‘Come on, love, put it down so we can get at it,’ admonished Ned Lester, clearly starving too.
‘What about him?’ Anne replied sourly, meaning me.
‘Oh, don’t worry about me,’ I said, ‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Oh, you will be, my boy,’ said Ned Lester, laughing at such a naive remark, ‘you will be.’
‘We mess together,’ explained Dick. ‘To supplement our army rations we each contribute a penny a week for Anne to go out and get some vegetables. Payday is Saturday, if you’ve not been told, and that is when we all pool money together.’ Then, to Ann: ‘Harry will not be joining us today, but perhaps if you could get some extra vegetables for tomorrow. Harry will pay you out of his wages when Saturday comes.’
Ann scowled and placed the bowl and ladle carefully into a space in the middle of the floor. Trenchers, knives and spoons appeared, and soon everyone was tucking in voraciously to some sort of muck that looked like the obliterated remains of salt pork and vegetables. The only decent thing on show was a penny loaf, cut into slices and spread with rich butter by Ann; indeed, I slavered after this so much I was forced to look away and eat my words instead. A flagon of small beer was brought up by a cheery young waiter, and this was splashed into pots with great abandon, so that within minutes the mood of the whole crew had changed to one of addled boisterousness.
‘Pull that cowface again, Dick!’
Dick, sitting up on a bed with his booted feet draped over Claude’s lap, duly obliged, closing his lips tight and curling them up at the edges with remarkable pliancy. ‘Mwahhh!’ he went, deadly serious. Everyone spluttered out their dinner and roared with delight. Indeed, even I found it hard to refrain from laughing at the ludicrous spectacle.
‘So Mr Oysterman,’ said the performer of this comic turn, once everyone had their noses back in their troughs, ‘tell us about yourself. What were you up to before the crimpers struck?’
Normally reluctant to reveal even my outermost thoughts and feelings to strangers, it did not seem to matter so much with this bunch. My acquaintance with them would be mercifully brief and I certainly did not expect to be with them come Saturday payday. So I launched into the whys and wherefores of my life, with particular attention to my life as a poet, my arranged courtship of Amanda Philpott, and the impertinent actions of the outrageous Mr Burnley Axelrod. While no-one offered sympathy for my plight, or seemed in any way surprised at my sudden reversal of fortune, all three subjects elicited strong personal opinions.
‘A poet, eh?’ said Ned Lester. ‘I killed a poet once. Bleeder wrote a love poem to a girl I was shaggin’ at the time. Challenged him to a duel. Blew his bloody ‘ead off, so I did. No one sniffs my women ‘till I’ve finished with ‘em.’
‘Not the Philpott Hall over at Steyning?’ queried Little Bob, ‘why, only last year a friend of mine was hung for poaching a rabbit there. ‘Twas that that made we want to join the Army and get away from this stinking country.’
‘Burnley Axelrod!’ exclaimed Dick. ‘Then you have had dealings with one of the rising stars of the British Army. I’m surprised to hear he does a little crimping on the side though; I would have thought he was above that sort of thing. Perhaps he needs some money to pay off his gambling debts.’
‘You should know about that, if anyone does, Dick!’ shouted Roger Masson joyously, ducking just in time to avoid Dick’s flung musket ball of a turnip hitting him full in the face.
‘Aye, tharrrts roight,’ joined in Claude Jepson. ‘Mr Lickley ‘ere was a cap’n until ‘ee ‘ad to sell his commission to pay off his gamblin’ debts. Ain’t tharrt roight, Dick?’
Dick smiled at me wryly.
‘’Tis right about selling the commission – though I was a lieutenant, not a captain. I had just about paid off debts contracted at faro, when what should happen but Henry Connolly’s father went and died. I’d forgotten all about the hundred pound bet I’d made with him as to which of our fathers would die first, until he produced the signed betting slip. I was done for after that, and no mistake. Broke me good and proper. But be damned if I was going to commit suicide or leave the army because of it. Honour crimes, as they call them, mean nothing to me. At least I’m not in Newgate, or begging on the streets. And something else will turn up, sure as death. I’m just biding my time at the moment till something does. So, never feel ashamed of anything, is my motto. Let it be yours too, Harry, and you might even enjoy this army lark.’
