‘You actually got up there in Philadelphia, dressed as a girl, and performed?’
‘I did.’
‘It is hard to see you prancing around in tight hose.’
‘My legs were much admired,’ Markham replied, which made Rannoch laugh, his shoulder pressing against those of his officer. The absurdity of the remark, standing back to back in a filthy trench, struck him too, and soon he was heaving, trying desperately not to chuckle out loud. Yet even laughing he could see the dark layer of truth under those reminiscences, things that had brought him back to this; serving in the British army as the sole alternative to Newgate gaol.
‘It is getting light,’ said Rannoch, who was facing the hills to the north.
The sound of a trumpet floated across no man’s land as the sky turned from grey to blue. Able to see the rest of the trench system, they inched their way along to a revetted observation point. Taking turns to look through the slit in the logs, they examined the space between the lines, dotted with the pale white bodies of the naked casualties.
‘Fetch the lads, Rannoch,’ said Markham, ducking back down. ‘And send Yelland back to find out where those damned reinforcements are.’
They arrived at full daylight under the command of Colonel Serota himself, the Spaniard offering no apologies to the despised British for having left them in such a perilously exposed position for the whole night.
‘What have you done about removing the dead?’ Serota demanded, talking to him as though he were only fit for the bottom of the trench.
‘I haven’t done a thing,’ Markham spluttered, too shocked to be angry.
Serota, his yellow face going several shades paler, actually shouted at him, his black eyes flashing with a look that in another set of circumstances would have had Markham reaching for his sword. ‘It is the first duty of an officer to look after his dead,’ he said, looking out over the churned-up field that was no man’s land.
‘You stupid, pompous, Spanish arse,’ said Markham, a remark that was greeted by a gale of laughter from his men. Serota spun round to look as Markham repeated what he’d said, adding, ‘The first duty of an officer, sir, is to keep his men alive.’
‘Truce flag,’ said Rannoch, jumping back from the observation point to land between the two officers, effectively killing their dispute.
Able now to look across the area in front of them, with trails of mist being burnt away by the rising sun, they saw a French officer approaching the riverbank, accompanied by two soldiers. The crisp white flag caught the light as it was waved back and forth. Serota was out of the trench in a flash, followed by Markham, striding towards the approaching enemy. Salutes were exchanged, and the formalities completed quickly. The Spaniards had one hour in which to remove their dead, before hostilities would be recommenced. Given the number of bodies dotting the area, and the limited time available, Markham knew that he’d have to stay to help.
It was a gruesome task, moving bodies that had stiffened overnight. Quite a few had been mutilated by the scavengers, ears and fingers that had worn rings sliced off. Those who’d been wounded, the men they’d heard screaming for help, had expired when their throats were cut. Several French soldiers took the opportunity of the truce to get out of their own trenches and stretch their legs. Markham looked at them closely, observing the way that their dress was complete, unlike the soldiers he’d faced at Ollioules. Gone were the ragged coats and trousers, now replaced with proper uniforms. They had boots on their feet and standard weapons. That meant they were not only receiving more men, but proper supplies, which would make them a much more formidable instrument in any future battle.
‘Sir!’ said Halsey, his pasty face worried as he passed him, carrying one end of a rigid cadaver. ‘It might be of interest for you to get as close to the Frogs’ trench as we’ve just been.’
Nonchalantly, pulling his cloak tight to ward off the chill, he wandered over to the point at which the bodies were thickest, the dip just before the enemy position where most of the assaulting troops had come to grief in a withering hail of musket balls. Behind the trench he could see a pair of artillery positions, each with embankments to protect the guns. Standing just near the top of one of them was an officer, a general by the gaudy quality of his attire, surveying the pleasing prospect of a victory. But it was the sight of the man beneath him, still sitting on his horse, that stopped Markham’s breathing.
‘Fouquert!’
