by A L Berridge
But not Maisie’s writing. Hers was beautiful with long curly bottoms to her ‘g’s and ‘y’s, but this was printed, capitals and small letters all mashed together as if the difference didn’t matter. Only his sister Elsie, but still something precious and from home. He glanced furtively from right to left and opened it.
Words, a lot of them to the page, Elsie was mean with her money. The usual hope this finds you well as it leaves me, yes, yes, skip on and then this. Well, Denny, I don’t want to be the one says this but someone has to and you have to know. Your Maisie’s skipped and gone with a theatrical man, and no one knows where except it might be Leamington. I don’t know what she’s took, but she’s not been paying the rent these last two months, so the room’s gone and the baillies have took the rest …
It was the rooms he thought of first. The rent had always been a strain, but it had been worth it to marry Maisie, to know there was a little home for him outside the indignities of barracks. He thought of the way she’d come to see him when he was on duty outside the Palace, how she’d walk past with her head in the air then turn and flash him a big wink to make the other fellows jealous. He thought of getting leave to visit her, the way she’d leap up from the piano and wrap herself round him like a kitten. ‘My Guard,’ she used to say, ‘my splendid, handsome Guard.’ She’d always liked him best in uniform.
It was a mistake. Maybe she’d been frightened and alone and some smooth-tongued play-actor had talked her into it, but no theatrical man could compete with the glory of a Grenadier Guard. He thought again of the coming attack, and now it filled him with hope. He still had his rifle, he’d had it with him when they brought him in and he’d kept it safe under his blanket ever since. If there was an attack he could produce it and be a hero. He saw himself red-coated and gallant, firing shot after shot from the hospital windows, saving the women and invalids from hordes of marauding Russians. He saw his name in the papers, he saw Maisie reading it and weeping for her splendid, handsome, and heroic Guard.
Across the way the orderly was still handing out mail, ‘somebody loves you’, ‘somebody loves you’, ‘somebody loves you too’. Woodall squeezed his eyes tight shut to hold the picture of a future that still might be his, but the tears trickled out anyway, spilling down the roughness of an unshaven cheek that no one would ever love now.
Mackenzie lay with his feet to the tent’s centre and his head to its edge, a single spoke in a perfect military wheel. It was a sensible way for ten men to sleep, but tonight he’d like to have slipped out to look at Balaklava, and there was no moving without disturbing the others.
He gazed up at the darkness of the canvas and tried to picture it in his head. A fireship. That was a naval kind of thing, but he could see the idea well enough. Russian seamen would come stealing into the harbour, faces blackened likely as not, then swarm into a British ship at anchor, fill her hold with powder and sail her out innocently to rejoin her squadron. Mackenzie shuddered at the thought of an explosion right in the heart of that closely moored fleet. The steamers might not be so bad, but those old oak sailing ships? Havoc.
And a distraction, Oliver said, a diversion from the main attack. Where would that be now? The siege lines, was it, or maybe the British base itself? Mackenzie looked at the sleeping men about him, and wondered how their single regiment might protect a whole town. He listened to their soft breathing, the snoring of Lennox and wee grunts of Farquhar, the occasional furtive scratching of MacNab. He listened and waited patiently for the alarm.
And waited. The canvas flapped in the wind, but no other noise broke the silence outside. Black gave way slowly to grey, and the dawn quiet was broken apologetically by the sound of the trumpet. Stand-to.
What had gone wrong? He was relieved the army was safe another day, but it would have been a fine coup for them to outwit the enemy and now it was themselves who looked the fools. And Ryder, what would come of him now? He pulled on his boots with a sense of great sadness, for he’d a terrible fear he already knew.
Heads turned all through the camp as Ryder was marched to court-martial. His chin was up and he walked ten inches taller than Jarvis, but Oliver thought he had a dazed look as if he still couldn’t believe what was happening. He couldn’t quite believe it himself.
‘Told you so, didn’t I, Polly?’ said Fisk through a mouthful of biscuit. ‘Should have listened to your Uncle Albie. You can’t say he didn’t have it coming.’
Bolton looked up from cutting his toenails. ‘Not like that, though, Albie. It’s no way to treat men.’
