Now We Shall Be Entirely Free Page 7

  “Here we are, Corporal. Meeting like sweethearts in the dark. You are not one of those timid souls troubled by darkness?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Hold out your hand.”

  Calley held out his left hand; another hand met it; there was something maddening in that contact. The grip was light but it overwhelmed him, took all his strength.

  “So that you know something of whom you are speaking with. So you know enough.”

  The hand led Calley’s down until his fingers grazed metal, an object, cool and intricate and shaped into a kind of . . . star. The man wore it on his chest. Calley could feel the slight warmth of him, his heart-blood.

  “There now,” said the voice, removing Calley’s hand. “You have my credentials. And I, of course, have yours.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We are both soldiers, you and I. Unfortunately my duties are no longer all of a purely military type. I am required to play the politician. Do you know what a politician is? It is a man who must compromise his character in the service of power. Irksome for one who has put on the king’s uniform. Would you agree?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You were on the retreat.”

  “I was, sir.”

  “That was a bloody mess.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The gallant Sir John described the army’s conduct as infamous beyond belief. Those were his exact words. Infamous. Beyond belief. But perhaps Sir John himself was responsible?”

  “I couldn’t say, sir.”

  “Forced the pace of the retreat. Pushed men beyond what they could bear. Made them strange to themselves. Wild. Well, Sir John is killed. The army, the most part of it, has escaped to lick its wounds in England. Time, you may think, to draw a veil. After all, it is not as if such things are unknown. No ancient and honourable institution without its ancient and honourable crimes. But our Spanish friends are in a dither. They are striking attitudes. They say they would be better off with the French. It is fanciful, of course, a childish rage, but the trust between us has suffered and must be recovered. There is, I can tell you, no more talk in London of peace treaties. The war will go on, must do. And because of this we must all be firm friends again. You are still following me, Corporal?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So let us come to particulars. The village of Morales belonged, before it was burned to the ground, to a certain high-strung gentleman with a seat on the great council, the Junta Suprema. He is, I fear, unimaginably offended by what became of his village. And though the village was perhaps one he rarely set foot in, the offence cannot be simply put aside. His voice in the Junta is influential and his voice in this matter has become the voice of the Junta itself. There will be gifts of money, naturally, but something more than that is required. Indeed, it has been insisted upon. They want a man. A guilty man or one who can be taken as such. Who do you think we should offer them?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “No idea?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Why, Calley, do I find myself wondering exactly when, during the destruction of this most unfortunate village, you arrived upon the scene?”

  “You heard how it was, sir.”

  “Oh yes, I heard. And you can rest easy. The Spanish do not, I fear, recognise the value of a British infantry corporal. What they require is an officer, and that is what we shall give them. For the sake of the alliance. For the sake of the war. But there cannot be a court martial. Any such affair would inevitably become public. The news of it would spill out. Imagine, please, certain of our papers, their pages full of stories of British soldiers assaulting defenceless women and dangling their menfolk from a tree. Or, in different papers, a different story, one about a British officer, doubtless a hero, being sacrificed to soothe the pride of a Spanish conde. Either way we have a scandal we cannot afford. The public are weary of the war. They feel it in their pockets. Trade falters. They lose their farm boys, their apprentices, their sons and brothers. The tale of Morales might just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Have you ever seen a camel?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You were not on the campaign in Egypt?”

  “No, sir.”

  “We cannot fight a war without the support of the people. That is the truth of it. It did not used to matter. People did not know what went on. They did not know, they did not care. But England now is enamoured of the printed word. Gentlemen, ladies too, are all either writing or reading. We are adrift in a sea of opinions, language, ink. So we must proceed in the only way left open to us. We will give the Junta what it demands but none, other than the few of us to whom this unpleasant business falls, shall know of it. Now then, I feel you understand what I am saying but I need to hear you say so.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Yes?”

  “I believe I do, sir.”

  “What is the first rule of a soldier’s life, Calley?”

