The Street Philosopher

by Matthew Plampin

  Forcing himself to turn away, he noticed that James had fallen into conversation with a disreputable-looking character with a wild black beard, evidently some kind of camp parasite or confidence man. They were shaking hands, getting along famously. Norton sighed, wondering if he should intervene; for all his energetic intelligence, James was a touch naïve and an easy mark indeed for an obvious ruffian like that. He decided not to. Perhaps such an experience would teach the fellow some humility.

  Wandering further up the quay, puffing absently on his cigar, Norton passed the rows of injured. Rivulets of blood and urine were flowing across stones from where they lay, intermingling and running over the edge of the harbour into the sea. As he stepped between them, he heard a deep, authoritative voice up ahead. Looking up, he saw that it belonged to a senior regimental officer. This man stood several inches above the officials, civilian surgeons and Commissariat clerks who bustled around him. His undress uniform was startlingly clean and bright beneath a new-looking fawn surtout; upon his face was an immaculately maintained moustache of rather formidable proportions. To the dazed Norton, he seemed a figure of absolute proficiency–someone who could impose order even on such a rancid mess as Balaclava.

  This officer was talking to the captain of the H. M. S. Mallory. Could this be their elusive contact in the Royal Engineers? After a brief discussion, the captain did point Norton out; but as the officer came over Norton realised that he was from the infantry. He asked Norton’s business genially enough, though, and even nodded in apparent approval when the Fairbairns were mentioned. Introducing himself as Colonel Nathaniel Boyce, he said that he was in the town trying to use what personal influence he had to secure additional provisions for his men. The basic problem, he explained, was that Balaclava was just too far away from the main camps to serve as an effective supply base.

  ‘But there is a railway being built, isn’t there?’ Norton inquired, rather flattered to have the undivided attention of a colonel. ‘I’m sure I read something about it during my voyage.’

  Boyce smiled thinly. ‘There is indeed, sir. You engineers keep each other well informed. It is to go up the hill to Kadikioi, then on to the camps, eventually criss-crossing the whole plateau. I understand that the surveyors have been here for several weeks already and the Chief Engineer, a Mr Beatty, has just arrived.’

  ‘You seem to know a good deal about this undertaking, Colonel Boyce.’

  ‘How could I fail to take an interest, Mr Norton, when it will have such an effect on the lives of those under my command?’ Boyce paused; when he spoke again, his voice was loaded to an almost imperceptible degree. ‘Besides, I am on good terms with the Quartermaster-General’s department. I receive regular bulletins on the progress of the railway. The Great Western Railway has supplied the tracks, and the contractor, Mr Peto, has supplied the sleepers and various other sundry parts–points and so on. I happen to know, however, that they only have enough spikes to last until Kadikioi. More will be required, many more, by the middle of March.’

  Norton blinked, completely astonished by what the Colonel seemed to be inferring. ‘Is–is that so, sir?’

  Boyce met Norton’s eye. ‘Speed is the priority here, Mr Norton. The railway is not being constructed to British standards. Come, let me show you what they have done so far. We will have dinner afterwards, up on the plateau, where we can discuss this matter further. And you must stay at my farmhouse.’ He looked over at the line of sick redcoats with a sudden, aristocratic coldness. ‘There is disease here.’

  Bidding the Colonel to wait for a minute only, Norton conducted a quick search for James. He was nowhere to be found, but Charles could not allow this great chance simply to slip away. After leaving word of his whereabouts with the captain of the Mallory, he started through Balaclava at Colonel Boyce’s side. Anthony James was a resourceful man, he told himself; he would be fine.

  ‘Ah, the saintly Madeleine!’ called out her husband. ‘Rescue many of my men today, did you, oh holy lady?’ The officers around the table laughed. Boyce gave Lieutenant Nunn a sly, rather unpleasant wink, as if trying to make his adjutant complicit in his mockery.

