The Bloody Ground. Bernard Cornwell

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СКАЧАТЬ she wailed the word. “No!”

      He gradually eased the tale out of the waiflike girl. Lucifer brought the coffee, then squatted in the office corner, his presence a constant reminder of Starbuck’s promise that they were supposed to be leaving this hateful place. Martha cuffed at her tears, sipped at the coffee, and told the sad tale of how she had been raised in Hamburg, Tennessee, a small river village a few miles north of the Mississippi border. “I’m an orphan, sir,” she told Starbuck, “and was raised by my grandma, but she took queer last winter and died round Christmas.” After that, Martha said, she had been put to work by a family in Corinth, Mississippi, “but I weren’t never happy, sir. They treated me bad, real bad. The master, sir, he—” she faltered.

      “I can guess,” Starbuck said.

      She sniffed, then told how, in May, the rebel forces had fallen back on the town and she had met Matthew Potter. “He spoke so nice, sir, so nice,” she said, and marriage to Potter had seemed like a dream come true as well as an escape from her vile employer and so, within days of meeting him, Martha had stood in the parlor of a Baptist minister’s house and married her soldier.

      Then she discovered her new husband was a drunkard. “He didn’t drink those first few days, sir, but that was because they locked all the liquor up. Then he found some and he didn’t never look back. Not that he’s bad drunk, sir, not like some men. I mean he don’t hit anyone when he’s drunk, he just don’t ever get sober. Colonel Hardcastle threw him out of the regiment for drunkenness, and I can’t blame him, but Matthew’s a good man really.”

      “But where is he, ma’am?” Starbuck asked.

      “That’s it, sir. I don’t know.” She began sobbing again, but managed to tell how, after Potter had been dismissed from the 3rd Mississippian Infantry Battalion, he had used Martha’s small savings to take them back home to Georgia, where his father had refused to receive either Potter or his new wife. “We stayed in Atlanta awhile, sir, then his pa told us to get ourselves up here and see Colonel Holborrow. He sent us the money to come here, sir, which was real Christian of him, I thought. Then Matthew and me got here three days since and I ain’t seen him once in all those days.”

      “So he’s drunk in Richmond?” Starbuck suggested flatly.

      “I guess, sir, yes.”

      “But where have you been staying?” Starbuck asked.

      “At a Mrs. Miller’s house, sir, in Charity Street, only Mrs. Miller says her rooms ain’t charity, if you follow me, and if we don’t pay her the rent by this morning she’ll throw me out, sir, and so I came here. But I don’t want to be no trouble.” She looked as if she would cry again, but instead she frowned at Starbuck. “You ain’t Colonel Holborrow, are you, sir?”

      “No, I’m not, ma’am,” Starbuck paused, then offered Martha what he hoped was a reassuring smile. He liked her, partly because she seemed so very fragile and timid, and partly, he guiltily confessed to himself, because there was an appealing prettiness under her mask of misery. There was also, he suspected, a streak of stubborn toughness that she would probably need to survive marriage to Matthew Potter. “I’m a friend of yours, ma’am,” he told her. “You have to believe that. I’ve been pretending to be your husband and doing his work so that he wouldn’t get into trouble. Can you understand that? But now we have to go and find him.”

      “Hallelujah,” Lucifer murmured.

      “You’ve been doing his work, sir?” Martha asked, incredulous that anyone would perform such a kindness for her wastrel husband.

      “Yes,” Starbuck said. “And now we’re all going to walk out of here and go find your Matthew. And if anyone speaks to us, ma’am, then I beg you to keep silent. Do you promise to do that for me?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “Then let’s go, shall we?” Starbuck handed Martha her thin cloak, collected his papers, paused to make certain no one was outside the door, then ushered Lucifer and Martha through the hall and across the verandah. It promised to be a hot, sunlit day. Starbuck hurried toward the nearest huts, hoping to make good his escape without being seen, but then a voice shouted at him from the house. “Potter!”

      Martha uttered an exclamation and Starbuck had to remind her of the promise to say nothing. “And stay here,” he went on, “both of you.” Then he turned and walked back toward the house.

      It was Captain Dennison who had called and who now jumped down the verandah steps. The captain looked as if he had just risen from his bed, for he was in his shirtsleeves and was pulling bright red suspenders over his shoulders as he hurried toward Starbuck. “I want you, Potter,” he called.

      “Looks like you found me,” Starbuck said as he confronted the angry captain.

      “You call me ‘sir.’” Dennison was standing close to Starbuck now and the smell of the ointment the captain had smeared on his diseased face was almost overpowering. It was a peculiarly sour smell, not kerosene, and suddenly Starbuck placed it, and the memory of his time in the Richmond prison came flooding back in a wave of nausea. “You call me ‘sir’!” Dennison said again, thrusting a finger hard into Starbuck’s chest.

      “Yes, sir.”

      Dennison grimaced. “You threatened me last night, Potter.”

      “Did I, sir?”

      “Yes you damn well did. So either you come into the house, Potter, right now and apologize in front of the other officers, or else you face the consequences.”

      Starbuck pretended to consider the alternatives, then shrugged. “Guess I’ll take the consequences, Captain, sir.”

      Dennison gave a grim smile. “You are a miserable fool, Potter, a fool. Very well. Do you know Bloody Run?”

      “I can find it, sir.”

      “You find it at six o’clock tonight, Potter, and if you have trouble just ask anyone where the Richmond dueling grounds are. They’re by the Bloody Run under the Chimborazo Hill at the other end of the city. Six o’ clock. Bring a second if you can find anyone stupid enough to support you. Colonel Holborrow will be my second. And one other thing, Potter.”

      “Sir?”

      “Try and be sober. I don’t relish killing a drunk.”

      “Six o’ clock, sir, sober,” Starbuck said. “I look forward to it, sir. One thing, sir?”

      Dennison turned back. “Yes?” He asked suspiciously.

      “You issued the challenge, sir, so I get to choose weapons. Ain’t that the way it’s done?”

      “So choose,” Dennison said carelessly.

      “Swords,” Starbuck said instantly and with sufficient confidence to make Dennison blink with surprise. “Swords, Captain!” He called airily as he turned and walked away. The smell of the medicine had betrayed Dennison’s secret and Starbuck was suddenly looking forward to the day.

      LIEUTENANT-COLONEL SWYNYARD STOOD AT THE RIVER’S edge and thanked his God that he had been spared to witness this moment. A small breeze rippled the water to splinter up a myriad of bright sparkles reflected from a sun that blazed in a cloudless СКАЧАТЬ