Soldier of the Queen

by Max Hennessy

  Intrigued at having a foreigner in an area which had fought all its life to avoid having ‘foreigners’ – even from other parts of England the neighbours called in ones and twos to meet her. A plump, pale-faced woman with too-red lips who introduced herself as Georgina Cosgro claimed with a comfortable possessiveness that jolted her, to be one of Colby’s old flames. Brosy la Dell’s wife, Grace, as kindly, good-humoured and easy-going as Brosy, put her at case.

  ‘He had a crush on her as a boy,’ she said. ‘That’s all. Don’t worry about her. Concentrate on the regiment. It’ll be quite as much part of your life as Braxby. Perhaps even more. It’s something you have to get used to.’

  It sounded terrifying, but Grace was reassuring. ‘It’s a restless life,’ she pointed out. ‘All ups and downs. But you develop a philosophical attitude to it. There’s one thing, though: You’ll never be without friends. You’ll be sad, happy, homesick, ill or well, but it’ll always be in the company of other army wives who understand. I grew up in the regiment and, though I sometimes hate it, I wouldn’t exchange it for anything.’

  Quite obviously, Colby considered she should become involved in the mystique that was the regiment as soon as possible, and almost the first thing he did was take her to the regimental chapel at York Minister and let her stand for a while beneath the tattered banners that hung in the vaulting silence. They were dusty and torn and hung in nets to preserve them, and she found it hard to understand why they appeared to mean so much.

  From York, he took her to Ripon, where Harriet lived, and from there to the regimental depot where he showed her the instrument with which Trumpeter Sparks had sounded the regiment into action at Balaclava. It was an ordinary-looking trumpet in a glass case, with a fading coloured cord, and it was dented and bent because Sparks’ horse had been shot and he had fallen on it. Though it seemed to be regarded with awe by everybody who stopped in front of it, she found it hard to see the reason for the reverence.

  ‘I shall never belong,’ she said. ‘It terrifies me. All the worship of those old flags–’

  ‘Colours,’ Colby corrected her stiffly.

  ‘Very well – colours. The way you put the names of your battles on them, remembering all the blood and all the misery.’ She gestured helplessly. ‘Why do you set so much store by it?’

  He gestured. ‘A soldier can only be brought to the highest efficiency by making him believe he belongs to a regiment that’s superior to all others. That’s the army’s strength. They don’t fight for the Queen. They fight for the honour of their regiment.’ He smiled. ‘You’re lucky. You’re marrying into a good one. Not so good as to be snobbish, but good enough to be concerned with its people. In some regiments you have to be inspected, checked for breeding, and promise never to let the side down.’

  ‘Do you think I might?’

  ‘It’s sometimes hard to keep up,’ he admitted. ‘But army wives are a tough lot and they’ve had to endure capture, wounding, imprisonment, kidnapping, shipwreck and God knows what.’

  She looked at him, alarmed, and the smile became a grin. ‘But,’ he added, ‘a surprising number of them have lived to tell the tale and bore their grandchildren with it.’

  Since Augusta’s family were already in Europe, it seemed easier for them to stay there and the wedding was brought forward with a haste that set a few tongues wagging.

  For a change, Yorkshire’s rugged soul relented, and the weather was not only fine but actually warm, though there were clouds building up over the Pennines and a strong wind sending shredded whisps across the Brack to change it from blue to a leaden purple as they covered the sun.

  The detachment from the 19th arrived early, waiting outside the church in a splash of rifle green, red and gold among the dark suits of the men and the gay dresses of the women. Augusta appeared from the house that had been lent to her family for the wedding, riding with her father round the village green in a smart borrowed carriage, decorated with white ribbons and lace and driven by one of the Ackroyds in his best tweeds, with a bunch of white flowers in his cap and holding a whip decorated with a paper frill that looked as if it had come off a lamb chop.

  The wedding dress had been made in a hurry and was a fraction too tight, so that she knew that all through the ceremony she would have to keep drawing deep breaths to survive. Her father was in a sombre mood and when she taxed him with it, he shrugged.

  ‘What can any father feel, Gussie,’ he said, ‘When he knows he’s going to leave his daughter in a foreign country.’

