It was a warm sunny evening on the last day of May, ideal weather for walking through the green fields and rolling hills of Dorset. Half an hour after they started clouds came and soon hid the sun. There was the sweet, almost too sweet, smell of blossom in the air, warning of the rain that began within an hour. It grew steadily heavier. Williams heard Private Tout wonder aloud whether the captain had expected the weather to turn.
‘Do you think he knew?’ asked Private Tout. The company had paused, taken greatcoats off the tops of their packs and put them on. Now they trudged up a long and gentle slope, sweating under the weight of the thick woollen coats over their uniform jackets.
No one replied. Their heads were bowed, at least as far as their leather neck stocks allowed. It meant that they gained some small shelter from the peaks of their shakos.
‘I said, do you think the cap’n knew it would rain?’ They were marching at ease, naturally rather than consciously in step, and allowed to talk. Even so Tout had waited until MacAndrews had gone back to the rear of the column, before insisting on this point to the other men in the front.
‘’Course he did,’ Dobson replied. ‘Went specially to the sergeant major to order it.’ He marched on the left, with Williams between him and Tout. Private Hanks completed the front rank to Tout’s right.
‘Wouldn’t put it past the old bugger,’ muttered Tout.
‘Could be worse. Could be much worse,’ said Dobson. Forty if he was a day, Dobson was the oldest of the handful of veterans in the Grenadier Company, indeed in the entire 106th. In spite of that he was loping along, looking almost comfortable.
‘Yes, he could have asked for snow,’ said Williams. Dobson snorted, and Tout laughed. Hanks remained impassive, but then he usually did.
A moment later Williams wondered whether even this mild joke at the expense of his commander was inappropriate. A gentleman volunteer served in the ranks, wore an ordinary private’s uniform, did the same duties as the soldiers, but lived with the officers. Such men hoped to be commissioned, but nothing was certain, and it could take years. All the time they were neither fish nor fowl. The men were wary of the volunteers, suspicious that they would not pull their weight and so make more work for them. There was also inevitably a degree of nervousness around a man who might one day have them flogged, and who already was close to the officers. Some men saw them as little more than spies. It was only a little easier with the officers, for the good ones realised that they could not be seen to show any favouritism. The bad ones, and those nervous of their own standing, were apt to show disdain.
Williams had joined the regiment at the start of the year. He was twenty-four, so would be old if he did gain an ensign’s commission, especially compared to infants like Derryck. Yet for as long as he could remember he had wanted to be a soldier. As a boy he had read every story of adventure he could find and every history of war. In his pack, carefully wrapped in oilskin along with his Bible, was a battered translation of Caesar’s Gallic War, its spine cracked and with more than a few loose pes. There was something about the great campaigns of the Ancients which still fascinated him, and he read anything he could afford on such subjects. As a child, he had often managed to convince his younger sisters to play at being Alexander and Darius, or Scipio and Hannibal – the girls had especially liked being elephants.
His mother had not been keen. Married at sixteen, she had been left widowed and with four children before she was Hamish’s age now. His father was an engineer, a good one in an age when machines were changing the world and how everything was made. Then one day there had been an accident at the factory, and the promising young engineer was killed. Hamish could still remember the faces of the men who had come to tell his mother, and that she showed no emotion. Never in his life had he seen her weep.
The factory’s owner gave the widow a pension. It was extremely modest, for he assumed, if he cared at all, that the young woman would marry again and find another man to provide for herself and her offspring. That was not unreasonable, for the golden-haired Frances was undoubtedly pretty, if more than a little stern. There were suitors, as soon as it was decent, and several were handsome and even modestly well off. Mrs Williams was always courteous, but adamant. A few of them persisted for some time, until finally they gave up. Interest faded, and eventually so too did gossip from those jealous of the attention she received. Gradually a grudging acceptance grew that the young widow had no wish to change her status – still less for any liaison of a less formal kind. Any suggestion of the latter prompted a fierce, icy look, and indeed most people came to consider her as an extremely cold woman.
