The Last Horseman (2 page)

‘You steal apples from the kitchen do you, Flynn?’ said Baxter.

The stall cleaner never broke the rhythm of his task, the pronged fork swishing and gathering. ‘That I do, lieutenant. She’s a demanding mare, is she not? Like all beautiful women.’

‘And my father condones such thievery? It’s a disciplinary offence.’

‘Aye, that it is, sir. But I think the colonel has a bit of a problem with his left eye. Doesn’t focus too well since he took that knock to his noggin in India.’

The groom led Edward’s horse along the cobbled passage.

‘There’s a wager to be had today is there, lieutenant?’ Flynn dared to ask.

‘You’re a cheeky blighter, Flynn. I don’t know how you’ve kept the colonel’s favour over these years. It’s against Queen’s Regs for officers to gamble with other ranks. You know that.’

Flynn bowed his head in acknowledgement. ‘But you’re off duty, sir, not so?’

Baxter smiled at Edward. ‘You’d care for a sixpenny bet?’

‘I would, sir,’ Flynn answered. ‘The colonel grants me the privilege of looking after his horse because he knows there’s no one in the regiment who loves her more dearly than his good self. I’ll take sixpence on Mr Radcliffe, thank you kindly, lieutenant.’

Edward couldn’t help the guffaw that escaped from his lips but quickly set his jaw to a more serious expression when Lawrence Baxter glared at him in mock severity.

‘You believe Master Radcliffe has the better horse today, Flynn?’ Baxter asked.

Flynn ceased his efforts and kicked the congealed horse shit from his boots. ‘It’s not the horse, Mr Baxter, sir.’ His smile pushed the boundary of what, in the British Army, could be considered dumb insolence. Another offence and one that could have sentenced him to full pack drill at 160 paces a minute on the parade square that was still echoing with the RSM’s booming commands. But not with young Mr Baxter. He wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill junior officer. He was strict, there was no doubt about that, but the colonel’s son hadn’t yet been blooded. He was new to the regiment, still finding his way, and the colonel was a wise old bastard, as far as Private Gerald Flynn was concerned. The Old Man must have taken the lad aside, told him to learn the ways of the scum that would be at his side with a twelve-inch shaft of wicked steel on the end of their rifles. And that learning was still going on. Lieutenant Lawrence Baxter was still wet behind the ears. And that gave Flynn some leeway until the day came when he overstepped the mark and took the punishment that would surely be deserved.

Baxter took the reins of his horse from the groom. ‘I shall have the pleasure of seeing you forfeit your wager, Flynn. Sixpence will deprive you of ale and a whore from Harcourt Street, and give me the pleasure of knowing it.’

The sergeant’s voice carried from the square. ‘Mulraney! Your mother must have been standing on Ha’penny Bridge when she dropped you out of her belly on to your numbskull! Extra guard duty over Christmas, you bloody heathen.’

Flynn eased back into the stall. Out of sight was out of mind if extra duties were being handed out, and those with stripes on their arms knew Flynn to be a malingerer. Baxter and Edward eased the horses down the cobbled passage. They waited as the company was turned and marched to the far side of the square. To Edward’s eye their steady pace and perfect turns made them look to be the best soldiers in the world.

‘I wish I was going with you to South Africa,’ he said.

‘To fight a bunch of farmers?’ Baxter replied, his hand fussing his horse’s bridle.

Any thoughts of heroic deeds were deflated by his friend’s unenthusiastic response. ‘There are more than fifty thousand of them, Lawrence. They slaughtered five hundred of Hart’s Brigade at Colenso last week!’

‘And that was the only black week we shall have. Hart’s a courageous man but he was a fool, he committed his men badly. Trust me, Edward, the country’s so vast it’ll swallow those fifty thousand like ants in a desert. It’s a fool’s war, and I fear we will be too late to see any action at all.’

‘Still... it’s an adventure,’ Edward said hopefully.

Baxter gathered the reins. ‘There’ll be greater battles than this. Give it another couple of years, finish your schooling and then ask your father to use his influence to get you into the Royal Irish.’

‘My father would never use his influence.’

‘Then when the time comes I will ask mine to use his. We’ll serve together. Brothers in arms. How about that?’

