The Captain and the Cavalry Trooper

by Catherine Curzon

  “It’s all right, Bryn…it’s all right…”

  Bryn hurried away and Jack fell into Thorne’s arms, at last allowing himself to cry. The captain cradled him close, pressing gentle kisses to his hair and forehead. With infinite care he gathered the young man into his embrace and told him, “It’s going to be all right, darling, I promise.”

  Thorne stood and lifted Jack into his arms, carrying him like a groom might carry a bride. They set off across the paddock, the captain softly humming a gentle melody to his lover.

  Through his agony, Jack held his gaze on Thorne. Each breath hurt as if his ribs were cutting through his lungs. Speech was excruciating, but he had to sound the alarm.

  “He called me a pansy…a fairy faggot… It was vile. And Queenie… Queenie says he’s the—the only queen in the castle… Robert! They know!” Jack started to cry. “And I haven’t brought the horses in from the paddock.”

  “They know nothing.” Thorne kissed the tears from his eyes as they walked. “And the horses will enjoy the last of the evening, they’ll have no complaints.”

  Jack struggled on with his breathing.

  “It hurts, sir… It hurts so much. I’m afraid.”

  “Don’t be frightened.” He carefully unhooked the gate and crossed over to the path, fastening the latch behind them. “We’ll have the doctor patch you up then put you to bed. I won’t leave you.”

  He resumed the soft melody then, though there was a tremble to that usually so confident voice.

  The front door of the chateau was already held open for them. Jack had an impression of the huge chandelier and the elaborate rococo gold leaf. Through corridors they hurried, Jack hovering on a knife-edge of pain. But it wasn’t the exquisite pain of a controlled leather glove or a whip across his buttocks or the backs of his thighs, always followed by a caress. This was like his throw from the horse, a bombardment of agony that he couldn’t escape.

  There were voices, Thorne’s barked orders, the sound of running.

  “Ah, Captain Thorne and young Woodvine—Trooper Pritchard told us you were on your way.” Then the sound of footsteps receding and growing louder as Thorne followed, eventually settling Jack down on a soft bed. “Let’s have a look at the damage, shall we?”

  Jack clenched his teeth as someone with a delicate but deliberate touch palpated him through his clothes.

  “Bruising, I shouldn’t wonder. Hurts like billy-oh, and no blood to show for it, either—unlike poor Taffy. Sent him off to the kitchen for a dish of something hearty.”

  “Bryn, his bloody name’s Bryn…” For his troubles, Jack flinched from a renewed spike of pain.

  A familiar touch caressed his cheek and a deep soft voice whispered against his ear, “I’ll stay with you.”

  Jack felt strong arms around him, was aware of the comforting scent of Thorne’s nearby.

  “Don’t leave me, don’t ever leave me…”

  “Poor chap’s getting frantic. This’ll sort things out—sedation, what?”

  There was a scrape of metal, a rattle of glass bottles. Jack’s sleeve was rolled up and the skin patted. Jack opened his eyes for long enough to see an enormous metal syringe looming before him.

  “No…no, don’t…”

  “Nonsense, soldier! Captain Thorne, will you look at those good, fine veins. Stop squirming, Trooper! Captain, will you please help me hold him down, he’s wriggling like a good ’un.”

  “Doctor.” Thorne drew in a deep breath, his voice calm. “I don’t think sedating Jack is going to do any of us much good, do you? Can we just make him comfortable and settle him?”

  “Settle him? Good lord… Well, he does seem a little calmer now. Is anyone going to sit up with him—you? This is a morphine pill, and I shall give you one and one only. If the pain gets bad, then he takes it. If after that it gets any worse, then you know where my quarters are. Brandy might help the poor bugger, too. Good evening, Captain. And Trooper…”

  The door closed softly behind him.

  He felt a soft hand on his brow, soothing and gentle, and the captain whispered, “It’s all right, darling…”

  Jack lay still for a while, aware only of the sound of their mutual breathing.

  “Did you mean it…when you said you’d send them to the front?”

  “Don’t worry about them, leave it to me.”

  “Is that…is that punishment now? Will they send me?”

