The Last Legionnaire

by Paul Fraser Collard

  ‘Well met, Jack Lark.’ Shaw stepped forward, the gun lifting as Jack floundered to a halt just five yards from its muzzle. ‘Didn’t I say we would meet again?’

  Jack forced himself to stand tall. His lungs burned, but he would not give Shaw the satisfaction of seeing any weakness. He heard movement behind him as the last of his pursuers finally lumbered into place.

  ‘That was a pitiful display, Bird, and not at all what you promised.’ Shaw’s tone was glacial.

  ‘I’m right sorry, Mr Shaw, sir, that I am. But this here heathen cove didn’t fight fair.’

  Jack recognised the voice. It belonged to the man he had supposed to be a vagrant. He glanced over his shoulder and took in the heavily bearded face, and the moonlight glinting off the bayonet held in his ambusher’s hand.

  ‘Of course he don’t fight fair, Bird.’ Shaw’s voice was laced with derision. ‘No sane man does.’ He cackled, clearly well pleased with how his hand had played out.

  ‘I’ll stick him now, Mr Shaw, if it pleases you.’ Bird, anxious to appease his paymaster, stepped forward.

  Jack’s shoulder blades twitched as he imagined the cold steel sliding into his flesh. He brought his breathing under control and tried to think of a way out. He was trapped like an eel in a barrel waiting for the cold touch of the fishmonger’s knife.

  ‘No, no, no.’ Shaw shook his head and kept his eyes fixed on Jack. ‘Where is the fun in that? I’m of a mind to make our mutual friend here pay a price for what he did to me.’

  He lifted his left hand, rotating it slowly so that Jack’s eye was drawn towards it. The hand was twisted, with three of the fingers held at impossibly stiff angles. Jack remembered the fight in the palace, and the feel of bones breaking under the heel of his army-issue boot.

  ‘You see that, don’t you, my old chum? It ain’t a pretty sight and it hurts like a bastard.’

  Shaw stalked forward, keeping the revolver aimed at Jack’s head.

  ‘Give me your hand, Jack.’ His voice was deadpan. ‘Now, if you please.’

  The revolver lifted, the barrel inched forward so that it touched Jack’s forehead.

  ‘Give me your fucking hand,’ hissed Shaw, jerking the gun so that the point of the barrel ground into Jack’s flesh.

  Jack was powerless. He lifted his left hand, moving it slowly and carefully so as not to startle the man who held his life at the tip of his trigger finger.

  Shaw gave another cackle. He took Jack’s hand, his touch cold, and caressed it, sliding his twisted fingers up and down.

  ‘You feel that? You feel the broken bones.’ The hand stopped moving. Clumsily it forced Jack’s ring finger into an awkward grip. ‘You know how much they hurt, Jack? Every fucking minute of every fucking day they remind me of what you did.’

  Shaw’s face twitched and went still. He looked down at his hand gripping Jack’s. Then he gave it an almighty twist.

  Jack’s trapped finger snapped like a dry twig caught under a heavy boot. He howled then, the sound escaping his lips as a fiery poker of pain lanced through him.

  ‘Keep fucking still!’ Shaw bellowed the order. Jack had flinched as his finger was broken, but Shaw had been ready for it, and now he pressed the gun forward, breaking the skin on Jack’s forehead.

  ‘Oh, that hurts, doesn’t it, chum? Fucking burns, doesn’t it just?’ Shaw shifted his hand, taking Jack’s middle finger in the same clumsy grip. ‘You’ve got ten fucking fingers and I am going to break every single fucking one.’ He cackled with delight at the horror he saw reflected in Jack’s eyes.

  Jack bit hard on his tongue as Shaw adjusted his grip, the bones of his broken finger grating under the unwieldy touch. He could not allow Shaw to carry on. He closed his eyes, summoning the will to attack. He felt the press of the revolver on the broken skin above his eye, and sensed the razor-sharp tip of Bird’s bayonet held close to his kidneys.

  He tensed, then took a final breath.

  ‘What’s going on there?’

  The shout came so suddenly that Jack nearly jerked backwards into the bayonet.

  ‘You, sir. Let that man go free.’

  Jack froze. He held every muscle still. He felt Shaw’s hand twitch, then let go of his.