I smiled enigmatically.
‘But if you are to enjoy it, there are some rules it is essential to follow, unpleasant though they may be to a man of your breeding. First, in the presence of an officer you are obliged to take your hat off and display what they like to term a humble, decent and proper mode of behaviour.
There were hoots of derision at this advice.
‘Second, whatever Sergeant Mycock tells you to do, do it, however unpleasant. He isn’t called Stroke for nothing. And ‘tis not fair on young Bob.’
I looked over at Bob, who explained that the lot of administering the lashes fell to the drummers, twenty-five strokes at a time.
‘And it wears me out, I don’t mind telling you,’ added the sensitive youth, ‘because twenty-five times I have to swing the cat twice around my head, give a stroke, and then draw the tails through the fingers of my left hand to rid them of flesh and blood. If I don’t lash hard enough, I get lashed myself. And apart from that, I simply can’t stand all that screaming. It goes right through me.’
‘Third, avoid soldiers who have the Itch. Damned unpleasant disease, that. I’ll write down a list of names of those to avoid. Fourth, never dare question the Glorious epithet of the 85th Foot. As far as anyone can ascertain, the only glorious thing it has ever done is shoot a few smugglers in the back, but never cast doubt on the merit of the term. Fifth and finally, don’t write any love poems to Peggy Spratt. At least not until ye have mastered the art of duelling.’
We looked over at Ned Lester, who gave me a challenging stare, and mimed the act of blowing my head off with a pistol. I smiled nervously, but the lout persisted with his mime until I was on the point of visibly squirming. Fortunately the fluting, girlish voice of Thomas Pomeroy came to the rescue.
‘So, have we all dined well, gentlemen? May I pass compliments on to my dear wife?’
The volley of vitriol that hit him instantly was surely no surprise to anyone, so I was amazed when Thomas’s eyes began to well up. His whole demeanour crumpled, and he had to be consoled by Little Bob, who put an arm round him and offered him a draw on his pipe, which he refused with effusive expressions of gratitude.
‘We go through this little ritual every dinner time, even if the meal is adequate,’ said Dick. ‘It must satisfy a need in everyone. Strange though, if you think about it too much.’
Immediately I started to think about it too much, casting sly glances at the strange characters in the room as I did so. What a dirty bunch of vagabonds, rogues and outcasts they were, yet how easy did they seem in each others’ company, with their limbs draped all over each other in attitudes reminiscent of that astonishing Italian food, spaghetti. I could not decide whether I was repelled or attracted by the hermetic, peripatetic nature of their lives, but I did know that this was Real Life in the Raw, and the experience of it would do wonders for the development of my own poetic idiom, assuming I got out quick.
When Ann and Peter Pomeroy had cleared the plates away the soldiers settled to their pipes, and the contemplative silence that followed would probably had gone on for hours, and choked me to death in the process, had not an importunate tattoo started up with shocking suddenness outside the window.
‘Out! Out! Out! Ye scurvy dogs!’ came the unmistakable cry of Sergeant Mycock. ‘Afternoon delight, gentlemen! The sun is waiting for you! Your adoring officers are waiting for you! Let us not tarry a minute longer, or Puss the Cat will be waiting for you!’
The room exploded into life. Pipes were quickly exting
uished with thumbs, then I was spun around like a top as all rose frantically to collect their equipment. Once hats were donned and queues tucked away, the grumbling, cursing cohort clattered out of the room and down the stairs.
‘Parade exercises,’ called out Dick, last to leave and less agitated than the rest. ‘Four lovely hours of it. But not for you yet. You stay here until Corporal Tibbs comes to collect you. He won’t be long.’
And with a smile he was off, shutting the door behind him. I dashed to the windows to see if I could open them and let out the hellish smoke, but I couldn’t – the locks were too well rusted. Gasping and spluttering, I staggered around the room waving the smoke away until a thin, big-nosed man entered the room gnawing a chicken bone. This, it seemed likely, was Corporal Tibbs, so remembering Dick’s advice I adopted what I took to be a humble demeanour, veritably cringing before him.
