Whose Business Is to Die (10 page)

‘How can you tell the guns are French?’ The question came from one of the new ensigns, a small, thin youth, whose uniform jacket and hat were far too large for him. He had large, trusting
brown eyes, but what was visible of his face between silk stock, stiff collar and the tip of his hat had erupted in blemishes as vividly scarlet as his jacket.

Pringle noticed his friend Truscott stiffen as the youngster spoke. He had his back to the little group, and was making a conscious show of not listening, but he was also reaching up to run his fingers over the cuff where his empty left sleeve was pinned to the front of his jacket. That was the telltale sign of worry, one his friends knew well. The young ensign was his brother, Samuel, newly joined and a constant source of concern.

‘Ah, my lad, it is a simple matter when you know how,’ Messiter informed his audience. ‘But you must listen very carefully.’ He held up a finger and they waited in rapt silence for the next discharges. Around them was a low hubbub of conversation, but few of the men had much inclination to talk. The battalion had come up with the rearmost column of the Portuguese Division. Sensing that there was little point in following closely and stopping every time the regiments ahead of them halted for some unknown cause, the colonel had ordered the 106th to halt for an hour and so the battalion had removed packs and spread out on either side of the road.

‘I believe you have frightened them off,’ Derryck said.

‘Most unreliable, your average Frog.’ Messiter held his hand up again for silence, and a moment later came the two faint discharges. ‘There, did you not hear it?’

Samuel Truscott shook his head, and the other two simply looked blank.

‘It is quite distinct, I do assure you, and your ears will become attuned to it in time,’ Messiter insisted. ‘The French guns speak with a high-pitched voice, almost an effeminate note. Just what you would expect, of course. When John Bull’s cannon fire it is with a deep, manly roar. Even at such a distance the difference is quite distinct, I do assure you.’

The audience appeared deeply impressed.

‘And how far away are they?’ Ensign Truscott asked, his words beginning as a gruff bass, but breaking into soprano halfway
through. Sixteen years and seven months old, his voice had lately broken and so such sudden shifts were frequent, but even so it made him sound nervous. His older brother’s fingers ran up and down his empty cuff with greater force.

‘Have no fear,’ Messiter was generous in his reassurance, ‘there is nothing to worry about, although the enemy has great guns able to shoot for three or four miles. They are drawn and fought by blackamoors that Boney picked up in Egypt, for only they are strong enough to work them. Why, I once saw …’

Billy Pringle decided that his friend needed to be distracted from listening to subalterns making game of a younger brother.

‘I have been thinking a lot of late,’ he began.

Truscott blinked, and shifted his attention to his friend. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I am sure we are all relieved to hear it.’

Pringle gave a slight bow.

‘Do the enemy have many of these great guns?’ Young Samuel’s words drifted towards them. ‘And are they so much more powerful than ours?’

‘Perhaps now you understand why he did not follow me to Clare College,’ Truscott said. He was a Cambridge man, and Pringle had attended Oxford, making them fairly rare birds in the Army. For Billy Pringle those days seemed more than a lifetime ago, when his family still cherished the optimistic hope that he might become a parson. The Army suited him far better and he had never regretted the change.

‘I have been thinking a good deal of matrimony,’ Pringle resumed.

‘Why, Mister Pringle, this is all so sudden.’ Truscott fluttered his eyes and then looked demurely down. ‘Is this the letter again?’ he asked, but then Billy saw that his attention had drifted back to the subalterns.

‘You are being made game of,’ Derryck announced. ‘Although I suspect that these stout young men are simply being polite to you, Messiter! They can see that age and drink have addled your wits. I shall tell you why we know that those are French guns and not our own. That is if you care to learn the truth?’

‘Perhaps we could take a short walk,’ Pringle suggested, as
the youngsters assured Derryck that they were eager to learn. He felt it better to draw Truscott away, for the captain could not really interfere unless he wanted it known that his brother could not cope on his own. The older subalterns would play on the youngsters, just as they always did and always would. It had happened to them when they were freshly joined and done no real harm.

