Patrick Mercer - To Do and Die

They sank a tot of whiskey apiece in the Rodney and the Granby. But in both there were some of their own corporals or sergeants toping steadily. The young officers passed a civil few sentences with them, trying not to make it look as though they were bolting their liquor before moving on. There would be plenty of time to rub shoulders with the men in the next few months.

They settled, unrecognized, in the snug of the the Plough. More drink came and went whilst their talk gathered pace. Carmichael, though, had been distracted from the moment that two unescorted girls came into the room. They sat down a little way from the fire and began to commune in a geyser of giggles and whispers. Sitting in another corner were four young men, farmers or their sons judging by their clothes. Their volume, too, increased as they drank until one of the braver ones rose, very slightly unsteady, and approached the girls.

Despite a lively, good-natured exchange where the farmer's boy did his best to impress both women with promises of untold largesse, he was rebuffed. With a shrug and upturned palms he walked back to his friends.

‘Missing a bed-warmer now that sweet Mary's tucked up with Keenan, Morgan?’ But before Morgan could react to this jibe, Carmichael had lost interest, sensing a different and much more interesting diversion.

The next hour or so were to remain a whiskey blur to Morgan. The girls joined them, they drank, they laughed a little too loudly at the young gentlemen's wit, showing their teeth too readily behind their too-red lips and in no time the four of them found themselves in Carmichael's rooms.

‘Just get some more coal would you, Morgan? We can't let the fire get any lower.’ Carmichael made it quite clear that Morgan had no choice. He knew where the coal hole was, but in the few minutes that it took him to refill the bucket in the dark and to clatter back upstairs, Carmichael and Jane – by far the prettier of the two girls – had disappeared. With wits dulled by drink, Morgan was just about to enquire of Molly where they had gone when a burst of laughter from behind the firmly-closed bedroom door betrayed them. Re-stoking the fire bought him a few minutes to think whilst Molly, silent except for a few rustles and sips from her glass, sat on the sofa behind him.

The lamps had been trimmed low. As he turned, their forgiving light played over Molly who lounged back on the cushions, glass in hand and breasts quite naked. She smiled and did her best to look attractive.

‘Get dressed, girl.’ Morgan was irritated with himself for being drawn into Carmichael's scheme; he reached into his pocket and put a silver crown in Molly's hand. ‘Here, there's better ways of earning money than that,’ and he rattled down the stairs and away as quickly as he could.

By halfway back to barracks Morgan's canter had slowed to a quick-step. The sentries came to the salute, and raising his top hat, he went over to speak to them. Whilst he had no desire whatsoever to talk, he remembered his first captain's advice when he joined the regiment – always be bothered with the troops: one day they'll save your life or your reputation. They weren't from his company, but he recognized them both. In their early twenties they were older soldiers – Morgan mused on why neither was a lance-corporal and how such old hands had managed to get caught for a greenhorn's duty like this.

‘I'm sorry, I can't remember your name, nor where you're from.’ The taller of the two had a round, pock-marked face that split into a surprised grin now that an officer was talking to him.

‘Francis Luff, sir, Number Five Company.’ The man's breath wisped into the cold night air as his gloved fingers played on the stock of his rifle.

‘No, I know that, where's your home town, man?’

‘Oh, sorry, sir, Hayling Island – our Pete's in your company.’ Luff seemed to have no neck at all. His head jutted straight out of the thick collar of his greatcoat, bobbing now with pleasure, the moonlight reflected off the brass ‘95’ on the front of his soft woollen cap.

‘I know him well, he's a good man, up for a tapeI'm told. What about you, you must be due promotion soon?’

‘Only thing Luffy'll get, sir, is a bleedin' tape-worm.’ One of the oldest jests in the troops' lexicon was delivered in a flat Manchester accent by the other man, provoking dutiful laughs.

‘You're doing well, lads: stand easy and for pity's sake keep warm.’ Men cheered, bonhomie dispensed, easy, pleasant little job done, it was a good point to leave. Both men snapped their left foot forward, clasped their hands across their bellies and pushed their rifles into the crooks of their arms. The cosiness of the banter was stark against the long, lethal gleam of their bayonets.

‘He's a decent bloke, that Paddy Morgan. Pete says 'e'll be all right when we get to fight.’ The conversation had pleased Luff disproportionately.

‘Don't s'pose it'll come to that. We'll go down to Portsmouth tomorrer an' be stuck there for ever, knowing our luck. Mind you, Mr Morgan did well in the ring t'other night, wouldn't mind having him as our officer, not a stuck-up sod like some o' the others.’ The sentries' muttered conversation helped to pass the long hours of their watch.

The heavy metal key clunked into the back door of the Mess. Morgan's room still felt warm against the cold of the night and as he stripped off coat, hat and muffler he twitched back his curtains. The barracks slept – but not entirely. Over there, at an end of the Grenadier Company's lines he fancied that he could see just one light burning dimly.

‘Now look, yous …’ Colour-Sergeant McGucken held the heavy rifle across his waist and pointed at the graduated rear-sight, ‘… it's no good buggerin' about adjustin' the bloody thing if you don't know how far away the target is, so you've got to be able to estimate the range accurately, or it's all a waste of fuckin' time.’

The Grenadier Company gaggled about him as the sun beat down on the eighty-odd men, all of whom swiped to keep the flies out of their eyes, ears and noses. They had been waiting in Varna on the west coast of the Black Sea for a fortnight or more whilst the politicians decided what to do next, nobody quite knowing whether they would be sent inland to help the Turks on the Danube or embark on their ships again.

‘Luff, tell us how we estimate range.’ McGucken picked the boy out from the rear of the crowd where his attention had begun to wander. He was looking at the scorched, brown Bulgarian fields and hedges where they stretched down to the sea and thinking how different it all was from the green of Hayling Island.

‘At five hundred you can make out colours; at four hundred limbs and the head become distinct; at three hundred features become visible and at two hundred all details can be discerned.’ Luff intoned the rubric that they had all been taught.

‘Good, well done Luff; why were you being so fuckin' thick about things in Turkey?’ McGucken had almost despaired of Luff and some of the others when the fleets had paused in Scutari where the Allied forces had been gathered before the voyage into the Black Sea. It was there that the new Minié rifle had been served out to most of the regiments and the first tentative shots been tried against paper targets pinned to wooden billets. Instructors had been sent from the units who had received the weapons first, amazing everyone with the accuracy and penetration of the half-inch-wide lead bullets that were so very different from the round balls of the old, smooth-bored muskets which they carried up until then.

‘Dunno, Colour-Sar'nt… just difficult to get the hang of, ain't it?’ replied Luff, who had struggled more than most to understand that the new weapon was so very different from the one that they had been used to. He'd been quick enough to understand that the bullet spun and was more accurate due to the rifling, that it dropped in quite a steep curve the further it flew and that you had to allow for this by tinkering around with the iron sight at the rear of the barrel. But he and several others had a real problem with estimating range.