‘And what’s your problem, Bowsprit?’
‘Nothing, Sir,’ I replied to his knees, ‘Just trying to be proper in front of an officer.’
‘Ah, I see,’ said the man, resuming his gnawing. ‘Well, no need to overdo it in front of me; I’m only a corporal, see. Non-commissioned, for your information. Not considered good enough, but we’re better than most of ‘em and we’re certainly better than you lot, so get down those stairs and into the back yard before I throw you down.’
I rose to the perpendicular and twitched past the corporal and his foul breath with gratitude, desperate to breathe fresh air again. To my surprise, however, the air outside smelled even worse, and I could not understand why. It was no use asking Sergeant Mycock the reason, for he was busy thrashing the ground with his stick every few seconds and glaring at each new arrival as if they had had him impressed. Nervously sneaking to the back of the group, I eyed the other recruits to see if they were as scared of him as I was. They weren’t, for I saw with horror that my fellow sufferers were the most hard-boiled villainous-looking crew imaginable. They all had the sly, hangdog expression of the seasoned murderer, along with other features equally unappetizing, such as glittering eyes, low brows, lice-ridden hair, and ricket-ridden pockmarked skin. Many appeared as old as forty or fifty, but compassion for them did not seem appropriate – it looked as though they had merely used the extra time to pack more vice in. Shuddering, I found myself edging back towards Sergeant Mycock.
‘Well, what a gathering of bright young blades!’ came the welcoming words, after a nod from Corporal Tibbs signified the arrival of the last scraping. ‘And pretty with it! Never in my life have I seen such an attractive assembly of men.’
Sergeant Mycock paused to cow us with his glare, but only I was cowed; the others simply returned a dead-eyed stare. Mutual hatred crackled in the air.
‘But don’t get too carried away with your beauty; you’re in the army to obey orders, not to flounce. And the first order to be obeyed every day is the roll call. Answer Sir when Corporal Tibbs calls your name.’
A mixture of envy and elation went through me when the roll call revealed that six men had deserted already. If these fools could do it, then surely I could too, should the need arise. Sergeant Mycock’s eyes and veins bulged with fury. When he did speak, ‘twas the product of prodigious self-control.
‘Well, well, what desperadoes we had in our midst. No doubt some of you have drawn inspiration from this news, but let me tell you now, when these men are caught – and caught they will be – they will be thrashed so hard they will piss and cough blood for the rest of their lives. Provided, that is, they are not killed outright on the flogging triangle. And the same punishment will be applied if orders are disobeyed. So if an officer tells you to run straight at a loaded cannon, what do you do, Oysterman?’
‘Run straight at a loaded cannon, Sir.’
‘And if you disobey?’
‘I will be punished, Sir.’
‘Not just punished, Oysterman, STROKED, and stroked good. Believe you me, lads, you have to be brave to be a coward in this army. But ‘tis not all blood and guts. There are benefits to being a soldier too. You will have the inestimable solace of knowing yourself superior to other men. You will see sights that other men would die for. You will experience things that other men would die for. You will travel far afield. You will have opportunities to cover yourself in glory. You will have your pick of any whores you can afford. And eventually, when ‘tis all over, you will be able to settle down with your lass and your bottle, and reflect on a life full of adventure.’
I felt a spark of excitement in the dogs around me; indeed, I felt a stirring of my own passions. Even the horses in the stables around the yard started to snort and kick their stalls.
‘But first,’ went on Sergeant Mycock, ‘there’s this to clear.’
Corporal Tibbs, holding a handkerchief to his nose, ran to the barn door in the corner of the yard, and quickly threw the gates open wide. There before us, oozing and glistening in the sun, lay the source of the pervasive stench.
‘’Tis only offal and human shit, lads. The locals have asked us to bury it, so bury it we will. Buckets are in this corner, spades in that, burial ground over there. Now get cracking and show me what you’re made of.’