‘It is absurdly simple,’ Derryck began with a flourish. ‘Those are French guns because we never have any of our own, and even if we have them the Board of Ordnance refuses to permit our gunners to fire them. And do you know why?’

‘They should get very dirty, I suppose,’ Samuel suggested, and Pringle felt Truscott relax at this sign of humour. He led his friend away off into the fields. Sergeants Dobson and Murphy from his own Grenadier Company were sitting around a fire with some of the men, tending to the contents of a camp kettle. The tantalising scent of bacon came from it. Officers and men alike managed to avoid noticing each other and hence the need for any formality.

‘Probably best not to ask where they found that,’ Pringle said.

Truscott agreed. ‘Or the wood to burn. Although sometimes I wonder whether we are no better than the French.’ Since they had arrived in Lisbon they had heard stories of Marshal Masséna’s retreat and the barbarity of his soldiers, worse even than things both men had seen in the past. ‘We are in Portugal, after all, and these are our allies.’

‘True, though I suspect the men feel that since we fight and risk our lives for them they should not resent the loss of the odd chicken or bits of fence for fuel.’

‘That was no chicken,’ Truscott said, ‘but what would you expect of the “bacon bolters”!’ It was an old nickname for the grenadiers, traditionally the largest soldiers in a battalion. They tended to claim that they were also the bravest, although the other companies were apt to say that they were merely the least intelligent.

‘The difference is that the French would take everything, and
hang the farmer and ravish his wife. They would do all that whether or not their officers were there, indeed often under orders. At least our fellows make sure we never catch them stealing, and expect no leniency if they are taken.’ Lord Wellington was very strict in punishing plunderers, and if it did not stop the men, at least it placed limits on their abuses.

‘Well, that is a difference, I suppose.’ Truscott’s tone was grudging.

‘It is a great difference. If we are not saints then at least we are far from being the worst sinners.’

Truscott smirked. ‘As I have said before, it is doubtful that the established Church appreciates what it lost when you laid down the Good Book and picked up the sword – what sermons you might have delivered to shape the morals of your parishioners! Theft to supply your own wants entirely justified, regardless of the dire consequences for those robbed. Our reading from the Book of Pringle, chapter one, verse one.’

‘Amen.’

They were far enough away for gentle conversation not to be overheard, and yet still close enough to answer the summons of the drum when the battalion started to move again.

‘I take it that the letter is preying on your mind,’ Truscott said.

Pringle had charge of a letter from Miss MacAndrews to Williams, given in the hope that their paths would cross. The major’s family were in Lisbon and it was not yet clear whether they would join him and the regiment. Much depended on where the 106th were sent and, with the prospect of months of manoeuvring and fighting, they might not come up until the autumn and more settled times.

‘It is. And I truly wonder what it contains.’

The letter was sealed and its contents a mystery, so it was hard to know how his friend would react if and when it was delivered. Billy liked Jane MacAndrews, and not simply because she was a beautiful, lively young lady. He liked pretty women, a subject which blissfully occupied his mind for most of his waking hours. In the case of the major’s daughter prudence and inclination ensured that he had never acted upon the attraction, save for
some vividly imagined scenes. There were plenty of other pretty girls, so he saw Jane as a friend and no more.

Williams loved Miss MacAndrews with a devotion which had only grown stronger with the passing years – and that in itself was another reason for never attempting to win favour with the girl. A friend was a friend, after all. Billy felt closer to Williams, Hanley and Truscott than he did to his own brothers, all naval officers and so rarely seen in recent years. He was unsure of the details, but it had seemed in Cadiz that Williams’ dedicated courting was at last beginning to bear some fruit. The girl was almost of age, and perhaps a little more ready to consider a permanent attachment. She was also now of independent means, following a legacy from her mother’s American family. That had placed Williams in a quandary, for he dreaded earning the name of fortune hunter. Even so, the pair appeared closer.

‘I am convinced the news cannot be so very bad,’ Truscott said. ‘I do not quite know why, but I have always felt that one day Bills and the lady would marry. They would surely be very happy, or bicker like cats and dogs.’ He considered this for a while. ‘Most likely both at the same time!’

