The Street Philosopher

by Matthew Plampin

  It was an indication of his wrath that, as he faced the Courier man that night, he forgot his moustache completely. The Lieutenant-Colonel was not stupid; he knew that something had begun back in Constantinople. The blasted Irishman had been drawn to his wife like a fat, hairy fly to a piece of perfumed meat. Throughout their stay in that cramped, broken-down, filth-caked city Boyce had been dogged by the feeling that every time he entered Madeleine’s private rooms, someone else, someone male, had just left them. In the fields of Varna this feeling had grown stronger; whenever he returned to his tent, there had been the rustling of canvas covering close escapes, guys swinging in the wake of recent passage, and strange, conflicted expressions on the faces of his men. And now, after a few days without this feeling, it had suddenly returned in force when he had greeted his wife that afternoon.

  She’d been all innocence and light, of course, claiming that her state of undress was in expectation of his arrival. This had been said so earnestly that Boyce had almost checked his laughter; he honestly couldn’t recall the last time they had been intimate with one another. Probably late one night, back in Chelsea, when he’d come home from the barracks full of brandy, shown the little minx the back of his hand, and then exercised his conjugal rights without delay. Hardly roses and poetry, he had to confess; but he was her husband, damn it, and a man of action.

  As he searched the tent, throwing furniture this way and that, he heard a scuffling commotion outside. The Lieutenant-Colonel emerged to be told that several of his subalterns had run off in pursuit of an intruder. When they finally returned, they were lined up and ordered to explain themselves. Lieutenant Francis Nunn, the oldest and best-born among them, declared that they had chased what they believed to be a Russian spy out of the camp. Gently stroking his moustache, Boyce looked Nunn in the eye. The boy could only meet his gaze for a second or two, before staring out over his shoulder. It was quite plain that he was lying, both to protect Mrs Boyce and to save his commander from embarrassment, but he wouldn’t change or enlarge on his story. Boyce didn’t need to hear it, though. He knew that it had been Cracknell.

  And now the foul knave stood before him, the horrible, stout little paddy. It made his dishonour all the more acute to think that this wretched specimen was setting the cuckold’s horns upon his head. Boyce was convinced that Madeleine had responded to the fiend’s advances in order to cause him the greatest possible humiliation. He felt as if his anger would split him open.

  ‘What the devil is this rogue doing here?’ he roared. ‘Get rid of him, damn it!’

  Gathered around the lamp was Arthurs, the 99th’s quartermaster, and Nicholson, its surgeon, both of whom were somewhat the worse for drink; Boyce’s adjutant, Lieutenant Freeman, who was beginning to look decidedly unwell; and several field officers, including Captain Wray and the Majors Fairlie and Maynard. Of this group, it was Wray who ordered two private soldiers from the shadows and gestured for them to seize hold of the newspaperman.

  ‘Good evening, gentlemen,’ said Cracknell in his snide, insinuating manner, sidestepping the privates with practised expertise. ‘My colleagues and I are merely passing by, doing our duty to the British people and investigating the alarm. We happened to find ourselves close to your camp, and wondered if you could perhaps enlighten us. Are the Russians attacking? Is battle to be joined this night?’

  Another civilian scurried up behind him. Boyce dimly recognised this new arrival from Varna–he was the Courier’s other correspondent. Although a thin, shabby figure of a man, he still had significantly less of the clown about him than the Irishman.

  ‘You there,’ the Lieutenant-Colonel called imperiously, ignoring Cracknell altogether. ‘Be so kind as to keep your blasted mick under control. We allow them in the army on the condition that they don’t ever speak. I suggest your paper adopts the same policy.’ His officers–all except Maynard, Boyce noticed–guffawed at this cutting remark.

  ‘Do excuse our senior correspondent, sir,’ the journalist replied with a reasonable approximation of humility. ‘He is merely excited beyond measure by this great and noble enterprise–and is especially eager for sight of the enemy. As are we all.’

  The Irishman barely tried to suppress a disrespectful snigger. His junior glanced in his direction; the collusion between them was plain. Boyce realised that this must be the same correspondent Wray had blamed for ruining the mission he had been given that afternoon; and indeed, the Captain was staring daggers at him right then. The fellow was not the gentlemanly face of the London Courier, as might have been hoped. There was obviously no such bloody thing.

