The Street Philosopher

by Matthew Plampin

  His hand had gone to his gun. Had he been hoping that this would be enough, that this alone might check her, and make her fall silent? Or had he been intending to draw it, to use it, even then? He could not say; but she watched him closely, and did not pause even for a second. In fact, if anything, her revelations became frantic, her accent growing thicker, the words emerging so quickly that they were packed tightly together into blocks dictated only by her gasping breaths. She was not so incomprehensible, though, that he could not tell that she was saying things that had no place on the lips of a woman. It was filthy talk of fucks, quims and pricks; disgusting disclosures about the extent of their depravity, their heedless disregard of the risk of discovery; foul boasts of how many times they had fornicated in his bed, in amongst his sheets, or on top of his trunks, sprawled out lustfully over his uniforms.

  The first two shots were fired simply to put an end to her and her devilish utterances. She had been thrown down immediately. He remembered the sight of the singed holes punched in her petticoats, and the welling blackness beneath. She was not dead then, though. Her hands, flung out as she had landed, started to find their way slowly towards her wounds, scrabbling through the drawings which lay beneath her. Her eyes were open very wide, her mouth gaping. The expression on her face, he recalled clearly, was not one of shock, or agony, or terror, but of a strange relief.

  Boyce had realised that she was trying to speak. But he’d heard enough. His face impassive, he levelled the pistol a second time and fired the remaining four bullets in quick succession. Gun smoke filled the small, airless room, making him cough. Slowly, Boyce reloaded the revolver, putting the spent percussion caps back into his ammunition pouch. He went over to the window, extinguished the candle that stood on the sill and peered outside. The yard was empty, as was the road beyond it. Turning back, he bent down to place Madeleine’s outstretched arms in her lap, and then covered her with a blanket taken from the pile on her chair, thinking to create an impression of propriety, of official awareness, should anyone come across the body before he returned. He left the house soon after.

  It was justified. Boyce knew that it was justified. What man of honour could have done otherwise before such provocation? He resolved not to dwell upon it. He had other matters to look to now–other enemies to repay. What was it she had said? ‘He will be there, you hopeless fool–he will be there, watching you with a righteous eye! And when men die because of your stupidity, he will ensure once again that the whole of England knows of it!’

  Boyce entered the advance works around the Quarries. The trenches and pits were filled with the soldiers of the Light Division’s assaulting brigade. Fairlie and Pierce were up ahead, conferring with some captains and subalterns from the 99th. It was starting to grow light. Boyce was confident that his prey was nearby, and would soon make himself apparent. He selected a suitable vantage point and settled down to wait.

  8

  Private Cregg sat in the advance works just beyond the Quarries with the larger part of the assaulting brigade–men from six regiments, all awaiting the order to move. Over the top, after two hundred yards of almost entirely open ground, lay the Great Redan, its guns firing across diagonally at the French forts.

  The day was not seven hours old, yet for Cregg it had already delivered a couple of most unwelcome orders. First of all, he had found that the 99th’s battalion had been assigned to the attacking rather than to the reserve brigade. Then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, Lieutenant Nunn, the same booby who’d swiped his drawings, had taken him out of his company, and directed him up to the very front of the attack–to the line they called the Forlorn Hope. Hardly a name to lift a cove’s spirits, he’d grumbled as he climbed to his feet.

  The cause for this miserable twist of fortune, Cregg knew, had to be the drawings. For a short while it had been perfect. Dozens upon dozens had seen them, and spread the word to all their pals. Then Nunn had stuck his nose in and it had been a quick slide down from there. Boyce had been told right away, you could bet on that. This posting to the Forlorn Hope reeked of him. Dan Cregg was a dead man. The drawings would be burnt, and the joke forgotten. As ever, the Colonel had won, and the private soldier had lost–lost the lot.

  And to top it all, his hand was giving him serious trouble. The two remaining fingers had grown yet more stiff and inflexible, rewarding his tentative efforts to move them with sharp shocks of pain. He had no idea how he was supposed to fight in this condition. Even holding a rifle was proving a stern challenge. The ache was spreading, as it often did, from his arm, up the muscles of his shoulders and neck, to the base of his head. His dejection became laced with impatience. Oh come on, he thought, it’s all but light, let’s just get it bleedin’ over with. The idea of an end, right then, was not entirely without appeal.