It was as though the act of whispering the man’s name was enough to turn him round. He spun on his mount and their eyes locked as he spotted the solitary figure in the long blue cloak. Spurring his horse he came forward, barely nodding to the commander of the French troops who saluted him, reining in on the opposite side of the ditch. His clothes, for all the severity of their cut and colour, were well made and new. But the most obvious fact about Fouquert was that his attire was that of a civilian, not an officer. Yet a French infantry captain had been punctilious in the way he’d saluted him.
‘Lieutenant,’ he said coldly, before pausing. His thin face had lost none of the cruel look that the Irishman remembered, and not even the chill of the morning air had given it colour. ‘Markham, is it not?’
‘What do I call you, Fouquert?’
‘Try Citizen Commissioner.’
‘I’d rather refer to you in a manner that suited you. “Cochon” comes to mind, though you’re so thin you have the appearance of one who’s been left to suck the hind tit.’
The reaction to being called a pig, and a skinny one, was in the eyes, not the face, which was held rigidly steady. When he replied, he surprised Markham by doing so in very good, if heavily accented, English.
‘In five minutes, I could have you calling me master, and begging for me to be merciful.’
‘You’d be dead first.’
‘Perhaps we can put that to the test, when Toulon falls.’
‘There’s an expression in English, about counting your chickens before they are hatched.’
‘I know it. Just as I know that the position here is hopeless. Toulon must fall, and if it does so in the right way, then I shall do my very best to make sure that in any surrender, you do not march out with your dignity intact.’
‘And just who are you?’
‘Something a great deal more important than a mere mercenary. When the city is once more French, the civil administration will be in my hands for as long as I need to deal with the traitors who still support the Bourbons.’
‘Then I’ll tell the inhabitants what’s in store for them, Fouquert, women and men. That way they’ll never give in. And if you’d like to meet me in the middle of the field once the truce is concluded, I’ll be happy to wait for you.’
Fouquert threw back his head and laughed. ‘No, no, Markham. But rest assured we will meet, and that you won’t have to wait too long.’
He hauled his horse round and trotted off, leaving Markham wondering why he’d used the word mercenary.
Chapter seventeen
The attacks started halfway through November, within days of the Spanish débâcle at Malbousquet, and lasted for two whole weeks. Pinpricks in the main, all along the perimeter, they were designed to test out the defences and to keep Mulgrave’s slim mobile reserve on the move. Being part of that, Markham and his men were in almost continuous motion, shifting from redoubt to trench, one day atop Mont Faron, the next force-marching to the boats, then shifted across the harbour to defend the batteries on the St Mandrian peninsula, at the very southern end of the defences, facing what appeared to be the enemy massing for an attack.
The advantage of operating on interior lines was nullified by the sheer weight of French pressure, something their general applied with great cunning. It was as if Dugommier always knew just where to attack, which bit of the line Mulgrave had denuded to shore up the defences elsewhere. Such a sequence of events produced much talk of spies, a suspicion that all the sailors of Republican sympathies had not left Toulon. Hood had them rounded up, lo
aded into their own ships, and shifted out under a flag of truce, bound for La Rochelle and Brest.
The effect of this move was welcoming and immediate. The next massed infantry assault from the enemy ran straight into a well-defended position, a specially built redoubt on the Hill of Caire called Fort Mulgrave, manned entirely by British marines, which protected the western arm of the Petite Rade. A sharp defeat was inflicted on the French, partly with the assistance of naval gunnery, which outflanked the enemy to both north and south of the fort. A counter-attack was launched against the French artillery positions on the 29th which, being mounted and executed with some care, saw several guns successfully spiked.
This cheered the inhabitants, who needed a boost. The sound of warfare had become constant, with cannon in play at every major installation in the semicircle of the line, the corresponding French guns adding to the air of increasing desperation. But the situation was not as grim as it sometimes appeared, since for all their efforts, the enemy had made no inroads into the defences.
