Land of Hope and Glory (26 page)

Jack fetched a piece of rope from a nearby packhorse and tied Salter’s hands behind his back. He then walked across the camp and met Roy striding in the opposite direction, his red and white turban bobbing up and down, pistol in his belt.

‘Sir,’ Jack said. ‘There’s been a mistake. Salter’s been on duty three nights running.’

Roy’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why’s he been on so many nights?’

Jack went silent. ‘It was my fault, sir. Made a mistake.’

‘A bloody stupid mistake.’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll be mentioning it to the Colonel.’

‘Of course.’

‘But it’s still a dereliction of duty. Salter will have to be shot.’

‘Sir, I thought that given the circumstances—’

‘The rules are clear. Salter should’ve stayed awake regardless.’

‘But sir—’

‘Out of my way, Sergeant.’

Roy marched on and Jack followed, feeling sick.

Salter stood beside a boulder on the edge of the camp. His hair was slick with sweat and he blinked constantly. He looked like a dog who’d just been kicked by its master.

‘Up there.’ Roy pointed to the slope above them.

The three of them walked uphill, Salter stumbling a few times on the rocky ground, finding it difficult with his hands tied. He glanced at Jack, raw fear in his eyes. Jack looked away and cleared his throat.

They came to a group of pines and Roy led them into the trees until they were out of sight of the camp. The fallen needles were soft beneath their boots and the sharp scent of pine surrounded them.

Roy pointed at a tree. ‘That one there.’

Jack took Salter over to the tree and tied him firmly to the trunk, facing outward. Roy stood a short distance away, watching, the pistol now in his hand.

‘Thought you were going to talk to him,’ Salter said.

‘I did,’ Jack said. ‘I’m sorry.’

His mind was racing. He tried to think whether there was anything he could do. But Roy was in command and there was no way he could question the decision of an officer.

He stepped away and Roy walked over.

‘Private Salter,’ Roy said. ‘You are guilty of dereliction of duty whilst on campaign, namely sleeping whilst assigned to a sentry post. I hereby sentence you to be shot until you are dead.’

Jack smelt piss. A dark stain spread down Salter’s trousers from under his tunic.

Roy stepped to the side, lifted the pistol and held it near Salter’s temple. Salter shivered fiercely and made small choking sounds. He squeezed his eyes shut and twisted his body slightly as though in some way he could avoid the bullet.

Roy fired. The sound echoed across the valley and birds flew squawking from the trees.

‘Be more bloody careful next time, Sergeant.’ Roy turned and marched back down to the camp . . .

Jack stared up at the night sky, at the stars reeling over Salisbury Plain. He hitched up his hose.

It was Salter’s death that had made him leave the army. It was a strange thing – it was just the death of one young man. He’d seen so many die, young and old. He’d thought he was immune to it. But the death had haunted him. Even back from campaign he’d dreamt about that final moment in the forest. He’d spoken to Jhala, but the Captain had pointed out that Roy had followed the regulations to the letter.

And, of course, Jhala was right. Jack himself was to blame. He was the one who had made the error. And this weighed on him. He should have listened to what Salter was trying to tell him that night. He shouldn’t have let tiredness get in the way of doing his job properly. If only there were some way he could correct the mistake.

Three months later, on a battlefield in Denmark, a stray sattva-fire ball struck him and he was laid up in hospital for a month. During that time he realised he’d been punished for Salter’s death. Karma must have caused the accident. Or perhaps it was God. He wasn’t sure. But he’d undoubtedly been punished.

Once he recovered, he tried to continue with his duties, but in secret he felt he no longer deserved his sergeant’s cap-stripes. He didn’t deserve to wear an army uniform at all.

Within months he’d handed in his resignation.

Jhala had tried to convince him to stay, saying ‘There’s no need for you to leave, Casey. You’ve recovered well enough to serve, even if you can’t use your power as often as before. I don’t tell many people this, but I was once badly injured myself. I got better, though, and I carried on. You should too.’