  ‘Sharpshooter!’ someone shouted.

  Bullets struck the rim of the trench, about fifteen yards from where Cregg sat; then, in a cloud of sandy dust, a man tumbled down amongst the redcoats sheltering there. It was one of theirs, making a dash overland to the advance parallel to avoid a lengthy trudge through the trenches. Was it a messenger, bearing news of a reprieve? A change of plan?

  No such luck. The dust settled to reveal a wiry, clean-shaven civvie, dressed in a colourless coat that was flecked with dried blood. Cregg squinted–there was something faintly familiar about him. The soldiers of the 33rd, amongst whom he’d landed, were helping him up, brushing his coat and handing him his hat. Glad for any manner of distraction, Cregg picked up his minié and crawled along towards him, over the boots of his comrades.

  ‘Oi, cock!’ he yelled over the roar of the Russian guns. ‘Oi, look ’ere, pal!’

  The man was spluttering, spitting out dirt and feeling his ribs as if checking a wound. He looked up at Cregg, his face pale with pain.

  ‘Now, I know that I knows you,’ Cregg carried on, pointing at him with his good hand, ‘but I can’t say where from. You any wiser?’

  The man coughed; there were spots of blood on his lips and teeth. ‘I believe I bound your hand once,’ he managed to shout, ‘down at the British Hotel.’

  Cregg snapped his fingers. ‘That’s it–the British ’Otel! Back before that nigger bitch ’ad me threw out.’ The soldier considered this new arrival with sceptical wonder. ‘What you doin’ ’ere, cock? Takin’ a leaf out of Mother bleedin’ Seacole’s book, are we, and a-comin’ up to work among the fightin’ men as they fall?’

  He didn’t respond to this. ‘My name is Thomas Kitson,’ he stated, as loudly as he could. ‘I’m looking for someone–Richard Cracknell, the newspaperman.’

  Cregg grinned. ‘Oh yes, I know that gent. We are good pals, me and Mister Cracknell.’ He gave this Mr Kitson a mysterious wink.

  The fellow paused uncomprehendingly for a second. ‘There is another man,’ he went on, ‘another civilian. An illustrator. Younger. Have you either of them? Please, it is of the greatest importance.’

  Cregg thought of the drawings, and how he had found them. Those damn things had caused him quite enough trouble already. He was saying nothing. So he shook his head. ‘If they’re anywhere, I’d say that-away, back at the Quarries. You’ve come too far forward, pal.’

  Without another word, Mr Kitson started back along the trench, keeping low.

  ‘Remember me to Mister Cracknell, if you find ’im!’ Cregg bawled at his back. ‘Dan Cregg of the 99th!’

  ‘They’ve done it!’ cried Cracknell, squinting through his field glass. ‘God save ’em all, they’ve done it! The Mamelon is safe! Vive la France!’

  The redcoats crowding the trench around him gave a muted cheer. Cracknell lifted the glass again, poking it carefully through a crenulation of pickets towards the smooth hill occupied by the fort of the Mamelon. This ugly structure, built around a hill from a loose collection of sandbags and low stone parapets, was sparking with cannon-fire. It was surrounded by a thick covering of the slain and the wounded, the majority of them Russian. Loose, panicked columns of
enemy soldiers were streaming away from the position towards their own line. A large French force was commencing a counter-attack, companies of scarlet-trousered Zoaves charging around the sides of the hill, heading towards the unclaimed territory that separated them from the Russian defences.

  Cracknell excitedly swivelled his glass in the direction of this no-man’s land. Looming up over it, through a thin film of early morning mist, was the French target–the Malakhoff Tower. The tower itself was circular and about five or six storeys high. It had been ruined some time ago, one of its sides having almost completely collapsed, but it had served as the focus for one of the largest concentrations of earthworks and artillery on the Russian line. As the correspondent watched, its guns began to fire on the advancing Zoaves.

  ‘By my soul,’ he muttered, ‘I should really be writing this down.’ He opened his pocketbook and licked the tip of his pencil.

  The Tomahawk had been hard at work for almost a minute when someone stood before him, blocking his light. He knew at once who it was. ‘Why, Thomas Kitson,’ he exclaimed sarcastically, without looking up. ‘It’s been months. How the hell are you?’

