Bugles at Dawn

by Charles Whiting

  John Bold drew back his clenched fist deliberately so that all could see. Next moment he smashed it into the Prussian’s face with all his strength. The man flew from his chair and crashed back against the wall, looking suddenly foolish and not at all dangerous as he slumped there dazed, blood seeping from a split lip.

  There was an angry murmur from his comrades. They looked up at the tall young Irishman threateningly. But he knew the type. Without a ringleader they were all cowards, waiting for one of the others to take the initiative, and in the end doing nothing when faced with determination. He dropped his hand to the hilt of his sword. Through gritted teeth he hissed, ‘Well, you Prussian scum, do you want any further trouble, Saukerls?’

  The threat worked. The murmurings ceased. They dropped their gaze, as if suddenly ashamed. The man with the bleeding lip wiped the blood from it with the back of his hand and then stared at the blood as if he couldn’t quite believe it was his own.

  John knew he had won. There would be no further trouble from the Prussian light infantrymen. He dropped his grip on the sword, turned to the girl who was now looking up at him with eyes full of admiration and said softly, ‘Adjust your dress and go about your business. These swine won’t bother you any more.’

  It was then that the partition cutting off the chamber separée from the taproom opened. A woman, dwarfed by two other Indians with fierce martial faces, their hands on curved swords, stood there gazing at him with huge dark hungry eyes. Like the men she was dressed in rich flowing silks but her head was uncovered, her jet-black, glistening hair pulled tightly back, a line of red lead marking the parting, with another red circular mark on the perfect forehead. She smelt of sandalwood, jasmine — and naked sex. In all his life, John Bold had never met a more exotic and provocative woman. Those burning black eyes, made even larger by the kohl which outlined them, and that carmine, avid mouth exuded naked sensuality. The Prussians completely forgotten, John felt himself flush with desire, his lips suddenly dry. He licked them with his tongue and almost immediately they were dry again.

  The Indian woman smiled softly. Slowly, never taking her eyes off his face for a moment, she brought her palms together in front of her face, moved them up to her forehead and then down again in a gesture which John would one day find out was called the namaste. ‘You are very brave, Englishman,’ she said in a voice which was just as sensual and provocative as her appearance. ‘Very brave,’ she repeated, seeming to linger upon the words, her pink tongue slipping slowly between small, perfectly white teeth and caressing her own lips with sensual slowness. He felt his heart pound.

  Suddenly she dismissed him. ‘Chalo!’ she commanded imperiously. The two Indian men ranged themselves at her sides and without looking left or right like some regal procession they swept through the awed room to disappear up the stairs, leaving John Bold to stare after them like some gawping yokel. Thus it was that he was hardly conscious of the other member of the party from the separée: a runtish white man who sidled out of the inn along the wall, like some human rat afraid to come out of the shadows. By the time John had become aware of him, he was gone, out into the night. A little dazed by it all, John finished the last of his tankard and followed him across the room to the accompaniment of friendly nods from the locals and a whispered ‘Thank you, sir, God bless you, sir and rest you well,’ from the innkeeper. John returned the thanks and then with the aid of a taper proffered by the serving wench, who gazed at him with obvious devotion, he made his way up the narrow stairs, telling himself he would sleep like a log.

  But that was not to be. Five minutes or so after the bugles of the Prussian garrison had sounded the curfew for the good citizens of Aachen, who were still under military law, there was a soft tapping at the door of his room.

  ‘Ja?’ he called sleepily.

  With a soft creak the door opened and in the flickering light of the yellow taper he saw it was the girl he had rescued from the Prussians. Now she was dressed in her shift, with a shawl flung round her shoulders.

  ‘What — ’ he began, startled.

  Hurriedly she held her finger to her lips before closing the door and turning the key softly. A moment later she was snuggling into his bed and wriggling her plump body, her breasts like warm soft melons rubbing up against his naked chest, already gasping in pleasurable anticipation ...

