The Last Legionnaire

by Paul Fraser Collard

  ‘He is a boy who knows nothing.’ Ballard shouted the words. ‘There is no discussion on this matter.’ He managed to bring his temper under control, but said nothing else before he turned sharply on his heel and stormed away, leaving Jack to stare silently at his back.

  He stood there for several minutes until he heard footsteps approach. He looked over his shoulder to see Palmer and Mary coming towards him.

  ‘You found him then?’ Palmer spoke first. There was mockery in his tone.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘But you didn’t think to keep hold of the bugger?’

  ‘No.’ Jack sighed. ‘I should’ve let you try. You might’ve had more luck.’

  ‘I doubt it.’ Palmer grunted his reply.

  ‘Where were you?’ Jack could not help the question sounding like an accusation.

  ‘I was busy.’

  Jack looked down at Palmer’s hands. There was black blood under his nails, and a series of deep scratches across one cheek and behind his left ear. They looked like claw marks. He did not doubt the larger man’s assertion.

  ‘Is he worth it?’ It was Mary who asked the question. She stood between the two men, looking at them both in turn.

  ‘Worth what, exactly?’

  ‘You. Both of you. Both of your lives.’

  Jack looked Palmer up and down. ‘He’s certainly worth Palmer’s life. I’m not so bloody sure about mine.’

  Mary tutted at the glib reply. ‘I mean it. What makes one of him worth the two of you?’

  The two men shared a look.

  Jack answered for them both, trying to make light of the question. ‘He’s a rich boy, from a rich family. That makes him worth a dozen of the likes of us.’

  ‘Maybe Jack’s right, maybe he isn’t,’ Palmer gave his own answer earnestly, ‘but the major says this man is worth it, so that’s good enough for me.’

  ‘Jesus Christ.’ Jack winced at the response. It was the second time Palmer had made such a simple assertion, and it did not grate on Jack any less for the repetition. ‘I would never have put you down as a lickspittle.’

  ‘Jack!’ Mary snapped the warning.

  ‘All right.’ Jack held up a hand, acknowledging her words. He looked at Palmer. ‘Whatever he has on you, it must be bloody good.’

  Palmer grunted. ‘You have no idea.’

  ‘No, that’s not right.’ Mary laid a hand on Palmer’s arm. ‘We have every idea. I’m a washed-up doxy, and he’s . . .’ she paused to flap her hand in Jack’s direction, ‘he’s just a dolt who thinks he’s clever enough to fool the world, when really the only person he’s fooling is himself.’ She turned her attention on Palmer. ‘Whatever it is, I’m certain it won’t shock the likes of us.’

  Palmer offered her a grim smile. ‘We make a fine team. A fool, a whore and a murderer.’

  ‘So who did you kill?’ Jack wanted to know what drove a man like Palmer into such blind obedience.

  ‘Just a man.’ Palmer sighed. ‘He deserved it, I know that for sure, but that wouldn’t have stopped them stretching my neck for it.’ He looked up, searching the sky as he continued. ‘You see, the problem for me was that the bastard was rich. He liked a drink, this fine fellow of mine, and he liked to race his damn carriage about like he owned the streets of London. One night he had an accident. Nothing serious. Just broke a wheel on his carriage and knocked over a bench. Not enough to bother a great lord like that. Except for the fact that he killed someone.’ Palmer looked down. ‘He killed my wife, and no one gave a shit. Just an accident, they said. Just one of those things.’ He vibrated with passion. ‘So I killed the bastard in cold blood, and I said her name over and over so it was the last thing he ever heard.’

  He took a deep breath before he continued, the words flowing out of him now that he had let them free. ‘I was found out by a friend of the man I killed, an officer in army intelligence. I would’ve hung, but this man, well, he offered me a way out. My daughter . . .’ He choked on the word. ‘I was all she had. If I’d let them take me away, she would’ve had nothing. You know what happens to girls like that.’ He looked up at Mary as he made the statement. ‘Mr Ballard found her a place. She’s a good girl and she’s doing well now. Thanks to Mr Ballard.’

