The Last Horseman (5 page)

Belmont took another pull on the flask. The room’s confinement weighed heavily on him. Cavalrymen were not like other soldiers. There was an innate elan that gave men like Belmont dash and daring, and he admitted to himself even his common troopers had it. Many of his men had signed on again after their term of service had ended. Signed on to ride down the enemy and use carbine and sabre to inflict terror upon them.

He had taken a cold supper in his quarters but the food remained barely touched. He had no stomach for garrison duties. He was hungry for war.

*

Benjamin Pierce had never lost the breadth of his chest and shoulders. He had been born nine years after the American ship USS
Creole
had been taken over by slaves carrying them from Virginia to Louisiana. Those slaves sailed the ship to the British port of Nassau and became free. He had been told that story when he was a child and the thirst for deliverance from the cotton plantation where he was born had guided him like the star that navigated that ship to freedom. As a boy he had worked lifting bales of cotton and sacks of corn, and by the time he was fourteen he was a tall strapping youth nearly six feet tall with a conditioned strength greater than many older men. His escape from slavery came months before the Civil War ended when the embittered plantation owner’s wife sent him to work at a bible-thumping mission school where the missionary teachers saw to it that the quiet boy’s energy was channelled into reading and writing and learning scripture. Falling in love with the preacher’s young daughter and the whipping it earned was a biting reminder of the slave owner’s belligerent hand. That was when young Benjamin Pierce lied about his age and joined the Union Army. In the April of 1865 the boy, now fifteen years old, gripped the heavy wooden stock of his rifle and charged the Confederate lines at the Third Battle of Petersburg, the last great slaughter of the war.

Thirty-four years later he stood gazing at his reflection from the darkened windows in the Dublin townhouse. He wore his old officer’s double-breasted dress frock coat, now neatly tailored to adjust to an expanded girth. Age may have thickened his waist but that still did not detract from the width of his shoulders. The dark blue wool had a polished cotton black lining and each of the fourteen brass buttons now gleamed. The gold shoulder knots bore his regiment’s designation and the two silver bars of his rank. Pierce sipped a glass of port, the fire’s warmth easing some of the hard-won memories into a more nostalgic account of what had really gone on during those savage days of warfare.

Edward stepped into the room and hesitated at the sight of his father’s closest friend in full military uniform.

‘Ben, Father says the cab will be here in a couple of minutes.’ He moved closer to the sombre man and saw an old tin-framed photograph of a cavalry trooper. ‘Is this you?’

‘Uh-huh. Found it in an old box a couple of days ago.’

‘Is it from the Civil War?’ Edward asked, gazing at the young black man who stared back at him, dusty and dishevelled, in front of what seemed to be a western fort.

‘Now I may look older than Methuselah to you, but I was too young for most of that war. But it wasn’t long after.’ He poured a small glass of port and handed it to Edward. ‘August sixth, 1866, General William T. Sherman, Commanding Military Division of the Mississippi, issued a general order establishing the 10th Cavalry.’ He clinked his glass against the boy’s.

‘You and my father.’

‘Soon afterwards, yes. Not too many white officers wanted to serve with the coloured regiments.’

‘He’s never told me anything about his time in the army, do you realize that?’

Pierce took the picture from him and placed it back on the mantelpiece. ‘Some men endure and survive war and learn humility because of it. Words don’t serve much purpose. Most of the time it’s not something you want to remember,’ he said.

The old soldier topped up his glass.

‘Did you ask him if I could ride in the race?’ Edward asked.

Pierce nodded and that was all Edward needed as an answer. He put a brave face on it and swallowed the port.

‘You have to understand, he loves you too much,’ Pierce said and raised his eyebrows as the boy offered the empty glass. Pierce relented and half filled it again.

‘He’s scared for me. Ben, he can’t protect me forever. I’m strong, I can take the rough and tumble.’

‘Your brother was strong. It didn’t help him when he needed it. It nearly broke your father when he died.’ Pierce held back what he knew was not his right to tell the boy. He covered his hesitation by opening a drawer and handing the boy a gift wrapped in brown paper. Perhaps it would serve to soften the lad’s disappointment. ‘Couple of days to go before I should be giving you this,’ he said.

