Free Words of Command (Hervey 12) (Matthew Hervey) by Allan Mallinson Page B

torpor in which, undeniably, he read constantly and extensively), and put his instincts to use on the frontier in the uniform of the Mounted Rifles, that he had abandoned resentfulness as a pretext for inactivity. No, he could not reasonably suppose that comparison with Boswell and Dr Johnson was truly apt; but he would proceed nevertheless on the assumption that it might become so. If only it weren’t so deucedly cold …
    ‘Plough Monday come and gone these two weeks and not a clod yet turned,’ said Hervey, apparently still intent on generalism.
    ‘Is that an affront to religion or to good husbandry?’ asked Fairbrother, keen to test his own wit in such temperatures, but also genuinely uncertain of his friend’s meaning.
    Hervey looked at him a little warily. ‘You’ll recall our conversation last evening – a poor harvest, winter early and hard? The price of corn?’
    Fairbrother had been expecting something suitably theological on the blessing of the plough, and he lapsed into silence, disappointed.
    Hervey left him to his thoughts for a while; then, thinking there might be something amiss, asked, ‘Is all well with you?’
    He sat up straight in the saddle. ‘But of course. I was merely contemplating.’
    ‘What exactly?’
    ‘I was contemplating the situation of the yeomanry, what were its prospects and all.’
    ‘I had rather you become a regular.’
    ‘I
am
a regular.’
    ‘Of a colonial corps. And you are on half pay.’
    ‘And there I choose to stay, despite your most flattering entreaties. I was interested merely in the
situation
of the yeomanry, and how it comes about that a regular troop of cavalry must be abroad in the country at the first sign of trouble.’
    Hervey nodded. ‘Mr Malet!’
    He did not have to turn his head or raise his voice much above the usual, for the snow deadened the horses’ footfall. Only creaking leather and the occasional jingle of bit and spur broke the silence. They were marching ‘at ease’, not ‘easy’, and no speaking therefore permitted in the ranks.
    The adjutant closed up. ‘Colonel?’
    ‘Do you recall exactly what was the fate of the Berkshire yeomanry?’
    ‘Very exactly, Colonel; I have a cousin who served with them – there were two regiments, the first raised in the west of the county, and the second in the east. Neither had been called out in aid of the civil power in more than ten years, which was the criterion for deciding which should be disbanded, and so the first was stood down two years ago to the month – I myself attended their last parade – and the second followed in April. I attended theirs too as it was on Upper Club.’
    Fairbrother detected another obstacle to his complete understanding of the world. ‘May I?’
    ‘What?’ said Hervey.
    ‘Upper Club?’
    ‘A playing field at Eton,’ explained Malet. ‘There was a grand dinner afterwards, once they’d handed their arms to the Ordnance, and then they all rode home as if from market. A right jolly affair.’
    ‘I should have thought it a rather unhappy occasion,’ replied Fairbrother.
    ‘The disbanding, yes,’ said Hervey; ‘but a yeoman likes a good party. And in truth, they were a tagrag and bobtail affair, as I recall.’
    Fairbrother frowned, though swathed as he was there was no telling. There was a little of him that bridled still at the English regular’s disdain of occasional soldiers. Many a time it had only been the Jamaica Militia standing against the threat of Bonaparte when the regular garrison was prostrated by yellow fever. ‘Was it ever considered, do you know, that the mere existence of the yeomanry was a preventive to disorder? That the fact of their not being called out was testament to that?’
    Hervey smiled ruefully. ‘One of Queen Elizabeth’s courtiers once said that soldiers in peace are as chimneys in summer – I don’t recall who. It is only for the certainty of winter’s coming that they are not stopped up.’
    ‘And the King’s