Guns of the Dawn

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  ‘Me too,’ said one of the other women. ‘I’d a son, too. They promised they’d find someone to look after him, but I know them. He’s only nine and he can’t look after himself, can he? But I reckon they had him out the door the moment they’d packed me off here!’

  ‘What is this to do with me?’ Emily said. ‘I came here, didn’t I? I didn’t send anyone in my place. Your grievances are with the households you came from, not with me.’

  ‘Oh, grievances,’ Sally mocked. ‘Yeah, well.’ She shook her head ponderously. ‘They ain’t here and you are.’ And with that piece of philosophy she lumbered forward with a surprising turn of speed and reached out to grab. She caught Emily off guard with her attack, despite all her preparation. One hand nipped at the collar of Emily’s jacket; the other grasped her hair and pulled.

  She had fought before, this Sally. She was not new to the sport, but she was only used to fighting other women. The short-cut hair slipped from her fingers, and Emily cuffed her weakly across the face and fell back before her, tugging herself free. In a quick shrug she had her jacket off and on the ground, facing the larger woman in her shirtsleeves.

  Sally lumbered towards her, face ugly, and Emily moved backwards and around in a wide circle. She kept an eye on the other two, but they seemed content to watch their friend do all the work. For a big woman, Sally moved well, and twice her great hands almost latched on to Emily. The third time one did, clasping about the smaller woman’s wrist and hauling her in so that Emily bounced off the woman’s belly. Sally slapped her across the face and shoulder, hard enough to make her head ring, and Emily tried to get an arm up to return the favour and banged Sally under the chin with her elbow instead. The big woman bit her tongue savagely and cursed. She still held Emily’s wrist, and shook her hard, rattling her back and forth before going for her hair again, trying vainly to get a grip.

  Emily slapped her hard across the face, forehand and backhand, and then raked her nails into the other woman’s cheek, but Sally cuffed her firmly across the jaw and shook her like a dog, her grip unshakeable. She gave up on the hair and tried to hook Emily’s shirt collar.

  This isn’t going to work. Emily realized that she was losing badly, and she also realized that she was fighting like a woman; they both were. I’m not a woman, I’m a soldier. She was dressed like one, shorn like one, she would fight like one. She bunched her free hand into a fist and punched the larger woman right in the eye.

  She had not expected it to hurt her so much, given how much men were always punching each other. It must have had some effect on her target, though, for Sally squawked and let go, and Emily hit her again under the chin, pain be damned, and then stamped on her foot for good measure. Sally collapsed backwards, floundering madly, and Emily got in a kick that landed somewhere painful.

  Then she stood back and waited, her breath heaving in and out, while the bigger woman clambered to her feet. Sally was staring at her, face purple and angry, and Emily felt the moment teeter in the balance. Scenarios were being played out in the minds of Sally’s supporters as they judged whether they were going to pitch in or not.

  ‘You see?’ she got out between breaths. ‘I’m no better. I’m just like you. And I’ll fight. I’ll fight all of you. But I don’t want to. Because you’re right, it’s none of it fair. None of us wanted to be here.’

  She expected her words to fall flat, and for hostilities to be resumed forthwith, but instead Sally stared at her angrily, then nodded just once. There was no love there, precious little respect even, but there was something that had been absent before the fight. It was little enough, between them, but enough for some forbearance. After a moment, the big woman spat a gob of blood onto the ground and stomped away, with one of the two women following her.

  I never knew I could do this. What put it in me? Perhaps this willingness to fight despite the odds was what Mr Northway had seen in her.

  But haven’t I always been fighting? she considered, still catching her breath. After Father died, it has been one long struggle for me. So why not this? After all, fighting is for soldiers.

  She looked at the one woman remaining, and was surprised by a broad grin.

  ‘You sure you’re a gentlewoman?’ the woman asked.

  ‘Last I looked. A very minor one.’ Her hand hurt abominably, and she set off for the refectory to get some cold water for it.

