Don Gutteridge - Dubious Allegiance

Marc was in the midst of answering, “I’m just fine,” when he leaned over and retched.

Marc spent the next six hours being swaddled, coddled, and otherwise overcared-for by Mrs. Standish and young Maisie, the former having an undue reverence for the authority of a uniform and the latter an equally undue reverence for its particular occupant. The blow to the head had been absorbed partly by the shako cap and the brick wall next to it, so that beyond an unsightly bump and a short-lived headache, no real damage had been done. The strangulation marks on the throat, however, proved least susceptible to treatment, though a warm bath and soothing poultices went a ways towards easing much of the pain and some of the indignity. That the perpetrator should be hanged, drawn, and quartered was proclaimed to the walls of every room of the boarding-house, their previous conviction against hanging notwithstanding.

There was considerable consternation among the distaff members of the establishment when the patient rose from his near-death bed, donned that reverence-inducing uniform, and asked Maisie ever so nicely if she would mind walking over to the livery stables at Government House and engaging a one-horse cutter to take him to the garrison. Maisie did not mind in the least.

Half an hour later the transportation arrived in front of the widow’s porch. Marc was feeling so wonderfully recovered that he dismissed the driver with a shilling and took the reins himself. He wanted to be entirely alone as he drove the cutter south to Front Street and swung west until he reached the snow-packed path that wound its way through pretty stands of evergreen and wide stretches of marsh-ice towards Fort York. There was still an hour of brilliant light left before the sun would sink southwesterly over the vast lake.

When Marc had first arrived here, like most newcomers he had found that the brooding, primeval forests seemed to push all thought inward on itself while the freshwater seas without horizons sucked it outward to endless emptiness. But now, feeling almost native, he found a lonely drive like this-under vacant skies and over blank tundra, where snow alone defined the landscape-most conducive to serious meditation. And he had much to think about. Relieved at last of the burden of being stalked, Mark was free to reflect on what it was he was going to say to Colonel Margison.

“This is a decision, Lieutenant, that should not be taken hastily, especially so soon after your first engagement and an injury such as you received in the line of duty.”

They were closeted in Colonel George Margison’s study. Whiskey and cigars having been aborted by mutual consent, the two men, who knew each other well, sat down opposite each other and without ceremony began to talk seriously about the matter at hand.

“I agree, sir. But during the many weeks of my convalescence in Montreal, I had nothing else to do but think.”

“Very true. And I have also known you to be a very thoughtful, highly intelligent and supremely rational officer. But that is precisely my point: you have the potential to be a true leader in Her Majesty’s army. Your ability, diligence, and devotion to duty have already won you one promotion, and I have little doubt that your heroic actions at St. Denis will see you made captain. Courage and presence of mind under fire and impeccable judgement-that is a rare combination. I am simply asking you, Marc, not to throw away the nearly five years of your life that you have dedicated to a military career, a career for which, in my humble opinion, God appears to have moulded you.”

“I do appreciate the confidence you have shown in me, sir. But it is precisely because I have doubts that I can live up to the demands of being an officer that I am giving serious consideration to leaving this profession.”

“You are referring to the grim business of ordering soldiers into situations where they are likely to be killed or maimed in front of you or beside you. But that is a common reaction during any first engagement. If you didn’t have doubts, you wouldn’t be human-or an effective officer.”

“I believe I can cope with that aspect of warfare, sir, especially if I am willing to expose myself to the same dangers.”

“As you amply demonstrated at St. Denis.”

Marc hesitated, searching for the right words to continue. “At first I had great difficulty convincing myself that a ragtag collection of farmers and tradesmen was actually an enemy army like the French regulars. But when they started pointing muskets at us and one of our gunners collapsed beside me with a hole in his chest, then I had no qualms about what I was expected to do at St. Denis.”

“What continues to trouble you, then?” The colonel seemed genuinely puzzled.

“It was the next week, when we returned and found no opposition. I presumed we would be asked to occupy the town, secure it, and re-establish the Queen’s law.”

“And you were not?”

“We were. But in addition we were ordered to raze the homes and destroy or confiscate all the property of any known rebels. As we knew little about any of them, beyond their leaders, Nelson and Papineau, we had to rely on vengeance-seeking loyalists pointing the finger at anyone they might have a grudge against.”

“Yes, that is standard procedure after a victory, though in most cases we are looking at military stores and potential fortifications. In a civil conflict, it is more likely to be houses and barns.”

“I found it deeply disturbing to burn the barns and seize the cattle of starving citizens, many of them women and children.”

“Nevertheless, you did execute your duty, son. Remember that. You were gravely wounded while preparing to clear a rebel residence prior to torching it. And even though you found your orders to be morally distasteful and perhaps inherently unjust, you were, in fact, carrying them out, to the letter.”

Marc had no reply because, as he had confessed to James Durfee, only his being shot had forestalled his having to make the decision to obey or ignore those orders. He did not know, then or now, what he would have done if Sergeant Ogletree had raised the torch and prepared to burn down that cabin.

“Hear me out on this, Marc. Please. You are still a long way from recovery from your injuries and subsequent illness. Decisions made immediately after a battle or the trauma of a wound are rarely sound ones. I am ordering you to take at least another month’s leave before returning to active duty. Get yourself married. Invite me to the wedding. Discuss your future with Beth and with an old hand like Major Jenkin, who will be back here in a week. Then come and see me, and we’ll have this talk again.”

“You are very kind, sir.”

“And should you then choose to leave, I can arrange for you to be invalided out at half pay.”

“No, sir. That’s generous of you-considering the bit of a limp I have-but I would feel right about it only if I were simply to resign my commission. I have recently come into some money, so I don’t really need a pension.”

“Having money doesn’t mean you have to give it away,” the colonel said with a wry smile.

“But I feel I must do the honourable thing.”

“Why does that not surprise me?” The colonel rose and shook Marc’s hand.

At the door he smiled and said, “And try to stay out of alleys, Lieutenant.”

The sun was just going down as Marc approached the western outskirts of the city. A garish vermilion light was washing across the wind-sculpted drifts that rolled pleasingly down to the lakeshore. Marc had the sensation of gliding weightless in a benign dream: for a few blissful moments he was without thought of any kind.

Then the cutter hit a rut, and Marc had to pull the horse sharply to the left to avoid tipping over. It was this sudden movement that allowed him to spot the rumpled outline of something in the snow beside the path, nearly obscured by a pair of drifts hemming it in. Marc stopped the cutter, got out, and walked back a few yards.