Soldier of the Queen (31 page)

He felt pleased with himself, however, self-consciously proud of his new wife and feeling that, with a little help, he ought to be able to shape her into a good soldier’s wife. Dammit, she knew already what battle was all about.

The wallpaper in the dressing-room was deep red, covered with purple flowers, and it seemed to suggest all sorts of dangerous intrigues. Cleaning his teeth at the wash-hand stand, he stared at himself in the mirror. He had never gone in for weeping whiskers like the Cosgros. After the fashion of Wellington’s soldiers, his father had always been clean-shaven and the habit had passed to his son. Not a bad figure, either, he decided. Good chest and shoulders. Strong legs. Nose a bit lopsided where he’d broken it coming off a horse as a boy, but no sign of baldness yet, thank God.

He was curiously nervous. Dammit, he thought,
fathers
ought to tell their
sons
what it’s all about, too! Slipping into his night shirt, he brushed his hair and opened the door. All the candles were still lit and he was surprised because he’d heard that new brides always liked to meet their husbands for the first time in bed in the pitch darkness.

Augusta’s nose was poking over the top of the sheets and her hair was a black cloud on the pillow. Dammit, he thought, she was more beautiful than he’d realised. She smiled at him then her eyes widened, and she sat up abruptly. To his surprise, she was unclothed. No damn night dress or anything!

‘Mr Goff, why are you wearing a night shirt?’

He gaped at her. ‘For God’s sake, why not?’

‘This is our wedding night. I’m not a shrinking violet, Mr Goff, and I think two young people going to bed together should be fun.’

As he stared, she went on earnestly, her eyes bright like an angry kitten’s. ‘There’s a lot of talk about morality these days,’ she said. ‘But from what I can gather, it isn’t all that different from any other time; people just talk about it more, that’s all. Your Queen has nine children–’

‘Eight,’ he corrected. ‘And she’s your queen, too, now. How many are
you
contemplating?’

‘Seven.’

He’d been thinking of one – eventually – a son to carry on the family name as his father would have wished.

‘Seven?’

‘Yes. And they’ll never arrive if we go to bed together with twenty yards of flannel between us.’

He looked down at her. Sitting up in bed, she didn’t seem much more than a child saying her catechism, small-framed and large-eyed in the candlelight, and she seemed as unaware of embarrassment as a child taking a bath. By God, he thought, she was right! There was too much bloody humbug about this business of going to bed together! It was all right, apparently, for a man and woman to prance about naked if they weren’t married, but if it was respectable and all above board, the whole thing had to become shifty and hidden from the day.

‘By God, Mrs Goff,’ he said enthusiastically, wrenching at buttons, ‘I think you’re right.’

The clouds which had been building up all morning had filled and rounded and, by the afternoon, were heavy with rain and moving across the sky like the grey galleons of some celestial armada. Cantering towards the Common, Colby glanced upwards, hoping the storm would hold off just a little longer. Aubrey Cosgro’s troop was at exercise and he could see no sense in them getting wet through and having the unnecessary work of grooming and cleaning after galloping in the mud. He had half-expected to meet them on their way back to barracks, in fact, and as the rain finally came, his temper overflowed.

This was not the day for bad temper either. Balaclava Day was celebrated in the regiment by free beer for the men, free spirits for the sergeants, and a slap-up dinner in the officers’ mess. The occasion was always tinged with a measure of excitement that even the newest joined recruit could feel. Work was done normally, but there was always a tendency to go easy on everybody, and the fact that Cosgro had taken his troop to the common in a threatening storm was enough, on this day of all days, to spoil Colby’s happiness.

It was a good job, in fact, he thought, that the army reforms everybody had been expecting for so long had finally gone through, so that stupid young nincompoops like Aubrey Cosgro couldn’t pick themselves in wherever they wanted, simply because they had enough money and knew the right people. What had happened to the French in 1870 had scared Whitehall and, though they’d been preaching reform ever since the Crimea, nothing had been done about it until now, and snot-nosed fartlets like Aubrey Cosgro had still been able to bring influence to bear. He suspected Cosgro even enjoyed working the men in unpleasant conditions because it gave him a sense of power.

The houses were left behind as he approached the area of gorse and bracken and as he passed the first clump of scrub, Cornet Lord Ellesmere appeared with a sergeant and a trumpeter from a dip. He was a likeable young man with acne who was so shy he could barely give an order.

