To Do and Die

by Patrick Mercer

  ‘...an’ you know, your honour, we never did find out who ordered ‘right-about’ that morning.’ Finn had been sabreing Sikhs again. ‘You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you, your honour? Come-on, here’s your stick, your father will be expecting you for dinner.’ Finn helped Morgan to his feet, clapped his walking stick in his hand and shook his head slowly to himself as the young officer hobbled back into the main house.

  Morgan’s mood wasn’t helped by the next day’s paper. In yet another account of Inkermann, it claimed that Richard Carmichael had been one of the few officers of the 95th left standing at the end of the day. Indeed, it said that he’d even temporarily been in command of the whole Regiment, ‘...marching at their head from the field of honour.’ Further hot coals were heaped upon him when he read in the Gazette section that one ‘RLM Carmichael, Lt, 95th Regt,’ had been appointed, ‘Captain without purchase,’ and was posted as, ‘Assistant Quartermaster General, 2nd Division.’

  That scrub, that yellow creature was not only promoted, but he’d been moved away from the regiment and danger as a smooth-arsed Staff officer. What a damn disgrace. The only fly in Carmichael’s over-flowing pot of ointment, though, was that his uncle, Sir George Cathcart—or whatever relation the fellow was—was no longer in a position to give his nephew a leg-up: the Muscovites had seen to that. Even so, it was still a damn disgrace. He was miserable because he felt guilty—guilty of abandoning his men. He couldn’t loaf here whilst the boys—and Mary too—had to endure this sort of injustice in the Crimea.

  ***

  ‘March is a bit early in the year for this, ain’t it, Father?’ Tony Morgan hadn’t liked to refuse the invitation to shoot seals, for it was something very special to the old man.

  Last season his sea-trout had been ravaged by the gluttonous things, now he’d cull them as early as possible to stop it happening again. But why March, when the waves romped into Bantry Bay from the Atlantic and the spray flew even well inshore? And why had Billy insisted that his water bailiff should wait for them on dry land, leaving just the pair of them to handle the boat, the rifles, the gaffs and all the other gear, especially when his leg was still so stiff?

  After twenty minutes’ hard rowing they nosed into something approaching calm. More than a hundred paces away, several fat, flippery forms lay high on the rocks, their short dappled fur making them hard to see.

  ‘There’s a gang of them yonder, Father.’ Tony knew that Billy’s eyesight would never make them out at this distance, but he wouldn’t admit it, ‘...d’you want me to load the rifles?’

  ‘Ah, yes, I can see the brutes.’ Father lied, shading his eyes against the non-existent winter sun. ‘No, wait you, we need to do some straight talking before anything else.’

  Tony had expected as much. Since he’d got home, Father had made several attempts to corner him, all of which he’d avoided with one excuse or another. The old man had never been much of a mentor to him, even after his mother died, and their private conversations were normally brisk, business-like affairs where money, horses or careers were discussed—nothing more intimate. But this was obviously going to be different, that’s why he’d brought him to a place where there was no escape and no one could eavesdrop on them.

  ‘Son, I know all about Mary, have done since the first night you tupped her—bloody awful row the pair of you made. That was fine—well, not fine exactly, but you know what I mean. But she was little Mary Cade then, our chambermaid and if she’d found herself eating for two or generally cut up rough, then I could have dealt with it—heaven knows that sort of thing was quite usual in my day.’

  Tony pulled gently at his oar, keeping the boat straight and trying to avoid Billy’s eye.

  ‘But now she’s Mrs Mary Keenan, married to your onetime batman from just up the road here. Now he’s a sergeant, promoted for bravery at the Alma—it’s been all over the papers—Keenan’s a bloody hero in these parts and we’ve known his family since before the first famine.’ Tony could see that this was going to be difficult. ‘And what of my own gallant boy? Fucking one of his own men’s wives—one of the men who depend upon him for every bit of leadership they can get, who depend upon my son to keep him and a host of others alive.’ Billy fixed him with a stony eye. ‘Don’t deny it, boy, the servants write to each other you know. And I’m quite aware that the silly mare married Keenan just to follow you out there without telling you a thing. It’s not just the scandal hereabouts if this gets out, son—I can live with that—it’s what you’re doing to a Papist couple who deserve better from the likes of us.’