But the words weren’t enough to change Jack’s mind . . .

Now he wandered back to the campfire, where Charles and Saleem were discussing something, Charles’s voice loud and Saleem’s soft and barely audible.

Charles belched as Jack approached. ‘We were just talking about . . . What were we talking about?’

Saleem shrugged.

‘Oh, yes. How we’re going to give the Rajthanans a thrashing.’

‘Is that right?’ Jack sat down. He tipped the remains of his ale into the fire where it hissed and bubbled.

‘You’ll meet my regiment in London,’ Charles continued. ‘The 12th. They’ll all be there. Greatest bunch of lads. You’ll meet them—’

‘We should get some sleep,’ Jack said.

‘A few more pints,’ Charles drawled.

‘You’ve had enough. Get some sleep.’

Charles’s head wobbled. He peered at Jack across the fire, puzzled. ‘You’re right. Sleep.’

And he slumped to the earth and lay there, blowing dust across the ground with his open mouth.

Charles let Jack drive the cart the next day, while he lay in the back, hand on his forehead, groaning each time they went over a bump. Jack admonished himself for letting Charles drink so much. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. They had to get to London before the army and he couldn’t let anything slow them down.

At around ten o’clock in the morning, hills appeared in the distance.

Charles sat up. ‘Hampshire Downs. We’re near the border of the Earl’s lands.’

‘You’d better get out of that tunic,’ Jack said.

Charles frowned and looked at his dark-blue uniform. ‘You think so?’

‘If we come across Rajthanans you’ll attract attention.’

Charles nodded, took off the tunic and replaced it with an old jerkin. He slid the tunic underneath the canvas, with the firearms.

‘No,’ Jack said. ‘Better get rid of it. They could search the cart.’

Reluctantly, Charles held up the tunic, looked at it for a moment, as if inspecting it before going on parade, then rolled it into a tube and threw it out into a field.

A cloud of dust appeared across the road ahead. At first it was a tiny smear, but then it grew into a huge globe that obscured the hills. Jack held the reins tightly.

‘What is it?’ Charles asked.

‘Don’t know.’ Jack stopped the cart and climbed down. He knelt on the pitted road, put his ear to the ground and listened intently to the vibrations in the earth. The immediate surroundings were deserted, but far off he could detect the tread of thousands of feet.

‘The army?’ Charles asked as Jack climbed back into the cart.

Jack shook his head. ‘A lot of people, but they’re not marching in time. Just ordinary walking.’

‘Who are they, then?’

‘Can’t be sure. Give me that pistol.’

Charles took the pistol out from under the canvas. Jack examined the weapon. It was an ancient flintlock single-shooter, with a prowling lion etched along the side. Similar weapons were being phased out of the army when he’d first joined twenty-three years ago. He wondered whether it would even work. He checked the pan and the barrel – they were both clean. He then measured and poured powder into the muzzle, and rammed in a ball along with a greased patch of cloth. After priming the pan, he balanced the weapon carefully on the seat beside him, under a blanket.

‘You’d better load that musket too,’ he said.

Charles bit open a cartridge. He stood in the cart as they bounced along, jabbing with the ramrod and watching as the dust cloud spread before them.

The countryside changed. The farms thinned out, then vanished, leaving open, uncultivated grassland. No one worked the fields, no other travellers moved along the road.

Figures formed in the dust: peasants, thousands of them, trudging along the road in a vast, broken column that snaked away into the distance. As they came closer Jack could see their ragged clothes and gaunt features. They dragged their feet as if carrying heavy weights. There were men and women, children, babies clinging to their mothers, all staring straight ahead.

The first groups barely acknowledged Jack and his companions. They walked, with their heads bowed, on one side of the road so that the mule cart could pass. Some had sacks with a few possessions on their backs, but many carried nothing at all. They were thin, the skin hanging from their faces, their arms feeble sticks. Soon they were all about the cart.

