Читать книгу To Do and Die - Patrick Mercer - Страница 6

The young moon winked through the shutters. Glassdrumman, the warm, shabby, peeling Georgian hall that was the Morgan family's Cork home was deep in sleep. Mary Cade pulled her nightshift down to cover her bottom, wrapped an errant blanket about them both and moved herself a fraction on top of Tony Morgan, their passion spent. The chambermaid and the young officer had had their fill of one another and now was the time for talk.

‘Maude Hawtrey's lovely – she sits a horse so well, almost like a man. And it's obvious to anyone that you're getting on famously, so much in common, scriptures and the like.’ Mary held Morgan's face in both her hands, his dark-fair hair and whiskers tousled, her nose an inch from his, murmuring, smiling so that he'd have to search for the barbs.

‘Mary, please, why are you always like this afterwards?’

‘Mary, please.’ Even in a whisper she mimicked him well enough, catching the Englishness that he'd cultivated over the past couple of years. ‘And why are you always like this afterwards? You're all promises and passion with me here, but downstairs I'm nothing to you, am I – d'you think I'm some sort of eejit?’ In an instant the warmth and smile had disappeared. Her face was now serious, the honey had gone from her voice and she neglected that little gesture of sweeping a jet-black lock of hair from out of her eyes.

Without warning her sticky weight was off him. She slid from under the blanket and onto the woollen rug beside the bed, hands on her hips, a curling mane of hair down her back, chin and breasts petulantly thrust forward. Morgan recognized the signs and unconsciously pulled the covers up against the storm.

‘What happiness d'you think you'll get there, Lieutenant Mister-bloody-Morgan? Your Da will end up with some Prod stronghold and you'll be at his and the Hawtreys' beck and call for the rest of your days, like a wee puppy.’ Mary hissed her venom. He lunged and tried to grab her wrists. Occasionally she could be tamed, won round by kisses and enveloping arms but this time she wouldn't be turned. She left the dawn-lit room as swiftly as her pleasure had cooled.

Morgan winced as the bedroom door banged – did she want everyone to know? And she was wrong of course. Maude would never glance at Tony Morgan whilst he was soldiering; besides, a war could change his world. But whatever lay ahead with stringy Maude, the smell, warmth and sheer sparkle of Mary would stay with him. He groped to find his watch.

‘So, the young lion's awake and prepared to grace us with his presence at last.’ Billy Morgan, a widower at fifty-nine, grey curls hanging too long about the collar of his badly-starched shirt, his waistcoat unbuttoned and loose, greeted his son as he came into breakfast.

The big dining room was barely warm from the peat fire that the servants had started before any of the family were awake, lighting up the walls and heavily decorated ceiling where the grey March morning light hardly penetrated. Silver entrée dishes jostled for space on the sideboard, little spirit lamps flickering below them to keep the porridge, eggs, bacon and kidneys warm for the Morgans and their guest.

‘I am, father: good morning, Colonel, I hope you slept well?’

Tony had learnt not to encourage his father's heavy jokes, particularly when others were there; to do anything else would only spur him on. Now Billy's oldest friend, Colonel Dick Kemp, grinned across the table at him.

‘I slept as well as your father's lumpy mattress would allow: I've had better nights in a snake-filled storm ditch with jackals licking my balls; I only stay at Glassdrumman out of pity for the old boy.’ When Tony had come back for home leave a week ago, he'd found Kemp deeply ensconced there, staying for a full three months of his furlough from India where he commanded a battalion of Bengal infantry. The two officers, despite the gap in age and rank, had soon formed an easy bond in the face of Billy Morgan's wit that sent the banter crackling between the three of them.

‘Less of the “old boy”, Kemp. Just because I was a-soldiering before you'd thrown a leg across a drab, don't come the “Victor of Aliwal” with me!’ As a very young man, Billy Morgan had seen some gentle service in the West Cork Militia, patrolling the Atlantic coastline against the last vestiges of Napoleon's hordes whilst Kemp had just been starting on his career as an ensign of the Honourable East India Company. And that career had been a placid one until Kemp, if his accounts were to be believed, had beaten the Sikhs almost single-handed, smashing them as effectively as they had snapped one of his legs at the Battle of Aliwal eight years before.

Tony knew the signs by now. Kemp's sharp, black eyes were shining, he was full of piss and vinegar, keen for fun at any price, but if the two, older men started one of their verbal skirmishes now, there would be no end to it: distraction was the answer.