  He glanced down, his eyes moist. ‘You understand now?’ He shook his head, as if annoyed to have given away so much about himself, then looked Jack hard in the eye. ‘I owe him everything.’ He turned his wet eyes back on the sky, searching for a glimpse of the stars that watched over them all with such serenity.

  Jack absorbed the confession. ‘Is that all?’ The glib reply fell flat.

  Mary placed her hand back on Palmer’s arm. ‘Your daughter has a fine future ahead of her. That’s a good thing.’

  ‘I hope so.’ Palmer sucked air through his teeth. ‘By God, I hope it’s enough.’

  Mary kept her hand in place. ‘It’s everything. I would do anything for my Billy to give him a good future, anything at all.’

  Jack heard the feeling behind her words. He could not share her sentiments. She and Palmer had children, people they loved and who loved them in turn.

  He had no one.

  Ballard bustled into the small camp, a hemp sack in each hand.

  No one had said much following Palmer’s confession. They had set up camp where they were, waiting dutifully for the major to return. Dusk had turned into night. They had eaten a meal of bread and cheese as they sat on the ground, and made themselves as comfortable as they could so close to a field of battle.

  Ballard walked close to the fire that Jack had got going with powder from a cartridge from his revolver. He dumped one sack in front of Jack and the other in front of Palmer.

  ‘What’s this? Presents?’ Jack tried to read his commander’s face in the light cast by the fire. He failed. Ballard’s habitual assured expression was firmly back in place.

  ‘There is a new plan.’ The reply was clipped.

  ‘Go on.’ Jack could not help but sound dubious.

  ‘Open it.’ Ballard turned to make sure Palmer was also paying attention.

  Jack did as he was told. He pulled out a uniform coatee, the fabric coarse under his fingers. He held it towards the firelight and recognised it immediately. It was the uniform jacket of the French Foreign Legion, the men he had fought alongside that afternoon.

  ‘You want us to join the Legion?’ He posed the question as he dug deeper into the sack. His fingers felt the shape of a French kepi, along with trousers and what he thought to be gaiters.

  ‘No, Jack, I don’t want you to join the Legion.’ Ballard made sure that both men were looking at him before he continued. ‘But the next time, you will not ask our target’s permission. These uniforms will get you close. When the time is right, you will strike him down and take him away. No one will question two men dragging a wounded comrade to safety.’ His eyes glimmered in the firelight. ‘There are just two rules. You keep him alive, and you bring him to me, no matter what it takes.’

  ‘No matter the cost?’

  ‘Yes, Jack, no matter the cost.’ Ballard glowered at him. ‘You will not fail me twice.’

  Jack was bored. He kicked at a stone and watched it skitter across the road until it cracked against a tree. The sound made the mule start, and it brayed in protest until Billy managed to calm it.

  It was the third draining day of marching. None had been particularly long, but the French advance was slowed by frequent halts that left the men, and the small party of British agents in their midst, to endure hour after hour in the relentless sun, choking on dust and kicking their heels.

  The Austrians were retreating faster than the French could advance. They destroyed every bridge after they had crossed it, forcing the French to build a series of pontoon bridges, each of which only added to the maddeningly long halts. So far they had crossed four rain-swollen rivers, and there were many more between them and Milan, the Austrian-held capital of Lombardy.

  Jack wiped a hand across his sweat-strea
ked face. He had shed his outer layers, so walked in only a loose shirt and breeches, yet he still felt disgusting. He smiled as Palmer stood in stoic silence at his side. Ballard’s man still wore his thick tweeds, as if going for a day’s hunting in the wilds of Scotland rather than tramping across the Lombard plain.

  There was little news to brighten the tiresome march. A reconnaissance force of French cavalry had clashed with the Austrian rearguard at a place called Melginano. The skirmish had escalated quickly, but neither the French I Corps nor MacMahon’s II Corps could get to the front fast enough to turn it into a major engagement. I Corps managed to reach the fighting late in the afternoon, but succeeded only in providing some target practice for the Austrian artillery.