  ‘Move yourself.’ A second voice joined the first and a heavyset figure loomed into Jack’s line of sight, a Colt revolver held in a great paw of a hand. He caught a glimpse of dark tweed, and a pugnacious and scarred face underneath a deerstalker hat. ‘You too, chum.’ The revolver twitched so that it pointed over Jack’s shoulder. ‘And I’d put that fucking poker away if you know what’s good for you.’

  Jack could scarcely credit who was in front of him. He knew that if he possessed an ounce of sense, he would turn and run right at that moment. Risking a bullet in the back was nothing when compared to what he knew would happen if he stayed where he was.

  ‘Wise fellow.’ The man in the deerstalker grinned at Bird. It was not a pleasant expression. ‘Move back, slowly now.’ He turned to Shaw. ‘Give me that.’ A second great paw rose up to close around Shaw’s own revolver. ‘Right dangerous these things are. What say I look after this, keep it safe like?’

  The man possessed an aura of calm, as if interceding in torture was an everyday event. Knowing him as Jack did, that was actually more than likely. Shaw backed away, glaring at the newcomer who had curtailed his enjoyment, stepping carefully past Jack until he stood next to a shaking Bird.

  Only then did the man in the deerstalker turn to wink at Jack. ‘Evening, Jack. Bet you didn’t expect to see me.’

  Jack was saved from forming a reply as the man who had first intervened strode into view.

  ‘Good work, Palmer.’ Major John Ballard of the army’s intelligence department came to stand at Jack’s side. ‘Would you be so kind as to take these two fellows away? Make sure they understand what will happen to them if we see them again. Oh, and have them pick up that poor chap lying down over there. I don’t think he is so very badly hurt, but we really should not leave him lying in such a place as this.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Palmer nodded to show he understood the order. ‘Very well, gentlemen, walk this way if you please.’ He used his revolver to gesture down the street away from Jack. ‘I wouldn’t stop if I were you. These new Colts are temperamental sons of bitches. Why, they have been known to go off just like that.’

  Palmer ushered his charges away, walking two yards behind them, with both revolvers held ready to fire. Jack watched them depart. Only when he saw them pause to collect their half-suffocated ally did he turn to face the man who had come to his rescue.

  ‘I didn’t expect to bump into you.’ He delivered the line with as much sangfroid as he could summon.

  ‘Ha!’ Ballard smiled thinly as he watched Palmer moving away, the fingers of his right hand stroking his moustache. Finally he looked at Jack, as if noticing him for the first time. ‘I’ll wager you thought you had given me the slip with those antics of yours back at the club.’ His blue eyes were icy cold. ‘It is good to see you, Jack.’

  ‘I wish I could say the same.’ Jack found he was smiling despite his words. The man known as the Devil had come back into his life and he knew with utter certainty that it would no longer be the same. He felt the hand of fate take hold around his soul. Ballard had saved him, but he would not have done so without first calculating what Jack could do for him.

  He laughed aloud at the notion, earning him his first glare from his former master. Ballard must have need of his services. Jack did not think he would be bored any longer.

  ‘Ouch! That bloody hurts.’

  ‘I am doing the best I can,’ Ballard snapped back as he bound the broken finger on Jack’s left hand to its neighbour with a length of twine he had found on the ground.

  ‘Well take care. Hell’s teeth,’ Jack hissed as Ballard tugged his knot tight. ‘I bet you are bloody enjoying yourself.’

  ‘Oh absolutely. There is nothing I like better than being dragged away from a good dinner to
chase a miscreant in the dark. There, that will have to suffice for the moment.’ Ballard stepped away, clearly pleased with his handiwork.

  ‘A miscreant?’ Jack lifted his hand to study the temporary binding. It was as neat and precise as he had expected. Ballard did not have it in him to do anything in an untidy fashion. ‘Is that what I am?’

  ‘I am being kind.’ Ballard smiled.

  Jack did his best not to grimace at the expression that sat so badly on Ballard’s face. The last two years had passed swiftly, and it did not seem so long since Jack had left him in a dark alley, the body of the man he had just murdered at Ballard’s command lying on the ground in front of him.

