The Winter Soldiers Read online

  ‘I’m glad you told me that story,’ said Gwilliams, touched. ‘You say it’s true?’

  ‘As I live and breathe.’

  ‘Rajah Brooke, eh? I’ll think on that one. Some true stories are more colourful than poetry, ain’t they? I look on myself as an adventurer, Sergeant Crossman. I see myself seeking things. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but by God I’ll know when I find it. It’s out there somewhere. In the meantime, I’ve got a sly job to do, and I’ll do it to the best of my ability, you can be sure of that.’

  ‘I am sure of that, Gwilliams. I have to tell you that I was unhappy about taking you into the peloton. I said as much to Colonel Hawke. But he insisted. Now I’m glad I did. What is it between you and Rupert Jarrard, by the way?’

  Gwilliams’ expression darkened at the sound of the newspaper man’s name. ‘That fake?’ he said. ‘Don’t you ask.’

  ‘All right, I won’t. I was just curious.’

  ‘Rot him.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  Later, Crossman strode into the classroom of the chapel and stopped dead in his tracks. Sitting amongst the urchins in the front row was Mrs Lavinia Durham, wife of a quartermaster and one-time lover of Sergeant Fancy Jack Crossman of the 88th Connaught Rangers. As Alexander Kirk, the youngest son of a Scottish nobleman, Crossman had virtually promised himself to Lavinia when he suddenly learned about who and what he truly was, and what his father had done to his natural mother. He had then, without a by-your-leave to his intended, rushed off and joined the Rangers under an assumed name.

  He had left Lavinia to the gossips, who had in their inimitable way torn her apart. This had resulted in her marrying beneath her station, a captain up from the ranks, Bertram Durham, a merchant’s son. Crossman knew he had caused her some pain, which he now deeply regretted. Since then she had come to his bed while he was recovering from a wound, something else he regretted, and she had subsequently assisted him in kicking a laudanum habit. Their histories were entwined and seemed fated to continue so, unless one of them should be strangled or smothered by the other.

  ‘Lavinia – I mean, Mrs Durham!’ said Crossman in an annoyed tone. ‘What are you doing here?’

  She had been doing something with a child, helping an unfortunate boy with crossed eyes draw a picture on his slate, and she looked up quickly. Her small round face seemed to shine from within. The shapely nose, the sweet mouth, the humourful eyes were all turned full-force upon him. Not beautiful, but impishly pretty. There was a good deal of Shakespeare’s Titania dwelling in Lavinia Durham’s breast. A small flint-hearted fairy peered out through soft-looking eyes. He could not help but melt under that gaze or be captivated by her prettiness.

  There was no mark of the war on her countenance, though perhaps her soul bore some dark patches. She tilted her chin, the way she used to do before going into battle against him. Inwardly he groaned. He knew he was in for a fight of some kind, though he had no idea what it was all about. With all her flounces and petticoats, she could be a determined antagonist, and he was not looking forward to skirmishing with her in the classroom.

  ‘I heard there were some interesting classes going on at the chapel, sergeant, and decided to end my boredom by coming here.’

  To add to his consternation the door opened behind him and yet another person came into the class. It was the goose girl. She gave him a little curtsey before looking round the room.

  ‘Please?’ she said. ‘Where to sit?’

  ‘You – you may sit where you please,’ he replied, awkwardly.

  ‘Yes please, where to sit?’ she repeated, compounding the confusion.

  Lavinia Durham raised an eyebrow, then patted the seat beside her and said, ‘Come, child, sit by me.’

  Child? thought Crossman. There couldn’t have been more than five years between the pair. Lavinia Durham was sending a message to him, that the girl was too young for him. The goose girl sat on the bench next to Mrs Durham and then looked eagerly at Crossman. It seemed his fame had spread throughout the land. Soon there would be Cossacks and their women coming to hear his word. Perhaps, he thought, I missed my vocation. I should have been a Methodist preacher. He felt he ought to nip things in the bud. The schoolmaster-sergeant was on the mend but he wouldn’t be back for a few days. In the meantime Crossman felt the lessons ought to lose their lustre. He ought to try for something boring. Poetry! There was nothing like poetry for putting people off learning. It had certainly worked with him at school. Twice he had received the strap across the backside for falling asleep in a poetry class. What to give them, though? Burns? No, no, he had come to appreciate Robert Burns over the years. Coleridge? Nor him, for his flights of fancy were actually quite alarming in their way and stirred the imagination.

