by A L Berridge
Ryder walked quickly away. He didn’t want sentimentality tonight, he had a game to play with lives at stake. He needed only one companion, and it was stuck firmly in his belt under the cover of his jacket. Strange to think it was only Jarvis’s bloody-mindedness that had stopped the Cossacks getting his revolver when he was captured, but he supposed even that bastard had his uses. What mattered was he had it now and all six chambers loaded.
The rain was only a fine drizzle as he crossed the valley, but the night was chilly and he was glad of Oliver’s cloak. He’d like to have taken Tally, but that would have suggested collusion by his officers and Angelo wouldn’t neglect the precaution of getting there early to watch him arrive. It was an hour’s walk in the cold and wet, his back hurt and his leg ached, but he wasn’t going to do a thing to rouse his opponent’s suspicions.
The ground changed under his boots as he hit the track by the Col, the crisp, decisive steps of a man with a purpose. There would be a picquet watching from the Sapoune Ridge, but two of Calvert’s men were with them tonight and he rounded the slope without challenge. The silence gave him a strange sense of invisibility, as if he were a ghost passing by.
He smiled at the thought, and started the steep haul up the pass. There’d be no more picquets now till the Guards’ camp and no one else was likely to be strolling the wilds on a wet night in November. There were only two people in this isolated world of his: himself and the man he was going to destroy.
Oliver couldn’t sleep. The tent felt cold and empty and he was worried about Ryder. It was ridiculous really, it couldn’t be much more than eleven o’clock, but he had a nagging feeling he ought to be doing something and doing it now.
Quick, light footsteps came from outside, someone walking past the tent. He sat up and listened, but there was no alarm, no voices, nothing to suggest the picquets were on the move. A moment later the footsteps came again, erratic and hasty, passing the other way.
He pulled on his boots and crawled out into the damp night. The grass was soggy, the air felt heavy, and the rows of tents stood still and silent as giant mushrooms in a field. A flicker of a dress caught his eye, and he turned to see a woman walk hurriedly past the sick wagon, then stop, agitate her hands, and turn back. She clutched a thin plaid tightly about her shoulders, but her hair was dishevelled and her face pale and distracted.
‘Mrs J,’ he said, in concern. ‘Sally, what is it?’
She spun round, then relaxed. ‘Polly, oh thank God. Have you seen Jarvis?’
He moved closer. ‘No – why?’
The wariness on her face crumpled into naked anxiety. ‘He went out a while ago. I thought he was just going for a piss, but he’s not come back, I can’t find him anywhere. I’m afraid he might … He’s not been himself lately, I thought he might …’
Her fear caught at his own. ‘He’s gone after Ryder, hasn’t he?’
She flinched. ‘Just to have it out with him. You know how it’s been.’
Mrs Jarvis minding what he thought, Sally needing his help. ‘It’s all right. I’ll go after him. No one need know.’
She caught at his coat as he turned. ‘But what can you do?’
‘I won’t have to do anything. I’ll just wait for Ryder and walk back with him.’ He looked at her in sudden doubt. ‘Nothing’s going to happen until after the appointment, is it? The sergeant-major knows how important …’
‘Yes,’ she said quickly. ‘Oh yes, he knows.’ She released his coat and stepped back like an obedient child. ‘Thank you, Polly.’
Her gratitude warmed him as he hurried through the camp. He was doing something useful, and anything was better than lying in a tent worrying like a silly kid. Anything.
The landscape grew lonelier as Ryder walked on. Even the sky looked empty, the moon shrouded in mist and the stars lost in cloud. It was a welcome change from the bustle of camp, the tents so close together, the ever-present smell of rancid salt-pork and the sweat of men who’d long since given up any idea of bathing.
The pain hit like an axe between his shoulder blades. His neck snapped forward, head scrambling back into sense with the shock of his hands smacking on gravel. Another blow to his side, he was hurled off the track, crashing down with his face in prickly gorse. He rolled and struck out, fist swiping through air but then a body at the end of it, a man who slipped aside chuckling, then fingers were clawing into his hair, a boot thrusting into his ribs, he was flipped over like a sack of rubbish, and the hand on his head pressed his face into thick grass. A voice above said, ‘Do stop fighting, will you, old man? You asked for the chat, the least you can do is let us have it.’
Angelo. Strange how obvious truth was when you had a mouthful of mud and a hand in your hair. He wasn’t interested in the rendezvous where Calvert’s agents were waiting to catch him; he’d sent them miles from anywhere and caught Ryder half an hour out from home. He’d done it in style too, and Ryder’s sideways glance showed him what had hit him: the trailing lash of a long, thick whip. A second strip of hide was attached to it by a large brass ring, and he knew he was looking at the dreaded Russian knout.
All right, then. The whip was a long-range weapon, little danger if he stayed close. Get the bastard off balance, get a hand to the revolver and a shot would alert the picquet on the Sapoune. If it was the right shot he wouldn’t need the picquet at all. He thought a moment, then allowed himself a tiny groan as he made his body go limp. Angelo stayed motionless above him, then Ryder heard a little thump as the whip was discarded on the grass. Now then.
Something cold and sharp under his ear, then Christ, a knife going in, he’d forgotten that bloody stiletto. He struck out backwards with his arm, and there was that chuckle again, the laugh he’d admired for its carelessness until he learned what not caring really meant.
‘Please don’t,’ said Angelo, leaning forward to pin down his forearms. ‘You’re perfectly conscious, so am I, and I want you to tell me what gave me away.’
He was after more than that, or a ball from the side of the road would have settled it. Ryder spat out grass and said, ‘You first. Same question. What gave me away?’
A soft weight moved over the backs of his legs, the bastard was straddling him. ‘Oh, my dear man. When a suddenly promoted trooper visits his colonel twice in a day? You do know we hold positions a few hundred yards away, don’t you? You have heard of a telescope?’
Damn him. ‘There could be other reasons for that.’
‘So there could,’ said Angelo, ‘if I hadn’t watched you this morning. A lady in a blue dress passed you, a lady we both know you know well, but not a word was said between you. Very ungallant, unless you were acting a little play.’
Was there nothing he didn’t know? Ryder was floundering, duelling a man far above his class. Only one thought made sense, and that was the gun in his belt. The Russian couldn’t know it was there, and if only he’d loosen the grip on his arms …
‘Your turn,’ said Angelo politely. ‘I’m intrigued. What mistake did I make?’
It was hard to believe he’d made any. ‘Biritch, that’s all. Russian whist.’
A tiny pause, then the weight shifted above him as Angelo laughed. ‘Now truly, that’s too funny. There’s a lesson there, Ryder. The biggest mistake is always kindness.’
A bigger one was laughing when holding another man down. Ryder wrenched back his arm and heaved upwards to throw him off balance. Angelo’s grunt of surprise hit him like wine, the man was human, he could be beaten, and Ryder’s hand was already in his belt, on the stock, the barrel pulling out smooth. Then fingers clenched round his wrist, Angelo’s weight bore back down on him, their legs were locked, he couldn’t twist free, but he had the gun, one shot would do it, and his thumb strained at the curl of the cock.
The knife chopped down, a flash of white metal slashing at his fingers, and he couldn’t stop himself jerking back. Angelo was straight in, gripping the barrel and thrusting it under Ryder’s own chin. The knife in his other hand snaked
up to Ryder’s eyes, and froze in the air in front of them. Ryder’s blink brought his lashes to brush against the blade.
‘Your choice,’ said Angelo. ‘Shoot and bring the picquet, but your brains will be out too. Fight and be blinded, it’s all one to me. Or, of course, you could always drop the gun.’
Ryder dropped the gun. The picquet might come, but without his help they’d never find Angelo in all these miles of dark.
‘Thank you,’ said Angelo, scooping it up with his other hand. ‘Now if you don’t mind, I preferred you how you were.’
Ryder hesitated, but the pistol smashed into the side of his head and his shoulders were forced to roll round with it. For now, all right, for now, but there’d be a chance and he wanted to stay in one piece to take it. He lay passive as the Russian straddled him again, and tried to listen for what he was doing with the Colt. Would he keep hold of it, or lay it down somewhere within reach?
A soft splash, a clunk of metal, then the point of the knife back at his neck. ‘Now we can be reasonable again,’ said Angelo. ‘I need you to tell me what you know about my plans.’
The bastard had dropped the gun in a puddle somewhere, but the Colt was better protected than Russian pistols. The chambers were greased, the firing faces of the caps hard down on the nipples, there was a chance they mightn’t all be too wet to fire. If Ryder could distract him again, push him right off and kick that damn knife away, maybe he’d have a moment to find the gun and bloody fire it.
Angelo ran the haft of his knife down the line of Ryder’s spine. ‘This must be painful, isn’t it? What if I did it with the point?’
Distract him, keep him talking. ‘How do you know about … ?’
‘Oh, I watched,’ said Angelo with engaging frankness. ‘You really shouldn’t have allowed it, Ryder, a gentleman can’t let himself be flogged like a peasant. But then he can’t let himself be taken prisoner either, and you did that too. That’s why I know you’ll tell me what I ask.’
A cold draught ran down his back as the Russian’s hands pushed up his coat. ‘But you know what I know, you bastard, I told you myself.’
The hands were still working, shoving up his shirt to expose the dressing underneath. ‘I mean afterwards,’ said the soft voice. ‘I mean Kamara.’
They learned nothing at Kamara except an attack that didn’t happen. ‘How would I know?’
Pain tore down his back as the knife sliced clean through the dressing, scoring the half-healed skin beneath. He sucked in his breath and pressed his forehead against the turf.
‘Because your lady friend was there, and not by coincidence. Because my friend Kostoff has disappeared. Did you kill him?’
‘No.’
‘You were there. Why else would they flog you?’ The knife ground down another line, the bands parting thread by thread beneath the blade. ‘Did your lady friend kill him?’
Ryder clenched his teeth. ‘We fought, it was an accident.’
The knife tapped thoughtfully against the throbbing flesh of his back. ‘Better. Now tell me what you heard.’
Why was it so important? ‘Nothing.’
A tiny touch of steel, the knife tip picking between bands of the dressing, and then grazing backwards and forwards over the raw wounds. ‘We’ve lots of time. Why do you think I picked a rendezvous so far away? No one will miss you for at least half an hour.’
Ryder screwed his hands into fists in determination not to scream.
‘Tell me what you heard, and what you have told your suddenly obliging colonel,’ said Angelo. ‘Unless, of course, you’d like me to carve my name on your back.’
Something important must have been said there, something Angelo needed to be sure wasn’t compromised. ‘Nothing, I swear it. I didn’t even get there till you’d gone.’
The knife began to cut, slowly and deliberately, slicing down the long line of a vertical letter. Ryder squeezed his eyes shut and forced his mind away, reducing the pain to a burning tingle that would pass. But his ears sharpened as other senses dulled, and he heard the sound he’d made himself as he’d walked here, the distant slap of boots against wet gravel. Someone was coming up the track. He made himself cry out to give the warning.
‘Foolish,’ said Angelo. ‘The picquet can’t possibly hear you.’ He finished the stroke and took the knife back to the top.
Ryder’s hope soared. The bastard hadn’t bloody heard. Keep him talking one more minute and they’d have him. ‘Don’t,’ he said, and was disconcerted at how easily he made his voice shake. ‘I’d tell you anything if I knew.’
‘If you were that kind of man you’d have screamed earlier,’ said Angelo. He began the second cut even deeper than the first.
Ryder cried out, and wasn’t even sure he’d meant to. ‘Listen, you bloody bastard, if I knew anything useful, do you really think they’d have flogged me?’ The knife stopped, Angelo wavering, but he had to keep talking to cover the sound of steps that were closer now and running. ‘I’d have been a hero, wouldn’t I? You’d know, you’ve been watching, you’d –’
Angelo whirled round. His chance, and he slammed the pain aside to heave hard upwards, twisting round, hurling himself to one side and for the gun. His hand fanned furiously over the wet scrub, soggy heather, for God’s sake, it was here somewhere. Angelo was flinging back round, Ryder kicked him full in the chest, and groped again in the black undergrowth. A rock, a dip, water on his fingers then a touch of metal and his hand was on it, his own gun, his father’s, and God help the man who tried to stop him now.
Angelo sprang, and Ryder hit him with the gun in his fist, smashing that filthy lying face with the cleanness of metal. Bone cracked, nose, teeth, jaw, who cared, he was going to make pulp of all of it. Angelo fell back, Ryder leaped after him, but air whistled round his head, the weighted lash cracking where his neck had been, he’d forgotten the bloody whip. It would have to be the gun, his thumb already fumbling back the cock, but the powder was spoiled, nothing, and Angelo laughed and flexed the whip.