  SIX

  When he awoke she was already gone although it was still dark. But das Gasthaus zur Alten Post was beginning to stir. There was the rattle of pots from below and the squeaking of the water pump. From the coaching yard he could hear the hoarse soft talk of the ostlers and the lazy clip-clop of sleepy horses being led out of their stables.

  He yawned pleasurably, feeling satiated and happy, though stiff. The serving wench. — Bettina was her name — had certainly been no virgin, though she was no raddled doxy either. She had been pathetically eager to please in a clumsy sort of country girl manner. The night had flown. He doubted that he had slept more than two hours.

  He had lost his own virginity at sixteen to one of the fine ladies who had come to Dover for the sea bathing. She had patted his head affectionately afterwards and given him half a guinea by way of a reward. He smiled at the memory.

  Suddenly seized by a raging thirst, he swung out of the big trestle bed and padded across the cold floor to the water ewer. Perhaps the sour roast had been too well spiced. He found the pewter beaker, fumbling a little for it in the darkness, and was just about to fill it with water when his gaze was attracted to the parting in the curtain of the room directly opposite.

  He swallowed hard, the water forgotten instantly, tumescent almost at once, over-come by overwhelming lust by what he saw there through the crack. It was the Indian woman who had looked at him so provocatively. A maid had obviously just bathed her. Now she fluttered around the totally naked woman, patting her beautiful body with a white towel which flashed against the smooth dark brown of her skin.

  The woman was obviously enjoying it. She arched her head, teeth bared and gleaming, her full breasts rising almost unbearably, the nipples big, taut and erect. He gazed at her open-mouthed and erect, knowing it was not the gentlemanly thing to do, but unable to tear himself away. She was small, but her breasts were full and geometrically circular, unlike those of a European woman. She had a tiny eighteen-inch waist which accentuated plump hips and the gentle swell of her belly. The space between her thighs was shaven clean of hair so that the deep cleft appeared childlike and surprising and strangely erotic.

  Now the busy twittering little maid had finished her towelling. Taking warmed oil in both hands she smoothed it across her mistress’ body, starting with the breasts, gently kneading them in turn, running her cunning little fingers about the nipples so that the gasping, shocked watcher in the dark imagined the naked woman shivering with the joy of it all.

  John felt himself choking, strangled, his breath coming in short hectic gasps. There was no doubt about it, the Indian woman was enjoying the tiny hands of her maid as she rubbed now her thighs, taking long sensuous strokes, smiling up at her mistress the whole while. The woman’s breast heaved. Her mouth had fallen slack. Her eyes were closed and John, his heart pounding like a trip-hammer, fancied she was emitting small groans.

  Suddenly the candle was extinguished and the room and its scene of strange foreign depravity vanished, leaving him leaning weakly against the window, pressing his burning forehead against its coldness, trying to restore his crazed senses ...

  When he came down for breakfast they had gone. Their horses had been saddled and their private coach had vanished from the yard, although it was still barely light.

  ‘They paid well for blackamoors,’ the innkeeper said jovially as he ushered John to a place close to the crackling log fire. ‘I always thought they ran around Africa as naked as the day they were born, living off berries and bits of dead monkeys.’ He shook his white head in bewilderment. ‘The gazettes must have lied.’

  Five minutes later Bettina came acros
s, bearing his breakfast and a mug of weak ale, her gaze knowing, silently pursing her lips in a kiss when she thought the innkeeper was not watching.

  ‘Did you see them go — the blackamoors?’ he asked.

  She nodded and said enthusiastically, ‘The woman, she gave me a silver taler, just for carrying her case to the coach. Why in her own country, she must be a princess at least.’

  He smiled at her enthusiasm and said, ‘And what did you say to her?’

  ‘Nothing. For she could not speak our tongue like you — John,’ she whispered his name lovingly.

  ‘Bettina, you lazy slut,’ the innkeeper called, ‘come on over here and get some work done, and let the good gentleman get on with his food.’