  “It’s the last place on earth you’ll be going.” Thorne’s lips were soft against his cheek. “Of course I won’t send them to the front. I’d ship the lot of you home if I could.”

  “You won’t go there either, will you?”

  “I’ve already served my time out there.” There was another kiss, softer still, and a whisper of, “I’ll do my very best not to go back.”

  Jack opened his eyes a little and gripped Thorne’s hand.

  “We will go back to England, you, me and Apollo. And nothing bad will ever happen to us.” He grinned at Thorne. “I saw it in the tea leaves, so it must be true.”

  “It must,” Thorne whispered, then he blinked rapidly, as though to clear something from his eyes. “I’ll never let anyone hurt you, Jack, not ever again.”

  “I love you.”

  It was a murmur so soft that it could have been a whisper of fabric or the wind stirring the branches outside.

  “I love you,” was the answering whisper. “My gypsy.”

  In the distance were the sounds of chateau life. A slammed door, far-off footsteps, the inevitable bellowed order. But in this room, it was still and quiet.

  “I think I can sleep now, it doesn’t hurt as much. Will you…will you sing me to sleep?”

  “I can’t promise to be as tuneful as Mother, but I shall do my best.” And the captain, always so proper and unbending, began to softly sing, telling once more the tale of the lover born to privilege who gave it all up for the love of a gypsy.

  As Jack touched his eyelids together again, Woodvine Farm came unbidden to his mind. A figure in khaki striding to the gate. But Thorne’s tender cadence had him in its thrall, and just as the figure’s face swam into focus, Jack slipped into sleep.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Over the next few days, Jack didn’t stray far from that comfortable bed at the chateau and it didn’t escape Queenie’s attention that, at every opportunity he could seize, Captain Thorne was there beside him. Of course he was sure there was always an excuse, a question about Apollo, an update on some imagined issue, a little bit of fiction to grease the wheels of romance.

  For his part, Queenie was confined tight to his quarters and given more pairs of boots to polish than he had ever seen in his life. If that was to be his punishment, though, so be it—it was certainly worth it to see Jack Woodvine bleed.

  He had no doubt that he would face nothing worse, that General Daddy would see him right, so, when he was summoned to meet Thorne in the same office where he had covered the keyhole, Queenie took his time as he ambled along the hallways to that closed door.

  He saw Wilfred from the end of the corridor and recognized the look of a man who was waiting to be marked for execution. And maybe, for Wilfred Cole, he was.

  “Hello, Wilfy!” Queenie slipped his hands into his pockets and leaned one shoulder on the wall. “Have you been trapped in the attic all this time?”

  There were dark bags under Wilfred’s eyes, made darker by the pallor of his skin. He glowered at Queenie with hatred.

  “Maybe I should’ve sucked some cocks too.”

  Queenie’s innards flinched but he shrugged and breezed, “It’s one way to make your mother proud.”

  Wilfred’s lip quivered. “I’m my mother’s only boy.”

  “Then perhaps, Wilfy, you shouldn’t have let yourself be so easily led.” And as the words left his lips Queenie felt something twist and snap inside him, the severing of a last thread he hadn’t even known was there.

  “I looked out for you, you git. I tried to protect you ’cos
you were my mate. Do you know that? And all you did was use me. Like you use every-bloody-one else. You think you’re so much better than the rest of us, but you ain’t. Even if you don’t shovel shit no more, you’re still cleaning it off the officers’ boots.” Wilfred extended his yellow tongue, his voice low and threatening. “Licking it off, like the little whore you are.”

  “How do you know that I haven’t made a representation on your behalf? I might have saved your rotten old bacon!” He waited for the flicker of doubt that he knew would cross Wilf’s face before confirming, “I haven’t, of course.”

  Wilfred’s lip curled into a snarl. “Nah, course you ain’t—it’s hard to speak with a cock in your gob, you fucking fairy.”

  The office door swung inward then and Queenie greeted Captain Thorne with his usual leisurely salute, recognizing and relishing the look of loathing that he saw there. It was a reaction, after all, and that meant that he had made an impact.

  “Cole, Charles.” Thorne saluted in turn. “Come in.”

