The Street Philosopher

by Matthew Plampin

  ‘Boyce,’ the Major said simply. ‘He survived.’

  Cracknell looked around; his glare was immediately displaced by a wicked grin. ‘I’ll be damned. I thought he was finished for certain. And look, Mrs Boyce as well.’ He tucked the pencil behind his ear. ‘I must pay my compliments.’

  Maynard put a hand flat against the correspondent’s chest, halting him. ‘You do not seem at all concerned by this. I would have thought that Boyce’s death would have solved a significant problem for you.’

  Cracknell’s grin widened. ‘But a problem solved, my dear Major, is a meal finished, a bottle drained, a newspaper read. This little drama plainly has another act left to run.’

  The Major frowned. ‘Is that all it is to you? A drama?’

  By way of reply, Cracknell attempted to renew his progress towards the Boyces.

  Maynard remained in his path. ‘No–no, Cracknell. Not now. Think of the great chance that has just been squandered. Think of your report.’

  Realising that he could not force himself past, Cracknell stepped back. He straightened his jacket and then lit another cigarette. ‘You are right, Maynard, of course–I should permit no distractions. My thanks for the reminder. I shall return to the pavilion and get to work.’

  Maynard watched the correspondent saunter behind the tattered canvas and select a chair. Then he set out to intercept his commanding officer.

  Boyce was not pleased to see him. Acutely aware of his ridiculous appearance, he demanded a full account of the battle there and then, and was keen to find fault as a means of salving his own sense of dishonour. He was especially interested in hearing of how, after some confusion over orders, the Light Division had fallen back before the greater redoubt, rejoining the fight only when supported by the Guards.

  ‘The Coldstreamers came to your rescue, Maynard, did they not? Had it not been for their arrival on the field, the Russians would have overcome you completely.’

  ‘An unfair assessment, sir, if I may say so. The men only retreated because they were ordered to, and—’

  Boyce wasn’t listening. He shook his head with heavy disappointment and launched into a lecture on the vital necessity of keeping one’s nerve when under fire. It was too important to his pride–Maynard had failed, and he would hear no other interpretation of the afternoon’s events.

  Suddenly, Mrs Boyce cried out. She had seen something over by the spectators’ pavilion; Cracknell, damn him, sat in plain view, writing intently. Feeling the eyes of Boyce’s group on him, he looked up and gave Mrs Boyce a sly wink. Beaming with joy, she took an unthinking step towards her lover–only to have her husband pull her back, tightening his fingers viciously around her arm.

  As he watched fresh tears shine on Mrs Boyce’s cheeks, Maynard felt compelled to act, to challenge this bullying fool in some small way. He cleared his throat. ‘Can I ask you, Lieutenant-Colonel, why we are not pursuing the Russians? The Light Brigade stands ready. Surely our generals are making a great mistake.’

  Predictably, Boyce was appalled by this notion, as he was by anything remotely critical of the High Command. ‘Military honour decrees that having met and bested the foe, we allow him to withdraw. Military honour, Major–have you any conception of such a thing?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘By God, you’ve been talking to that Courier devil, haven’t you–against my express instructions!’

  Maynard didn’t deny it. Mrs Boyce met his eye in momentary collusion. ‘His perspective is certainly refreshing, sir, and unencumbered by the dogma that so often hinders our own thinking on matters of strategy.’

  ‘How dare he?’ Boyce yelled. ‘How dare the ruffian doubt Lord Raglan, a man who served under none other than Wellington himself? It is positively treasonous. He must be stopped.’ He waved his sword furiously, swiping it so close to Maynard’s face that it threatened to clip the brim of his cap. ‘I will see him sent home–sent home in utter disgrace!’

  There was a rifle report, very close; Quartermaster Arthurs exclaimed and then fell over, clutching at his rump. A wounded Russian infantryman, left for dead on a mound of corpses close to where they stood, had caught sight of the officer’s uniform and taken a shot with his musket. The privates in Boyce’s detail promptly lumbered over to him. The Russian was young and very thin with a wisp of a moustache, and lowered his weapon as they approached, meeting them with a resigned expression. They poked at him listlessly with their bayonets, as if shifting dung with pitchforks at the end of a long day in the cattle sheds. Boyce looked on, not relaxing his hold on his wife for an instant.