‘What have the papers to say today, Father?’ Tony asked as he sprinkled cinnamon and sugar over his porridge.

‘Well, those fools in London and Paris have finally declared war.’ Billy shook the paper out, the headlines bellowing the formal recognition of a war that had been underway for several months already.

‘Tell me something that surprises me, Father. Here, Keenan, look at this: at last we're at war.’ Private James Keenan, Tony's batman in the 95th whom he'd selected for the post as much for the fact that he was a fellow Corkman as for his competence, had brought more coffee for his master. When the Regiment was sent on leave before embarking for foreign service, Keenan had chosen to spend the time comfortably fed and watered by his master in Glass-drumman rather than with his own family scraping an existence from the soil just a dozen miles away in Clonakilty. Now he narrowed his eyes and laboured over the letters of the headline.

‘So, we're to have a fight, then, your honour. But where will it be?’ Keenan asked the question to which none of them knew the answer.

Six months before, the Russian Admiral Nachimov had sunk an ageing Turkish fleet at Sinope in the Black Sea; since then war had been an inevitability. The Turks had already been hard at it with the Russians, each pounding the other inconclusively: now the formal entry of the Allies meant that war could start in earnest, plunging Europe into her first serious conflict since Waterloo.

‘Good question, Keenan.’ They all deferred to Kemp for he knew the Russians well – or so he claimed. ‘We saw more than enough of the Russians' tricks up on the Frontier after that nonsense at Kabul in forty-two. They're crafty buggers an' John Turk will need all the help he can get if he's to throw them out of Moldavia and Wallachia. You'll be scampering up and down the Danube, I'd guess.’

The mention of two such exotic names stalled the discussion for a moment, adding to Kemp's stature, before Tony cut in, ‘You're probably right, Colonel, but everybody seemed to have a different view back in Weedon.’

The 95th were stationed at the newly-built barracks in Weedon in Northamptonshire. Just six weeks before the commanding officer had ordered a general parade and told them all that they were to start, ‘warlike preparations’.

‘All we've been told is that we're to be ready to go to, “The East” and there's been some craic over that, I can tell you. Kingsley, the adjutant – you remember him, Father, he transferred in from the Cape Mounted Rifles – says we'll go wherever the Turks want us, but Hume, the senior major, reckons that the French will want us to have a go at the Muscovites' fleet in Sevastopol up to the north, in the Crimea.’

‘The French,’ Billy Morgan said it as if he were clearing phlegm, ‘how in the name of God have we got involved with those rogues?’

‘Father, before you start, those poor fellows have had their necks stretched enough: I'd say that Colonel Kemp and Keenan can probably name every last one.’ Tony was trying to stop his father from treating the whole room to another account of the highpoint of Billy's Militia service when, at seventeen, he'd arrested and strung-up a boatload of shipwrecked French sailors. Local society was still undecided whether they were spies or not, but Billy was convinced and still delighted in the story.

‘Aye, well it's all right for you an' your clever pals loafing around in barracks without a hand-span of proper soldiering to your name,’ Billy Morgan was warming to one of his favourite themes, ‘but if you'd seen what those damn Frogs and the Croppies did to this country when I was a boy, then that so-called revolution of theirs in forty-eight – and now they've got another of those Buonaparte fuckers back at the helm, you'd be getting ready to fight the Frenchies and not the Russians who helped us to thrash 'em last time.’ His voice fell before adding, ‘They're just a parcel of bloody Papists.’

There was a flicker of embarrassment as Kemp and Tony looked at Keenan – the only Catholic there – but the soldier-servant was too used to this sort of talk from his betters to take any notice or offence.

‘What d'you, think, James Keenan?’ Billy Morgan sensed the others' slight discomfort and tried to cover it by bringing the man back into the conversation, ‘Wouldn't you prefer to go at the French and leave the Russians to their own devices?’

‘I couldn't care less, your honour …’ Keenan poured more coffee for Kemp, ‘I'm just a soldier an' I'll go wherever I'm told an' put a lead bullet into any head that Mr Morgan asks me to, Catholic, Protestant, Musselman or Jew, they're all one to me. Besides, they say Turkish tail's worth a look.’

There was a shout of appreciative laughter at Keenan's simple philosophy and it brought an end to talk of war.

‘Now, I'm off to have a peep at this horse you've got for me, Billy,’ said Kemp, rising from the table, wiping heartily at his lips before letting his napkin fall to the ground. ‘I'll see you in the tack room in, what … five and twenty minutes, shall we say, Mr Morgan?’ Keenan pulled the Colonel's chair away for him and retrieved his discarded cloth.

