Claire Letemendia - The Best of Men

Delirious, he lost all awareness of time. Days must have passed before he could walk a few steps, hunched over to protect the hole in his side. He learnt that since the army could not afford to have its progress slowed, it had marched on, taking most of the supplies and all but the most decrepit of horses and oxen. As to the men left behind, scant provision had been made for their comfort. With bowels loosened by rotten food and tainted water, they froze at night, having been robbed long ago of any decent clothing or valuable possessions. Many who might have survived their wounds succumbed to the flux or the ague, while others went more quickly, their injuries putrid and gangrenous in a matter of hours.

Laurence was fortunate. At last his wound stopped leaking yellow fluid and dried over in a thick scab that itched unbearably. He increased his perambulations to the courtyard and fields beyond, where he would watch the bodies being taken out for burial in a common pit and listen to the dark jokes of those fit enough to perform that unsavoury chore. As the local population began to starve, there was talk of cannibalism. He had witnessed evidence of this after long sieges, once every dog and cat and rat had been hunted down: corpses with hunks of meat neatly removed from the thigh or the buttock. Yet in the hospital there were still victuals, and women came each day to prostitute themselves or their offspring in exchange for food. This, too, was not a new sight, but he found himself in a powerless rage against the men who deliberately chose to copulate with small children, in order to avoid being poxed by their mothers. He was laughed at for his sensitivity, and nor were the children grateful, for he was interfering in their livelihood. After the soldiers were done with them, they would limp away, uncomplaining, blood between their legs, clutching some precious morsel.

Perhaps he was wrong, he had thought then. In such a place, there was no room for moral indignation: brute survival dictated all. Yet he could not reconcile himself to life on such terms and so, although growing physically stronger, he had felt as though his mind were slowly becoming unhinged.

Laurence woke to the sound of snoring, from Ingram, in the bed beside him. Ingram seemed older in the morning light: small crow’s feet marked the corners of his eyes, and his moustache was threaded with grey. The little tuft of beard between lower lip and chin that had become so fashionable of late gave him a rakish air that belied his true nature.

“Ingram, I have to go,” Laurence said, shaking him.

He sighed drowsily. “What a night. I remember something wet on my head.”

“Your brother threw a bucket of water over you.”

“He must have given us hell.”

“He gave me hell. You weren’t in any condition to listen.”

“Beaumont, your shirt,” Ingram said, indicating the pinkish stains that speckled the front of it. “I’ll lend you another, though it may be a bit short for you in the sleeves. Over there, in the clothes press.” Laurence accepted the offer, and had just stripped off and was about to dress when Ingram pointed to his side and exclaimed, “What on earth did that to you?”

“A musket ball,” Laurence said, hurrying to pull on the clean garment.

“How long ago?”

“About three years.”

“Let me see.”

“No.”

“Why not? Most men are proud of their battle scars.”

“What’s there to be proud of? The surgeon was worse than a butcher’s apprentice.”

Ingram sighed again, heavily. “I owe you an apology for last night.”

“For puking on me?”

“I’m sorry for that, yes — but what I mean is, I shouldn’t judge you for what you did abroad, when in your situation I might have acted no differently myself.”

“You would have acted very differently, my friend,” Laurence said, thinking to himself that Ingram did not know the half of it. “Thanks, though, all the same.”

“Where will you go now, to your family?”

“I must.” Laurence felt in his doublet for the coded letters he had tucked away there and was relieved to find them safe. “Oh — I meant to ask, do you know if William Seward is still at Merton?”

“Yes, I believe he is, although he was very old for a tutor even when we had him.”

“Must be the sight of those fresh-faced boys that’s keeping him alive.”

“What made you think of him?”

“Er … no special reason. He was always good to me.”

“Because he wanted to bugger you. He wasn’t as well disposed to me , but then I wasn’t as pretty as you were, nor as clever. I was rather afraid of him, in fact, with his magical alembics and jars full of concoctions. And those cats he kept, like a witch’s familiars — disgusting!”

“Too true — his rooms stank of cat piss.” Laurence picked up his saddlebag, about to leave. “When shall I see you next?”

“I’ll come by Chipping Campden in a few days, to find out how you’re bearing up. I could take you back to Oxford with me, to meet my brother-in-law.” Ingram propped himself up on one elbow and smiled at Laurence. “Are you a little nervous about going home?”

“As the Pope is Catholic,” Laurence replied, laughing. “Goodbye, Ingram.”

When he went to fetch his horse from the stables, the ostler could not praise it enough. “Never seen a crossbreed come out so nicely, sir! Tall, yet with the daintiness and sturdiness of a Barbary. Odd for it to be black, sir. Most beasts of that blood tend to white or grey. And the workmanship on this sword,” he added, handing it back to Laurence. “Spanish, I’d guess.”

“That’s right,” Laurence said, thinking suddenly of Juana; how surprised she would be, if she knew how far the sword had travelled from its native land.

On the ride northwards out of Newbury, he saw no signs of war. Crops flourished in the fields and the sheep grazed in their pasture undisturbed. Yet approaching the outskirts of Oxford he began to encounter groups of armed men on the road, so he took a longer, rarely travelled route around the prosperous market towns of Woodstock and Chipping Norton, into the Cotswold hills. It seemed to him as though he had never been away, as he recognised the old markers on his journey: the rising of church spires, the farmhouses, the copses and spinneys, the low dry-stone walls, and the River Evenlode gleaming between green banks.

By early evening, he arrived at his father’s property. He chose to avoid the gatehouse, and went around to a lower part of the surrounding wall that his horse could jump easily. The sun still gave out surprising warmth, drying his mud-splattered clothes. He reined in, and looked over the expanse of the park. Some of the older trees had been cut down or polled, and others that had been saplings when he left had matured and filled out their boughs. In the distance he could hear the cooing of wood pigeons, while the air around him was heavy with the monotonous chirrup of crickets.

Gradually he was overwhelmed by a sickening apprehension: all this was his birthright. If he could not accept it, with the responsibilities it entailed, he should never have come back to England. He knew, far better than before, that he was no more suited to be his father’s heir than he was to military life, though not for the reasons he might have given six years ago. Then, his natural indolence and a blithe spirit of rebellion against authority had caused him to reject the world into which he was born. Now, he feared that he had witnessed too much to settle within its confines, and had done too many sordid things to be worthy of its respect. But he had to think of his father, whom he had missed terribly and often, in self-reproach after committing the basest of deeds, and in sorrow when he had been most lonely or miserable.