To Do and Die. Patrick Mercer
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Название: To Do and Die
Автор: Patrick Mercer
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Историческая литература
isbn: 9780007322688
isbn:
‘Tony, take me with you, I can't be without you.’ The mirth quickly faded. All the bounce, all the confidence had gone from her, her face crumpled as she pushed her head into his shoulder.
A great surge of joy and pleasure welled up through Tony as the idea seized him, but then it died as quickly as it was born. ‘Don't be daft, girl, we're going to war. There'll be time enough to catch up once I'm back.’
It was as if he'd punched her. From sweet softness and warmth she turned to blazing fury, hurling herself from the bed, her eyes alight, her whole body shaking with anger. ‘If I'm not good enough for you, Lieutenant-almighty-bloody-Morgan, I know someone who thinks I am. Well then, I shall accept ordinary James Keenan of Clonakilty's proposal of marriage – he's twice the man you'll ever be!’ She gathered her clothes around the gifts that nature had so generously given her and stormed from the room.
Morgan winced as the bedroom door banged yet again in the early morning. There was no denying how he felt about the girl, but he had hoped that the war would somehow magically resolve things. Knowing Mary, though, she would certainly carry-out her threat and no doubt conspire to embark with the regiment for whatever adventures lay ahead, married – goddamn her – to the soldier who would always be at his elbow. He groaned and turned into his pillow.
Handshakes, then Finn driving the jaunty. More goodbyes and stowing of gear before the coach took them on to the station at Cork and then to the Dublin packet which was full of officers and men from the Irish garrisons and others, like them, who were returning from leave. In the last, easy familiarity before the tendrils of the regiment coiled round both of them, Keenan and Morgan smoked together at the rail.
‘So, sir, Glassdrumman will miss you and I expect Miss Hawtrey will as well.’
‘Well, Keenan, we'll have to see, there's much ground to travel. And what of you, I was surprised that you didn't get down to Clonakilty to see your people. Did you write?’
Keenan tinkered with his stubby, clay pipe. ‘I did, sir, Mary gave me a hand with the letter, so. Jewel of a girl, that Mary.’
Morgan darted him a look, expecting some embarrassing reproach. But no, Keenan's face was set and sincere.
‘Sir, I need to ask you something. Mary's coming to join me in England and we're to marry. Will we be allowed to live together in barracks?’
Morgan couldn't believe what he was being told. So, Mary had been true to her word yet Private Keenan gave no sign of knowing what his future wife's actual relationship with his master really was. His departure for war, for deeds and glory, should have simplified things. Instead, the piquant little treat that he'd been pleased to dip into every time he came back to Ireland on leave was going to follow him back to the Regiment, married to his own servant.
‘You will, Keenan, but if we do get sent to war, there'll only be a handful of wives allowed to come with us and you'd better get used to the idea that a newly wed wife is unlikely to be selected.’ But even as Morgan replied to Keenan, he knew that if Mary was half the girl he thought she was, then she would somehow manage to be with them. He sighed deeply to himself.
There was a stamp of feet as the sentries stepped smartly from their wooden boxes outside the barrack gates and presented arms. Morgan touched his hat in acknowledgement of the salute whilst noting how both men had been alert enough to see an officer in plain clothes approaching in a civilian carriage. What he had failed to see was James Keenan's silent but frantic signals to his confederates from the open top of the vehicle: anything to avoid an officer's displeasure.
As they rattled through the gates of the modern, red-brick and tile barracks, Keenan couldn't resist the time-honoured greeting to those whose lot it was to stand guard. ‘It'll never get better if you pick-et, you bastards!’ whilst he flicked the oldest of discourtesies.
‘For the love of God stop it, Keenan,’ Morgan had half-expected something ribald from his servant as they approached Weedon Barracks – he had been in tearing spirits ever since they had boarded the carriage at Northampton station a couple of hours before.
‘We're not at Glassdrumman now and I've trouble enough with the adjutant without you adding to it!’ He was more giving voice to his own thoughts than trying to reprove Keenan, who in any event ignored his master, leaping from the carriage as it approached the Officers' Mess and busying himself with bags and cases.
‘Your honour will want to be in uniform? The other gentlemen are wearing their shell-jackets, sir, so I'll lay yours out with your sword and cap. Try not to tear that trouser strap again, sir, I had a devil of a job with it last time!’
Keenan's veneer of discipline had always been thin. The time at home in Ireland together had only helped to erode it further, but he could at least be trusted to help Morgan get the all-important details of dress right. He'd noticed that other regiments didn't seem so particular about things as the 95th, but then they had a depth of history and savoir-faire that his corps didn't. Raised only thirty or so years before, what they lacked in self-confidence was made up for by what was officially described as ‘attention to detail’ but which often translated into military myopia.
Keenan prattled as he stored Morgan's clothes and kit in his rooms in the Mess. The doings of this cousin and that, the purchase and subsequent escape of his mother's new sow and Mary Cade's near-perfection – as if Tony needed to be reminded – were a distracting enough backdrop to his dressing. As he levered himself into his plain blue overalls, they both became aware of a commotion below his window. A single voice bellowed encouragement, then others rapidly joined in.
‘That'll be Mister Carmichael: some boy him. Must be the new draft he's got his hooks into.’ Keenan, a second-best sash half-coiled around his fist, stared out of the window into the brassy March-morning sunshine.
Richard Carmichael, paragon and fellow subaltern of the Grenadier Company, stood there in Harrow colours and the lightest and most expensive running pumps. Steaming gently, he bellowed encouragement at the assortment of soldiers who bundled in behind him. Some wore canvas slops, others football shorts and pullovers but all were spattered with mud from the cross-country run. Carmichael had obviously raced them individually over the last part of the course. Fit as a hare and knowing every inch of the route, he'd had no difficulty in coming in a long way ahead of the new men. But why, wondered Morgan wryly, had he chosen to finish the race outside the adjutant's and colonel's office?
‘Where are the new boys from, Keenan?’
‘I don't recognise any of 'em. Sir, but most have come from the Eighty-Second and some from the Sixth, Forty-Eighth and Thirty-Sixth they say. Bag o' shite says I.’
Shite or not, they looked pretty good to Morgan. All volunteers, they seemed big and healthy and would more than plug the gaps left by the 95th's sick. Throwing the window open, he was about to shout across to his brother subaltern when his ear caught a strange thing. As each man came puffing home, Carmichael seemed to be addressing them in their native accents. The Irish and Scots were simple enough to imitate, the odd Geordie got a passable greeting, those from the slums of Derby and Birmingham probably recognized their own flattened vowels, but he saved his best effort СКАЧАТЬ