  Wordsworth! That was the man. Insipid, in Crossman’s opinion. Sugary, dripping with apricot jam. Yes, that was the one.

  ‘Today,’ he said, his voice echoing in a most disturbing manner in the hollowness of the chapel, ‘we shall be looking at a certain poet. One William Wordsworth, who died last year . . .’

  ‘Five years ago, I believe,’ murmured Mrs Durham.

  ‘Yes, precisely. Five years ago. He wrote a poem called “The Lost Love” and it goes something like this, though I obviously can’t recall the piece exactly, you can be sure of one or two lines. It seems there was a maid, fair as a star. None of her suitors praised her and very few of them, it has to be said, actually loved her. She was, in the poet’s words, a violet by a mossy stone.’

  ‘Oh, stuff!’ said Lavinia Durham. ‘Is this aimed at the young chit beside me? Are you trying to seduce her by comparing her to Lucy in Mr Wordsworth’s poem? A violet by a mossy stone half-hidden from the eye – fair as a star, when only one is shining in the sky. That’s not a compliment you know. I wouldn’t want one of my admirers to say that if I was the only woman in the world I should be considered beautiful.’

  ‘Is – is that what he’s saying?’ asked Crossman. ‘I thought he was considering her to be a jewel? And I certainly do not have designs on the young woman,’ he added indignantly. ‘I merely thought this would be a good rhyme to start things off.’ Damn Lavinia Durham. He would pick the one poem she obviously knew well.

  ‘It’s a very silly poem. She lived unknown, and few could know when Lucy ceased to be. If she was unknown, then no one could know when she ceased to be. Choose another poem. I know, what about . . .’ Mrs Durham went on to quote three or four other Wordsworth poems at length, until he had to call a stop to her recitals.

  He spoke severely. ‘I am trying to run a lesson here, Mrs Durham. If you insist on interrupting I shall have to ask you to leave.’

  ‘You’re so masterful, sergeant,’ she said, batting her eyelids. ‘I’m sure we are all in terror of you.’

  Needless to say the soldiers and the children thought this badinage flowing between the lady and the sergeant was great fun. Only the goose girl did not appreciate it. She was looking from one to the other with a curl to her bottom lip. She knew there was a special bond between these two, simply by the tones of their voices and the way they looked at each other, and she did not like it. The sergeant had looked at her, several times out on the paths and tracks, and she had come to consider him quite beautiful. She had not come here to share him with this old woman next to her, who seemed to have a certain spitefulness on the tip of her tongue. He was to be hers and even goose girls with hennaed hair could be jealous of fine ladies. However, the sergeant was now pointing to the door.

  ‘Leave,’ he boomed. ‘You are disrupting my lesson. I insist that you leave immediately, Mrs Durham, so that I can teach the soldiers and young civilian scruffs in peace. Go, before I order two of those burly Highlanders at the back to remove you by force.’

  Lavinia Durham pouted. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’ The soldiers certainly wouldn’t dare and looked about them in alarm, should the sergeant carry through with his threat. After all, this lady was the wife of a captain, and even in the lawful purs
uit of an order from an NCO, there could be terrible repercussions. In fact, the soldiers in question were already forming excuses as to why they shouldn’t be ordered to remove the lady from the classroom, when she suddenly got to her feet.

  ‘My dear,’ she said to the goose girl, ‘you must beware of that man. He breaks hearts and scatters the pieces with a sneer and a laugh . . .’

  ‘Lavin . . . Mrs Durham, don’t be melodramatic.’

  ‘Be careful, Alexander,’ she whispered as he passed him, her nose in the air. ‘Be gentle with her. She is not made of bronze, as I am.’

