Beat the Drums Slowly Read online

  The redcoats trudged along the road wearily. It had been a hard march, begun in a thunderstorm, before the temperature dropped and the sleet and snow began. The tramp of hoofs and feet churned the road to mud which sucked at boots and shoes, straining at the straps on gaiters and making each step an effort. Sodden greatcoats had been removed and tied to the tops of packs, along with the single blanket which was all that had been issued to each man. Williams knew from experience how the wooden frames of the backpacks pressed against the spine, and the straps constricted the chest until each breath was painful.

  Thirty-five battalions of infantry had at last been concentrated, along with eleven troops or brigades of artillery and the four regiments of hussars. With more than 35,000 men, it was not simply the biggest army Britain had sent on campaign for generations, as its commander was wont to say, it was the British Army, including the majority of its finest corps. Serious losses could not be quickly replaced, and were a catastrophe to occur then it would be many years before Britain could dream of again intervening on the continent of Europe.

  The men marched with confidence in spite of their fatigue. Word had spread that the French were near, and there was an aggressive swagger in the redcoats’ manner. They were eager to fight, and once the enemy had been routed there would be plenty of time to rest. None of them doubted for a moment that they would win any battle. In that strange way with armies, some news of this morning’s charge had clearly spread through the regiments. An orderly from the 3rd King’s German Legion Hussars galloped past Wickham and Williams and a great cheer went up from the nearest battalion. The Germans had been nowhere near Sahagun that morning, but the sight of the fur cap and laced pelisse jacket of an hussar was enough for the redcoats.

  Ten minutes later they finally reached the staff of General Paget, halted beside the road as the head of the leading battalion of the reserve marched past – Williams recognised the pale yellow facings of the 20th. The German hussar had obviously been carrying a dispatch to the general, for as they rode up, they watched one of his staff sign to acknowledge receipt of the message. The trooper then saluted and rode off.

  Wickham was well satisfied by the welcome he received. He began by formally passing on Lord Paget’s best wishes to his brother, and then allowed the eager questioning of the general’s ADCs to prompt modest but strongly suggestive answers. Williams found it all rather sickening, and would happily have ridden on in search of his own regiment, but was told to stay by the friendly Captain Pierrepoint, the Deputy Assistant Quartermaster General attached to the division. Then the latter was drawn off in conversation by a couple of officers from the 20th, his own corps. Williams was left on the edge of the group, waiting either for the 106th to arrive or for someone to remember his existence.

  He dismounted gingerly, the ache in all the muscles of his thighs turning briefly to vivid pain as he swung down. His legs were stiff after so many hours in the saddle, and he almost thought they would buckle underneath him when his boots touched the ground. Williams stamped his feet to bring some life back to them, and could not help hissing in discomfort. He patted the mare on the neck, more through relief to be off her than from current affection.

  Wickham was giving another rendition of Black Jack Slade’s speech. Williams ignored it and stretched, rubbing his neck. He passed a hand through his fair hair. His hat had been irreparably trampled at Sahagun, so he had left it where it lay, quickly dismissing the thought of searching for a replacement among the enemy dead. Somehow he would have to purchase a new cocked hat from his meagre funds, but he was too sore to worry about that now. He scratched his head. When he had joined the army at the beginning of the year, regulation decreed that hair should be worn long, tied into a queue and then covered in white powder. The rule had been changed in the summer, and it was still a relief to reach up and not feel the thick, flour-like paste. As he felt his hair, he wondered whether it was getting too long once again.

  Williams ran up the left stirrup. Instinctively awkward in social gatherings even of such an informal sort, he had long since convinced himself that appearing to be busy, rather than merely standing and looking on, created a better impression should anyone deign to notice. As he walked behind Bobbie, the mare lashed out with a hoof. She missed, just swishing aside the long tails of his officer’s coat. He had bought it after Vimeiro, at the auction of the property of a fallen officer of the 50th, and then had the black cuffs and collar replaced with the red of the 106th. The unfortunate man had been as broad shouldered, but considerably larger around the waist. In spite of adjustments the jacket still hung loose around him, suggesting that Williams had suffered from a serious illness, and denying him the trim figure felt ideal for an officer.

