SV - 03 - Sergeant Verity Presents His Compliments (2 page)

It was Seton who had relented so far as to allow Suitor to be visited by Fusilier Atherton, a lantern-jawed towering soldier with a Nottingham brogue, who had acquired a reputation among officers and men as leader of an evangelizing movement among the soldiers themselves, forswearing strong drink, oaths, and every form of immorality. Colonel Seton had overheard Atherton in the cell, endeavouring to comfort the condemned man, urging him to put aside the fear of the drummer's lash and to seek instead a release from the eternal pains of hell which must search the souls of the damned. And all the time, Suitor had whispered, 'Save me, Mr Atherton! Save me!' There was no fear in his voice only an urgent confidentiality, as though he were asking Atherton to show him the secret of a conjuring trick. Seton knew the game. The man guessed that Atherton might speak to Major Moxon, who was sweet on the 'evangelists', and Moxon might 'beg him off the flogging. But Sir Harry Smith had signed the order, and there was nothing that begging could do.

The memory of all this was wakened in Seton's mind by the sound of Atherton's voice in a recess by one of the mess-deck openings, and by the sight of an unkempt young woman close by him. The girl bowed her head, eyes downcast, fingers twisting awkwardly together.

'Ah don't know,' she said softly, 'Ah don't know that Ah could make mesel' worthy by enduring such things. There must be other roads to repent, sure?'

'If thou art my woman thou shall endure!' whispered the tall Fusilier fiercely. His lantern-jaw seemed to hang slack of its own weight and his pock-marked face shone with the heat between decks.

'Not here!' she looked about her in the gloom. 'Not this minute!'

'Thou fool!' he said, with a kind of stern affection. 'This very night thy soul may be required of thee!'

'Ay,' she said thoughtfully, and moved closer to his side.

Seton chose not to notice. Once a commanding officer tried to regulate the affairs of soldiers and their women there was no end to it. He thought, however, that a word in Major Moxon's ear might not come amiss.

Further aft, a row of glass panels offered a view of the deep well of the
Birkenhead's
engine-room. The massive and polished hammer-heads of the three pistons drove forward and back through their elipse with the power of trapped animals seeking escape. There was a pervasive smell of coal dust and hot oil. Through the open door of the stoke-hold, the black silhouettes of the stokers appeared against a tapestry of flame, like figures already consigned to Fusilier Atherton's hell.

Among the polished brass and steel, the engineer officer of the watch surveyed his little kingdom, while the paddles beat their throbbing rhythm alongside the hull. The telegraph was set at 'Full Ahead' for the night as the ship cut the ocean swell towards Algoa Bay, where the first of the depot companies were to be disembarked. Chalked on a little board, for the engineer officer's information, were the locations of the senior officers on the vessel. Captain Salmond,
rn
, commander of the
Birkenhead,
was already in his cabin, having retired at the first opportunity.

Seton turned about and dismissed the orderly officer and sergeant, returning their salutes punctiliously. It was past one in the morning, but the knowledge that his men might have to face the ubiquitous fire of Kaffir marksmen the next day had prompted this final tour of inspection. Seton's satisfaction with the quiet orderliness of his men was not equalled by general admiration for their officers. His own 74th Highlanders were well led, and some of the other infantry companies were adequately commanded, but he felt the natural antipathy of a foot soldier and a Scot towards the dandy officers of cavalry. The smooth, affluent young wastrels of the dragoons and lancers displayed a peacock arrogance which he found loathsome. As he walked slowly along the carpeted corridor, the cabins of the 12th Lancers on either side still showed cracks of light at their doors and emitted a muffled hum of voices and the occasional boisterous guffaws. A door opened, illuminating the unbuttoned figure of Lieutenant Chamberlain. With tunic open and breeches askew, the young man belched and moved unsteadily towards the infantry berths. The door closed before Seton reached it but he caught the warm stench of sour wine and stale cigar. He made no attempt to call Chamberlain back. Officers were to be reprimanded when sober. Chamberlain blundered into the cabin which he shared with Lieutenant Keston. Seton heard the voices and subdued laughter of the two young men. Thoughtfully, he entered his own stateroom in the stern of the ship. As he lay down, the engines of the
Birkenhead
beat their strong, soothing double rhythm. Five hundred men and their hundred and thirty women and children slept their deep final sleep.

