To Do and Die

The pony cropped the grass a few yards away, looking pleased with itself.

‘Yes … yes I think so.’ Charlotte's tears had quite subsided under the young officer's touch.

There was the smallest rip in the leg of the girl's breeches where the gatepost had scored the cloth; now Morgan helped Charlotte to her feet and she hopped a few paces, gingerly putting her weight on the suspect leg before stepping a few paces more whilst still clutching firmly to Morgan's arm.

‘Well, Mr Morgan you're quite the man for a lady to have around in an emergency, aren't you?’ Maude had her horse well in hand as she gazed down at Morgan from her saddle.

‘I try to rise to every challenge, Miss Hawtrey,’ he replied, ignoring Kemp's suppressed guffaw in the background.

‘I'm sure that we're both very grateful to you. I think I'd better get Charlotte home now – that fox's earth can wait for another occasion, I hope. In the meantime, we look forward to seeing you both at dinner tonight,’ said Maude as she held the pony's bridle as Morgan helped Charlotte to mount.

The two cousins walked their mounts away across the spongy meadow and Morgan didn't have long to wait for Kemp's assessment. ‘Well, young Morgan that was a nice piece of work, but I can think of challenges that would make me rise more quickly than that ice-cube.’

The starched white collar was always tricky. No matter how many times he fiddled with studs and pins, no matter how much help his servant gave him, Morgan still found it difficult to shoe-horn himself into the simple black and white of evening dress without time in hand. Father had wanted him to wear his regimentals for his final dinner party, but he'd resisted, settling for Keenan's waiting at table in his scarlet. Father's friends would be attentive enough without his having to flaunt his gallantry.

In an unusual fit of competence, the servants had lit the drawing-room fire in plenty of time. Despite the damp peat, the blaze was almost too much for a spring night and the guests quickly migrated to the cooler, less smoky end of the room. Kemp was reserved, for he realized that the evening should belong to Tony and that there was little interest in wars past.

Billy Morgan had every intention of thoroughly lionizing his son. The glory that Tony would reflect upon his father could only be increased if attention were lavished upon him on this, his final night at home. The difficulty was that Mrs Amelia Smythe was one of the guests. Tony could quite see the attraction of the young widow whose husband had failed to return from the Cape last year, but he hadn't realized just how interested his father was in the woman. In fact, he could be excused for wondering just who the main guest of honour was.

Desultory enquiries were made of the young hero whilst they drank. His father's friends asked endless questions about weapons and horses, all designed to display their own militia experience, whilst Kemp restricted himself to opinions only upon the Russians and their antics on the Afghan border. The warlike talk cooled, though, as Billy concentrated the full force of his charm upon Amelia. Imperial ambitions soon gave way to domestic ones, sabre-rattling to numbers of acres, fleets of ships to stables full of hunters.

The silver had been polished almost entirely clean. Whilst the candles were a little uneven, at least they were all burning, shedding a gentle light on the only slightly smeared crystal. Perhaps Morgan's expectations had been raised too high by the standards required in the Mess, for his father seemed oblivious to the corner-cutting, purring over the display and making great play of finding Mrs Smythe's seat for her.

Sitting opposite Amelia Smythe, Morgan gazed at Mary who stood ready to serve her. The girl had on a muslin dress passed down from some lady guest and she had carefully rouged her cheeks whilst her hair, Tony was sure, had felt the deft fingers of Mrs O'Connor, the housekeeper. The ribbons and ringlets were strangely similar to those that adorned Maude Hawtrey who was sitting next to him – but there was little doubt upon whom they looked better. Whilst Mary made the impression that she intended, Tony tried to avoid her glances, but he couldn't fail to notice her smiles. From behind him darted the yellow cuff of Keenan's regimental coatee as plates and glasses were whipped away. The young soldier's movements seemed strangely in tune with those of Mary across the table.

Tony did his best with Maude and the bruised Charlotte. The little sallies that he tried with Miss Hawtrey seemed to tell, but her polite enquiries about the typical temperature in the East, whether he would have to keep warm or cool and how trying the indigenous snakes and flies would be were hard to endure. To her the ‘East’ was a definite place, populated by a distinct and loathsome tribe with the absolute intention of making his life as uncomfortable as possible. Try as he might, he could not convince her of the reality of the Russians, the certainty of their trying to kill rather than simply discommode him and the absolute gallantry with which he would confound them. No, to Maude war was no platform of valour, merely a plain of banality. On the other hand, Charlotte's accident at least gave Morgan something plausible to talk about whilst reminding Maude of another sort of gallantry.

