by Gale, Iain
‘Why should I, Mr Morris? We all know his position. It is only he himself, it seems, who does not. Besides, lieutenant, I have no quarrel with you.’
Keane snarled, ‘But you do have a quarrel with me. Hold your tongue, Blackwood.’
‘Or what will you do? You have already refused my challenge. You kill my friend but you would not dare to call me out, now that you are become Wellesley’s lapdog.’
‘You’ll regret that, Blackwood. In another place.’
‘Perhaps I shall find you first, sir. But I’ll take your drink, Captain Keane. Very generous of you. I know how much it must mean to one with such a meagre purse.’
Morris put a hand on Keane’s shoulder and led him away. ‘Let it go, James. He’s not worth it. His time will come. Such an officer is the first to fall when the French are his enemy. Either from their fire, or more likely a bullet in the back.’
Keane smiled. ‘You’re right. He’s not worth it. Thank you, Tom. As always you cool my temper. Although I think you have done yourself no favours here with Blackwood and his cronies.’
‘It’s of no matter. Besides, I’d have done the same for anyone. But in your case and with him, it was a real pleasure, James.’
He paused. ‘A toast. Captain Keane.’
Both men drained their glasses and then Morris spoke again. ‘I can’t help but admit, though, that without your company in the mess I shall feel a little awkward.’
Keane looked him in the eyes. ‘Come with me, then.’
‘What? Why?’
‘Come with me. I’m at liberty to recruit whosoever I will. I need a lieutenant and I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have. I know it might not be the most honourable of roles, but I can guarantee any amount of diversions. Accept?’
Morris shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I hadn’t thought.’
‘You accept?’
‘Yes, of course. If you need me, of course I’ll come with you. I’ll have to talk to my colonel. But if it’s at Wellesley’s orders—’
There was a sudden commotion from the other side of the room. They looked across and saw Blackwood among his friends. He had gone red in the face and was spitting on the floor where he had already regurgitated the contents of his glass.
He pointed at Keane. ‘Keane, this is your doing. Trying to poison me. You saw it, all of you. He tried to poison me.’ He spat more wine onto the floor. And opening his eyes, found himself staring at the highly polished boots of the adjutant of the 23rd Light Dragoons, Blackwood’s own regiment. Blackwood straightened up and wiped his mouth as the adjutant spoke.
‘Lieutenant Blackwood, what are you doing, sir? You are a disgrace to the mess.’
Keane and Morris turned away, stifling their laughter as Blackwood tried to speak. ‘He tried to poison me, sir.’ Blackwood pointed at Keane.
‘Who? That officer? How could he? Don’t be absurd.’
Keane, looking appropriately concerned, shook his head. The mess steward stepped forward, close to Keane. He spoke with a Scots accent, ‘Must have been a bad barrel, sir. Sometimes gets that way. In the heat, major. Shall I pour another glass for the lieutenant, sir?’
The adjutant shook his head. ‘No, I think he’s had enough. Mr Blackwood, you will excuse yourself. Attend me at regimental orders.’
As Blackwood hurried from the room on the heels of the adjutant, Keane noticed an area on the right sleeve of the mess steward’s coat where the scarlet had not yet faded to brick red. Three chevrons.
Keane looked at him. He was a huge man, with brown eyes and a mop of dark hair set above a face that looked as if it might have collided with an artillery limber. ‘Don’t I know you?’
‘Couldn’t say, sir.’
‘I do know you. Sergeant Ross of the 42nd. You saved the colours at Alexandria. What the devil are you doing here? And where are your stripes?’
‘Broken to the ranks, sir. Thieving. Though I was only taking back what was rightfully mine. My French medal, sir. Got in Egypt. Private MacGregor claimed he won it at cards, sir. But it wasn’t won. He thieved it. So I just took it back. He never knew. Would have been fine an’ all, if his missus hadn’t taken a fancy to me. I won in the end, though. Put him in the frame, sir. In the hulks now, he is. That’ll teach him.’
‘I hope it was worth it, Ross. Whatever your revenge was.’
‘Worth every minute, sir. Though I can’t deny I do regret losing my stripes.’
