He stared at her, wanting to leave, knowing he could not go just yet.
‘What of Harry and Georgina?’
‘I did it for them, don’t you see that?’ She reached out and impetuously seized his arm. ‘But you were the one I wanted to
impress
, to share my hopes with. Now it’s too late.’ Her hand fell to her side and she gave a small smile. ‘So be off with you before the roads become dark.’
Blackwood heard the horses being led across the cobbles and noticed that some of the servants and stable-boys had come out to watch him leave. Perhaps to them he was a hero, something of their own, a symbol.
He held out his arms and she came to him without protest.
‘Goodbye, Marguerite. Your secret is safe with me. It has to be.’
When he bent to kiss her cheek she put her lips against his and held him for several long seconds.
She exclaimed, ‘I shall think of you.’ Their eyes met. ‘Often.’
Then she was gone and he could taste the salt of a tear on his mouth.
Smithett sat uncomfortably on his horse like a sack of potatoes. He was sorry to be leaving the comforts of Hawks Hill and the admiration of the servants here. But from what he had just witnessed it was not a moment too soon for the captain, he thought.
Not very far from the main coaching road where Blackwood and Smithett would pass, Harry stood by a window in the quiet house and watched the last of the dying sunlight.
His red coatee was draped over a chair, and he held a glass
of brandy balanced in one hand. He was genuinely pleased to be leaving the country again so soon. He felt different, able to think out each move, when in those first days in West Africa he had been almost sick with fear.
He had believed it was Philip’s example, but now he was not so sure. Maybe it went deeper, something which was his alone.
‘How do you like it, Harry?’
He turned from his thoughts as he saw the woman in the opposite doorway. She was very pretty in a doll-like way, with her hair in neat ringlets and a small, slender figure. She was wearing a green silk robe which Harry had brought with him from Freetown. In this quiet, Hampshire house it looked crude and garish, but she was obviously pleased with it.
‘You look lovely.’
‘You
mean
that, don’t you?’
Harry downed the brandy in a gulp, the sting making him gasp as it burned through him.
‘Of course I do.’
It was hard not to show irritation when she was like this. He had first met her at a ball in Woolwich while he had been completing his training. She had made him feel adult and dashing, but he had never imagined it would come to this. He was excited, in spite of their difference in ages. He was nineteen, and she had admitted to being thirty. But she looked much younger, childlike in her need to be reassured about everything.
He put his arms around her and felt her stiffen. It had never quite reached this stage before. Any moment now she would slap his face or push him away, and then the next time she might let him go a little bit further.
But there would be no next time. In two days they would be standing down-channel to show the flag, as Fynmore had put it.
She protested shakily, ‘
Please
, Harry.’
But he said nothing and pulled her closer to him. When he reached around her and touched her neat buttucks she gasped and almost fell against him.
Harry looked at her eyes, the dampness of her lips.
She said in a small voice, ‘I think we’d better stop.’
Without a word Harry picked her up and carried her through the door and slammed it with his foot.
‘I’m not stopping.’
He saw her eyes widen with alarm as he dropped her on the bed, and when she tried to pull away from him he gripped the robe and dragged her towards him. The robe was only cheap, he had bargained for it with a street trader. She gave a cry as it parted across one shoulder and then she began to fight him as he tore it further.
Harry barely knew what he was doing. She had been wearing nothing beneath the robe, and as he tore the last fragment aside she tried to cover herself with her hands until he slapped her hard across the cheek.
Then he knelt over her, her protests forgotten as he explored her body and touched her breasts while she lay quite still, her eyes watching his hands as if they belonged to someone else.
She whispered, ‘Not like this, please.’
His fingers stroked her nipples and he sensed her anguish giving way to something else.
‘One more thing.’
He reached out and turned a bedside photograph on to its face. Fynmore looked younger in the picture, he thought.
Then he thrust her last resistance aside and stifled her pain with his mouth.
When it was over she crawled across the bed, groping after him as he began to pull on his trousers and boots.
She gasped, ‘You hurt me. You really did.’
