Infernal Revolutions (9 page)

‘You look as though you have never seen them before,' said Dick, rummaging in his knapsack and pulling out a bottle of ale.

‘I haven't.'

‘You were not paying attention at your whipping, were you? They were all there, enjoying it every bit as much as the rest of us.' Dick snorted at an associated memory. ‘
Piggy Poo Face
indeed. You're lucky that has not stuck as your nickname.'

I put my finger to my lips and shushed him, before looking furtively around and changing the subject.

‘Who are the women with them?'

‘Whores. Can buy some good ones round here for sixpence.'

I was still mulling over this piece of information when, to my surprise, I saw the officers slowly reappear at the bottom of the hill next to ours. Attention caught once more, I watched as the party levered itself up and settled on the summit like a cloud of aphids. The hampers were opened, snuff was taken, and one could faintly hear the tinkle of glasses and the sound of laughter.

‘Not a bad life,' I observed to Dick.

‘That's it, torture me.'

‘Sorry, I forgot that you were part of it yourself once. I didn't mean it anyway, ‘tis truly decadent what they are doing.'

I had meant it, as it happened. For a brief moment, like Jesus in the wilderness, I was tortured myself by visions of the soft life that could have been mine had I taken Philpott Hall. My will to be a soldier wavered, so that I had to grit my teeth to prevent Envy rising and swamping me. I was just about to tear my eyes away from the luscious scene when I noticed someone tumbling down the hill, chased by a yapping dog.

‘Who on earth is that?' I exclaimed.

‘That's Pubescent Pete, by the looks of it, and his dog Hartley. Pete's our second lieutenant, even though he's only fifteen years old. He'll be the one marching us to Portsmouth, so I hear.'

I watched as the youngster got to his feet, ran back delightedly to the top of the hill, and tumbled down again. Those of his elders not too occupied by eating, drinking and drabbing applauded politely.

‘His father's a bigwig, I presume?' I asked, shaking my head sadly at this wicked abuse of privilege.

‘Oh aye. Sir Walter Wriggle, pronounced Regal. A circuit judge famous for his rigid enforcement of the Enclosure Acts.'

I tutted, and pronounced my verdict.

‘Nepotism, Dick. Corruption. To think that our lives are in these people's hands.'

‘Don't get sniffy about it, Harry. They take the same risks as the rest of us when battle comes. Anyway, I seem to remember that ‘twas Influence that handed you Philpott Hall on a plate.'

‘Aye, and ‘twas honesty that made me refuse it.'

‘You'd have taken it eventually, had it not been for the intervention of Mr Axelrod.'

The dreaded name sent a complicated emotion shuddering through me. It still rankled that the rogue had duped me, and had not been to see me since the fateful night, either to apologize or pep me up. On the other hand I had a sneaking admiration for his Devil-may-care attitude to life, and wished that some of it would rub off onto me.

‘Aye, well. Better incarceration in the army than incarceration with a mad woman.'

‘There's not much difference, Harry, if you think about it. In both cases your life is likely to be terminated most brutally.'

‘Aye, but there's an end in sight to army life, at least for me. I can't see the damned Yankees putting up much of a fight.'

‘Can't you?' snorted Dick. ‘You bloody watch them. They'll fight their little trotters off the minute they see us. Anyway, come on, ‘tis time to be going.'

He tapped his pipe out and rose with a rattle of tin, brass and steel. I tossed my tea onto the parched grass and followed suit. Moments later we were in formation again, marching a circuitous route back to the
Martyr
under the temporary command of an Irish corporal named Michael Sterne.

I was not reluctant to be off, for even our quarters had taken on a new glow since I had accepted my soldierly fate. This was due, in the main, to Vickie Tremblett, the landlord's daughter. Now that I was no longer brooding on methods of escape, or too exhausted from the rigours of drill and exercise, I could see that she was indeed beautiful, as my comrades insisted. Petite, with lustrous dark hair, fine features and liquid eyes, she became the leading light of my fantasy world, and I would sit with the others in the tap room waiting for her appearance. When it came, a bombardment of sexual chaffing would begin, but pleasingly Vickie did not respond in kind. She was always friendly and polite, and smiled at their crude jokes, but I sensed that she was keeping her true self in reserve for someone like me – intelligent, sensitive, deceptively strong. Though I dare not talk to her now, because of shyness and fear of ridicule from my comrades, I determined that I would make a bee-line for her hand the moment I came back, a grizzled veteran, from America. Until then, I decided, she would be my Beatrice, a lamp of virtuous and beautiful womanhood shining in the dark, something to live for. As the band stuck up
Lillibulero
– they seemed to know little else – I began to dream about the luscious night-time feasts that awaited me in the holiness of the marriage bed, and soon I had a definite spring in my step and a lance in my breeches. So certain was I that one day Vickie would be mine, I joined in the whistling with the gusto of a maniac, and nearly deafened Dick in the process.