  Queenie strolled through the door and stood before the desk, giving a rather good impression of a chap at attention. Wilfred shuffled in behind. Queenie had a feeling that he might be going home, that some magic had been worked and that all of this—polishing boots and saluting—was about to become a memory that would soon be danced away.

  When Cole was safely beside him Queenie heard the door close and the sound of the captain’s boots approaching. Thorne set his cap on the desk beside his neatly paired gloves and took his seat in a rococo chair studded with carved cherubs strumming lyres, the king on his throne—no, Queenie knew, not the king, for that was Queenie Charles.

  Thorne knitted his hands on the blotter, his dark eyes flitting over a piece of paper that lay before him. Then he lifted his gaze and said, “Gentlemen.”

  “Captain Thorne, sir.” Wilfred stared at him with eyes like peeled boiled eggs, the quiver returning to his lip. “G-good morning, sir.”

  “Trooper Cole.” Thorne looked only to Wilfred, leaving Queenie to lazily gaze over his head and out into the grounds. “The morning after the incident involving Trooper Woodvine, I received orders regarding your deployment. As a result of those orders, I made no report on your behavior. Your record remains clear.”

  He drew in a breath and Queenie fixed Thorne with his gaze, because he knew without a doubt what was about to be said, or at least some variation on it.

  “Thank you, sir. I’m…I’m very sorry for what happened, sir.” Wilfred almost sounded contrite.

  “You fell in with bad company. I can’t excuse it, Cole, but sometimes we must recognize a malign influence and withdraw from it. A lesson I hope you shall carry with you.”

  Queenie met Thorne’s gaze before his glance flickered back to Wilfred.

  Wilfred lowered his chin to his chest. “Yes, sir. I will, sir.”

  “A number of men from our little band have been summoned to Ypres to join the battalion.” Even Queenie’s mouth fell open, a cold stone of fear plummeting into his belly for just a second. “You are one of those fellows, Trooper. You’ll leave for Passchendaele at first light.”

  Wilfred went even paler. But then he lifted his head and looked straight into Captain Thorne’s eyes. There was a smile beginning on his lips and he saluted.

  “Wipers, Captain Thorne? Ready to do my bit, sir, for King, Country and Empire.”

  Thorne rose from his chair and saluted in return. “You blotted your copybook once and only once, Trooper Cole. I have no doubt you will make us all proud to call you a brother-in-arms.”

  Then, to Queenie’s shock, the down-the-line, protocol-observing captain extended his hand to Wilf. “May good fortune go with you, Wilfred.”

  “Thank you, sir!” Excitement thrummed in his voice as he energetically clasped Thorne’s hand. “Shall I go and pack right now, write a letter to my mum? Am I allowed to—she’ll be so proud of me, sir, when I tell her.”

  “Of course. You’re dismissed, lad!”

  Queenie glanced to his former friend, his one-time protector and said, “Good luck, Wilfy. Give Fritz a kiss from me!”

  Wilfred looked back at Queenie, no longer as a boy, but as a man. Not with hatred in his eyes, only tired scorn. Queenie was beneath the contempt of the ostler’s son who planned to be a hero. He banged the door shut sharply behind him and his confident stride echoed away down the corridor.

  “Trooper Charles.” Thorne remained on his feet, his eyes on Queenie as he slid his hands into the discarded leather gloves. “Are you amused at Trooper Cole’s new deployment?”

  Queenie smirked and tipped his head to one side to display his swanlike neck. A coquettish touch, which Daddy and Marsh liked so well. An irresistible invitation for them to dot their kisses to his porcelain skin. But it had never worked on Captain Thorne. One last try, though.

  “Perhaps it’s a look of relief, Thorney, old boy. Because I know I shan’t be scrubbing about in a muddy trench with an oik like Cole.”

  Queenie rested one hand on his hip, the smirk twisting his mouth even further. Leather stretched against Thorne’s knuckles as he clenched and unclenched his hands.