  ‘But, Father...’ Tony tried to reply.

  ‘No, lad, don’t waste your breath, ‘love’ be buggered. You may think that at the moment but it wouldn’t work. The Romans won’t let their people divorce, so what sort of a life could you have with the girl? You couldn’t stay in these parts and the army would crucify you for what you’d done to a non-commissioned type.’ Billy was unrelenting.

  ‘But...’ Tony tried again.

  ‘No, son. Marry the Hawtrey girl, she’s a wee cracker. Forget Mary: let her and James Keenan get on with their lives. There, it had to be said, now I’ll say no more about it unless I find that you’ve disobeyed me. Do we understand each other?’ Billy reached forward and touched his son’s knee in a rare gesture of affection.

  Tony had no words to answer his father. He had no strength to argue his case—he just nodded his agreement.

  ‘Good, then, that’s settled. Take my oar and get us up close, I’ll load these rifles.’

  But that doesn’t settle it at all. Does father really think that a few peppery words from him will put the whole thing straight? He’s absolutely right about the family’s place here in Cork, especially amongst the Catholic people and the example that we’re all expected to set them; and I know that I’m risking the army’s wrath, but he can’t understand what Mary and I have found with each other? thought Tony.

  ‘Gently now, boy, turn the boat carefully.’ Billy had got his eye on a basking seal on a rock about fifty paces off. As the boat came round, he slowly lowered himself in the stern, resting his double-barrelled rifle on the tiller housing.

  And if he thinks that I’m going to shackle myself to that frigid Maude just to keep his Protestant...Then some reflex threw Tony from his seat, leaving him cringing in the bilges at the unexpected, mighty bang.

  ‘What the hell’s got into you boy?’ An angry Billy had to grip the gunwale of the boat as it rocked with Tony’s sudden movement. It was quite clear what had got into Tony. The young officer was pale, lying as flat as he could on the boards, making the smallest possible target of himself. ‘By God, son, that war’s hurt you worse than just that hole in your leg, ain’t it?’ Murmured his father to himself.

  It didn’t take much to persuade the medical board in Fermoy. Tony had been called for a review of his injury in late March and by gritting his teeth and concentrating every bit of strength he had, he managed the rudimentary tests that the doctors set him. He confessed to still needing a stick, but when they asked him if he felt capable of training duties at the reinforcement depot in Malta, he couldn’t agree quickly enough. The surgeon-colonel in charge made the kindly suggestion that he should take another week’s leave, ‘...just to let the leg settle a bit,’ and to ‘...kiss the girls goodbye,’ the latter phrase accompanied by a horrid wink, but Tony insisted that he could be up and off in two days.

  ‘Just like the bloody army, so it is. No bloody notice, no consideration for your personal affairs at all, just rips your honour away on a bloody whim.’ Finn had watched Morgan’s mounting frustration and had guessed that he would use the medical board’s verdict as an excuse to get away from Glassdrumman. But he went along with the pretence. ‘You’ve made yourself too bloody valuable, sir. Still, there it is, the army’ll post you in a rush just to keep you hangin’ about in some fly-blown hole of a place.’

  Morgan’s self-imposed crisis was ideal. He escaped from his father witho
ut more discussion; Maude was staying with friends in Roscommon so all she got were a few, breezy lines; and there was no time for a leaving party, just a simple supper and a skin-full with Finn.

  ‘Look, sir, be careful, can’t you?’ Finn was as fragile as Morgan in the half-light of All Fools’ Day morning as they mounted the jaunty and set out for the station. ‘I can just see the next time we’ll meet you off the train—you’ll be wearin’ an oak box.’ Finn shook the reins, starting the mare into a steady trot.

  ‘You’re talking balls, Finn. I’m just being sent back to train recruits, that’s all. The war’ll be over before I get back and, anyway, even if I do re-join the regiment and they’re still fighting, there’ll be no heroics, believe me.’

  ‘Course I believe you, sir, like there was no heroics with you an’ young Keenan at the Alma, like you didn’t break your glass on some t’ick Russian skull...’ Finn’s words touched Morgan, ‘...an’ like there was no heroics that got you that wounded leg. Just have a care, sir, we need you here in one piece.’ The older man’s face was creased with concern as they pulled up at the station.

