Castle Orchard (31 page)

Robert said, ‘Let us pretend the Philosopher’s Tower is the Castle of Badejos. It’s April and the Siege of Badejos was on the night of the sixth. The river runs by it and that can be the stream. If we had a ladder we could lay it across the river in order to get over. Then we must drag it up the glacis and escalade the castle.’

‘But the river is too wide,’ Phil said. He had no wish for a game that involved the river.

‘And we have no ladders,’ said Stephen.

Robert, fired with ideas, began to run about the stable yard looking for a ladder. There was one to the hayloft, which was long, but perhaps not long enough. He dropped it down and it fell with a clatter to the ground.

‘Dan will be angry if you take it,’ Phil said.

‘Who’s afraid of Dan, who can’t hear or speak?’ Robert said, pulling the ladder across the cobbles. ‘Come on, Stephen, take the other end, and you, Frankie. The twins could do better. Don’t mind Phil. He is too much of a weakling ever to do anything.’

They heaved the ladder out of the yard, across the lawn and into the paddock.

‘Phil must be the French,’ Stephen said. ‘He must be in the castle and fire at us with muskets. We will cross the river with the ladder under the heaviest of cannonade but we are so brave nothing will stop us.’

‘Yes,’ Robert cried. ‘We are the Third Division.’

‘We are the Third Division,’ cried out Frankie, pink in the face and gasping for breath, for the ladder was heavy. ‘We will have on our red coats. We are ever so brave as could be.’

‘I don’t want to be the French,’ Phil said, by this time helping with the ladder.

‘Then you must cross the river,’ Robert said, laughing at him.

‘Phil will be wounded and drown in the river,’ Stephen said. ‘His head will go under and he will go bubble, bubble and that will be the end of him. He will be filled up with water.’

‘No, Phil is in the castle. We will escalade the castle and make him our prisoner.’

Phil trotted meekly beside them. He would defend the castle and then he would be a prisoner. He entered the Philosopher’s Tower and climbed up to the first floor. He had a stick in his hand which he poked through the window, all the while watching the Conway boys first cross the bridge with the ladder and then find a part of the river narrow enough to take its length. It was too short by about nine inches. They went back and forth, industrious and determined, trying here and trying there, several times in danger of losing it in the current.

Phil narrowed his eyes. He stared down at the enemy and felt his musket in his hand. At last a place was found for the ladder quite near to the tower. He watched Robert lodge it carefully, testing it with his foot. His heart began to bang in his chest. He made the motion of taking out a cartridge and biting off the cap, loading his weapon and ramming down the charge. He was a Frenchman and he was defending the castle. He aimed, Robert in his sights running back and forth across the ladder to show his younger brothers it was safe. He then went back and crawled across, the others following – and at that moment Phil shot him, but he still came crawling on. As if by magic the twins appeared. They ran across the bridge and made to crawl after their cousins. Robert shouted at them to go away, they were too little, but they crawled across all the same. They all came up the slope to the Philosopher’s Tower on their hands and knees. Robert ran back down the slope, remembering they needed the ladder for the escalade. He dragged it off the river by himself and started to pull it.

‘We are the Third Division and this is the glacis,’ Stephen called to the twins.

‘The Third Division, the Third Division,’ said Jacky.

‘The glacis,’ said James.

‘And Phil is the French. He is defending the castle.’

‘Phil is the French,’ said Jacky.

Up they came, up the glacis with the ladder through nettle and bramble. Phil fired and fired with his musket, each time reloading. He saw the English soldiers in short scarlet jackets. They put their ladder to the castle wall. He shot them and shot them but they never died. He was wild with the excitement of it. The French were brave, they were not cowards, Captain Allington had said, and was he not a Frenchman defending the castle while the English crept up the walls.

Captain Allington jumped down from the britchka at the lodge gates. It was a perfect April, a perfect day, and Castle Orchard was before him. He was in good health, such good health it surprised him, yet his heart lifted but little at the sight of the familiar drive and the tall trees of the wood, now flushed with green.