‘That's fine, Colonel, I'll be with you as soon as I've finished my breakfast,’ Tony half rose from his chair respectfully as his senior left the room.

‘You'll be taking Kemp for a canter over Clow's Top, will you, son?’ Billy pushed more bacon home as a slight smile lit his face.

‘I will and don't fret, I know that Miss Hawtrey and her cousin are expecting to see us up there. I'll show them that fox's earth that Finn's been talking about all winter.’

‘Aye, well mind you do, you'll get bugger-all time between now and the end of your leave to speak to young Maude with anything like privacy, an' I've told Kemp to give you both a bit of breathing space, so make the most of it.’ With no mother to corral suitable young women for Morgan during his rare leaves, Billy had to do the job instead, the most promising target being the eldest daughter of Judge Hawtrey from Leap. He'd first introduced them last year; what Maude lacked in beauty and warmth was more than compensated for by her family's wealth and position.

A sudden crash at the sideboard made both father and son jump.

‘Mary, have a care, won't you? Those are the last few bits of Mrs Morgan's favourite china.’ Neither man had noticed the girl glide in from the scullery to start clearing the plates and dishes. She must have heard all of the last conversation and now she banged away with none of her normal care, her usually elegant lips pursed in a tight, cold line. She said not a thing, almost snatching the cups and saucers from their hands, her face set and expressionless until James Keenan held the door open for her. Then she smiled: she smiled a great, lovely beam straight into the young soldier's eyes before both servants left the room.

‘Don't know what's got into her this morning – though I've a fair idea what got into her last night…’ Billy looked hard at his son. ‘Any ideas, boy?’

‘No, father, but she can be awfully cussed sometimes, you know.’

‘Yes, I do, son … but please be careful.’

Tony paused at the back door of the house to buckle his spurs to his polished, brown, riding boots and take his crop from the mahogany stand. As he clicked over the setts towards the tack room, he could hear Colonel Kemp's excited voice.

‘They came on like bloody French did the Sikhs – mind you, half their officers was école trained – and it looked bad until the guns put some canister amongst them. I never expected natives to stand against our sepoys, but I was wrong. Sir Harry used the infantry well, but it took you and the Sixteenth Lancers, Finn, to really finish the day.’

Morgan entered the big, leather-smelling room just as Finn, at forty-two still as slender as the lance he'd once carried, took to the floor. Legs bowed, imaginary reins and weapons in hand, the former sergeant bobbed below the razor-like cuts, jibbed his mount to the left and dug hard at his invisible foe,

‘I tell you, sir, a big turbaned fellah came up to our officer for to bayonet him, bold as you please. But like the griffin I was, I pushed my lance too hard – the fucking pennon came out the other side and I was left capering like a damn fool round the poor man, so. I shoulda dropped the thing and used my sword – that's when I got this.’

Morgan had seen the three-inch weal across Finn's shoulder often enough, but as he peeled back his collar, Kemp hissed between his teeth in admiration.

‘Ah, Morgan, Finn and I were just recounting the delights of Aliwal. I bet you haven't seen as smooth a job as this, though?’ Kemp rolled up his trouser leg to show a purple, mottled, scaly shin-bone deeply etched across.

‘I'd ordered our boys to form square to keep the Sikh horse at bay when their guns caught us on the nose. I went down like a sack of shite – poor Goldie was dead before she hit the ground and me stuck below her. Tricky moment, that, but the doctors did wonders. If we'd had the boy surgeons that some of the Queen's regiments did, I don't doubt I'd have lost it. Beautiful job, ain't it?’

Colonel and sergeant preened and bragged. The bond of shared experience quite overcame any difference in military or social rank, both men grinning with an almost childish pleasure over their mutual brushes with death. Morgan pondered their casual acceptance of the pain and destruction that they had both suffered and inflicted, remembering the fearful casualties that the Sikhs and British had imposed on each other. In the depot at Fermoy he'd seen young men, some without limbs, one blinded, another with a face that looked as if it had been scythed; then he'd watched the guns at Chobham firing canister and shell at paper targets: Colonel Kemp had been just such to the Sikh gunners only a few years ago. Now he wondered whether Keenan and he would have to face such horror and how he would react. Kemp and Finn were just about to put the Sikhs to the sword again when James Keenan bustled into the room.

‘Sable's ready for you outside, your honour an' we've got Thunder for you, Colonel Kemp, sir, like you said, Mr Finn,’ Keenan had fitted very easily into life at Glassdrumman, accepting Finn's experience and authority and hanging on his every word when war or horseflesh was being discussed.