Keane swirled the wine around in his glass and took a sip. ‘What was it exactly that you put in Lieutenant Blackwood’s wine?’
‘Just some vinegar, sir. Well, that and perhaps a pinch of baking soda. Old trick. Couldn’t let him leave with the upper hand over you, sir. Not in my nature. Old Egypt and all that.’
‘Thank you, Ross. I hope you don’t suffer for it.’
‘No matter, sir. Worth it just to see him choke.’
Keane smiled at him. ‘What would you say if I offered you your stripes back?’
‘I’d ask you kindly, sir, not to tease an old soldier.’
‘No, Ross. Really. I can do it. On the highest authority. You’re wasted here and I can use a man like you. What do you say? Will you come with me and Mister Morris here? Though I’m not sure where we’re going.’
Ross grinned. ‘For my stripes back, sir, I’d follow you to Bonaparte himself, right through the gates of bloody hell.’
Keane laughed. ‘That’s settled, then. Though I don’t think we’ll be going that far, sarn’t. Will we, Mister Morris?’
Morris smiled and shook his head. But in his own mind, Keane was not quite so sure.
2
They had not quite come to the gates of hell, thought Keane, but it was surely damn close. It was hard to believe that a few centuries ago the part of Lisbon known as the Alfama had been the district of noblemen’s houses. Now it was a place that few foreigners frequented and certainly few officers. To call it unsalubrious was a gross understatement. Rather than any civilized western city, it reminded Keane of the bazaars of Alexandria. And now there was no beat of drum or staff adorned with a gaudy colour to accompany their mission. It was here they had come as a recruiting party. For sheer stench and ugliness this place beat any of the dives and taverns of Belfast or Londonderry where Keane had gone in search of new blood as a young officer. The three of them, Keane, Morris and Ross, were alone in the squalor, the heat and the noise. They walked close together up the steep, stepped streets of the quarter; the sweat was pouring off them, soaking the red serge of their coats, dripping down their backs and irritating the lice who had as always made a home on their unwashed bodies. Keane scratched at his left shoulder, then as quickly stopped, hoping that no one had been watching. It was not, he thought, so very dignified for an officer to attend to such irritations in front of his men. He would just put up with it. Sword clanking against his left thigh, he pushed on through the narrow streets, the others following close behind. As they passed, local women, standing alone and in groups on the balconies above their heads, called down to them.
Keane had a reasonable command of Spanish, gained for the most part from talking to veterans, and he was sharp to pick up a language. Always had been. But this guttural back-streets Portuguese patois was almost beyond him. Once or twice he made out a few words. And they were exactly what he had expected. Well, he thought, who could blame them for calling down wished-for obscenities upon three such well-turned-out young men as they? Even Sergeant Ross, he conceded, must have his admirers. On another day, in other, more salubrious surroundings, he might have taken up their offers. But here, where he might be assured of catching the pox, he preferred to hurry on. Yet even as he had the thought, he chanced to glance upwards just at the moment when a particularly pretty dark-skinned girl raised her skirts up to her naked waist above his head, affording him more than a passing glimpse of tanned flesh through the iron bars of the balcony.
Keane turned and called behind him to Morris. ‘D’you see that, Tom? Pretty sight, ain’t it?
They’re giving us a hearty welcome. Pity we’ve no time to return their civility.’
Morris laughed, looking up. ‘Very pretty, James. But I swear that even you would pause before entering one of these houses. You’d be on mercury in a day.’
As they passed the last house on the street and turned the corner an older woman, proprietress of one of the establishments, Keane guessed, spat at them and began to remonstrate with her girls for not being bold enough to capture their custom. The next street was much the same, but the girls here, what few there were of them, were quieter still and they found themselves alone, save for two dogs, one of whom barked at them before turning tail. It was hardly a glorious progress. Not one of his finer moments of soldiering.
But such things were part of the day-to-day drudgery of an officer in His Majesty’s army. It was not the stuff of great stories. But it was necessary if they were to do the commander’s bidding. And if they did that, then, he thought, their actions might somehow lead on to paths of glory.