  ‘Colby’ll look after me, Pa.’

  ‘I hardly know him!’

  ‘I do. That’s enough.’

  ‘Augusta Dabney, I’m still worried.’

  ‘Pa, I’m not. I love Colby. I’ve loved him ever since the day I first saw him. I’m very proud that he’s seen fit to ask me to be his wife.’

  ‘He’s a soldier, Gussie.’

  Augusta looked at him with a mixture of pity and anger. ‘Then, Pa,’ she said, ‘I’ll be a soldier’s wife.’

  As they entered the church in an atmosphere of ancient stone and candle wax, the sight of so many uniforms startled her. The whole damn church seemed to be full of soldiers, she thought, all in green, red and gold, their plumed lance caps lined up together on a spare pew by the door like a lot of eggs on a table. When she saw Colby waiting alongside Brosy la Dell, she gasped. He had an ideal figure for a cavalryman, medium height, lithe and spare, with flat thighs and strong hands, and she had never seen him in uniform before, let alone in full dress. Taller in the tight-fitting jacket and narrow overalls with their double gold stripe, he seemed a blaze of colour and manliness. In his right hand he held a black lance cap ornamented with brass and surmounted by a square frame covered with cloth coloured to match the facings of his jacket.

  Ackroyd had worked hard on him and the buttons, brass ware, gold cord and pipe clay shone. As he turned to look at her she felt her knees go weak. He didn’t smile, however, and she wondered wildly if he were as scared as she was.

  There was an archway of swords as they left the church and a shower of rose petals and a fiddler to lead them across the green to the carriages. The guests all seemed to be either soldiers, local bigwigs, farmers or farm workers, their red Yorkshire faces shining with soap. Augusta’s mother wept on her shoulder, unable to decide whether to be proud or miserable, and as Harriet dragged her round, introducing her, she was aware of a few searching looks and a few embarrassed smiles as harsh Yorkshire accents clashed with soft Virginian. The storm which had been threatening all day arrived as they scrambled into the carriage that was to take them to the station. Because it was October, they had rented a house at Melton Mowbray to get in some hunting and they ate their evening meal together quietly, both of them a little nervous of their new estate. Dammit, Colby thought, I feel worse than I did when I joined the regiment, all thumbs and elbows. Opposite him, Augusta was eating quietly, her face pale in the candlelight, and he was surprised to see how confident she looked. When she said she felt tired and was going to bed, he stayed downstairs long enough to let her get organised. Women needed time to do their hair and titivate themselves, he knew.

  He found it strange to think he was going to share his bed with a woman for the rest of his life. For a moment he toyed with the idea of having a drink but decided in the end not to bother, and tried instead to read the paper. Somehow none of it made sense. There was trouble on the Gold Coast, he saw, where tribal factions were quarrelling among themselves and the Europeans were yelling for somebody to come and stop them. It would be a nasty business, he decided. The Gold Coast was a sickly set of problems, he’d heard, and British control was limited to a few coastal strongholds, with a garrison that consisted mainly of coloured troops and a few unwanted naval vessels, while the Europeans spent most of their time recovering from one illness or another. He was on the point of lighting a cigar when he remembered that Augusta was still waiting, probably nervous over her initiation into the married state. He�
�d heard it said that some women didn’t even know what they were supposed to do and some men had to wait weeks before they finally managed to consummate the marriage. Good God, he thought, why didn’t mothers tell their daughters what it was all about?

  He felt pleased with himself, however, self-consciously proud of his new wife and feeling that, with a little help, he ought to be able to shape her into a good soldier’s wife. Dammit, she knew already what battle was all about.

  The wallpaper in the dressing-room was deep red, covered with purple flowers, and it seemed to suggest all sorts of dangerous intrigues. Cleaning his teeth at the wash-hand stand, he stared at himself in the mirror. He had never gone in for weeping whiskers like the Cosgros. After the fashion of Wellington’s soldiers, his father had always been clean-shaven and the habit had passed to his son. Not a bad figure, either, he decided. Good chest and shoulders. Strong legs. Nose a bit lopsided where he’d broken it coming off a horse as a boy, but no sign of baldness yet, thank God.