  ‘Damn and blast it!’ Arthurs spluttered from the ground, blood bulging up blackly between his fingers. ‘Do–do excuse me, Mrs Boyce, I–oh, the wretched, goat-fucking peasant! Again, Mrs Boyce, my apologies–damn it!’

  Maynard called out tiredly for a stretcher.

  Kitson picked his way through the knotted battlefield as quickly as he could. A sour, fetid smell hung everywhere, and the grass slopes of the Heights were slimy with congealing blood. All around, wounded men wept, prayed and pleaded for assistance that did not come. Many requested water, others liquor, and a few, those with the very worst injuries, only a speedy death to end their suffering. Hands clawed and clutched at Kitson’s clothes as he went by. They were desperate but weak, and easily shrugged off. He had given his water canteen to the first man to ask, only to be asked again a minute later–and be showered with savage curses when he declared his inability to help. So he had hardened his heart, lowered his head and pressed on.

  There were no surgeons at work on those dreadful slopes. Kitson had realised this early in his ascent and had barely been able to believe it. He’d spotted some donkey-drawn hospital vans over at the coast, but these belonged to the French, whose casualties were relatively light. For the hundreds of redcoats–and thousands of Russians–left broken and helpless in that valley there were only the exhausted regimental bandsmen and a smattering of overwhelmed stretcher-bearers. Officers were being seen to first; it would be many hours–days, even–before some of these men received aid, surely too late for a good number of them.

  Cracknell was sat close to the spectators’ pavilion, writing with feverish concentration, wringing every last second of light from the fading day. He was even more unkempt than usual, the orange tip of a cigarette glowing in amongst the coarse tresses of his beard. His pencil dashed across the paper; he had covered several pages already with his spidery hand. He didn’t notice Kitson’s urgent approach.

  ‘Mr Cracknell, have you seen any sign of Styles? We were separated in the confusion on the riverbank, and I fear that he might have… have been…’

  Cracknell, barely looking up, pointed to a rocky escarpment that overlooked the length of the Alma valley. Styles was perched upon it, missing his hat but otherwise unharmed. He was immersed in a sketch.

  Kitson blinked, the dizziness of his relief making him feel suddenly sick. He exhaled hard. ‘Thank God,’ he mumbled. ‘Thank God.’

  ‘A late rally,’ Cracknell observed sarcastically, puffing on his cigarette. ‘He’s in a damned strange temper, I must say. Strode up, took some paper and a pencil from me without a word, then walked straight off again. Honestly, anyone would think that it was I who had been transformed into a fear-crazed imbecile as soon as the shot started to fly.’

  Taken aback by the unforgiving severity of Cracknell’s tone, Kitson tried to speak up in Styles’ defence but could not find the words. It was like trying to move a dead limb. The will was there yet nothing happened. Closing his eyes, he saw again the faces of the men back on those slopes; and found himself wondering if he had drawn his last untroubled breath.

  ‘I imagined him to be a kindred spirit, y’know,’ the senior correspondent went on. ‘A worthwhile addition to our brave reporting team. Yet look at what he has turned out to be–naught but a poltroon, a vomit-flecked booby.’

  Cracknell had stopped work. He looked over at the plain beyond the battlefield, where the Allied Army was camping out on it
s hard-won ground, putting up tents and starting fires with wood gathered from the valley. His harangue became a touch more conciliatory.

  ‘You would have done your duty, Thomas, I know that, had you not been burdened by our young illustrator. This is a problem we will have to address. A unified courage will be needed in the months to come.’ He lit a fresh cigarette with the end of its predecessor. ‘Grave errors have been made today, errors that dash all hopes of a speedy resolution to this campaign. There will be more battles, and bloody ones too–mark my words.’ He tapped the sheets resting on his knee. ‘All this is explained here, and will go straight to the Courier.’