  Nunn moved uncomfortably in his chair. Mrs Boyce was, in his view, a remarkable woman, who deserved far more gentlemanly treatment than her husband bestowed on her. Nunn wasn’t in love with her, of course. A good soldier did not allow himself to develop futile fascinations with his commander’s wife, and he had let this opinion be known to those among his peers who had made such an open point of their devotion to her. He could not deny, however, that she was a rare beauty, and privately thought that the months she had spent attending on the campaign had only improved her appeal. It was as if the baubles of fashion had not enhanced her loveliness but obscured it, and now, as she stood in plain bonnet and skirts, her hair tied up simply, her beauty could shine with its full radiance. Displaying no emotion, he avoided his commander’s gaze, ignored the mirth of his fellows, and shifted his position so that he was staring blankly at the fire.

  Mrs Boyce removed her faded bonnet and cloak. Before she left the room, her eyes flickered over the Colonel, ably communicating all of the abhorrence she felt for him. They heard her chamber door slam behind her.

  Boyce laughed, reaching for his wine. The Colonel was in uncommonly high spirits. They had a guest that night: in between Majors Fairlie and Pierce sat a grey-whiskered, bushy-browed chap of fifty or so, a civilian engineer, looking about him nervously like a mouse trapped in a nest of crimson-jacketed adders. This was unusual, to say the least. Boyce was not known for his hospitality, especially towards those who lacked both military rank and an old family name. Nunn was growing convinced that it had to be part of a mysterious scheme–part of what Major Maynard had hinted at on the day of Inkerman when he had challenged Boyce over Wray’s disappearance from the battlefield. He had been unable to discover much more about this afterwards. There had been a closed hearing at the brigade headquarters involving the men from the London Courier, but nothing had come of it. Then Captain Wray had been invalided back to England at the end of November, even though he had seemed entirely healthy. Something had happened, and it was going on still, but the Lieutenant could not for the life of him work out what it was. No matter how unsettled his conscience, his wits were just too slow.

  Boyce instructed the servants to bring some fresh bottles; Nunn felt a twitch of distaste at the sound of his voice. He suppressed it quickly. There was no proof of anything, he reminded himself. Colonel Boyce was his commanding officer. From his earliest days in the service, it had been impressed upon him that this relationship, and the absolute loyalty that went with it, was the bedrock of the British Army.

  Major Pierce began to talk about the London Courier, explaining the situation to their guest in the crudest terms. Nunn despised Pierce. The Major was the worst kind of army bully, as vicious as Wray had been but fat and loudmouthed with it. He was proposing that they mount a raiding party to go over to the correspondent’s tent and ‘do him in’, as he put it. The Irishman was so widely hated, Pierce maintained, that the list of suspects would be hundreds strong. Nunn was quite sickened that this dis-honourable notion could even enter the head of a major of Her Majesty’s Infantry. Their civilian visitor was plainly a little taken aback as well.

  Boyce seemed inclined towards tolerance, both of newspaper correspondents and violently minded majors. ‘The Courier, Mr Norton, is nothing more than an organ of splenetic radicalism, to be avoided and distained by all people of intelligence. I feel that it is hardly shaming for me to be slandered in its pages–quite the contrary, in fact.’ He turned to Pierce. ‘So for now, Major Pierce will bloody well let him be.’

  There was a burst of well-oiled laughter from the company; Pierce protested that he had only spoken in jest. Lieutenant Nunn gripped the delicate hexagonal stem of his wine glass, pinching it until his thumb was white.

  Looking around at the smiling, obedient faces, Boyce’s eye snagged on his adjutant, sitting still and
mute like a large, rather unambitious piece of statuary. As a parting shot, that insubordinate knave Maynard had contaminated this steadfast, dim-witted fellow with something of his own suspicious nature. Boyce had tried to reassure him, to steady him with routine, but to no avail. Although it was unlikely that he would ever deduce anything important, Nunn still knew a little too much for comfort. He remained a fighting soldier under Boyce’s direct command, however. Perilous assaults would doubtlessly be made in the coming months, as the Allies resumed their efforts to take Sebastopol. Perhaps, at an appropriate moment, Lieutenant Nunn should be given a special front-line assignment.

  ‘Excuse me, Colonel,’ piped up their Mancunian guest, ‘but I am right in thinking that your young wife is a nurse of some description?’