  He was curiously nervous. Dammit, he thought, fathers ought to tell their sons what it’s all about, too! Slipping into his night shirt, he brushed his hair and opened the door. All the candles were still lit and he was surprised because he’d heard that new brides always liked to meet their husbands for the first time in bed in the pitch darkness.

  Augusta’s nose was poking over the top of the sheets and her hair was a black cloud on the pillow. Dammit, he thought, she was more beautiful than he’d realised. She smiled at him then her eyes widened, and she sat up abruptly. To his surprise, she was unclothed. No damn night dress or anything!

  ‘Mr Goff, why are you wearing a night shirt?’

  He gaped at her. ‘For God’s sake, why not?’

  ‘This is our wedding night. I’m not a shrinking violet, Mr Goff, and I think two young people going to bed together should be fun.’

  As he stared, she went on earnestly, her eyes bright like an angry kitten’s. ‘There’s a lot of talk about morality these days,’ she said. ‘But from what I can gather, it isn’t all that different from any other time; people just talk about it more, that’s all. Your Queen has nine children–’

  ‘Eight,’ he corrected. ‘And she’s your queen, too, now. How many are you contemplating?’

  ‘Seven.’

  He’d been thinking of one – eventually – a son to carry on the family name as his father would have wished.

  ‘Seven?’

  ‘Yes. And they’ll never arrive if we go to bed together with twenty yards of flannel between us.’

  He looked down at her. Sitting up in bed, she didn’t seem much more than a child saying her catechism, small-framed and large-eyed in the candlelight, and she seemed as unaware of embarrassment as a child taking a bath. By God, he thought, she was right! There was too much bloody humbug about this business of going to bed together! It was all right, apparently, for a man and woman to prance about naked if they weren’t married, but if it was respectable and all above board, the whole thing had to become shifty and hidden from the day.

  ‘By God, Mrs Goff,’ he said enthusiastically, wrenching at buttons, ‘I think you’re right.’

  Part Three

  One

  The clouds which had been building up all morning had filled and rounded and, by the afternoon, were heavy with rain and moving across the sky like the grey galleons of some celestial armada. Cantering towards the Common, Colby glanced upwards, hoping the storm would hold off just a little longer. Aubrey Cosgro’s troop was at exercise and he could see no sense in them getting wet through and having the unnecessary work of grooming and cleaning after galloping in the mud. He had half-expected to meet them on their way back to barracks, in fact, and as the rain finally came, his temper overflowed.

  This was not the day for bad temper either. Balaclava Day was celebrated in the regiment by free beer for the men, free spirits for the sergeants, and a slap-up dinner in the officers’ mess. The occasion was always tinged with a measure of excitement that even the newest joined recruit could feel. Work was done normally, but there was always a tendency to go easy on everybody, and the fact that Cosgro had taken his troop to the common in a threatening storm was enough, on this day of all days, to spoil Colby’s happiness.

  It was a good job, in fact, he thought, that the army reforms everybody had been expecting for so long had finally gone through, so that stupid young nincompoops like Aubrey Cosgro couldn’t pick themselves in wherever they wanted, simply because they had enough money and knew the right people. What had happened to the French in 1870 had scared Whitehall and, though they’d been preaching reform ever since the Crimea, nothing had been done about it until now, and snot-nosed fartlets like Aubrey Cosgro had still been able to bring influence to bear. He suspected Cosgro even enjoyed working the men in unpleasant conditions because it gave him a sense of power.

  The houses were left behind as he approached the area of gorse and bracken and as he passed the first clump of scrub, Cornet Lord Ellesmere appeared with a sergeant and a trumpeter from a dip. He was a likeable young man with acne who was so shy he could barely give an order.

  ‘What the devil’s going on?’ Colby snapped. ‘Where’s Lieutenant Cosgro?’

  Ellesmere turned in the saddle, a blush reddening his cheeks. ‘He has the men at mounted sword practice, sir.’

  ‘In weather like this? Where is he?’

  Ellesmere pointed. ‘Beyond the trees, sir.’

