by CL Skelton
As they entered, the general cleared his throat and, without waiting for formal introduction, said, ‘Grrumph, so this is the young fellah-me-lad?’ He looked Andrew over as if he were a horse in the sale ring. ‘Worthing,’ he announced, offering Andrew his hand.
‘How do you do?’ replied Andrew, taking the proffered paw.
‘Firm grip, that’s a good sign. Me wife; me daughter, Emma,’ he said, indicating each in turn. ‘Sit with the gel. Like to see what you look like together.’
Andrew acknowledged the ladies, and feeling slightly uncomfortable, did as he was bid.
‘What a charming place you have here,’ said Emma, and that remark set the tone of the conversation. Stilted and as formally choreographed as Chinese theatre.
Later that evening at dinner, Emma Worthing turned to Andrew, who was seated on her left.
‘I suppose it is quite obvious to you why we have been seated next to each other?’ Emma Worthing was unmistakably English, tall, fair, blue-eyed, and attractive in a formal sort of way.
‘Probably just the way it worked out,’ replied Andrew, raising his eyes from the soup and gazing at the expanse of white female flesh which rose from the pink rosebud-studded satin of her décolleté bodice.
‘Oh, you cannot possibly be so naive,’ she said. ‘They’ve decided that we are a good match. Makes one feel like a cow on offer. Still, you had better have at least three dances with me tonight or they’ll be furious.’
‘They’ were, of course, their respective parents, who, after discussing the matter at some length, had come to the conclusion suspected by Miss Worthing.
As the main course was being served, Emma turned to him again.
‘Does all this embarrass you, Captain Maclaren? We shall not meet again until you return from China, you know.’
Andrew sliced his venison ruthlessly. It did embarrass him. Besides, he was remembering Maggie, and thinking of Maud.
Chapter Eight
The Earl of Elgin had been chosen for his diplomatic skill. He had been described in Parliament as ‘a man with the ability and resolution to ensure success, and the native strength that can afford to be merciful’. He had been sent to China early in 1857, and was currently negotiating the Treaty of Tientsin. This was intended to secure the China trade so essential to Empire. But peace in China could never be secured by a piece of paper, and the British government, in cooperation with the French, were waging constant battles with the insurgent native population in order to keep the trade routes open. This applied especially to those which covered the river approaches to Peking. So in spite of the diplomatic activity of the noble Earl, the government was taking no chances. It was British bayonets which would maintain the peace, and they were strengthening their garrisons on the China mainland. The 148th Foot had been designated for part of this work, and this was the job to which Sir Henry had referred when he told Andrew of their imminent departure for the Far East.
Before they had left and amidst the intensive training programme which had been drawn up for the new recruits, Andrew, conscious of his promise to Maggie, had sent for Private Angus Buchannan.
The man who had come into his office and stamped to attention before him was every inch a soldier. Smart in his uniform, cross belts blancoed to a snowy, spotless white, ammunition pouches gleaming black leather, buttons shining, kilt pressed, and sporran brushed and combed, Buchannan still had the thick neck and near-purple bulbous nose and cauliflower ear which had marked him as a drunkard and a troublemaker when he had first reported to the regiment. But troublemaker he had not been. Andrew had kept an eye on him, hoping to find a reason to have him discharged, but no reason came. So, after putting the matter off until it was almost too late, he had at last decided to talk to the man.
‘Ah, Buchannan, I called you in here to find out how you were getting on.’
‘Sirr!’ replied Buchannan.
‘I, as you know ‒’ Andrew was searching for words ‒ ‘I take a very personal interest in all the men in my company, and a very special interest in those who come from the estate.’
‘Yes, sirr.’ Buchannan did not sound very impressed.
‘They tell me that you are a married man.’
‘Aye, sirr, that’s right.’
‘As a married man, I should imagine that you would much rather be at home with your wife than stuck out here in the army.’
‘What for, sirr?’
‘Do you mean that you would rather be in the army?’ Andrew swallowed hard. This was not the way he had rehearsed this conversation. ‘What about your wife, how about her feelings?’
‘Maggie’s all right, sirr. She’s getting her allowance and living at home wi’ ma faither and mither. Och, sirr, she’s better off than she’s ever been.’
‘I see,’ said Andrew. ‘But what about yourself?’
‘Weel, sirr, I look at it this way. I don’t have to worry about Maggie, and I get four shillings a week to spend on meself, and I’m a man who’s never had more than maybe a couple of pence before and it’s gie seldom I’ve even had that.’
‘Am I to understand that you like the army?’
‘I like it fine, sirr. ’Tis a guid life for a man; I’ve known no better.’
‘You have heard that we are going East soon?’ Maybe the threat of overseas would work.
‘And that’s another thing, sirr. How would a body like me, who’s got nothing, get to see anything of the worrld except in the army?’
‘You mean that you’d rather go to China than go home?’
‘Och, home’s fine, sirr, but it’s afu’ crowded in oor wee hoose, what wi’ ma folks and Maggie and the bairns.’
‘You have children?’ This was news to Andrew, and it gave him a twinge of conscience.
