Words of Command (Hervey 12) (Matthew Hervey) by Allan Mallinson Read Free Book Online

don’t suppose there’d be a horse capable of carrying him, and I can’t suppose, either, that the exertion would be healthful. After his visit here the surgeon observed that so great must be the excessive demand on every limb and organ that he could not hope to see another six months.’
    ‘Well I am sorry for it, for I cannot abide the uncertainty that will hang on the new order.’
    ‘Indeed, Colonel. The new King would have us all dressed in red.’
    ‘What? How so?’
    ‘I have it on the best authority that he is violently of the opinion that only sailors should wear blue.’
    Hervey frowned. The Duke of Clarence had of late been Lord High Admiral, an honorific that he’d taken with excessive zeal. ‘I fancy he might moderate his opinion once the estimates go before parliament.’ (He most certainly hoped so, for he had just laid out a small fortune with the regiment’s tailor: His Majesty clothed his soldiers at the public expense, but not his officers.) ‘Incidentally, I was sorry that old Gieve had shut up shop. He made my cornet’s uniform. But your assurances of Herr Meyer I thought were well found.’
    ‘I believe that Lord George had little discretion in the matter of Herr Meyer: the King was most insistent that his tailor was without peer. I believe His Majesty would have taken the sealed patterns there himself that very afternoon had he not been indisposed.’
    ‘Brummell’s tailor too, I think.’
    Malet smiled. ‘Indeed, Colonel. The cornets were most reassured on hearing that.’
    The coal burned low in the grate as the agreeable march through the agenda of command was reaching its end – save for the affair of Tyrwhitt’s two wives – and Malet rose to pick up the scuttle.
    ‘Not too great a blaze,’ said Hervey. ‘I don’t intend returning after mess. I’ll see the regimental staff in due course – Friday, let us say.’
    ‘Very good, Colonel.’
    ‘Now, Malet, your own affairs: I should deem it to be the greatest benefit were you to continue in your present position, though I know there will be a vacancy soon and you would wish for a troop.’ Hervey had not intended allowing his adjutant to question that supposition, but he paused momentarily, and Malet was eager to correct him.
    ‘I would wish for a troop, Colonel, only were the regiment more actively engaged; I am very content where I am.’
    Hervey inclined his head, a little show of gratification. ‘But be that as it may, I would not have you forfeit promotion. By my reckoning – and yours, if I have understood matters rightly – F Troop will be but a statement of intention for six months at least, with neither the men nor horses. We may as well have its captain in the orderly room. I’ve spoken of it with the Horse Guards, and they have no objection. The rank is yours for the payment of the regulation price.’
    Malet was temporarily overcome. Officers of the artillery and the engineers were promoted without purchase on seniority and merit, inordinately slowly. Those of the cavalry and the infantry, with rare exceptions, purchased theirs – and, though increasingly regulated (or so the Horse Guards thought), at sometimes astonishing prices through private treaty, and with equally astonishing celerity. Only on the death of an officer on active service did a vacancy pass without purchase to the next senior.
    ‘I am in your debt, Colonel.’
    Which was, in some part indeed, Hervey’s intention.
    But he waved it aside. ‘I think we might repair to mess now?’
    Malet looked at his watch. It was past one o’clock. ‘I think you’ll find all the officers in barracks will have assembled, Colonel.’
    ‘I rather thought they might have,’ said Hervey, with a wry smile. ‘And Monsieur Carême brought from Paris to cook?’
    Malet’s smile reflected Hervey’s. ‘So you’ve heard of our triumph.’
    Hervey frowned: what triumph was this?
    ‘Monsieur Carême.’
    ‘Monsieur Carême what?’
    ‘Ah, I thought you