The True Soldier: Jack Lark 6

by Paul Fraser Collard

  ‘Let me take your bag, master.’ The footman reached forward and removed Jack’s bag from his hand before he could raise a protest. If he wondered at its weight, the thought did not reach his face. ‘Please follow me.’

  He led Jack down the hall before turning to his right and into a large, elegant reception room. It was perfectly symmetrical, with a single door opposite the one Jack had just walked through, and two more opposite the two tall windows that overlooked the square. The walls were painted in a mix of warm yellows and mellow greens. A fire burned merrily in the grate, the warmth a wonderful discovery after the damp chill outside, but the room did not smell of burning wood. Instead it smelled of flowers, a crystal vase on a curving side table full of bright spring blooms giving off a powerful aroma.

  ‘If you will just wait here, master.’ The footman pronounced each word deliberately.

  Jack nodded in acknowledgement. His head throbbed with every beat of his heart and he dearly wanted to sit down, but he was wary of perching on either of the two elegant sofas arranged either side of the fireplace.

  When the echo of the servant’s footsteps had died away, the only sound left was the heavy tick of a long-case clock that stood against the room’s far wall. To Jack’s ear it sounded ominous, so he turned his attention to the portraits on the wall. He supposed them to be of members of the family, although closer inspection named one as George Washington and another as John Adams. Neither name meant anything to him.

  Inspection completed, Jack circled the room before finally perching himself on the very edge of one of the dark green sofas. He felt intensely uncomfortable. He did not belong in a room of such elegant refinement. He might have impersonated a number of officers over the course of his career, but that had always been in an army on campaign. His only experience of such fine living had been as an officer’s orderly, a soldier-servant pulled from the ranks to tend to a single officer’s needs.

  Time passed slowly, each second marked by a single somnolent tick. He still held Bridges’ handkerchief pressed to the back of his head, and he suddenly felt foolish to be doing so. He pulled the sodden cotton away, thinking to hide it in a pocket. To his chagrin, blood dripped from the wound, a pair of glistening droplets landing on the seat of the green sofa.

  He was given no chance to try to wipe them away.

  ‘Good evening.’ A tall gentleman limped into the room. Much of his head was bald, but a thick band of dark hair around the sides and back had been left long. His beard was neatly trimmed but more grey than dark. Despite his awkward gait, he carried himself with the authority of a man well used to his own power. He looked at Jack with eyes that were filled with a mix of interest and concern. ‘I must admit to being intrigued. It is not often I am given such a cryptic summons.’

  Jack rose to his feet and noticed that he was three or four inches shorter than the other man. The smile that greeted him seemed genuine enough. It sat well on the man’s face, the fine wrinkles around his eyes creasing together.

  ‘I should introduce myself.’ The man shot out a hand. ‘My name is Samuel Kearney, although perhaps you know that already, since you have sought me out.’ He paused, and waited for Jack to react.

  Jack hesitated. Perhaps the blow to his head had addled his wits, or else events were simply happening too quickly for him to keep up. Whatever the reason, he failed to find a reply, although he did manage to shake the hand he was being offered.

  Kearney’s brow furrowed at his guest’s silence, but he filled it almost immediately. ‘Please sit down. You look pale.’ He craned his neck to peer at the back of Jack’s head. ‘And it appears you are injured.’ He moved forward and placed a hand on Jack’s elbow. ‘Shall I summon a doctor?’

  ‘No, I’m fine.’ Jack spoke for the first time. His voice came out as little more than a croak.

  ‘Then please, sit down before you fall down.’ Kearney guided Jack back to the sofa. Only when he was satisfied that his guest was sitting comfortably did he move away to close the door before taking a chair opposite.

  ‘So, will you tell me why you have come to see me, or must I tease it out of you?’ Kearney sat back gingerly, as if the movement pained him.

  Jack was still struggling. He had thought about this meeting for a long time. Now that it had arrived, he felt unprepared. He did not know how to begin.