  Boyce felt the last of his patience evaporate. ‘You are aware that the Russians read everything you publish, aren’t you?’ he bellowed. ‘That all the sensitive information you so thoughtlessly reveal about this army goes straight to Moscow, and is then wired on to the generals at Sebastopol? That having you two blackguards here compromises us all? Why, if it were my decision, your kind would be sent back to England on the first—’

  He was interrupted by the all-clear, the sharp notes cutting through the chatter of the camp. When the torrent of shouted orders began a moment later, there was a palpable relief to them. Quartermaster Arthurs let out a gasping huzzah, so glad was the old sot that they had been spared a night-time attack.

  ‘No Ruskis tonight, then,’ Cracknell announced, rubbing his hands together. ‘D’you know, I think we’ll go and have a jaw with your brigade commander. Sir William is bound to know what’s what. You have quite enough on your plate, what with restoring order to your errant regiment.’ The vile Irishman paused archly. ‘And your lovely young wife having just arrived with us from Varna.’

  Do not rise to it, Boyce instructed himself strictly, do not rise to this bald provocation, he is trying to make you seem a weak fool in front of your men–do not rise to it. Almost of their own accord, his fingers found the hilt of his sword and wrapped around it as tightly as they could.

  ‘Enough of this idiocy.’ He turned away. ‘See them off, this instant.’

  In the corner of his vision, Boyce noticed the departing correspondents meet with another civilian, a tall man in a black jacket, plainly part of their hateful little band, who had been lurking on the margins. Dear Lord, he thought bitterly, how many of them are there? Cracknell repeated his impudent intention to call on Sir William Codrington, waved a mocking, theatrical salute–and then was gone.

  The men of the 99th looked to their commander. ‘Any man of this regiment,’ he said slowly, ‘seen consorting with that rapscallion in any way will face the lash. Regardless of rank. Is that clear?’

  Amidst the general affirmation, Major Maynard had a query. ‘But surely, Lieutenant-Colonel, it is our responsibility to ensure that the press—’

  But Boyce was in no mood for the plebeian Maynard and his caveats. Speaking over the Major in a loud, weary voice, he instructed the field officers to return to their NCOs. Then he retired to his tent.

  No candle or lamp burned inside. In the dim blue half-light Boyce could just make out the central pole and the small table set at its base, but nothing else. He stood near the flap, calming himself, checking his moustache. She was awake. He could hear her breathing, and the faint rustle of her clothes; he could sense her alertness, her watchfulness. She had been crouched at the tent’s entrance, he guessed, listening to the exchange outside, and had then thrown herself into a shadowy corner when she realised that he was approaching.

  Boyce cursed his decision to bring her out to the Crimea. It had been pride, plain and simple. She had been going back to London, her passage booked and paid for. Then, aboard the steamer that had borne him across the Black Sea, he’d fallen into conversation with some old acquaintances of his from the Artillery Division. They’d opined that no married officer of good breeding would even think of leaving his spouse behind at this stage in the campaign. To do so, they had declared contemptuously, was to bow to silly modernising talk–behaviour quite beneath a gentleman. Someone, Boyce
couldn’t even recall who, had asked after the enchanting Madeleine, wondering whether she was following them to the Crimea. Indignantly, he’d replied that of course she was, in a few days’ time when it was safe; and then sent word of this change of plan back to Varna as soon as he was able.

  He should have known that the degenerate Irishman would be on her the instant she landed. But he could hardly send her away again now. Such a prompt reversal would be the talk of the camp, and an admission of defeat by a truly unworthy foe. No, she must stay. The campaign would surely be a short one, at least–it could only be weeks before the Russians ceded the peninsula. He would simply have to be vigilant. That such vigilance was at all necessary, however, infuriated him beyond measure.

  ‘You bring me such disgrace, girl, such dishonour, that I would be forgiven almost anything I did to you,’ Boyce said quietly, into the darkness. ‘Were I to blacken your eye, who could possibly think ill of me? Or perhaps if I loosened a tooth?’ He swallowed. ‘I could break your damned jaw, you wretched slattern, and no one would—’

  Boyce thought he heard her whisper his name imploringly; but then, a fraction of a second later, Lieutenant Freeman called for him with uncharacteristic vigour. He swept back outside, ducking under the canvas. Close to the lamp was a horseman in a shell jacket and gold-laced forage cap. It was Captain Markham from the divisional staff.