  The plebeian fool was confused by my sarcasm when she came in, Boyce thought. ‘She brings food and clothing up from the harbour, Mr Norton, in the company of another lady, a respectable Scottish spinster. They are held in great regard throughout the camp–and even by Lord Raglan himself. Do not be confused by my… frivolous manner towards her. Madeleine does valuable work, and she won’t hear any talk of her returning home before the last sword is back in its scabbard.’

  Boyce was determined that his wife should stay in the Crimea for as long as he was made to. He saw how she suffered, the daily hardships she endured, and it brought him a bitter satisfaction. She had wanted to be near her Irishman–well, she was near him. And may it bring them both all the damned happiness in the world.

  Norton was clearly impressed. ‘An admirable lady indeed.’

  The Colonel nodded in acknowledgement. He was well pleased with this fellow. After many anxious weeks, a solution might finally have been found.

  On the evening of Inkerman, after having his injured shoulder seen to, Boyce had gone to inform his accomplices of the success of their plan–only to learn that both had been killed in the morning’s fighting whilst attempting to coordinate a British counter-barrage, driven from this world by a spray of Russian shell-splinters. He had been shocked, of course, and a little grieved to hear of the end of a pair of such fine fellows; but behind these muddled thoughts had sounded a clear note of triumph. It is mine, he had told himself, and mine alone.

  Then that Irish pig had made his move. Boyce had been most angry with Wray. The Captain’s orders had been to kill the two Russians, to prevent them from ever revealing who had removed the Tsar’s treasure cache. However, Wray had somehow managed not only to shoot a British soldier as well, but also to be seen doing it by a pair of bloody newspapermen! They had nothing at all to substantiate their claims, thankfully, after Wray had quietly disposed of that second corporal whilst on night watch at the Left Attack. Major-General Codrington, a proper gentleman, had not stood for the Irishman’s offensive posturing, and the Courier rogues had been soundly humiliated.

  It had been a heavily qualified victory. Afterwards, to be safe, Boyce was forced to send Wray from the Crimea. And the painting itself, a rare and genuine Raphael for which the wealthiest Dukes and Lords in England would give half of all they owned, became a grave problem. Wray had at least thought to pack the Pilate away in an empty supply crate before bringing it into the camp; and there it remained two and a half months later, in a dark, dry corner of the farmhouse’s apple cellar. But should the Major-General or any of his staff–or worse still, those scoundrels from the Courier–discover that he still had this masterpiece in his possession, the situation could become very black indeed.

  Now, though, an escape route was surely opening. Boyce had been monitoring the lists of civilians coming into Balaclava carefully, obtaining accounts of their proposed business on the peninsula from the harbourmaster. Charles Norton, a foundry man in the Crimea on behalf of another company, had stood out. This arrangement seemed to suggest that he was an inferior specimen, of the exact sort required; and sure enough, the fellow had just the right mix of greed and weakness. Norton was someone Boyce could work into a corner and keep there.

  The Colonel stood, and suggested casually to his guest that they go outside to take the evening air before dinner was served. There was a moment of vaguely awkward silence as the Mancunian got to his feet and made his way over to the door; then the ever-vocal Pierce started off again, now lambasting the idleness of the Turks.

  The yard at the back of the farmhouse was empty and extremely cold. Both men lit cigars. Norton’s hand trembled, and not from the temperature–he was apprehensive.

  Boyce adopted a steely, business-like tone. ‘Here’s the meat of it, Norton. Wyndham, the Quartermaster-General, is an old friend of my family. I am prepared to mention to him that I know of a foundry man from Manchester who will undercut the existing contract for railway spikes by half a penny per dozen–a foundry man who can keep up a regular supply of rapidly produced, low-grade components. He will be open to such an idea, I guarantee it. This is within your capabilities, is it not?’

  Norton tried unsuccessfully to mask his excitement at what was being proposed. ‘We are talking about a very big contract here, Colonel.’

  Boyce puffed on his cigar. ‘Enough to free you from the likes of the Fairbairns for good, I’d say–to raise your concern to the first rank of Manchester business. The kind of opportunity that is gifted only to a few. You will have to act quickly, though. The Quartermaster-General is not a particularly patient man, and speed of production is paramount. Can you do it?’

  Norton was silent for a moment, as if running calculations in his head. Then he nodded. ‘I can, sir.’