  “What’s the time of my ferry, then, Cap’n? Is it a paddle-boat cruiser? I’d like that. I’ll stand on deck, my prettiest scarf fluttering in the wind, and I’ll blow kisses to all of you as the white cliffs of Dover hove into view.” Twirling his wrist, Queenie trilled, “My bonnie lies over the ocean…my bonnie lies over the sea…”

  Thorne’s hand darted out and landed with a ringing slap on Queenie’s pale cheek, hard enough to twist his head sharply to the side. “You’re not going home to Blighty, Trooper Charles. Instead, you are to spend the rest of the war carrying bags and shining shoes for General Bowes-Fitzgerald. No doubt your life will be an easy one, though I can’t tell you how much I wish it were otherwise.”

  Queenie blinked, the world lost for a moment behind a screen of tears as he recoiled from the sting. Furious at his humiliation. Furious that he wasn’t going home after all.

  “But…but I was promised—”

  His gaze dropped to his feet, but all he could see was Marsh crouched between his knees, all he could feel was the general’s wrinkly old arse under the toe of his boot. Even if there was to be no trench for Trooper Charles, the queen would remain a servant.

  “You leave at dawn on Friday and believe me, it isn’t a moment too soon for me.” Thorne met his gaze and bawled, “Dismissed!”

  Queenie began to back out of the room, clutching his hand to his slap-reddened cheek. He dragged his arm across his sniveling nose.

  “I’ll tell him, I’ll tell Bowes-Fitzgerald, I will! I’ll tell him what you did to me!”

  “You’ll just be one more pretty young chap on a staff that’s bursting with them.” Thorne returned to his seat. “I really don’t think he’ll care.”

  Queenie attempted a flounce as pulled open the door, but his humiliation was more painful than the slap. ‘One more pretty young chap.’

  There was nothing remarkable about a rare and precious orchid when placed in a hothouse with two hundred others, Queenie knew, and the thought sent a chill through him.

  “Good day, sir!” Quentin mumbled, and went out into the plush corridor alone.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The evening was coming on, the clouds glowing orange as they gathered in the sky. Jack’s elbow was on the sill as he watched the heavens change, the golden light illuminating his face and the delicate embroidery of the shawl around his bare shoulders. One pajamaed knee was drawn up to his chest, his notebook resting on it as he paused from his poem, awaiting the arrival of the gloaming.

  Jack glanced back at the bed, where Captain Thorne watched him through sleepy eyes. One arm was pillowed beneath his head and beneath the blankets, which were pulled up to his waist, his knees were bent. Against them, atop the simple bedspread, was the sketchpad at which he worked, delicately shading the drawing that he had been busy with since Jack took up his s
eat beside the window.

  Jack folded back the cover of his notebook and started to write. His pencil stub in its metal holder moved across the page as his words came out in a torrent. It was a poem for his fellow soldiers who, yesterday morning, he had seen being loaded into a wagon from this very window. How would this mellow sunset seem to them, in their dugout, the golden light striking the barbed wire and the twisted metal in no man’s land?

  He was barely even aware of Thorne lighting a cigarette before returning to his work. Jack struggled to recall a time when he had felt so contented as he did now, with each happy in his own world, one with his pictures, the other with his words.

  Jack laid his pencil on the windowsill and read his words over, both hands gripping his long fringe. He put down his notepad and glanced outside again.

  “I do hope they’re all right…” He turned to look at his captain.

  Thorne put down his sketchpad and pencil and reached across to rest his cigarette on the edge of the ashtray. He set his bare feet down on the thin rug that covered the floorboards and pulled the blanket from the bed, wrapping it around his waist before he crossed the room to where Jack sat.

  “What’re you working on?”

  “It’s nothing, really. I was just thinking. About Wilf and the others.”

  The failing light struck Thorne’s eyes and they glowed like agate.

  “I wrote—” Thorne swallowed the words. “Will you read it to me?”

  “I don’t think I can.” Jack looked outside again. Without turning to Thorne, he passed him the notebook. “But only that page…you’re not allowed to look at anything else in there. I wouldn’t want to subject you to my unfinished doggerel.”

  Long moments of silence passed while Thorne read but Jack’s gaze remained focused on the sky outside, the last birds fluttering through the clouds on their way back to the safety of their nests.

  Jack’s handwriting was a whirl of loops, a result of the speed at which he wrote. It wasn’t really a poem at all, if one were strict about such things. Just some words, which had seemed right at the time.