The courses seemed endless. Billy stuck to the old custom of feeding early and feeding plenty no doubt hoping to impress their guests. Soup gave way to ices, savouries to meats, jellies to slices of offal on toast and finally puddings, the whole accompanied by the finest that the Morgan cellar could provide. There would have been every temptation to lighten the burden of his neighbours with drink, but with Maude at such close quarters he hardly dared.

Finally, the toasts. The Queen and Albert began the cavalcade, the army and the navy came next, respective regiments followed hard: then the Tsar and Pope (eyes well damned) brought up the rear.

Warming to his role, Billy called for silence again: ‘Friends, it's been some time since a Morgan answered the call to war.’ Father must have a wonderful memory, thought Tony. There had been no whiff of powder for the old captain and the West Cork Militia along Bantry Bay forty-odd years ago. ‘We don't know where this great war will take Tony, but we do know that it's made new enemies of old friends and new friends of old enemies. In my day you knew where you stood.’

A long way from danger, thought Tony. It was impossible not to like the man, but he made such a show of his militia service all those years ago that the guests could have been forgiven for thinking that it was Billy who was about to go and humble the Tsar, not him.

‘But in this pell-mellery all I can do is to show my son our admiration with a gift that we pray he does not have to use – at least, not against Christians.’

The last phrase drew a snort from the men, but had Tony not been concentrating so hard on the unexpected present he would have noticed a frown from Amelia. Finn, smart as paint in his bottle-green suit of livery, moved from the shadows and passed a slender mahogany box to Billy Morgan. Tony, quite forgetting napkin and chair leg half stumbled as his father beckoned him forward to accept the gift. A little brass plate let into the top was inscribed, ‘A. Morgan Esqre, Gren Coy, 95th Regt.’ The box contained a steely-blue, walnut-stocked Tranter with patches, powder and enough lead to quench the ambition of any Muscovite.

‘That's a fine-looking thing. May I?’ Now alongside the Morgans, Kemp's fingers took the pistol with an almost lascivious grace, coiling themselves around the chequered stock whilst gently tickling the trigger. Supporting it on his beefy left forearm he aimed at the curtain. ‘Only some of us had revolvers in the Punjab and they were nowhere near as fine as this. Remember, Mr Morgan, you'll have the advantage with a repeater, but don't go wasting shot at long range. Wait til' your man gets up close then stick the thing hard into his face before you fire. At Aliwal I had a pepperpot that Charteris – you remember him, Billy? – had urged me to try. All the barrels failed and I ended up using the wretched thing like a club. Oh, I do beg your pardon.’ Kemp cut himself short, realizing that he was marring Billy's moment.

The generosity and unexpectedness of the gift quite silenced Tony. He'd rehearsed a little speech that he expected to give once the toasts had finished – it was brief, self-effacing yet poignant with suggested danger and valour, honed to beguile both lady and maid – but in the event it was still-born. He tumbled out some almost adequate words before resorting to a toast to his father's and friends' health.

Extra peat had redoubled the effects of the drawing-room fire. A lacklustre enquiry or two from the vicar and his wife soon ran into the sand and Tony was desperately seeking another topic when Amelia Smythe appeared at his side. She was a shapely, almost pretty woman who suited the black dress and sparse jewellery that she wore. She was carefully groomed, her hair piled high, powder subtly applied, simple clusters of diamonds at her ears and throat, yet there was a sadness in her grey eyes and at the corners of her mouth. Morgan saw immediately that she was not bent upon platitudes, for she thrust her chin forward, strong opinion bubbling to be set free.

‘Mr Morgan, forgive my seeking your views, especially as we hardly know each other – oh, forgive me. Thank you for inviting me to your party, but have you thought what war will really mean? Are you quite sure that you will be able to send some other poor creature to eternity?’