  ‘I will want an interest, of course–a silent partnership. If this contract is fulfilled satisfactorily, there will be others. The army needs a great many cast-iron items, Mr Norton.’

  Norton nodded once more, lost in his dreams of a golden future. At this moment, the Colonel thought, he’ll agree to absolutely anything.

  ‘And there is something else I would need you to do for me.’ Boyce glanced across the yard towards the doors of the apple cellar. ‘Something rather delicate.’

  6

  ‘You are a killer.’

  Styles woke up, pulled abruptly from scrambled, blaring dreams of black caves and blood–of somebody talking urgently. He looked around in alarm for the person who had spoken. All was still and dark. The voice had sounded uncannily like his mother’s; but she had been dead now for almost six years.

  He tried to sit up, but his leg would not be moved. His mouth was dry and his head throbbed, but his thoughts were oddly clear. Slowly, he remembered certain events from the day just passed–the struggle in the trench, the sniper’s shot, the impossibly long wait for assistance–but large sections remained lost to him. He could not say where he was, for instance, or how he had got there. The heavy blue murk was that of a tent in the middle of the night, yet he was enclosed in a narrow, dry-stone alcove. There was a smell of old boots and stale tobacco.

  The close silence was broken by the sound of tent flaps being pushed hurriedly aside. Then he heard Cracknell’s voice, no more than ten yards from where he lay.

  ‘By Jove, it’s dark as hell in here,’ the senior correspondent grumbled. ‘Where’s my matches?’

  There was a second’s pause. Styles could hear breathing. A match was struck, and warm light filled the space outside his alcove. There was a thick canvas curtain between him and this light; but a half-inch gap at the curtain’s side became a bright line through which he could clearly observe what was happening beyond.

  Cracknell and Mrs Boyce stood by a desk, both wrapped up tightly in their winter clothing, their breath forming clouds in front of them. The senior correspondent threw a small sack of biscuit and a yellow slab of Dutch cheese on to the desk. As soon as his hands were free, Mrs Boyce was on him, kissing him all over his grimy face, pressing herself hard against him. Cracknell pushed her back firmly.

  ‘Both were injured, you say?’ he demanded.

  She nodded, reluctantly delaying her attentions. ‘Yes, both. We–we took them to the harbou
r. Mr Kitson is quite badly hurt, I think.’

  ‘Good Lord,’ Cracknell murmured in mild amazement, ‘I must have been standing within a hundred yards of the poor devils. Ah well, Balaclava is an easy place indeed in which to miss people, especially if you’re not looking for them. They’ll be sent home now, at least. Neither one of them was cut out for war correspondence.’

  Mrs Boyce began to cry. ‘I was so frightened, Richard, that you might have been with them–might have been lying dead…’

  He wrapped her up in the arms of his fur coat. ‘Come now, Maddy,’ he said, his manner softening, ‘I was perfectly safe. I was here, in fact, asleep in my tent, whilst those young fools were out playing soldiers. You should not run off from Miss Wade, though. You could have been in a serious pickle if that dragoon hadn’t found you and escorted you back up to the camps.’

  She looked up at him with wide, disbelieving eyes. ‘You–you saw us?’

  Cracknell chuckled condescendingly. ‘I did, on the outskirts of town. I was heading in the other way. I would’ve said something, Maddy, but I know the fellow. He’d have been over to tell your husband in a flash.’ He paused. ‘Besides, I had something to attend to.’

  ‘How could you see me, Richard, and not even—’

  ‘Madeleine, we must exercise a bit of care. Your husband is merely waiting for an excuse to strike at me. You know this. And I am here now, am I not? We have this tent quite to ourselves.’

  She was easily won round. They kissed for a long time. Styles heard their lips gently sucking together. Before long, he could see that the fronts of both their coats were open, the sides overlapping, their bodies meeting in the space in between, their hands pulling at the clothes beneath. Their breathing became yet heavier. Mrs Boyce giggled, and said something about the cold; a moment later, Cracknell ducked away, igniting a small charcoal stove on the floor. He went back to her immediately, and Styles noticed the edge of her skirts rise up under the bottom of her coat. They then moved towards another alcove, close to the desk, and sunk into it.