  ‘Hey!’ the woman called after her. ‘You know what you said about not sending someone else in your place.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I understood it.’ She fell into place beside Emily. She was a tall girl, auburn hair now in the regulation cut, long of limb and slender, and she had an easy smile. ‘Hell, I wasn’t even in service when I got the Draft.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘I was locked up.’

  ‘Locked up?’ Emily raised an eyebrow at her. ‘In prison?’

  ‘Sure. A tiny misunderstanding. Say, what’s your name, my lady?’

  ‘Nobody’s lady. Emily; Emily Marshwic.’

  ‘Well, Emily, I reckon you’re a good sort, even though you’re posh. Good to meet you. I’m Elise.’

  *

  Elise was a well-liked girl. Having her approval meant that Emily became, if not popular, then at least tolerated. More than that, it gave Emily someone to talk to, someone to tell her worries and frustrations to.

  She told Elise all about Grammaine, the house, the servants, the history. She told her about her sisters Mary and Alice, and all her concerns about them: how could they possibly cope without her? The one subject she did not touch on, because she was so unsure about it herself, was Mr Northway.

  ‘So, do you have family back home?’

  ‘I don’t even have a “back home”,’ Elise revealed. ‘My folks packed me off as soon as, and I’ve not seem them since. They had enough others to look after. No room for one more mouth that’s old enough to feed herself. I was in service myself for a bit, till they chucked me out. I’d gotten a little too friendly with the under-butler – and the youngest son. Well, they’d got too friendly with me, and how was I supposed to say no? But that’s never how they see it once the thing gets out. After that I tried all sorts, never really settled on anything.’

  ‘You’re . . . all alone?’ Around them were the quiet sounds of the dormitory just before lights out. Conversations, a few giggles, whispered gossip and gasps of astonishment.

  ‘On and off.’ Elise shrugged. ‘This Draft business’s turned out to be all right, really. I get meals and a roof, and people to talk to. I’m learning a trade. I’d like to see them put me back on the streets after this, with me knowing guns and things.’

  She was a bold, brassy woman, unashamed of her past or her future. She seemed so very comfortable with who she was. Emily had not dreamed such people existed. She was beginning to realize that the belligerent Sally had been right to call her out. She knew so little about the world.

  ‘But . . . I thought I had to fight for things,’ Emily confessed, ‘but at least I had people, a home . . .’

  Elise grinned at her. ‘Sounds nice, this home of yours. Reckon there’d be a place for me there after the war?’

  ‘Perhaps. Assuming I ever see it again. But surely you must have somebody.’ The thought was bothering Emily. ‘Friends? A sweetheart, perhaps?’

  ‘Oh, men!’ Elise laughed, turning the heads of the women nearest. ‘I wondered what you were getting at. Oh, I’ve had men, Ems.’

  Emily put her hand to her mouth, scandalized and fascinated all at once. It was horribly wrong, this kind of talk, but for all that – because of that, even – it was interesting. ‘But . . . you weren’t married.’

  ‘They didn’t make the man that could marry me,’ Elise boasted. ‘A few of them offered, but they never meant it. That’s men for you.’ She leant close to Emily, glancing around to ensure secrecy. ‘Matter of fact I’ve had a few rumpled nights here, believe it or not.’

  ‘Here? Not with Sergeant Bowler, please.’

/>   ‘That bag of lard? God protect me. No, I talked my way into Demaine’s bed, though.’

  Emily opened her mouth a few times before she managed, ‘Demaine, but—’

  ‘What, so his legs are missing? The important bits are still there. I just love the way he knows what he’s talking about so much. I always did like little men who knew who they were.’ Another broad, utterly unashamed grin. ‘So, your ladyship, any young lords in your life?’

  Emily thought of Mr Northway, and fended away the image. Giles Scavian came to mind as well – and at his back the golden light of the King.

  ‘It’s complicated,’ she said, and Elise agreed.

  ‘It always is.’