I stared at the putrid mound in horror, and felt the gorge rise in my throat. This seemed a good time to bring up other things too, such as the subject of my illegal impressment. Bucket in hand, I was on my way to Sergeant Mycock to discuss it with him when I saw him turn and strike a fellow gloryseeker full in the groin with his fist, presumably for some behavioural misdemeanour. Veering quickly towards the spade corner, I picked up a tool and started shovelling, peeping all the time at the victim writhing on the ground and thinking how easily it could have been me. Before long, however, I was too busy retching dryly to ponder anything but my own misery, and as the backbreaking heartbreaking afternoon wore on I was reduced to just one repetitive thought: How on earth was I going to get out of this mess?
5
Trapped
In order to avoid a slumped, stroked body which had collapsed near the yard door, I was escorted back to my room via the front garden of the Martyr. Though those of us still standing had been allowed to wash our hands in a horse trough, much to the whinnying disgust of the watching horses, my clothes and shoes still stank of Essence of Putrescence, and this did not endear me to the more delicate spectators of the still-parading regulars. I heard one elegant old lady heave drily as I passed, while a young baby in swaddling clothes seemed to go into some sort of spasm. Otherwise, it was just the usual barrage of common laughter and abuse from people who didn’t know what genuine suffering was. Indeed, I wasn’t sure that I knew its full measure, because my load of it was getting heavier by the hour, and still there seemed room for more. For now, in addition to my usual woes, I had bleeding palms and a lower back that ached to snapping point, both infirmities consequent upon the unwonted wielding of a vile spade. As I hobbled along next to Corporal Tibbs, wincing in agony, a tattoo started up a short distance to my left. Over the top of it I heard the chirpy voice of Little Bob call out.
‘Enjoy that, Harry?’
‘Not much,’ I mumbled bitterly, not bothering to look up.
‘Never mind. It gets better. Wait till you’re marching with us.’
I snorted ironically, barged through a knot of early-evening civilian drinkers, and – to my amazement – walked not onto the front lawn of the Martyr, as expected, but straight onto an improvised bowling green. I had no time to step back before a bowl came rolling out of nowhere like a spent cannonball and struck me cruelly on the foot. As if this was not enough it then bounced up and cracked into my shin, causing me to let out a howl of agony. Incensed by the pain, the imprecations of the bowlers and the hammering I was taking from Providence, I hopped around cursing loudly. Then, in a great pique of anger that overrode my pain, I picked up the bowl, looked around, and vindictively rolled it into the centre of a nearby duckpond.
‘Fish that out, peasants!’ I cried, before
limping back to my room through a jostle of infuriated players and spectators.
‘That’s it, Lobby, ruin people’s pleasure.’
‘God bless America and all her marksmen!’
‘Make him get it out, Jack! He bloody threw it in.’
‘Go on, up to your room, Oysterman,’ said Corporal Tibbs. ‘Leave them alone to enjoy their drinking in peace.’
Only too willing, I pulled myself up the narrow stairs – ignoring calls from somebody or other to join them in the taproom – and collapsed fully-clothed on one of the empty beds. Like Goldilocks, no doubt, before the return of the bears, I just had time to enjoy a frisson of freedom before oblivion wiped me out once more. When I awoke the drum was still rattling away, but the room had got lighter, not darker. I was still puzzling over this anachronism when all hell broke loose.
‘TURN OUT, MY LITTLE LADIES, TURN OUT!! OUT, OUT OUT!!’
A boot clonked me full in the face, and I raised my head to see a hazy image of Sergeant Mycock laying into the huddled masses with his cane. I watched uncomprehendingly as he hawked and spat what looked like a ragged oyster straight down the open hatch of Ned Lester’s throat. The effect, after a few seconds of suspense, was terrific: Ned gasped, choked and thrashed his arms around wildly before jumping upright to retch, cough, pant and dribble spittle all over the floor. A new day, I now realized, had arrived.
‘See what trouble you have getting it up, Lester? That’s the trouble I have with you lot. Can’t get you up, can I, Jepson? Too much fackin’ ram weighin’ yer dahn.’
The cane swished through the airy space just vacated by Claude’s head.
‘Up now, Zir. Ready, Zir.’
‘AND THE REST OF YER!!!’
We all jumped up in terror, banging into each other in the process.
Infernal Revolutions Page 6