‘What the devil’s going on?’ Colby snapped. ‘Where’s Lieutenant Cosgro?’

Ellesmere turned in the saddle, a blush reddening his cheeks. ‘He has the men at mounted sword practice, sir.’

‘In weather like this? Where is he?’

Ellesmere pointed. ‘Beyond the trees, sir.’

As he gestured at the jumps and dips over which the regiment exercised its horses, Colby heaved at the reins and, kicking at the flanks of his mount, galloped across the turf, iron-shod hooves flinging up the clods behind him. By this time the rain was coming down heavily enough for puddles to settle in the folds of the ground.

Cosgro’s troop was drawn up in a double line, and long before he reached them Colby could see they were in a resentful mood. They were in the dark green regimentals edged with red, the plastrons reversed as if on campaign so that the cherry-coloured breasts had become mere edged piping. Cosgro had them done up to the nines, with lance caps and everything, the elaborate lines drooping to their chests in complicated founders and tassels, the dyed plumes hanging wetly over their ears. God damn it, Colby thought savagely, this was no day to wear their best uniforms! Two days away buying horses and the bloody idiot was behaving like a colonel, and a bad one at that.

The water dripping off their chins, their jackets black with damp, the horsemen had thrust their lances into the ground, points together, the pennants sodden and heavy. They were at a dip where a bank jump had been constructed and just beyond were dummies on poles and wooden Turks’ Heads for cutting and thrusting practice. The horses were muddied to the girths and the riders’ eyes were bitter at the thought of the hours of cleaning and grooming that lay ahead. Three men stood to one side, holding their horses’ bridles, all three showing signs of having been unseated. One of them had blood on his face as if he’d had a nose bleed and another was bent over his horse’s hocks, rubbing gently, calming the trembling animal.

Aubrey Cosgro, in a forage cap and well caped against the rain, sat his horse with the sergeant-major. ‘Go on, Sergeant-major,’ Colby heard him shout. ‘What are you waiting for? Next man.’

The troop sergeant-major was obviously trying to protest but was clearly ineffective and Colby saw Cosgro gesture angrily with his crop. ‘War doesn’t stop for rain,’ he yelled. ‘Get on with it!’

The troopers began to head for the jumps one by one. The slippery going and the rain in their faces made it difficult to keep their correct distances and several of them missed their thrusts. Colby’s face was like thunder. Even at that distance he could see the horses were having a bad time of it and he knew the jump well enough to be aware that unless they changed feet at the top of the high bank, they were badly placed for the descent. Only the more sure-footed animals were making anything of it. As he drew nearer, a young trooper, who seemed no more than eighteen and – with the depression that was bringing men into the forces to avoid unemployment – could well have been younger, kicked at his horse’s flanks. The animal was clearly tired and Colby wondered how long Cosgro had had them at it. Its head was down and, rather than leaping up the bank, it scrambled up. Foam at the bit, its eyes frenzied, it pulled up in a flurry of mud and scattered turf and tried to change feet. But it lost one leg down the far bank and as its rider tried to heave it up, it went down on its side, turning a complete somersault to land with a sodden slithering thump on the turf beyond.

The sergeant-major spurred forward to snatch at the reins as it scrambled to its feet, and held it, trembling, as its rider dragged himself to his feet. He was limping and had cut his lip, but he jammed his lance cap back on his head with a sullen glare at Cosgro.

‘Again,’ Cosgro yelled at him. ‘And this time, make sure it’s done properly!’

He was so occupied with his anger he didn’t hear Colby arrive, and it was Colby’s furious shout that brought him up sharp.

‘What in God’s name’s going on here?’ he yelled and, as he dragged at the reins, he was aware immediately of the different looks on the faces of the watching men. The sullenness vanished at once and a delighted expectancy took its place.

‘Mr Cosgro! A word, please!’

Frowning heavily, Cosgro yanked savagely at his horse’s head and trotted up to Colby.

‘You’re improperly dressed!’ Colby snapped. ‘When the men are wearing lance caps,
you
wear a lance cap. The men have also not been allowed to cloak. Why not? Take yours off, too, sir!’

Glaring, Cosgro dismounted, unfastened his cloak, rolled it and secured it to the saddle, then mounted again, frowning at the rain that started to soak his tunic.

‘And now what the devil are you doing?’ Colby’s whip jabbed out. ‘That man, there: What’s happened to his horse?’