‘Aye, lad, we'll be with you directly …’ Kemp waved him away, he hadn't yet finished his war story.

‘No, sir, the Master's keen that you're not late for your meeting with the ladies …’ Keenan spoke with surprising firmness: Billy Morgan had told him to hasten Kemp and Tony and hasten them he would, officers or not.

Kemp paused for a moment, not used to being gainsaid by either soldiers or servants, before remembering in whose house he was a guest.

‘Quite so, James Keenan, we're at the ladies' command. Come on young Morgan, stop delaying us with all that gammon, you've a gusset to sniff.’ Kemp's crude familiarity was greeted with a peal of laughter from all the men, taking the edge off the atmosphere. In his middle fifties, Indian living had given Kemp a generous figure: now it filled the doorframe as he stumped outside with Morgan.

An under-groom held Thunder's stirrup for Kemp whilst Keenan steadied Sable, the big gelding, for Tony. He levered himself aboard as he thought about the colonel's words: it was an odd thing, but in all the time he'd known Maude Hawtrey he'd never even thought about her gusset. Her inheritance, certainly; her place in society, for sure; but he could never remember lusting after her. There was none of the constant ache that he felt for Mary Cade who, even now, was crossing the stableyard with a great bunch of freshly-cut daffodils in her hands. Tony smiled across at her, but she looked straight through him.

‘There, your honour, don't let Sable run away with you …’ Keenan tightened Tony's girth and smoothed the saddle-leather back into position as he noticed his master's look, ‘An' she's a great wee girl, ain't she? Have a grand day,’ and he turned away to follow Mary inside.

‘God, I love these mornings, don't you, Morgan?’ Kemp turned to Tony and yelled above the noise of their horses' cantering hooves as they vied with each other over the rich, Irish turf, ‘I never thought I'd want to see a drop o' rain again when I left Ireland, but you get so goddamn bored with the dust and the sun and the constant smell of shit in India that you're almost glad to be pissed-wet through and perished just for a change.’ They cantered over the field towards the rendezvous with Maude and her young cousin that Billy Morgan had arranged.

‘Aye, Colonel, but it must be good living and an easy command with sepoys, ain't it?’ Morgan asked more out of politeness than curiosity, for he'd never wanted to serve with one of John Company's regiments, despite the better style of living and the supposed adventure of life in India. No, he'd been quite clear with his father when the question of what he wanted to do for a job came up a few years before, it was one of the Queen's regiments or nothing at all. Why, he'd prefer to be a damned vicar than be marooned in Hindoostan.

‘It's suited me well enough, but I miss the old country and have never been able to afford to be in a smart regiment like yours.’ Kemp had reined back a little, keener to talk to his friend's son than to run him ragged.

‘There's nothing smart about the Ninety-Fifth, Colonel, we're not like the Guards or cavalry, just ordinary Line, and “young” Line at that, not a battle to our name so far.’ The 95th had only been raised in 1823, every soldier and officer being acutely aware of the absence of honours on the regiment's Colours.

‘But there a good lot, ain't they? You fit well enough, don't you, or are you full of those bloody merchants' sons who take a rise out of us Paddies?’ The more lurid papers had been obsessed over the past few years with snobbery amongst the officer class; the friction that it had caused and the bullying in regiments that had become infamous for the ‘hazing’ of officers who didn't quite fit. Kemp had obviously been following all of this from India.

‘No, not really, Colonel. There's one or two cads about, but nothing like the happenings in the Forty-Sixth …’ Despite the news of war, the papers were still full of the scandal of a young officer from a ‘new money’ background whose peers had treated him so badly that he'd become demented, challenging even his commanding officer to an illegal duel. ‘We rub along well enough. The Bible-punchers are more of a bore.’

‘Aye, we get more than our fair share of those twots out east…’ Kemp had eased Thunder right back now, keen to hear what Morgan had to say, ‘… always trying to impose their damned religion on the sepoys, never understanding how much offence they can cause to both Muslim and Hindu.’

‘Yes, you've got to be so damned careful with the men, though. You expect some of the officers to be full of that righteous stuff and know to steer clear, but then some of the boys will pull the “good book” out of their haversacks and sit about reading with a face like a smacked arse rather than chasing tail an' drinking like normal men.’ Most of Morgan's men were the products of the overcrowded slums or had come straight from the plough, their vices and attitudes being wholly predictable. But a handful of them were different, usually the better-educated, Scottish boys who tended to band together when off-duty, often gravitating around a particular pious officer or sergeant: no better or worse soldiers for it, just a bit different. ‘And we've even got one or two who are keen on this damn teetotal nonsense,’ Morgan added.