They had lived in Cardiff for a while, where his mother rented a small house and let two spare rooms to respectable guests. There was little new in the furnishings, but the food was ample, if basic, and the entire house was kept spotlessly clean. Laundry was done, clothes mended and other little tasks performed with ruthless efficiency. A few years later the family moved to Bristol, where she began to run a larger establishment of the same sort. In both places many of the guests were mates and sometimes even the masters of merchant vessels. Mrs Williams encouraged no familiarity, but she enjoyed listening to the men talk of distant shores and storm-swept seas. For quite a few the house became their only real home – a somewhat austere home, but a home none the less. There was no question of deep affection between the landlady and her staff or guests, but all knew where they were with Mrs Williams.
Hamish had to admit his own feelings were similar. His mother’s approval was never lightly given and he cherished those rare occasions when he had been granted it. Sometimes he was proud of her, especially when she put on her bonnet, best dress and gloves and took the children to church, singing Mr Wesley’s hymns in her beautiful voice. Those were the only times he felt she showed passion. To him she was beautiful, but distant – a queen to be feared and obeyed, but loved only in the way a country was loved.
She had hoped to raise him for a doctor. His grandfather had been a physician – a very good one according to his mother. Dr Campbell had also been a poor one, because she said he would treat anyone whether or not they could pay. Yet the schooling needed for that was expensive – far too expensive for a widow to afford – and so Mrs Williams had set her ambitions lower. Her son and three daughters had all been taught to read and write. In time the girls also learned to sew and to cut material, and along with their mother they brought money into the house by doing work for people apart from the guests. Hamish had been kept in school until he was sixteen, and then, scorning mere appreniceships, his mother’s persistence had secured him a post as junior clerk in the office of a shipping corporation.
It was dull work, with lists of cargoes and delivery dates, of ships and their provisioning, of harbour fees and pilots’ fees, of sailors and their pay and allowances paid to families during a voyage, and always of timber, ropes, sailcloth and the myriad of supplies needed to keep vessels at sea. Hamish had felt his youth was slowly drowning under the weight of lists. Every day was the same, with the same petty rivalries and little jokes among the half-dozen leathery old men who worked in the office. Yet he was good at his job, temporary employment became permanent, and slowly, painfully slowly, his wages rose. The money helped the family, for as his sisters grew older his mother was intent that they should be dressed properly, and be able to attend decent functions in the hope of finding good, respectable husbands.
Until he was twenty-one Hamish stayed in the office and dreamed of adventure and glory. Then one day he told his mother than he was resolved to be a soldier, and would enlist as soon as he could. He was not sure what he had expected. Not rage certainly, for his mother never showed so much emotion. There was disappointment, but no surprise, and he had readily agreed to the condition that he must wait until a suitable place could be found for him.
Frances Williams had set about the task of securing an officer’s commission for her son with all of her usual determination and perseverance. In his youth Dr Campbell had been an assistant surgeon with a regiment, so she wrote letters to its present colonel, and to a pair of officers who had served at the same time and were now elderly and obscure generals. There was no response. In any case her choice would have been a Highland regiment, so she wrote to the colonels of these. Hamish’s father may have been a garrulous Welshman, but as far as his mother was concerned he was a Scot, and better than that, a Campbell. The commander of the 91st Foot replied with a polite letter explaining that there were no vacancies for ensigns at present, and unlikely to be for some time. The 93rd did not respond at all.
Undaunted, she dispatched more letters to general after general, any whose address she could find, humbly (and that was something which did not come naturally to Mrs Williams) requesting a place for her son, a young gentleman of good education and sober character. It took years until finally a letter had arrived from Major General Sir Augustus Lepper, colonel of the 106th Foot, ‘The Glamorganshire Regiment’, informing Mrs Williams that although he could not offer her son a commission at this time, he would be glad to accept him in the regiment as a volunteer. It was less than she had hoped for, but that was something so familiar from her life. Mrs Williams showed no emotion when her son ‘went for a soldier’. She had agreed and that was that. He promised to write and to send them what money he could and she simply nodded, and let him kiss her on the cheek. His sisters provided tears and embraces enough to add drama to the scene, but when he thought back it was only his mother, standing straight and stern, that he remembered.