*

Outside the gates two soldiers stood on guard duty, their eyes glancing back and forth across the busy street traders and beggars. Swarms of children worked the streets, selling whatever they could. Orphans mostly, or children whose parents were serving time in prison. Dishevelled and malnourished, they’d take whatever they could get to survive another day in the fetid tenements. The sentries knew that Fenian terrorists could infiltrate street crowds like these with ease. A muzzled black bear reared on to its hind legs as a street entertainer tapped it with his cane – a flicking, stinging hit, a foretaste of the bear’s usual beating back in its cage. The man held the chain that ran through the ring in the creature’s nose while a ragamuffin boy went among the crowd collecting whatever donation could be prised from the gawping onlookers. The entertainer flicked his cane, and the bear danced awkwardly as it tried to stay balanced on its rear legs. Failing to do so would bring another painful blow. A ripple of applause and gasps of appreciation loosened the onlookers’ purse strings. At each tortured trick the crowd clapped and cheered until the sound of their enthusiasm was drowned out by the clattering rhythm of iron-shod horses.

The cavalry troop yielded for no one, forcing the crowd and the dancing bear to move aside. The officer who led them, Captain Claude Belmont, looked neither right nor left as he ploughed his horse through the protesting crowd without breaking formation, leading two columns of men abreast behind him. By the time they had passed the sentries and ridden into the garrison, and the great doors had swung closed behind them, the civilians had filtered away, spitting out a curse here and there for the arrogant Englishmen.

The showman tugged and tormented the abused beast to another, more profitable location.

*

The sudden flurry of the cavalrymen’s arrival stopped Edward and Lawrence from leaving the stables. As Belmont and his troops dismounted Edward held his breath. The jangle of bridles and the creaking of leather mingled with the rattle of sabres and scabbards seemed to make the men bristle with menace. Belmont dismounted lithely, his muscled body showing no sign of fatigue from what must have been a long ride. His weather-beaten face sported a moustache in compliance with army regulations for all officers these past three years, but unlike the majority who prided themselves on trimmed whiskers, Belmont let his grow thick, a confident rejection of the more effete look of some junior officers. He brushed off any gibes about it by saying that he followed the sentiments of the chief of staff, Lord Kitchener, in both facial hair and robust use of force against an enemy.

Lawrence Baxter raised his hand, turned to Edward and whispered, ‘Wait a moment until they’ve all dismounted. I don’t want to be drawn into any explanations as to why I am out of uniform and with you.’

Edward deferred to his friend’s request and waited quietly. Belmont was half in shadow and gazed down the length of the dimly lit stables. For a chilling moment Edward felt his eyes settle upon them, but then, as if their presence was of no importance, Belmont turned back and strode towards the officers’ mess. The cavalry sergeant shouted commands and troopers led in their mounts. Lawrence Baxter let out a sigh of relief. And for the first time Edward sensed his friend’s apprehension, his anxiety at the close proximity of the hardened soldiers. Edward, though, felt a ripple of excitement. He could imagine these men galloping knee to knee in extended formation against a formidable enemy and careering through their lines, sabres swishing and slashing. As he led his horse out on to the parade ground not one of the troopers gave the two young men a second glance. They didn’t have to. One dismissive look was enough to make Edward feel that he meant less to the cavalrymen than a fly swished by a horse’s tail. The vast parade ground had been suddenly vanquished by these bold men and he was glad to ride through the gates towards the open hills that lay beyond – as the mixture of trepidation and admiration mingled with an inexplicable fizz of excitement.

A few miles north of the city Joseph Radcliffe stood in front of a gravestone. By the time he had left the house to ride out to the small hillside country cemetery, Dermot McCann was already buried in an unmarked grave within the prison walls. But it did not take the execution of a man to remind Radcliffe of his own loss, and each week, at this time, he would make the journey to stand before this grave. The words he uttered were always inaudible, but the guilt he felt must, he thought, be apparent to all. There were few among his friends and associates who knew of his personal tragedy, and this weekly act of remembrance on the windswept hill allowed him sufficient privacy to shed his tears. It was an indulgence he always vowed to resist, but the loss he felt continued to torment him.