  “Orders, sir.”

  “The first rule of warfare?”

  “Killing the enemy.”

  “And?”

  “Not getting killed yourself.”

  “And?”

  “Tidiness?”

  “Well, I like a tidy soldier. A tidy soldier has not forgotten himself. But I was thinking rather of necessity. Of doing what is necessary. When were you last in England?”

  “June last year, sir.”

  “Then you will be pleased to see it again.”

  “I’m going back?”

  “You will be shipped on the first suitable transport. You will find the officer whose name you confirmed to the inquiry. Having found him you will do what your country requires of you.”

  There was a silence between them. Three, four seconds.

  “There are always those, Calley, who are called upon to do what others prefer not even to contemplate. Think of it like this. You will be continuing the war in a private and unofficial capacity. You will not wear a uniform but you will still be a soldier.”

  Another silence. Calley shifted his weight. A board squeaked.

  “He might already be dead, sir.”

  “He is listed as embarking at Corunna. His ship arrived.”

  “And how do I find him?”

  “Captain Henderson will supply you with what is necessary. Beyond that you must use your nose. Whatever else you are I believe you are a resourceful man.”

  “You will need some proof of it?”

  “Of it having been done? I don’t, God forbid, need any. But the Junta will.”

  “Like a ring?”

  “Yes. Good. I see your practical nature at work. But the Junta trusts us so little that a ring could be one we picked off the ground. It could be one of mine. They require what you do to be witnessed. To that end you will travel with one of their own.”

  “Now I don’t quite follow you, sir.”

  “You will be accompanied by someone whose word they will accept.”

  “Like a Spaniard?”

  “I would assume so, wouldn’t you? The estimable Don Ignacio is taking care of the arrangements.”

  “I’d rather go alone, sir, if it’s all the same.”

  “But it is not the same. Not at all. Alone is nothing. It is useless. Alone and the whole business is entirely sordid. Witnessed, it becomes an act of statecraft. It is important you understand that.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You have a question?”

  “What if I’m taken? If I do as you say and I’m taken?”

  “When you stand in the line waiting to receive the enemy, what are your thoughts? That you will live? That you will die? That you may be maimed? All of this, of course. Everyone the same, officer or private soldier. But all that matters is that we do our duty. The risk is something we put on with our jackets and boots. If
you are taken you must do as well as you can. Reporting a conversation you had in the dark with an unnamed personage is unlikely to assist you. But the advantage will all be yours. The officer you are going to find might be wary. He might very well be expecting some call to account. What he will not be expecting is you.”

  The voice. In the darkness it seemed to Calley the voice was half his own.

  “You will be back inside a month. You will have served your country. And I will see to it that Captain Henderson has some appropriate reward waiting. Another stripe for your shoulder perhaps. What were your beginnings, Calley?”

  “The house on Saffron Hill, sir. Near the Fleet.”

  “By house you mean workhouse?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, Moses was a foundling, was he not? And there are many men who might have done better without the burden of a family. Now, about face and return to the door. Do not look back. You and I will neither meet nor speak to each other again. Not in this world.”

  Calley turned. The door showed itself with outlines of grey light. He crossed to it, left the room, entered the lit shadows of the second room, collected his shako from the chair and went out into the true brightness, that glare that seemed to erase him. He stood a while at the top of the steps letting his eyes adjust. There was a great noise inside him, a clashing of voices, like the sound of a riot or the sound of men screaming in battle. Then he felt a breeze on his cheek, something blowing up from the shore, and he felt refreshed, calm. Below him, the courtyard was empty of everything but the stallion, though once he had descended and was making his way to the gate he saw that there was someone, a servant presumably, squatting in the shade by the side of the horse. For a moment he thought of asking who he waited for but that, he knew, would be a poor beginning. He put on his shako, adjusted the chin-scales, let himself out into the street. Boys followed him, impersonating his walk, his bandy legs. It did not unsettle him; he had received such attention all his life and always from those as poor as himself. He thought, those fuckers could have hanged me! Then nearly laughed out loud at the pleasure of recalling the voice in the room, the power it had given him, and to him alone. Like a secret spring drunk from in darkness.