‘Aye, sirr, two, a boy and a wee girl, and there’s another on the way.’
‘What!’
‘Aye, Maggie’s due in four or five months,’ said Buchannan unconcernedly.
Andrew heaved a sigh of relief. At least it was not his.
There was, he decided, nothing that he could say. He knew from Willie Bruce that Buchannan had the makings of a fine soldier, and that C Company would do well with him, and here was the man himself confessing that he liked the army and wanted to have one last go.
‘If I were to offer you your discharge, what would you say to that?’
‘I’d ask you where I’d done wrong, sirr.’
‘There’s nothing like that; you’ve done very well,’ replied Andrew.
‘Then, sirr, I’d say no thank you, sirr.’
So that was it. He had tried, and honour (if you could call it that) was satisfied. Andrew sat, not saying anything for a time.
‘Is there anything else, sirr?’ asked Buchannan, uneasy at the long silence.
‘No, Buchannan, you can go now,’ replied Andrew.
‘Thank you, sirr.’ Buchannan saluted and marched out of the company office.
So that was it. Andrew could not and did not try to understand either Angus Buchannan or his wife. He had enjoyed his experience with Maggie; though it had seemed at the time pretty quick, and he had wondered if that was all there was to it, and though it had worried his conscience, he soon found himself wanting to do it again. He did not really know whether Maggie had seduced him or he had seduced Maggie; or perhaps he would not admit to himself that it was she and not he who had taken the initiative.
Over the following weeks and during the voyage, he thought a lot about women. He thought about them in a way in which he had never considered them before. They had become sex objects in his fantasies. Not all of them, of course; Emma Worthing, for instance. She was like so many of the young ladies he met on social occasions. She was attractive, well groomed. But when he tried as he did occasionally to imagine them lying on their backs, naked, and taking their bodies, it did not work. Somehow they all seemed to be sexless. In a strange way, they did not seem to have material forms beneath their expensive, beautifully cut gowns. Perhaps it
was because he assumed them all to be virgins and therefore untouchable. He was well aware that his parents wanted him to marry Emma, and that financially it would be a very good thing to do. He was surprised at his own complete indifference to the whole idea.
Then there was Maud. Maud was different. The thought of her never failed to arouse him, though if he had been able to be honest with himself, he would have admitted that he usually thought of her body and not her person. Her past, even her present condition, had no effect on his desire for her. He had resolved that he would not lose contact with her, and had written to her the day after the ball. He had a good reason; he wanted to apologize for not being present when she took her departure from his home, but he would have written anyway.
She had replied to him. It pleased and surprised him a little. The letter was formal and told him that the weather was nice, the home in the convent was nice, the sisters were nice, that she was well, and very little else. Still it had been a letter, and had indicated that she would be quite willing to continue corresponding with him. He and she both realized that it was extremely doubtful they would meet again for several years.
And so they had gone to China to sweat it out while the Treaty of Tientsin was made, and then broken a hundred times. It seemed like another world, a world that was without end. After Rear Admiral Hope had failed to take the Taku forts, they had been moved to bivouac some eight miles north of them at Pehtang in northern China, on the banks of the river of the same name. They had been allocated the task of garrisoning the town and manning the batteries that covered the entrance to the river, from which it was rumoured that another assault on the forts would be launched. But that was only at the beginning, and as the months dragged by, they became convinced that they had been forgotten.
Cholera and venereal disease had taken their toll, and about two hundred men had fallen to one or the other of those scourges. But a greater menace than either of these was the boredom which sapped the morale of the men. Colonel Maclaren had offered awards to those who could devise new and popular ideas to keep his men occupied, but few were forthcoming. Life resolved into a ceaseless round of drills, parades, inspections and the occasional game of football, devised by officers and N.C.O.s who could think of nothing better to occupy the time of the men under their command. Keeping the men out of the brothels which had proliferated since they arrived proved a full-time occupation, and it was seldom successful. Morale was low, and the forts to the south were still there, held by a large force of Chinese. They were only eight miles away, but they might have been a hundred, as the land between them consisted mainly of marsh and salt flats.
It was not until the end of July 1860 that things began to change, and an air of expectancy began to pervade the garrison. First a new general officer had arrived, General Sir Hope Grant who was the brother-in-law of the Earl of Elgin, but a good soldier for all of that. Mysterious meetings and conversations took place between himself and the commanders of the two battalions which were garrisoning the town, giving rise to massive speculation in the bivouacs. And then one morning, while Willie Bruce was walking around the fort inspecting pickets, accompanied by Colour Sergeant Donald Murray of the H.Q. Company, Murray suddenly stopped and pointed out to sea.
‘Willie, what in the name of God is all o’ that?’
Willie looked where his stocky, black-bearded companion was pointing. There on the horizon were ships. Not just one or two ships; you could count them by the dozen.
‘There must be a hundred of them,’ said Willie.
‘Aye,’ replied Murray, ‘and they look as if they’re coming this way. Shall we call the colonel?’
‘Och, bide a wee,’ said Willie. ‘Unless I’m mistaken, yon is a twenty-two-gun frigate and she’s one of ours.’ He was indicating the nearest ship.