As he walked towards the house he started to argue with himself, to put out the opposing forces that beset his mind. His inclinations, his honour, his sense of logic, were vedettes, Light Dragoons, opposing forces prettily skirmishing with one another, yet it was his sense of reason, of logic, that always won, that declined to lie down and die. Instead of feeling elated at his return to Castle Orchard he was wondering why he had been born or why a French sabre had not spliced his head more effectively, if nothing was ever to end satisfactorily.

Of late he had thought it better never to return to Castle Orchard, yet return he did.

The swallows would soon be skimming over the river – and he had pledged to return. The drive, the wood, were now orderly and trim, the undergrowth no longer spilling forth. He reached the carriage sweep with the sundial in the centre. It was half past three. Here, on this spot, Mrs Arthur had watched the britchka drive away and he had not even said goodbye. He had needed to come back.

It was at that moment, while he stood by the sundial, that he heard Phil scream. It was a scream of terror but also of despair. Allington immediately started to run in the direction of the river. It crossed his mind how well he recognised the very nature of the scream, for he had heard such screams before, from women and children caught in the labyrinth of war. For a short while, in running, he could conquer his lameness and move as a sound man.

The three older Conway boys were on the bridge, leaning over the balustrade, clinging to Phil by his boots and ankles. Phil was hanging upside down with his head a few feet from the water. His hands were tied behind his back with a pocket handkerchief. He made little movement, just the feeblest jerks of his body.

Robert was white. It was a game that had run away with them. He thought of letting his brothers hold on while he waded into the water and caught up Phil from below, but Stephen and Frankie were only nine and eight years old, they might not be strong enough to hold Phil on their own, and between the three of them, they were unable to pull him up, to undo what they had done. He could call to the twins but what use were they, playing on the bankside as if nothing were happening? Robert was on the verge of panicking as he weighed up what they might do and the consequences of failure. The river was not particularly deep, but the current was swift and none of them could swim. He did not hear Allington’s footsteps until they were nearly upon him and then, when strong arms hoisted Phil back over the balustrade Robert was at first weak with relief and then, with terrible mortification, he saw it was Captain Allington who had rescued them.

Allington busied himself with Phil, who was limp and pale. When his eyes opened he started to weep pathetically, covering his face with his hands. Allington shook him. He said, ‘You are all right.’

Phil muttered, ‘But I drowned. The water drowned me.’

‘No, it didn’t drown you, silly,’ Frankie said. ‘You are not even wet.’

Allington looked at the Conway boys. His cold eye fell on Robert and he said, ‘Well?’

Robert said nothing. He was sunk, reduced, and fought within his mind for some desperate means of redeeming himself. He considered, yet more mortifying, lying, or putting a different light on their game that had not really been a game, but there was the telltale handkerchief that Captain Allington had unknotted from Phil’s skinny wrists.

At last Robert said, ‘He was too heavy, though he doesn’t look heavy at all.’

Allington propped himself against the parapet of the bridge. He did nothing further for Phil apart from allowing him to bury his face in the folds of his coat.

Stephen said cheerfully, artlessly, ‘He was our prisoner.’

‘And how did that come about?’

‘It was just as you told us. There was the Castle of Badejos, there was the river. Robert knows its name. We laid the ladder over it and we all crossed it that way, even Jacky and James, though they are too little. Robert called to them but they wouldn’t stop. They never listen. We nearly forgot the ladder but Robert went back for it. We needed it for the escalade. We pulled it up. It’s ever so heavy and it got stuck in the brambles but we got it there.’

‘And Phil was the French?’ Allington said.

‘Oh yes, we always make him to be the French. The ladder was long enough. Robert got through the window but we went round by the door. Robert said we were to take the enemy from behind. So, you see, we made Phil our prisoner. We tied him up.’

‘And then you didn’t know what to do with him?’

‘Phil is afraid of the river. We didn’t mean to drown him.’

‘I dare say not, merely to torment him.’ Allington turned his attention to Robert. ‘You, I suppose, were the captain in charge of this company?’

