Infernal Revolutions (6 page)

‘And these are, sweeping round the room, Little Bob the drummer boy…'

‘Aye!' cried Bob.

‘…Roger Masson…'

I was honoured with a shifty glance and a mumbled hello.

‘…Ned Lester…'

‘All right?'

‘…Claude Jepson…'

‘Oi Be Doi.'

‘…'ee be from Zummerzet, me dear…and finally Thomas Pomeroy, the most complete man since Odysseus…husband, father, adventurer, hypochondriac…'

A thin, shoulderless, gentle-looking man waved out a limp white hand.

‘Come, come, I'm not that bad, Dick. Though, Mr Oysterman, I do not mind confessing that ‘tis indeed my ambition to contract the gout and effect transfer to one of the Invalid Regiments – provided ‘tis not one out in the West Indies. Already I think I might have a rupture coming on, which I will show you if you wish.'

‘Never moind about tharrrt,' cried the supine Mr Jepson, the back of his scarecrow-like head resting on his folded hands, ‘Where be tharrt woife o' yours? Oim starvin'.'

‘On her way, Mr Jepson, never fear. In fact, that sounds like her now.'

He leapt up, grimaced as though he wished he hadn't, and limped to the door. He opened it to reveal a skeletal sourfaced woman carrying a steaming bowlful of some foodstuff or other. Clinging to her skirts was a boy of about eight, all eyes beneath a miniature tricorne hat.

‘My dear, meet our new recruit, Mr Harold Oysterman. Mr Oysterman, this is my wife, Anne Pomeroy, and my young son, Peter.'

I was regarded dolefully by the pair, and quickly forgotten.

‘They all sleep together in the married quarters, in case you're wondering,' informed Mr Lickley. ‘Though why they go to such lengths to maintain their privacy, I don't know. Certainly no action in the sexual field, is there, Thomas?'

‘Oh no, I should say not!' gasped Thomas, ‘we gave up that unpleasantness many years ago, didn't we, dearest?'

Mrs Pomeroy looked at her husband with hatred.

‘Never get married,' whispered Dick to me, noticing the look too. ‘This is what it always boils down to in the end, no matter how ecstatically it starts.'

But not marrying had got me into an even worse state. A lifetime of Amanda Philpott's daggered glares now seemed like bliss compared to the hell of being a soldier. If the pen and paper ever came, I would write to her immediately, in blood if necessary, begging forgiveness and promising marriage after all, on whatever terms she wanted.

‘Come on, love, put it down so we can get at it,' admonished Ned Lester, clearly starving too.

‘What about him?' Anne replied sourly, meaning me.

‘Oh, don't worry about me,' I said, ‘I'm not hungry.'

‘Oh, you will be, my boy,' said Ned Lester, laughing at such a naive remark, ‘you will be.'

‘We mess together,' explained Dick. ‘To supplement our army rations we each contribute a penny a week for Anne to go out and get some vegetables. Payday is Saturday, if you've not been told, and that is when we all pool money together.' Then, to Ann: ‘Harry will not be joining us today, but perhaps if you could get some extra vegetables for tomorrow. Harry will pay you out of his wages when Saturday comes.'

Ann scowled and placed the bowl and ladle carefully into a space in the middle of the floor. Trenchers, knives and spoons appeared, and soon everyone was tucking in voraciously to some sort of muck that looked like the obliterated remains of salt pork and vegetables. The only decent thing on show was a penny loaf, cut into slices and spread with rich butter by Ann; indeed, I slavered after this so much I was forced to look away and eat my words instead. A flagon of small beer was brought up by a cheery young waiter, and this was splashed into pots with great abandon, so that within minutes the mood of the whole crew had changed to one of addled boisterousness.

‘Pull that cowface again, Dick!'

Dick, sitting up on a bed with his booted feet draped over Claude's lap, duly obliged, closing his lips tight and curling them up at the edges with remarkable pliancy. ‘Mwahhh!' he went, deadly serious. Everyone spluttered out their dinner and roared with delight. Indeed, even I found it hard to refrain from laughing at the ludicrous spectacle.

‘So Mr Oysterman,' said the performer of this comic turn, once everyone had their noses back in their troughs, ‘tell us about yourself. What were you up to before the crimpers struck?'