After the defeat before Fort Mulgrave, with the weather becoming colder and the sky almost uniformly overcast, Dugommier seemed to realise the futility of carrying on with such tactics, and the pressure eased. The guns fell silent, and a calm, which seemed unnatural, settled over Toulon. That left Markham and his men with time to repair the ravages of endless movement, not least the cuts, sores and abrasions from fighting, plus the boils brought about from living on hard rations eaten in damp uniforms. Time to brush and clean their thick red coats, wash and mend shirts and undergarments, and to see to boots and weapons that had suffered from unavoidable neglect.
Markham was lucky in that regard. Not only did he have an alternative uniform to wear, but Celeste was available to take on the burden of repairing his army coat, and with her delicate fingers, much more likely to do a decent job than he could. It was wonderful to have a day’s rest, to bathe his aching, grimy limbs. And, after a proper dinner, to anticipate a rekindling of his relationship with Eveline. This was a desire she shared, which she made obvious by her attentions to him before the meal.
It was hard to credit that the Rossignol family didn’t know what they were up to. Judging by the frowns of disapproval which came from Madame Picard, which commenced before the soup was served, their liaison was no secret. But the other two members of the family treated him as they had previously, and if they noticed the myriad signs of their intimacy, the touches before they took their seats, the smiles full of secret understanding exchanged across the dinner table, they were ignored. Rossignol père was drinking more heavily than usual, which made him talk loudly, his conversation full of curses aimed at the Republicans, in between colourful descriptions of his past life. Openly prepared to admit that he been born in somewhat reduced circumstances, he was proud of his achievements. Some of his comments about the late Louis XVI made Madame Picard frown even more, and brought forth a burst of indignation from her husband.
‘No purpose is served by violence, Maître Rossignol.’
‘Agreed. But you must admit that it was only the prospect of revolt that brought movement from the boneheads of Versailles.’
‘You call our late sovereign a bonehead?’
‘Never, Monsieur Picard. But he was surrounded by them, fops to a man, more interested in the details of their toilette than the state of the nation.’ Seeing the unhappy look on his host’s face, he continued quickly, ‘The King himself was a good man who, better advised, would have made the concessions necessary to stave off revolution. In Paris, one could not fail to see how such advice as he was given operated against his interests.’
‘And the Queen?’ asked Madame Picard sourly.
‘Maladroit, Madame. To be accused so often of infidelity, even if she was innocent …’
‘If, Monsieur?’ Madame Picard cut in. ‘How can you say such a thing in this house …’
Rossignol interrupted her in turn, dragging Markham into the dispute. He, addressed suddenly, had to tear his eyes away from the man’s daughter, a requirement made harder by the way she was running her shoeless foot up his lower leg.
‘Free speech,’ Rossignol said, emphatically. ‘That is the greatest benefit you English have, is it not, Lieutenant?’
‘So it’s said,’ Markham replied, without enthusiasm.
‘That is what we lacked in France. What nation, so near to a new century, could prosper with laws that belonged to a medieval kingdom?’ Markham nodded automatically as Rossignol continued, his words aimed at Madame Picard. ‘Mind, it must be said that too much free speech can be a bad thing.’
Markham was aware that some drama had been played out before his eyes, but he could neither understand it, nor bring himself to care. Days of marching all over Little Gibraltar, cut off from female company, had sharpened his appetites to a point where little else intruded into his thoughts. After dinner, he had the excuse of weariness to cover an early retirement. Rossignol, announcing that he had much to do, was happy to depart the table. Monsieur Picard, still with a business to run, however curtailed, rose as well. But his wife, probably sensing what would happen if the females retired, did everything in her power to keep the Rossignol girls at the table.
Arriving in his room Markham found Celeste in the act of laying out his army coat. It had been brushed, stitched and pressed with a hot iron, and looked better than it had since the day he left England. She would have darted out of the door if he hadn’t filled it. As it was she stood still, arms by her side, eyes fixed firmly on the floor. He smiled at her, trying to breach the reserve the girl had shown since that first day at Ollioules, silently cursing the fate that put such a kind creature in the path of so dreadful a fate.
