Читать книгу A Son of Mars (Millitary Thriller) - Griffiths Arthur - Страница 9

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The Duke’s Own Fusiliers had the credit of being one of the most distinguished regiments in the service of the Queen. Its colours were emblazoned with the victories in which it had shared; its mess plate was rich in gifts from the great captains and men of mark who had held commissions in its ranks. It considered itself in every respect a crack corps, and held its head high always on account of its thorough efficiency and undeniably ‘good form.’ Its claims to the latter could not be denied; but its rights to the former were sometimes questioned by keen-eyed critics and people behind the scenes. The regiment no doubt turned out smartly upon parade; it always looked well, and was fairly well-behaved. But there were flaws and short-comings in its system, hidden a little below the surface, which in the crucial test of emergency would probably be laid bare. The gulf between officers and men was a little too wide; inferiors had no great confidence in those above them, the latter were generally indifferent, taking but little interest in their business, as though soldiering was not their profession, but a chance employment to fill up their hours when not otherwise engaged.

A certain Colonel Prioleau commanded the regiment at the time when Herbert Larkins enlisted into it; a soldier of the old school, at times fussy, testy, and sharp-spoken, but really a good-natured easy-going man. He was without much strength of character however, and not over-burthened with brains. It was not strange, therefore, that he should suffer his authority to slip a little out of his own hands. He was far from supreme in the body of which he was the ostensible head. English regiments are very variously governed. This is ruled by the sergeant-major, that by the colonel’s wife; in another, the general of the brigade or district, with his staff-officers, works his own wicked will. Some are, so to speak, self-governed, and the Duke’s Own was one of these. In it, the will of the body corporate, of the officers banded together like a joint-stock company, and trading under the name of ‘the regiment’ was absolute law. By and for ‘the regiment,’ everything was settled and decided. The regimental idea was a species of impalpable but all-pervading essence, which no one could resist. To quote regimental custom; to invoke regimental prestige; to talk of the credit of the regiment; to insist upon the maintenance of esprit de corps, were so many irresistible appeals, so many precepts of a powerful unwritten code universally accepted, and admitted to be binding upon all. In its highest form, this thorough-going devotion might be productive, as indeed it has often proved to be, of extraordinary good; but it was possible to develop it in the wrong direction, and this was to some extent the case with the Duke’s Own Fusiliers. It was generally understood in the regiment that its credit depended less upon its military proficiency than upon the dash it cut in the world.

Military matters, in fact, were not held in the highest esteem in the Duke’s Own. Nobody cared much about them. They were left to be managed by anybody, anyhow. Now and again Colonel Prioleau raised a feeble protest, but nobody listened to him or cared. He was told that the regiment wished this, or thought that, and he immediately succumbed. Those next senior to him, his two majors, were of little assistance to him in driving the coach. One, Major Diggle, of whom more directly, did not pretend to be a soldier at all. According to his own ideas, he was always much better engaged. The other, Major Byfield, had, unfortunately, been raised in another regiment, and was so unpopular that he was worse than a cipher; the Duke’s Own knew too well what was due to itself to allow an outsider to dictate to it or interfere in its affairs. The only person who did anything in the regiment was the adjutant, and he had come by degrees to monopolise the whole of the power. The colonel gave in to him more and more, till presently he abdicated his functions to him altogether. After all, Mr. Wheeler was a smart young gentleman, not without military aptitudes. He had no dread of responsibility, and having a fair knowledge of the red-books and routine, disposed of his work daily in an airy off-hand fashion which was always refreshing, and which, in the face of any serious difficulty, would have been absolutely sublime. He pulled all the strings, decided all the moot points, gave all orders, drafted all letters, which his humble slave, the colonel, obediently signed; it was he, practically, who manœuvred the battalion, although his puppet, the colonel, nominally gave the word of command. It saved everybody else a great deal of trouble. The men perhaps were not quite as well cared for and commanded as they ought to have been, the sergeants looking to the adjutant rather than to their officers, sometimes exceeded their powers, and carried matters with rather a high hand. Complaints of tyranny and ill-usage, however, seldom cropped up, and no suspicion ever arose that the condition of the regiment was otherwise than perfectly sound.