Harry glanced quickly round to make certain he had not left anything. Then he bent over and kissed her, sorry for the red mark on her cheek.
‘I’ll bring you a better robe when I get back.’
Long after the sound of Harry’s horse had been swallowed up in the dusk she lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, her
heart pounding as she relived each frightening, beautiful moment.
Then reluctantly she stood up, her knees like water. She straightened the bed and replaced the photograph on the table.
Only then did she realize what she had done.
Philip Blackwood stepped from the shade of a partially collapsed wall and braced himself for the fierce heat. The sky seemed drained of colour, and the stony ground which surrounded the firing range was white, as if it too had been scorched beyond recognition.
Colour-Sergeant M’Crystal watched him curiously as if to determine his mood.
Eventually he said, ‘Second platoon is ready to begin firing practice, sir.’
Blackwood nodded. It was almost too hot to think, let alone speak. And yet in Malta you were rarely out of sight of the Mediterranean. Deep, shimmering blue which made the heat ashore almost unendurable. He had imagined that compared to Africa this would have seemed easy. Yet after their arrival and the excitement of new surroundings, he knew that most of the marines were finding each day longer than the preceeding one.
‘How are they shaping up?’
It was ridiculous to ask, he thought. They had been on the island for months, drilling and exercising, performing ceremonial parades and guards as requested by the admiral superintendent or whenever it took Fynmore’s fancy. It seemed incredible they had been here so long, had accepted the regular routine and spartan living quarters as if they had known nothing else.
Some had settled down better than others, a few, and Harry was one of these, had grown frustrated and resentful about the total lack of purpose.
M’Crystal said, ‘I sometimes think they miss the old muskets, sir. These rifles are
too
accurate.’
It was true. The new Minie rifle had a range of nearly a thousand yards and could outshoot any other infantry weapon. Even the excitement of using it on the range had lost its first glow and it had become just one more time-filling drill.
Blackwood had received several letters from his father, which was unusual. The handwriting was shaky, but his letters were full of news about Hawks Hill, of a new alliance with ‘the old enemy’ as his father still called France, and a genuine interest in what his two sons were doing in Malta.
M’Crystal asked, ‘D’you think we’ll be moving out soon, sir?’ He waited for Blackwood to face him. ‘It’s not what some of the new recruits had in mind.’
‘Having trouble with them?’
M’Crystal bristled. ‘I’d not tolerate that, sir. I’ve a handful of gallow’s-bait I’d like to lose, but even they’ll do as they’re told or I’ll know the reason.’
Blackwood knew that the real cause for M’Crystal’s annoyance was a small, tight group of new recruits who had all enlisted together. Liverpool-Irish, they had been in more brawls with the military, seamen and marines from ships in harbour than he would have thought possible. Field punishment, doubling round the square in the blazing heat in full kit and a pack filled with sand until they collapsed had done nothing to break their fighting spirit.
Only Lieutenant-Colonel Fynmore appeared satisfied and content. As the senior officer Royal Marines in Malta he had carte blanche to visit any ship or barracks he chose, and seemed to thrive on the monotony of the routine.
He heard the crack and echo of rifle fire and recalled the times in Africa when so few of the enemy had pinned down his own trained and disciplined men without effort. He found he could go over those days with less anguish, another memory already blurred and out of focus.
‘I’ve heard nothing of a move, Colour-Sergeant. Not yet anyway.’
Each day as he looked at the proud array of warships as they shimmered beneath their awnings in the Grand Harbour he found himself longing to be back in one of them. Maybe all marines were the same. Always wanting the opposite, torn between land and sea.
M’Crystal said softly, ‘Colonel’s coming, sir.’
Blackwood was tempted to pull out his watch, but knew inwardly that Fynmore’s daily punctuality would not have varied by morè than a second.
He squinted his eyes against the glare and watched the small procession approaching across the white stones, Fynmore in the lead, very erect in his saddle, one arm down his side as if it was made of wood. The adjutant, First Lieutenant George Speer, and an orderly trotting close behind.