Williams joined the 106th at the beginning of 1808. A few weeks later another gentleman volunteer arrived and was sent to a different company, and Hamish did not come to know Mr Forde at all well, but the latter seemed to adapt more readily to the new life. For the army was not quite what Williams’ dreams had made it. The routine was dull, with day after day of drill. Unlike the officers who had their servants, he was expected to care for his own uniform, equipment and musket. He learned to polish his boots, the pair identical with no left and right. Veterans like Dobson changed them to the oppos foot at the end of each week to spread the wear. He learned the mysteries of pipe-clay, which whitened his cross-belts, and how to polish the brass buttons on his tunic and gaiters without dirtying the material around them.
Now, after five months, his uniform felt comfortable – or at least as comfortable as the rough wool and the stiff leather neck stock allowed. His first parade, when nothing seemed to fit and it all felt so awkward and ungainly, had left him wondering how the sergeants could be so impossibly smart. Even now these men seemed to possess some magic he lacked, but Williams felt that he was a master of the chief mysteries of soldiering. He could pick out his musket from all the other India Pattern firelocks by the tiny notch on the butt plate and the stain on the wood just behind the trigger, which no amount of oiling and scrubbing could remove. It was ‘his’ musket, unique among all the hundreds of thousands owned by the army. Williams felt himself to be fully a soldier, but he remained an outsider wherever he was.
MacAndrews gave the company five minutes’ rest after marching for an hour, and then a longer break after the second hour. By then they had gone a good six miles, and the weather had improved, so the order was given to remove their greatcoats and tie them back on top of their wooden-framed packs. That done, Williams was unsure what to do as the grenadiers took their ease. Should he go and join the officers as they leaned against a nearby wall, or stay and converse affably with the grenadiers, showing that he was not too proud to acknowledge them? Would either welcome him or would he be seen as sycophantic to the officers and patronising to the men? Pringle was always friendly, and when the lieutenant was present the supercilious Redman was at least formally polite. As Williams glanced towards the officer, he noticed Hanley looking back at him. After a moment, the new ensign nodded and smiled, but it was hard to know whether that was meant as an invitation, and Pringle had his back to him so was no guide. Williams nodded in reply, but did not move.
‘Mr Williams, sir, did you bring your tinder box?’ asked Dobson from behind him. The ‘sir’ was a courtesy. Tout and another private named Murphy also came up holding their clay pipes. After that Dobson stopped any of the other soldiers from asking for the same service. Murphy was one of a dozen or so Irishmen in the grenadiers, and there were similar numbers in the other companies. In spite of its name, the 106th had few soldiers from Wales, and fewer still from the county itself. Like other regiments they took recruits wherever they could find them. ‘We don’t want to wear out Mr Williams’ flint,’ added the veteran.
‘No, he’s not married yet,’ quipped Murphy. Williams allowed himself a smile in spite of the coarseness.
‘That’s why he’s still happy,’ put in Dobson automatically, although he had buried one wife and been with his Sally now for sixteen years. They rowed sometimes, especially when he drank, but even then he had never laid a hand to her and was proud of that. Their eldest girl was now nearly sixteen – there had been some urgency about their wedding – and was a constant source of worry to him. ‘Would turn me to drink, if I had not long since spun that way,’ he often said. Jenny Dobson was too full of herself, and he feared that she was making eyes at the officers. That way lay ruin, for ‘gentlemen’ all too easily used and discarded maids like her. She had a brother, aged fourteen and now on the strength as a drummer, and a sister just ten.
Dobson had been raised to sergeant several times over the years, but then been broken for drunkenness. Like so many soldiers, Dobson all too easily threw off all restraint, drowning himself in alcohol, which tended to make the big man violent. Williams did not think the officers much better – had been astounded by the sheer quantities they could drink in an evening. Personally he drank little, mainly because the taste nauseated him, and had never been drunk in his life, although that was on principle.