  ‘Sir George’s compliments, Lieutenant-Colonel,’ said Markham briskly. ‘Lord Raglan has sent down his commands.’

  Boyce nodded, straightening the front of his coatee.

  ‘All regiments are to strike tents at daybreak and assume full marching order.’ The Captain’s horse paced beneath him. ‘We are moving on Sebastopol.’

  5

  ‘The epithet “unforgettable” is employed all too readily in our excitable times, but the sight of our Allied Army–British to the left, French to the right, Turks to the rear–as it advances across the landscape of the Crimea warrants its use without reservation or fear of hyperbole.’

  Kitson tried to clear his throat. It was uncomfortably tight with thirst, and his tongue felt like it had been tacked to the roof of his mouth with viscous glue. Putting this from his mind as best he could, he jotted ‘too much?’ in the margin of the page before him and continued reading.

  ‘A short distance back from the great cliffs and ravines that distinguish its coastline, this peninsula bears a marked resemblance to the Downs of our own homeland. Grass as smooth and green as that of any racecourse covers softly undulating plains, whose surface is broken only by clusters of pale rocks. The columns–fully four miles long, from tip to tail–flow easily across this terrain, the immense stripes of red and blue glittering with steel as they march gallantly onwards to meet their foe with colours flying. Our Light Brigade has been assigned flanking and reconnaissance duties, and the Earl of Cardigan’s men dash back and forth across the fields with a brave, impetuous energy. Spirits among the soldiery are high, as well they should be; sight of any senior officer, British or French, brings forth as mighty a cheer as—’

  Someone was shouting his name. Kitson laid his pencil flat against the pocketbook, sat up and looked over the side of the supply cart in which Styles and he had lodged themselves. Directly beside this vehicle tramped the left-most column of British infantry, an amalgamation of the Light, Fourth and First Divisions. This vast formation, so solid and resolute that morning when Kitson had started his account, was growing slack as ever-larger numbers of men slowed and even stopped, overwhelmed by fatigue, disease and the fierce afternoon sun. Across a bloated river of shakos and field packs, he saw Major Maynard, who stood waving atop a gentle rise on its opposite bank.

  The Major, accompanied by a corporal, had been helping a pair of his private soldiers leave the line. Both were evidently succumbing fast to cholera. A strange silence had descended upon the army, allowing Kitson to hear Maynard instruct the two invalids to rejoin the regiment at camp that night, once they had recovered themselves sufficiently to walk. The officer then set off down the rise and straight into the column, pushing his way through to Kitson’s supply cart. He was a thickset man of about forty with a greying beard and a routinely frank expression. Drawing level to the cart, he placed a gloved hand on to its side.

  ‘Mr Kitson, d’you seek your senior?’

  Kitson grinned at the clear suggestion in Maynard’s voice that this might well not be the case. After the clash with Boyce, and a subsequent (rather desultory) attempt to speak with some of the more senior officers, Cracknell had vanished. He had not shown himself at the Courier tent–even as dawn had arrived and his juniors had set about dismantling it and then dragging it down to the beach to be loaded on to a transport vessel. ‘I suppose so.’

  Maynard chuckled. ‘Then the word is that he’s right at the front of the column, harassing the 11th Hussars. They say that Cardigan is ready to run him down.’

  ‘Why am I not surprised, Major?’

  ‘That was quite some performance he gave last night. He’s developing a real talent for aggravating my commander, isn’t he?’ The Major stopped smiling. ‘That’s maybe something you might wish to discuss with him, Mr Kitson–being the more rational of the Courier’s correspondents.’

  ‘Faint praise if ever I heard it. And I’m afraid that he would heed me less than anyone, Major. All we can do is to endeavour to keep them well apart, and hope this campaign is over as quickly as is being predicted.’ Kitson turned over a page in his pocketbook and readied his pencil. ‘With that in mind, may I ask your opinion on the rumours that Russian forces have been sighted around the Heights at the mouth of the Alma valley–interposing themselves between us and Sebastopol?’