  ‘More battles?’ The disbelieving anger Kitson had felt on the battlefield returned abruptly, driving away his confusion. ‘How the hell can they hope to fight more battles when the injured are just left on the ground to die? How can such–such murderous negligence possibly be sustained?’

  Cracknell nodded approvingly. ‘You are absolutely right, it is obscene. But we will be here to bear witness. Our mission has undergone a change, Kitson. We are messengers, my friend, and together we will ensure these abuses and failings do not go unreported–or unpunished.’

  This sounded very noble, as Cracknell’s little speeches invariably did. For the first time, however, Kitson found that he listened with a degree of mistrust.

  ‘You must tell me of your pistol, Mr Cracknell,’ he said, the smallest barb in his voice. ‘Did it serve you well?’

  Cracknell stared at him in astonishment, the rug pulled from under his grand posturing. He reached into his jacket for the revolver and hefted it in his hand, a look of bewilderment on his face.

  ‘Do you know,’ he said slowly, ‘I forgot completely that I had it.’

  Then he lowered it a fraction, and a long spurt of dirty river water ran out of the barrel, dripping down on to the scorched grass below.

  Manchester

  May 1857

  1

  ‘It has often been said that the crowd is one of the great levellers of mankind; that a lord or bishop, placed in a large, adversarial gathering of his peers, will for all his supposed breeding and education behave no better than a navvy brawling outside a pot-house. Reader, the truth of this axiom was well demonstrated on the steps of the Art Treasures Exhibition on the morning of the fifth of May 1857. As the chapel bells of the nearby Blind Asylum began to strike eleven, the appointed hour of opening, the mass of finely dressed ladies and gentlemen pressed up against the Exhibition doors began to strike the glass and rattle the handles with such impatient force that this correspondent feared that they might succeed in bringing them down.

  ‘Like cattle drivers charged with a particularly skittish, heavily perfumed herd, the stewards within eased open their gates and let this noisy throng jostle through. The city’s highest in rank, fashion and beauty all but ran up to the turnstiles, the gentlemen removing their hats, the ladies gathering up their skirts to allow for more rapid locomotion. Imprecations not to push were imperiously ignored, yellow admission tickets waved dismissively at attendants, and the revolving metal barriers wrenched around with the utmost violence. Several, in their urgency to get through and secure their seats, tried to pull these barriers the wrong way, resulting in them becoming stuck; and those caught directly behind could only watch in helpless rage as others flew past them on either side, beating them to the best locations.

  ‘Passing quickly into the grand hall, these worthy notables did not gasp at the magnificence of the nave, sweeping down to the cavernous transept with the great bronze tubes of the organ behind; they did not marvel at the enormous skylights overhead, or the intricate web of girders that support them, with every single rivet picked out in gold leaf; they did not stare at the thick red carpet that runs the length of the structure, flanked by statues of white marble, to a dais at its heart, on which is mounted a golden throne; nor did they pause to admire the hundreds of masterful paintings that adorn the walls, almost obscuring the maroon paper behind. They looked only to the chairs and benches, accumulating around the dais like mud on an axle. The triumph with which places were claimed diminished the further they were from the Royal seat: those who had secured the very closest gloated victoriously, whilst those on the fringes of the transept, and stuck out in the aisles of the nave, frowned with disappointment, and wondered to whom they could address their complaints.

  ‘Gradually, however, this first wave of guests recovered their breath, readjusted their ruffled clothes and started to look around them properly. The Art Treasures Palace was finally allowed to exert its undeniable effect, and its girders echoed with exclamations of a rare, entirely unstudied awe.’

  Kitson turned over a page in his pocketbook and was about to commence his next sentence when Edward Thorne, editor of the Manchester Evening Star, gestured with his walnut walking stick towards a fashionable group standing near the heart of the Exhibition.

  ‘The Baileys,’ he declared. ‘I happen to know that their latest carriage cost in excess of a thousand pounds.’