Normally reluctant to reveal even my outermost thoughts and feelings to strangers, it did not seem to matter so much with this bunch. My acquaintance with them would be mercifully brief and I certainly did not expect to be with them come Saturday payday. So I launched into the whys and wherefores of my life, with particular attention to my life as a poet, my arranged courtship of Amanda Philpott, and the impertinent actions of the outrageous Mr Burnley Axelrod. While no-one offered sympathy for my plight, or seemed in any way surprised at my sudden reversal of fortune, all three subjects elicited strong personal opinions.

‘A poet, eh?' said Ned Lester. ‘I killed a poet once. Bleeder wrote a love poem to a girl I was shaggin' at the time. Challenged him to a duel. Blew his bloody ‘ead off, so I did. No one sniffs my women ‘till I've finished with ‘em.'

‘Not the Philpott Hall over at Steyning?' queried Little Bob, ‘why, only last year a friend of mine was hung for poaching a rabbit there. ‘Twas that that made we want to join the Army and get away from this stinking country.'

‘Burnley Axelrod!' exclaimed Dick. ‘Then you have had dealings with one of the rising stars of the British Army. I'm surprised to hear he does a little crimping on the side though; I would have thought he was above that sort of thing. Perhaps he needs some money to pay off his gambling debts.'

‘You should know about that, if anyone does, Dick!' shouted Roger Masson joyously, ducking just in time to avoid Dick's flung musket ball of a turnip hitting him full in the face.

‘Aye, tharrrts roight,' joined in Claude Jepson. ‘Mr Lickley ‘ere was a cap'n until ‘ee ‘ad to sell his commission to pay off his gamblin' debts. Ain't tharrt roight, Dick?'

Dick smiled at me wryly.

‘'Tis right about selling the commission – though I was a lieutenant, not a captain. I had just about paid off debts contracted at faro, when what should happen but Henry Connolly's father went and died. I'd forgotten all about the hundred pound bet I'd made with him as to which of our fathers would die first, until he produced the signed betting slip. I was done for after that, and no mistake. Broke me good and proper. But be damned if I was going to commit suicide or leave the army because of it. Honour crimes, as they call them, mean nothing to me. At least I'm not in Newgate, or begging on the streets. And something else will turn up, sure as death. I'm just biding my time at the moment till something does. So, never feel ashamed of anything, is my motto. Let it be yours too, Harry, and you might even enjoy this army lark.'

I smiled enigmatically.

‘But if you are to enjoy it, there are some rules it is essential to follow, unpleasant though they may be to a man of your breeding. First, in the presence of an officer you are obliged to take your hat off and display what they like to term
a humble, decent and proper mode of behaviour
.

There were hoots of derision at this advice.

‘Second, whatever Sergeant Mycock tells you to do, do it, however unpleasant. He isn't called Stroke for nothing. And ‘tis not fair on young Bob.'

I looked over at Bob, who explained that the lot of administering the lashes fell to the drummers, twenty-five strokes at a time.

‘And it wears me out, I don't mind telling you,' added the sensitive youth, ‘because twenty-five times I have to swing the cat twice around my head, give a stroke, and then draw the tails through the fingers of my left hand to rid them of flesh and blood. If I don't lash hard enough, I get lashed myself. And apart from that, I simply can't stand all that screaming. It goes right through me.'

‘Third, avoid soldiers who have the Itch. Damned unpleasant disease, that. I'll write down a list of names of those to avoid. Fourth, never dare question the
Glorious
epithet of the 85th Foot. As far as anyone can ascertain, the only glorious thing it has ever done is shoot a few smugglers in the back, but
never
cast doubt on the merit of the term. Fifth and finally, don't write any love poems to Peggy Spratt. At least not until ye have mastered the art of duelling.'

We looked over at Ned Lester, who gave me a challenging stare, and mimed the act of blowing my head off with a pistol. I smiled nervously, but the lout persisted with his mime until I was on the point of visibly squirming. Fortunately the fluting, girlish voice of Thomas Pomeroy came to the rescue.

‘So, have we all dined well, gentlemen? May I pass compliments on to my dear wife?'

The volley of vitriol that hit him instantly was surely no surprise to anyone, so I was amazed when Thomas's eyes began to well up. His whole demeanour crumpled, and he had to be consoled by Little Bob, who put an arm round him and offered him a draw on his pipe, which he refused with effusive expressions of gratitude.