  Crossman heaved a sigh of relief once Lavinia had gone. Of course she had only come to disrupt his lesson. He realized that. Once she had made her point she would have left anyway. It was her way, to make him suffer a little. And he had no designs on the goose girl whatsoever. Nor, he felt, should the girl be interested in him. He had done nothing to encourage her, apart from wish her good morning in her own language and to offer a smile. Was that so bad, to pass pleasantries with a human being in this freezing hell? This place of ice and snow, of sleet and hail, which bordered the Black Sea? Even now the girl had cheered a little and was looking at him with clear eyes.

  ‘I am glad to have you in the class,’ he said to her in her own language. ‘You are welcome.’

  She blushed furiously and looked down at her knees. One or two Tartar children giggled, though he had no idea for what reason. Having wasted enough time already with frivolities, he began the morning lesson again, this time choosing to study the alphabet, and finding the response much the same as if he had chosen to continue with poetry.

  In the afternoon he was actually free to do as he pleased and now that he had done something mildly useful with his morning, he felt he could go to the point-to-point races without any feelings of guilt. He knew he had to be careful though, in case he ran into his father. There was quite a crowd there. The course was already churned up a little when he arrived, two races having been and gone. A lieutenant from H Battery, Royal Artillery, had won the second one. The first field had been swept aside by someone from the 5th Dragoon Guards. There were spectators from all the divisions, this being prime entertainment, but of course most of the common soldiers were from the Highland Brigade. Point-to-point was primarily an officer’s sport, like shooting game, and rank-and-file followed an unspoken rule of staying well back and viewing events from a distance.

  Crossman found Rupert Jarrard, who had remained at the rear to wait for his friend, before pushing to the front. He took Crossman with him and the sergeant felt very uncomfortable under the glares of subalterns, captains and the like as he followed in the newspaperman’s wake. ‘Hey,’ said Jarrard, turning when they reached the rope that fenced in the race track, ‘do you want to wager? Give me a couple of guineas. We’ll put them on that captain from the 68th. See him? Over there, trotting his nag back and forth to keep it in prime. That, my friend, is a nice piece of horse flesh. Bound to win. Stake my reputation on it. Here, let’s have the money.’

  Crossman reluctantly gave Jarrard two guineas and watched as the American shouldered his way through cherry-trousered cavalry officers who lisped at him to watch who he was pushing. The sergeant then stood awkwardly, surrounded by a sea of commissioned officers, some of whom occasionally stared his way, though none actually told him to be off. Then he felt a tap on his shoulder and expected the worst, only to find Major Lovelace standing there, removing his kid gloves, smiling into his face.

  ‘This is brave of you, sergeant, coming in amongst the enemy.’

  ‘I’m with Jarrard, sir. And I have a lot in common with these men.’

  ‘Oh, I know. Old Harrovian. But I thought you had turned your back on us, sergeant, and now I find you indulging in old habits. Hard to break, eh? Ingrained in the soul, the pursuits of the idle rich.’

  ‘Point-to-point? Even farm hands . . .’

  ‘I’m teasing you, old man. Well, have you wagered yet? I have it on good authority that the lieutenant on the bay shipped the beast from County Cork on a naval yacht only a fortnight ago, so it’s fresh from the green grass of Ireland. It looks strong, doesn’t it? I shall put ten on it, I think. What about you?’

  ‘I’ve just given my money to Jarrard. I think we’re going with the opposition.’

  ‘My dear chap, there isn’t any. But good luck, anyway.’

  Now that he was speaking with a major all interest in him had gone from the rest of the officers around him. It was true, he did not regard them as the enemy. They could have been his school chums. However, they did regard him as something less than worthy. Here was a man from a good background choosing to remain in the ranks. That could at best be suspicious. What had he done that he buried himself amongst the scum of the earth? You had to have a damn good reason to crawl into pig swill. They could think of a dozen reasons why a gentleman should wish to be anonymous. Debts he could not cover. A lady he had scandalized. An affair of honour at which he had failed to appear. These, and many other reasons for his presence amongst the common soldiers, were in the minds of those who guessed his origins and wondered at his sin.

  Jarrard arrived back with the wager slips. He rubbed his hands together. ‘Right, we’re about to make our fortunes. Good day to you, major. You’re well I trust?’