He trod in something putrid and stinking on the cobbles and swore. Back home in England, Keane thought, there would be enthusiasts of the new ‘Romantic’ school who would have termed this place ‘picturesque’. Seen from a distance it would have made the perfect subject for young ladies to capture in watercolours. Up close, though, its streets were as filthy as any he had ever seen. And in ten years of soldiering he reckoned that he had passed through some choice places. The towns of Flanders, and further afield, in the Levant, Alexandria, and the Mediterranean hothouses of Valetta and Maida. He had known them all and had grown familiar with their rat-infested vennels and the teeming backstreets, when as the youngest lieutenant he had been charged with leading his men in search of deserters or the fugitive enemy.
This place was no different from those others.
Together they continued through the quarter’s maze of back-streets, following the little urchin boy to whom Keane had promised a few escudos to guide them to the jail where the bad inglêses were being held. Keane led the way, with Morris behind him and Sergeant Ross bringing up the rear. The boy walked quickly through the streets, at such a pace they had to trot to keep up with him. Gradually, Keane perceived they were passing into a yet more unsalubrious part of the quarter. Washing was strung across the streets above them, and where elsewhere the gutters had held brackish water, here they were filled with what looked and smelt like raw sewage. In fact, the smell was appalling. On top of the ordure lay a heavy odour of filth, amplified by cooking. While Keane had been known to enjoy the flavours of the country, and when hungry would be content with much that would have been thrown in the dogs’ slopbowl at home, this new smell spoke clearly of a cuisine with which he was in not in any way acquainted; nor did he have any desire to be. Glancing at Morris, he smiled at a look which suggested that he was of the same opinion.
‘God, James, where the devil are you taking us?’
Keane laughed. ‘Don’t ask me, Tom. I’m just following the lad.’
At length they came to a large house, rising three floors, with barred and shuttered windows. The boy looked at Keane, speaking in Portuguese. ‘This the place, senhor. This the place for bad inglêses. This is where they die.’ He drew his finger across his throat and then quickly held out his hand for his reward. Keane thanked him in Spanish and gave him the agreed sum. At once the boy turned and ran off back along the way they had come, disappearing into the shadows beneath the fluttering chemises.
Ross muttered, ‘We’re buggered now, sir, beggin’ your pardon, if we can’t find our way back.’
‘We’ll be all right, sarn’t. You’ll see.’
But in truth it was more brag than certainty. Keane surveyed the house before them.
To his great relief there was a British sentry posted at the door, who, suddenly noticing the officers, made a desultory attempt at a ‘present arms’ as Keane and the others walked up and passed through the narrow archway. Instantly it seemed as if all the air had been sucked out of the place, and the changed intensity of a new and richer stench hit them full on.
Morris pressed a handkerchief to his mouth and Ross coughed. ‘Christ, sir, that’s ripe.’
A redcoat, his tunic unbuttoned and without the black neck-stock that was regulation dress, was sitting at an old oak table that passed for a desk. He did not look up, but on hearing the men enter simply muttered. ‘Yes?’
Keane spoke. ‘Sergeant of the guard?’
The man looked up and, seeing two officers, rose swiftly from his chair and smiled. ‘Yes, sir. That’s me, sir.’
Keane smiled at him. A smile that told the man that Keane recognized him for what he was. One of those soldiers who somehow always managed to play the system. To manage it so that they found themselves sitting pretty in some job that, although it was a necessity, was sure to keep them out of harm’s way. Not that this place was pretty. But to that sort it was preferable to any battlefield. Keane had seen enough of the sergeant’s kind, and he hated them.
Still smiling, he drew out a paper from his pocket. ‘I believe that you have a man here, sarn’t. Name of Silver.’
The sergeant raised an eyebrow and nodded. ‘Yes, sir. I dare say you might be right, there. Lots of men in here, sir. No end of men in here and more coming in all the time. They’re a right terrible lot, our soldiers, sir, ain’t they? Won’t be told. Always the same, your honour. Wherever we go. India, Malta, Egypt.’
Keane, refusing to be drawn into agreement of any kind with the man’s attempts to ingratiate, moved on. ‘You’re a well-travelled man, sergeant.’