  *

  A few scant days were all that was left of their training. The women at Gravenfield were almost finished, almost ready to be rated as soldiers. They could shoot and they could read a map. They knew where Denland was, and why they were fighting it. Some could ride, and some could follow tracks, and a handful had been trained as cannon crew. Emily had been placed in none of these latter groups, although she was already a better horsewoman than most of the other recruits. She had requested it, but her name had never been included on the lists.

  They were just finishing a morning gunnery class with Sergeant Demaine. He had ordered a wire to be tied at a slant between two posts, and one of the recruits released targets that slid joltingly down it, while the firing line attempted to put shots into them. The success rate had been sporadic. A fair number of them still winced at the discharge of the musket, instinctively pulling it out of line. One or two were simply hopeless shots.

  ‘All right, all right, that will have to be enough, and God protect the lot of you,’ Demaine called out. ‘Off for your luncheon, then. I hear you’ll be running round the grounds this afternoon, so keep your strength up.’

  The class began to move off the lawn and in through Demaine’s office, with Elise squeezing the sergeant’s arm as she passed him, their affair being public knowledge by now. Demaine glanced up at her and then barked, ‘Not you, Marshwic. Got something different for you. Stay behind.’

  Emily watched the other women leave. Demaine’s face held no clues but she felt that somehow she had done something wrong.

  ‘What is it, Sergeant?’ she asked him, but he shook his head.

  ‘Not me. Major Castwood wants to see you.’

  ‘The major? Why?’ Since his address to them at the start of their training, none of the recruits had seen much of their commanding officer.

  ‘No idea, Marshwic, but I wouldn’t keep him waiting. He asked me to send you to him before the class, but I thought you needed the practice.’

  He was seldom found beyond the confines of his private office, was Major Castwood, and there was much speculation about him. Why was he not at the war? What was wrong with him – with his face? He had almost never appeared to his charges during the time they had been under his care, but it was known he spoke to the sergeants and the teachers every day or so, hearing reports of who was proving apt and who was slow.

  Emily approached his door now with trepidation. Had there been some more news from the front, perhaps. Is it Tuba? Had the war taken her brother-in-law now? Mary would be inconsolable. Mary would need her support just when she could not give it. Or was it news from home: terrible news that only the major could give? Brigands, perhaps. Debts that had fallen due, threatening the future of Grammaine itself. Or perhaps one of the staff had died – old Poldry maybe? But, no, they would not trouble to tell me of a servant’s death. It was an oddly bitter thought. So many of the women she was training with, the same women she would be fighting alongside, were servants thrown to the Draft. Who are the powers that be to count their lives the less for it?

  She rapped smartly and waited, before his quiet voice came clearly through the door. ‘Enter.’

  Standing before his desk, she remembered to salute. The room was a small one, and nothing like Mr Northway’s opulence. There were maps on the desk itself and on the walls, with drawings and notes on them. She imagined the major had been fighting the war here, solely for his own benefit, or fighting and refighting his own past battles, perhaps.

  He looked up at her, and she took the chance to study his face, never before seen so closely. The one side was the face of a man of later middle years, lined with pain and toil. The other was smooth, pale, and the eye stared out of it as unnaturally as if it sat on a dinner plate.

  A mask, she saw: a porcelain mask, but done very finely. From any distance one might almost not realize, until he tried to speak.

  ‘Miss Marshwic,’ he said out of one side of his mouth, and then: ‘The answer to your question is that I was standing next to Demaine’s horse. Think about it.’

  For an awful moment she almost laughed, but he was being quite serious. She composed herself.

  ‘You sent for me, sir.’

  ‘I did. Listen up, Marshwic. I hear things about you. Think you’re having a tough time of it here?’

  ‘No more than anyone else, sir.’

  ‘Is that so?’ He raised his eyebrow. ‘Word is you’ve been getting into fights, is that so?’

  ‘Isn’t that what we’re trained for, sir?’

  His lips twitched. ‘That could count as insolence, Marshwic.’

  ‘Is there a problem, sir?’

