Imogen Robertson - Instruments of Darkness

“Thanks, Captain. Tastes good.”

Thornleigh did not smile. “Only the best.”

The man laughed; it pulled at his wound and became a cough which spat a thick red from his mouth. Thornleigh gave him the flask again. He drank, and tried apologetically to wipe the opening clean with his sleeve before Thornleigh gently took it back.

“Don’t know if you’ve heard, sir. I’m afraid Captain Hawkshaw is dead.”

Thornleigh felt it in his own gut like a soft blow of the fist. He bowed his head.

“You saw?” he managed to say.

The man nodded. “Second wave, he was up front and charging. The skinny bastard he was bearing down on waited till he was almost there and got him right in the forehead. He just dropped.” The man paused again. “Got nerve, these little shits, some of them at any rate. I did for him a minute later, then. .” he put his hand on the red mess at his middle… “then his mate did for me.”

Thornleigh nodded his throbbing head. The man looked at him. “Musket blow up on you, sir?” Thornleigh put his hand to the right side of his face. He felt flesh rather than skin. The touch seemed to wake the wound; it burned across his cheek in a wave, exploding in a spasm of pain under his eye, scrabbling at his vision until it seemed he could see the pattern of it. He steadied himself. Willed it down.

“Yes. Mine was shot from my hand in the first wave. Made do with a dead rebel’s till I could get it back. I suppose it did not like me for a master.”

The man smiled. “A rebel gun, you see?” He laughed at his own joke, repeating it with a shake of his head. “A rebel gun.”

“Sorry about Hawkshaw, Captain. He was a good sort of bloke.” The grin became a little lopsided. “So was I.”

Thornleigh put the hip flask back into his hands and stood. The man looked at it.

“You’ll never get it back, Captain.”

Thornleigh waved his hand. “Drink to Hawkshaw.”

“Will do, sir. Good luck to you.”

Thornleigh stood. The light was softening into the evening of another beautiful summer’s day. He turned into the building itself. The groans became screams in the shadows, the smell rank and rusty. The surgeon was hard at work with the saw, the ground below him a swill of blood and vomit. Just visible behind them was a wide barrel; over its edge hung a bloody hand, bent at the wrist, oddly perfect. Thornleigh wondered if the rest of the man had survived.

Moving past them into the wide open space of the hospital itself, he followed the route he had taken with Hawkshaw and Wicksteed into the main area. It was as lofty as a church. The howls from where the surgeon did his work were a little deadened by the stone. The men here were mostly quiet, content now, it seemed, to wait quietly until death took them, or their bodies showed themselves willing to recover. He found three of his men, and heard news of two others who had died under the knife. Two he found with their wounds dressed, but telling him, in dubious tones, that the balls that had wounded them had been left intact rather than dug out. Thornleigh was not fit to talk surgical fashions. The straw scattered between the bed-rolls was slippery with blood. He fetched water again. Sat and let the others talk, told the story of his own wound, and heard it being repeated between beds. It began to darken, and the pain was making him sick. He needed to think about Hawkshaw and use all the drink he had to wash some of the day away. He could feel the energy that had carried him through the action retreating, leaving him hollow and sounding to the horrors. He was already on his way out of the doors when he felt a presence at his shoulder and turned to see Wicksteed beside him, washed to his elbows in blood.

“Captain Thornleigh!” Wicksteed came a little closer and peered up at his wound. “You should let the surgeon look at that, Captain Thornleigh, before you go.”

“He has more pressing business.”

He turned to go again, but Wicksteed’s fast right hand caught him on the sleeve and detained him.

“Captain Hawkshaw?”

“Dead.”

Wicksteed plucked his hand back.

“Shame. He was a friend to me. Thought he might think of me, when this is all done.”

Thornleigh stared at him with his one eye. Wicksteed looked at the ground a moment, then drew himself closer to the larger man’s side, like a girl who needs a partner at a country ball. His hand rested on Thornleigh’s sleeve again. His fingers were black with gore.

“Let me wash the dirt out of that wound, Captain Thornleigh.”

Thornleigh didn’t reply, simply shook the hand from his sleeve and walked on. The need to escape was becoming a pressure behind his eyes. He was five minutes clear of the yard when a young ensign called him from across the street.

“Captain Thornleigh! Request from the governor. Soon as you’re cleared up, could you go to Stone Jail and see what you can get from the prisoners.”

Hugh frowned. “What nonsense is this? Pulling information isn’t my style. Why do they ask for me?”

The boy looked confused, he’d got his message the wrong way about.

“There’s a prisoner says he knows you. Name of Shapin. Asks for you. Governor hopes he might get chatty with you.”

Hugh remembered Hawkshaw’s story, nodded wearily and turned again. The ensign looked nervous, but lifted his voice.

“Sorry, sir, but soon as you can, they said. Don’t know how long he’ll last.”

Hugh kept walking, the pressure behind his eyes continuing to build.

TUESDAY, 6 JUNE 1780

“ On whose orders? On whose orders, I say?”

The shouts came from the side of the house, and with only a look between them Harriet and Crowther turned off the path to the front of Thornleigh Hall and made their way in that direction. Their feet made very little noise on the gravel. They turned the corner to see Wicksteed with his back to them, one arm raised, a crop in his hand, his other hand fastened around the wrist of a maid about Rachel’s age. One of the doors to the kitchens in the basement was open; a number of the Thornleigh domestics crowded round it, watching. She must have fallen as Wicksteed dragged her out and up the steps. Some of her hair had escaped from under her cap and she was crying. The hand that was free she held up, ready to ward off the crop. She spoke in a high shriek as he lifted his arm still higher.

“I thought it best! He was drunk! You’d gone to bed, Mr. Wicksteed!”

Wicksteed pulled her up to her knees.

“Thought it best! A thinker, are you? You think you can lock your master in his rooms, for the best?”

He twisted her wrist and she squealed again.

“He was drunk, sir! I don’t have the key to the gun room, but the key to the salon was in the lock! He had a fire in there! I thought I could open it in the morning, and no one would know! I’m glad I did it!”

Harriet and Crowther could see the spittle from Wicksteed’s mouth hitting her in the face. His voice was almost a scream.

“Glad, are you?” He brought the crop down. The girl squirmed but he had her firmly enough. It struck across her cheek with a slapping crack that rebounded off the walls. Harriet recoiled. As Wicksteed raised his hand again, Crowther closed the last few paces between them and lifted his cane so it held Wicksteed’s right arm in the air.

“Little trouble with the domestics, Wicksteed?” he drawled.

Wicksteed whipped round, his breathing hard, his face scarlet.

“My own business,” he hissed.

Crowther smiled thinly at him, kept his cane where it was.

“Come now. I think you have made the girl sorry enough, don’t you?”

He kept his eyes on Wicksteed’s face, but the latter glanced down at the girl at his feet. The blow showed as a dead white line on the unnatural red of her face. The skin had broken by her eye. Wicksteed spat on the ground.