‘Mrs Smythe, I'm a soldier – death is my trade.’ Tony immediately regretted his gauche reply, remembering how hollow the same phrase had sounded when Richard Carmichael had used it, trying to impress some miss at a ball in England. Why hadn't he managed a thoughtful reply to a serious question, for as he'd handled the pistol he'd wondered just the same thing? If he returned from this campaign would he and Keenan be full of that same lethal joy that he'd seen in Finn and Kemp? Could he rejoice over death and injury? Might he join the gouged veterans in Fermoy – or, like Mr Smythe, not return at all?

‘You heard Colonel Kemp, exhorting you to fire that awful gun – I mean no disrespect – only when you could be sure of killing with it. Have you prayed about this, can you tell me that Christian nations, today, are really not able to settle their arguments in some other way?’

‘But this war is a just one, someone must protect Turkey from being bullied.’ Morgan was struggling now. He'd read the Parliamentary debates in the papers and whilst he would much have preferred to adopt Keenan's stance that, as a soldier, he'd go anywhere and fight anyone he was told to, he knew that wouldn't do for the intense Mrs Smythe. Where were the barrack God-botherers when you needed them, Morgan thought, and why couldn't this comely woman pester his father and not him?

‘Can any act of war or killing be described as just, Mr Morgan? If you really believe that God could smile on those who seek to kill in his name, then I can only pray for you. Forgive my saying such things in your home on this your last night here, but I have to let you know how much I hate the idea of war and all the unhappiness it will unleash.’ The strident note had quite gone from Mrs Smythe's voice and her eyes were cast down almost demurely.

Tony wondered if his father had seen this side of Amelia. She'd made her points with a persuasive passion that had made him think seriously about what he was embarking upon for the first time. Could he continue to hide behind the simplistic arguments that his brother subalterns used and the jingoism of the press? Keenan and the other soldiers might be able to shelter behind the claims that they weren't paid to think or reason, but he was an officer who, if all this talk came to anything at all, would be required to lead men to their deaths.

Later, when cleaning and balancing his gift he questioned whether he would be able to do the things that war required. Would he be capable of taking this elegant tool and bludgeoning another man with it as Kemp had done?

Dinner finished late and Morgan was almost immediately asleep. Every creak of the house, though, every dream-grunt from Hector in the kitchen below woke him, making him check the half-hunter by the light of the moon, but still Mary didn't come. On this, of all nights, he wanted to see her to say a leisured goodbye, to store up memories that would warm him in whatever solitude and latitudes lay ahead. Then, with the first signs of light, his door opened and Mary – stepping wide in her bare feet to avoid a squeaky board – was with him. Cold beneath the eiderdown, her kisses covered his mouth and face, as she slipped from her nightdress and reached for him in one well-practised movement.

‘I'm sorry to be so late, your honour, but the table and kitchen won't clean themselves and James Keenan had a wee party as well as you!’ Her mouth tasted of drink.

‘I hope the Staff were kind to him … Oh, Mary.’ She smiled up from the shadows deep below the sheets.

‘We were, and herself said that we had to find you a gift, just like your father did. Trouble was, we had nothing to give you, so I thought this might answer.’

‘I'm glad that you came to give me the present and not Mrs O'Connor.’ The joke was old but Mary trembled silently as only she could. When she laughed her whole body was consumed by it. Her eyes screwed tight shut, the lines about them deep-etched. It delighted Morgan.

‘Tony, take me with you, I can't be without you.’ The mirth quickly faded. All the bounce, all the confidence had gone from her, her face crumpled as she pushed her head into his shoulder.

A great surge of joy and pleasure welled up through Tony as the idea seized him, but then it died as quickly as it was born. ‘Don't be daft, girl, we're going to war. There'll be time enough to catch up once I'm back.’

It was as if he'd punched her. From sweet softness and warmth she turned to blazing fury, hurling herself from the bed, her eyes alight, her whole body shaking with anger. ‘If I'm not good enough for you, Lieutenant-almighty-bloody-Morgan, I know someone who thinks I am. Well then, I shall accept ordinary James Keenan of Clonakilty's proposal of marriage – he's twice the man you'll ever be!’ She gathered her clothes around the gifts that nature had so generously given her and stormed from the room.