‘Calm down, mate,' he said. ‘There's a long way to go yet.'

This I knew, in more senses than Dick meant, but I was prepared. I was that Soldier of Love.

We did not arrive at Portsmouth until the morning of our embarkation for New York, meaning that we could only judge the efficacy of the town's famed nightlife by scrutinizing the faces of the sailors lying unconscious on the cobblestones. We counted thirteen smiling, four indifferent and three clearly horrified countenances, thereby concluding with some bitterness that we had Lost Out. Rueful, we reflected how our last night in England, possibly forever, had been spent tickling piglets in a barn in Bedhampton, while the officers caroused until the early hours in the
Wheatsheaf Inn
next door. Claude Jepson, reverting to his civilian occupation of yokel, tried to reassure us that one day when we all had wives and children we'd be grateful we didn't have an opportunity to sow our oats in disease-ridden Portsmouth; and that anyway, cuddling a piglet, with its wet snuffling snout, cute little trotters, wholesome stink and delightful snorting, was infinitely more enjoyable than ravishing a foulmouthed, ginstinking, pockmarked, lousecrawling hag. We considered this argument for a moment, then battered his head soundly for the misconception. For though we sympathized with his porcine notion of happiness, and understood what he meant, we concluded that pipedreams of a contented old age were superfluous when death lurked just around the corner. Army boys have to let off steam, was the general consensus, and there was an end o' the matter.

So, some soldiers carrying edible souvenirs of their stay on the farm, we eventually merged with other regiments marching into Portsmouth. Similarly disgruntled, these included the 6th, 37th and 45th Regiments of Foot, the 3
^rd
Battalion of the Royal Artillery and an infantry regiment from Germany, all trailing crowds of women and sutlers in the wake of their baggage trains. We would have scowled silently at each other all morning had not a regiment of dragoons, also entering Portsmouth at that moment, cut through us in a most arrogant manner, thereby providing the icebreaker required. Forced to the side of the road to let them pass, we chuntered solidly about their wicked abuse of privilege, and swigged from our bottles with specious unconcern while the horsemen, dripping with deathshead insignia, snarled and playfully sliced at us with their swords.

‘Hope I'm not on the same ship as them,' said a fellow private from the 45th Foot, ‘scared enough o' watter as it is.'

‘Aye, me too. What regiment are they, do you know?'

‘They're the King's Dragoon Guards, me duck. Rumour has it that they've spent the night razing a place called Southwick, not far from here. Local parson slighted ‘em or summat.'

It seemed to make sense, for what else would have kept them from a night in Portsmouth? At any rate, they looked like merciless men, and even if the story wasn't true, it could be. They all had eyes like sharks, and one sensed a cunning behind them that was quite in keeping with their universally feared reputation. I was glancing at the dragoons as they passed, not daring to let my eyes linger, when a bell suddenly rang in my head.

‘What regiment did you say they were again?' I asked the Midlander.

‘King's Dragoon Guards, me duck.'

‘Burnley Axelrod's regiment!'

‘Ah don't know about that, me duck. Only know ‘tis the King's Dragoon Guards.'

On the lookout for the man himself, I stared at the passing faces more boldly, but only received abuse and a slashed tricorne for my pains. Too afraid to ask his whereabouts, I comforted myself with the thought that he was at least in the vicinity. Soon, I was sure, I would be able to confront him face to face; for though now resigned to my fate, I still wanted to speak to him about his actions that night in the
Ship
. If I could not get an apology out of him, perhaps I could at least get an explanation.

‘Right, that's it,' came a high-pitched voice, cracking at the edges, ‘they've passed. Company, on your feet!'

We looked up to see Pubescent Pete, glorious in his officer's array, perched precariously atop a spinning horse. His boyish face, or the part of it that could be seen under his huge hat, was fretful with unaccustomed concentration.

‘Come on troops, up I say!'

Equipment clattering, some men openly sniggering, we rose to Pete's command and took our positions in the line.

‘Left foot forward…and march!'