  ‘Where is Styles, Cracknell?’

  He sighed; such a predictable question. Closing his book contemptuously, he gave Kitson his full attention. His former junior had a new, almost clerical formality about him, due largely to his beard having gone; only a pair of modest sideburns had been retained. The fellow was also leaning slightly, like a building with a couple of rows of bricks knocked out of one side. One of those long arms was against his midriff–the location, Cracknell guessed, of his injury.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be back at the British Hotel, Kitson?’ he sneered. ‘Swabbing wounds and washing the feet of the crippled soldiers?’

  Kitson grasped hold of his shoulder. ‘Tell me where he is.’

  ‘What the devil is it to you?’ He pushed Kitson away. ‘You forfeited your contract months ago, my friend! The affairs of the Courier are no longer your concern!’

  The guns of the Malakhoff were growing louder, and the bursts of explosive noise began to have a bruising, ringing impact upon the ears. Occasional, distant shouts of ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ drifted out from the battle, along with the wails of the wounded. Kitson shoved past him, heading on towards the right side of the Quarries, powered by an evidently overwhelming determination to hunt Styles down. Cracknell realised that, like him, Kitson must have only very recently learned that their illustrator was still on the peninsula. He knew that Kitson had an abiding sense of responsibility for the boy, stemming from a rather self-important notion that he had somehow inspired Styles to put himself forward for service in the Crimea.

  At any rate, Cracknell had no solid information as to the illustrator’s whereabouts, even had he been inclined to share it. Styles had failed to appear at their designated meeting place. Given his continued enthusiasm for the blackest parts of war, Cracknell’s supposition was that he’d gone further forward than had been agreed. The Tomahawk of the Courier, for all his famous bravery, had decided down in the trenches that he would hang back a little for this one. Above, the brightening sky was as clear as glass. It was going to be a fine day. Climbing out before a large Russian fort in such conditions was little short of suicide. A massacre was surely on the cards; but, as he watched Kitson walk away through the siege-works, the senior correspondent knew that he could hardly now permit himself to remain to the rear of both his feckless juniors. Pocketbook still in his hand, he gave chase.

  A few yards apart, the two former comrades turned a corner and crossed through a large rifle pit, which had been reduced to little more than a deep crater by recent artillery bombardment. It was crammed with soldiers from the assaulting brigade, preparing themselves for action. They had a bleak alertness about them that was very different from the stoic demeanour of the Guardsmen Cracknell had passed in the reserves. As he tucked away his notebook and fumbled with a cigarette, however, the correspondent realised that a number of those crouched down in the shadows were also regarding him rather strangely.

  The Tomahawk of the Courier was well used to bearing the scrutiny of both officers and the common soldiery. He was, after all, a face of the campaign, a readily recognisable character. The looks he was receiving that morning, however, were different somehow. Usually he inspired either admiration or scorn, and although both of these sentiments were present, they were tempered with something else, something unaccountable; something that was fiendishly close to mockery. Cracknell could not imagine what he might have done to deserve this change. Was it his lengthy absence from the front, perhaps?

  Halfway across the pit, the facings on these soldiers’ jackets went from white and green to yellow, and their disposition towards him grew noticeably more hostile. Cracknell looked at the numeral on their caps. It was as he suspected; they had moved in amongst the battalion of the 99th. Whilst the majority of the rank-and-file were illiterate, they had no doubt been filled with lies about the Tomahawk and his work by officers loyal to their Colonel, his frequent target. The soldiers began to hiss and mutter, and stick out their boots to trip him. Someone spat, and a milky gobbet of phlegm landed on the shoulder of his blue coat. Kitson had vanished.

  Major Pierce came into view. Spotting Cracknell, his swine-like features lit with malicious pleasure. ‘Well look here!’ he cried. ‘This, men, this here is the bugger who called us, the brave comrades of Her Majesty’s Army, the fruit of a rotten tree! He called us rotten, my lads, rotten–in the bloody papers as well!’