Fisk snorted biscuit crumbs. ‘Come off it, Tommy, he was always ragging you, don’t say you’ll be sorry to see him get it.’
Bolton peeled off a slice of nail and inspected it with gloomy triumph. ‘He saved my Bobbin in the water. I’ll never forget him for that.’
They were talking as if he was dead.
The trumpet called them late morning, and the entire regiment shuffled to form a hollow square. A wagon had already been placed in the middle, and Oliver’s last hope died. Everyone knew now, and even men from other regiments couldn’t resist craning their heads to look as they passed. Someone from the 13th was for it.
Only their own troop knew who. As the little procession marched into the arena Oliver heard the name being murmured round the square, ‘Ryder’, ‘Harry Ryder’, ‘it’s Ryder’. He felt his own face redden with embarrassment and couldn’t understand why. He tried not to look at Ryder himself, and keep him as a dark blue blur in the corner of his vision. Down the line he heard Prosser mutter, ‘Sixpence gets you a shilling he’s a nightingale, Telegraph. What about it?’ Jordan said, ‘You’re on, chum. Ryder won’t cry.’
Lord Cardigan called them to attention to listen to the proceedings of the court-martial. There seemed an awful lot of charges, and the familiar wording took on new meaning with every one. ‘Leaving his post, causing his duty to devolve on a comrade’ had made sense before, but not now he knew it meant latrine-digging when something needed doing that could change the course of a battle. Even the summary sounded wrong: ‘insubordinate and outrageous and subversive of good order and military discipline’. What was outrageous about wanting to help the army and save men’s lives? Doubts were clouding into Oliver’s mind, he couldn’t seem to think straight, and then the sentence came and smashed it into clarity. ‘Fifty lashes’. Fifty. The maximum, for trying to serve his country.
They were doing it now, and he had to look. Ryder took off his coat and braces, stripped off the grey woollen shirt, and stepped forward to the wheel so his wrists could be tied to the spokes. The surgeon examined him, checked the barely healed wound in his side, said something to the farriers and stepped back. Fit for punishment. Oliver looked at that naked back, young, strong and muscled, and wanted to close his eyes. ‘Damn shame,’ murmured Lieutenant Grainger to their cornet. ‘They’re never the same afterwards, Hoare, you’ll see.’ Oliver knew what they looked like afterwards, those half-conscious men flat on the ground while the orderlies poured sea-water over them. What they felt like he couldn’t imagine.
The farriers stepped forward and stood one each side of the wheel. It was their own farrier-sergeant first, he nodded at an order, wiped the back of his hand over his mouth, drew back his arm and brought down the whip with a crack. Oliver felt himself starting to shake. No mark yet, or not that could be seen from this distance, then crack again, and a thin red weal came up, a diagonal line from shoulder almost to the waist. It felt a betrayal to be watching, this was his friend, another great smacking blow and he closed his eyes.
Moody made a curious little grunt. ‘I always said Ryder looked better with stripes.’
Grainger snapped ‘Silence there’, but it was too late for Oliver, he was already soaring with anger. It was for people like Moody that Ryder had done this, ordinary men in the army, and it was all brought to nothing because of the hatred of an NCO. He looked at Jarvis now, chest swollen with satisfaction, eyes fixed greedily on the circus that was the f
logging of Harry Ryder. What kind of NCO was that? What kind of army was this?
The whip struck again but Oliver was looking round the regiment as if he’d never seen it before. Men in filthy, tattered uniforms because their packs still hadn’t come back from the ships. Men who went without food and sleep at their officers’ whims. Men who fell ill or died of wounds because there weren’t enough stretchers or doctors or orderlies or supplies or enough of anything that might save their lives, but who could be tied up and beaten till their bones showed if the man who bullied them wore a grand enough uniform.
They were halfway through, and the second farrier stepped up. This one was left-handed, and his first stroke landed on still unbroken skin. Ryder’s body jerked as it hit, and a new line broke out to cross the first, a giant X etched across his back, but he still didn’t struggle, and still he made no sound.