‘See thee in America, me duck,' called the cheery Midlander, as Bob's drum and Billy Corden's fife started up again, ‘or the bottom o' the sea, whichever comes first.'

Smiling wan acknowledgement, I marched away, taking care to step around the steaming piles of horseshit that had been contemptuously deposited in front of us. Hartley, Pete's dog, some sort of Collie and Labrador cross, made progress even more erratic by his playful habit of running amongst us, and butting us in the groin; but eventually we got into some sort of rhythm, and found ourselves advancing through streets lined with ever thicker pockets of popular support.

‘Bye bye, lobbies. Fine fertilizers of the soil you boys'll make!'

‘Huzzah for General Washington!'

‘Butchers! Scoundrels! Poltroons!'

A few of the lads responded to the provocation by smashing in the faces of the less vigilant hecklers with the butts of their muskets, but most bore it with good humour. We knew well enough what civilians thought of us by now; just as they knew well enough what we thought of them. ‘Twas all a game, though one that strangely petered out as we neared the bottom of a steep hill.

‘Why have they stopped pelting us?' asked Roger Masson with disappointment, bloody butt ready for more bashing of bone.

‘I don't know,' said Ned Lester, wiping a loathsome concoction of animal matter from the side of his face, ‘unless a press gang sweep is underway.'

The reason only became apparent when we wheeled around a fishmonger's shop at the corner of the street, and saw who was holding court outside the tavern that confronted us.

‘Eyes to the left, boys,' said Thomas Pomeroy in a hushed quaking voice, ‘'tis those unruly Dragoons again.'

And sure enough it was, a pack of them, enjoying themselves as only they and their money knew how with a barrel of liquor. Striking attitudes of astonishing insouciance and devilment, they lounged against walls or sprawled over benches like leatherbooted lions, their power and flash intimidating all onlookers. Nevertheless I dared to seek out Mr Axelrod in their midst. The reaction was instantaneous.

‘What are you staring at, Fucker?'

‘Nothing. Sorry. I-I-I….'

‘Then fuck off. Now. Before I cut your fucking cod off!'

I didn't tarry, and continued rather unsteadily on my march. I'd only managed a few rubbery strides when there was an awesome shout of ‘HEY!' behind me. I almost felt the word hit my back, so ‘twas obviously addressed to me, but I was in two minds whether to stop and possibly be eviscerated or run off and possibly be eviscerated. I stopped.

‘Off to the wars, are we, Mr Oysterman? Nothing like it, is there?'

I turned and picked out Burnley Axelrod from the many hungry faces glowering at me. Oblivious to the consequences, I stepped out of the marching ranks and trotted back to the tavern, determined to speak to the man again.

‘Hey, where are you going?' came a high-pitched cry behind me. ‘Come back, ye dog!'

I carried on regardless, but the wind was somewhat taken out of my sails when Mr Axelrod stepped forward and revealed that he was with, and had his hands all over, Vickie Tremblett, she of the modest disposition, sweet nature, and exciting features. My idealized Beatrice glanced at me for a moment, smiled triumphantly, then returned her adoring gaze to her undoubted lover, if that was the right term. The look on her face, which trumpeted to the world her drunken enthralment to the dragoon, sent shock waves shuddering through me. I was somehow aware, even as his hand absentmindedly massaged her bosom, that my youth was over; extinguished not in a stew of whoring, but by the painful realization that women were only human after all, and not inanimate sculptures on which to project fantasies of happiness.

‘Aye, Sir,' I blurted out, not knowing now what to say, ‘Off to the wars. Nothing like it, as you say.'

‘Good lad. I knew you'd enjoy the military life once someone forced you into it. You've no hard feelings against me, I hope, Mr Oysterman?'

‘None at all,' I said, feigning unconcern as he accepted with indifference Vickie's divine little tongue in his ear. Agonized, I watched as she slid her hand into his breeches, and giggled. It was clear she had been thoroughly debauched.

‘Is Vickie coming with you?' I enquired politely.

‘How do you know Vickie? Oh, yes, of course.
The Forgotten Martyr
. Well, let's ask the little lady. Vickie, are you coming with me?'

Vickie, eyes halfclosed, body wrapped sinuously around him, sighed into his ear.

‘I want to be wherever you are, Burnley.'

‘I'd take you if I could, girl. You know that.'

He gave me a wink, a man's man, a cheeky scoundrel, a cheerful breaker of hearts. Who could hate him?

‘Yes, Burnley, I know. But wouldn't it be wonderful?'