  He patted Bobbie again to calm her, but suspected this was merely one of her periodic outbursts of malice and not prompted by any particular grievance. There was a sound of more horsemen arriving to join the group of officers clustered around the general. Williams now had his back to them all and did not bother to turn. He slid the other stirrup up, and then reached back to scratch his lower back with both hands, before reaching farther down to the area left tender. A shadow fell over him.

  ‘I trust you are not wounded, Mr Williams?’ It was a voice he admired above all others, and for a moment he froze, horrified to be caught in such an ungraceful posture. Then the tall man turned, his face beaming happiness as he looked up at the girl. She overwhelmed him, as she always did whenever they met.

  Miss MacAndrews wore a deep blue riding habit, with a snug-fitting jacket over it styled something like the pelisse of the hussars. This was a paler blue, with white lace and ribbons, and a generous fringe of soft brown fur. She had a grey fur hat, only very vaguely resembling the cavalry’s headgear, but far more suitable to keep her warm, and her flowing red curls were pinned up beneath it. In a field of snow under a grey sky and amid a tired and mud-stained army, she seemed to shine. Williams fervently believed that her beauty and essential goodness would stand out in any place and any company.

  ‘It seems that I made an appropriate choice of attire for today,’ she said. ‘Even Father will be pleased at such a victory.’ Major Alastair MacAndrews had been a soldier since the American War, where he had been captured when the cavalry had fled and left his battalion surrounded. This had greatly reinforced the instinctively jaundiced attitude of a foot soldier to the more conspicuous and flamboyant mounted arm.

  ‘May I say that your uniform becomes you most magnificently. I am sure that our hussars will crave the chance for ten more such charges, merely to begin to prove worthy of inspiring your costume.’ It had taken months for Williams to gain any confidence in her presence, and even now he was thinking hard to devise appropriate compliments.

  Jane MacAndrews’ blue-grey eyes stared into his, her expression suddenly serious. ‘Then I am sure that I must at once go off and alter it. For that would mean more fighting and surely it is inevitable that some men will die. I should hate to be the cause of deaths, most of all merely because of the choice of a garment.’

  Williams scrambled desperately for an appropriate response. ‘I am sure that in such a cause they would feel honoured … That is to say …’ That was no doubt wrong. ‘I did not mean to imply …’ For all his hard-won confidence, he had been thrown off balance in a minute.

  The flicker of amusement began in her eyes, and then she dazzled him with a smile, and he no longer cared about balance. ‘I am cruel,’ said Jane, ‘to respond so unjustly to generous gallantry.’

  ‘And I am flattered to be felt worthy of such spontaneous ingenuity,’ he replied, surprising himself at being able to imply even gentle criticism. He had loved Miss MacAndrews from the very first moment he saw her, an emotion which had grown unflinchingly. Months before he had declared that love, at the same time confessing his inability to ask for anything, lacking any income beyond his pay. Deep down he knew that he had hoped for some affirmation from her – not a promise, for that would be unreasonable to exp
ect, but the slightest acknowledgement that she would consider his proposal, should he ever be in a position to make one. That had not been given. She assured him of friendship, and had certainly lived up to this statement. The disappointment did not reduce his love in the slightest degree.

  Jane returned to the attack. ‘And do you feel a rapid fluency sufficient to excuse such behaviour? The charge of cruelty remains, and it seems I must be convicted.’

  Williams faltered again. ‘Never, never,’ he pleaded. ‘Not unless the sun is cruel because of its brightness, or the stars because of their …’ He struggled to think of something stars did, for sparkle seemed inadequate.

  ‘Gallantry is no doubt an appropriate defence for a soldier, although perhaps there are circumstances where it is insufficient in itself.’ The girl was disappointed that he was unable to continue such a promising exchange for very long. His adoration was so akin to worship that at times it wearied her. She had no wish to be a goddess, exalted, but not given the dignity of directness or exposure to even gentle wit. At nineteen she accepted her attractiveness to men – as far as she could see, almost all men – as a simple fact. This complacency made praise of her perfection unexceptional, and while she found it pleasant enough, it failed to provoke a deep response. So much was anyway habitual, although at least Williams had the virtue of utter sincerity and obviously steadfast conviction.

