‘And before enlisting?’

‘Silk-thrower, Colonel.’

‘Handloom, was it?’

‘No, Colonel: was in a factory, power-loom, Colonel.’

‘And you found that … insufficient?’

Stratton reddened. ‘Most of the others there were women and girls, Colonel.’

Hervey nodded. There was no further explanation needed. He moved to the next.

‘Name!’

‘Prettyman, Colonel.’

And so it continued – Prettyman, a postboy from Kent; Newing, a farmhand, also from Kent; Shaw, an engineman from Somerset, the first engineman they’d ever had (Hervey asked why he’d joined the cavalry and not the Sappers, and Shaw said that he’d grown wary of ‘exploding things’ and would rather take his chances face to face); then there was Lange, the son of a corporal in the old King’s German Legion; Needham, a tall, good-looking youth from Warwickshire who’d been in service with the Earl of Denbigh; and Harben, who’d come by way of the Canterbury petty sessions – the option of enlistment or a month at the treadmill (for common assault). And six more, all different and yet all somehow the same – men who’d not sought out the recruiting serjeant, but whose fortunes or otherwise had propelled them his way. He, Hervey, could never abide the Duke of Wellington’s ‘scum of the earth’ remark (though he didn’t doubt there were some who answered that description), not least because the Duke had meant it fondly, that the army took men whom the world rejected – and see what the army made of them. He supposed there must be an unsuspecting hero or two among these now. Why should there not be, indeed?

‘You have all of that, do you, Corporal Spence?’

‘Yes, Colonel. I’ll make a fair copy for you at once.’

Hervey returned his salute and let him cut away to the orderly room. (He’d pay one of the clerks to write in a fine hand for him; it would be a good investment.)

‘I suppose a likely enough lot, Mr Kewley. Nothing out of the ordinary run of things,’ he said as they left the draft to Walcot’s tender words of advice.

The riding-master said they’d had a bit of schooling at the depot, but that Canterbury wasn’t much of a place for equitation, and that, anyway, six months at sea was a sure way of forgetting everything. ‘Two are promising, though. That Lange’s been around horses for sure; and Needham’s got capability. Four months, I reckon. The usual, Colonel.’

Hervey wished it were less, but there it was. At least they’d had plenty of sabre and carbine on the passage out. ‘Mr Armstrong?’

‘That Beale’ll get knocked about a bit till he’s learned what’s what, Colonel, but ’e didn’t flinch when I shoved the whip at ’im. Good sign, that.’

‘Promising, certainly.’

‘And what of Cornet Kynaston, Mr Kewley?’

Hervey had watched that morning as the RM put him through his paces.

‘I’ve rarely seen the like, Colonel. Specially not after six months at sea. It is very pleasing to see a young officer ride so. I couldn’t fault ’im.’