‘I’ve seen some service, sir. But now this is my lot and I’m glad of it.’
He raised his right hand and Keane and the others saw that it was missing an index finger. So that was his trick. It was common enough. Maim yourself, or get someone to do it for you, and then no more front-line duty for you. You’d find yourself posted home, or better still in the sergeant’s boots, sitting in a foreign jail creaming money from the poor sods inside and waiting till the army had a nice victory and you could share in the bounty. Keane nodded and smiled again, looking the sergeant straight in the eyes. The man stared through him and continued. He was a hard one, right enough.
‘On account of the fact that I cannot do nothing no more with my musket, your honour. My finger having been taken away by a ball at the battle of Corunna, where I was proud to fight in company with the late Sir John Moore, God bless his soul.’
Keane nodded. ‘Yes, the general is a sad loss. But now we have a new commander and those of us still able to do so will do our duty in the field. I’m sure that you will serve His Majesty in your new role just as well as you did in the thick of battle.’
The sergeant, understanding Keane’s words, shrugged and pointed into the gloom. ‘Silver’s down that way, if you really want him, sir. But if you ask me you’d best let him be. We’re all better off leaving him to rot here.’
‘That will be for the general and for me to decide, sarn’t. Thank you.’ Keane pushed past the man and walked down the stinking corridor. He turned to Morris. ‘In the company of Sir John; would you believe it. God help us, Tom. It’s men like that who run this army, you know. And that worries me. It really does. Sarn’t Ross, see if you can find this Silver fellow. The sooner we leave this place the better for us all.’
‘Sir.’
Ross set off down the passageway ahead of Keane, peering as he went into the doors that led off but seeing no sign of life within. At length, with Keane on his heels, he came upon a doorway into a room that was larger than the others. The old schoolroom of the place, he guessed. Inside there sat around a score of men in various uniforms: green, blue and brown, but mostly the ubiquitous red coat of King George’s army.
Ross yelled at them. ‘Silver. Is there a Horatio Silver in here?’
No one spoke. Then one voice piped up. ‘He’s over there, whoever wants him. At the back.’
Ross walked into the room and skidded on the slimy stone floor
. Steadying himself, he looked at where the voice had come from and, finding the man pointing, followed the direction of his arm. At the back of the room, slumped against the wall, lay a man. He was tall and even in this poor light Ross could see that he was painfully thin. He walked over to him.
‘You Silver?’
The man looked up. ‘What if I am? Who wants to know?’
‘Who wants to know, sergeant, if you please, Silver. You may be in jail but you’re still in the army, lad.’ He gave him a kick. ‘Get up. Officer present.’
‘I can’t see no officer.’
‘I don’t care what you can see and what you can’t. Get up.’
Silver looked up at Ross and saw that it was no use arguing with such a man. Not, at least, until he was on his feet. Placing one hand on the floor to steady himself, he pushed himself up to his full height. He stood a good three inches taller than Ross, who was himself over six foot.
‘So who wants me, then … sergeant?’
Silver spat out the last word and then, for dramatic emphasis, knowing that all eyes in the room were on him, turned away and spat into the corner of the cell onto the back of another recumbent soldier.
‘I bloody do, Silver. Though from the look of you I surely wish I did not.’
Silver took a step back and Ross recognized at once what he meant to do. As the prisoner’s right fist flew towards him, he parried it with his left arm and followed up with a punch which connected with Silver’s solar plexus, the fist striking rib as it went into the man’s emaciated body. Silver doubled up and swore.
Ross drew back. ‘That’ll teach you not to hit a sergeant.’ He looked around the silent room, seeing the men were restless that someone should have hit one of their brethren.
‘Yes? Who else wants to go on a charge? Oh, I forgot, you’re all criminals anyway. Well, you’ll just have to rot in here. It’s this bugger we want. Though why, I can’t think.’
He rubbed at his fist and then bent down and grabbed the still doubled-over Silver by his shirt, pulling him up. ‘Like I said, Silver. Officer present. Stand to attention.’ He gave him another tap with his fist.