sekforde Street a constable pointed to the Crown and Mitre. ‘They’ve taken the injuries in there, sir.’

Hervey entered the low, gloomy taproom of the city alehouse, scarcely able to make out who was where.

‘It’s Mr Wymondham, sir,’ said an NCO, indicating the motionless figure on a long table. ‘I’ve sent a dragoon to fetch that doctor from the ’anging.’

Hervey did not know Cornet Wymondham. He supposed he must have joined in the past eighteen months. He nodded, approving, to the NCO, and put an ear to the cornet’s mouth.

‘Can I go and find another doctor, sir?’ asked Wymondham’s coverman, whom Hervey recognized as a handy dragoon from F Troop.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘though I very much fear it will be of no avail. His breathing is so shallow as to be unnoticeable.’

He said it with sadness rather than certainty – and without thinking. A young cornet, green, probably his first time out – what an impious waste. Hervey was as angry with whoever it was that had sent him here as with the crowd which had done the mischief. ‘Find a doctor as fast as you can. It’s his only hope!’ he urged suddenly, cursing himself for conceding defeat in the dragoon’s hearing, and hoping his agitation might make up for it.

Hervey put his ear to the cornet’s mouth again, for there was no rise or fall in the chest. He was reluctant to believe this fine-looking youth could succumb to a stone hurled by a street rough. Something told him he ought to turn him on his side. He called to the NCO for help.

They turned him ever so carefully, but Hervey felt the blood and the pieces of splintered bone at the back of the skull, and it made him so qualmish he almost let go.

‘Good day, Captain Hervey, sir,’ came a voice from the doorway. ‘We none of us knew you were back. I’m sorry you had such a poor show of us, sir. How is his lordship? Pride a bit bruised, sir?’

‘Not good, Corporal Collins. Not good at all.’

Collins looked abashed. ‘Sir, I am truly very sorry. I thought he’d just be thrown and winded.’

‘I don’t think he’ll live, frankly.’

‘Oh, Jesus Mary! If I had ridden next to him—’

‘You looked to me exactly where the right marker
should
have been, Corporal Collins. There’s no call to be chastising yourself.’

‘He’s only been with us a couple of months,’ said Collins, shaking his head.

‘Did you say “his lordship”?’

‘Yes, sir. Cornet the Marquess Wymondham, Duke of Huntingdon’s son.’

There was no doubting that it seemed to make matters worse.

At that moment the sheriffs’ physician arrived in a sociable. Hervey showed him the wound, but the physician took only a brief look and shook his head. ‘I’ve no vulnerary skill, I’m afraid. We’d better have him to Guy’s Hospital. They’re used to dealing with steeplejacks falling, there.’

They carried Wymondham outside on a door, and laid it on the floor of the sociable. ‘I’ll go with him. My assistant will have to manage the others. Send any of them on to the hospital that you see fit. But only if you must. They’ll be safer away.’

‘A dismal prognosis, that,’ said Hervey as the chaise drew off. ‘I suppose I had better write to the duke this evening. And the lieutenant colonel.’

‘I suppose you better had, sir. What a terrible thing to have to do – and so soon back.’

‘Lord George is still the lieutenant colonel?’

Corporal Collins shook his head. ‘The Earl of Towcester, sir.’

Hervey looked puzzled. ‘His is not a name I’ve heard, Corporal Collins. Was he a Heavy?’

‘I don’t rightly know, sir,’ replied Collins, gathering up Cornet Wymondham’s swordbelt. ‘I think his lordship has been on half-pay a little while, sir. I’m not sure what was his last active regiment.’

‘Ah,’ said Hervey; that explained it.

‘With your leave then, sir, I’ll resume my duties. But may I ask if you are returning to us, or are you still with the staff?’

‘Of course you may ask, Corporal Collins. I am no longer with the staff, but I don’t yet know when there’ll be a vacancy for me.’

‘Let’s hope there’s one soon, sir.’

Hervey looked him straight in the eye. There was a note of something in Collins’s reply which suggested it was more than the politeness of the ranks. But Collins volunteered nothing.

