Land of Hope and Glory (25 page)

‘Then the best of luck to you.’ Richard patted Charles on the shoulder.

Charles forced a smile but said nothing.

They travelled on across Salisbury Plain, the day bright and hot. They saw men and women at work in the fields, oxen with ploughs, sheep, goats, and endless farmland flowing to the horizon.

They constantly passed through strong sattva streams, Jack shivering each time. Salisbury seemed to have more than its fair share of sattva.

At midday Saleem, who’d been virtually silent the whole trip, said, ‘Can we stop, please?’

‘What for?’ Charles asked.

‘Prayers.’

Jack knew Mohammedans were required to perform five daily prayers – he’d seen this often in the army – but he knew this number could also be reduced when on campaign. ‘You can just pray in the morning and evening. That’s all that’s needed when you’re travelling.’

Saleem looked at the bottom of the cart, still with the usual slight smile on his face. ‘That’s not what my father says.’

Jack gritted his teeth. Mohammedans – they were always a problem. In the army the French, Andalusians, Neapolitans – all the Mohammedan troops – had always been impossible to get on with. ‘Your father’s not here now.’

Then Saleem’s eyes widened and moistened and Jack regretted his harsh words. He sighed. ‘All right, let’s stop for lunch.’

Charles brought the cart to a halt. Saleem laid his mat on the side of the road and studiously did his prayers, standing, kneeling and prostrating himself in turn.

Jack and Charles munched on bread and ate an apple each. In the distance they saw a grass-covered mound topped by a circle of standing stones. Shadows collected at the base of the stones and rippled a short distance out across the grass.

‘You see them all over the place around here,’ Charles said.

‘I heard.’ Jack remembered Jhala explaining the theory that the circles had been built by the ancient Britons as a way of marking the sattva streams.

‘It seems your ancestors may have known a little about sattva,’ Jhala had said. ‘At least, they knew it was strong in some places and weak in others and that the strongest strands are stretched into streams. They may have had superstitions about the streams or regarded them as sacred.’

That might be true, but the Britons had never developed this knowledge further. That was one of the differences between Europeans and Rajthanans. Europeans had lived with sattva all around them for millennia, but had never thought to do anything with it. It was only the Rajthanans who had discovered how to harness the secret power.

They continued through the afternoon and eventually dusk crawled across the countryside. They came to a stretch of grass beside a brook.

‘Good place to camp,’ Charles said.

‘We should keep going,’ Jack replied.

‘Could be dangerous travelling at night. You get bandits around here sometimes.’

‘We have to get to London in time.’ Jack was well aware that if they didn’t get to the city before the Rajthanans there would be little chance of him finding William. William could be killed or captured – in the chaos of battle anything could happen – but neither occurrence would ensure his friend was taken back to Poole. Jack would have to make sure that happened himself.

‘We’ll be there in a day and a half, well before the army,’ Charles said. ‘Besides, I fancy a drink.’ He reached back and flung aside a piece of cloth, revealing a cask of ale.

Jack shook his head. He couldn’t believe Charles had brought along such a lot of alcohol. He was reluctant to stop now – he would have happily travelled through the night – but he didn’t want to risk an argument. It was Charles’s mule cart, after all.

The campfire was dwindling, the embers shivering in the chill breeze. The sky burned with stars, the night hummed with the sound of frogs and crickets, and the plains were hidden in the dark.

The cask was half empty, most of it having been drunk by Charles. Jack had sipped down a couple of mugs to keep the lad company, but the ale tasted sour and he was in no mood to drink. All the same, the alcohol seemed to go to his head more quickly than he’d expected and he felt surrounded by a vague bubble of drunkenness.

‘Saleem,’ Charles said, voice slurred. ‘Why don’t you have a drink?’

Saleem, who’d sat quietly during most of the evening, stared at the fire and shook his head.

‘Go on,’ Charles said. ‘Just one little drink. It’ll do you good.’

Saleem resisted Charles’s continued goading.

Eventually, Charles stood unsteadily and walked over with his mug. He crouched and pushed the mug into Saleem’s chest. ‘It’ll make a man out of you.’

‘All right,’ Saleem said finally. ‘Just a sip.’

Charles watched intently as Saleem put the mug to his nose and crinkled his face in disgust. ‘Get on with it,’ he said.

Gingerly, Saleem took a sip. He thought about the taste for a moment, then grimaced and spat it out into the fire. He coughed and wiped his mouth.

Charles roared with laughter, rolling back into the darkness, shaking.

‘Don’t know how you can drink that stuff.’ Saleem wiped even his tongue on his sleeve as he tried to expunge the taste.

Charles sat up and patted Saleem hard on the back. ‘We’ll get you drinking yet.’

He staggered over to the cask, filled his mug from the tap, then sat back down against a tree and waved his mug in Jack’s general direction, spilling some ale. ‘A toast to you, old soldier.’

Jack raised his own mug in an effort to be sociable.

‘So tell us about the old days, Jack,’ Charles said. ‘Tell us about the battles you were in.’