‘Nothing, sir.’

‘Get down, sir, and have a look.’

Sullenly, Cosgro dismounted and went to the trembling animal whose hide was black with rain and smeared with the mud of the fall. He felt along its leg and rose with blood on his hand. ‘It’s gashed its fetlock, sir,’ he announced.

‘Then why the devil are you insisting it go round again?’ Colby turned to the sergeant-major. ‘Send these four men back to barracks, sergeant-major. They aren’t in a proper condition to be on parade. Get ’em away.’

‘Yes, sir.’ A look of satisfaction on his face, the sergeant-major turned away and a moment later the four horses were moving slowly back to barracks.

‘You’ll have to answer to the colonel, sir.’ Colby turned back to Cosgro. ‘He doesn’t like horses returning injured from parade. Have you been round the course?’

‘No, sir.’

Colby’s mouth twisted in a tight smile. ‘Then, I think you’d better, don’t you? We mustn’t ever ask the men to do something we aren’t prepared to do ourselves. You’d better get on with it.’

Cosgro glared. ‘In these conditions, sir?’

‘If the men can do it, so can you! Off you go. And don’t dawdle.’

Cosgro mounted, drew his sabre from the scabbard with a look that suggested he’d be only too pleased to use it on Colby, and yanked at his horse’s head. His mount was quick and clever but Cosgro wasn’t a good or a bold rider. He missed his thrust at the Turk’s Head and almost unseated himself, then, on top of the bank, his horse, seeing the danger, tried to turn and jump back the way it had come. Cosgro rolled in the saddle, his leg came up, the stirrups flew loose, and down he went into the mud. He climbed to his feet, tears of fury in his eyes and spitting the rain from his lips. As he shoved his cap straight, Colby was pleased to see there was mud on his overalls.

‘Go on, Mr Cosgro,’ he said gently. ‘You haven’t finished the course.’

The rain was coming down more heavily than ever as Cosgro, remounted, and he made heavy weather of the ride, taking the hurdles slowly and carefully. He was taking far longer than any of his men and when he finally halted in front of Colby he was spattered with mud, soaked with rain, and crimson with humiliation and fury.

Colby stared coldly at him. ‘I said a moment ago, Mr Cosgro, that no officer should ask anyone to do something he isn’t prepared to do himself. Corporal, give me your sword.’

Holding the weapon easily, he made for the nearest jump, hoping to God that the gelding he rode wouldn’t fall and make him look a fool. But the horse completed the round quickly, slithered over the bank without accident and galloped back to the line of watching troopers.

‘Sergeant-major,’ he said. ‘Take the men back to barracks. Mr Cosgro–’ his voice rose as Cosgro, turned to follow ‘–a word with you!’

As the troop moved off, the atmosphere had changed perceptibly and Colby heard one of the corporals mutter. ‘One up to Balaclava Bill!’

‘Mr Cosgro,’ Colby said quietly, turning to the furious-faced lieutenant. ‘In future, whenever you bring the men out on exercise, you will do the round yourself. First. To prove it’s safe. If
you
don’t like it, you’ll perhaps remember that the men won’t like it either. Thanks to you, they have hours of work ahead of them. That won’t make you popular but, while
that
doesn’t worry me one jot, it also doesn’t make the army popular and, in case you haven’t noticed it, there’s a move on foot to encourage a better class of men to enlist, something they’ll never do if they hear of fools like you! One thing more: I can hardly order you to groom your own mount or clean your own uniform like a trooper, and your servant will have to do it for you. But you will give him a thundering good tip. If I find you haven’t, I shall want to know why. Now, join your troop.’

He sat his horse, watching as Cosgro cantered off after the disappearing men, his mind seething with rage. Damn Cosgro, he thought angrily. Damn the whole bloody tribe of Cosgros!

The rain had stopped as they reached the first of the houses, and despite their sodden uniforms, the troop brought a stir of colour to the mean streets. Van drivers halted to let them pass and one or two of the horses appeared to have recovered enough to be skittish. Colby knew very well that they hadn’t and that their riders were deliberately making them shy to draw the eyes of passing girls and frighten the older men and women who took such a delight in writing to the paper when the streets round the soldiers’ alehouses exploded into fights. It was an old trick and one they’d not have tried if Colby had been up with them, but at least it showed their spirits had returned.