  As he gestured at the jumps and dips over which the regiment exercised its horses, Colby heaved at the reins and, kicking at the flanks of his mount, galloped across the turf, iron-shod hooves flinging up the clods behind him. By this time the rain was coming down heavily enough for puddles to settle in the folds of the ground.

  Cosgro’s troop was drawn up in a double line, and long before he reached them Colby could see they were in a resentful mood. They were in the dark green regimentals edged with red, the plastrons reversed as if on campaign so that the cherry-coloured breasts had become mere edged piping. Cosgro had them done up to the nines, with lance caps and everything, the elaborate lines drooping to their chests in complicated founders and tassels, the dyed plumes hanging wetly over their ears. God damn it, Colby thought savagely, this was no day to wear their best uniforms! Two days away buying horses and the bloody idiot was behaving like a colonel, and a bad one at that.

  The water dripping off their chins, their jackets black with damp, the horsemen had thrust their lances into the ground, points together, the pennants sodden and heavy. They were at a dip where a bank jump had been constructed and just beyond were dummies on poles and wooden Turks’ Heads for cutting and thrusting practice. The horses were muddied to the girths and the riders’ eyes were bitter at the thought of the hours of cleaning and grooming that lay ahead. Three men stood to one side, holding their horses’ bridles, all three showing signs of having been unseated. One of them had blood on his face as if he’d had a nose bleed and another was bent over his horse’s hocks, rubbing gently, calming the trembling animal.

  Aubrey Cosgro, in a forage cap and well caped against the rain, sat his horse with the sergeant-major. ‘Go on, Sergeant-major,’ Colby heard him shout. ‘What are you waiting for? Next man.’

  The troop sergeant-major was obviously trying to protest but was clearly ineffective and Colby saw Cosgro gesture angrily with his crop. ‘War doesn’t stop for rain,’ he yelled. ‘Get on with it!’

  The troopers began to head for the jumps one by one. The slippery going and the rain in their faces made it difficult to keep their correct distances and several of them missed their thrusts. Colby’s face was like thunder. Even at that distance he could see the horses were having a bad time of it and he knew the jump well enough to be aware that unless they changed feet at the top of the high bank, they were badly placed for the descent. Only the more sure-footed animals were making anything of it. As he drew nearer, a young trooper, who seemed no more than eighteen and – with the depression that was bringin
g men into the forces to avoid unemployment – could well have been younger, kicked at his horse’s flanks. The animal was clearly tired and Colby wondered how long Cosgro had had them at it. Its head was down and, rather than leaping up the bank, it scrambled up. Foam at the bit, its eyes frenzied, it pulled up in a flurry of mud and scattered turf and tried to change feet. But it lost one leg down the far bank and as its rider tried to heave it up, it went down on its side, turning a complete somersault to land with a sodden slithering thump on the turf beyond.

  The sergeant-major spurred forward to snatch at the reins as it scrambled to its feet, and held it, trembling, as its rider dragged himself to his feet. He was limping and had cut his lip, but he jammed his lance cap back on his head with a sullen glare at Cosgro.

  ‘Again,’ Cosgro yelled at him. ‘And this time, make sure it’s done properly!’

  He was so occupied with his anger he didn’t hear Colby arrive, and it was Colby’s furious shout that brought him up sharp.

  ‘What in God’s name’s going on here?’ he yelled and, as he dragged at the reins, he was aware immediately of the different looks on the faces of the watching men. The sullenness vanished at once and a delighted expectancy took its place.

  ‘Mr Cosgro! A word, please!’

  Frowning heavily, Cosgro yanked savagely at his horse’s head and trotted up to Colby.

  ‘You’re improperly dressed!’ Colby snapped. ‘When the men are wearing lance caps, you wear a lance cap. The men have also not been allowed to cloak. Why not? Take yours off, too, sir!’

  Glaring, Cosgro dismounted, unfastened his cloak, rolled it and secured it to the saddle, then mounted again, frowning at the rain that started to soak his tunic.

  ‘And now what the devil are you doing?’ Colby’s whip jabbed out. ‘That man, there: What’s happened to his horse?’