Read Casca 21: The Trench Soldier Online
Authors: Barry Sadler
Casca 21: The Trench Soldier
This is a book of fiction. All the names, characters and events portrayed in this book are Fictional and any resemblance to real people and incidents are purely coincidental.
CASCA: #21 Trench Soldier
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Copyright © 1989 by Barry Sadler
Cover: Greg Brantley
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Table of Contents
Rufus
Casterton limped painfully along the snow-covered, dirty street shivering uncontrollably in the freezing, wet wind. It was April, but spring comes late to London. With every step the frozen stones of the pavement struck fresh chills into his feet through the paper-thin soles of his worn-out shoes. The right sole leaked and sucked in ice-cold water every time it touched the ground.
He wore the uniform of the men who had been described by an obscure poet as "the army of the rear," the tattered and dirty unemployed who were to be found on the streets of every English city—greasy cloth cap, a suit stained and crumpled from being slept in through all weathers, and a thin cotton shirt that did little to keep the keen wind from his chest.
At every corner there stood a bobby. Casterton would have gladly killed any one of them just for his clothes. Stout boots that kept the feet snug in woolen socks, a uniform of warm wool serge topped by a shiny, black helmet, and all protected by an oilskin cape. Neither rain, hail, sleet, nor snow could penetrate the London bobby's protection against the city's vile climate.
But
Casterton knew only too, well there was no way to get at one of these constables. All night long they marched the streets of the city, each assigned to a section four blocks by four blocks, forbidden to leave any one street until he had sighted the next constable on his adjoining beat.
At no time was any one bobby farther than four blocks from a comrade, and should the other peeler fail to appear as expected, a single shrill blast would bring running every copper within earshot.
The system worked so well that the rich burghers of London slept soundly and unconcerned, their doors closed more against the foul weather than in fear of malefactors. Servant girls and porters were sent on errands for their masters and unhesitatingly trod the gas lit streets at all hours of the night.
The horror of "Jack the Ripper" had been quickly forgotten once the old Queen's insane son, the Duke of Clarence, generally deemed responsible, had been discreetly locked away. The attacks had promptly ceased, and prostitutes again plied their trade free of the fear of sudden attack by a well-dressed gent carrying a respectable doctor's bag full of surgeon's instruments.
But the death of the old Queen, perhaps hastened by her son's lunacy and the dawn of the Twentieth Century, had ushered in an era of hardship never previously known in the small island that ruled the world. The mad Clarence had died in a lunatic asylum, and another son, the extravagant, luxury loving Edward VII had succeeded the old Queen on the throne.
The British Empire had grown to fantastic proportions, her dominion stretching from the frozen Arctic wastes of Canada in the north to some of the southernmost islands of the planet, the Falklands and New Zealand. From London the rule of Britannia extended east and west so that British ships could circle the globe by the "All Red Route" and never be obliged to put into a foreign port. And in every port an English gentleman would feel at home. There would be the Union Jack flying, troops, no matter of what race or creed or
color, in British uniforms, women who, if not naturally frigid, acted so in order to seem more British, and the most uneatable food.
India and South Africa were British. China and Egypt were not but were ruled from London all the same. The Chinese had surrendered Hong Kong, and even on mainland China the Collector of Customs was a British official. Egypt was a British "protectorate." Greece was a dependent kingdom, its ruler of British blood. The old Queen's sons and grandsons sat on every throne from Moscow to Sweden. The British royal family, the House of Hanover, was of German blood, but now, like almost every royal family in the world, it served England.
India was a British colony as was Burma. Siam paid tribute, while Tibet was a vassal state. At an enormous cost in lives, Afghanistan had repelled three British invasions and was almost unique in Asia in remaining truly independent.
The world was largely at peace. From Nepal to Nova Scotia, a
Pax Britannica held sway as the Pax Romana had in the time of Christ.
