A Close Run Thing by Allan Mallinson Read Free Book Online Page B

towards Wellington, however, Hervey could not but feel a warm glow in those sparse words of praise. There were some in the cavalry, and Hervey would count himself among them, who would own that his strictures were all too frequently justified. If a regiment could not be relied on to rally after a charge – the marquess’s principal and recurring lament – then to what purpose was it in the field? Hervey knew full well that there was many an officer, though mercifully few in the Sixth now, who derided outpost work and the like and considered mere celerity of movement to be the criterion of efficiency. And it seemed that all were to be judged in Wellington’s eyes by their meagre accomplishments. But for a cornet to air such deprecating views risked regimental oblivion, as he had once discovered when venturing the opinion that the cavalry’s horsemastership was deficient – only that Edmonds had somewhat unexpectedly agreed with him. Wellington’s chiding for Maguilla and Vitoria had been a different matter, however. The affair at Maguilla had been misconstrued because Slade had not had the courage to tell him that his intelligence was faulty. As for Vitoria, with its rapaciousness and letting slip Marshal Jourdan and much of his army, no one could but denounce it; but to single out the cavalry when all they had done was steal a march on the infantry in the pillaging seemed not a little peevish. The day had been hot and long in its coming, and there had been wine in riverfuls. Hervey had detested the orgy of relief as heartily as any, but such was the mood of the army. Nor had Wellington himself fared ill from it, for the Eighteenth had taken the marshal’s baton, and Wellington had sent it to the prince regent. ‘You have sent me the baton of a marshal of France,’ wrote the prince in reply, ‘and I send you that of an English one in return.’
    But for the present Hervey was content simply to bask in that economical praise ‘smart work’. Then, as suddenly as he had found himself in that grand assemblage, a trumpeter of the escort sounded ‘Markers’. The courtyard ceased to be a forum and became instead a parade square as volleys of shouted commands echoed from the high walls and signalled the time for Field-Marshal the Marquess of Wellington to ride in triumph into the city.
    Captain Lankester was in his cell when Hervey found him, writing letters to the next of kin of the dozen dragoons from ‘A’ Troop who had died in the previous fortnight. How the orderly room would discover who and where the troopers’ kin were, and how many of them would be able to read the letters for themselves, was another matter, but that would not deter him. Hervey stood at the open door watching him – Captain Sir Edward Lankester, baronet, the senior troop and squadron leader, with a good-sized estate in Hertfordshire and a handsome income: he could have delegated this task to anyone and spent his time arranging comfortable quarters for himself in the city, and few outside the Sixth would have thought a deal of it. But he had not, and scarcely would he have contemplated it, for it was as much his own as it was the Sixth’s way. Lankester could give him no news, however, save that Edmonds wished to see him the instant the surgeon warranted him sound.
    ‘Why does the major wish to see me? Is it on account of General Slade?’
    There was more than a note of foreboding in the question, but Lankester did not seem minded to allay it, even if he had had the power to do so. ‘I have not the shadow of an idea, since he has evidently elected not to confide in me – and, you may be sure, with every good reason.’ Hervey made no reply. Lankester dipped his pen in the silver ink-bottle of his exquisitely fitted writing-case and signed another letter with painstaking care: an illegible hand was to him as abhorrent as rust on a sabre. ‘My advice is that you present yourself before him at once,’ he added at length, and without