  The battle had done little to improve either side’s prospects of a convincing victory. Jack and Palmer had been given no opportunity to don their new uniforms and try to abduct their target in the chaos of a skirmish, something that vexed Ballard no end. The major had taken to spending more and more of his time with the staff officers who served the newly promoted Maréchal MacMahon. He returned only rarely to remind Jack and Palmer of their duty. The only person he had a kind word for was Mary, his mood improving markedly when he passed a moment or two engaging her in conversation.

  The column they were following started to move off. Jack forced his tired feet into motion. He marched like a redcoat, his mind idling through the interminable hours, his world reduced to the ground beneath his boots and the backs of the infantrymen in the regiment to his front.

  ‘For God’s sake.’ He could not help but swear as the column ground to yet another halt. He doubted they had covered more than five hundred yards since the last stop.

  ‘Stop your whining.’ Mary walked alongside him. She still had enough energy to chastise him. She too had reduced her layers of clothing, so that she walked in just a simple cotton shift. She was still hot and sweaty, and the dress clung to her in ways that Jack found altogether too distracting.

  ‘I’ve got a bone to pick with you.’ Her tone was glacial.

  ‘What have I done now?’ Jack found his eyes lingering on the shape of Mary’s figure. He forced them away with reluctance. Her expression made it clear that she had spotted his scrutiny, and that it was not appreciated.

  ‘You’ve been teaching Billy to use that damn gun of yours.’

  ‘Is that all?’ Jack had expected worse.

  ‘What the hell are you thinking?’

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘It flaming well is not nothing.’ Mary’s temper was firing. ‘You leave my boy alone. He already wants to be like you. Don’t bloody well encourage him.’

  Jack barked with laughter, but cut it short when he saw the glare in her eyes. It was flattering to think that Billy had taken a shine to him. ‘He wanted to learn. He’s a bright lad.’ He tried to mollify her.

  ‘Which is why I don’t want you filling his head with all sorts of nonsense about becoming a bloody redcoat.’

  ‘It was good enough for me.’

  ‘Being a street sweeper was good enough for you. You leave Billy alone.’

  ‘He might need to know how—’

  ‘No.’ Mary cut him short. ‘He’s not here to fight. You keep him out of harm’s way, you hear me, Jack? That boy is here only because of you. So you keep him safe and stop trying to make him like you.’

  Jack sighed. ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘You had better do more than that.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Mary.’ Jack was trying hard to bite his tongue. ‘I can’t help it if the boy looks up to me.’

  Mary’s eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll tell him what you’re really like. Just make sure you do your bit and leave him well alone.’

  ‘All right.’

  The simple agreement took some of the wind out of Mary’s sails. ‘You make sure you do.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘For now.’

  ‘Good.’ Jack snapped the answer as an idea formed in his mind. He wanted a change of company. And he knew where to go to find it.

  Jack picked his way through the soldiers’ encampment. The Legion was well drilled and used to setting up a temporary home at the end of the day’s march. General MacMahon had ordered his II Corps to a halt as the sun set, another long day of little progress coming to an end.

  He was impressed by what he saw. Even though the column had only been halted for half an hour, they had already laid out their three-man tents in an ordered grid of parallel lines. With that done, the legionnaires had settled to their dinner. Jack’s stomach rumbled as he walked past cauldron after cauldron filled with rice, onions and bacon. Some of the soldiers were sitting playing lotto, the legionnaires’ favourite pastime, and he felt a strong sense of longing to be back with men for whom a campfire like this was home.

  He had come to the army when he had nothing else. He had never expected to find the camaraderie that made his life in the ranks so enjoyable. The days with his mates were some of the rare memories that did not haunt him. A large part of him yearned to be able to return to the simple life of a redcoat, a life not burdened by responsibility, or the bounds of ambition. There were times when he felt like a fool for having walked away from it, his decision to try to climb above his station costing him in so many more ways than he could ever have imagined.

  ‘What the hell do you want with us now?’

  Jack was startled out his reverie. He had been spotted.

  ‘Sergeant Kearney.’ He nodded a greeting at the Legion sergeant, who had spied him wandering close to his fire.

  Kearney shook his head. ‘Don’t you ever give up?’

  ‘No. Not as a rule. Is he about?’