  Lovelace answered in kind and the three men then fell silent as all Hell broke loose around them. It was nothing but the madness of the race as men cheered their favourites up and down the course to the finish line. It was the bay that won, with a smiling young lieutenant on his back, and Lovelace was not at all surprised.

  ‘Inside information,’ he explained to Crossman. ‘I was in Somerset two years ago when a cousin of mine won three races on that very same horse. It was only a two-year-old then and I surmised it would not have lost any strength in its limbs since then. In fact last night I paid my respects to the lad who rode it today and asked him if I could trot his nag for him. He obliged me, of course, flattered that a major should be interested in his mount. It did not seem lame or short of wind in any way and I came to the conclusion that it was still the same flyer it had been when in the hands of my dear cousin.’

  Crossman smiled. ‘You never leave anything to chance, do you, sir?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ replied the major, airily. ‘Someone else may have had a cousin’s horse here which they were equally convinced was a Pegasus waiting to unfold its wings.’

  Jarrard, however, was quite cross that his horse had lost.

  ‘I had it on the best authority,’ he grumbled.

  ‘We all do – we all do,’ replied Lovelace. ‘Alas, all authorities cannot be right.’

  There were still several more races to go, so the three decided to run a pool and share out at the end. This was more successful, since Lovelace did most of the choosing and he just happened to choose winners. When it was all over they went to one of the sutler stalls, that of a Bulgar who roasted particularly good goat meat over charcoal fires, and had some of his fare in bread. It was good, a feast in fact. There was also cheap wine to be had. Lovelace insisted that they left the wine until they got back to the hovel, where he had six bottles of good French claret in his travelling box, but Jarrard wanted something to wash the meat down, so they purchased a bottle of Spanish red.

  ‘Vino brutal,’ said Lovelace, showing the roughness of his tongue after he had tasted the drink. ‘My steward at home will never speak to me again, if he hears of this.’

  Crossman, who was enjoying himself immensely, laughed and went to turn away, when he came up against a body. Unfortunately it was that of another major and he spilt his wine down the front of this person. When he looked up to apologize Crossman found himself staring into the face of his own father. Immediately he came to attention, saluted, and said, ‘I am most heartily sorry, sir. I had no intention of – of spilling my drink on you.’

  Aware that he was disguised by dirt, beard, long hair and a considerable loss of weight, Crossman felt he might yet ge
t away without being recognized. He had spoken in the rough tones of a common soldier, having heard them enough from Wynter and his kind. His father had not seen him for some years and there was no reason to suppose the elderly major would expect to find his son in the same army, on the same fields of battle, in the war against Russia. He was however staring at Crossman rather strangely, his white moustache quivering, and those piercing blue eyes cutting deeply into Crossman’s heart.

  ‘Clumsy damn oaf!’ cried the major. ‘Blind are you? What is it you are, eh?’ He stared at Crossman’s sleeve. ‘Damned sergeant! Pushing yourself a little too far forward, sergeant.’ He brushed the droplets of wine from his uniform with a sour look on his face.

  ‘The sergeant is with me, major,’ said Lovelace, coming in. ‘It was an accident.’

  Crossman winced. He wished at that moment that Lovelace would stay out of it. He wanted his father to walk off, whether in a temper or not. The last thing he wished for was to keep him there, staring into his face, and wondering where he had seen those eyes before.

  Major Kirk glared at Major Lovelace. ‘Who asked you, sir? The impudent pup has ruined me jacket.’

  Jarrard piped up now. ‘I’m sure he didn’t mean to. If it’s a matter of money . . .’

  ‘Money, sir? Who are you? Damned Canadian, by the sound of you. Do I look poor, eh? My batman will get rid of this stain within a minute. It’s the inconvenience, sir. Keep your money. And keep your mouth shut, if you please.’

  Jarrard became bolt upright within a second. He stared at the major. ‘What?’ he cried. ‘I’m an American, not a Canadian, and if it’s satisfaction you want, we Americans will give it every time.’

  Crossman groaned. ‘No, no. Please, this was all my fault. I won’t have you duelling over my errors, Rupert. Please stay out of it. If you want to fight someone, fight me. Major, I have apologized. I can’t do more.’