  3

  The steps from the quayside were steep and narrow, and Lacroix’s bags brushed against the blackened walls. A big herring gull watched him come, stood its ground, then flew off low over his head. He winced, felt foolish, kept climbing. The higher he went the better the houses. His sister’s place was a little over halfway up and would in time, no doubt, be higher still. Her husband, William Swann, was the son of a man who had run a team of drays in the city, an intemperate man, a notorious brawler, but William was sober, industrious, a respected shipping agent who combined a sure knowledge of his Bible with a sure grasp of bookkeeping and the life of money. And having Lucy for a wife made his rise more certain. A gentleman’s daughter counted for something, even in a city like Bristol where old money meant the slavers whose ships lay idle now but who still lived on the city’s heights like nabobs.

  It was almost a year since he was last at the house. When the servant girl answered his ringing he did not recognise her, nor she him. He left his bags in the hall and followed her up to the first floor where he was shown through to the room at the front.

  The twins were playing by the fire. With their dolls in their hands they looked at him coldly until their mother embraced him. She squeezed his fingers, gazed at him with such directness he was glad to have the distraction of the children. He touched their heads, the silk of their hair. “Hello, young friends,” he said. He had no hope of telling them apart.

  Lucy laughed at him. “I suppose young friends will do for now,” she said.

  They spent the heart of the afternoon together, the four of them. The room, ample with light, smelled of coal smoke and some floral scent of his sister’s, violets he thought. There was a mirror above the fire, a clock with a sturdy tick. It was good to remember such places existed, were common even.

  The children, once they knew he was theirs, would not allow him to have any interest but themselves. He played on his knees with them, answering his sister’s questions over his shoulder, the ones that he heard. She asked about the house, about Nell, about their country neighbours. She asked, in a general way, about his return from Spain, though did not press him as their sister Sarah would have done, wanting details, specifics. He answered her in the same spirit—lightly, vaguely—while wondering what she knew of the world beyond this warm, safe house, the tea-parties, the Sunday psalm singing at the new chapel. When he was able to, when she was drawn into the children’s game (they had posed her a riddle) and he was released for a while, he studied her, a woman of thirty-three in a long-sleeved dress that suggested propriety more than fashion, her figure angular, sharp, slight as a girl’s, her thin fingers white and cold-looking. She had suffered with chilblains as a girl, from coughs that lingered for months. Was she naive? Ignorant? What could she possibly know of the things he had seen, of how things could be? And yet she had almost died when the twins were born, was—so he had heard from Sarah—given over by the doctor attending her, and in the years since then had lost at least one child before its term, probably more. He had not ever paid it much heed. He had not, he feared, paid it any. Now the image of his sister sweating on a bloody sheet became muddled in his head with things he would do well to keep at a distance, certainly here, in a room where children played.

  She turned to him, caught him at his staring. “What is it, John? I shall begin to think I have a blemish.”

  He dropped his gaze to the rug and shook his head “No,” he said. “Not at all.”

  The family sat for their supper in the green-painted dining room. Plain food plainly done, a decanter of wine on the cloth for the sake of their guest. William Swann, from the head of the table, explained to Lacroix that the Jenny was a small brig that had seen better days but was strongly built with northern waters in mind and quite able to ride out a blow. He spoke to Lacroix with a respectful sense of the difference between their beginnings, but also with the confidence of one whose place in life was perhaps more correct, more assured. Certainly his place with God.

  “Hopefully there will be no blow,” said Lucy. She was sitting between the children, picking spilled food from the cloth, wiping mouths with her thumb. The little maid stood by the door, still as a horse.

  “I trust there will not,” said William. “But the Irish Sea is no millpond.”

  “Was you ever in a storm before, brother? At sea, I mean?”