  She mouthed another silent kiss and fled back to her work, leaving him to muse about the Indian woman. If she could not speak German, how had she known he was an Englishman? She had spoken to him in his own language.

  He frowned and ate the hard black bread and cheese reflectively. Since he’d sword-whipped that damned fellow Hartmann, his life had become very complicated. An attempt had been made on his life at the command of someone who spoke French with a cockney accent. Now there was this strange, provocative Indian woman with her even stranger sexual tastes, who seemed to know something about him. Was it just chance that she had spent the night in the same inn? And what about the furtive little white man who had been closeted with her in the chambre separée? What role did he play?

  In the end, he gave up. John Bold was not given to introspective; he was a man of action. As the sun started to filter through the leaded windows he told himself it was time to be moving. Whatever was going on, he had to get on with the business of finding out how to reach the Italian border. The sooner he arrived in India the better. His money wouldn’t last for ever. Besides, perhaps out there he might once again meet that intriguing and highly desirable woman ...

  The morning passed swiftly. He discovered in the old city that there was an establishment which had complete control of the coaching links throughout what had once been the Holy Roman Empire of Germany — Das Heilige Romische Reich, which flourished between the eleventh and early nineteenth centuries. Back in the depths of the Middle Ages the German Roman Emperor had granted the right to a minor German nobleman, the Count of Thurn and Taxis, to carry passengers and post throughout the three hundred-odd states which made up that Empire. Even after the dissolution of the Empire at Napoleon’s command, the family still possessed that sole right. For varying sums of money to be paid in Prussian silver talers, Rhenish crowns and Bavarian gold crowns, he could travel from border to border of these various German states until he reached his destination. So the rest of his morning was spent with the moneychangers, mostly bearded Jews in ragged black kaftans, who seemingly lived in fear of their lives in stinking hovels within the walled ghetto, which they could not leave without permission.

  He was returning to the inn when the runt he had seen with the Indians sidled up to him. Eyes everywhere, he said out of the side of his mouth, ‘Englishman, you are a soldier, yes?’ His English was strange and heavily accented, as if he might be a native German speaker, but understandable all right.

  John stopped and looked down at him, not liking what he saw. The man had the shifty appearance of a common cutpurse. He would not trust him as far as he could throw him. ‘Why do you ask?’ he said coldly.

  The runt rubbed his dirty hands together and wheedled, ‘A fine figure like yours, young sir, could only belong to a soldier.’

  ‘All right then I am — was — an officer in the British Army,’ he snapped. ‘What is it to you?’

  ‘Well, sir’ — the shifty dark eyes flashed a swift look up and down the alley, the dirty paws shuffled together — ‘I know some person who could put a soldier willing to serve in foreign climes in the way of some good money, sir.’

  Later, much later, John Bold wished he had posed the questions on the tip of his tongue at that moment — ‘who’ and ‘where’? But he only snapped angrily, ‘Be off with you, fellow! I want nothing to do with the like of you!’

  The runt flinched and scuttled off, ratlike, as abruptly as he had appeared. John Bold was left more puzzled than ever.

  Bettina met him at the inn door when he returned, as if she had been waiting to catch him. ‘John!’ she whispered, pronouncing his name in the German fashion, ‘in here, please.’ She pushed him into a little side room, which smelled strongly of urine — the corner was stacked with the white chamber pots that were sent up nightly to the bedrooms. After the Prussians sounded the curfew, even the outside privy was out of bounds.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, seeing the alarm on the girl’s open face and the concern in her eyes.

  She closed the door and pressed herself against it, almost as if she thought someone might attempt to throw it open by force. ‘A man has been asking about you. He gave me this.’ She opened her palm neatly to reveal and old-fashioned gold Louis d’Or. ‘He wanted me to open the door of your room so he could see inside.’

  John listened to the urgent flow of words with growing bewilderment. He didn’t like it one bit. ‘Slowly. Doucement!’ he said, taking her by her bare arms and pressing her firmly. The girl was bordering on hysterics. ‘Let us take the man first. What kind of a man was he?’