Fynmore halted and stared towards the range. ‘Improving,’ he remarked.
If we carry on like this the rifles will be worn smooth before they are ever used in action, Blackwood thought.
He said, ‘I think we should change the drills, sir.’
‘Really?’ Fynmore brushed a speck of sand from his sleeve. ‘I expect we shall receive orders if and when the Admiralty reveal their intentions.’
Blackwood watched him. There was something unusual about Fynmore today. Not quite so calm as he tried to appear.
‘The fact is, Blackwood, I have been asked to attend a reception at the admiral superintendent’s residence. I shall let you have a list of officers who should also be present.’
Blackwood sighed. Another reception. They seemed endless.
There were plenty of women present on these occasions. Usually wives of senior officers or officials, they must get equally bored at making small talk with an obedient band of junior lieutenants.
‘As a matter of fact, my own wife will be joining me here. The mail-packet arrives at the end of the week and she will be aboard. I should like
you
to arrange for her to be escorted to
my quarters.’ He played with his sword-hilt. ‘Make her feel at home.’
The small moment of warmth passed and he snapped, ‘Get someone to chase up those damned buglers. I’ll not tolerate them arriving at Troop like a bunch of silly old women!’
He wheeled his horse about, and followed by the perspiring adjutant clattered towards the Royal Marine Artillery battery which overlooked the Grand Harbour.
‘You heard that, Colour-Sergeant?’
What sort of woman would be married to Fynmore, he wondered? It was strange he had never brought her to Forton. He thought suddenly of his stepmother and realized that his father had not mentioned her at all in his letters.
M’Crystal stamped the details on his memory. ‘I’ll lay it on, sir.’
He watched Blackwood walk back into the shade and shook his head. The captain was the one who needed a woman, a girl who would take him out of himself. Someone who cared enough to share his life. He thought of the captain’s young brother. There would be plenty of trouble with that one if he didn’t watch out. Women? He couldn’t get enough of them, even here on Malta. If he brought some disgrace on the Marines it would put the colonel’s head squarely on the block and things could become distinctly uncomfortable.
He saw his friend Sergeant Quintin tramping wearily over the sun-baked ground and grinned. At least he never changed.
An orchestra played without a break throughout the balmy evening, and while long fans swayed back and forth above the heads of the guests, messmen and servants struggled to supply everyone with drinks.
Blackwood stood near an open balcony and watched the glittering lights from the anchored men-of-war in the harbour. A complete record of the Royal Navy’s progress since
Trafalgar, he thought. Majestic ships of the line, and two or three of the new first-rates which, although similar in appearance, were also equipped with engines and screws as additional power.
Steam gunboats and paddle-frigates, they all symbolized the unchallenged power of the Queen’s Navy.
He ran one finger round his collar and felt his shirt sticking to his chest like another skin.
He saw the admiral superintendent and his wife by the stairs greeting their guests, the gold epaulettes and varied uniforms making a fine setting for the ladies’ gowns and bared shoulders. Here and there a face stood out. George Speer, the adjutant, head lowered and face set in an interested mask as he listened to the wife of the dockyard superintendent. Poor Speer, he was known to have problems with his own marriage and was probably wondering what had happened at home since the contingent had sailed from Portsmouth all those months ago.
Blackwood saw Fynmore too, his wife standing nearby as the admiral greeted her with one of his set speeches. She was obviously a lot younger than Fynmore, a pretty little thing and outwardly very shy when he had met her at the landing-stage. She was very much in awe of her husband and impressed by the marines he had sent to welcome her and to transport her baggage to the colonel’s quarters. In the reflected lights her shoulders looked cool and youthful, he thought. The sort of wife who might do Fynmore’s future a lot of good.
Harry pushed through the crowd and stared at the throng with distaste.
‘I shall steal away when I get the chance.’
Blackwood watched him with surprise. Harry’s disappointment and impatience at the soul-destroying garrison duties had often found other outlets in his zest for women. Usually on these formal occasions he had managed to find someone’s wife or daughter who would enjoy his company and some of his daring remarks.