Patrick Mercer - To Do and Die

‘Father, before you start, those poor fellows have had their necks stretched enough: I'd say that Colonel Kemp and Keenan can probably name every last one.’ Tony was trying to stop his father from treating the whole room to another account of the highpoint of Billy's Militia service when, at seventeen, he'd arrested and strung-up a boatload of shipwrecked French sailors. Local society was still undecided whether they were spies or not, but Billy was convinced and still delighted in the story.

‘Aye, well it's all right for you an' your clever pals loafing around in barracks without a hand-span of proper soldiering to your name,’ Billy Morgan was warming to one of his favourite themes, ‘but if you'd seen what those damn Frogs and the Croppiesdid to this country when I was a boy, then that so-called revolution of theirs in forty-eight – and now they've got another of those Buonaparte fuckers back at the helm, you'd be getting ready to fight the Frenchies and not the Russians who helped us to thrash 'em last time.’ His voice fell before adding, ‘They're just a parcel of bloody Papists.’

There was a flicker of embarrassment as Kemp and Tony looked at Keenan – the only Catholic there – but the soldier-servant was too used to this sort of talk from his betters to take any notice or offence.

‘What d'you, think, James Keenan?’ Billy Morgan sensed the others' slight discomfort and tried to cover it by bringing the man back into the conversation, ‘Wouldn't you prefer to go at the French and leave the Russians to their own devices?’

‘I couldn't care less, your honour …’ Keenan poured more coffee for Kemp, ‘I'm just a soldier an' I'll go wherever I'm told an' put a lead bullet into any head that Mr Morgan asks me to, Catholic, Protestant, Musselman or Jew, they're all one to me. Besides, they say Turkish tail's worth a look.’

There was a shout of appreciative laughter at Keenan's simple philosophy and it brought an end to talk of war.

‘Now, I'm off to have a peep at this horse you've got for me, Billy,’ said Kemp, rising from the table, wiping heartily at his lips before letting his napkin fall to the ground. ‘I'll see you in the tack room in, what … five and twenty minutes, shall we say, Mr Morgan?’ Keenan pulled the Colonel's chair away for him and retrieved his discarded cloth.

‘That's fine, Colonel, I'll be with you as soon as I've finished my breakfast,’ Tony half rose from his chair respectfully as his senior left the room.

‘You'll be taking Kemp for a canter over Clow's Top, will you, son?’ Billy pushed more bacon home as a slight smile lit his face.

‘I will and don't fret, I know that Miss Hawtrey and her cousin are expecting to see us up there. I'll show them that fox's earth that Finn's been talking about all winter.’

‘Aye, well mind you do, you'll get bugger-all time between now and the end of your leave to speak to young Maude with anything like privacy, an' I've told Kemp to give you both a bit of breathing space, so make the most of it.’ With no mother to corral suitable young women for Morgan during his rare leaves, Billy had to do the job instead, the most promising target being the eldest daughter of Judge Hawtrey from Leap. He'd first introduced them last year; what Maude lacked in beauty and warmth was more than compensated for by her family's wealth and position.

A sudden crash at the sideboard made both father and son jump.

‘Mary, have a care, won't you? Those are the last few bits of Mrs Morgan's favourite china.’ Neither man had noticed the girl glide in from the scullery to start clearing the plates and dishes. She must have heard all of the last conversation and now she banged away with none of her normal care, her usually elegant lips pursed in a tight, cold line. She said not a thing, almost snatching the cups and saucers from their hands, her face set and expressionless until James Keenan held the door open for her. Then she smiled: she smiled a great, lovely beam straight into the young soldier's eyes before both servants left the room.

‘Don't know what's got into her this morning – though I've a fair idea what got into her last night…’ Billy looked hard at his son. ‘Any ideas, boy?’

‘No, father, but she can be awfully cussed sometimes, you know.’

‘Yes, I do, son … but please be careful.’

Tony paused at the back door of the house to buckle his spurs to his polished, brown, riding boots and take his crop from the mahogany stand. As he clicked over the setts towards the tack room, he could hear Colonel Kemp's excited voice.

‘They came on like bloody French did the Sikhs – mind you, half their officers was école trained – and it looked bad until the guns put some canister amongst them. I never expected natives to stand against our sepoys, but I was wrong. Sir Harryused the infantry well, but it took you and the Sixteenth Lancers, Finn, to really finish the day.’

Morgan entered the big, leather-smelling room just as Finn, at forty-two still as slender as the lance he'd once carried, took to the floor. Legs bowed, imaginary reins and weapons in hand, the former sergeant bobbed below the razor-like cuts, jibbed his mount to the left and dug hard at his invisible foe,

‘I tell you, sir, a big turbaned fellah came up to our officer for to bayonet him, bold as you please. But like the griffin I was, I pushed my lance too hard – the fucking pennon came out the other side and I was left capering like a damn fool round the poor man, so. I shoulda dropped the thing and used my sword – that's when I got this.’

Morgan had seen the three-inch weal across Finn's shoulder often enough, but as he peeled back his collar, Kemp hissed between his teeth in admiration.

‘Ah, Morgan, Finn and I were just recounting the delights of Aliwal. I bet you haven't seen as smooth a job as this, though?’ Kemp rolled up his trouser leg to show a purple, mottled, scaly shin-bone deeply etched across.

‘I'd ordered our boys to form square to keep the Sikh horse at bay when their guns caught us on the nose. I went down like a sack of shite – poor Goldie was dead before she hit the ground and me stuck below her. Tricky moment, that, but the doctors did wonders. If we'd had the boy surgeons that some of the Queen's regimentsdid, I don't doubt I'd have lost it. Beautiful job, ain't it?’

Colonel and sergeant preened and bragged. The bond of shared experience quite overcame any difference in military or social rank, both men grinning with an almost childish pleasure over their mutual brushes with death. Morgan pondered their casual acceptance of the pain and destruction that they had both suffered and inflicted, remembering the fearful casualties that the Sikhs and British had imposed on each other. In the depot at Fermoyhe'd seen young men, some without limbs, one blinded, another with a face that looked as if it had been scythed; then he'd watched the guns at Chobhamfiring canister and shell at paper targets: Colonel Kemp had been just such to the Sikh gunners only a few years ago. Now he wondered whether Keenan and he would have to face such horror and how he would react. Kemp and Finn were just about to put the Sikhs to the sword again when James Keenan bustled into the room.

‘Sable's ready for you outside, your honour an' we've got Thunder for you, Colonel Kemp, sir, like you said, Mr Finn,’ Keenan had fitted very easily into life at Glassdrumman, accepting Finn's experience and authority and hanging on his every word when war or horseflesh was being discussed.

‘Aye, lad, we'll be with you directly …’ Kemp waved him away, he hadn't yet finished his war story.

‘No, sir, the Master's keen that you're not late for your meeting with the ladies …’ Keenan spoke with surprising firmness: Billy Morgan had told him to hasten Kemp and Tony and hasten them he would, officers or not.