Morgan winced as the bedroom door banged yet again in the early morning. There was no denying how he felt about the girl, but he had hoped that the war would somehow magically resolve things. Knowing Mary, though, she would certainly carry-out her threat and no doubt conspire to embark with the regiment for whatever adventures lay ahead, married – goddamn her – to the soldier who would always be at his elbow. He groaned and turned into his pillow.

Handshakes, then Finn driving the jaunty. More goodbyes and stowing of gear before the coach took them on to the station at Cork and then to the Dublin packet which was full of officers and men from the Irish garrisons and others, like them, who were returning from leave. In the last, easy familiarity before the tendrils of the regiment coiled round both of them, Keenan and Morgan smoked together at the rail.

‘So, sir, Glassdrumman will miss you and I expect Miss Hawtrey will as well.’

‘Well, Keenan, we'll have to see, there's much ground to travel. And what of you, I was surprised that you didn't get down to Clonakilty to see your people. Did you write?’

Keenan tinkered with his stubby, clay pipe. ‘I did, sir, Mary gave me a hand with the letter, so. Jewel of a girl, that Mary.’

Morgan darted him a look, expecting some embarrassing reproach. But no, Keenan's face was set and sincere.

‘Sir, I need to ask you something. Mary's coming to join me in England and we're to marry. Will we be allowed to live together in barracks?’

Morgan couldn't believe what he was being told. So, Mary had been true to her word yet Private Keenan gave no sign of knowing what his future wife's actual relationship with his master really was. His departure for war, for deeds and glory, should have simplified things. Instead, the piquant little treat that he'd been pleased to dip into every time he came back to Ireland on leave was going to follow him back to the Regiment, married to his own servant.

‘You will, Keenan, but if we do get sent to war, there'll only be a handful of wives allowed to come with us and you'd better get used to the idea that a newly wed wife is unlikely to be selected.’ But even as Morgan replied to Keenan, he knew that if Mary was half the girl he thought she was, then she would somehow manage to be with them. He sighed deeply to himself.

THREE Weedon Barracks

There was a stamp of feet as the sentries stepped smartly from their wooden boxes outside the barrack gates and presented arms. Morgan touched his hat in acknowledgement of the salute whilst noting how both men had been alert enough to see an officer in plain clothes approaching in a civilian carriage. What he had failed to see was James Keenan's silent but frantic signals to his confederates from the open top of the vehicle: anything to avoid an officer's displeasure.

As they rattled through the gates of the modern, red-brick and tile barracks, Keenan couldn't resist the time-honoured greeting to those whose lot it was to stand guard. ‘It'll never get better if you pick-et, you bastards!’ whilst he flicked the oldest of discourtesies.

‘For the love of God stop it, Keenan,’ Morgan had half-expected something ribald from his servant as they approached Weedon Barracks – he had been in tearing spirits ever since they had boarded the carriage at Northampton station a couple of hours before.

‘We're not at Glassdrumman now and I've trouble enough with the adjutant without you adding to it!’ He was more giving voice to his own thoughts than trying to reprove Keenan, who in any event ignored his master, leaping from the carriage as it approached the Officers' Mess and busying himself with bags and cases.

‘Your honour will want to be in uniform? The other gentlemen are wearing their shell-jackets, sir, so I'll lay yours out with your sword and cap. Try not to tear that trouser strap again, sir, I had a devil of a job with it last time!’

Keenan's veneer of discipline had always been thin. The time at home in Ireland together had only helped to erode it further, but he could at least be trusted to help Morgan get the all-important details of dress right. He'd noticed that other regiments didn't seem so particular about things as the 95th, but then they had a depth of history and savoir-faire that his corps didn't. Raised only thirty or so years before, what they lacked in self-confidence was made up for by what was officially described as ‘attention to detail’ but which often translated into military myopia.

Keenan prattled as he stored Morgan's clothes and kit in his rooms in the Mess. The doings of this cousin and that, the purchase and subsequent escape of his mother's new sow and Mary Cade's near-perfection – as if Tony needed to be reminded – were a distracting enough backdrop to his dressing. As he levered himself into his plain blue overalls, they both became aware of a commotion below his window. A single voice bellowed encouragement, then others rapidly joined in.

