Temptation (4 page)

When he had finished, he folded the letter again and put it in his pocket. So, the women of England thought about the soldiers abroad, did they, and cared for their comfort and wellbeing? It came as a surprise that he cared so much to know.

He’d like to meet the woman who had written to him so kindly. Her letter had struck a chord in his soul.

He’d never been much of a man for book learning, but he could read and write tolerably well. Well enough not to disgrace himself anyway.

He rose from the mess table with barely a grimace of pain at his still-stiff joints. Come this evening he would borrow a pen and paper from one of the officers and write her a reply.

Captain Carterton pushed aside his breakfast of deviled kidneys and snatched the letter from the silver tray with indecent haste. Leaving his unappetizing meal to congeal in its fatty gravy, he slit open the letter with his breakfast knife.

“Business calls,” he barked at his fellow officers as he left the mess hall and made his way back to his tent to read Beatrice’s words in peace.

The postscript brought a smile to his heart. She was bold, his Beatrice. Bold, and just a little bit saucy. She was no shrinking violet, but a woman with a frank appreciation of the good things in life and the wisdom to let a man know what she wanted. As a nurse she would be used to seeing male bodies, old or sick though her patients might be. There was no false modesty about her, no pretences.

He liked a woman who enjoyed lovemaking as openly as he did. Beatrice, he could tell by her tone, would be such a woman.

He lingered over the letter as long as he dared before he strode on to the parade ground, his hair slicked back, his moustaches waxed, his uniform freshly laundered and free of wrinkles, and his boots gleaming with fresh polish. The precious letter was tucked for safekeeping into his jacket pocket.

His men were sprawled on the scanty grass, their uniforms in the dust. He frowned at their slackness and called an order at them to come to attention, his voice ringing through the veld.

One by one, they lazily got to their feet and slouched to attention. One of them didn’t even bother to get up from his seat on the ground, but gave a halfhearted attempt at a salute from where he sat.

Standing back, he surveyed them with a critical eye. Months of boredom and inactivity had softened them and made them unfit for anything.

Their uniforms were messy, and their boots dull and coated in dust. Even their rifles, on which their life would one day depend, bore the telltale signs of neglect. All in all, they looked like a bunch of draggle-tailed misfits rather than a crack regiment of British troops.

As their commanding officer, their shabbiness and lack of discipline was his fault. He had let them get into this state of moribund boredom, verging on despair. Indeed, he’d fallen into it himself for some time, before Beatrice’s letters had awakened him to a new sense of purpose, a new sense of belonging.

Starting from today, it was all going to change. Whatever the merits of the conflict in the Transvaal—and of late he had begun to wonder just how justified England’s position was—he was going to live to return to England.

Beatrice kicked off her shoes and stockings and lowered her feet into a basin of steaming water. Though it was midsummer, the weather was cool enough to make a warm footbath a lovely treat. Lenora was working nights again, leaving her with a few evenings to herself.

She reached into her pocket and drew out the letter that had arrived in the late post. Their lodgings had turned into a hive of activity for the Royal Mail: letters were received there almost every day for one or other of them. An envelope with a foreign postmark was no longer a curiosity to be wondered over by the whole house, but could be enjoyed by the recipient in secret.

Folding up the letter again, she tossed it onto her desk. He certainly had a silver tongue, did this soldier of hers. His letters gave her a window into another life, into his thoughts.

She wiggled her toes in the warm water and hummed a popular romantic ballad under her breath. There was hardly a romantic bone in her body, but something about the captain’s missives made her think quite longingly of love and romance.

The heat of the afternoon sun was at its peak when Captain Carterton and his men returned to the parade ground after their midday meal. The white cork hat kept the worst of the sun off the captain’s face, but he could still feel the harsh rays burning his fair skin. Even though a year in South Africa had tanned his face a few shades of brown darker than normal, the fierce sun still had the power to burn his skin to a crisp.

He had his men set up targets at the far end of the parade ground and then lined them up to fire.

