To Do and Die. Patrick Mercer

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СКАЧАТЬ his invisible foe,

      ‘I tell you, sir, a big turbaned fellah came up to our officer for to bayonet him, bold as you please. But like the griffin I was, I pushed my lance too hard – the fucking pennon came out the other side and I was left capering like a damn fool round the poor man, so. I shoulda dropped the thing and used my sword – that's when I got this.’

      Morgan had seen the three-inch weal across Finn's shoulder often enough, but as he peeled back his collar, Kemp hissed between his teeth in admiration.

      ‘Ah, Morgan, Finn and I were just recounting the delights of Aliwal. I bet you haven't seen as smooth a job as this, though?’ Kemp rolled up his trouser leg to show a purple, mottled, scaly shin-bone deeply etched across.

      ‘I'd ordered our boys to form square to keep the Sikh horse at bay when their guns caught us on the nose. I went down like a sack of shite – poor Goldie was dead before she hit the ground and me stuck below her. Tricky moment, that, but the doctors did wonders. If we'd had the boy surgeons that some of the Queen's regiments did, I don't doubt I'd have lost it. Beautiful job, ain't it?’

      Colonel and sergeant preened and bragged. The bond of shared experience quite overcame any difference in military or social rank, both men grinning with an almost childish pleasure over their mutual brushes with death. Morgan pondered their casual acceptance of the pain and destruction that they had both suffered and inflicted, remembering the fearful casualties that the Sikhs and British had imposed on each other. In the depot at Fermoy he'd seen young men, some without limbs, one blinded, another with a face that looked as if it had been scythed; then he'd watched the guns at Chobham firing canister and shell at paper targets: Colonel Kemp had been just such to the Sikh gunners only a few years ago. Now he wondered whether Keenan and he would have to face such horror and how he would react. Kemp and Finn were just about to put the Sikhs to the sword again when James Keenan bustled into the room.

      ‘Sable's ready for you outside, your honour an' we've got Thunder for you, Colonel Kemp, sir, like you said, Mr Finn,’ Keenan had fitted very easily into life at Glassdrumman, accepting Finn's experience and authority and hanging on his every word when war or horseflesh was being discussed.

      ‘Aye, lad, we'll be with you directly …’ Kemp waved him away, he hadn't yet finished his war story.

      ‘No, sir, the Master's keen that you're not late for your meeting with the ladies …’ Keenan spoke with surprising firmness: Billy Morgan had told him to hasten Kemp and Tony and hasten them he would, officers or not.

      Kemp paused for a moment, not used to being gainsaid by either soldiers or servants, before remembering in whose house he was a guest.

      ‘Quite so, James Keenan, we're at the ladies' command. Come on young Morgan, stop delaying us with all that gammon, you've a gusset to sniff.’ Kemp's crude familiarity was greeted with a peal of laughter from all the men, taking the edge off the atmosphere. In his middle fifties, Indian living had given Kemp a generous figure: now it filled the doorframe as he stumped outside with Morgan.

      An under-groom held Thunder's stirrup for Kemp whilst Keenan steadied Sable, the big gelding, for Tony. He levered himself aboard as he thought about the colonel's words: it was an odd thing, but in all the time he'd known Maude Hawtrey he'd never even thought about her gusset. Her inheritance, certainly; her place in society, for sure; but he could never remember lusting after her. There was none of the constant ache that he felt for Mary Cade who, even now, was crossing the stableyard with a great bunch of freshly-cut daffodils in her hands. Tony smiled across at her, but she looked straight through him.

      ‘There, your honour, don't let Sable run away with you …’ Keenan tightened Tony's girth and smoothed the saddle-leather back into position as he noticed his master's look, ‘An' she's a great wee girl, ain't she? Have a grand day,’ and he turned away to follow Mary inside.

      ‘God, I love these mornings, don't you, Morgan?’ Kemp turned to Tony and yelled above the noise of their horses' cantering hooves as they vied with each other over the rich, Irish turf, ‘I never thought I'd want to see a drop o' rain again when I left Ireland, but you get so goddamn bored with the dust and the sun and the constant smell of shit in India that you're almost glad to be pissed-wet through and perished just for a change.’ They cantered over the field towards the rendezvous with Maude and her young cousin that Billy Morgan had arranged.

      ‘Aye, Colonel, but it must be good living and an easy command with sepoys, ain't it?’ Morgan asked more out of politeness than curiosity, for he'd never wanted to serve with one of John Company's regiments, despite the better style of living and the supposed adventure of life in India. No, he'd been quite clear with his father when the question of what he wanted to do for a job came up a few years before, it was one of the Queen's regiments or nothing at all. Why, he'd prefer to be a damned vicar than be marooned in Hindoostan.

      ‘It's suited me well enough, but I miss the old country and have never been able to afford to be in a smart regiment like yours.’ Kemp had reined back a little, keener to talk to his friend's son than to run him ragged.

      ‘There's nothing smart about the Ninety-Fifth, Colonel, we're not like the Guards or cavalry, just ordinary Line, and “young” Line at that, not a battle to our name so far.’ The 95th had only been raised in 1823, every soldier and officer being acutely aware of the absence of honours on the regiment's Colours.

      ‘But there a good lot, ain't they? You fit well enough, don't you, or are you full of those bloody merchants' sons who take a rise out of us Paddies?’ The more lurid papers had been obsessed over the past few years with snobbery amongst the officer class; the friction that it had caused and the bullying in regiments that had become infamous for the ‘hazing’ of officers who didn't quite fit. Kemp had obviously been following all of this from India.

      ‘No, not really, Colonel. There's one or two cads about, but nothing like the happenings in the Forty-Sixth …’ Despite the news of war, the papers were still full of the scandal of a young officer from a ‘new money’ background whose peers had treated him so badly that he'd become demented, challenging even his commanding officer to an illegal duel. ‘We rub along well enough. The Bible-punchers are more of a bore.’

      ‘Aye, we get more than our fair share of those twots out east…’ Kemp had eased Thunder right back now, keen to hear what Morgan had to say, ‘… always trying to impose their damned religion on the sepoys, never understanding how much offence they can cause to both Muslim and Hindu.’

      ‘Yes, you've got to be so damned careful with the men, though. You expect some of the officers to be full of that righteous stuff and know to steer clear, but then some of the boys will pull the “good book” out of their haversacks and sit about reading with a face like a smacked arse rather than chasing tail an' drinking like normal men.’ Most of Morgan's men were the products of the overcrowded slums or had come straight from the plough, their vices and attitudes being wholly predictable. But a handful of them were different, usually the better-educated, Scottish boys who tended to band together when off-duty, often gravitating around a particular pious officer or sergeant: no better or worse soldiers for it, just a bit different. ‘And we've even got one or two who are keen on this damn teetotal nonsense,’ Morgan added.

      ‘Thank Jaysus there's little enough of that in the Punjab just now,’ replied Kemp. ‘Why, you need a good belt of grog just to keep the sun off. Never can understand how the natives manage without it. What are your non-commissioned men like?’

      ‘For the most part they're really good, Colonel, steady and loyal as you like. СКАЧАТЬ