The Last Legionnaire

by Paul Fraser Collard

  ‘So you’re master here now?’ Mary mocked him. ‘Hiring staff and running the damn place.’

  ‘No.’ He scoffed at the idea.

  ‘Then what the hell are you doing?’ Mary’s eyes were hard. Any notion of good humour had clearly beaten a hasty retreat.

  ‘I have no idea,’ Jack answered with total honesty.

  ‘No. I figured that much.’ Mary shook her head at his foolishness. ‘Yet still you’re willing to destroy everything we have just so you can prove that you are a hard man now, that you’re not that little boy who ran off.’

  Jack glowered. ‘It’s not like that.’

  ‘No?’ Mary was cruel. ‘I reckon this is all one great game for you. No one else wanted you, so you came back here. You turn up looking like some fine toff, but in truth you’re just another bloody man who reckons it’s his God-given right to do whatever the hell he pleases.’

  Jack rose to his feet. ‘I fought for this place. I didn’t have to.’

  ‘Really? I reckon you wanted that scrap.’ Mary’s eyes blazed up at him. ‘I reckon it was the best thing could’ve happened to you. You were bored shitless, we all saw it. I reckon the fight with Shaw suited you very nicely.’

  ‘You really believe that?’ Jack’s voice was like ice.

  ‘Yes, I bloody well do.’ Mary did not back down. ‘Men like you are ten-a-penny round here.’

  ‘Men like me?’

  ‘Mary!’ Jack’s mother reached across to try to land a calming hand on Mary’s forearm, but she shrugged it off and rose to her own feet.

  ‘Yes, men like you.’ She spat out the words. ‘Men who think nothing of killing. Men who fight rather than using their bloody heads. Men who do what the fuck they want without any thought of the damn consequences.’

  ‘You have no idea.’ Jack snapped the reply.

  ‘I have every idea. You think you’re special, that you’re different because you fought in the wars.’ She made her voice sound wheedling as she mocked him. ‘You’re nothing special, Jack Lark. Your life isn’t all that different to any one of ours.’

  ‘Is that so? Have you killed a man? Have you watched him die with your sword buried in his guts?’ He was shaking now. ‘Have you sat with a young lad and said nothing as the poor bastard dies in your arms? You know nothing.’ As he spoke, the images flooded into his mind. The faces of the dead mocked him, taunting him with their hollow, glazed eyes.

  ‘I know you’re a fraud!’ Mary was shouting now. ‘You’re just a common bloody trickster.’

  ‘And you’re just a doxy who doesn’t know shit.’

  Mary slapped him. The blow came hard, the sound of the impact like a gunshot.

  Jack laughed then, mocking her attempt to hurt him. He saw her hand tense as she readied another blow. It had barely travelled an inch before he reached forward to grab her forearm, his fingers digging into the flesh around her wrist. He pulled her towards him, dragging her forward so that her face was close to his own.

  ‘Do not tell me what I am.’ He spoke softly, every word as hard as steel. ‘I know what I have become.’

  He threw her away then, not caring that he hurt her. He did not look at either of the two women again as he stormed from the room.

  He would not be left to go in peace.

  ‘That’s it. Turn your back.’ Mary’s voice harangued him. His rough handling had done nothing to quench her anger. ‘I know you, Jack Lark. I know what you are. So you slope off, just like you always do. That suits us nicely. We don’t bloody want you.’ Her voice was cruel and her face changed as she spoke. It twisted, her mouth ugly, as if she was sucking on something sour.

  Jack slammed the door behind him and stood behind it, slowing his breathing. He was in the main room of the palace. The stink of sour gin caught in his nose as he controlled his anger. The smell sickened him.

  The collar was stiff. His fingers were clumsy and out of practice, but he forced the final button into its hole. The fit was tight around his neck, the high collar forcing his chin up so that he looked down his nose at the world around him, just as an officer should.

  He stood back from the window, then smoothed down the fabric of the scarlet coatee. It was slightly rumpled from its time in the chest where he kept his things. He had not worn it since the day he had arrived back in Whitechapel nearly a month before, his role as potboy not requiring the dress of an officer of the Queen. But the snug fit of the captain’s uniform coat felt good on his back.