Radcliffe stepped into the room. He too wore a dress uniform, the only difference being the extra two brass buttons and the insignia of a major on the shoulder knots. He and Edward had barely spoken since their argument about the horse race. ‘You coming?’ he said to Pierce. ‘It’s not Christmas, yet,’ he told Edward, who had torn free the paper from his gift. Radcliffe ignored the disapproving look on Pierce’s face. Mending bridges was not such an easy feat of emotional engineering for Radcliffe as it was for his friend. ‘Still...’ he said, relenting, ‘I suppose a day or so doesn’t matter.’ He accepted a drink from Pierce. Edward held every boy’s dream knife. The bone-handled hunting knife felt beautifully weighted in his hand. The steel blade was pitted but it reflected back a time when his father and Pierce fought a brutal war in the American West. It was a blade honed by legends.

‘Benjamin?’ Edward said with a note of uncertainty, as if the gift might only be on loan.

‘From the Indian wars,’ Pierce told him. ‘One day your father will tell you what we did together. That knife’s a part of it.’ He glanced at Radcliffe as the boy could not take his eyes from the knife that he turned and weighed in his hands. Radcliffe needed little reminder of the savage times he and Pierce had shared. There were nights when the wind coming off the Irish Sea howled against the rafters, a curdling scream that cut into the old soldiers’ nerves. It prompted murmured conversations as they sat in the firelight, reminiscing about the Comanche and Sioux braves they had fought. It had been a vicious, murderous war with no quarter given. Those braves curdled a man’s blood with their war cries. And then the killing would start...

And something else,’ Pierce said, breaking Radcliffe’s reverie as he handed the boy a small pocket book. ‘To live without poetry is to live in an uncivilized world.’

Edward felt the flush reach his face, uncertain whether it was the drink, the fire or the warmth of friendship. He raised his glass. ‘Happy Christmas, Benjamin. Father.’

Radcliffe returned the toast and felt a stab of fear. His son was no more a boy than he had been at that age. The strength of his love for Edward frightened him.

*

Radcliffe and Pierce stepped away from the cab at the barrack gates. Their capes and headgear and white dress gloves were different from any other uniform Mulraney had ever seen before, and they surely were not officers in this man’s army, but he’d seen the American and the black fella before with Colonel Baxter and they were going to the colonel’s party, and that was all the defaulting soldier needed to know. He and the other sentry brought their rifles to bear in salute.

Old habits died hard and the two cavalrymen saluted, returning the soldier’s acknowledgement. As they approached the officers’ mess Radcliffe asked the question he had previously preferred not to ask. But it had become a Christmas ritual these past few years.

‘Did he ask about his mother?’

Pierce shook his head. ‘But the time’s coming he’ll have to know the truth.’

‘Not yet,’ said Radcliffe.

They stepped through the entrance, hearing the restrained skirl of the Irish regiment’s pipes and drums from behind oak doors, the instruments unleashed into their full passion as Radcliffe and Pierce entered the room. The hall was decorated for Christmas, its panelled walls rich in wood and history, hung with battle flags. Officers from all units of the brigade were there, in braided tunics of reds and blues, while their wives, in all their finery, twirled with their men. The blood-pounding music reached its crescendo and ended to cheers and applause. A Royal Irish officer saw his colonel’s guests arrive and quickly extended a warm welcome to them.

‘Gentlemen, good evening. I am Major Henry Drew, the Colonel’s second in command.’ No sooner had he introduced himself than he guided them quickly to where Colonel Baxter stood in conversation. As soon as he saw Radcliffe and Pierce he quickly excused himself. The music surged again.

‘It takes an Irishman to play the pipes, Joseph! Ben! Welcome, come along. I’ll introduce you.’

An orderly with a tray of drinks was at Radcliffe’s shoulder. Pierce declined the offer and leaned closer to his friend. ‘Irish whiskey makes me cantankerous.’

‘No one will notice the difference,’ Radcliffe said, po-faced, then followed in Baxter’s wake.

Conversations were interrupted while the colonel introduced his guests, and as they moved through the crowded room there were stares at the unusual sight of the retired United States Army officers, especially an old Buffalo Soldier like Pierce. But good manners prevailed, especially as Pierce’s dignity and bearing demanded it. To one side of the room Belmont stood with two other officers who had arrived that afternoon with their cavalry troops. Captain Taylor and Lieutenant Marsh were from quite different backgrounds to Belmont’s. They were well connected, privately educated men whose commissions were bought with wealth and secured by patronage. If Belmont had a weakness it was that he knew Taylor and Marsh were his social superiors, though neither would ever allow the man whose father had been a shopkeeper to think that he was anything but their equal. The fact was that thirty-eight-year-old Belmont had fought in every imperial war for the last twenty years and his battlefield experience and tenacious belligerence against an enemy was something they admired. They acknowledged his superiority in the field which had led to his climb through the ranks. Belmont was fearless. So, despite their inbred disdain for anyone from a lesser regiment or a lower social class, Belmont was tolerated.