To the amusement of his fellow dragoons, Mr Axelrod began to make gestures of some sort behind Vickie's back. He was still at it when a horse came galloping up behind me.

‘Oysterman!' cried Pubescent Pete, whirling about and waving his sword. ‘Get back into line, damn you! Talking to these gentlemen is a crime punishable by severe flogging.'

‘And your name is?' enquired Mr Axelrod calmly, as the other dragoons tensed and reached for their pistols, ever eager for another quick breach of the peace.

‘Peter Wriggle,' pronounced Pete, as he struggled to control his horse, take off his hat and wave his sword all at the same time. ‘Lieutenant in the Glorious 85th Foot. I have had the pleasure of attending one of your dinner parties, Sir.'

‘Ah yes, Pubescent Pete,' said Mr Axelrod, looking up at the youngster with cruel mocking eyes, ‘Well, Mr Oysterman here is an old friend of mine. I'm sure you won't mind if we have a few moments together before we disembark.'

‘Why, er, no,' said Pete, the astonishment in his voice palpable. ‘No, not at all. N-not I.'

With audible disappointment, the other dragoons tucked their pistols away and went back to their drinking.

‘Good. So what ship are you on, Oysterman?'

I looked up at Pete, deflecting the question.

‘Er, the, er….the
Twinkle
.'

‘The
Twinkle
, eh?' said Burnley, smirking, ‘That's a shame, I'm on the
Hellhound
. Could've taught you the rudiments of brag.'

‘Maybe in America.'

‘I'll drink to that. Join me. You too, Peter.'

Unable to move because of Vickie's clinging body, Burnley indicated with his eyes the location of the waiting glasses. Taking two, I scooped them in the barrel's liquor, and passed one up to the still-shaken Pete. When Pete had finally sheathed his sword and put his hat back on, he accepted it and we raised our glasses high.

‘To Life!' Burnley roared, a toast echoed by the other dragoons, whose glasses appeared to be filled permanently.

Oppressed with gloom, I waggled my glass feebly in the air, mumbled ‘To Life!', and downed the drink in one. To my horror, ‘twas not the expected wine, but brandy. Too busy choking, spluttering and wiping the tears from my eyes, I could not immediately join in the glass-throwing ceremony that was going on all around me, but when I had recovered sufficiently I tossed my glass aside too, and watched in curious fascination as it described a little arc and exploded into a thousand splinters on the stony ground. A shocked silence fell on the dragoons, and all eyes regarded me with dreadful anticipation.

‘W-what?' I asked nervously, my eyes flitting from one scarred face to another.

‘That, Mr Oysterman,' said Mr Axelrod, in a voice of menace. ‘was a piece of Queen Anne crystal, given to me as a family heirloom. It was priceless, and it is irreplaceable.'

I looked down at the shattered remains with horror.

‘B-b-but…I thought that…as everyone else was…that it was acceptable to…'

‘Irreplaceable,' repeated Burnley.

‘Then I must…I must…'

I fell down on my knees to scrabble amongst the splinters.

‘Too late,' cried Burnley. ‘It cannot be repaired.'

Distraught, absolutely riven with anguish, I gibbered and stammered on, a complete wreck.

‘I-I-I will pay you back…somehow…if it takes me a thousand years…I will…I w-will p-pay…'

‘But Mr Oysterman, priceless means priceless. No amount of money can ever replace that glass, even if you were able to save until Judgement Day itself.'

I trembled and looked up at him like a cringing spaniel, sensing Death was near.

‘Then I…I am…'

There was a dreadful pause, and I fancied I stretched my neck out involuntarily, for ease of cutting.

‘The victim of a splendid joke! It was just ordinary glass, you fool!'

A roar of demonic dragoonish laughter went up, interspersed with cries of ‘Priceless!', and I had to taste Humiliation Pie yet again. Even Vickie Tremblett was crying with laughter, dancing with joy on some crumpled pieces of paper on the stones. About to rise to my feet, I suddenly sensed what these papers might be, so I stayed low to look at them more closely. Sure enough, I found that they were the unsigned love poems I had devoted to her at the
Martyr
, and that they had been another source of mirth to all and sundry I was in no doubt. Truly, I thought, as I feigned a wry smile and levered myself upright, I was providing everyone with much-needed entertainment today.

‘Now, gentlemen,' said Pete, stepping in with admirable bravery, ‘I am afraid I must take Mr Oysterman away from you. Our ship awaits.'