  “Once,” said Lacroix, “and not long after I last saw you. In the Bay of Biscay on our way out to Lisbon. Waves such that we could not, in a trough, see the mastheads of any other ship, though we were in close convoy.”

  “Did your vessel have a good master?” asked William.

  “He remained in his cabin,” said Lacroix. “I saw him twice in the entire voyage.”

  “Well, I am sure the master of the Jenny will do better for you,” said Lucy. She looked anxiously at her husband.

  “Have no worry on that score,” said William. “Browne is a man of experience. He knows his work.”

  “I suppose you had horses on the ship?” asked Lucy. “The storm must have frightened them.”

  “It did. Men and horses.”

  “How do they convey them?” asked William.

  “How . . . ?”

  “How do they carry the horses?” Both William and his wife had been steadily increasing the volume of their remarks as Lacroix’s deafness became more apparent to them.

  “They are in stalls under the deck. Canvas slings about their middles.”

  “Well, they are valuable animals,” said William. “I dare say a cavalry horse is worth more than . . . what? Twenty-five guineas?”

  “You might have a three-year-old for such a price,” said Lacroix, “but such a horse is no
t fit for service for another year. A horse ready for service is closer to forty.”

  “And many must be lost,” said William.

  “Yes,” said Lacroix.

  “Then I am astonished there is money enough in the country,” said William. “I am astonished it can be paid for.”

  “John,” said Lucy, who had silenced her husband with a quick frown, who knew his views on the war, the profligacy of it, “you spoke of music in your letter. Of finding music in the islands.”

  “Yes. I have some thought of that.”

  “And I saw you had the old fiddle with you.”

  “It is not so old for a fiddle, Lucy. I think Father bought it new in seventy-something. A maker in Salisbury.”

  “And you studied,” said William. “Was it in Bath?”

  “Banks,” said Lacroix, thinking he had been asked the name of the maker. “Benjamin Banks.”

  “John studied in Wells,” said Lucy. “He was several years at it. He played beautifully and I am sure he still could.”

  “I never played beautifully.”

  “I would say it was so,” she insisted. “And I had a thousand times rather see you with a fiddle in your hands than a sword, John. A thousand times.” She too had her views on the war. She flushed a little as she spoke. The children looked up at her.

  William Swann put a piece of beef into his mouth, laid down his knife and fork. He had noticed that his brother-in-law was not entirely clean. His hair. His neck. “But won’t the army miss you?” he asked. “Does your regiment not want you back?”

  “In time,” said Lacroix. “When I am fully strong again.”

  He was given his usual room at the top of the house, the same floor as William’s office. The room was small but had a good view over the quay and the water. Bristol looked better at night. A rich scatter of lights, some of them on ships. And at night you could not see the kilns and furnace chimneys that all day poured their filth into the air.

  Lucy had come up with him on the pretext of seeing he had all he might need. Now she lingered by the door, candle in hand. He knew he should turn to her, talk to her; knew she understood there was, in this journey of his, something unexplained. He should try to set her mind at ease, though he had no real sense of how to do it and was aching with tiredness. Why had he not stayed in a hotel or a lodging house? Family always saw too much. Family could not be fooled, not for long, not entirely. But surely there was something he could tell her, some anecdote of the kind that might appear in a newspaper under the heading “The Campaigning Life”? If he could make her laugh! He would love to hear her laugh. And he could recall moments of comedy, of comic confusion. An impromptu band of pots and kettles at a bivouac outside Vila Franca, two officers waltzing together like lovers. Or how, on cold evenings in their billets in Salamanca the ladies of the house sat with charcoal braziers under their skirts so that it seemed likely—if they did not actually combust—they might rise suddenly into the air and float over the furniture. Or that time a young trooper in Murray’s squadron, coming in off piquet duty, somehow shot his own horse and for days afterwards any mention of it provoked gales of laughter—laughter that seemed now beyond comprehension. What was comical about the shooting of a horse?