A shout, a whoop, the sound of hooves broke into his reverie. The folding hills and scattered woodlands obscured the riders whose voices he heard in the distance. With a few strides he cleared the low overhang that sheltered the grave so he could look out over the stretch of valley below. Two riders came in at the gallop, young men hunched low across their horses, arms moving rhythmically, urging their lathered horses on, neither using a whip. Recognizing them he almost called out, an arm already raised, his hat gripped ready to signal his presence. But he faltered and stayed silent, watching Edward lead his friend by at least half a length. The joy of seeing his son ride so beautifully, in perfect harmony with the horse, made him wish his wife could share the moment. Regret squeezed his heart, and he kept silent and let the riders disappear from view. With a final glance at the grave he walked back to where his horse munched lazily on the sweet grass that grew free of the frost beneath the hedgerows where brambles and thorns encircled the field that held the dead. No harm could befall them ever again.

*

It was a day to rid himself of the stain of the previous night’s killing and he had agreed to ride out to meet his friend Lieutenant Colonel Alex Baxter. An hour later his horse clattered across the cobbled courtyard of an Irish landowner, Thomas Kingsley, a man whose roguish charm concealed secrets of value to both the British Army and the Irish Nationalists. But no one could determine on whose side his true allegiance lay. The horse-breeder could sell a donkey to a monkey and enter it as a three-year-old thoroughbred filly in the mile-long Irish Oaks race. And what’s more he could no doubt fix the race so the donkey and its chattering jockey would win.

Radcliffe saw Kingsley and Baxter standing at the far side of the stable yard where a groom held an unsaddled horse’s halter. Baxter was a lean man, a regular army officer all his life, one of the few in the officer corps who was not from the aristocracy. He took a serious approach to his manner of command, and the discipline he embedded in his soldiers created loyalty that reflected a lifetime of fair treatment. His concern for his troops’ welfare had engendered respect in return, and a willingness to follow him into battle, often against savage odds. It was a foolish recruit who took the man’s slight physique as an indication of his character. Baxter would punish offenders as strictly as he would show compassion for genuine hardship, which is why Radcliffe and Baxter found common ground and shared their distaste for useless loss of life. Those who knew war despised it for what it was. But such sentiments could blight an officer’s career, which was, perhaps, why the forty-eight-year-old Baxter had remained a lieutenant colonel and had neither found favour from the general staff nor been invited to join them. Not, Radcliffe thought, that his friend would wish to do so. Field officers were a breed unto themselves.

The two men were deep in conversation and their somewhat furtive glance towards him made Radcliffe wonder if he was intruding on a personal exchange. A stable lad ran forward and took Radcliffe’s reins. He slipped a coin into the boy’s grubby hand.

‘Mr Radcliffe, you’ll not be spoiling my lads again, I trust. They’ll be pressing me for higher wages,’ Kingsley said. What-ever they had been discussing had been quickly put aside on Radcliffe’s approach.

Radcliffe shook Kingsley’s extended hand, and then took his friend’s. ‘Kingsley. Alex. I’m sorry I’m late.’

Kingsley’s skin was as rough as a farrier’s file and a half-closed eye showed the scar from eyebrow to cheekbone that some said came from a knife fight in his youth. Others knew, or so they claimed, that it was the result of a drunken assault on a prostitute who broke a chamber pot across his head and laid him low, so that he dashed his head on the whore’s metal bed frame. Either way it gave the big man an appearance of someone who could cause violence – despite all his lilting charm.

‘We Irish landowners like to keep in step with our English cousins. Modest wages keep a man temperate in his desires.’

‘But intemperate in his despair,’ Radcliffe answered.

‘Quite so, quite so. Now, you’ll be staying and having a drink when the colonel here and I have completed the business at hand?’

‘No, thank you. I’ve work to do,’ replied Radcliffe.

Kingsley grunted. ‘One of the Fenian bastards was hanged last night then? Did he squeal? Most of those murdering scum do when it comes to it. They shit their pants and cry for their mothers.’

‘You think there’s any dignity in dying like that?’ challenged Radcliffe.

‘Ah, come on now, you’ve been a soldier, we’re all meat on bone. No one dies with dignity. Better for us all if we rid society of murderous scum and be done with it.’

Radcliffe and Baxter exchanged a brief glance. Was it worth engaging the bluff Irishman in argument?