Colonel Baxter eased Radcliffe and Pierce towards the cavalrymen. Baxter immediately saw the barely hidden contempt in Taylor and Marsh’s eyes when they looked at Pierce, but he saw something else in Belmont’s. The man had focused his attention on Radcliffe, and despite the lack of any expression Baxter sensed an unyielding hostility. The two men had silently locked horns.

The colonel’s presence demanded restraint and Marsh and Taylor accepted the white-gloved handshake offered to them by the Americans.

‘Our cavalry came up from the Curragh. Lieutenant Marsh arrived this afternoon with his troops; Captain Taylor is the squadron’s intelligence officer,’ the colonel said.

‘Which some might consider a contradiction,’ said Belmont, and then smiled at Taylor. ‘Just kidding, Freddie.’ Belmont made his own introductions. He extended his hand to Radcliffe.

‘Belmont, 21st Dragoons,’ he said. His own disdain for the foreign soldiers was barely disguised. ‘My friend Taylor might sit behind a desk these days but he’s a crack shot. Probably the best, eh, Freddie? Silver Medal winner at Bisley in ’97.’

The newcomers could not help but see Taylor straighten as Belmont’s compliment stroked his ego.

‘Congratulations,’ said Pierce.

‘You shoot, do you?’ Taylor asked.

‘Not at paper targets, no,’ said Pierce. And then, realizing that his comment could be construed as sarcasm, quickly added, ‘By that I meant that I haven’t shot for a long time, captain.’

‘But when you did,’ said Marsh, eager to bear-bait the conversation.

Pierce held the man’s gaze. ‘I shot at my enemy,’ he answered.

‘I suppose...
in your day
...’ He sipped his drink to deliberately let the insult settle. ‘...you would have used muzzle-loading rifles?’ His question seemed innocent but Colonel Baxter knew the cavalrymen were having sport with Pierce.

‘I’ve shot with Captain Pierce’s rifle. It’s a fine weapon. It can kill at fifteen hundred yards. It was used by buffalo-hunters in the American West. Incredible stopping power. Its rear sight gives elevation and windage, in the right hands of course.’

‘Not much big game roaming the hills of Dublin, though,’ said Taylor. ‘Perhaps too much gun to be carrying around?’ He smiled indulgently.

Radcliffe caught Belmont’s glance. His friends were baiting Pierce. It was like a schoolboy game, and Colonel Baxter’s attempt to break it up had little effect.

Pierce was no fool; he knew what they were doing. ‘It’s an 1875, fifty-calibre Sharps,’ he told them.

‘Ah,’ said Taylor, ‘near enough twenty-five years old. Can’t have bagged that many, I suppose, with a single-shot rifle.’

Baxter was suddenly wary of the three cavalrymen facing his guests and he bristled at the implied insult, though he saw that Pierce and Radcliffe showed no sign of rising to the bait.

Pierce shrugged. ‘You’re right, it’s an old weapon, but
in my day
I could load and fire fast enough.’

‘It is an excellent rifle,’ said Baxter. ‘Double trigger and elevated rear sights. And with a thirty-four-inch barrel it’s accurate at that distance. Providing of course the man firing it is skilled in its use. And I can assure you gentlemen that Captain Pierce is such a man.’ The music had stopped and the buzz of conversation and laughter around them did not seem to penetrate the circle of these six men. Colonel Baxter attempted to move the conversation on to common ground. ‘Captain Belmont is to command a raiding party to strike the enemy exactly as they strike us. Fast mounted troops who can move behind enemy lines. Major Radcliffe and Captain Pierce are retired Union cavalry officers; I thought, gentlemen, that you might be interested to hear of the guerrilla war they once fought.’

‘It was a long time ago,’ Radcliffe conceded.

Baxter ignored the self-effacing comment. ‘And Captain Pierce was a Buffalo Soldier in the American West in their fight against Indians.’