  On its own that was not enough. Jane was genuinely fond of him, but there was no more than a remote prospect that this would one day amount to anything more. Occasionally he showed just a spark of something which might perhaps foster deeper feeling. Yet such matters rarely exercised her thoughts for long. She was young and had no desire to marry until she had seen more of the world. The year before she had been with her mother in America, visiting their family. Since then they had rejoined her father in England, before following him to Portugal and Spain. Life was filled with new and interesting places and people. Marriage and children, even domesticity itself, for the moment had no more than distant appeal.

  She decided to lead the conversation in another direction. ‘I am aware of your diverse and numerous talents, Mr Williams, but I confess that until now I had not suspected great equestrian prowess.’ Miss MacAndrews sat straight backed on her grey, and was a confident – indeed, like her mother, at times somewhat reckless – rider. ‘Is it true that you rode in the charge?’

  ‘I was there,’ he said. Williams found it difficult to talk about a battle or skirmish. Somehow words struggled to match the confused memories and the stark peaks of anger and fear.

  Jane leaned forward a little to whisper mischievously, ‘And did you fall off?’

  ‘He did. Right in front of Lord Paget himself.’ Neither had noticed Wickham walk his horse over to join them. ‘Best to stay with the infantry, old boy.’ His smile was broad, the mockery ostensibly generous. Jane laughed, and Williams felt obliged to smile.

  ‘May I say how uncommonly elegant you are, Miss MacAndrews. The finest ornament the army could possess.’ Wickham had met Jane when the regiment was still in England, but not remarked her to any degree. This morning he was struck by her charms.

  ‘You, of course, have an excellent seat, Captain Wickham.’ Williams envied the smile the girl gave him.

  Wickham looked directly at her. ‘I can ride hard and fast and always last till the end.’ He paused. ‘There is the whip if I need it.’

  Jane blushed, and Williams was not quite sure of the cause, but felt a flash of anger at Wickham.

  ‘And yet I fear your sword was not called upon to do any work.’ Williams tried and failed to make the statement sound innocent. Wickham kept his gaze on the girl.

  ‘I do not consider pride in killing appropriate. I’ll do my duty, and stand shot’ – Williams was sceptical about both claims – ‘but if it can be avoided I shall be glad never to shed blood.’

  ‘A strangely gentle philosophy for a soldier,’ said Jane in quick response.

  ‘The only fitting one for a gentleman,’ was the equally prompt reply. He was still studying her closely, his eyes wandering far beyond her face. Williams struggled with a most ungenteel desire to tip the man off his horse into the grubby snow.

  ‘Good day to you, Captain Wickham, Mr Williams.’ Mrs MacAndrews was tall, dark haired and still striking although now comfortably into middle age. She spoke in the formal drawl of the Carolinas – indeed, seemed at this moment to be exaggerating it.

  They replied to her greetings. Williams found the formidable wife of his commanding officer as unsettling as her daughter, if in a different way. He also liked her, and was slowly becoming used to her barbed humour.

  ‘I have liniment in my baggage if you are uncomfortable after your journey, Mr Williams,’ she offered. ‘It rubs on.

  ‘Captain Wickham, it is good to see you. I saw a shawl in Salamanca that I am sure your wife would adore.’ Esther MacAndrews had obviously noticed the attention the captain had being paying to her daughter. ‘Be sure to extend our best wishes to her when next you write. I trust that she is well?’

  ‘When last I heard,’ Wickham confirmed.

  ‘I am most pleased to hear it. Come, Jane, the regiment is here and we ought to rejoin them, otherwise your father will make a mess of things when billets are assigned. Will you ride with us, Mr Williams? Or should your prefer to walk?’

  He shrugged. ‘I fear walking is all that I am capable of at present.’

  ‘Then we will bid you good day. Come, Jane!’ Mrs MacAndrews set off at a canter. Her daughter smiled down at Williams, then glanced with a lesser, markedly nervous smile at Wickham, before following her mother.