  Thorne and Kitson sat together on the northern balcony of the transept, which had been set aside for the men of the Manchester press. The Star’s editor was present purely for his own entertainment, however, and wrote nothing. In contrast with many of those around him, whose attempts at morning dress spanned the full spectrum of shabbiness, Thorne’s grey suit was immaculate, and his habitually sceptical features clean-shaven. It was as if he was trying to correct the somewhat grubby reputation of his journal with his own spruce appearance.

  ‘And there,’ the editor continued pointedly, ‘is Colonel Bennett and the officers of the Glorious 25th. Without poor Major Wray, of course…’

  The hall before them was carpeted with a constantly shifting, murmuring mass of humanity, bathed in slanting shafts of sunlight. Above rose the vast, still space of the iron palace, enclosed by girders and glass, and festooned with dozens of bright flags and banners. And crowning everything, in a golden arch above the spray of organ pipes, ran an inscription in a strong, Latinate script, each letter five feet tall: To Wake the Soul by Tender Strokes of Art.

  Over on the far side of the nave were the soldiers Thorne had indicated. There were about a dozen of them, in full dress uniform, standing in a loose circle beside a densely patterned suit of Elizabethan armour. The sight of the crimson jackets seemed to make the sunny hall grow uncomfortably hot, its atmosphere suddenly close and stifling. Perspiration broke out across Kitson’s brow, beneath the hard brim of his hired top hat, and a dull queasiness welled inside him. He looked away for a moment, down at his boots; then he returned his attention to his pocketbook.

  Thorne turned towards him in a conspiratorial manner. ‘Tell me again how you did it, Kitson. Exactly how you did it.’

  The street philosopher stopped writing. He knew that he bore Thorne a heavy debt. The Star’s editor had taken him on shortly before the Christmas of 1856 with few questions asked. Considerable tolerance had subsequently been shown regarding Kitson’s reclusive tendencies, the rarity of his appearances at the journal’s premises on Corporation Street, and his general unwillingness to speak about himself at any length. At times, however, Thorne would adopt a gratingly interrogative manner, no doubt thinking to draw out through some oblique questioning that which Kitson would not openly volunteer.

  ‘What more can I possibly tell you, Thorne? The Colonel sent a letter asking if there was anything he could do to thank me for assisting his officer. It seemed like the obvious request.’

  That Saturday night, even with his skin scrubbed raw and his bloody clothes burned, Kitson had been incapable of rest. The encounter with Wray was so unlikely, such a foul trick of chance, that it had kept him pacing back and forth across his attic until several hours past daybreak. He was sorely tempted to go to the Royal Infirmary, confront Wray in his sick bed and demand to know what he was doing in Manchester.

  But wisdom had prevailed; and first thing on Monday, he had gone instead to Wovenden’s Coffee Hous
e and made his inquiries there. This establishment, located in the dead centre of Market Street, was a favourite with his fellow newspapermen and the prime place to obtain information. Wray, he soon discovered, had transferred to the 25th Manchesters only a couple of months earlier, yet already was widely despised as a martinet. In fact, there were strong suspicions amongst the constabulary that it was one of his own regiment who had attacked him, despite the lurid stories of a mad cripple that were circulating throughout the city.

  The note from Colonel Bennett had been waiting for him back at Princess Street. He had penned a reply immediately, biting his lip as he wished Wray a speedy recovery and then wondering whether the Colonel could secure him an invitation to the ball at the Polygon the following evening. Bennett, he knew, was a long-standing fixture in Manchester society, and on good terms with the Fairbairns: this was well within his capabilities.

  Only after the reply had been sent did Kitson pause to examine why he had asked for such a thing. This was the sort of event he would normally go out of his way to avoid. Then he had remembered Mrs James, and their disputative, unexpectedly intimate conversation in her father’s office. He recalled the frown line etched between the light crescents of her eyebrows, and the way her sharp green eyes had looked so intently into his, as if searching determinedly for something. He wished to see her, to speak with her again. This was the reason he had sought an invitation to the Polygon. Kitson had taken a breath, made a quick calculation of his meagre finances and headed back out into the city to obtain some formal clothes.