The British Empire had no farthest limit on the planet. No river, not even the vastest oceans, bounded its sway. And the peoples of the far-flung dominions, protectorates, spheres of influence, and possessions of the empire were so ready to supply troops for their own domination that the Imperial Crown had no need of mercenaries and even disdained a standing home army of any size.
The result was that soldiering was not only a poorly paid occupation—it was one that scarcely existed. The depressed economy at home and the unlimited supply of ever-willing-to-fight Irish ensured that the British Army never went short of a man.
And experienced mercenary that he was,
Casterton was not fool enough to look for employment in the armies of Great Britain's few ambitious enemies. Not only were they certain of defeat, they could not afford decent pay.
While outside the British Empire the world was largely at peace and peaceful, too.
Great Britain had treaties with her traditional enemies, Russia and France, that kept the other European powers from adventuring against any of them. The few conflicts that did break out between the smaller states of Europe, or even Asia, were quickly settled by the diplomatic intervention of British ambassadors who mediated the quarrels like kindly uncles presiding over nursery squabbles.
Except for France, which had an elected president, there was a noble ass in the person of a king, prince or czar on all the thrones of Europe and Asia, from Moscow to Tehran to Tonga. And most of them were children or grandchildren of Victoria and her German consort or were puppets who owed their crowns to the British.
But if the rule of the Crown promised peace, it also guaranteed poverty. The seizure of the peoples' common lands through the Enclosure Acts had made paupers of England's once prosperous yeoman class, and a similar fate had been exported to all of the colonies. All power emanated from London, and all wealth flowed there. The riches of most of the world poured into London and into a very few pockets.
The small handful of gentry who owned the British Empire had instituted a form of democracy to keep at bay the dangerous revolutionary ideas of America and France. The House of Lords held only the titled nobility while their younger brothers, cousins, and nephews sat in the House of Commons where the Prime Ministership, albeit through the process of the ballot box, passed from father to
son and uncle to nephew. The common people had no say at all in the doings of Parliament and expected none. Although every Londoner knew the stately buildings, Parliament was a mysterious and exclusive territory as remote as the moon to most Englishman.
There were few jobs to be had, all of them bad. Germany, France, Italy, and the U.S.A. had come late to the Industrial Revolution, having seen and avoided the worst of England's mistakes. And now, especially in America, men of enterprise were proving their worth with new ideas and products while getting rich in the process. Germany had leaped ahead in chemicals and petroleum derivatives and was planning a railroad from Baghdad to Berlin which would bring Iraq's oil to Germany more quickly and more cheaply than British ships.
In England enterprise was a dangerous word. Men of capital ruled industry and commerce, reluctantly using, buying up, or marrying their daughters to the occasional man of enterprise who could not otherwise be contained. Some, like Tommy Lipton, a fo'c'sle-hand-come-tea-merchant (some said opium runner), had even been granted (some said sold) a knighthood. But for all that, the old, inbred families and their old ways had ensured that British industry and commerce had stagnated for a quarter century.
The imperious monarch, Edward VII, who had forced Prime Minister Asquith to kiss his hands, was succeeded in 1910 by King George V, who although less inclined to parade the enjoyment of his enormous wealth, had effected no change for the better in the lives of the subjects of the British Crown.
The millionaire confectioner, Rowntree, in order to establish a level of payment for his own employees, had defined a minimum level for household needs and found that a third of England's population failed to reach it. In all weathers the Thames embankment was crammed with the unemployed sleeping out. The jails were crowded. In South Wales reluctant miners were forced to work in the pits at the point of army guns.
Casterton
very much regretted leaving China where he had been a much respected and well rewarded functionary in the government of Sun Yat-sen and his warlord Chiang Kai Shek. At first things had gone well for him in London, but a chance meeting in the Strand with a retired British China Company colonel had forced him to find his new name and to go into hiding amongst the lowest levels of the city's poor. Colonel Braithwaite had no love for him and had not forgotten either the lieutenant that Casterton had publicly executed in Hong Kong or the parcel of gold, opium, and other valuables that was still unaccounted for and had severely compromised Braithwaite's career. Casterton had been sentenced to hang for the death of the lieutenant and would receive the same sentence for the theft and for his desertion, though the crimes had taken place more than ten years previously.