  Kearney nodded at a fire a dozen yards away. ‘He’s just over there, but I doubt he’ll appreciate your visit.’

  ‘Like I give a shit.’

  Kearney chuckled at the belligerent reply. ‘You two should get along fine. You’re very much alike.’

  Jack snorted at the idea. ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘Then you would be wrong.’ The sergeant was sitting comfortably on the ground, and now he stretched his legs out in front of him, totally at ease with his surroundings. ‘But I reckon you don’t listen too well, so I’ll hold my peace.’

  Jack grinned. He liked Kearney. The man was at one with his place in the world. He had a sureness about him that Jack had seen in the best non-commissioned officers. Men needed that calming influence in battle. It held them steady so much more effectively than even the harshest disciplinarian ever could.

  ‘Now that’s the first wise thing I’ve heard you say.’ He dawdled at Kearney’s fire. ‘You’re a long way from home, Sergeant.’

  Kearney shrugged. ‘I am home.’ He gestured around him. ‘I belong here more than I belong in Boston.’

  Jack understood the feeling. ‘Still, it’s a strange place to find an American.’

  ‘It’s the Legion. We all came from somewhere and we all found our way here. We do our duty and we learn not to ask about a man’s past.’

  Jack heard the warning in the words. ‘So do you mind if I talk to your chum?’

  ‘So long as that’s all it is.’ Kearney smiled. ‘If I hear anything else, so help me I’ll slit your throat myself.’

  Jack laughed at the certainty behind the words. ‘I hope it never comes to that.’ He was not joking. He did not fancy the notion of fighting Kearney.

  ‘Then don’t let it.’ Kearney grinned. ‘Stop by on your way back. I reckon I’ve still got some of that arrack somewhere.’

  ‘I’ll do that.’ Jack nodded his thanks and went to find his man.

  ‘Would it make a difference if I damned your eyes and told you to bugger off?’ Fleming greeted Jack as soon as he approached the legionnaire’s fire. He sat with one other man, the two of them staring silently at a small cauldron filled with simmering water as they waited for it to soften up the day’s ration of bacon enough to make it edible.

  ‘No.’ Jack had dec
ided on total honesty. ‘Mind if I sit down?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s not very civil.’ He sat down regardless. ‘Smells good.’

  ‘It won’t taste it. It’s more gristle than meat. But if we boil it long enough it should be all right. If not, we’ll leave the bloody thing cooking overnight then eat in the morning.’

  Jack smiled at the experienced opinion. Many would-be soldiers joined the ranks for little more than the promise of regular food. But even the hungriest soldier quickly tired of the basic rations all armies fed their men, the rancid meat possessing little to recommend it.

  ‘You can share our dinner. Save it going to waste.’ Fleming sat forward and gave the stew a half-hearted stir. His messmate peered inside the cauldron, then shook his head before getting up and disappearing inside the tent, leaving Jack and Fleming alone by the fire.

  ‘That’s good of you. I won’t say no.’ Jack nodded his thanks for the offer. He had not failed to notice that there were just two men sharing the food, whilst three sat round most of the other campfires. He was not enough of a fool to ask where the third man might be. The recent fighting had claimed plenty of lives, and the Legion had lost its fair share.

  ‘Why are you here?’ Fleming gave up stirring the pot and looked keenly at Jack.

  ‘I was going to ask you the same question.’

  ‘Then this will be a dull conversation.’ Fleming shook his head at the idea, then sighed. ‘I am here because I was tired of being in the way.’ He kept his eyes on Jack as he offered the explanation. ‘I do not expect you to understand.’

  ‘I don’t.’ Jack’s reply was sharp. ‘Most men join the ranks because life has shat on them so badly that being a soldier looks better than the cruddy existence they face outside. You had everything they could ever have dreamt of; more, even. Yet here you are, eating the same vile grub and fighting anyone you’re told to. It doesn’t make much sense to me.’

  ‘No, put like that it doesn’t make sense to me either.’ Fleming chuckled at Jack’s description. ‘But I wouldn’t change it. I belong here now. I chose this life. I don’t want to give it up.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘I won’t give it up.’