‘I wish we were meeting at a better time,’ sighed Hervey. ‘There’s a lot we might talk about. Forgive me if I seem less than pleased to see you again, Corporal Collins. It is certainly not intended.’

‘No, sir,’ replied Collins simply.

‘Tell me, though, before you go: are there heavy calls on the regiment at present?’

‘No, sir.’ The rising cadence indicated that Collins had not guessed his mind.

‘I mean, I was surprised to see a new cornet in so . . . susceptible a command.’

Collins remained silent. Unlike Serjeant Armstrong or Private Johnson, he was always guarded with his opinions.

Hervey rephrased his enquiry so that it did not require so obvious an opinion. ‘Where is the rest of your troop?’

Before he could answer, a runner came up with an urgent request by the magistrate to be escorted back to Bow Street. ‘Very well, at once,’ Collins replied, and then glanced at Hervey. ‘With your leave, sir?’

Hervey nodded, his frustration obvious.

‘I think all the other officers are engaged today, sir,’ he added, touching his shako peak discreetly as he turned for the escort.

Albemarle Street, that afternoon

When Hervey returned to the United Services Club there were two letters awaiting him. The first was brief and very much to the point:

Albany

The Most Hon. The Earl of Sussex returns Captain
Hervey’s compliments, and would be favoured if he would
call upon him at Ten a.m. tomorrow, 13 March
.

Hervey had left his card at the London residence of the colonel of the regiment the day before, as custom had it, but he had scarcely expected that the colonel would receive him. It was as well he had not made it to the Saracen’s Head, for in seven years and more with the Sixth he had still to meet its colonel, and by all accounts the Earl of Sussex was a most agreeable man. And such a meeting could not serve anything but well, surely, to his getting a troop sooner rather than later?

The second letter was an altogether different proposition – a most intriguing affair. He smiled as he read its obsecrations.

Long’s Hotel,
New Bond Street,
12 March

Esteemed Sir
,

I have the honour to present myself as one who has with true humility learned of your service at the late Battle of Waterloo, and of your interest in all things that are
novel
and
advantageous
to the execution of His Majesty’s business. And if you will forgive the presumption of my writing to you then I feel assured that I might be of
inestimable
service to you in your most
distinguished
profession, for I have lately manufactured a
repeating
carbine-pistol such that will multiply the usefulness of its possessor a full
seven
fold
.

Honoured Sir, if you will give word to my man by whom this letter is brought then I may attend on you
at once
to demonstrate the ease and utility of this device – whose invention is awaiting patent in conditions of
utmost secrecy.

Believe me, Sir, I am yours
most
faithfully
,

                          
Elisha Haydon Collier

This was an invitation he could not overlook. A repeating carbine – the possibilities were great indeed.

At three o’clock, therefore, he found himself in the company of Elisha Collier on the heath at Hampstead. On their way there Collier, who professed himself an American citizen but one who was as loyal to King George as it was possible in his circumstances to be, spoke loquaciously but omitted anything of substance – until Hervey began to think that the engagement would prove futile. But once they arrived, Collier set about his demonstration with such purpose that Hervey was soon able to imagine that he was indeed to see something singular. From the boot of the chaise Collier’s assistant removed a pallet, three feet by two, and six inches thick, and attached it to a tree some thirty paces away, pinning a roundel target to it. He then beat the cover beyond the tree for as far again.
When he was finished, Collier turned to Hervey. ‘I believe you have, sir, faced many an enemy at such a range, and I hazard that many was the time when you felt the want of handiness in your service weapon.’

Hervey made no response. Both propositions were palpably certain for a soldier.

‘Then, sir, you may have no fear ever of finding yourself in such a predicament again,’ Collier declaimed, raising his hat and bowing.

The gesture was so theatrical as to make Hervey smile. But at once Collier’s expression turned almost demonic. He pulled open the portmanteau at his feet, pulled out a long single-barrelled pistol, took rapid aim at the target and with scarcely a pause to recock and close the pan-cover between each, fired seven rounds. Hervey, though startled, watched the making of holes in the roundel and clapped his hands in admiration. ‘A very effective display of musketry, indeed, Mr Collier – not merely of pyrotechny!’