  The train was on time. Their headaches prevented any more talk, but as Morgan swung his bags up into the carriage before climbing stiffly aboard himself, Finn reached for his hand; ‘An’ we need that young Mary back too, your honour, by your side where she belongs.’

  Was that really what the servants thought? wondered Morgan. If Finn was right and the ordinary folk could see the rightness of the match, couldn’t Mary and he overcome all of the objections that his father and others would put in their way? A warm tingle of hope crept down Morgan’s spine.

  ***

  Naturally, Finn was right. Malta was a fly-blown hole of a place and there was as much hanging about as you wanted. Morgan’s duties were simple enough, he oversaw the drilling and physical training of the recruits who came through the reinforcement depot and taught both the instructors and the men the intricacies of the ‘53 Pattern Enfield rifle that was gradually replacing the Minie.

  Long days in the brassy sun were spent stomping up and down the sandy ranges that looked out into the Mediterranean, trying to stop the men from flinching in anticipation of the rifle’s kick and to teach them how to judge range with some accuracy. The technical side was absorbing enough, showing the men how to lay-off for wind, how to indicate targets to one another and other battlefield wrinkles—at least, it was absorbing the first couple of times, but he chafed to be back with the regiment.

  Morgan’s greatest distraction and pleasure was Pat, a brindled Staffordshire that had cost him five guineas from Billy Acton of the 77th who, like him, was recovering from a wound sustained at Inkermann.

  ‘He’s a grand ratter, look at him,’ claimed Acton.

  If Pat’s scars on nose and lips and the absence of a left eye made him a ‘grand ratter’, then, by the same token, Acton and he with their limps and shiny scars must have been grand soldiers—Morgan wasn’t convinced. But Pat’s first time in action against a horde of furry vermin that were driven out of a grain store just below the camp by a pair of ferrets, changed Morgan’s mind.

  ‘Will you look at that,’ Morgan had seldom seen the like, ‘...that’s extraordinary.’

  As the ferrets—the property of Private Styles, the camp commander’s batman—slunk down the entrance to the rats’ holes in the big, dusty barn, so a sea of scurrying shapes came pouring out of the other side of a wooden partition wall. Here waited Pat, his stump of a tail going hard, muscles bunched, quivering with anticipation. To kill one rat at a time was quite normal—Morgan remembered how impressed he’d been with the soldiers’ Jack Russells back in Weedon—but two was nothing short of splendid. At almost every pass, Pat gulped one into the depths of his jaws and nipped another with his front teeth. A quick shake, a burst of blood and the dead animals arced through the air before landing with a dull thump on the packed-earth floor of the barn.

  ‘Damn me, twenty-two in under two minutes, Styles, amazing.’ Morgan had his hunter in hand, stabbing at the second hand as accurately as he could.

  ‘Aye, sir, but Pat had to chase under them bales for five or so.’ Styles had seen how a stack of straw had provided convenient, if temporary, cover for some of Pat’s quarry. ‘If he’d been in a proper ring you could shave a couple of seconds off for each rat. What d’you pay for ‘im if you don’t mind me askin’?’

  ‘Five guineas off Captain Acton; what d’you think?’

  ‘Good deal, sir...’ Styles answered, whistling his admiration, ‘.mek you a king’s ransom in ‘Pol.’

  Morgan held the dog by the collar as Styles recovered his ferrets—Pat was straining to be at the creatures, his front paws off the ground as his back legs scrabbled to get a grip in the dirt. The battered terrier would have dealt with his ferret allies in exactly the same way as he’d killed the rats, given half a chance. Morgan pulled a handful of straw from a nearby bale and wiped the vermins’ blood from Pat’s muzzle and flank as the dog’s stump of a tail wagged appreciatively.

  The officer’s mind turned to Sevastopol and the savage fighting that lay ahead. The Allies had been on the verge of storming the place in November, but the Russians had not only blunted their ambitions by attacking at Inkermann, they seemed to have emerged from the winter bolder and stronger than those who were meant to be besieging them. Somehow, he doubted that he would leave the place with a king’s ransom—he probably wouldn’t leave it at all. He shivered, despite the heat of the day.

