Battle Flag. Bernard Cornwell

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      Starbuck glanced up at the miserable procession. “Lem Pierce got drunk. Matthews sold cartridges for a pint of whiskey, and Evans threatened to hit Captain Medlicott.”

      “Pity he didn’t,” Sergeant Truslow interjected. Daniel Medlicott had been the miller at Faulconer Court House, where he had earned a reputation as a hard man with money, though in the spring elections for field officers he had distributed enough promises and whiskey to have himself promoted from sergeant to captain.

      “And I don’t know what Trent did,” Starbuck finished.

      “Abram Trent’s just a poxed son of a whore,” Truslow said to Coffman. “He stole some food from Sergeant Major Tolliver, but that ain’t why he’s being punished. He’s being punished, lad, because he got caught.”

      “You are listening to the gospel according to Sergeant Thomas Truslow,” Starbuck told the Lieutenant. “Thou shalt steal all thou can, but thou shalt not get caught.” Starbuck grinned, then hissed with pain as he jabbed his thumb with a needle. He was struggling to sew the sole of his right boot back onto its uppers, for which task he had borrowed one of the three precious needles possessed by the company.

      Sergeant Truslow, sitting on the far side of the fire from the two officers, mocked his Captain’s efforts. “You’re a lousy cobbler.”

      “I never pretended to be otherwise.”

      “You’ll break the goddamn needle, pushing like that.”

      “You want to do it?” Starbuck asked, offering the half-finished work to the Sergeant.

      “Hell no, I ain’t paid to patch your boots.”

      “Then shut the hell up,” Starbuck said, trying to work the needle through one of the old stitching holes in the sole.

      “It’ll only break first thing in the morning,” Truslow said after a moment’s silence.

      “Not if I do it properly.”

      “No chance of that,” Truslow said. He broke off a piece of tobacco and put it in his cheek. “You’ve got to protect the thread, see? So it don’t chafe on the road.”

      “That’s what I’m doing.”

      “No, you ain’t. You’re just lashing the boot together. There are blind men without fingers who could make a better job than you.”

      Lieutenant Coffman listened nervously to the conversation. He had been told that the Captain and Sergeant were friends—indeed, that they had been friends ever since the Yankee Starbuck had been sent to persuade the Yankee-hating Truslow to leave his high-mountain farm and join Faulconer’s Legion—but to Coffman it seemed an odd sort of friendship if it was expressed with such mutual scorn. Now the intimidating Sergeant turned to the nervous Lieutenant. “A proper officer,” Truslow confided to Coffman, “would have a darkie to do his sewing.”

      “A proper officer,” Starbuck said, “would kick your rotten teeth down your gullet.”

      “Anytime, Captain,” Truslow said, laughing.

      Starbuck tied off the thread and peered critically at his handiwork. “It ain’t perfect,” he allowed, “but it’ll do.”

      “It’ll do,” Truslow agreed, “so long as you don’t walk on it.”

      Starbuck laughed. “Hell, we’ll be fighting a battle in a day or two, then I’ll get myself a pair of brand-new Yankee boots.” He gingerly pulled the repaired boot onto his foot and was pleasantly surprised that the sole did not immediately peel away. “Good as new,” he said, then flinched, not because of the boot, but because a sudden scream sounded across the campsite. The scream was cut abruptly short; there was a pause, then a sad wailing sound sobbed briefly.

      Coffman looked aghast, for the noise had sounded like it came from a creature being tortured, which indeed it had. “Colonel Swynyard,” Sergeant Truslow explained to the new lieutenant, “is beating one of his niggers.”

      “The Colonel drinks,” Starbuck added.

      “The Colonel is a drunk,” Truslow amended.

      “And it’s anyone’s guess whether the liquor will kill him before one of his slaves does,” Starbuck said, “or one of us, for that matter.” He spat into the fire. “I’d kill the bastard willingly enough.”

      “Welcome to the Faulconer Brigade,” Truslow said to Coffman.

      The Lieutenant did not know how to respond to such cynicism, so he just sat looking troubled and nervous, then flinched as a thought crossed his mind. “Will we really be fighting in a day or two?” he asked.

      “Probably tomorrow.” Truslow jerked his head toward the northern sky, which was being reddened by the reflected glow of an army’s fires. “It’s what you’re paid to do, son,” Truslow added when he saw Coffman’s nervousness.

      “I’m not paid,” Coffman said and immediately blushed for the admission.

      Truslow and Starbuck were both silent for a few seconds; then Starbuck frowned. “What the hell do you mean?” he asked.

      “Well, I do get paid,” Coffman said, “but I don’t get the money, see?”

      “No, I don’t see.”

      The Lieutenant was embarrassed. “It’s my mother.”

      “She gets the money, you mean?” Starbuck asked.

      “She owes General Faulconer money,” Coffman explained, “because we rent one of his houses on the Rosskill road and Mother fell behind with the rent, so Faulconer keeps my salary.”

      There was another long pause. “Christ on his cross.” Truslow’s blasphemy broke the silence. “You mean that miserable rich bastard is taking your three lousy bucks a week for his own?”

      “It’s only fair, isn’t it?” Coffman asked.

      “No, it damn well ain’t,” Starbuck said. “If you want to send your mother the money, that’s fair, but it ain’t fair for you to fight for nothing! Shit!” He swore angrily.

      “I don’t really need any money.” Coffman nervously defended the arrangement.

      “’Course you do, boy,” Truslow said. “How else are you going to buy whores and whiskey?”

      “Have you talked to Pecker about this?” Starbuck demanded.

      Coffman shook his head. “No.”

      “Hell, then I will,” Starbuck said. “Ain’t going to have you being shot at for free.” He climbed to his feet. “I’ll be back in a half hour. Oh, shit!” This last imprecation was not in anger for Washington Faulconer’s greed but because his right sole had come loose on his first proper step. “Goddamn shit!” he said angrily, then stalked off to find Colonel Bird.

      Truslow grinned at Starbuck’s inept cobbling, then spat tobacco juice into the fire’s margin. “He’ll get your cash, son,” СКАЧАТЬ