‘How’s that lock?’ asked Dobson. Some weeks ago he had shown Williams how to wrap a rag around the lock on a musket in wet weather, stopping water from getting into the pan, where it would soak the powder and so stop the weapon from firing. They were not marching with loaded muskets today, but the old soldier was keen for the volunteer to learn to do things properly. In the company’s formation Dobson stood directly in front of Williams, and front and rear rank men depended upon each other utterly in battle. The veteran wanted his to be up to standard.
‘Not bad,’ he said as Williams showed him the tightly wound rag. ‘That would keep it out if anything will.’ Dobson grinned and patted the volunteer on the shoulder. ‘Well done, Pug.’
Only Dobson used the nickname to Williams’ face, but it had generally supplanted his earlier one of Quaker – the inevitable slang for any man who neither swore nor drank. The Hastings Pug was a prizefighter, not the best, but he had won several bouts in the county during the last year. The grenadiers had not known what to make of their volunteer for a long time, for he said so little. Then in March he had been sent with a party of fifteen men to help a supply wagon which had become bogged down on its way to the battalion. It had been hard work in foul weather, digging around the wheels to free them. Dobson had stared aghast at Williams’ energetic, almost frenzied plying of his spade.
‘Good God, sir, don’t you even know how to dig. Look, watch me, and do it this way.’
They had got the job done in two hours of exhausting labour, had let it drive on to the battalion, but Sergeant Probert – one of the few genuine Welshmen in the regiment – had taken them into an inn to shelter and refresh themselves before they returned. On that day even Williams enjoyed some warm punch. Reluctant to venture out into the weather, they stayed drinking for some time. Then Hope, not an especially big man, but very broad in the chest, had suddenly grabbed one of the maids as she passed. The girl struggled and squealed as the man yelled out that he must have a kiss for every mug he had drunk. Some of the soldiers laughed for the man was obviously drunk, indeed known for the readiness with which the drink took hold of him. Others told him to let her free, but Hope ignored them all, and gave the maid a long slobbering kiss. One of his hands began to grab at her skirt and lift it.
The girl screamed loudly now, and reaching around on the table beside them, flung a bowl of stew at him. It was still hot enough to make Hope let her go, and she fell to the ground, cap falling from her head and legs waving in the air amid a flurry of skirts and petticoats. The grenadier stood up, fingers rubbing at his eyes, and howled in rage. Probert should have done something, but was more amused than worried and ignored Dobson’s warning looks.
Then Williams got up, strode over to Hope and punched him just once squarely on the jaw. It surprised everyone, including the volunteer, but he had taken more drink than usual and the adventures he read so avidly were about strong men who protected the weak – most of all who behaved with chivalry. Williams just found himself there confronting the drunken private. Much of it was fluke, for although he leaned into the blow and was a big man, still it was chance that he struck in just the right place. Hope went back, skimmed over the tabletop scattering tankarnd plates in all directions and landed unconscious on the other side.
For a moment two of his friends seemed inclined to continue the fight. Yet Williams was big, and still looked belligerent, although in truth he was as much amazed at himself as anything else. Then the huge figure of Dobson came to stand beside him and Probert finally acted.
‘Now, lads, it’s all over. A fair fight and he deserved it,’ he said, looking round the room to see that they all accepted this. ‘King and Rafferty, you wake him up.’ His friends promptly did this with a jug of water. Hope came back to life spluttering, but surprisingly passive. He was not normally such an aggressive drunk. He stood, rubbing his jaw.
‘Come, then, you two boys just shake hands like men and end it,’ continued Probert. There was no warmth when they did so. There was more enthusiasm when the maid stood on tiptoe and pecked Williams on the cheek. The grenadiers cheered that, even Hope, who did not seem to remember what had provoked all this in the first place. Hamish blushed, which made them laugh and cheer all the more.
‘Listen, all of you,’ this was Dobson, ‘nothing happened, see. We all just had a quiet drink. Right?’ They nodded. ‘Old Hope just had too much and fell on his arse like always.’
It had taken a while for Williams to understand. Although he served as an ordinary soldier he was supposed to be a gentleman. For a gentleman to strike a soldier – indeed, to strike anyone other than a King’s enemy – was unthinkable. Had it become officially known then he would have had no choice but to resign or be dismissed. It was chilling to think that a moment’s anger could have ended his career before it had even begun.
