The cavalry to the rescue again

Allan Mallinson's fourth historical novel about Matthew Hervey of the 6th Light Dragoons begins in Rome in 1819. Hervey, distraught by the death of his wife in Canada - a tragedy which concluded the previous novel, A Regimental Affair, and for which he blames his former commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel the Earl of Towcester - has left the Army and is endeavouring to assuage his grief by travelling on the Continent with his sister, Elizabeth.

Though he strikes up friendship with Shelley in Rome and has a brush with a band of Carbonari near Naples, his melancholy only begins to lighten when he learns that Towcester has been court-martialled and dismissed the service in disgrace. Rejoining the regiment - which involves the charming bureaucratic charade of becoming by purchase in three successive days a cornet in the 6th Dragoon Guards, a lieutenant in the 82nd Foot, and a captain in the 6th Light Dragoons - Hervey is given command of the non-existent E troop.

Together with Armstrong, his former serjeant, now his troop serjeant-major, he has to recruit and train enough men to fill its ranks before the regiment embarks for Calcutta. Once in India, the troop is sent to Chittagong, then under threat from King Bagyidaw of Ava. Here Hervey gives his men their first experience of battle by leading them, accompanied by the galloper guns of Skinner's Horse, on a daring raid into enemy territory that averts an invasion.

The narrative of A Call to Arms is for the most part remarkably leisurely, all the action being concentrated in the last quarter of the book. But the book does not need continuous gunfire or swordplay to hold our attention: the details of recruitment, training, of quotidian life in a cavalry regiment are sufficient to keep us absorbed.

And with each book, Hervey himself is becoming a more complex and interesting character. Henrietta's death has not only left him grief-stricken, it has also shaken his faith, and Allan Mallinson writes of his inner questionings with subtlety and sympathy. This series grows in stature with each book.