  Maynard eyed him wearily and opened his mouth to reply. A loud smashing sound nearby distracted him; some thirty yards back from the column, a group of lancers, splintered off from the Light Brigade, were kicking in the door of a squat peasant cottage, half-hidden in a thick bramble bush. They pulled at the shards with their white-gloved hands and piled inside. Kitson hoped that its inhabitants had abandoned it and fled to safety, well out of the army’s path. Some of the marching infantrymen looked over without much interest.

  ‘The noble 17th,’ the Major muttered disapprovingly. ‘Such robbery is a shameful part of army life, Mr Kitson, as I’m sure you’ve discovered by now. A part that I for one hope the scrutiny of the press might help to discourage.’

  Kitson remembered the statuette and Cracknell’s cursory response to the story of its destruction. ‘My hope also, Major, but there is scant interest in such matters, and a delicate balance must be struck between—’

  Maynard, glowering at the cottage and the horses tethered outside it, was not listening. ‘I shall stop them.’ He removed his hand from the cart’s side and straightened his cap decisively. ‘Whether they’ll heed an infantry officer–well, we shall see. Good day to you, Mr Kitson.’

  The column swallowed Major Maynard back up again and the supply cart trundled on, leaving the lancers and the cottage behind. Kitson glanced around. Styles was perched on a barrel at the other end of the cart, still sketching absorbedly. Loath to interrupt him, Kitson flicked back the page in his pocketbook and looked again at the paragraphs he had written that morning. Something about their triumphal tone was unsatisfactory. He tapped his pencil against his thumbnail; and then noticed Styles’ drawing folder, tucked between two crates not far from where he sat. It occurred to him that neither he nor Cracknell had actually inspected the illustrator’s work yet–a lamentable oversight indeed. He reached for the folder and unlaced it.

  Top of the pile was a loose, urgent recollection of the exchange that had occurred before Lieutenant-Colonel Boyce’s tent the night before. It depicted the moment Cracknell appeared before the officers of the 99th. Styles had captured perfectly the contrast between the senior correspondent’s careless pose and the startled rigidity of those he confronted. The drawing was animated yet unmannered; accurate yet unfussy; balanced yet dynamic. Kits
on drew in a deep breath. He’d been wondering why exactly O’Farrell had been so keen to hire this Mr Styles, given his evident inexperience–and here was the answer. Robert Styles was a man of true ability, of genius even, far beyond the hack illustrators who were usually employed by the Courier. Put an artist of this calibre in front of momentous events such as those unfolding in the Crimea, and something of significance was sure to result.

  The correspondent leafed through the pile, his smile broadening; there were studies of the minarets and towers of Constantinople, of groups of people huddled against the rail of the H.M.S. Arthur, of the landing zone drawn from the sea. All were similarly expert. Then he came to one that made him stop.

  It was a portrait of Madeleine Boyce. She was seated in a deck-chair, one hand raised to shield her eyes from strong sunlight. She appeared pensive, as if contemplating something away in the distance. The scene had been treated informally; it showed a young woman, fashionably dressed, relaxing on the deck of a ship. Yet the image was infused with a beauty that entirely transcended this mundane setting. It was plainly a work born of a lover’s ardour. The man who had drawn it, Kitson realised, would not give up on its subject as easily as Styles had seemed to do the evening before. There was more to come regarding the Courier’s illustrator and Mrs Boyce.

  Kitson closed the folder and got to his feet. Arms extended slightly to keep his balance in the rocking cart, he made his way to its rear. ‘Mr Styles,’ he called, ‘ready yourself. We must move to the front to find Cracknell. They say he is up there somewhere, badgering the cavalry.’

  He reached Styles’ side and saw the vista laid out before him. In the wake of the columns was scattered a multitude of spent and dying soldiers, shed from the advancing army like dusty red petals. This was what the illustrator had been drawing with such furious concentration: not magnificence, not glory, but suffering and ignominious death. The sheet in front of him contained studies of collapsed, cholera-ridden men, doubled up in agony or lying insensibly in pools of smoky shadow. Kitson stared hard at Styles for a moment. Ashamed by the vulnerability he had displayed the previous day, the illustrator was trying to cauterise the tender part of his soul by pressing it against that from which it had so naturally recoiled.