What surprised him was the reaction of the company, for the brief confrontation made the grenadiers accept him as they had not done before. They were soldiers, and the one thing above all else they respected was pluck. He had shown that and more, and now they gave him some respect, even trust. They were a little more free when they talked to him. Dobson in particular began taking an almost paternal interest in him. He had become ‘Good Old Mr Williams’ or simply the ‘Pug’. Even Hope seemed to carry no ill will, although he had always been an easygoing man when sober.
The rest was soon over, and Sergeant Darrowfield barked out the order to fall in. Pringle and Ensign Redman lingered for a moment, struggling to restore some order to Hanley’s uniform. They could do nothing about the mud spattered across his white breeches – somehow Hanley had seemed to attract more than either of them – but straightened his belts and once again tried to wind his dark red silk sash back into place.
‘There, as good as new,’ lied Pringle. ‘Damp, of course, but a drop of water won’t harm you, and I should know, coming from a long line of sailors.’
‘Yet here you are in the army?’
Pringle smiled. ‘I seem not to have inherited my ancestors’ sea-legs. A naval officer is not supposed to spend every voyage draped over the side or lying moaning in his cot.’
‘Was not Nelson prone to seasickness?’ asked Redman, who was a tall but desperately thin eighteen-year-old. He had been disappointed to learn that Hanley was his regimental senior, but still did his best to be friendly.
‘Yes, I am sure I read that somewhere,’ said Hanley.
‘Ah, the difference was that with him it would wear off in time. It just didn’t seem to with me. I rather doubt England’s hero wnle quite so celebrated if he had spent the Nile or Trafalgar puking his guts out over the side.’
‘Apart from that these were a problem.’ Pringle had taken off his wire-rimmed glasses and was polishing their lenses with his own sash. ‘His Majesty’s Navy isn’t keen on officers with bad eyesight. At least Nelson had one good eye.’
‘Are French soldiers easier to see than their warships?’ asked a grinning Hanley.
‘Apparently. Perhaps the Horse Guards have arranged that we will only fight against particularly tall and fat Frenchmen.’
Their musings were interrupted by Sergeant Darrowfield. ‘Mr Pringle, sir, would you and the other gentlemen care to join us.’
The three officers strolled over to take their places in the formation.
‘Amazing how they can make “sir” sound like a question,’ said Pringle quietly.
The company marched on as the sun began to set, the clouds shading into rich pinks and reds. Hanley was now content and weary enough to take pleasure in the scene. In the last weeks even the most magnificent landscapes had left him unmoved. For a moment he wanted to stop and sketch, or better yet use the box of watercolours he carried in his trunk. Then he thought of Mapi. He had often dreamed of the dead girl from Madrid, and sometimes it was his lover’s face he saw when he turned the corpse over. Despair flooded back and all desire to make or create vanished. His mind came back to where he was and he laughed grimly as he thought that he had come to an army to seek peace.
Pringle raised a quizzical eyebrow, but Hanley did not notice. The lieutenant had worries enough of his own. His memories of the previous night were still hazy, but after the hours of drinking in the inn, he remembered a vigorous coupling by the wall of the stable yard. He had hoped that it was with Molly Hackett, but when he had encountered her that morning she had not returned his smile and certainly gave no hint of intimacy. Anyway, she was a blonde, and he was now sure the girl in question had had dark hair. When the company had left the village, he had noticed young Jenny Dobson watching them. She had winked at Hanley – and that was a surprise – and then treated him to a broad smile. Had this been more than her habitual flirtation?
Anyone but her, thought Pringle, please God, anyone but her. Jenny was pretty, but a good officer should not be rolling one of his soldier’s daughters. Dobson was a good man, one whose respect Pringle wanted to earn. Apart from that, the veteran could be frightening, and was certainly not a man to make angry. Billy Pringle made a familiar pledge to restrain his fondness for liquor, this time with more fervour than usual.
The Grenadier Company trudged on in an easy rhythm.