Fierce pride blazed in Oliver. Ryder wouldn’t break. He looked at the regiment again and saw something of the same strength in all of them, these men who lived like animals but fought like men. He remembered how steady they’d been under fire at the Bulganek, he thought of the infantry going in at the Alma, and suddenly he was filled with wonder. There might be bad officers and inefficient commanders, but these ragged men were the real army, and it was more glorious than he’d ever imagined.
Or it could be. There were good officers, people like Grainger and Doherty, there were things that could be done. From the wreck of his old dream he began to build another, a dream of an army where commissions went to men with ability, where the country they fought for gave them what they needed to do the job, where officers were people they could talk to, where men were treated with decency and respect.
He winced as the whip gave an especially loud crack. One day, perhaps, but not now. Until then Ryder was right, and from now on Oliver would listen to him. They would help this army despite itself, and they’d do it in any way they could.
Ryder bit down hard on the leather strap to stop himself crying out. Sam had been as gentle as he dared, but this one wasn’t taking any chances. He braced himself for it, rode the blow, and puffed out breath and spit from the corners of his mouth. He could take it. They could hit as hard as they wanted, he could fucking take it.
He knew Jarvis was watching, but that only made his resistance more savage. Poor stupid bastard – did he really think this would prove anything? The next blow was vicious, a bolt of pain up his spine, and he felt his knees wobble with shock. He braced his feet firmer, clenched the spokes harder, bit down and waited for the next. The wind flicked a cold gust on the wetness of his back.
Another, and he rode it better. His body was nicely deadened now, he could go on for hours and it couldn’t be more than another minute. The next smacked a dull ache through his kidneys, but he breathed out and held firm. Let them do their worst. They could break his body in pieces, but they couldn’t get near him inside and that drove people like Jarvis mad. Another, and suddenly he was trembling, his back almost sobbing with the need for it to stop, but he mustn’t break now, not now. Deep breath, but he’d mistimed it, the next stroke smashed air out of his lungs. Suck in quick, in and breathe out and wait for the next. Another. And another. You can take it, you stupid bastard, hold on, you can take it. Another, snatch breath and wait for the next.
There was none. Voices started talking outside his head and he shuddered back to reality as he realized it was over. Now then, now for it. He spread his legs further apart, dug his feet hard into the ground, and braced. He felt the lashings cut away from his wrists, but held tight to the spokes until the wobbliness faded and he was able to plant his full weight on the ground. Then he turned round.
It was worth it. His sight was blurred and the spectators little more than a wall of dark blue, but he heard the gasps like a single ragged breath running round the whole square. Over to his right came a ripple of laughter, and he turned to see the surgeon’s assistant gaping with dismay at the prospect of throwing his bucket of brine over a man who was still on his feet. ‘Oh, sorry,’ said Ryder kindly, and turned again to bend for him. His eyes watered as the salt water smacked stinging onto his raw flesh, but his head was down and no one saw. He heard more laughter, blinked away the tears, and stood.
Cardigan sounded his usual unbothered self as he dismissed the parade, but it wasn’t for his benefit Ryder was doing this, and he kept his eyes on the men of his own troop as they broke up with the rest. No one actually came near him, of course, but several grinned, Jordan stuck a thumb up, Fisk nodded, and Captain Marsh even murmured ‘Good show’ as he passed. Then there he was, there, Sergeant-Major Jarvis standing by himself, his face quite expressionless but his fists clenched in pleasingly impotent fury. Yes, it was worth it, and Ryder smiled till the bastard turned and walked away.
‘You did so well, Ryder,’ said another voice, and it was Oliver, Polly Oliver of all people, who’d walked up in front of everyone to stand beside him. ‘I’ll get Mackenzie, we’ll find you at the hospital, then we can make a plan to put everything right.’
Jarvis’s head would be nice, then perhaps some new skin for his back. ‘Wonderful,’ he said with an effort. ‘Now get me to that cart before I fall on my face.’
Oliver was beginning to wonder if this meeting had been such a good idea. The hospital was a nightmare place, full of filth and misery, and they all had to squash round Woodall’s pallet on a floor that was sticky and smelled of diarrhoea. It was in a corridor too, and they had to keep moving their legs to let people through, and speak in low voices because of other patients against the walls.