‘How is Jean-Baptiste?’ he asked gently.
‘As well as can be expected,’ she replied.
‘I can’t help noticing how the sight of you cheers him.’
Celeste raised her eyes, for the first time showing a hint of passion. ‘Perhaps that is because I want nothing from him.’
‘Is that why you succeed where the doctors fail?’
She fought hard to conceal her shock. ‘He does not require doctors, Monsieur. He requires to be left in peace.’
‘Come now,’ Markham replied, stepping forward. ‘Rossignol has shown great kindness to the boy. To take on a child who is not actually a relative.’
‘He has his purpose,’ she snapped.
‘Of course he has. He wishes to effect a cure.’ She looked at him with disbelief. Markham shrugged and moved to lay a reassuring hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry. You seem confused.’
She ducked and darted past him; as she went through the door he heard her reply. ‘Nothing is as it seems. Not in this house.’
He waited impatiently for Eveline, wondering what had delayed her. Surely Madame Picard couldn’t have kept everyone at table this long. Unable to stand the frustration any longer, he slipped out of the door and along the corridor towards the Rossignol rooms. As a precaution, he passed that which the girls occupied and put his ear to the old man’s door. The sounds he heard, low moans, intrigued him; loud enough to carry through the panelling. He listened as they increased in both frequency and level, until they crescendoed in the unmistakable sound of a woman reaching climax. That brought a smile to his lips, as well as deep curiosity to his mind. It was quite definitely Rossignol’s room. Who was he with? Some bawd slipped in for the purpose, or even one of the serving girls? Either would be unlikely to get past the eagle eye or meet with the approval of Madame Picard.
He dismissed the thought that it was the lady herself out of hand, just as he heard the floorboards creak on the other side of the door. He scurried back towards his own room, stopping at the bend in the corridor to peer back into the gloom. The door opened and Rossignol came out, his dishevelled state exaggerated by the light from a lantern just behind him. He was tugging at his coat, seeking to smooth it out, when Pascalle came out behind him, lantern in hand, dressed only in her nightclothes, bearing a c
loak which she then held out for him to put on. Markham suppressed the cry of surprise that welled up in his throat, then checked to see if he could have made an error. But the sound of a woman enjoying such pleasure was one he was too familiar with. No wonder neither of these two remarked on his relationship with Eveline Rossignol. Any man prepared to debauch his own daughter was in no position to cast a pebble, let alone a stone.
The whispered endearments the pair exchanged pointed to no sudden seduction, more to a relationship of some depth and length. Rossignol, cloak around his shoulders, made for the top of the stairs, clearly, given the way he was dressed, intent on going out into the night. Intrigued, Markham was determined to follow him, but Pascalle was heading his way. He shrank back out of sight as she came along the corridor, waiting till she opened the door of the room she shared with Eveline before risking another look. Suddenly, as she shut it, the corridor went dark.
Returning to his room, he flung on his breeches and coat, then, holding his boots in his hand, scurried along to the top of the stairs. The hallway was in semi-darkness, the gentle snoring of the servant who slept by the door to the interior courtyard the only indication of human existence. But that noise meant that Rossignol could not have exited by that route, since to do so would mean waking the man up. Markham stood above him, to check that the door was indeed locked and the servant was still asleep, before removing the shaded lantern that sat behind his head. A quick check of the public rooms proved they were empty, so he made his way to the back of the house.
The rear doors, wide enough for a coach, could hardly be opened without disturbing Picard’s coachman and his wife, who slept in the loft above. The heavy chain that secured them was still in place. A quick check of the stables showed the owner’s coach, shafts empty. Rossignol’s, still without doors, filled the yard, as it had since the day they’d arrived. Markham sat on the runner, pondering the implications of this. If Rossignol wasn’t in the house, then he must be outside. Yet if that was the case, he’d used some form of exit that Markham knew nothing about. And given that, what was he doing out at this time of night?
A Shred of Honour Page 23