‘Thank Jaysus there's little enough of that in the Punjab just now,’ replied Kemp. ‘Why, you need a good belt of grog just to keep the sun off. Never can understand how the natives manage without it. What are your non-commissioned men like?’

‘For the most part they're really good, Colonel, steady and loyal as you like. They lack a bit of imagination, sometimes – too keen on the manuals and they can be rough on the private soldiers, but we're lucky with our Colour-Sergeant, McGucken who's got fifteen years' service already.’

‘Well, take it from me, young Mr Morgan, you don't need imagination in battle, just plenty of guts and unquestioning obedience. When the iron begins to fly, take my tip and stick close to this Colour-Sergeant of yours, he'll do you well.’ Kemp spoke with all the authority of a man who had been tested on the anvil of war already: Morgan envied him. ‘Now, there's the ladies, enough of this war talk, you've got your other career to think about.’ Kemp smiled and winked at Morgan.

Now Morgan saw just what Mary had meant in bed that morning, for Maude Hawtrey sat stiffly, very mannishly, despite her side-saddle. Her dark hair was pulled back in a bun below her low-crowned hat, the veil exaggerating rather than hiding her jutting nose. Laced and stayed, her figure had none of the ripeness of Mary's. With her was her plump fourteen-year-old cousin, Charlotte Foster, whose pony was a little too big for her; now she was fighting to control it.

The two women had heard the men approaching, had measured their distance from the barred wooden gate that led into the next pasture and slowed to a walk to let Kemp or Morgan dismount and open it for them. The colonel, remembering his instructions, broke into a trot and got there first, swinging down from the saddle with more grace than might be expected of a man of his girth.

‘Good morning Colonel, that's civil of you.’ Maude tilted her head to Kemp with a slight smile as he swung the big gate open for the other three.

Morgan edged up alongside Maude – Kemp was giving him every chance. But as the two riders walked to the gate Charlotte's skittish pony decide to have its own way, suddenly breaking into a canter and trying to squeeze between Morgan and the rough-hewn gatepost as the girl hauled uselessly at its bit. With a shriek that echoed back off a nearby spinney, Charlotte scraped her leg along the post, her velvet cap falling from her head as she dropped her crop and reins and clung to the mane. The pony trotted on, raising its nose and snorting at its freedom as the reins hung loose, before the rider tumbled slowly from the saddle and landed with a damp thump on the grass.

‘Gracious me, that wee devil's killed Charlotte!’ exclaimed Maude, and she pressed her gloved hand hard against her lips.

Certainly, petticoats and habit lay motionless on the grass, but the child's outraged moaning suggested that the diagnosis was probably wrong. In an instant, though, Morgan was out of the saddle and alongside the girl, her cries subsiding almost as soon as he wrapped his arms about her.

‘There, Miss Foster, there. Are you hurt or just winded, jewel?’ Tony could see that it was more shock than actual harm.

‘It's my leg, sir,’ Charlotte sobbed.

‘Forgive me, please, miss, but can you point your foot…’ Morgan reached as decorously as he could below the backless skirt of her riding habit, gently holding her calf through the corduroy breeches that she wore below, ‘… and wiggle your toes?’

The pony cropped the grass a few yards away, looking pleased with itself.

‘Yes … yes I think so.’ Charlotte's tears had quite subsided under the young officer's touch.

There was the smallest rip in the leg of the girl's breeches where the gatepost had scored the cloth; now Morgan helped Charlotte to her feet and she hopped a few paces, gingerly putting her weight on the suspect leg before stepping a few paces more whilst still clutching firmly to Morgan's arm.

‘Well, Mr Morgan you're quite the man for a lady to have around in an emergency, aren't you?’ Maude had her horse well in hand as she gazed down at Morgan from her saddle.

‘I try to rise to every challenge, Miss Hawtrey,’ he replied, ignoring Kemp's suppressed guffaw in the background.

‘I'm sure that we're both very grateful to you. I think I'd better get Charlotte home now – that fox's earth can wait for another occasion, I hope. In the meantime, we look forward to seeing you both at dinner tonight,’ said Maude as she held the pony's bridle as Morgan helped Charlotte to mount.