  Intrepidly, Cracknell stood his ground, doing his best to correct the Major’s scurrilous distortion of his words–to point out to the idiot soldiers that he was on their bloody side, and that their officers were about to order them to their deaths for no useful purpose. But it was no use. They started kicking and punching, spitting on him again, pulling at his clothes, tearing away both his field glass and his pocketbook–all the while shouting ‘rotten yerself!’ As he was beaten down, Cracknell found himself almost laughing at the absurdity of it. After all that had happened, could it really be his fate to be killed by a mob of British soldiers? Then, with eerie suddenness, they all backed away, falling quiet as they did so. Cracknell lowered his arms and peered upwards. Before him was none other than Colonel Boyce, his moustache erect and furious. The correspondent wiped some blood from his lip and opened his mouth to speak. Boyce grabbed hold of him, heaving him to his feet and throwing him back against the wickerwork gabions of the trench wall with a brutality that took him quite by surprise.

  ‘What are you doing out here, villain?’ Boyce growled. ‘I thought you had learned your lesson about such interference!’

  ‘That was but a brief sabbatical,’ Cracknell replied quickly, trying to appear conspicuously unbowed by his opponent’s savagery. ‘Wouldn’t miss this one for the world. Frontal attack on an enormous fort, without the benefit of a bombardment? Lord Raglan certainly is confident, I’ll say that much for him.’

  ‘That son of a lord, you mean? The fruit of your rotten tree?’ The Colonel reddened with rage. ‘By God, you will pay for your calumnies!’

  ‘Where is the Pilate then, Boyce?’ the Tomahawk retorted. ‘Did Norton get it home safely? What did you have to offer him in the end?’

  The leather of Boyce’s gloves squeaked as he screwed up the correspondent’s lapels and forced him back into the gabions; they began to crack open with the pressure, releasing a stream of gritty soil on to Cracknell’s face.

  Boyce was close against him now. ‘I have killed her,’ he whispered coldly.

  Cracknell squirmed, rubbing the dirt from his eyes. ‘What?’

  ‘I have killed her,’ Boyce repeated, ‘and I swear to God that before this morning is out I will kill you as well.’

  Then the Colonel released him, stepping away and rejoining his men, watching for his reaction. Cracknell pulled himself back upright, shaking the earth from his coat, staring back at Boyce in complete mystification. Slowly, he realised wh
at he had been told: Madeleine had been murdered by her husband. That such a thing could happen had never so much as entered his mind. It seemed impossible. With disturbing vividness, he remembered how she had struggled in his arms not an hour before; he could almost feel the warmth and strength of her slender young limbs, fighting with a vigour that had made him smile a little even as she’d cursed him.

  Cracknell could think of nothing whatsoever to say. Then, all at once, he knew that he had to get as far from Boyce as he possibly could. He shouldered his way roughly through the redcoats towards the opposite side of the pit.

  ‘Let the fool go,’ the Colonel ordered disdainfully, somewhere behind him. ‘He is nothing to us.’

  9

  Two signal rockets raced upwards side by side, the white plumes climbing fast through the soft peach of the morning sky. The eleven colonels, in their different parts of the line, watched them disbelievingly. This was without doubt the signal for the attack, but the black and green triangle of the Russian flag could clearly be seen flying above the Malakhoff Tower. Its guns still fired on the French, and large numbers of infantry still clashed around it, rushing back and forth between the Russian earthworks, scrambling to form firing lines and battling bloodily in the trenches. The basic condition for their assault had not been met–yet there, hanging above them like a pair of great comets, was the plain instruction to proceed nonetheless.

  Every one of the colonels knew, however, that it was not their place to question the decisions of the High Command. They swallowed hard, finishing off their interrupted prayers and drawing pistols and swords. Some took out their service whistles, and sounded shrill notes over the bellowing of the guns. Others simply started up the shout.

  The men of the line stood, wiping their sweaty faces, waiting for that final torturous second, knowing for certain that their time had arrived, that the dreaded order had been given; and then, urged on by their sergeants, they pitched forward. The crumbling, sun-baked trenches quickly robbed the attack of its order, and the soldiers of the Forlorn Hope emerged in twos and threes, scrabbling out of the disintegrating works, floundering desperately as they tried to rise to their feet and ready their miniés. In place of ordered ranks of redcoats, thousands strong, marching unstoppably onwards, were a few hundred confused and dusty men, wandering about in the last pools of low mist, looking for fellows and officers still stuck in the earth behind them.