Pringle had felt much the same, and had become surer of it all last summer. Then they were sent on that disastrous expedition to take Malaga, and Williams was shot down and left behind on the beach. As the months passed without word it became more and more certain that he was dead. The regiment did not return to Cadiz, and so Pringle had not seen the girl, but Hanley visited whenever he was sent to report there. There were also frequent calls from Pringle’s older brother Edward, a naval officer whose brig often visited the port. Ned was only lately a widower after his wife died along with the child she had just brought into the world. His brother appeared to have recovered his spirits with remarkable speed, or perhaps, as Hanley thought, it was the grief which had drawn the two of them together. Ned was a personable fellow when he wanted to be, and as enthusiastic an admirer of the fair sex as Billy, especially when flush with prize money.

‘Edward writes with confidence, if not quite openly, speaking
of good news he hopes to share with the family when he next returns home.’ Only six weeks ago Ned had been made post captain, given a frigate and sent to the East Indies. It was unlikely that he would return for a year or more. ‘Yet I am certain there is no engagement.’

Truscott agreed, as he had always done when they had discussed this before. ‘MacAndrews was not there, so at the very least he has no permission.’

‘It is to be hoped that there is not even an understanding. At least not on her part. Ned was always inclined to take anything but a direct and brutal refusal as full assent. I cannot see Miss MacAndrews as a sailor’s wife, left alone on shore for most of her life.’

Truscott said nothing. Pringle had raised the subject so many times that there was nothing fresh to say. Yet it was not really of his friend and the major’s daughter that Pringle had wished to talk. In the last weeks he had been inching towards a decision, a truly important one, and oddly the distant sound of the guns had brought it to the front of his mind.

‘Do you believe it is right for a soldier to marry?’ he asked.

‘The wives help the men a good deal,’ Truscott said, his face relaxing since he obviously believed that the serious conversation was at an end. ‘It amazes me again and again how resolutely they follow the battalion through all weathers.’

‘What of officers?’

‘Oh, I misunderstood, and I would judge that the enquiry is not of a general nature, but specific.’ Truscott watched him closely. ‘Indeed, something of personal import?’

Pringle nodded.

‘Dear me, and I feel that I have failed in the duties of a friend since I have taken insufficient interest in your affairs to know the identity of the lady. Would she be of the Roman faith?’

Pringle wondered whether his friend had heard about Josepha, the lover he had taken when he was on detached service up on the border a year ago. The poor child was fleeing from an unwanted betrothal, and he had given her protection for a short
while, but not the permanent union she wanted. For a moment the guilt came back, marring the warm memories of having the girl in his bed. The last he heard she was living with a commissary, but heaven knew where she was now.

‘No,’ he said, for he had not spoken of the Spanish girl. ‘The lady is English, albeit a Methodist.’

‘The letters!’ Truscott roared loud enough to make faces turn towards them from the nearest cluster of soldiers. ‘Why, you cunning file,’ he added in a lower voice. ‘You mean Williams’ sister! But you have only met on a few occasions and then not for a year and a half.’

‘That is true.’ Anne, the oldest of the three Williams sisters, was a golden memory of his last visit home, and over time the place and the person had merged into a dream of peace and happiness.

Truscott whistled softly through his teeth. ‘You do realise that Bills is the head of the household, and so you would have to seek his consent?’

‘Yes.’

‘He does know you very well,’ Truscott said, his tone hinting that this might not prove altogether to Pringle’s advantage.

‘I am touched by your high opinion of me, truly touched. But this is all to run ahead of ourselves. My concern is whether it is fair to ask a lady to bind herself to me when I do not know when I shall return to England. Or if I ever shall. Would you consider marriage, assuming you formed an attachment?’

Truscott did not reply for a while. Pringle noticed that he was again touching his empty sleeve and hoped that he had not caused his friend distress. Did he worry that no lady would be eager to accept the proposal of a man who had lost his arm.

The drums began to beat, and all around the road the men of the 106th stirred themselves. Fires were doused, and as much of the contents of the kettles saved as was possible.