The two cousins walked their mounts away across the spongy meadow and Morgan didn't have long to wait for Kemp's assessment. ‘Well, young Morgan that was a nice piece of work, but I can think of challenges that would make me rise more quickly than that ice-cube.’

The starched white collar was always tricky. No matter how many times he fiddled with studs and pins, no matter how much help his servant gave him, Morgan still found it difficult to shoe-horn himself into the simple black and white of evening dress without time in hand. Father had wanted him to wear his regimentals for his final dinner party, but he'd resisted, settling for Keenan's waiting at table in his scarlet. Father's friends would be attentive enough without his having to flaunt his gallantry.

In an unusual fit of competence, the servants had lit the drawing-room fire in plenty of time. Despite the damp peat, the blaze was almost too much for a spring night and the guests quickly migrated to the cooler, less smoky end of the room. Kemp was reserved, for he realized that the evening should belong to Tony and that there was little interest in wars past.

Billy Morgan had every intention of thoroughly lionizing his son. The glory that Tony would reflect upon his father could only be increased if attention were lavished upon him on this, his final night at home. The difficulty was that Mrs Amelia Smythe was one of the guests. Tony could quite see the attraction of the young widow whose husband had failed to return from the Cape last year, but he hadn't realized just how interested his father was in the woman. In fact, he could be excused for wondering just who the main guest of honour was.

Desultory enquiries were made of the young hero whilst they drank. His father's friends asked endless questions about weapons and horses, all designed to display their own militia experience, whilst Kemp restricted himself to opinions only upon the Russians and their antics on the Afghan border. The warlike talk cooled, though, as Billy concentrated the full force of his charm upon Amelia. Imperial ambitions soon gave way to domestic ones, sabre-rattling to numbers of acres, fleets of ships to stables full of hunters.

The silver had been polished almost entirely clean. Whilst the candles were a little uneven, at least they were all burning, shedding a gentle light on the only slightly smeared crystal. Perhaps Morgan's expectations had been raised too high by the standards required in the Mess, for his father seemed oblivious to the corner-cutting, purring over the display and making great play of finding Mrs Smythe's seat for her.

Sitting opposite Amelia Smythe, Morgan gazed at Mary who stood ready to serve her. The girl had on a muslin dress passed down from some lady guest and she had carefully rouged her cheeks whilst her hair, Tony was sure, had felt the deft fingers of Mrs O'Connor, the housekeeper. The ribbons and ringlets were strangely similar to those that adorned Maude Hawtrey who was sitting next to him – but there was little doubt upon whom they looked better. Whilst Mary made the impression that she intended, Tony tried to avoid her glances, but he couldn't fail to notice her smiles. From behind him darted the yellow cuff of Keenan's regimental coatee as plates and glasses were whipped away. The young soldier's movements seemed strangely in tune with those of Mary across the table.

Tony did his best with Maude and the bruised Charlotte. The little sallies that he tried with Miss Hawtrey seemed to tell, but her polite enquiries about the typical temperature in the East, whether he would have to keep warm or cool and how trying the indigenous snakes and flies would be were hard to endure. To her the ‘East’ was a definite place, populated by a distinct and loathsome tribe with the absolute intention of making his life as uncomfortable as possible. Try as he might, he could not convince her of the reality of the Russians, the certainty of their trying to kill rather than simply discommode him and the absolute gallantry with which he would confound them. No, to Maude war was no platform of valour, merely a plain of banality. On the other hand, Charlotte's accident at least gave Morgan something plausible to talk about whilst reminding Maude of another sort of gallantry.

The courses seemed endless. Billy stuck to the old custom of feeding early and feeding plenty no doubt hoping to impress their guests. Soup gave way to ices, savouries to meats, jellies to slices of offal on toast and finally puddings, the whole accompanied by the finest that the Morgan cellar could provide. There would have been every temptation to lighten the burden of his neighbours with drink, but with Maude at such close quarters he hardly dared.

Finally, the toasts. The Queen and Albert began the cavalcade, the army and the navy came next, respective regiments followed hard: then the Tsar and Pope (eyes well damned) brought up the rear.

Warming to his role, Billy called for silence again: ‘Friends, it's been some time since a Morgan answered the call to war.’ Father must have a wonderful memory, thought Tony. There had been no whiff of powder for the old captain and the West Cork Militia along Bantry Bay forty-odd years ago. ‘We don't know where this great war will take Tony, but we do know that it's made new enemies of old friends and new friends of old enemies. In my day you knew where you stood.’

