* * *

The regimental serjeant-major closed his order book. ‘With your leave, then, Colonel.’

Hervey nodded. Not a bad orderly room today: no defaulters to speak of, and barely a dozen sick – and the new medals, for long service and good conduct, just arrived, a handsome idea of the King’s, though why the infantry would have it after twenty-one years and the cavalry twenty-four puzzled them. Nevertheless, it was a fine pretext for a parade, and he’d get Somervile to present them – a dozen and more by the paymaster’s reckoning.

‘Thank you, sar’nt-major. And my compliments, again, to Mrs Armstrong. The durbar was a capital idea.’

Indeed, he’d often wondered if it might serve with the dragoons too, as well as the wives. He’d once seen a regimental durbar with Skinner’s, and thought well of how the men conducted themselves. But, as Armstrong had been keen to point out, an English dragoon was not a Rajpoot silladar, who was likely as not a man of some standing in his village. And besides the evident perils in allowing a dragoon to speak directly to his commanding officer without the checks and balances of the chain of command, mightn’t the practice actually weaken that chain? Three dozen wives, of course, was a different matter.

Armstrong looked gratified anyway. ‘Colonel. I shall tell Mrs Armstrong the instant I am home.’ (Hervey knew that that would not be before watch-setting, long after ‘the patroness of the dames who follow the drum’ had gone to her bed. For Armstrong was not a one to quit the lines till he was certain he’d find them in one piece the following morning.)

But there was no ignoring the darker cloud over the lines. Hervey picked up the single sheet of paper on his desk, and frowned. ‘I fear there’ll be no commutation for Askew. The sentence is subject to confirmation, of course, but I can see no grounds for clemency.’

Striking a superior officer, whether that officer be on or off duty, was punishable by death, and Private Askew had assailed Lieutenant Waterman in front of witnesses. It was a rare charge in the Sixth – the penalty and the NCOs saw to that – but …

‘The Mutiny Act’s the Mutiny Act, Colonel. We all live by it.’ (Whatever the opinions on the justice of Askew’s particular case, ‘the interests of the service’ took precedence. ‘We are where we are’ was not a bad maxim, however much they might wish they were somewhere else.)

And yet Hervey, perhaps because he was one remove from the serjeant-major when it came to discipline, remained uneasy, even while seeing no alternative. It was undoubtedly true that unbending justice kept discipline in an army that was still recruited by and large from the sweepings of society, but the cavalry prided themselves on a better class of recruit and a less draconian regime of discipline thereby. The Sixth, like several other regiments, did not flog, and therefore when some capital offence was committed the surprise was the greater. They’d not executed a man in some years, the last being for rape and murder rather than an offence peculiar to the Mutiny Act; and no one could look forward to the event with anything but distaste.