One by one, the men stepped up to the plate, aimed in the general direction of the target, and pulled the trigger. Time and time again, the shot went wide and the target remained unscathed.

“This is target practice,” he admonished them, as yet another man stepped up, took desultory aim, and fired. “The point of the exercise is to aim at a target. To aim at and to hit the goddamned target. Not to fire in the air and hope to wing a passing undertaker bird.”

It was hopeless. The men were too used to firing in a volley and relying on the density of the enemy numbers rather than on their skill with the rifle to make a hit. Half of them didn’t even know how to sight their rifles.

He picked out the best marksman and had him demonstrate to the other men how to aim and fire with some degree of accuracy.

The demonstration made little difference to the number of holes punched in the target.

“We don’t have unlimited supplies of ammunition. Make every bullet count,” he advised the men.

Neither did his advice help much.

The sun was beating down on the back of his neck until he felt as if he were broiling on a grill. All he wanted was a bit of shade in the cool of the tent, and a long, cold drink. Preferably one with a good tot of gin in it. And a generous dash of bitters.

In desperation he tried a different approach. “None of you will be dismissed for the day until each and every one of you has managed to hit the target at least once.”

This threat had the desired effect. Now even the worst shots among the men took several seconds to properly sight their rifles and take careful aim at the target. Slowly but surely, the line of men who had hit the target at least once grew longer, and the line of those who had yet to make the hit grew shorter.

His uniform was hot and prickly on his skin, and soaked with sweat. He shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably, suddenly desperate to escape the discomfort. Why on earth could they not be issued summer-weight uniforms to wear in the heat? Cotton would be so much more comfortable than wool.

The men in the regiment were calling out advice and encouragement to the ever-dwindling line of poor marksmen. Some of them fired off twenty or thirty shots, still without marking the target.

He groaned at this evidence of his men’s unpreparedness for war. Again, he only had himself to blame. He should have driven them harder, despite the heat and the boredom of their posting. The rumors that war was imminent were getting stronger by the day. They had to be ready for when the fighting started.

His sweat was chilling on his body by the time the last man hit the target. The men all let out a cheer, and he joined in heartily.

With his objective achieved, and just in the nick of time, he had the corporals quickly assemble the men into a column in preparation to marching them off the shooting range and over to the parade ground. It was nearly sunset and the various units of the company from the kitchen hands to the infantrymen were forming up in straight lines on the parade ground, their red tunics forming blocks of geometric color over the dusty ground.

Raising and lowering the Union Jack was an important ceremony—it was the only time when the company assembled all together. Percy’s chest swelled with pride each time he saw the massed ranks of the company, the power they represented stretched from the dirt on which they stood all the way back to England.

The company came to attention, the soldiers presented arms while the officers saluted and the Union Jack slowly made its way down the flagpole as the lone bugler played the mournful “Last Post,” signaling the end of yet another day. Satisfied all was well, the company commander dismissed the parade. The assembled men turned a smart ninety degrees to the right and marched the obligatory three paces before dissolving into an untidy mob.

Percy called his men closer. “Clean your rifles well. There will be an inspection of your kit tomorrow morning, and then more target practice until you can all hit the target from double the distance. With every shot.”

With the rumors of a conflict growing, shaking the men out of the round of desultory inspections, halfhearted parades, and mind-numbing patrols was essential.

Having had little to do in recent times, they’d all gotten lazy. Each day their standards had slipped just a tiny bit, an unnoticeable amount. It was only when he suddenly woke up a few months down the track and saw how slipshod the whole outfit had become that he even realized what had been happening.

He grimaced as he strode into the officers’ mess tent. He’d gotten as lazy as the rest of them.

But he would be lazy no longer.

Beatrice was waiting for him in England. He had something worth fighting for, worth living for. Someone to come home to.

For her sake, and for the sake of his men, he would work them all until they dropped.

The officers’ batman met him at the door, a tray in his hand. “A shipment arrived today, sir. I believe there was a letter for you in the pile.”