‘We go through this little ritual every dinner time, even if the meal is adequate,' said Dick. ‘It must satisfy a need in everyone. Strange though, if you think about it too much.'

Immediately I started to think about it too much, casting sly glances at the strange characters in the room as I did so. What a dirty bunch of vagabonds, rogues and outcasts they were, yet how easy did they seem in each others' company, with their limbs draped all over each other in attitudes reminiscent of that astonishing Italian food, spaghetti. I could not decide whether I was repelled or attracted by the hermetic, peripatetic nature of their lives, but I did know that this was Real Life in the Raw, and the experience of it would do wonders for the development of my own poetic idiom, assuming I got out quick.

When Ann and Peter Pomeroy had cleared the plates away the soldiers settled to their pipes, and the contemplative silence that followed would probably had gone on for hours, and choked me to death in the process, had not an importunate tattoo started up with shocking suddenness outside the window.

‘Out! Out! Out! Ye scurvy dogs!' came the unmistakable cry of Sergeant Mycock. ‘Afternoon delight, gentlemen! The sun is waiting for you! Your adoring officers are waiting for you! Let us not tarry a minute longer, or Puss the Cat will be waiting for you!'

The room exploded into life. Pipes were quickly extinguished with thumbs, then I was spun around like a top as all rose frantically to collect their equipment. Once hats were donned and queues tucked away, the grumbling, cursing cohort clattered out of the room and down the stairs.

‘Parade exercises,' called out Dick, last to leave and less agitated than the rest. ‘Four lovely hours of it. But not for you yet. You stay here until Corporal Tibbs comes to collect you. He won't be long.'

And with a smile he was off, shutting the door behind him. I dashed to the windows to see if I could open them and let out the hellish smoke, but I couldn't – the locks were too well rusted. Gasping and spluttering, I staggered around the room waving the smoke away until a thin, big-nosed man entered the room gnawing a chicken bone. This, it seemed likely, was Corporal Tibbs, so remembering Dick's advice I adopted what I took to be a humble demeanour, veritably cringing before him.

‘And what's your problem, Bowsprit?'

‘Nothing, Sir,' I replied to his knees, ‘Just trying to be proper in front of an officer.'

‘Ah, I see,' said the man, resuming his gnawing. ‘Well, no need to overdo it in front of me; I'm only a corporal, see. Non-commissioned, for your information. Not considered good enough, but we're better than most of ‘em and we're certainly better than you lot, so get down those stairs and into the back yard before I throw you down.'

I rose to the perpendicular and twitched past the corporal and his foul breath with gratitude, desperate to breathe fresh air again. To my surprise, however, the air outside smelled even worse, and I could not understand why. It was no use asking Sergeant Mycock the reason, for he was busy thrashing the ground with his stick every few seconds and glaring at each new arrival as if they had had him impressed. Nervously sneaking to the back of the group, I eyed the other recruits to see if they were as scared of him as I was. They weren't, for I saw with horror that my fellow sufferers were the most hard-boiled villainous-looking crew imaginable. They all had the sly, hangdog expression of the seasoned murderer, along with other features equally unappetizing, such as glittering eyes, low brows, lice-ridden hair, and ricket-ridden pockmarked skin. Many appeared as old as forty or fifty, but compassion for them did not seem appropriate – it looked as though they had merely used the extra time to pack more vice in. Shuddering, I found myself edging back towards Sergeant Mycock.

‘Well, what a gathering of bright young blades!' came the welcoming words, after a nod from Corporal Tibbs signified the arrival of the last scraping. ‘And pretty with it! Never in my life have I seen such an attractive assembly of men.'

Sergeant Mycock paused to cow us with his glare, but only I was cowed; the others simply returned a dead-eyed stare. Mutual hatred crackled in the air.

‘But don't get too carried away with your beauty; you're in the army to obey orders, not to flounce. And the first order to be obeyed every day is the roll call. Answer
Sir
when Corporal Tibbs calls your name.'

A mixture of envy and elation went through me when the roll call revealed that six men had deserted already. If these fools could do it, then surely I could too, should the need arise. Sergeant Mycock's eyes and veins bulged with fury. When he did speak, ‘twas the product of prodigious self-control.