Allan Mallinson - A Regimental Affair

Good , thought Hervey. Get the front rank forward five lengths to make space!

Corporal Collins was now a length ahead of the others. He turned his trooper sideways and put him into a trot close along the edge of the crowd. It seemed to do the trick. Panic for a second or so silenced the missile-throwers and allowed Collins to redress the front rank so they could press forward knee to knee. ‘Keep them swords sloped !’ he shouted the while.

‘Well done, well done, Corporal Collins!’ said Hervey. One of the crowd eyed him suspiciously. He had better be careful. This was not the place to be taken for an agent.

The solid line of horses pushed the crowd steadily back until the missile-throwers on what remained of the scaffold suddenly realized they were within range of being captured, and started to scramble down the far side. Collins called to the corporal of the second rank to show a front to the Newgate end to discourage reinforcements. In another ten minutes they had reached the Essex Road, and Skinner Street was clear. Serjeant Noakes now reasserted command (he could scarcely pretend any longer that the confusion prevented his getting to the front) and posted videttes to which the City constables could rally.

Cursing to himself, Hervey pushed through the looser knot of onlookers to the picket line of dragoons at the ingress to Sekforde Street, where the unconscious cornet and injured dragoons had been taken. He had a mind to take the command himself, but seeing order restored among the ranks, pressed on down the street instead.

Several of the men recognized him and called out with the enthusiasm that always came with the end of a bloody affair. ‘Good day, Mr Hervey, sir! We thought you was gone for good.’

Hervey raised his hat and smiled as best he could, but did not stay to exchange banter. Round the corner in Sekforde Street a constable pointed to the Crown and Mitre. ‘They’ve taken the injuries in there, sir.’

Hervey entered the low, gloomy taproom of the city alehouse, scarcely able to make out who was where.

‘It’s Mr Wymondham, sir,’ said an NCO, indicating the motionless figure on a long table. ‘I’ve sent a dragoon to fetch that doctor from the ’anging.’

Hervey did not know Cornet Wymondham. He supposed he must have joined in the past eighteen months. He nodded, approving, to the NCO, and put an ear to the cornet’s mouth.

‘Can I go and find another doctor, sir?’ asked Wymondham’s coverman, whom Hervey recognized as a handy dragoon from F Troop.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘though I very much fear it will be of no avail. His breathing is so shallow as to be unnoticeable.’

He said it with sadness rather than certainty — and without thinking. A young cornet, green, probably his first time out — what an impious waste. Hervey was as angry with whoever it was that had sent him here as with the crowd which had done the mischief. ‘Find a doctor as fast as you can. It’s his only hope!’ he urged suddenly, cursing himself for conceding defeat in the dragoon’s hearing, and hoping his agitation might make up for it.

Hervey put his ear to the cornet’s mouth again, for there was no rise or fall in the chest. He was reluctant to believe this fine-looking youth could succumb to a stone hurled by a street rough. Something told him he ought to turn him on his side. He called to the NCO for help.

They turned him ever so carefully, but Hervey felt the blood and the pieces of splintered bone at the back of the skull, and it made him so qualmish he almost let go.

‘Good day, Captain Hervey, sir,’ came a voice from the doorway. ‘We none of us knew you were back. I’m sorry you had such a poor show of us, sir. How is his lordship? Pride a bit bruised, sir?’

‘Not good, Corporal Collins. Not good at all.’

Collins looked abashed. ‘Sir, I am truly very sorry. I thought he’d just be thrown and winded.’

‘I don’t think he’ll live, frankly.’

‘Oh, Jesus Mary! If I had ridden next to him—’

‘You looked to me exactly where the right marker should have been, Corporal Collins. There’s no call to be chastising yourself.’

‘He’s only been with us a couple of months,’ said Collins, shaking his head.

‘Did you say “his lordship”?’

‘Yes, sir. Cornet the Marquess Wymondham, Duke of Huntingdon’s son.’

There was no doubting that it seemed to make matters worse.

At that moment the sheriffs’ physician arrived in a sociable. Hervey showed him the wound, but the physician took only a brief look and shook his head. ‘I’ve no vulnerary skill, I’m afraid. We’d better have him to Guy’s Hospital. They’re used to dealing with steeplejacks falling, there.’

They carried Wymondham outside on a door, and laid it on the floor of the sociable. ‘I’ll go with him. My assistant will have to manage the others. Send any of them on to the hospital that you see fit. But only if you must. They’ll be safer away.’

‘A dismal prognosis, that,’ said Hervey as the chaise drew off. ‘I suppose I had better write to the duke this evening. And the lieutenant colonel.’

‘I suppose you better had, sir. What a terrible thing to have to do — and so soon back.’

‘Lord George is still the lieutenant colonel?’

Corporal Collins shook his head. ‘The Earl of Towcester, sir.’

Hervey looked puzzled. ‘His is not a name I’ve heard, Corporal Collins. Was he a Heavy?’

‘I don’t rightly know, sir,’ replied Collins, gathering up Cornet Wymondham’s swordbelt. ‘I think his lordship has been on half-pay a little while, sir. I’m not sure what was his last active regiment.’

‘Ah,’ said Hervey; that explained it.

‘With your leave then, sir, I’ll resume my duties. But may I ask if you are returning to us, or are you still with the staff?’

‘Of course you may ask, Corporal Collins. I am no longer with the staff, but I don’t yet know when there’ll be a vacancy for me.’

‘Let’s hope there’s one soon, sir.’

Hervey looked him straight in the eye. There was a note of something in Collins’s reply which suggested it was more than the politeness of the ranks. But Collins volunteered nothing.

‘I wish we were meeting at a better time,’ sighed Hervey. ‘There’s a lot we might talk about. Forgive me if I seem less than pleased to see you again, Corporal Collins. It is certainly not intended.’

‘No, sir,’ replied Collins simply.

‘Tell me, though, before you go: are there heavy calls on the regiment at present?’

‘No, sir.’ The rising cadence indicated that Collins had not guessed his mind.

‘I mean, I was surprised to see a new cornet in so… susceptible a command.’

Collins remained silent. Unlike Serjeant Armstrong or Private Johnson, he was always guarded with his opinions.

Hervey rephrased his enquiry so that it did not require so obvious an opinion. ‘Where is the rest of your troop?’

Before he could answer, a runner came up with an urgent request by the magistrate to be escorted back to Bow Street. ‘Very well, at once,’ Collins replied, and then glanced at Hervey. ‘With your leave, sir?’

Hervey nodded, his frustration obvious.

‘I think all the other officers are engaged today, sir,’ he added, touching his shako peak discreetly as he turned for the escort.

Albemarle Street, that afternoon

When Hervey returned to the United Services Club there were two letters awaiting him. The first was brief and very much to the point:

Albany

The Most Hon. The Earl of Sussex returns Captain

Hervey’s compliments, and would be favoured if he would