  Williams led Bobbie along beside the road. Neither he nor Wickham had felt the need for any acknowledgement as they parted. The ensign stared wistfully at the rapidly diminishing figures of the ladies.

  ‘Bills, you old rogue!’ Pringle’s animated greeting interrupted his thoughts. ‘Glad to see you brought her back in one piece!’ The 106th were passing, and the Grenadier Company in their place at the head of the battalion.

  The bespectacled Pringle was an inch or so shorter than Williams, but thickset and inclined to plumpness, which the rigours of campaigning had so far not in any way diminished. He came over and nuzzled Bobbie, who responded by snapping at him. ‘Ah, your usual friendly self, my darling,’ he continued, having just dodged her yellow teeth. ‘Hmm, I am sure she had two eyes before I was generous enough to lend her to a friend. How did she do?’

  ‘Fine, but I see what you mean about her gait.’

  ‘Ah well, she is more suited to someone with an elegant figure resembling my own.’ Pringle reached back to pat his behind. ‘Helps to pad things. I was going to ask you to ride to the rear and check on the stragglers.’

  ‘I’ll walk,’ said Williams firmly.

  ‘Don’t blame you!’

  Williams strolled happily past the battalion’s column. He knew all the men of the Grenadier Company. Dobson, the old veteran who had taught him so much about soldiering, had nodded as he passed. Williams knew all the officers of the regiment, and there were plenty of men in the other companies whose faces were familiar. Even after less than a day away, it was good to be among the 106th.

  At the rear of the battalion a row of ox-carts carried the heavy baggage piled high. Sitting on top of the mounds were many of the wives and children who followed their men to war. Sally Dobson waved when she saw him and prodded her daughter Jenny, who had been looking the other way. There was a cluster of wives from the grenadiers on the leading cart, since apparently they had insisted on their seniority. In a moment all of them were waving or blowing him kisses.

  ‘Where you been, Mr Williams?’

  ‘Gone all night, eh! What’s her name?’

  ‘Been off riding with the cavalry,’ he replied.

  ‘Bet your arse is sore!’ The laughter doubled.

  ‘No, my dear ladies, it is very sore.’ There was no malice in their mockery, and its coarseness was un
thinking and habitual, and so Williams happily joined in. For a few paces he exaggerated the awkwardness of his walk and the winces each step provoked.

  ‘Here, what have you done to all my hard work?’ The heavily pregnant Jenny was looking at his jacket, stained from the fall, smeared in one place with blood from the Frenchman he had killed, and with the right shoulder wing broken and half hanging off. ‘You’re not safe to be out. Bloody men! Send it to me later and I’ll sew it back up for you. Ma will give it a clean.’

  Jenny was barely sixteen, but her condition had done nothing to diminish her good looks or her readiness to speak to anyone as an equal, officers included. She was married to the taciturn Private Hanks, whose feet were badly blistered, so that he was riding on a donkey behind the cart. Williams asked him how he was, and received the expected brief but optimistic reply. ‘Be all right tomorrow, sir.’

  ‘Good.’

  Williams was glad to be home. An argument broke out among the women, all uniting in mutual hostility to Molly Richards. Williams decided it was time to check that the baggage was stored properly on the other carts.

  3

  That evening the newly returned William Hanley sat with Pringle in the small room allocated to the officers of the Grenadier Company. Williams was out checking that the men and their families were settled, had received and consumed their rations, and were neither being mistreated by nor themselves abusing their hosts. Major MacAndrews insisted that his officers visit the men’s quarters twice a day. More often would have given the soldiers no rest. Less would have made it much harder to maintain an acceptable standard of discipline. He knew that other regiments were less strict, but saw that as no reason to change his own regulation. Anyway, standards of internal order appeared to be generally good in the Reserve Division. The grenadiers were in the houses at the far end of the hamlet’s single street. No one seemed to know what it was called, but the entire regiment had somehow been crammed into the forty or so buildings, with the officers allotted space in the only big house in the place, a crumbing villa owned by an obscure member of a very minor aristocratic family.