  ‘I understand it was Bridges who brought you to my door.’ Kearney’s mouth twisted down at the corners as he spoke the name, as if it were sour on his lips. ‘It was good of him. He is a solid fellow, I’ll give him his due, but rather dull. He has no conversation. A moment in his company can feel like a lifetime.’ As he spoke, his eyes never once left Jack’s face. He was clearly filling the silence to give his guest time to settle.

  ‘I was set upon. He saved me from a beating.’ Jack found his voice. ‘Then brought me here.’ He spared his host the details.

  ‘Then that was indeed good of him.’ Kearney found Jack’s gaze and held it. ‘You came to Boston to see me?’ He spoke softly.

  ‘Yes.’ Jack fished the letters out of his pocket and looked at them, suddenly reluctant to part with them. His finger ran over the old marks, just as it had done a hundred times before. He had long pondered why his friend had taken the time to write the letters but never sent them. Once he had been tempted to read them, to discover more about the man he had only known for a short time. He had hoped it would help to assuage the burden of guilt he had carried since the moment he had taken them from his friend’s hand. It was a temptation he had never succumbed to. Whatever was written in the letters had been saved for the man they were addressed to.

  Jack felt little pride in his restraint. The memory of the handing-over of the letters had escaped from its shackles and he felt nothing but shame. He no longer smelled the heady aroma of freshly picked flowers. Instead the acrid stink of fresh blood and spent powder filled the room. He was not in an elegant salon in the fashionable streets of Boston, but back on a gore-soaked battlefield.

  ‘I brought you these.’ He was surprised to find himself speaking, the words arriving on his lips unbidden. ‘They are from your son.’

  The silence stretched thin. He held out the letters, offering them towards Kearney. The older man made no move to take them. Instead he stared at the bloodstained bundle as if it were a snake about to strike out and bite him.

  ‘We received a letter.’ Kearney sounded old suddenly, his voice catching on the words as if they had been pulled from the depths of his being. ‘From the French authorities. Of course, I couldn’t read it. I had to ask my daughter, Elizabeth, to do that. It was in French, you see. I had no idea what it was about. When Thomas left . . .’ His voice trailed off. ‘We did not part on good terms. I had not known where he had gone, what he had chosen to do with his life. The truth came as something of a shock.’ The confession was spoken softly.

  His eyes never left the bundle of letters. Jack made no effort to pull his hand away, keeping them within the older man’s reach. As he did so, he found himself almost smiling. He had fought alongside Kearney’s son, enduring the worst of the brutal struggle against the Austrian army on the slopes around Solferino, yet he had never known his given name.

  Kearney swallowed with difficulty before he spoke again. ‘It was the only letter we ever received. He never wrote. Not once in all those years.’

  Jack was transfixed by the change that had come over the man. At the mention of his son, his shoulders had slumped. It was as if he had aged a hundred years in the passage of a single second.

  ‘Why?’ He could not help the question. He knew little of Sergeant Kearney’s past. Theirs had been a friendship formed and built on the battlefield. There had not been time to learn what had driven the American into the French army. ‘Why didn’t he write?’

  ‘He didn’t tell you?’

  ‘No, he didn’t talk of his past. He wa
s in the Legion. It is their way. The man they are is all that matters, not who they were.’

  Kearney’s lips twitched as if he were about to smile. ‘That sounds like Thomas; he kept his thoughts to himself.’

  ‘You said you did not part on good terms,’ Jack pressed.

  ‘No.’ Kearney’s eyes closed. ‘No, we did not.’

  This time Jack said nothing. His arm ached from holding the letters out for so long, so he withdrew it and balanced them on his knee. He listened to the slow ticking of the long-case clock, allowing the sound to fill his mind. He would let Kearney take his time.

  ‘You served in the Legion?’ Kearney eventually broke the silence that had fallen over them.

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you were with him?’

  ‘I was with him at the end.’ Jack nearly choked on the words. He had told no one of the last moments of his friend’s life. ‘He gave me these.’ He offered the bundle of letters for a second time. ‘They were important to him. At the last.’

  This time, Kearney reached out and took them.