‘Where are you going?’ Jack called out.

A bearded man scowled at him. ‘Away from here.’

‘Why? What happened?’

‘The Rajthanans.’

A man peered over the edge of the cart. ‘Hey. They’ve got food in there.’

An excited murmur ran through the crowd. It was true, there was food in the cart, but only a small sack of barley and a few parsnips and carrots.

‘Give us food,’ an old woman cried out.

The peasants crowded about the cart, pushing and shoving each other. One man tried to climb on to the back, but Charles forced him down again. Another tried to reach over the side. Saleem yelped and hit him on the arm so that he drew back.

‘Food,’ called a multitude of voices.

They rocked the cart and reached up. They were like a stormy sea thrashing about a small boat.

Jack stood and fired the pistol in the air. The crack rolled across the plains and white smoke curdled around the flintlock. The crowd stopped and fell back a few paces.

Jack remained standing on the seat. He waved the pistol as he spoke, even though it was no longer loaded. ‘We’ve only got a few rations. Not enough even for the three of us.’

‘We’ve got nothing,’ the bearded man said. ‘The Rajthanans burnt everything.’

‘We’re going to fight the Rajthanans,’ Charles shouted, standing quickly.

The bearded man laughed sourly. ‘Then good luck to you. If you’re going to Hampshire you’ll be dead in a day. Take your food. Good riddance to you.’

The peasants turned away, frowning and muttering amongst themselves. They filed past the cart, seeming to have lost the will even to fight for food.

Jack shook the reins and the mule plodded forward. The refugees streamed past, flotsam and jetsam after a flood. Gradually, the crowd lessened, the last stragglers limped past, and then the fading dust was all that was left of them.

Jack, Charles and Saleem fell silent as the hills swelled to their left and the road curved slightly to the south-east. Cloud spread across the sky, the light changing and casting the scene gloomy and silvery.

A deserted guard post, little more than a wooden hut, appeared on the side of the road.

‘The border of Wiltshire,’ Charles said as the cart juddered past. ‘We’re in Hampshire now.’

Jack looked across the plains. Rajthanan territory. He stopped the cart for a moment and reloaded the pistol.

The grassland gave way to simple farms again, but there was no sign of life. The fields were empty and no smoke rose from the scattering of cottages.

A line of darkness stretched across the land ahead. The wind carried a trace of soot. The fields of barley rose and fell and the light gave everything a metallic sheen.

The dark stain expanded across the ground as the cart advanced. For as far as Jack could see the fields had been burnt, leaving only scorched plains and the clawed remains of trees. It was as though the landscape had withered beneath the harshest winter.

Jack glanced back at his companions. Saleem shivered, while Charles stared ahead, his long hair fluttering behind his head.

A cottage rose to the left, a burnt tree bent beside it – something hung from a branch, but Jack couldn’t make out what it was. A dead horse lay beside the road and crows stood on it, pecking. The birds had flayed open the side of the carcass, revealing the white ribs and dark-red innards within.

The cart trundled past the cottage. The roof had been burnt away and black streaks marred the walls.

Saleem caught his breath as the front of the house came into view. A peasant woman lay still in the mud near the front door, her eyes wide open and her neck twisted at an unnatural angle. Two children lay nearby, a boy on his back and a girl on her side, curled up as if cuddling a toy. Their skin was grey and shiny and speckled with soil.

Crows gathered about the bodies, but fled, squawking throatily, as the cart came by. There was a hum in the background – flies.

And now Jack could see what was dangling in the tree. It was the body of a man, hanging from the neck and spinning slowly, like rotting fruit. The crows lined up on the branch and waited for the cart to leave before descending again. One of the man’s eyes had already been picked clean and the exposed socket wept dried blood.

Charles clenched his jaw and tightened his fists. ‘We’ll avenge them.’

Jack made the sign of the cross.