Bernard Cornwell - The Bloody Ground

Starbuck turned to see that Sally was gazing at a punishment horse that had been erected between two of the huts. The horse was a long beam that was mounted edgewise on a pair of tall trestles, and the punishment consisted of a man being forced to straddle the beam’s edge and stay there while his own weight turned his groin into a mass of pain. A prisoner was on the horse with his hands bound and his legs tied to prevent him dismounting, while an armed guard stood beside the steps that were used to mount the instrument. “A punishment,” Starbuck explained, “called a horse. Hurts like hell, I’m told.”

“That’s the point of punishment, ain’t it?” Sally said. She had taken her share of beatings as a child and the experience had thickened her skin.

The man beneath the horse appeared to ask a question of the straddling man. The prisoner shook his head and the man yanked down on his bound ankles so that the man screamed.

“Shit,” Starbuck said.

“Ain’t that a part of it?” Sally demanded.

“No.”

Sally looked at the distaste on Starbuck’s face. “You going soft, Nate?”

“I don’t mind punishing soldiers, but not torture. Besides, think of them.” He nodded toward the companies on the parade ground who were mutely watching the horse. “A regiment’s a fragile thing,” he said, echoing Swynyard’s words to Maitland. “It works best when the men are fighting the enemy, not each other.” He flinched as the guard tugged on the prisoner’s ankles again. “Hell,” he said, reluctant to intervene, but also unwilling to watch any more brutality. He strode toward the horse.

The guard who had tugged on the prisoner’s ankles was a sergeant who turned and watched Starbuck’s approach. Starbuck wore no badges of rank and had a rifle slung on his left shoulder, both of which suggested he was a private soldier, but he carried himself confidently and had a woman and servant, which suggested he might be an officer and the sergeant was consequently wary. “What’s he done?” Starbuck demanded.

“Being punished,” the sergeant said. He was a squat, bearded man. He was chewing tobacco and paused to spit a stream of yellowish spittle onto the grass. “Sergeant Case’s orders,” he added as though that should be sufficient explanation.

“I know he’s being punished,” Starbuck said, “but I asked what he had done.”

“Being punished,” the sergeant said obstinately.

Starbuck moved so he could see the drawn face of the prisoner. “What did you do?” he asked the man.

Before the prisoner could give any answer the drill sergeant abandoned the companies on the parade ground and marched toward the horse. “No one talks to prisoners under punishment!” he screamed in a terrifying voice. “You know that, Sergeant Webber! Punishment is punishment. Punishment is what will turn this lily-livered rabble of squirrel shit into soldiers.” He slammed to a halt two paces from Starbuck. “You have questions,” he said forcefully, “you ask them to me.”

“And who are you?” Starbuck asked.

The tall sergeant looked surprised, as though his fame must have been obvious. He gave no immediate answer, but instead inspected Starbuck for clues to his status. The presence of Sally and Lucifer must have convinced him that Starbuck was an officer, though Starbuck’s age suggested he was not an officer who needed to be placated. “Sergeant Case,” he snapped. Case’s long neck and small head would have looked risible on any other man, and his ridiculous appearance was not helped by a wispy beard and a thin broken nose, but there was a malevolence in the sergeant’s dark eyes that turned amusement into fear. The eyes were flat, hard, and merciless. Starbuck noted too that Case’s gangly body was deceptive; it was not a weak, thin frame, but lean and muscled. He was uniformed immaculately, every button polished, every crease hot-pressed, and every badge shining. Sergeant Case looked just as Starbuck had imagined soldiers ought to look like before he discovered that, at least in the Confederacy, they were generally ragged as hell. “Sergeant Case,” Case said again, leaning closer to Starbuck, “and I,” he stressed that word, “am in charge here.”

“So what did the prisoner do?” Starbuck asked.

“Do?” Case asked dramatically. “Do? What he did is of no business to you. Not one scrap.”

“What battalion is he?” Starbuck demanded, nodding toward the prisoner.

“He could belong to the Coldstream bloody Guards,” Case shouted, “and it still ain’t your business.”

Starbuck looked up at the prisoner. The man’s face was white with pain and rigid with the effort needed not to show that pain. “Battalion, soldier?” Starbuck snapped.

The man grimaced, then managed to say a single word. “Punishment.”

“Then you are my business,” Starbuck said. He took his folding knife out of a pocket, unsnapped the blade, and sawed at the rope binding the prisoner’s ankles. The motion made the prisoner whimper, but it provoked Sergeant Case to leap forward threateningly.

Starbuck paused and looked up into Case’s eyes. “I’m an officer, Sergeant,” he said, “and if you lay a damned hand on me I’ll make sure you spend the rest of today on this horse. You won’t walk for a goddamn week. Maybe not for a goddamn month.”

Sergeant Case stepped back as Starbuck cut through the last strands of hemp and put a hand under one of the prisoner’s boots. “Ready?” he called, then heaved up hard, throwing the prisoner off the beam. The man thumped onto the damp ground where he lay still as Starbuck crouched and sliced through the rope about his wrists. “So what did he do?” Starbuck asked Sergeant Case.

“Son of a bitch!” Case said, though whether of Starbuck or the prisoner it was impossible to tell, then he turned abruptly and strode away with his companion.

The prisoner groaned and tried to stand, but the pain in his crotch was too savage. He crawled to one of the horse’s supporting trestles and dragged himself to a sitting position, then just clung to the timber. His eyes watered and his breath came in small, stuttering gasps. Even Sally flinched at his evident pain. “Guns,” he finally said.

“Guns?” Starbuck asked him. “What about them?”

“Son of a bitch is stealing guns,” the freed prisoner said, then was forced to stop because of the pain. He clutched his groin, held a deep breath, than shook his head in an effort to banish the dreadful agony. “You asked why I was on the horse? Because of guns. I was on a detail to unload rifles. We got twenty boxes of them. Good ones. But Holborrow made us put them in crates marked CONDEMNED and then gave us muskets instead. Richmond muskets. Hell,” he spat, then momentarily closed his eyes as a spasm of pain made him grimace. “I don’t want to go shooting no Yankees with buck and ball, not if they’ve got minie balls. That’s why I argued with that son of a bitch Sergeant Case.”

“So where are the rifles now?” Starbuck asked.

“Hell knows. Sold, probably. Holborrow don’t care so long as we never go to war. We’re not supposed to fight, see? Just get supplies that the son of a bitch sells.” The man frowned up at Starbuck. “Who are you?” he asked.

“Potter!” A new and angry voice yelled from the headquarters building. “Potter, you son of a bitch! You bastard! You lunkheaded piece of dog shit. You black-assed fool!” The speaker was a tall, lean officer in a braided gray coat who stumped toward Starbuck with the help of a silver-tipped cane. Sergeant Case marched behind the officer, who had a neat blond goatee beard and a narrow mustache that had been carefully waxed into stiff points. He shoved the cane hard into the turf to aid each step and in between he brandished it toward the astonished Starbuck. “Where the hell have you been, Potter?” the officer demanded. “Just where the hell have you been, boy?”