  The exchange was swift. There was a fleeting, clumsy touch of fingers and then the letters were delivered. Jack let out a sigh as they left his hand. He had waited a long time for this moment. Now it had passed so quickly that it took him a moment to realise that the task he had set himself was completed.

  He heard Kearney’s fingernail scratch at the black mark on the uppermost letter.

  ‘Ink?’

  ‘Blood.’

  ‘His?’

  ‘Mine.’ Jack gave the lie quickly.

  Kearney’s fingernail did not still. It picked at the largest of the bloodstains, the sound of its scratching filling the silence.

  ‘I took it badly when he left. I believe he took a part of me with him, a part of me that I shall never possess again. His brother, Robert, blamed me. Thomas was like a hero to him. Older brothers often are, aren’t they?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘You have no brothers?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Family?’

  ‘No.’ Jack looked deep into Kearney’s gaze. ‘I have nothing and no one.’ He heard the coldness in his own words. It had not always been so. He had once had a family, but his mother was dead and anyone he had once cared about was lost to him. So he would admit to none of them. He was among strangers. His past would stay hidden.

  ‘I would know what happened.’

  Jack was wrestling with his emotions. The task of delivering the letters had sustained him, given him a purpose when he had none. Now they were in Kearney’s hands and he no longer had a reason to be there, or anywhere. The realisation made him cruel. ‘He died.’

  Kearney winced. ‘How?’

  ‘You want me to tell you it was quick?’ Jack could not hold back the bitterness. ‘You want me to tell you he died easy?’ His emotions churned inside him, mixing with his memories to create a volatile cocktail. He felt the stirrings of anger. He had done what he had set out to do, had brought the letters from the battlefield. He had not brought kindness.

  ‘I would know how it happened.’ Kearney’s even tone was unchanged.

  ‘You don’t want to know.’

  ‘I would know,’ Kearney repeated, patient and calm.

  ‘No.’ Jack’s tone was glacial. ‘You want to know enough to ease your guilt. I came to deliver your son’s letters. Nothing more.’ He did not care that he was being callous.

  ‘He was my son,’ the words came back at Jack with more force, ‘and he is dead.’ Kearney reached out and took Jack’s wrist. His touch was cold, but it was like iron. ‘I would know how it happened.’

  For a moment, Jack was tempted to unleash his demons. It would be easy to release the blackness hidden in his soul, to let the foul horrors have their head. But to do that was to unshackle them and set them free. If he let that happen, he did not know if he could ever force them back into their cage, and into the darkest recesses of his mind that he knew not to visit.

  The long-case clock marked the passing of time as he controlled his thoughts. He did not know how long it took, but he felt Kearney’s gaze on him the whole time.

  ‘We were fighting the Austrians.’ Jack was surprised at the calmness in his voice when he eventually started to speak. ‘At a place called Solferino, to the south of Lake Garda.’ He did not look at Kearney, but instead lifted his gaze and focused on the vase and its bright flowers. ‘We had fought a few days before, at a place they told us afterwards was called Magenta. That was a nasty one. We had to fight in the streets, clear them out of the buildings.’ For the first time his voice wavered; he paused and cleared his throat before continuing.

  ‘After that, we marched east. No one expected another battle so soon. The Austrians were retreating faster than we could advance. But then they turned.’ He paused again, taking time to slow his words. He had to release the memories more gently. If they came out in a rush, he would fail to constrain them.

  ‘The Austrians held the high ground around Solferino and there were more of them out on the great plain to the south. That was where we started the day. On the plain.’ He remembered the morning of the battle clearly. ‘We were there until noon, doing nothing but waiting. Then we were ordered to attack the high ground.’

  Once again he felt the fear of that moment. He swallowed it down with difficulty before he continued. ‘It was hard fighting, but we captured our objective. Your son was in the front ranks the whole time. He knew what he was about and he fought like a devil. We all did. Those Austrians, they were just conscripts, yet no one had told them they should not fight hard.’

  ‘When we were done, we were ordered back to the plain. The Austrians didn’t know they were beaten, and they kept on attacking that flank. We pushed them back, but there were too many of them.’ He looked away from the flowers. ‘We broke. There weren’t many of us left, and we ran. That was when it happened.’