  ‘Yes, there is.’ He stood up, his broad-shouldered frame looming over the desk, overshadowing her. ‘The problem is that I have four hundred green recruits – four hundred women, for the Lord’s sake – who aren’t going to last a moment when the war comes for them. My problem is that they ship sooner than I’d like, and there’s not a damn thing more I’ve got time to teach them. My problem is that I am sending troops to the war who are undisciplined, unskilled and frankly just unready for combat, and that I have no choice but to send them. Orders are orders. Do you see my problem, Marshwic?’

  ‘I do, sir.’ Emily might have felt apart from the mass of her fellow recruits, but now she felt a sudden surge of loyalty towards them, hearing them attacked like this.

  ‘Any suggestions?’

  ‘If you give us a chance, sir, we will not disappoint you.’

  He stood back, regarding her through narrowed eyes. ‘Will you not?’ He sighed. ‘Well then, I’m afraid I’m going to have to make an example of you, Marshwic.’

  She stood silent and stiff, waiting for it.

  ‘I’m making you an ensign.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘You must have heard of it. It’s the lowest rank in the army above soldier-at-arms. In the olden days they used to carry the flags around. Now it just means you get to do the jobs the sergeant doesn’t want.’

  ‘Sir, I know, sir, but . . . why me?’

  ‘Because you listen and you concentrate, and you have at least some intelligence about you, or so I’ve heard. Sergeant Demaine says you’ve some idea of which way to hold a gun, which is more than most of them, even after all this time.’ He must have seen a hint of hubris in her expression, because he added, ‘But mostly because you’re a gentlewoman, and it’s bad form to have someone of good blood as a common soldier. And don’t get too proud of yourself. I’m making four ensigns and a sergeant today, so you’re not even top of the class. Any questions?’

  ‘What will this mean, sir?’

  ‘That you’ll have even more to worry about than anyone else. Dismissed, now, Marshwic. Off you go.’

  10

  In the forty days since we left home, we had ceased to think of the war. It seems incredible to me now but the very training to become a soldier had eclipsed the reasons behind it.

  All such thoughts returned to us a few days before the end of our time at Gravenfield when we were brought before Major Castwood again. He explained that we were to be portioned out. Most of us would go to support the dashing cavalry of the Couch ant font: the mountain passes, the plateaus and the plains. This was Castwood’s old command, and Lord Deerling’s of course, offering the grand spec
tacle of war as we forced the Denlanders back beyond their own borders.

  And some few would be consigned to the Levant font. Such a pretty name it is for such a place. Levant, meaning ‘to rise’, as Couchant is ‘to retire’; the nomenclature of the war dictated by the habits of the sun itself. But the sun has little enough to do with the Levant font. Here are only swamps, fetid jungles and a brackish salt marsh which draws no clear line between land and sea.

  They were all terrified of being sent there. Not I.

  The announcements were due to be made that day, and most of the morning there was a crowd of women waiting anxiously in the refectory or the dormitory. They talked in low voices about the future, muttering and murmuring about east and west. The war, staved off for so many days, was back with them, like a spectre haunting each and every face.

  Emily had already made her way to the major’s office, only to find that others had got there first. There was a queue of women waiting to be seen, more than twenty of them, but none of them having to wait long. Each entered and was sent out again within a minute, with a set, despairing look on her face.

  Elise came out next, and stomped down the line looking angry, stopping only when Emily caught her arm.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He says we don’t get a say in it. We go where we’re put. Bastard. I asked Demaine to put in a word for me, but he said he couldn’t help either.’ Elise’s relationship with Sergeant Demaine had only just recovered from her discovering that she was not, after all, going to be an officer, and now it looked as though, at the eleventh hour, it was about to take another beating.

  ‘You might as well give it a miss,’ Elise advised. ‘He ain’t budging.’

  Emily shrugged. ‘I’ll ask. What can I lose?’

  ‘Nob’s privilege?’ Elise asked her. ‘Take me with you, will you?’

  Emily smiled, and saw that she was next to bring her petition. In such a short time the others had been disposed of, and there was still an anxious line behind her. She squeezed Elise’s arm and went in.