‘Ye know, Willie,’ replied Donald, ‘I think you’re right. There’s a hell of a lot o’ them. Surely there canna be any more.’ But more there were. In all, there were forty-one men-of-war and one hundred and forty-three transports. Slowly this armada, a mass of billowing sails and smoking, grimy steamers, made its way towards the mouth of the river. Over the next few days, they disgorged some eleven thousand men. British, French, and Indian, including Sikh Irregulars from the plains of the Punjab. It was obvious that something immense was about to happen, and of course, rumour was rife throughout the tents of the 148th. The speculation did, however, serve one useful purpose; the men had something to talk about, and this gave an immediate lift to morale. With their years of sweating and freezing it out behind them, they felt superior to the ‘new boys’. A certain swagger appeared in their bearing, uniforms were a little smarter, and they were quick to pick a fight, especially with the French around the brothel quarter, where trade had blossomed and there were not enough women to go around.
C Company had remained relatively unscathed from the attentions of most of the evils which had beset the regiment. Most of this was due to the ministrations of Willie Bruce. He never let a day go by without seeing to it that at the end of it his men were too exhausted to go further than the wet canteen when the day’s duty had been completed. Cholera he could do little or nothing about, apart from seeing that the men were clean, but it took its toll. As regards the other scourge, V.D., C Company, with very few exceptions, did not frequent the brothels. This was not out of lack of desire or any high moral sense. It was more in fear of Willie, who announced that any man who caught a packet would have his name and the nature of his disease forwarded to his minister at home. It took a very hardened individual to risk having himself denounced by name from the pulpit of his local kirk in front of his family and friends.
Unknown to each other, both Willie and Andrew were corresponding with Maud. Her letters to each of them were formal and polite, and she never mentioned Willie to Andrew nor Andrew to Willie. Her letters were prompt in reply, and to Willie there was a certain warmth in her language which was lacking when she wrote to Andrew. There was one matter on which she wrote which was of concern to both of them. She had given birth to a baby girl and called her Naomi, and she had decided that she would not have it adopted but keep her daughter for herself. For Andrew, this served only as a barrier to the possibility of any really serious relationship developing between them. Willie was not surprised. It seemed to him that it was the natural thing to do. He had expected it, and by his standards, she had behaved absolutely correctly. After the birth of Naomi, Willie, who until then considered himself so much the social inferior of Maud as to have no hope in that direction, and had couched his letters in the terms of a devoted servant, now began to believe that there might be a chance for him. His letters took on a much more friendly and intimate style; he started to write to her as an equal. Andrew, for his part, took her desire to keep the child as a personal slight, and though he did not, because he could not, stop writing, his letters became more and more formal in their content.
In 1862, General Sir Hope Grant had been given command of the expedition which was now massing at Peh-tang, and on the first of August he called his battalion commanders to conference. Among those present was Sir Henry Maclaren as commanding officer of the 148th Foot. As for the rest of them, they were a mixed bag of French, Indian, and British. The general surveyed the assembled company, all seated around a large trestle table. Dammit, he wished that he could speak French, but he could not and had to have an interpreter standing by to translate his briefing. They made a colourful sight, the French in blue, the British in red, and the Indians ‒ there were only two of them ‒ in braided tunics, jodhpurs and immaculate turbans. There were too many of them for the task in hand, but after the failure of Admiral Hope two years ago, there was no point in taking any chances. Still he could not help feeling that he had been given a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Hope Grant cleared his throat and rose to his feet.
‘Gentlemen,’ he began, ‘the purpose of our expedition is to take the Taku forts by storm. If we succeed in this, the road to Peking will be open and the end o
f the current unrest here in China will be in sight. Once those forts are in European hands, the whole of the Pei-ho River up to the northern capital will be free and navigable by our shipping.
‘Apart from the forts themselves, the Chinese have a considerable force some eight miles upriver at Sin-ho. This position can be reached by a causeway which runs southwest from our present base. I intend to march to Sin-ho, defeat this army in the field ‒ we will outnumber them by about three to one ‒ and then proceed down both banks of the river to take the forts.
‘There are four of these forts, only three of which are of consequence. The Great North Fort and the Great South Fort, which lie either side of the river mouth, are the key to the whole situation, but they themselves have a key, and this is a fort about a mile inland, much smaller, but well garrisoned. It lies on the north bank of the Pei-ho River and covers the rear of the two large forts, which have all of their cannon pointing seaward. These will be in any case engaged by the navy, and our own force should be able to take them from the rear without a great deal of difficulty.
‘The small fort could, however, prove to be a problem. Well manned, and tenaciously held, it could hold up our advance. This must not be allowed to happen. Therefore, I propose to take it while our main body is dealing with the land army at Sin-ho.
‘The fort is small and of the usual mud construction. It is, as I said, well garrisoned and has some cannon. I am detaching one battalion from our force, which will proceed independently.
‘They will leave camp ahead of the main body. They will storm this fort and hold it while we are at Sin-ho. This will enable us to pass that fort in safety and, as I have already said, take the Great Forts from the rear.