Free Hervey 11 - On His Majesty's Service by Allan Mallinson

acknowledgement of the all-important detail, that he commanded the Sixth rather than merely possessed the same rank as the commanding officer. ‘Good morning, Corporal Adcock. There’s a good fire in the guard-house, I trust?’
    ‘There is, sir!’
    ‘Is the colonel at orderly room?’
    ‘No, sir.’
    ‘The adjutant?’
    ‘He is, sir.’
    It was one of the proprieties, unwritten, learned only in the school of regimental soldiering, that the picket answered to none but the commanding officer – and in his place the adjutant and, in silent hours, the picket officer; and so although a sentry paid compliments, and the whole picket turned out for a visitor of rank, it was never inspected, reproved, commended, assigned or dismissed by any other but the commanding officer or his deputy. It was therefore with neither arrogance nor negligence that Hervey walked on without ado, leaving Adcock to fall-out the attendant dragoons by his own authority.
    ‘Quite a show,’ said Fairbrother good-humouredly. ‘Had they word of our coming, do you suppose?’
    Hervey was undeniably pleased by the ‘show’; it spoke of good order and military discipline, as well as of his recognition (he had, after all, been on detached duty for eighteen months, even if during that time he had been home on marriage leave). ‘I fancy it was part chance. I rather suspect that Adcock’s expecting Lord Hol’ness at any minute.’
    He looked across the square to the flagpole, but the pennant was not fixed for hoisting: the commanding officer was ‘not at orderly room’, as the saying went, nor his arrival imminent, it would seem. ‘There again, Adcock’s a seasoned NCO. And the sar’nt-major’s wrath’s not worth risking. I should beg his pardon for doubting his address. Come, let’s see how things are within.’
    Fairbrother was not strange to Hounslow. He had dined triumphantly with the officers six months before. He had admired the barracks’ generous proportions and the solidity of its buildings, and the more so on closer inspection, for the brickwork and all the furniture was of quality. He recalled, too, that the slate roofs were good and solid (though this morning they were white-clad), and the workmanship inside and out very neat – all bespeaking a high regard for the common soldier. Or so it might seem, but in truth the date ‘1793’ above the gate arch told the fuller story, as it did on many of the barracks about the capital. On the first day of February that year, Britain had declared war on France: the soldier could no longer be despised and billeted on reluctant innkeepers if he were to be the safeguard of the nation when the French came (or else be a bulwark against Jacobin ambitions within); he needed the constant drill and regulation of men in barracks. And so Mr Pitt would beggar the Treasury and build them their martial homes (and make an income tax to continue his war).
    But this morning the barracks were not the bustle as before. There were no signs of actual dilapidation, yet the absence of dragoons was all too plain – no band, no foot drill, no skill-at-arms, no sound of the blacksmith’s forge. And Hervey could not but admit to himself that this was how it would be every day with the regiment en cadre . The adjutant was at orderly room, however (and had been for many hours), for the work of the lieutenant-colonel’s executive officer was scarcely diminished when the squadrons were out of barracks; here, at least, they would find, so to speak, the regular pulse of the 6th Light Dragoons.
    For some years the Sixth had employed ‘regimental’ officers as adjutant rather than those commissioned from the ranks, the more usual practice, and in Lieutenant Thomas Malet, though he had but a fraction of the service normally accrued by a former serjeant-major, they considered themselves possessed of a most diligent executive.
    ‘Good morning, Colonel Hervey. I knew you would be come, though I only lately saw your name