A long way from danger, thought Tony. It was impossible not to like the man, but he made such a show of his militia service all those years ago that the guests could have been forgiven for thinking that it was Billy who was about to go and humble the Tsar, not him.

‘But in this pell-mellery all I can do is to show my son our admiration with a gift that we pray he does not have to use – at least, not against Christians.’

The last phrase drew a snort from the men, but had Tony not been concentrating so hard on the unexpected present he would have noticed a frown from Amelia. Finn, smart as paint in his bottle-green suit of livery, moved from the shadows and passed a slender mahogany box to Billy Morgan. Tony, quite forgetting napkin and chair leg half stumbled as his father beckoned him forward to accept the gift. A little brass plate let into the top was inscribed, ‘A. Morgan Esqre, Gren Coy, 95th Regt.’ The box contained a steely-blue, walnut-stocked Tranter with patches, powder and enough lead to quench the ambition of any Muscovite.

‘That's a fine-looking thing. May I?’ Now alongside the Morgans, Kemp's fingers took the pistol with an almost lascivious grace, coiling themselves around the chequered stock whilst gently tickling the trigger. Supporting it on his beefy left forearm he aimed at the curtain. ‘Only some of us had revolvers in the Punjab and they were nowhere near as fine as this. Remember, Mr Morgan, you'll have the advantage with a repeater, but don't go wasting shot at long range. Wait til' your man gets up close then stick the thing hard into his face before you fire. At Aliwal I had a pepperpot that Charteris – you remember him, Billy? – had urged me to try. All the barrels failed and I ended up using the wretched thing like a club. Oh, I do beg your pardon.’ Kemp cut himself short, realizing that he was marring Billy's moment.

The generosity and unexpectedness of the gift quite silenced Tony. He'd rehearsed a little speech that he expected to give once the toasts had finished – it was brief, self-effacing yet poignant with suggested danger and valour, honed to beguile both lady and maid – but in the event it was still-born. He tumbled out some almost adequate words before resorting to a toast to his father's and friends' health.

Extra peat had redoubled the effects of the drawing-room fire. A lacklustre enquiry or two from the vicar and his wife soon ran into the sand and Tony was desperately seeking another topic when Amelia Smythe appeared at his side. She was a shapely, almost pretty woman who suited the black dress and sparse jewellery that she wore. She was carefully groomed, her hair piled high, powder subtly applied, simple clusters of diamonds at her ears and throat, yet there was a sadness in her grey eyes and at the corners of her mouth. Morgan saw immediately that she was not bent upon platitudes, for she thrust her chin forward, strong opinion bubbling to be set free.

‘Mr Morgan, forgive my seeking your views, especially as we hardly know each other – oh, forgive me. Thank you for inviting me to your party, but have you thought what war will really mean? Are you quite sure that you will be able to send some other poor creature to eternity?’

‘Mrs Smythe, I'm a soldier – death is my trade.’ Tony immediately regretted his gauche reply, remembering how hollow the same phrase had sounded when Richard Carmichael had used it, trying to impress some miss at a ball in England. Why hadn't he managed a thoughtful reply to a serious question, for as he'd handled the pistol he'd wondered just the same thing? If he returned from this campaign would he and Keenan be full of that same lethal joy that he'd seen in Finn and Kemp? Could he rejoice over death and injury? Might he join the gouged veterans in Fermoy – or, like Mr Smythe, not return at all?

‘You heard Colonel Kemp, exhorting you to fire that awful gun – I mean no disrespect – only when you could be sure of killing with it. Have you prayed about this, can you tell me that Christian nations, today, are really not able to settle their arguments in some other way?’

‘But this war is a just one, someone must protect Turkey from being bullied.’ Morgan was struggling now. He'd read the Parliamentary debates in the papers and whilst he would much have preferred to adopt Keenan's stance that, as a soldier, he'd go anywhere and fight anyone he was told to, he knew that wouldn't do for the intense Mrs Smythe. Where were the barrack God-botherers when you needed them, Morgan thought, and why couldn't this comely woman pester his father and not him?

‘Can any act of war or killing be described as just, Mr Morgan? If you really believe that God could smile on those who seek to kill in his name, then I can only pray for you. Forgive my saying such things in your home on this your last night here, but I have to let you know how much I hate the idea of war and all the unhappiness it will unleash.’ The strident note had quite gone from Mrs Smythe's voice and her eyes were cast down almost demurely.