  Kearney opened his mouth to say something, but he was interrupted by the sound of the door opening.

  ‘Father! So this is where you have been hiding.’

  Jack’s breath stopped in his chest. His mouth opened of its own accord and he simply stared. The talk of death had chilled the room and cast it into shadow, but now it was filled with the light of the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

  ‘Permit me, sir, to introduce you to my daughter. Elizabeth, this is . . .’ Kearney had risen as his daughter entered the room. His introduction came to a premature end and he turned to Jack, his arm held out awkwardly in front of him. ‘I am sorry, I don’t think you gave me your name.’

  Jack lumbered to his feet. He felt like a clumsy beast asked to hold the most delicate china doll. ‘My name is Jack Lark.’ He spoke gruffly.

  Elizabeth Kearney looked back at him with the bluest of blue eyes. Her heart-shaped face was perfectly symmetrical, with a small, slightly pointed nose, and a wide, generous mouth that curled into a smile as she saw him rise. She wore her blonde hair in ringlets that bounced as she took a pace forward and offered him a slim, pale hand.

  ‘I am pleased to meet you, Mr Lark.’ She greeted the odd stranger she found in her parlour with politeness. ‘It is typical of my father not to tell me that he was expecting a visitor.’

  ‘He wasn’t expecting me.’ Jack’s tongue seemed to be twice its normal size. He felt grubby and tawdry in front of such a perfect creature. His clothes were rumpled and smelled of damp, and the blood from the wound to the back of his head had trickled down one side of his neck to stain his jacket collar. Elizabeth Kearney, in contrast, was immaculate, perfect even. She was wearing a full-skirted dress of the palest blue that was gathered neatly around her waist and pulled tight across her chest. She was one of God’s own angels, whilst he was a bloodstained and stinking beggar.

  She could not h
ave failed to take in his dishevelled appearance, yet she made no remark of it. ‘Well, sir, I am sorry to have disturbed you.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry.’ Jack was feeling dizzy. Elizabeth was beautiful enough to steal the breath of a saint. But it was not just her good looks that so captured his attention. Her accent captivated him too. It changed the way her words echoed in his head.

  ‘Mr Lark knew Thomas.’ Kearney cracked the veneer of politeness. ‘He came to bring me these.’ He held up the bundle of letters, then handed them to Elizabeth.

  ‘Thomas wrote these?’

  Jack watched her closely, following her eyes as they studied his face. He noticed the short pause as they lingered on his scar, the slight narrowing as she spotted the blood matting his hair.

  ‘Did he give them to you?’ She asked the second question a little more sharply, even as the first remained unanswered.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘At the last.’

  ‘I see.’ She looked at the letters, holding them in front of her as if they frightened her.

  ‘He died easy, Lizzie.’ Kearney glanced at Jack. ‘Mr Lark here told me so himself just before you came in. Is that not so, Mr Lark?’ It was not a question. It was a demand.

  ‘I’m sure he did. Isn’t that what people always say?’ Elizabeth gave Jack no time to answer. There was a snap in her reply, a waspishness that sat at odds with the perfection of her face.

  Jack spotted something flare in her eyes. He did not know what it was. Annoyance? Anger, even. Perhaps she too heard the lie in her father’s words. Whatever it was, it was hidden quickly.

  ‘Mr Lark, would you tell my daughter what you told me?’ Kearney tried to force the issue.

  ‘He . . .’ Jack’s voice tailed off before the first words were fully formed. It was as if his own tongue recoiled as it tasted the bitterness of his thoughts. He looked at Kearney and then at his daughter. Both were staring at him with intensity.

  He cast his eyes downwards. He would not be the one to bring the filth and misery of the battlefield into their minds. It was not because they were kind, or because Elizabeth was beautiful. It was because they could never begin to understand what it was like. Only soldiers knew the true nature of such horrors. It was why so few spoke of their memories. Civilians, the men and women lucky enough not to have their souls sullied by the foul touch of war, could not hope to comprehend those moments that would haunt a man for a lifetime.