  ***

  May started with the trickle of reinforcements turning into a steady stream as recruiting and training in Britain at last began to be organized properly. Despite the wholly predictable complaints from the regiments in the Crimea who were receiving the new drafts (they were too young, too green, too awkward, two left feet—in other words they were just callow), the men looked pretty good to Morgan. There were no weaklings that he could see and they all seemed keen to taste the fighting. Perhaps more importantly, a leavening of men who had now recovered from their wounds was beginning to come through. They were worth their weight in gold, reinforcing the instructors’ words with lessons learnt the hard way in the field.

  The seventh of May was Morgan’s birthday and as he woke that morning he wondered what lay ahead in his twenty-fifth year. It started well. Late the night before a new draft had arrived; Morgan had been dimly aware of crunching boots and muted commands as they marched up from the quayside and were shown to their bed-spaces, cookhouse and armoury. On the way to his morning swim he passed the Sergeants’ Mess where breakfast had just started.

  ‘Sir, Mr Morgan, sir, it is you, ain’t it?’ A rasping Scots bass came from deep within, its owner invisible but instantly recognizable by his voice.

  Morgan stopped, delighted. ‘Is that Colour-Sergeant McGucken? Show yourself for pity’s sake!’

  The big man pushed past the tables and his guzzling comrades, launching himself from the darkness of the room out into the glare of the spring sunshine. He stood on the cinder path for a moment grinning, just as barrel-chested and bursting with life as when Morgan had seen him last. His strapped overalls clung to his legs and he looked as though he had been poured into his new scarlet shell-jacket, the gold-lace chevrons gleaming on his arm.

  ‘Damn me, sir...’ the two men wrung each other’s hands, ‘...there was no need to dress.’ Besides McGucken, Morgan looked distinctly shabby in his shorts and singlet, a towel draped around his neck. ‘I heard you’d taken a bad ‘un, sir...’ the Colour-Sergeant looked down at the red, livid scar on his subaltern’s thigh, ‘...coming to look for me, they said. More than Mr Carmichael did.’

  Morgan’s smile faded as he recalled Carmichael’s behaviour. ‘Didn’t get very far, though, did I? What happened to you?’

  ‘Well, sir, I got a belt on the skull from a Russian butt that laid me out cold ‘til the next morning when two of our orderlies found me. D’you know, the clowns had the damned cheek to lift me up a couple o’ feet be
fore a-droppin’ me just to see whether I was dead—meanwhile the bloody Russians are giving their men anaes-fucking-thetics, talk about the march of medical science. There’s too much to tell you just now, sir, you go and have a bath—and don’t forget to wash behind your ears. Are you free for a swally or two in our Mess tonight?’

  Morgan was, indeed, free that evening—he was free every evening in sociable Malta. Then, he’d just got the men settled-in to a gentle morning’s practise on moving targets when one of the commandant’s clerks arrived on a pony, leading another.

  ‘Sir, Major James’s compliments, an’ could you report to him at your earliest convenience, if you please? Brought an ‘orse for you.’

  ‘Thank you, Hallam, I will. Good of you to bring the pony. Am I in trouble, d’you know?’ Morgan had always liked the clerk, an educated soldier of the 55th who’d had a shin smashed at the Alma, hobbled terribly and who was now only fit for light duties. Hallam, in turn, had responded to Morgan’s interest in him—that’s why he’d brought the mount, to spare the young officer’s leg.

  ‘No, sir, get away. Your lot’s had some bad casualties in the trenches, officers an’ all, an’ I think the Major’s going to ask you if you think you’re up to taking a draft over. Don’t let on I told you, sir.’

  Major James of the 30th commanded the Depot Battalion on Malta that trained and despatched reinforcements to all the regiments of the 2nd Division. He was fifty and florid and whilst many men much older than he were serving well and gallantly in the Crimea, peaceful Malta tested him to the hilt.

  ‘Ah Morgan, how’s the leg?’ James’s eyes watered like those of a much older man.

  ‘Much better, sir, good of you to ask.’ Morgan saluted smartly before removing his cap and shifting his weight off his right leg and onto his walking stick.