  He pulled on his kidskin gloves, taking time to ensure that each was smooth against his skin, then reached for the tall black shako with its stubby plume. He kept it tucked under his arm as he checked his reflection in the room’s small window, which acted as a mirror now that darkness had fallen outside.

  He liked what he saw. He straightened his back, instinctively adopting the posture of an officer. His fingers traced the crown and star embroidered on the collar of his uniform jacket in golden thread. The rank of captain sat well with him. It was the first rank he had assumed, and the one he felt most at home with.

  The fight with Mary had cleared his mind. He was going back to what he had always been. He had returned to the one place he had thought of as home in an attempt to build a new life on the foundations of the past. He had been wrong. He was no longer the boy who had worked at his mother’s beck and call. He was a soldier, a redcoat. He did not belong in a gin palace. He belonged on the battlefield, where his talents had a rightful place.

  He had tried to deny who he was. He would not do so again.

  ‘Good evening, sir, welcome to the Army and Navy Club.’

  Jack slipped the shako off his head and handed it to a liveried servant standing ready near the entrance to the officers-only club. He nodded to acknowledge the man’s greeting, his hand running over his close-cropped hair as he ran his eyes around the room.

  The club was busy. He had chosen the date with care. There were a number of events being hosted that night, the combination of two regimental dinners and a birthday celebration certain to fill the place with enough unfamiliar faces that one more should not stand out.

  Once or twice he had felt like he had been followed from the rookery, but he had stopped and checked behind him, and was confident that the feeling was nothing more than a twinge of unfamiliarity at once again taking on the role of a redcoat officer.

  ‘Are you here for Lord Butterworth’s celebration, sir?’ The frock-coated servant sought to guide the newly arrived officer to the correct event. Already an officer and his lady were entering the club behind Jack, and the sound of a hackney cab carried inside as still more guests pulled up to the kerb on the corner of George Street.

  ‘Yes, indeed. It is upstairs?’ Jack offered a smile to the man charged with greeting the guests. He made the guess easily. He had already spied a group of three officers making their way up the grand staircase that swept into the hall. None was escorting a lady, and their uniforms came from three different regiments, the identification a simple matter of glancing at the coloured facings on their jackets.

  ‘Yes, sir. Lord Butterworth and his guests are in the library.’ The servant nodded before ushering Jack forward, his white-gloved hand gesturing for him to walk on.

  Jack needed no more invitation. He walked towards the staircase, his heartbeat barely increasing as he returned to the world he had inhabited for so long. It was almost too easy. A man presenting himself in the correct uniform, with passable manners and the right accent, was rarely questioned. Once that fact had astonished Jack. Now he barely paid it any heed.

  He ascended the stairs at a leisurely pace, following behind another pair of officers slowly making their way upstairs to the club’s evening rooms. Officers did not rush. The staircase wrapped itself around the corners of the hall, the great glass panels on the ceiling dark now that night had fallen. It was grandeur on a vast scale. The club was not quite a decade old, but it had the feel of an opulent Italian palazzo, or so Jack heard the officer in front of him pro
claim to his companion.

  He paused at the top of the stairs, taking a moment to straighten his jacket. A grim-faced, grey-moustachioed general stared down at him from a gold-framed portrait, his face cast into an eternal scowl of disapproval, as if he could see the impostor now standing before him. The notion made Jack smile as he moved on. The weight of the officer’s uniform felt good on his shoulders; the contrast to the green apron of a potboy could not have been starker. He felt he was starting to understand what he was, what he had become. He had come back to London thinking to end his time as a pretender. Instead he had simply taken on a new role, masquerading as a son returned and a man reclaiming a former life. The fight with Shaw, and the less violent but more powerful one that had followed with Mary, had focused his mind.

  ‘Good evening.’ A man dressed in a black frock coat nodded a friendly greeting as he passed Jack by.

  Jack returned the comment with a smile. He took a deep breath, then pressed on, heading towards an elegant salon just off the first-floor landing, from where he heard the sounds of polite conversation.