Robert said quietly, ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Your conduct,’ Allington said, ‘is unbefitting an officer or a gentleman. If you were a grown man and I your senior, I would have your sword removed and I would place you in arrest, pending a court martial. As it is, you are a boy, but not too young to understand that the torment of a younger child should be as foreign to you as to an officer allowing the torture of a prisoner in his care. Take the ladder and put it back where you found it. Don’t come back.’

Allington took Phil by the shoulder and started to walk towards the house.

Phil, trotting along beside Captain Allington, could not refrain from clinging to his coat with one hand, the terror of the river still with him. At the same time he was ashamed of himself, ashamed of having been so frightened.

He paused by the sundial. He gave Allington’s hand a tug and whispered, ‘I mustn’t upset my mother, nor tell tales.’

‘And how is that to be managed?’ Allington asked him.

‘When I can’t tell truly, I don’t tell at all.’

They went indoors.

Mrs Arthur, having seen the britchka and spoken to Pride, had composed herself to meet Captain Allington, but the sight of Phil’s white face distracted her. She half-stood up and then sat down again, saying, ‘Phil, whatever has happened?’

Phil went to his mother but did not quite accept her embrace. He glanced anxiously towards Allington before saying, ‘Nothing much. You know I don’t like the river and the river gave me a fright.’

‘But you aren’t wet. You can’t have fallen in.’

‘No. Just a fright. I was silly, I expect.’

He looked at Allington again, who said, ‘Yes, he had a shock. He was nearly in the river.’

‘But I’m all right now.’

‘He needs a cup of tea,’ Allington said.

Phil said, ‘I shall go down to the kitchen and sit in the chair by the stove. Cook will give me a cup of tea. Then I shall be better.’ He would go away from his mother, and Captain Allington would answer the questions.

Mrs Arthur let him go, a little reluctant, a little suspicious. ‘What did happen by the river?’ she asked.

‘I don’t think I should tell you what Phil isn’t prepared to tell you himself. That would be dishonourable.’

‘Oh, gentlemen and their honour,’ Mrs Arthur replied, exasperated, and then, looking at him carefully, she said, ‘You are better?’

‘Yes, I am better.’

‘We would like to have known how you were.’

‘The agent would have told you if I had died.’

Mrs Arthur, nonplussed, hesitated before replying. She then said, ‘Are you truly better?’

Though he looked well, she felt something not right.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I am better than I’ve been for years.’

‘Cornwall suits you. Perhaps you wish to live there.’

‘No. I wish to live here. This suits me perfectly well.’

‘And my affairs, are they completed? You must be ready to have Castle Orchard to yourself.’

‘At the end of the month everything we need to know, every last bit of the puzzle, will be in place. I haven’t troubled you with it.’

‘And is it so much of a puzzle?’

‘It’s not a puzzle to me, but it is to everybody else.’

‘It has been so kind of you to take so much trouble. I shall be very relieved.’

‘So you must be. You have been in a state of limbo. You will be free to leave Castle Orchard.’

Mrs Arthur looked at him, uncertain how to reply. How could she possibly want to leave Castle Orchard? In the end she said nothing, turning her back on him and going to the window. She was wearing, he noticed, the faded blue smock over the gown she had worn when he had seen her under the apple trees with Emmy, the day he had come to Castle Orchard the previous autumn. He had been filled with poetry and all things he could express only in his head. He joined her at the window but he was silent. Mrs Arthur still wished to make some sort of reply, but the suddenness of his appearance, Phil and the river, nothing being as it had been, deprived her of words.

Captain Allington then said, ‘I’m watching the wagtails on the lawn, bobbing up and down, their tails too long for their bodies. They remind me of young officers struggling to manage their swords.’

He might, she supposed, have been going to say something further, but the door opened and Emmy ran in. She held out her arms and Allington scooped her up and kissed her. She said, ‘Well, you are bad and naughty. You wrote no letter. Say me a poem.’

Allington said: