Path of the Tiger

by J M Hemmings

  ‘What in the bloody ‘ell are you doing, Gisborne?!’ a throaty voice snarled in William’s ear, snapping him out of his daydreaming and yanking him back to the harshness of the present. ‘Standing there like a lost lamb, wiff’ yer sabre ‘angin’ loose from yer arm like some old codger’s useless shrivelled prick! You useless bleedin’ monkey!’

  Sergeant Fray’s breath was sour, rancid and inescapable in its offensive immediacy, and the brassy roar of his immensely loud voice rattled William’s brain within his skull. The sergeant, a short but powerfully built man in his fifties, used his training sabre to knock William’s sword out of his hand with a sharp blow. The sabre clattered to the ground, and William stood empty-handed and red-faced as the balding sergeant raised the blunted tip of his weapon to William’s throat.

  ‘That’s what’ll ‘appen to you on the battlefield, Gisborne. Except there, it’ll be some French or Prussian trooper wi’ a sharp blade, and ‘e’ll not be speaking to you the way I am right now, oh no! ‘E’ll be running ‘is weapon right through your pathetic throat, ‘e will! Then, when your life is bleedin’ out o’ the great gaping hole ‘is blade will ‘ave left, you’ll ‘ave wasted ‘Er Majesty’s time and coin by dying, instead o’ killin’! ‘Er Majesty would be bloody disgusted to see how ‘er crowns are being spent so wastefully ‘ere, trying to train ‘opeless runts like you! Yes, wasted on a worthless urchin who’d be more suited to sweepin’ filth off the streets, or perhaps with the rest of the lowest of the scum, workin’ with piss an’ poison all day in a bloody tannery! Christ almighty, anything but ‘ere, wastin’ my bleedin’ time on your utter ‘opelessness as a soldier! Bah!’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ William mumbled, his face reddening with a flush of hot shame.

  ‘Don’t bloody well apologise, you stupid ‘alf-wit! I’ve never ‘eard anything so bleedin’ pathetic in my life! Pick up that bloody sword an’ do the blasted drills properly! Pick it up, for God’s sake, pick it up and bleedin’ well get to it before I rip your pretty-boy face off your thick skull wiff my bare ‘ands!’

  Sergeant Fray stormed off in disgust as William, browbeaten and ashamed, bent down and picked up the sabre.

  ‘Chin up boyo,’ Michael said gently. ‘You’ll get the hang ay it soon enough.’

  William shook his head and grimaced with exasperation.

  ‘Will I Mikey? Will I really? Because I’m telling you, it doesnae bloody well feel like I e’er will. The sergeant’s right, I’m damned hopeless at this.’

  ‘Quick, get your sword up! Fray’s coming back!’

  William heaved his sword back into position and grunted with exertion as he resumed his sword drills, moving with weary, clumsy gracelessness. Sergeant Fray paused as he walked past William and fixed him with a protracted stare of unadulterated revulsion, his fierce eyes two burning coals beneath his bushy brown eyebrows. After a few moments he shook his head, muttered a curse under his breath and moved on, leaving William to continue in his ineffectual floundering.

  ***

  ‘Wee Willy Gisborne, the dandy little poet!’ Private Watson sneered from his cot. ‘Write one for me next, lad. I’ll dictate it for ye, see? It’ll start like this: “Dear Mrs Gisborne, I do so miss the massive, gaping ‘ole between yer thighs, I do!”, yeah, write that, why don’t ye!’

  William ignored him and carried on writing his letter to Aurora.

  ‘Ohh, what’s the matter Wee Willy?’ Watson continued. ‘Do you “love” this little strumpet you’re writing to? Humbug! Don’t tell me you believe in that codswallop! “Love” is pure piss, nuffin’ but bleedin’ bollocks! You’re a fookin’ ‘alf-wit to believe in that, you are!’

  ‘Lay off the boy, Watson,’ slurred Private Smythe, who was reclining against his bunk post and slugging heavily on a half-jack of rum. ‘He’s a good lad, he is! Doesn’t bother nobody, does he?’

  ‘’E’s a runt and a meater!’ Watson spat. ‘Crikey, is there a man in ‘ere who ‘asn’t given ‘im a damned good clobberin’ out on the training grounds? Why, he can’t even ‘old a bloomin’ sword straight!’

  The relentless taunting finally got to William, and he put his quill down and glared at Watson, who was a tall and brawny powerhouse of a man. His broad, simian-looking face was crowned with a wiry mop of black hair, and his jowls were thick with dark stubble. A man who was always spoiling for a fight, he was especially fond of bullying the new recruits. He had remained a private for his entire nine-year stint as a cavalryman of the 17th, and was likely to remain that way until he was either discharged or killed in battle, for he was a hopeless alcoholic and lacked entirely in any ambition beyond getting drunk and visiting whorehouses.

  ‘What the hell are you looking at, Gisborne?’ he growled. ‘Fancy a nobblin’, you little blighter? I’ll bloody do ye down, I will!’

  William knew exactly how a brawl with Watson was likely to go, so, swallowing his ire, he simply shook his head and resumed writing. In response, Private Watson spat on the ground in disgust.

  ‘That’s right, turn away! A right meater, this one is! As frightened as a little lamb, ‘e is, look at ‘im! Go back to the blooming streets an’ resume your trade as a mumper, Gisborne! You’re a bloody disgrace to this squadron, you are!’

  Private Smythe flung a boot across the barracks room at Watson. He was also a drunk, and was of a similar age to the brawler, but he was a far kinder and more compassionate person than his peer, and had a much more serene temperament.

  ‘Lay off the lad, Watty,’ he said calmly. ‘Not all of us troopers is like you. This lad ‘ere ain’t spent no time in lumber like you ‘ave, ye bleedin’ tea leaf!’

  ‘Bah! I only wore the broad arrow for two years, then I changed my ways and joined the Death or Glory boys! Hurrah for the 17th!’

  All of the men stopped what they were doing to cheer for the 17th, even William, although his ‘hurrah’ was a lot more subdued than the throaty bellows of his fellow troopers. Private Smythe heaved himself up out of his bunk and ambled over to William.

  ‘Who are you writin’ to there, lad?’

  ‘Some dollymop he found in a nethersken,’ Watson rasped, ‘who he dabbed once or twice when he scrounged together a penny or two!’

  Smythe tossed the bottle of rum over to him.

  ‘Shove some o’ this in yer pie-hole an’ then keep it shut, will ye Watty?’

  Watson caught the bottle, scowling while he opened it, and then taking a heavy swig of the almost caustic-tasting liquid within.

  ‘Come on then Gisborne, don’t mind ‘im, he’s always like that wiff the new fish,’ Smythe said in a sympathetic tone. ‘Tell me, who are you writing to?’

  ‘My … my fiancée,’ William ventured cautiously, cringing as he braced himself for the inevitable barrage of mockery from Watson.

  Watson, however, seemed content for the moment with slugging on the bottle of rum, so he made no comment. This gave William a glimmer of hope that, for the time being at least, he would not be subjected another barrage of the cantankerous trooper’s taunts and insults.

  ‘Oh, engaged to be married, are ye?’ Smythe commented. ‘That’s nice, lad. I’m sure she’s lovely, is she not?’

  William shot a furtive glance across at Watson before replying.

  ‘She’s the most beautiful, kind, wonderful an’ intelligent lass I’ve e’er seen,’ William answered, feeling a bit more emboldened. ‘She’s like … like an auld master’s painting come tae life, she is!’

  Smythe chuckled, and a tint of something warm shone in his eyes; nostalgia, sympathy or perhaps, simply, a sense of shared joy.

  ‘I can tell that you’re quite taken wiff ‘er. Yes, as it should be, as it should be. Don’t listen to what that ignorant idiot is saying about love now; not everyone is as cynical as ‘im. I was married once, you know. Back before I joined the 17th.’

  ‘And now?’

  A look of deep sadness clouded Smythe’s haggard face.

  ‘No, I don’t ‘ave nobody n
ow. It didn’t end well, see. My wife an’ I were married when I was but fifteen, an’ she was a year older than me, she was. We both worked in a cotton mill, blooming ‘ard times those were.’

  ‘Aye, I can imagine,’ William said. ‘I was a flue faker as a wee lad, that was a bloody tough life as well.’

  ‘A chimney sweep, were you? Quite a miracle you survived, innit? I’ve ‘eard that most don’t.’

  ‘I was one ay the lucky ones.’

  ‘Lucky indeed, lad. Although perhaps you should wait until you’ve survived your stint as a cavalryman before using the word “lucky”, eh?’ Smythe said with a wink and a swift grin.

  William chuckled dryly.

  ‘Aye, aye. Now what about your wife Smythe, you were tellin’ me about her?’

  ‘Oh, right. Ah Gisborne, a sad story it was, a well sad story. See, we were both working in the cotton mill, we were. Absolutely ‘orrendous work, blooming awful, it was. Nonetheless, after a few years we managed to save enough pennies to leave that behind. We still struggled though, we did. Our first chavy was stillborn, and the Good Lord saw fit to take the second when the wee boy was but six months old. The last one, she survived until the age o’ three … but that’s when bleedin’ cholera took both her mum and her.’

  William didn’t quite know how to respond to this, so for a few uncomfortable moments he sat in silence.

  ‘I’m really sorry tae hear that,’ he murmured after a while.

  Grief was heavy in Smythe’s eyes, and it sounded as if his voice was beginning to crack. He turned away from William and stared at the floor in silence before replying.

  ‘Never you mind lad, it’s the way o’ the world, it is,’ he murmured. ‘After they passed on, why, I was left ‘eartbroken, and penniless too. Not a roof over me ‘ead, not a morsel to eat, and not two coins to scrape together, nuffin’. I became a moocher on the streets, moving from hughy to hughy, drinkin’ me’self into stupors and slowly starvin’ to death … until I ran into a recruiting officer for the 17th, that is. ‘E said I looked strong enough to soldier, and so, with nowt much else I could ‘ave done, I took the Queen’s shilling and ended up ‘ere, I did. Say lad, why don’t you have a sip o’ rum wiff me? We’ll leave that blustery bastard Watson t’ drown his sorrows on his lonesome wiff the rest o’ that bottle. I’ve got a fresh one ‘ere, see. My second cousin who works in a tavern knaps these bottles for me, ‘e does! Ha! The tavern owner is a right lush ‘imself, never notices the missing rum.’

  William smiled and set down his ink and quill, eager for a friendly ear, for his friends had been quartered in different barracks rooms, and he had been stuck here with the older hands of the regiment for a few weeks. He stood up from the crude communal table where he was writing his letter and accepted the bottle from Smythe with a smile.

  ‘That’s right lad,’ Smythe said, ‘yeah, ‘ave a good ol’ nip o’ that.’

  William took a ginger sip and began coughing and spluttering immediately as the cheap rum seared its way down his gullet like molten lead. Smythe chuckled and took a hefty swig from the bottle as soon as William handed it back to him.

  ‘It’s rather different from our Highland whiskey!’ William remarked hoarsely, trying to stifle a harsh cough.

  ‘Indeed,’ Smythe said with a chortle. ‘Not the choicest rum, but it does the job, it does!’

  Both men laughed at this, and each had another swig.

  ‘You’re wiff them other Scotch lads who joined up recently, aren’t ye Gisborne?’

  ‘Aye. My best boyos in the whole world, Michael, Andrew an’ Paul.’

  Smythe nodded, slugging again on the bottle.

  ‘That Michael, ‘e’s a strappin’ one, ‘e is. As big as ol’ Watson over there, but much faster. ‘E’s a natural fighter, ‘e is, no doubt about that. You’re all ‘Ighland born and bred, are ye?’

  ‘We spent most of our lives in the Highlands, aye, but we were no’ born Scotsmen. The lads an’ I were born in Whitechapel, although I dunnae remember much ay it.’

  Smythe laughed heartily and imbibed another generous swig of rum.

  ‘You don’t sound much like an East Londoner, lad! ‘Ighland born an’ bred is what I’d ‘ave guessed from yer manner o’ speech. I was born in Manchester m’self. I left at an early age though, sent away to work in the cotton mill when I was but seven years of age, I was.’

  William nodded sympathetically as he took the bottle from Smythe.

  ‘I was crawling up flues at the age of five. Had an awful bastard of a boss, named Mr Goode.’

  Private Smythe laughed uproariously at this, slapping his thigh with mirth.

  ‘What a name for the worst boss in the world, eh! Mr Goode! Ha! ‘Ow did ye end up in Scotland, then?’

  ‘We were cleaning the flues in the house ay a well-tae-dae magistrate, when our youngest flue faker got stuck in a chimney an’ suffocated tae death. Poor wee Davy, he was only four. The lady ay the house took pity on us an’ arranged fir us tae be sent tae her cousin’s estate in Aberdeenshire, tae work as stable hands there.’

  Smythe nodded, stroking the pointy tip of his stubble-rough chin.

  ‘So that’s where you learned to ride.’

  ‘Aye. I took tae horses from the moment I first swung my leg o’er a saddle.’

  ‘I can bloody see that, I can! I’ve seen you on a ‘orse, and the way you can ride, you’re leagues ahead o’ anyone in the regiment, even the old ‘ands who’ve been ‘ere for decades.’

  William grinned, feeling a semblance of confidence – a feeling in which he had been extremely lacking in recent weeks – making a return to his state of being.

  ‘Thank you Private Smythe, I—’

  ‘Roger, lad. That’s me first name.’

  ‘Thank you, Roger. I appreciate tha’. An’ you can call me Will, that’s what me boyos call me.’

  Smythe waved a nonchalant hand at him.

  ‘Think nuffin’ of it, Will; I’m just telling the truth o’ the matter. Besides, you lads ‘aven’t done no tent-peggin’ yet. I bet when you get around to that, Sergeant Fray will drop ‘is jaw, ‘e will. I can see you pickin’ that up in no time, what wiff your skill on ‘orseback.’

  ‘I’ve heard the term … but what exactly is tent-pegging?’

  ‘Oh, you’ll love it, Will. You push yer ‘orse to full gallop, and use your lance and sword to stab small targets on the ground, around the size o’ tent pegs, they are, ‘ence the name.’

  ‘I dunnae if I’d be any good a’ that.’

  ‘You can ‘andle a ‘orse wiff more skill than anyone I’ve seen yet, lad, and that’s most o’ the challenge already taken care of, it is. You’ve just got to up your skills wiff the lance and sword.’

  William sighed and shook his head sadly.

  ‘Therein lies the problem, Roger. I’ve got not an ounce ay skill wi’ either.’

  Smythe looked up at William and smiled cheerfully, the generosity in that pleasant curving of his lips mirrored in the crinkling of the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes.

  ‘I’ll ‘elp you. I’ve learned a fing or two about ‘andling weapons in my years in this regiment, I ‘ave. Come, grab your sword, let’s step outside and I’ll give you a few pointers.’

  William shot Smythe a warm, toothy grin; a flash of delighted white against the smoky gloom of the tent.

  ‘I’d be most thankful fir tha’, I would!’

  ‘Think nuffin’ of it. You’re a good lad, and I daresay better tipplin’ company than that sour git in the cot be’ind us.’

  William retrieved his sword and scabbard while Private Smythe staggered to his feet, swaying with drunkenness, and with that William’s extracurricular training began.

  ***

  29th March 1854. Brighton Beach, England

  ‘The glow around your hair brings tae mind an autumn bonfire in the Highlands, sweet Aurora,’ William said as he and Aurora strolled along the beach, arm in arm. Around his neck he wore the amulet she’d given
him, tucked beneath his shirt, while she wore, on a dainty silver necklace, the simple bronze Celtic cross he had given her. ‘Wi’ the sun lighting it up from behind, it’s like a mane ay chestnut flames dancin’ around your face.’

  Aurora leaned over and gave him a playful peck on his cheek, squeezing his hand as she did. As they were now in public, her hair was bound and tied up. William loved it when she wore her hair down, but he enjoyed seeing it tied up as well; even though a large portion of her neck was hidden by the velvet collar of the forest-green dress, with gold thread accents, that she was wearing, the sight of the creamy skin that was visible, and that of her ears, in which ruby earrings sparkled, filled his mind with a desire to kiss and nuzzle these areas, which were usually hidden behind a curtain of silky hair.

  ‘My poet,’ she purred, every syllable infused with passionate emotion. ‘My warrior poet.’

  William chuckled.

  ‘I’m no warrior, love.’

  ‘Technically you are, William!’ she said, her radiant smile – its infectiousness enhanced by the deep smile-creases that appeared at the corners of her mouth – adding a glow to her countenance that almost made William’s knees buckle beneath him. ‘Must I remind you that you’re a private of the 17th Lancers, the famous Death or Glory Boys? Therefore, I will be calling you my warrior poet, whether you like it or not.’

  ‘I’ve no’ written a word ay true poetry in my life,’ William protested, ‘an’ I’ve ne’er raised my sword against no foe. I’m just … just me. No more, no less.’

  ‘You don’t consider all the letters you write to me as being true poetry? They’re beautiful, your words, like the most vivid daubs of colour on an artist’s palette … they awaken a yearning in my soul, they set my body afire and dance the glory of the Northern Lights before my eyes in the darkness of night, when I lie alone in my bed and read them.’