‘That'll be Mister Carmichael: some boy him. Must be the new draft he's got his hooks into.’ Keenan, a second-best sash half-coiled around his fist, stared out of the window into the brassy March-morning sunshine.

Richard Carmichael, paragon and fellow subaltern of the Grenadier Company, stood there in Harrow colours and the lightest and most expensive running pumps. Steaming gently, he bellowed encouragement at the assortment of soldiers who bundled in behind him. Some wore canvas slops, others football shorts and pullovers but all were spattered with mud from the cross-country run. Carmichael had obviously raced them individually over the last part of the course. Fit as a hare and knowing every inch of the route, he'd had no difficulty in coming in a long way ahead of the new men. But why, wondered Morgan wryly, had he chosen to finish the race outside the adjutant's and colonel's office?

‘Where are the new boys from, Keenan?’

‘I don't recognise any of 'em. Sir, but most have come from the Eighty-Second and some from the Sixth, Forty-Eighth and Thirty-Sixth they say. Bag o' shite says I.’

Shite or not, they looked pretty good to Morgan. All volunteers, they seemed big and healthy and would more than plug the gaps left by the 95th's sick. Throwing the window open, he was about to shout across to his brother subaltern when his ear caught a strange thing. As each man came puffing home, Carmichael seemed to be addressing them in their native accents. The Irish and Scots were simple enough to imitate, the odd Geordie got a passable greeting, those from the slums of Derby and Birmingham probably recognized their own flattened vowels, but he saved his best effort for the pair of West Countrymen. They were yokelled in fine style, the young officer having been sharp enough even to learn their names. Carmichael was obviously delighted with his efforts, but Morgan couldn't help but notice the men's wooden faces.

As all the others trooped away a lone figure wheezed in. Younger, smaller, fatter and redder than any of the others, he panted across the finish line. His chest and shoulders heaved as he stooped, hands on thighs.

‘Hey, Pegg, you fat little sod, what about ye?’

‘Keenan, will you kindly remember where you are?’ Morgan elbowed him away from the window but not, he fancied before he saw a movement in the adjutant's office opposite.

Podgy Pegg even at seventeen, he had a man's appetite for ale and women that had him constantly in trouble, but his cockiness usually saw him right.

‘Now then, Mr Morgan, sir, welcome 'ome.’ Pegg braced his chubby arms to his sides – he was just about able to control his breathing enough now to speak coherently. ‘Mr Carmichael's got me showing the new 'uns around the place. Didn't know that meant runnin' with the bleeders an all.’ The warmth had gone from his voice, but instantly returned. ‘How's that Jimmy Keenan twat got on, sir?’

‘Less of the twat, lardy.’ Keenan's hayrick head now jutted from the other window and he was back at full volume. ‘I'm to be wed to Mr Morgan's maid.’

‘Keenan, please, the adjutant has no desire to know that; just get my things ready, will you?’

The commanding officer wanted to speak to the officers in the Mess. Many of the bachelors had been asked to find rooms in the town so that space could be made for a dining-room where they could all eat together. Now it was to be used for Colonel Webber-Smith's address and it buzzed with talk as the officers assembled. Almost all of them were there, including the captain and both subalterns of the Grenadier Company.

Morgan pushed his sword and cap onto the growing pile of others on the table in the hall. The officers were simply dressed in short, red jackets that flattered youthful figures but damned the portly – at thirty-two Captain James Eddington looked very much the part. Whether he had simply fallen lucky was open to question, but as far as the world was concerned, the Colonel's decision to give him command of the premier company in the regiment – the Grenadiers – was no mere chance. Now he lounged studiedly against a table, teacup in hand and whiskers just on the fashionable side of proper, curling around his collar.

‘What are your impressions of the new draft, Carmichael?’

Carmichael's hair was still wet from the tub, his skin glowing from the run.

‘Good enough, sir, but I wonder if their own regiments will have given them the discipline that they'll need to stand up to shot and shell?’

‘Well, we'll have to see about that.’ Eddington replied. ‘My only worry is that by the time we've got stuck into this war, wherever it's going to be, all those regiments that have sent men to us will need them themselves. Mark you, whatever bit of “the East” we're going to, the Russians will fight like fury and every bit of the navy and the army will be needed.’