But it wasn’t just the setting. They had a job to do, they should be planning together, but today the group seemed splintered and wrong. He could understand it with Ryder, who sat hunched forward with his braces down and was clearly in pain, but Woodall looked all right and his mood had been sour from the start. His only response to Ryder’s story was to say, ‘Flogged you then, did they? I bet that hurt.’ Ryder looked blackly at him and turned away.
But Oliver was determined. He brought out the cards, let them play two hands, then said, ‘We need to decide what to do next, don’t we? Now we’ve come this close.’
‘Who knows?’ said Ryder. He twisted slightly at the waist, and Oliver saw sweat on his upper lip. ‘What I don’t understand is why this bloody attack didn’t happen.’
Mackenzie gathered up the tricks. ‘Could they have known we knew, do you think?’
Ryder went on twisting. ‘I don’t see how. Kostoff’s dead, he couldn’t tell anyone, and the instructions were going to this other chap, Borisoff.’
Mackenzie passed the deck to Oliver. ‘But this officer now, he knew he was watched.’
‘But not heard,’ said Ryder. ‘He left before they knew Mrs Jarvis was in the house.’
Oliver had his head down over the deal, but there seemed a sudden heaviness in the silence. Then Woodall said, ‘Mrs Jarvis? The woman who nurses here?’
‘That’s right,’ said Ryder, with exaggerated carelessness. ‘She’s the one who helped us. Anything wrong with that?’
Woodall grunted and fixed his eyes on the growing piles of cards.
‘Could it have been the wrong month that we had?’ said Mackenzie. ‘It’s a strange thing for a man to be saying “24th”, not “Tuesday” or “the day after tomorrow”.’
He was right, that was odd, but Ryder dismissed it at once. ‘No, it was the way the Bulgar asked it. Maybe he liked things spelled out very clearly.’
Oliver paused in the deal. ‘Perhaps she just misheard? It must have been very frightening, she might have …’
‘She didn’t,’ said Ryder immediately. ‘You know her, Polly, if she were in doubt she’d say so. No, it’s more likely Marsh has been careless, let something slip to the wrong person.’
‘Your officer?’ said Mackenzie, sounding faintly scandalized.
‘Why not?’ said Ryder aggressively. ‘I’d believe that sooner than doubt Sally Jarvis.’
; Woodall was watching him, and Oliver didn’t like his look. He dealt faster.
Ryder picked up his hand. ‘Either way, it’s done, and we lost. That’ll be the end of it.’
Mackenzie’s hand paused on its way to the cards. ‘But is it not with the authorities? This Mr Calvert in Intelligence, did you not say … ?’
Ryder was sorting his cards. ‘He’s an officer, not bloody God.’
Mackenzie’s face darkened. ‘There is no need to blaspheme.’
‘Oh, isn’t there?’ said Ryder. ‘Look, this Calvert’s never even clapped eyes on our man, he doesn’t know the first thing about it. And what makes you think he’ll bother anyway? After this morning I doubt they’ll believe anything I’ve told them.’
There was an awkward little silence. Oliver studied his hand, a mass of dull numbers with no pictures in sight. A ‘Yarborough’. ‘But we can still go on ourselves, can’t we? We’ve done jolly well so far.’
Ryder laughed. ‘You’ve got an interesting idea of “jolly well”. But we can’t get any further anyway. All we knew was that house, and they won’t be using it again.’
He’d forgotten that. ‘They’ll still have to meet somewhere. We found this house, we’ll find the next.’
‘How?’ said Ryder. ‘Bloomer won’t risk any more after today, and I’m damn sure I can’t. Jarvis has both beady little eyes on me, and I’d like to keep what skin I’ve got left.’
‘Jarvis?’ said Woodall. A little tic moved in the side of his jaw. ‘This sergeant-major who followed you – he was Mrs Jarvis’s husband?’
Mackenzie stirred uneasily. Oliver looked at Ryder in alarm, but he only tilted his head back against the wall and looked up at Woodall with casual insolence. ‘That’s right. Don’t you have wives in the Grenadiers?’
Woodall was breathing heavily. Oliver said quickly, ‘It’s my turn for trumps, isn’t it? Sorry – pass.’