Man Of War

The regiment formed into column of route, the trumpeter sounded ‘walk-march’, and the band struck up ‘Early One Morning’. Hervey’s gelding had taken three steps before he could reassert the bit. ‘The devil of this horse’s manners!’ he spluttered.

Fairbrother smiled. ‘I am but a foot soldier, irregularly mounted. I would not dare to sit without the curb applied!’

Hervey smiled back; Fairbrother was indeed one of the few men who might speak his mind thus (and aptly: Hervey knew he had loosed the reins all too readily). He pointedly changed the subject. ‘Do you think we shall have rain?’

Hervey’s mock enquiry as to the weather had not been wholly without proper cause. The day before, when they had driven to Hounslow, the weather had been execrable, the rain pelting so hard on the roof of the chaise that it had frequently been too trying to maintain any conversation. Neither had the rain served the useful purpose of washing the turnpike clear of traffic, so the drive had taken a good deal longer than usual, the coachmen all having brailed themselves up in their cloaks, content with a pace that did not increase the flow of water against them. It had continued intermittently all through the night. But this morning it was as fine a day as they could wish for, the sun already warm and the air scrubbed clean.

They marched mounted to Windsor: it was no distance, and Lord Holderness was intent on presenting his regiment to the sovereign in perfect order. Otherwise they would have led for the first half-hour, and boots would have borne the evidence. And a fair sight the Sixth looked, though a mere three hundred, the turrets of Windsor Castle a perfect backdrop to the martial line of blue in the home park, sun glinting on shako plates as the dragoons waited at ease for the King. When the inspection was done they would remove the shako plumes and put on black oilskin covers, the rule for field service.

It was strange how such a simple amendment transformed the look of a dragoon, thought Hervey as he watched from the serrefile. Rather like a woman gathering up her hair and weaving in a feather. The plume made a dragoon peacock-proud; it was a fact. When he removed it he became more the bird of prey: no gaudy plumage, not so much given to display. Not that the Sixth ought to have been plumed for the inspection, for they were not in review order. They wore overalls and plain boots instead of breeches and Hessians: the King was to see his soldiers almost as they appeared to his enemies – serviceable, not showy. Hervey was one with Lord Holderness, however, on the demands of smartness before the former Regent: those woollen plumes of white and red drew the eye, and most favourably.

‘When did you last see His Majesty?’

Hervey turned to Fairbrother and frowned, a shade apologetic. ‘I have never seen him.’

‘Is that not quite astonishing?’ replied Fairbrother, his face suggesting that it was.

But Hervey looked just as surprised. ‘I don’t think so, not in a regiment of the Line, though I confess I nearly saw him last year, at the Duke of York’s funeral, except that it was in the middle of the night. Do I disappoint you?’

Fairbrother shook his head in his formerly habitual, airy manner. ‘I confess I am more disappointed for you than for myself. I had supposed that cavalry officers might enjoy a certain favour with the King since he is of so martial a bent.’

Hervey smiled. ‘He was colonel of the Tenth a good many years, but I don’t think his interest amounted to more than embroidering their uniforms lavishly.’

‘And how might he enjoy reviewing his estranged wife’s regiment?’

The Sixth had once been ‘Princess Caroline’s Own’, as the Tenth had been ‘The Prince of Wales’s Own’, but the distinction had in later years, with the royal estrangement and the Princess’s indiscretions, brought them as much derision as prestige. ‘I confess I had not thought of it,’ said Hervey lightly, and truthfully, for even Caroline’s portrait had been removed from the officers’ mess, as well as her name from their title. He smiled, wryly: ‘Perhaps that is his design in exposing Princess Augusta to us: an act of oblivion rather than of diplomacy.’

‘And how did you like Princess Caroline, Colonel-Major Hervey?’

‘I confess I never met her either, though I did see her once.’

‘Then you have nothing with which to compare the attractions of your colonel presumptive?’

‘I have seen her likeness often enough, as I told you: we had rather a fine Romney. It’s the devil of a thing to say, but she was not the greatest beauty of the court.’

‘And that taking account of the portraitist’s art too, no doubt.’

‘Flattery? Well, the Romney was, shall we say, gay.’

Fairbrother smiled knowingly. ‘Ah yes. And appropriate she should be remembered thus. A woman more sinning than sinned against.’

Hervey laughed. ‘Her guilts were not close pent up, that is sure.’