‘Not much to tell,’ Jack replied.

‘What about Ragusa?’

Jack hesitated. For a moment he saw that barren plain, grey in the dawn, the bodies in the mud, the seething pit of the dying at the base of the wall. ‘How many battles you been in?’ he asked Charles.

Charles’s head lolled to one side as he tried to focus. His eyes wandered about like drowsy flies. ‘A few . . . the Scottish brigands.’

Jack knew all about the brigands on the Scottish border – he’d served there himself for three years. It was wild country – Scotland had never been conquered by the Rajthanans. But at the same time chasing bandits around the hills was hardly a battle. The bands of Scotsmen were small and usually went into hiding as soon as they were confronted. The entire time Jack had been posted there he’d hardly fired a shot.

He looked at Charles, the lad’s youthful face swaying and ruddy in the firelight. He could see bravado there, but what was there to back it up? Nothing. The lad was inexperienced, had never even seen a proper fight.

And then there was Saleem, looking into the flames with a dreamy expression on his face. He was no more than a boy, with no idea what he was getting himself into.

Jack stood suddenly and the ale rushed to his head. The night air roared around him. ‘Back in a moment.’

He stumbled into the darkness and urinated against a tree, the liquid rumbling as it hit the bark.

What was he doing? Why was he here, slightly drunk, on Salisbury Plain? Why was he still following William? He had no plan of any sort. Was he going to capture William? Kill him? And how would he do that and get out of the city before the Rajthanans arrived?

It was going to be hard enough just getting to London. He had to get past the Rajthanans in Hampshire, and his companions were two lads who had virtually no fighting experience. He glanced back at the camp and saw the two figures dark against the glow of the fire. They were just boys . . .

And he recalled Private Robert Salter, who’d also been just a boy – sixteen years old – when he’d joined Jack’s regiment. Jack could still see the lad’s pale face with a bowl of straight, black hair and a mouth continually pursed as if he were about to spit. The boy was useless. He was sullen, given to complaining and often out of time during musket drill. Jack wasn’t sure if he could ever be turned into a proper soldier.

Jack was nearing thirty at the time and had reached the rank of sergeant. They were on campaign in Swedeland, their mission a simple matter of clearing some hills of bandits. The bandits were poor fighters, easy to track, and they often surrendered.

The regiment had set up camp in one of the larger valleys and forays were sent into the surrounding hills. Jack and his platoon, seconded to a unit under a captain named Roy, were charged with hunting a band of more than sixty bandits, who’d proven to be a more difficult quarry than the others. They tracked them for three days, winding all over the hills in the biting cold, Jack following the sattva trail.

Roy, a thin man with a quartz scar over one eye, became increasingly irritated at their failure to catch the Swedes. He ordered the men to keep marching through long days with little rest, and his commands were short, sharp and peppered with the constant threat of flogging.

On the third night they made camp with the wind moaning in the dark and the desolate hills laced with moonlight. As sergeant, Jack was in charge of assigning the sentries, but he was tired and frustrated from a fruitless day – Captain Roy had bellowed at him for half an hour for losing the trail on several occasions.

He stood in the camp, trying to remember who he’d assigned to sentry duty the night before. But he couldn’t think straight.

‘Anderson, Wills, Salter – you’re on tonight,’ he said to his men.

‘Pardon me, sir—’ Salter began.

‘Just get on duty.’ He waved away the Private. The boy had been annoying him for days. He was too slow and kept complaining of a sore foot. He literally jumped every time he heard a musket fired. He was a liability more than anything else.

The next morning Jack woke to the sound of Roy shouting. He got up and walked across the camp to where the Captain was berating Salter, with a group of the men gathered around. Roy was red in the face and spat as he raged, while Salter stood with his head bowed, terrified.

‘This is the worst flouting of campaign rules I’ve seen for years,’ Roy shouted. ‘You’re a disgrace, Salter. A complete disgrace.’

Roy turned as Jack arrived. ‘Sergeant Casey, I found this man asleep on sentry duty this morning.’

Jack froze. This was a serious dereliction. On campaign it was punishable by death, which was why it happened so rarely. He glanced at Salter, who was visibly shaking.

‘It was a mistake, sir,’ Salter said. ‘Must’ve only been for an hour. No more.’

‘One hour, two hours – we could’ve all been shot in our sleep, you pink bastard,’ Roy said. ‘Sergeant, this man is under arrest. Bind his hands.’

Roy strode away across the camp.

Jack knew what was coming. He told the other men to leave and they skulked off, but stood around watching from a few yards away.

‘What the hell did you think you were doing?’ Jack hissed to Salter.

Salter was sweating despite the chill in the air. ‘I was tired. I didn’t mean to.’

‘Tired? We’re all bloody tired.’

‘But it was my third night on duty. I haven’t slept for three days.’

Jack’s skin prickled. ‘What?’

‘I tried to tell you.’

‘Christ. I forgot. I thought you were off the night before.’

‘No.’

‘Look, I have to tie your hands now. Don’t worry, I’ll talk to the Captain.’