  ‘You look awful, Jack.’ Ballard had been giving Jack’s face the same level of scrutiny. ‘Clearly life has not been agreeing with you.’

  Jack bristled. He knew Ballard had seen the scar on his cheek, the legacy of a mutineer’s sword. ‘I was at Delhi.’

  ‘Ah.’ Ballard understood. ‘I see.’

  ‘Where were you?’ Jack fired the question, unable to withhold the accusatory tone.

  ‘Bombay. I have only just returned to these shores. I have some pressing family matters to attend to.’

  ‘I see.’ There had been no fighting in Bombay. Ballard would have been spared from witnessing the full horror of the mutiny.

  Ballard’s eyes narrowed, but the uncomfortable conversation was ended by the sound of footsteps coming towards them. Both men turned and saw the hefty form of Palmer, Ballard’s bodyguard, enforcer and general ne’er-do-well walking towards them.

  ‘Did you deal with them?’ Ballard spoke first.

  Palmer nodded, then looked down as he carefully replaced his revolver into the waistband wrapped around his not inconsiderable middle. He still held the one he had taken from Shaw.

  ‘What did you do to them?’ Jack fired off a question of his own. He knew Palmer.

  ‘I let them go.’

  ‘You what?’ Jack did not believe the answer.

  ‘Oh, they know not to bother you again.’ Palmer was smug.

  Jack felt a rush of fear. It raced through him, every nerve jangling. ‘You’re a fucking idiot. Men like Shaw don’t give a shit for a warning. Now get out of my way before I knock you down.’ His fear was taking hold. He knew what Shaw would do the moment he was free.

  ‘Now, Jack. I am sure—’

  Jack cut Ballard off by using both hands to shove Palmer out of his way. He was running before the larger man could react.

  He knew where Shaw would go. He just hoped he would not be too late.

  Jack’s boots pounded into the macadam, the sound echoing off the silent houses that lined the street. The night dwellers who roamed the rookery stayed in the shadows, not one willing to risk taking down the lean-faced villain who charged through the night.

  Jack forced himself to think of nothing other than his footing. The fear was bright, but he held it close, refusing to let it dominate him. He ran hard, ignoring the pain in his hand and the burning in his chest. He had gone soft, the weeks he had spent travelling and working in the gin palace leaving him short of breath, and with limbs that trembled with the effort of keeping him upright. But he had long mastered his body, his mind refusing to listen to its complaints.

  The ground passed swiftly under his boots as he hurtled along, thumping out the yards as he ran through streets he had known since he was a boy. They were as familiar as his own flesh, and he thought only of his destination, his path taken without hesitation.

  He heard the commotion long before he saw it. The rookery was usually quiet at night, its wiser denizens content to sit behind locked and barred doors, the streets left to the night villains who owned the darkened alleyways and hidden corners where they plied their trade. But there were a few things that could entice the good citizens from their homes. A fight would do it, or perhaps a ruckus created by brawling whores.

  Or a fire.

  The crowd was dense, the men, women and children drawn to the spectacle by the promise of drama. It was a lure few could resist, even though the first pickpockets would already be cutting the purses of the unwary and inattentive.

  ‘Let me through!’ Jack shouted to be heard. The onlookers were noisy, whoops of excitement greeting a flash of flames as the roof of the palace went up with a great whoosh. ‘Let me through.’

  He worked through the crowd, using his elbows freely to force a passage. Many of the watchers recognised him, his weeks behind the palace’s counter earning him a place amongst the rookeries better-known coves.

  ‘Let him through! Let Lark through.’ The call changed, the instruction delivered with glee as one of the night’s prime performers pushed on to the stage.

  Jack wormed his way forward. The crowd made it easy then, parting for him and letting him pass as if he were a modern Moses. He staggered as he emerged from their midst, his footing failing him at the last.

  He felt the heat on his face. He recovered his balance, but still he floundered, his urgent pace faltering as he confronted the very sight he had feared.

  ‘Where’s Maggie?’ He whirled around to grab the closest person, a man of ancient vintage he recognised well enough. ‘Where is she?’

  The man recoiled from the venom in Jack’s voice. He lifted a wavering arm, a single finger pointing towards the inferno.