It was not difficult to understand why the officers as a body rather neglected their duties. They were too fully occupied in maintaining the credit of the regiment according to their own interpretation of the phrase. This meant that it should be renowned—not for marching and manœuvres, for demeanour, discipline, and drill—but for its ostentation and display, for the grand balls and entertainments it gave, for its mess perfectly appointed, its artistic chefs, its exquisite wines. It was for the credit of the regiment that it should keep up a regimental drag, a cricket and lawn tennis club, and give weekly afternoon teas; that during the season six or seven at least of the Duke’s Own should turn out in scarlet to hunt with the nearest hounds, that some one amongst their number should take a shooting or a river, which the regimental sportsmen might honour in turn; that half the regiment at least should rush up to town from Friday to Monday every week, and enjoy themselves in loafing about the park and the Burlington Arcade, or idling away the hours at the club, and devoutly wishing they were back at their own regimental mess.

These high-flown ideas very rapidly developed into extravagant tastes, which had reached their highest point about the time when Herbert Larkins became one of the Duke’s Own. The regiment had only returned a year or two previously from a lengthened tour of foreign service, and after their long exile in outer darkness everyone with any spirit or capacity for enjoyment had been resolved to take his pleasure to the full. It was expected of the officers of the Duke’s Own to come well to the front, and this they pretended was a more potent inducement to them to spend money than any hankering after personal gratification. So, with but few exceptions, they launched forth freely enough. It was, with many, a case of the earthen pots swimming with the brass; but all, or nearly all, were determined to do their duty to the regiment and go the pace, or as Mr. Crouch, the sporting quartermaster styled it, ‘go to the devil hands down.’ What if any serious financial crisis supervened? Their people would have to stump up; their fathers—probably by drawing upon a wife’s provision or daughter’s portion, and always by impoverishing themselves—would pay their debts, but they would have had ‘a high old time,’ and the imperishable credit of the Duke’s Own Fusiliers would have been most brilliantly maintained.

The leading spirit and showman of the regiment at this particular epoch was the junior major Cavendish-Diggle. Diggle was, in his way, a man of parts, young, pushing, ambitious, passably rich. No one knew exactly where he came from, or who were his belongings or his people. One of his patronymics was decidedly patrician, the other as unmistakeably commonplace. He might be a cousin of the Duke of Devonshire; and again he might not. When anyone asked him the question—and it was one he liked to have put to him—he smiled pleasantly, and said that the Cavendishes were all related, as everybody knew. But he was not so well pleased when people, envious or cynical, or both, remarked casually that Diggle was the name of the great grocers in Cheapside. There was no connection on that side of course, but the allusion was far from agreeable to him, as a shrewd observer might have noticed from his face and his avowed hostility to anyone who dared to make the remark.