Inside England anybody who could pass for an Englishman could call himself by any name he chose, and the man who, as Casca Rufio Longinus, had once served in the legions of Augustus Caesar had settled on Rufus
Casterton, a variant of the name on his American passport.
Not that it made any difference if he were called Cassius,
Casterton, or Casca. As one of the capital's huge army of starving bums, he was invisible. Colonel Braithwaite would not deign to so much as glance in the direction of such a derelict should he pass him in the street.
The late snow had turned to sleet and the two mixed to a muddy, freezing slush on the cobblestones. Casca hunched into his thin clothes and pressed against the wall to get out of the way of a cab that was turning out of the driveway of a mansion. As it passed Casca heard the passenger shout the address.
A small crowd of derelicts set off after the cab, jostling each other as they ran, the fleetest and toughest quickly getting to the front of the mob, panting along almost in reach of the rear step while the others fanned out behind him in a wake of tattered humanity.
Casca ran down the street to the right. He would have to run an extra two blocks, but he knew he could manage that and still
win the race. He suffered the pangs of hunger as much as any bum on the streets of London, but the curse that had kept him alive for two thousand years continued to rebuild his muscular body even when it was fed only on scraps.
He raced down into Oxford Street by Marble Arch and through Portman Square with its fine houses to Baker Street and Regent's Park to meet the cab as it came clattering onto the cobblestones of Park Road.
The sorry crew running after it had diminished to half a dozen and they were now strung out in a long line, the same man in the lead, but now well behind the cab and falling farther back with every stride.
Casca ran briefly alongside him and tripped him deftly. The big man went down heavily, his face hitting the cobbles with a resounding whack.
A moment later the cab drew up at the street door of a large house, and Casca opened the cab door and stood back, cap in hand.
A swell stepped out, dropped a penny into the cap and strolled to where a servant was opening the front door. The cab driver climbed down to rub the sweat from his horse before walking him back to the cabman's shelter in Harrow Road.
The losers in the race were now bunched together, helping up the man Casca had tripped. Their mood and their looks were threatening, but the fallen one's nose was broken, and he was in no shape for a fight. Without him the others would not pit their puny strengths against Casca. He crossed the street and walked back past them on the opposite sidewalk ignoring their curses and jibes.
He had the price of a bun. Now, if he could just get another half-penny, he could enjoy it with a cup of tea. The prospect warmed his belly and his step was almost jaunty as he headed back toward the cabman's shelter.
In Baker Street a door opened and a butler stepped out into the street. Through the open door Casca could see a young woman wearing a huge, ungainly hat and a thin shawl waiting nervously in the hall.
"You there," the butler called to him, "
ha'penny for a cab."
Casca stepped up to the door, touched his cap respectfully and took the
proferred half-penny for which he was expected to run all the way back to the cab shelter and send a cab for the woman that the butler's swell had finished playing with for the night.
"Special service tonight, guv," Casca chirped as he ran down the steps to the street. "Got one
comin' for the lady right now."
He stepped into the roadway as the cab he had just left rounded the corner. He motioned to the driver, indicating the open door, cockily saluted the butler and resumed his walk, his empty gut rumbling in delighted anticipation of the treat in store.
An hour later, fed, warm, and almost dry, Casca was opening the door to another cab, standing to attention, cap in hand as a swell stepped out. But no penny dropped into the cap. The bloated countenance that stalked past Casca did not so much as glance in his direction.
Casca looked into the cab interior. He instantly reached through the open door to scoop up the leather pocketbook, stuffing it into his shirt as he closed the door.