  Jack felt his strength flag as he turned to face the flames. They daunted him as they roared and surged through the building. He felt the fear then, the terror of what he must do. The blaze mocked him, a gout of fire choosing that moment to break through the slates on the roof and fountain into the sky, the great column greeted with the coos and cries of a crowd revelling in their entertainment.

  ‘Jack! Jack!’

  A surge of relief rushed through him. It was so strong that he felt his balance totter. It was Mary. Not all was lost.

  ‘He’s in there! He’s in there!’

  The fear returned with a vengeance. Mary ran at him, her face streaked with the black touch of smoke. Her skirt was singed, the hem torn so that it flapped around her calves.

  ‘My Billy! He’s in there!’ She threw herself at him, fingers like claws as she pulled at him.

  Still he hesitated. He knew what she wanted, what she was begging him to do. Yet his well of courage had run dry.

  Mary dragged him forward, moving him towards the heat that was like a solid wall in front of him. ‘My boy! My boy!’

  Voices in the crowd wailed as they heard the desperate cry. There were few in the rookery who would not react to the threat to a child, if only to add to the drama, and to the delicious horror of the treat they were watching with such rapt fascination.

  ‘Jack!’

  He saw her properly then. She was not his Mary. She had not been for years. She was old, the soot stuck in the cracks and crevices time had wrought on her skin. And she was terrified. More terrified than any person he had ever seen. Not even on the worst battlefield, or in the bitter street fighting in the narrow alleys of Delhi, had he seen such abject horror.

  He moved then. Her eyes had shamed him, her fear for her son more than he could bear. He took the first steps towards the flames, summoning the courage he would need.

  The great window shattered. Ten thousand shards of glass exploded outwards, the glass submitting to the power of the flames that raged within. The crowd roared, a sudden flare of panic replaced with a cheer that only such wanton destruction could inspire.

  It was the last sound he heard before he ran into the flames.

  The heat hit Jack hard. It slammed against him, driving him backwards, stopping his charge as surely as if he had run into a brick wall. He lifted his hands, flinching from its power, his boots skidding to a halt amidst the shards of glass littering the ground.

  Inside, the fire raged, the main room well ablaze. Flames licked across the ceiling, great fingers of red and yellow moving with a speed that he could barely track. Yet he saw a path, a few yards of floorboards not yet engulfed. />
  It would be the last time he hesitated.

  He ran at the open window, his hands lifted in front of him as if they could ward off the flames. He jumped, bounding over the windowsill, his boots catching at vicious shards of glass that stood upright like so many bayonets. Then he was through. Bright white flashes of pain seared across his skin as the flames licked him, their fiery tendrils sending up sparks as they lashed around his boots. He went forward, trying to find a path, his eyes in agony as the flames burned them dry. He could feel the raw power of the fire, every inch of him crying out in revulsion as it touched him, but he saw there was a gap, a channel through the heart of the flames, and he took it even as his boots began to smoke and burn.

  The door to the back room was closed. Flames licked around its edges, the frame well alight. He kicked it open without a thought. It crashed on to its hinges and a great black cloud of smoke rushed out to smother him. He staggered, choking, the soot and smoke filling his mouth so that he gagged on the fumes. He could see almost nothing. Yet the flames were thinner to his front, so he went forward, his back bent as if he walked into the teeth of a gale.

  His boots caught on something lying just inside the door. He nearly fell, but saved himself by grabbing at the door frame. He screamed then, the pain lancing into his palm as flames licked across his hand. With his flesh on fire, he could not hold on. His balance failed the instant he let go, and he fell to his knees, landing on a body.

  The horror stuck in his throat. He could see nearly nothing, so he reached down, his good hand acting faster than he could think, the need to know overriding the fear at what his questing fingers might discover.

  His hand ran over the body. It was a man, not a woman or a boy. He knew who it was immediately. There was no time to think, or to feel grief for the Prussian he had employed to protect his mother’s palace. There was just the relief, the sudden guilty stab of joy that the body belonged to a near stranger, to a man who meant nothing to him.

  He got to his feet, clumsy in the dark, and clambered awkwardly over the body, his right hand useless and burned. Yet he knew where he was and he stumbled forward, his damaged left hand with its broken finger reaching for the table he knew would be to his front.