There were not many who were bold enough to attack him however. He could hold his own always. Nature had endowed him with a good presence and abundance of self-confidence; he could talk well, had a good voice, and was an excellent raconteur. These gifts were naturally of great service to him; not alone for purposes of repartee and self-defence; they were also exceedingly useful in assisting him to obtain that social success which had ever been one of the principal aims of his life. In his boyhood, when he had made his début as a second lieutenant in the Duke’s Own Fusiliers, he had had an uphill game to play. The regiment was then, as it still aspired to be, eminently aristocratic, and no one was disposed to welcome a Diggle with rapturous effusion. There was nothing against the lad, however, except the possible obscurity of his origin; on the contrary, there was much in his favour. He was modest and unpretending, fully impressed with the ‘greatness’ of ‘the regiment’ he had joined, falling down readily to worship the principal personages who were its idols at the time. He sought to attach himself to one or two of the most distinguished cadets of noble houses, who were nobodies at home, but made a good deal of in the Duke’s Own. Diggle’s hero worship, accompanied as it was by a willingness to bet, play écarté, and do good turns to his superiors—he thought them so himself—met with its reward, and he soon found himself in the position to enjoy the daily companionship and friendship of one or two baronets and several lords’ sons. It was long, however, before he advanced himself beyond the rather undignified status of a ‘hanger-on.’ His friends and comrades were very affectionate—with the regiment—but they were not so fond of him in town; nor did they help him into society, or get him invitations to their homes. But as time passed, and he gained promotion and seniority, his persistent efforts gradually achieved a certain success. He now took a prominent part in regimental entertainments, was willing to accept all the drudgery of managing balls and parties, because he thus came more to the front. At one rather dull country station he struck out the happy idea of giving dances on his account in his own quarters, which happened to be large, and at his own expense, and this gained for him great popularity in the neighbourhood. It was about this time that he began to lay much stress upon the Cavendish prefix to his proper name; he always called himself Cavendish-Diggle, had it so put in the Army List and upon his cards. Then the regiment went on foreign service, and while stationed in an out-of-the-way colony, he had the good fortune to be selected to act upon the personal staff of the governor and commander-in-chief. He turned this appointment to excellent account. He was soon the life and soul of Government House, developing at once into a species of diplomatic major-domo, who was simply indispensable to his chief. In this way he made many new and valuable friends; a young royalty on his travels, who was charmed with Captain Cavendish-Diggle’s devotion to his person; several heirs apparent also, and itinerant legislators, who took Barataria in their journey round the world, and who could not be too grateful for all he did for them, or too profuse in their promises of civilities whenever he might be in England. All this bore fruit in the long run, when the regiment returned. He experienced many disappointments, no doubt; for your notable on his travels, so cordial and so gushing, is apt to give you the cut direct if you meet him in his own hunting-grounds, at home. Still there were some did not quite forget the hospitable and obliging A.D.C.; and Major Cavendish-Diggle, at the invitation of one, went into Norfolk to shoot; of another to Scotland to fish; in the London season he found several houses open to him; and he was finally raised to a pinnacle of satisfaction by Royal commands to attend a garden party and a court ball.

In the Duke’s Own he was now a very great personage indeed. As both the Colonel and Major Byfield were married he was the senior member of the mess; always its most prominent figure; the chief host in all impromptu parties at home; the great man at all entertainments abroad. He had now a following of his own; a band of personal adherents who imitated him in his dress and talk and ways, who deferred to him, flattered him, and admired him fully as much as he had the shining lights around which he had himself revolved when he was young. This homage did not do him any great good. It confirmed him in the high opinion he had formed of himself: it indorsed and justified his aspirations, which were now by no means unambitious, although very carefully concealed. Why should he not make a brilliant marriage? There were plenty of heiresses about; if he could but find one in whom the charms of blood and beauty were united, why should he not go in and win? He was still comparatively young; he had kept his figure; he was répandu in the best society and appreciated wherever he went. Who should have a better chance? And what might he not achieve in the way of future distinction with a rich and well-born wife to help him in climbing the tree?

These ideas had been uppermost in his mind for some time past. It was in obedience to them that he had been at some pains to inform himself whether any likely partis were running loose about Triggertown or in the country round. But he had so far met with little success. Hopshire is a county owning many families of antiquity and repute, but none were especially renowned for their wealth. Diggle would have gone further afield and commenced his chase in London, or at one of the great watering places, but he wished first to exhaust the resources of the neighbourhood. The gay major was not wrong in supposing that he showed off to the best advantage upon his own territory, doing the honours of his own mess, backed up and supported by so many brilliant comrades and disciples. Just when he began to despair of finding any young lady who from substantial reasons was entitled to receive his addresses, he came across the Farringtons. They lived at the other end of the county. There was a daughter in the house—a very charming girl, he thought, who, having one brother only and no sisters, would assuredly be well portioned. This led him to consolidate his acquaintance with Sir Rupert, to accept many invitations and pay frequent visits to Farrington Hall.

It was entirely through his advice and intervention that Sir Rupert sent young Ernest into the Duke’s Own. The regiment would probably remain at Triggertown for a year or two longer, and this would break Lady Farrington gradually to the separation from her beloved son. Besides, Major Cavendish-Diggle would have the young fellow especially under his wing—a precious advantage no doubt, as we shall presently see.