Tony wondered if his father had seen this side of Amelia. She'd made her points with a persuasive passion that had made him think seriously about what he was embarking upon for the first time. Could he continue to hide behind the simplistic arguments that his brother subalterns used and the jingoism of the press? Keenan and the other soldiers might be able to shelter behind the claims that they weren't paid to think or reason, but he was an officer who, if all this talk came to anything at all, would be required to lead men to their deaths.

Later, when cleaning and balancing his gift he questioned whether he would be able to do the things that war required. Would he be capable of taking this elegant tool and bludgeoning another man with it as Kemp had done?

Dinner finished late and Morgan was almost immediately asleep. Every creak of the house, though, every dream-grunt from Hector in the kitchen below woke him, making him check the half-hunter by the light of the moon, but still Mary didn't come. On this, of all nights, he wanted to see her to say a leisured goodbye, to store up memories that would warm him in whatever solitude and latitudes lay ahead. Then, with the first signs of light, his door opened and Mary – stepping wide in her bare feet to avoid a squeaky board – was with him. Cold beneath the eiderdown, her kisses covered his mouth and face, as she slipped from her nightdress and reached for him in one well-practised movement.

‘I'm sorry to be so late, your honour, but the table and kitchen won't clean themselves and James Keenan had a wee party as well as you!’ Her mouth tasted of drink.

‘I hope the Staff were kind to him … Oh, Mary.’ She smiled up from the shadows deep below the sheets.

‘We were, and herself said that we had to find you a gift, just like your father did. Trouble was, we had nothing to give you, so I thought this might answer.’

‘I'm glad that you came to give me the present and not Mrs O'Connor.’ The joke was old but Mary trembled silently as only she could. When she laughed her whole body was consumed by it. Her eyes screwed tight shut, the lines about them deep-etched. It delighted Morgan.

‘Tony, take me with you, I can't be without you.’ The mirth quickly faded. All the bounce, all the confidence had gone from her, her face crumpled as she pushed her head into his shoulder.

A great surge of joy and pleasure welled up through Tony as the idea seized him, but then it died as quickly as it was born. ‘Don't be daft, girl, we're going to war. There'll be time enough to catch up once I'm back.’

It was as if he'd punched her. From sweet softness and warmth she turned to blazing fury, hurling herself from the bed, her eyes alight, her whole body shaking with anger. ‘If I'm not good enough for you, Lieutenant-almighty-bloody-Morgan, I know someone who thinks I am. Well then, I shall accept ordinary James Keenan of Clonakilty's proposal of marriage – he's twice the man you'll ever be!’ She gathered her clothes around the gifts that nature had so generously given her and stormed from the room.

Morgan winced as the bedroom door banged yet again in the early morning. There was no denying how he felt about the girl, but he had hoped that the war would somehow magically resolve things. Knowing Mary, though, she would certainly carry-out her threat and no doubt conspire to embark with the regiment for whatever adventures lay ahead, married – goddamn her – to the soldier who would always be at his elbow. He groaned and turned into his pillow.

Handshakes, then Finn driving the jaunty. More goodbyes and stowing of gear before the coach took them on to the station at Cork and then to the Dublin packet which was full of officers and men from the Irish garrisons and others, like them, who were returning from leave. In the last, easy familiarity before the tendrils of the regiment coiled round both of them, Keenan and Morgan smoked together at the rail.

‘So, sir, Glassdrumman will miss you and I expect Miss Hawtrey will as well.’

‘Well, Keenan, we'll have to see, there's much ground to travel. And what of you, I was surprised that you didn't get down to Clonakilty to see your people. Did you write?’

Keenan tinkered with his stubby, clay pipe. ‘I did, sir, Mary gave me a hand with the letter, so. Jewel of a girl, that Mary.’

Morgan darted him a look, expecting some embarrassing reproach. But no, Keenan's face was set and sincere.

‘Sir, I need to ask you something. Mary's coming to join me in England and we're to marry. Will we be allowed to live together in barracks?’

Morgan couldn't believe what he was being told. So, Mary had been true to her word yet Private Keenan gave no sign of knowing what his future wife's actual relationship with his master really was. His departure for war, for deeds and glory, should have simplified things. Instead, the piquant little treat that he'd been pleased to dip into every time he came back to Ireland on leave was going to follow him back to the Regiment, married to his own servant.

‘You will, Keenan, but if we do get sent to war, there'll only be a handful of wives allowed to come with us and you'd better get used to the idea that a newly wed wife is unlikely to be selected.’ But even as Morgan replied to Keenan, he knew that if Mary was half the girl he thought she was, then she would somehow manage to be with them. He sighed deeply to himself.