  ‘Take him down!’

  Jack dived, grunting with pain as the body he was tackling drove hard into his shoulder. He fell away but kept his arms wrapped around the man’s legs, binding them tight so that the two of them came down together in one breathless heap.

  ‘I say, good tackle, old man.’

  The breathless voice was loud in his ear, and he felt the scratch of whiskers on the side of his face as his target twisted round. He would have laughed at the turn of phrase if the man had not been lying on his chest. He wriggled free in time to see another man in shirtsleeves bound close by to snatch up the teapot that had been knocked from the tackled man’s grasp when he hit the floor.

  ‘Over here, Sir John!’ More voices bellowed for attention, the other members of Jack’s team calling for the teapot to be passed to them. With a loud hoot, the man in possession obliged by sending it spinning towards a teammate, the pass executed across the front of an opposing player about to make a tackle.

  Jack rolled painfully to his feet, his hands instinctively pressing the small of his back to knead away the dull ache that had not been improved by the collision with the coffee room’s wooden floor. The pain was a nagging reminder of a youth spent in the gin palace hauling barrels. Years on campaign had done little to rid him of its constant presence, and now it felt like the devil himself was sitting on his shoulders jabbing a fiery trident into the small of his back. Yet still he managed to grin as he watched three members of his team rampage across the enormous room, the delicate china teapot thrown from one to the other as they swept towards the line of laughing officers who defended the far side.

  ‘I say, old man, lend us a hand.’ The man Jack had tackled lifted a hand in his direction.

  Jack bent down to haul his victim to his feet, laughing at the exaggerated expression of pain on the man’s face. ‘Sorry about that.’

  ‘No need to apologise, old man, all part of the game.’ The man’s mutton chops were in disarray, and he raised a hand to his face to smooth them back into place. ‘It was a splendid tackle. Why, I thought I was going to make it.’

  ‘You very nearly did.’ Jack winced as his back twinged. ‘What say we leave this game to those fools and go get ourselves a drink?’

  ‘I think that is as fine a notion as I have ever heard.’ The man groaned as he took his first steps. ‘I am getting too old for such goings-on.’ He smiled at Jack, then offered his hand. ‘Augustus White.’

  ‘Arthur Sloames.’ Jack gave the false identity as he shook hands. It was a nod to the captain he had once served and whose untimely death had provided him with his first opportunity to become an impostor.

  The two officers walked slowly from the field of play that had been cleared in the centre of the room. A great cheer went up from its far end as a vigorous tackle upended one of Jack’s teammates.

  ‘That’s the spirit. Play up, Butterworth, play up!’ Augustus roared his encouragement before taking a firm grip on Jack’s elbow. ‘Let’s make ourselves scarce before that damn teapot comes back this way.’

  Jack let himself be led. He was enjoying himself. The group of officers had welcomed him into their midst, not once bothering to interrogate him as to who he was. They had invited him to join their dinner, and the only question he had been asked had been an enquiry as to which position he preferred to play in the impromptu game of indoor rugby.

  The two officers walked towards their coats, draped over the chairs that had been pushed to one side to make space for the rugby field. Augustus groaned theatrically as he pulled his over his shoulders.

  ‘You tackle hard, old man. I expect I shall be bruised for a week.’

  ‘Let me get you a drink to make amends.’ Jack glanced across at his companion’s uniform as he pulled on his own, noticing the bright yellow facings and the single crown embroidered on the collar. Augustus was a major in the 15th Regiment of Foot, a regiment that Jack had not come across before.

  ‘Now that is a capital notion.’ Augustus finished doing up his buttons before raising a hand to usher Jack towards a corner of the room far from the raucous game of rugby.

  The players had brought a phalanx of wine bottles into the room with them. Jack let Augustus select one whilst he picked out two clean glasses from a neatly arranged collection that had been put in place by the club’s servants.

  ‘Shall we sit down over there? I rather think I need a rest.’ Augustus picked up a second bottle and motioned towards a seat close by.