  She shrugged helplessly, her pretty bottom lip trembling, close to tears. ‘Please don’t be angry with me, John. I see so many people here.’

  ‘I am not angry. I just want you to answer my questions slowly and sensibly. Now what kind of a man was he — this fellow with his gold piece?’

  She swallowed hard, trying to pull herself together. ‘A little man ... about forty ... A foreigner. French ... at least that was the language he spoke.’ Again she shrugged a little helplessly. ‘But then here in Aachen, all the foreigners who cross the border speak French even if they are not so. I let him give me the coin, John — I hope you are not offended, but Herr Schroeder pays so little and my mother in Stolberg ... I took him up to your room, to the door, and then I pretended my key was the wrong one and wouldn’t fit the door.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘Nothing. He went away and that was that.’ She shrugged her shoulders and he caught a glimpse of delightful white orbs beneath her fichu, and felt a sudden sensation of lust.

  ‘I shall see you tonight in my room,’ he whispered as she opened the door.

  Already the innkeeper was beginning his usual litany of curses which always commenced whenever the girl disappeared for more than a minute. ‘Bettina ... Bettina, wo bist du, du faules Frauenzimmer? ... Bettina!’

  Bettina knew that this was the last night they would spend together. She knew, too, that all her life would be like this — a succession of travelling gentlemen who bedded her and then departed. Serving wenches were to be ogled, pinched and squeezed, perhaps slept with, but not married. That would offend the morality of good, solid Catholic Aachen.

  So she came to be loved, carried to his bed easily, laughing softly so that Herr Shroeder wouldn’t hear — a simple country child with full women’s breasts and desires. She arched under his body, her knees splayed, fingers pressing greedily into his back as he thrust and thrust hard for the strong cushion of her thighs with animal brutality, her breath coming in short gasps, rising by the instant in intensity.

  In ecstasy, she screamed, body arched, trying to devour him with her sex, and wanting this moment to go on forever. But already he had collapsed upon her like a dead weight, all strength drained, his heart beating as if it might burst from his breast-cage at any second.

  Down in the darkness of the courtyard, unworried about the curfew, the listener in the shadows smiled and licked his thick lips. ‘Like a bleeding fiddler’s elbow,’ he whispered huskily, recognizing the sound for what it was. ‘Like a bleeding fiddler’s elbow. Lucky dog!’ He could imagine the two of them, the dozy with her plump white legs still sticking up in the air and the young buck plastered all over her, gasping for brea
th and feeling his spigot wilting by the instant and wishing fervently that this was not the way of men. ‘But it is, old son,’ he whispered, talking to himself in the fashion of lonely men always on the fringes of things, watching and waiting.

  Soon he’d better be on his way. He would not like to chance trying to bribe Prussian Army patrols twice of an evening. The Prussian bleeders weren’t as easily greased as were the frogs, all of whom could be bought.

  Then from above came the sound of weeping, soft and muffled, as if stifled by a handkerchief, the way women wept when they knew it was all over ... He recognized the sound well enough and thought he knew the cause. The young buck had rogered her, now he was telling her how much he loved her, but he had to leave in the morning. Even while he’d be telling her, he’d have his hand on spigot, playing with it, trying to get it to stand to attention again.

  The listener in the dark tugged the end of his nose cynically. ‘Weep for him, my plump stupid pigeon, weep for him ... Soon I’ll give you something to weep your bleeding heart out for, you silly cow!’ He smiled evilly in the darkness, then raised his hand as if in salute. ‘Good night, Mr Jean-Paul bleeding O’Hara. Better enjoy the dozy this night, for likely it’s your last ...’ His accents were purest cockney. A moment later he had vanished into the night.

  SEVEN

  Lightning slashed the night sky in jagged stabs. Thunder rolled back and forth in the tight valley of the Rhine as the summer storm raged. But the eight wet-glistening horses, pulling the coach with the post-horn emblem of the Thurn and Taxis on the door, were undeterred. Steadily they pulled the old coach up the steep incline.