Company Of Spears

These days, Hervey considered Johnson more soldier-servant than groom; except that the RSM would dispute that he answered any longer to the description ‘soldier’ (and even ‘servant’ would not have done in any proper establishment). The care of Hervey’s two chargers, Gilbert, who had survived two crossings of the Equator and the siege of Bhurtpore, and Eliab, Jessye’s foal, was largely given to Private Toyne, a good coper who prior to joining the Sixth three years past had learned his business around the horse fairs of Westmoreland.

Johnson was now about thirty-seven years old (the details of his birth were not recorded comprehensively), a year Hervey’s senior, a single man still, with no home but that of the 6th Light Dragoons, which some were still pleased to call ‘Princess Caroline’s Own’ although the title had long since been officially withdrawn out of deference to the Prince Regent, now King George IV. Johnson was a contented man, on the whole, given to speaking his mind, not always with optimism but unfailingly with honesty and absolute loyalty. He had joined the Sixth before the Peninsular campaign, a boy of fifteen-ish, lately of a Hallamshire orphanage and the Barmby Furscoe deep coal mine. Twice, when fire damp had ignited, and the explosion had brought down the roof, Johnson had been buried along with the pit pony he had been leading, and so after the second explosion, two months before Trafalgar, he had joined the army, certain that it must be an altogether healthier and safer occupation. His subterranean connection with equines had led him into the ranks of the Sixth rather than to the infantry’s recruiting serjeant, though at that time there was more enlistment money to be had for a red coat than for a blue one.

Johnson had refused any promotion in the two decades since then, which seniority alone should have brought him (although he was not entirely without merit for corporal), convinced as he was that the extra duties and responsibilities were not worth the additional pay. In any case, he was content with his billet, so to speak, and the intimacy – the increasing intimacy – with the man to whom he had been groom for near a decade and a half. When Henrietta had died (he had been devoted to her in very high degree) he had left the colours in order to remain with ‘his’ officer; and when Hervey had rejoined the Sixth a year or so later, he had rejoined too without demur even though he was exchanging an agreeable life in a pleasant Wiltshire village for the uncertainty of one in the cantonments of East Bengal. As commanding officer’s orderly now, although ‘acting’ because Hervey himself was acting in that appointment, he enjoyed a position of some prestige, elevated above the ranks while still ‘Private’ Johnson, beyond the effective reach of any NCO since none would wish to incur the proxy wrath of the commanding officer, and yet with no responsibility beyond that which he had shouldered these past years attending to Cornet, now Acting-Major, Matthew Hervey.

Hervey handed Gilbert’s reins to him, and Johnson in turn handed them to Private Toyne.

‘There’s an express for thee, sir.’

Hervey froze. ‘From Wiltshire?’

‘Ay, sir.’ Johnson’s tone was subdued. He knew that no one sent good news express; not that anyone had ever sent him an express.

Hervey knew it too: For evil news rides post, while good news baits. He breathed deeply. ‘Who has it?’

‘Adjutant, sir.’

It was a mark of the gravity of the news that Johnson was being punctilious in the formality of his address, and it did not escape its hearer. ‘Do you know what it says?’

Johnson was surprised: Hervey must know that an express from Wiltshire, especially one held by the adjutant for his commanding officer, would not be revealed to a mere private man, for all the elevated position of his officer. Yet he continued evenly in his reply. ‘No, sir, I don’t.’

‘Very well. You’d better come with me to orderly room. There might be need of … I might have need of you.’

Ordinarily Johnson would have protested at such an invitation. Regimental headquarters was no place to be when the commanding officer was dispensing summary justice to defaulters, which was what the day’s Routine Orders said was to follow on the morning’s drill. But he fell in behind Hervey without a word.