Joseph Morant-Barham was alone in his cabin with Lieutenant John Ransome after the other three subalterns had left. The two men sat either side of the green baize table, lolling in their chairs. Between them was a litter of empty glasses and piled cigar bowls, scraps of paper on which the reckonings had been made, and several scrawled IOUs with Charley Keston's signature.

'Two hundred and eighty,' said Ransome, taking the cheroot from his mouth. 'Two hundred and eighty your departed guests left us, not counting the damned paper you let young Keston issue for the last half hour. Paper's a blue look-out, Joey. You and I shan't be rich while you let fellows pay you with that gash.'

Ransome fanned out Charley Keston's promissory notes, as though they were a hand of cards, and shook his head ruefully.

'Dammit, Jack!' said Morant-Barham pettishly, 'we mayn't be anything, the way you call it, if you pull that dodge with your tunic-sleeve too often. They must be blind not to see!

Ransome's sun-reddened face broadened in a tolerant smile for the boy who was hardly more than half his age. He spoke softly.

'You'd be blind not to see, Joey, sitting where you are, but then we're two of the closest pals a man ever saw, ain't we?'

The young man slapped his hand down like an angry child.

'They could have seen, Jack! It don't excuse the risk!' Ransome grinned and slowly shook his head again. 'Joey, Joey! The art of it is that even when a fellow sees, he looks away rather than have a beastly row. A gentleman don't care to quarrel over cards, not even when he knows there's huggery-muggery. And the beauty of it is, they each lost a piece to you, and then you were so obliging as to lose it all to me. It takes suspicion off you, and if you don't complain over losing it to me, then why should they?'

'Fairground faking ain't worth the risk,' said the boy sullenly.

Ransome's face coloured up, as if at some implied insult.

'Risk?' he said sardonically. 'With Chamberlain blind drunk? With Keston's breeches busting each time your Janet showed her fat backside? When three gentlemen in turn have ploughed another gentleman's doxy, they don't generally start a rumpus over what may have happened at his card table!'

Morant-Barham's face dimpled in derision and he tossed his black curls contemptuously.

'Ploughed her! They took her in the other room for the look of it, to boast what
whoremasters they were tonight!
'

Joey,' said Ransome, grinning gently, 'I wasn't so green as to miss having from her own mouth every word of what went on in there. Two of them rode her so hard she couldn't lie still after it. Keston was the rummy cove, Put her on her back and held her legs like a wheelbarrow. Then has your Miss Janet over a bolster with her bum in the air. Last of all, has her kneeling at his chair, her face going down on him and her parts displayed in a mirror behind her. I don't risk Keston busti
ng up and not paying his ticks.’

Ransome tossed the IOUs on the table, and Morant-Barham brightened,

'Take his paper in your share, Jack, if you can squeeze him.'

'No, Joey. Share and share, gold and paper.'

'I told you I must have gold,' said the boy, almost whining. 'Dammit, Jack, you kn
ow there's a broker to be paid.’

'You all the halfpence and me all the kicks, eh?' said Ransome. 'A broker won't brave the Kaffirs to follow you. There's a hundred and forty each in
gold, and half Keston's paper.’

'Jack,' said Morant-Barham coaxingly, 'I signed a bill for £200 two months ago, from a damned little moneychanger in Fetter Lane. I never had £200 nor anything like, but the bill was at three month
s and the cash must be sent.’