A dark shape hurtled at them out of the dark, feet thumping furiously, legs flashing a white stripe, Jarvis, bloody Jarvis, and Angelo slashed out with the whip in a crack that tore the air. Ryder screamed ‘Watch him!’ and jerked the trigger, another misfire, but Jarvis was reeling back from a blow that had opened his neck with a single flick.
Close distance, close distance, and Ryder hurled himself forward like a cannonball, smashing out left and right with the useless revolver. He struck nothing, Angelo was dancing backwards, snatching in the whip for another strike. Shoot him then, the gun had been on its side, there must be one chamber still dry, but it wasn’t the third, and here came the lash, moonlight turning it to white lightning as it flew. Ryder leaped aside, but the lash looped and cracked, streaked sideways and at Jarvis, the NCO yelled and was down. Angelo drew back the knout for another blow, and Ryder ran at him, pulling the trigger as he came. Fourth chamber damp, nothing, Jarvis rolling on the ground with only his hands to ward off the whip, cock and fire the fifth and bang, the gun came suddenly alive in his hand, and Angelo staggered backwards with his arm across his face.
Got him, but he was still on his feet near Jarvis and hadn’t dropped the whip. Fire the sixth, nothing, but Angelo couldn’t know that, he couldn’t have heard all the clicks. Ryder pointed it anyway and yelled, ‘Get back from him, leave him alone!’
Angelo swung round, eyes white in a face blackened with blood, then he lowered the whip and laughed. ‘This for a man who betrayed you?’
‘Drop it,’ said Ryder, suddenly calm. ‘Drop the whip.’ Lanterns were moving on the Sapoune, help would be here any minute.
Angelo saw them too. He took a step backwards and said, ‘I don’t think so.’
Ryder kept the gun steady. ‘Don’t you think I’ll shoot?’
Angelo smiled. ‘I’m sure you would have – which is why I know you haven’t a shot left to fire.’ He inclined his head in the tiniest of bows, swept round and ran into the darkness.
Ryder chased after him. It was hopeless and he knew it even before he rounded the knoll and saw the waiting horse. Angelo slashed out with the whip to keep him back, then he was up in the saddle, turning the beast and away. Ryder lowered the gun in fury.
He walked back to find Jarvis sitting up and groaning, bleeding down his neck and obviously in considerable pain in his side. ‘My fucking ribs, that’s what, that fucking son of a poxed-up whore, his whip got my fucking ribs.’
Ryder’s feelings settled into blank unreality. ‘What the hell are you doing here, anyway?’
Jarvis stopped massaging his ribs. ‘Lucky for you I am, isn’t it?’
Evasion. ‘You thought you’d wait for me to come back? Ambush me in the dark?’
Jarvis’s eyes burned. ‘No, I bloody didn’t. You may not understand this, Sergeant, but I wanted us to do this man to man. Like you said.’ He heaved himself slowly to his feet, wincing at every movement. ‘Instead of your way. Starting whispers behind my back. Making people laugh. Nothing so bloody manly about that.’
Ryder shrugged uneasily. ‘Nothing so bloody manly about abandoning a man who helped you either.’
‘Just saved you, didn’t I?’ said Jarvis. The man was indestructible, brushing down his coat as if it mattered more than the damage to his body. ‘Doesn’t that cover it?’
Horsemen were galloping down from the Sapoune, but Ryder suddenly felt very tired. ‘No. Because I want to know why.’
Jarvis’s hands stilled on the coat. ‘Maybe because you’re a jumped-up cocky little bastard who’s been spitting on my regiment ever since he joined it. Will that do?’
Maybe it would. Ryder saw himself as he had been, looking on a British NCO as the enemy and befriending a Russian monster instead. ‘He said you betrayed me.’
Jarvis stared at him, trapped. ‘You’d believe him?’
Calvert’s men were almost down to the road. ‘Not if you say it’s a lie.’
Jarvis watched the horsemen riding nearer and nearer. He said abruptly, ‘No, damn you, it’s not. I kept you in camp on his say-so. I thought you were messing with my wife.’
