Patrick Mercer - To Do and Die

So effective had his refusal been that he now sat on the simple stool with the light, leather slips bound at the wrist. Predictably, the Grenadier's Colour-Sergeant, big, florid, Glaswegian Andrew McGucken, was a veritable pugilist. He'd immediately taken the young officer into training – all twenty-four hours of it – and now stood behind him, chafing him with a grubby towel.

‘He's just a lamb, sir.’ McGucken's view of the thug who'd just leapt into the crude, rope ring was rather different from Morgan's. Rather than gambolling, the creature bounced about his corner, thumping the air, emitting little ‘tsh-tsh’ noises like one of the new steam engines in human form. His opponent was called John Duffy and he'd recently volunteered from the 6th. His colleagues from his former corps stood as close around the ring as possible and as the bell rang, a sallow, curly-haired confederate yelled, ‘Break his face’. Duffy clearly heard, for the next four minutes were some of the most punishing that Morgan could recall.

Almost at once his nose bled. Then a splendid hook sent him staggering into the ropes in his opponent's corner, followed by a bruising jab or two to the ribs. Realizing that Duffy was more skilled than most of the men, Morgan rallied, put together some good combination punches that marked his opponent around the eyes and started to get his confidence back.

It didn't last long. Just before the bell rang to end the round, an uppercut felled him. He was suddenly on all fours, gazing at the packed dirt floor and listening to the referee counting down the seconds. He heard ‘four’ and realized that he must stand. On ‘five’ he did, brushing his gloves and coming on guard just on ‘seven’. The referee patted his shoulder and he flung himself onto his corner stool.

‘That's it, Morgan, let him exhaust himself by running round the ring after you and punching you silly. The idea is to hit him, you know.’ Carmichael, smooth, clean, brushed and polished, sneered through the ropes.

‘I don't see yous up here in the ring, sir, so shag-off unless you've got something useful to say to Mr Morgan.’ Subalterns signified little to Colour-Sergeant McGucken.

‘You've got to keep away from his right, sir. Keep circling to his left, your right, and jab with your left as hard as possible. You're doin'grand.’ The red-stained towel that was pulled away from his nostrils suggested something different, but at least the bleeding had stopped.

The second round was bruising. Morgan did his best to keep his flowing nose away from Duffy's flicking left hook, but without total success. Every time he came forward to deliver one of his crushing rights, Duffy found his mark, stinging him hard and making the bleeding worse. Just as the round was in its last seconds, though, Morgan pushed his opponent onto the back foot. Duffy tried a desperate lunge, allowed the young officer to get inside his guard and paid the price. Morgan pushed with his left, another left, both punches rocking the burly private back, before he caught him with a very creditable right on the point of the jaw. Duffy reeled; his gloves came down, but just as Morgan was closing in for what he hoped would be the kill, the bell sounded and the round ended. His opponent slunk back to his stool, bloody but determined to redress the balance. What did a fucking officer know about scrapping anyway?

The next two rounds were not the happiest of Morgan's life. What he'd achieved in round two was more than undone by his now-angry opponent. Whilst he wasn't knocked down again, Duffy concentrated on his already flooding nose, closed his left eye and seemed impervious to all of his blows – or almost impervious. At the end of the fourth, Morgan made him stagger with a left jab and stopped him with the hardest right he could muster just above his enemy's belt. More would have followed had Duffy not held him in a clinch and pushed him hard against the ropes.

As Morgan stumbled back to his corner he noticed the black drips of blood soaking into the ground. All over his torso were red weals where Duffy's punches had smeared his own blood yet with his one, good eye he could see nothing similar on his foe.

‘Well done, sir, you've got him now. See how he's slumped over?’ to Morgan's surprise, McGucken seemed to be delighted. Certainly, Duffy's head was down and his second – a corporal from the Light Company – was working overtime with towel and sponge. Morgan suspected, though, that Duffy was just husbanding his strength.

‘Get out there, Mr Morgan sir, and belt the twat in the ribs, you've broke a couple already, he's on the run.’

Now it was the last round. Morgan had four minutes to salvage the honour of the Officers' Mess, four minutes to burnish his reputation. The leaning, apparently broken Duffy, however, had other ideas. The young officer ran into a barrage of punches that made his nose fountain and blocked any vision at all from his left eye. A flurry of blows had him covering up as best he could in his own corner when broad Glasgow was bellowed into his ear.

‘See his ribs there, sir, leather the bastards!’ And leather them he did. The best right he could find landed just where the earlier blow had and Duffy faltered, both gloves came down, and he sagged back into the centre of the ring. All that now remained was for Morgan to step forward and punch mechanically at a target that could no longer defend itself. Within seconds a towel flew into the ring, within another few seconds the referee had the victor's hands above his head and seconds after that he was receiving the cheers and slaps of every officer and soldier there. He'd never do that again.

A good, hard run was just the way to shift bruises, Finn always said. Got the blood pumping round the system and washed the contusion away from the skin, Finn always said. Certainly, when he'd fallen off his horse as a boy or been in one scrape or another, the groom back at Glassdrumman had always insisted that a run was the treatment; that's why Morgan had risen early, earlier than his aching limbs and muscles would have liked, to run the four miles out of the barracks, up over Todd's Hill and then home. Now he was back, agreeably blown and with his bruised face and ribs complaining in time to the pulse of his heart. As he padded back to the Mess past the stables, though, there was a hubbub of excited voices: men laughing and hooting before breakfast suggested something intriguing.

‘Stand up!’ As Morgan rounded the corner of the stable block still panting in his shorts and jersey, half a dozen men in undress, brown, canvas trousers and shirtsleeves braced to attention.

‘Leave to carry on, sir, please?’ A well-muscled lad whom Morgan recognized as a lance-corporal from Number Three Company, bellowed with a confidence that Morgan knew was designed to hide something.

‘Please do, Corporal…’

‘Fitchett, sir, Number Three.’

‘Sorry, yes of course,’ Morgan replied. ‘Who's this? You're a jewel, ain't you?’ In the arms of one of the other men was the gamest, little Jack Russell that Morgan could remember seeing in an age. His coat was dappled and smooth, his ears short, well-pointed and alert and his eyes like the blackest of coals. As the young officer stretched forward and stroked his muzzle, a tiny pink tongue flicked out and gave him a perfunctory lick, the salute of one sportsman to another.

‘Mine, sir, name o' Derby,’ the soldier, whom Morgan didn't think he'd ever seen before replied, smiling at the officer's obvious interest.

‘Well, Derby, shall we see you at your work?’ At this all the troops relaxed. A circle of bricks three high and about ten feet across had been improvised for the ratting session which, as long as no money changed hands, was winked at in the regiment. But it was quite clear from the time of day and the bearing of the men that this was a serious, commercial affair – quite against Queen's Regulations. That's why they had been worried by the approach of an officer, until Morgan had made his tacit approval clear.