  Jack slumped into the club chair with relief. ‘I am not sure I am cut out for indoor rugby.’

  Augustus snorted as he poured the dark red wine. ‘You and me both, old man.’ He glanced up at Jack as he handed over a glass, then picked up his own and raised it in front of him. ‘I propose a toast. Foolish games for foolish folk.’

  Jack raised his own glass and chinked it against his companion’s. ‘I can drink to that.’ He took a mouthful of the wine. It tasted better than gin.

  Augustus placed his glass on the small table that sat between them, then slumped back in his chair. He lifted a hand and gestured at Jack’s face. ‘That’s a nasty blighter of a scar.’

  Jack resisted the urge to run his fingers across the raised welt of flesh on his cheek. ‘Nature of the job.’ He used a tone that he knew would divert Augustus’s attention elsewhere.

  ‘I apologise. I know one shouldn’t mention these things. What with events in the Crimea, then those beastly affairs out in India, it’s a wonder any of us are quite whole.’

  Jack hid a scowl. He did not think the 15th had been anywhere near the fighting in either conflict. ‘So what brings an officer of the 15th to London?’ He tried to set the conversation on a sounder footing. He was enjoying his freedom, and he wanted to know what was going on in the wider world.

  ‘I serve with our 1st Battalion down at Portsmouth. We brought up a draft of men to Chatham. It seemed a waste to come all this way and not engage in a little diversion on the way back.’ Augustus drained his glass before leaning forward to top them both up. ‘If you will forgive me asking the same question, what’s an officer from the Buffs doing here? I thought your mob was all overseas?’

  Jack had chosen his borrowed regiment with care. The 3rd East Kents were known as the Buffs due to the colour of the facings on their uniform. The regiment had two battalions. One was stationed in the East Indies, the other in Malta. It made it unlikely that Jack would bump into any of its serving officers during the few hours that he passed dressed as one of their captains. He had stolen the uniform on his way back from the East, lifted from an officer’s trunk that he had come across at Waterloo station.

  ‘I’m on furlough.’

  ‘You lucky bugger. How long?’

  ‘A year.’ Jack made sure he caught the major’s eye. ‘I was wounded at Delhi.’

  ‘Enough said, old man.’ Augustus sat back, his discomfort at being faced with a fighting off
icer obvious as he fidgeted under Jack’s gaze. ‘Is that where you got the . . .’ He paused and used his glass to gesture at Jack’s face.

  Jack nodded before draining a large measure of his wine.

  ‘I see.’ Augustus wiped his hand across his mutton chops. ‘It was a beastly affair, absolutely beastly. There were rumours back at the depot that we would be sent out as reinforcements.’

  Jack sensed this would not have been to Major Augustus White’s liking at all. ‘It was hard fighting.’ He could not resist tweaking his companion’s tail. ‘You have to give the pandies credit. They didn’t cave in as easily as you might have been led to believe. They nearly had us at Badli-ki-Serai, and the assault on Delhi was a damned close-run thing.’ He dropped the names, watching for a reaction.

  ‘You were at both?’

  ‘I was in Delhi when the first mutineers rode in. I was there when we kicked them out again.’ Jack spoke in a deadpan tone, but he was struggling to hide a smile. Augustus was looking at him as if he were some kind of hero.

  ‘My dear fellow, I cannot start—’

  ‘No,’ Jack cut him dead, ‘I do not imagine that you can.’

  A commotion from the far side of the room took his attention. He had enjoyed landing the barb, but for a reason he could not fathom, he sensed the arrival of danger.

  Augustus was still talking. ‘I read about the siege in the papers. What you fellows achieved, why, it was nothing short of miraculous. I have often said as much to my fellow officers back at the depot . . .’

  Jack barely heard him. He was watching a group of newly arrived officers, who were picking their way through the debris caused by the rugby match. From their faces, it was clear they were not amused to find the usually dignified salon filled with roaring and sweaty officers treating the place with disdain.

  ‘Those pandies, well, they deserved everything they got. The papers were full of their atrocities. I curse my luck daily that the 15th were not given a chance to pay the blackguards back for what they did . . .’