'You'll be on the other side of the world, Joey. Sleep easy.' Morant-Barham clasped his hands and closed his eyes. 'It must be paid, Jack. Really it must. . . .' 'Because?'

'Because, damm
it, it ain't my name on the bill’
Ransome sighed with undisguised satisfaction and the boy looked up sharply, tasting for the first time the sick fear of having begged a respite from the hands of a professional blackguard.

'Jack, it must be bought back. I only did it for a safe spec. If that bill goes to the fellow whose name's on it, there's all hell to answer! God, Jack, you can see that, can't you? You can see how a fellow might be so driven that he'd do it for a sure spec?'

Ransome sat very quietly, as though hardly able to credit his good fortune in having stumbled on the young man's criminal foolishness.

'Borrowed £200 and put another man's name to the debt?'

Morant-Barham nodded.

'Take the paper,' he urged. 'Squeeze Keston for it. Take the £80 gilt, and whatever else you please.'

Ransome sucked his teeth and whistled softly. The possibilities for plucking the imprudent young heir to the Barham estates were so enormous, given this piece of information, that he needed time to assess the opportunity more fully.

'Jack,' said the young man suddenly, 'take the £80 and the paper. There's £200. And take my bill at three months for £120 morel'

Ransome laughed softly and shook his head.

'And when the bill ain't met, Joey? What then?'

There was a pause, Ransome continuing to whistle softly.

'Jack,' sai
d the boy again, 'take the girl!
She's worth more than all the rest. You can't ask for
one better broken to the saddle!
Dammit, didn't you see her work for me? She's taught to do the same for any man that runs her and, between whiles, keep him at a stand a hundred ways. Only think, what
you might do in India with her!
'

Ransome got up and opened the door leading to the sleeping quarters. By the dim illumination of a single lamp he could see Janet lying on the bed. She was still naked but for her stockings, perhaps expecting further demands upon her soft pale body. Ransome approached, calling her to him, telling her to turn, stretch, or bend herself in the most convenient manner for his examination. With unconcealed amusement he questioned her gently, compiling an inventory of the acts practised on her. The girl replied in timid murmurs as Ransome's hands ran like a whisper over the smooth, milky contours of breasts, hips and bottom. Then, with the patting and probing done, he left the girl and returned to his host, standing before Morant-Barham, leaning with one hand on the gaming table, his smile betraying nothing of his decision.

'Well?' asked the boy impatiently.

Ransome steadied himself on the table as the hull of the ship vibrated uncomfortably, the helmsman turning hard to starboard and causing one of the paddle-wheels to spin clear of the water with the incline of the ship. The
Birkenhead
righted herself and then seemed to rise on a sudden and unexpected swell. Ransome braced his feet apart and clutched the table with both hands, his dark eyes narrowing as though with suspicion. The ship swung violently, there was a distant clatter of china and one of the glass shades in Morant-Barham's cabin toppled and smashed to tiny sparkling slivers on the carpet.

'The deuce of it!
' said Ransome, relaxing his grip a little.

But the long rising swell came again, stronger and steeper, the
Birkenhead
heeling as though in the trough of a great storm. Just as it seemed that the worst might be over, the hull rolled precipitously, the rattle of falling furniture smothered by a great crash which echoed through the ship as though every gun-port had been stove in simultaneously by a heavy sea. Morant-Barham was thrown from his chair by the impact, while Ransome lost his footing and fell backwards among the scattered furniture. Two of the oil-lamps had smashed, leaving only one whose guttering flame cast a fitful shadow-play over the wreckage and confusion.

Morant-Barham, conscious of a swelling bruise above his left eye, struggled to his feet and found that the floor of the cabin sloped upward a little towards the stern. Yet when he began to walk it seemed as if the angled deck was shifting under his feet with the weight of every step. And then the schoolboy subaltern lost his fear of Ransome in a still greater apprehension. The mighty engines of the
Birkenhead
were ominously still and somewhere inside the hull there was an echoing inrush of water.