‘We’re a day’s march from Corte, Major. It makes sense to see if we can find someone more local.’
Lanester’s hand moved across the bloodstained shirt, to the edge of the bandages which now swathed his chest, careful to avoid the area close to his wound. His face looked healthy enough, still red and fat, if you discounted the sheen of sweat that covered it.
‘You’re not carrying a ball in your chest, Markham. I am.’
‘There’s bound to be someone in the nearest village, even if it’s only a mendicant monk, who can provide some help.’
Lanester wasn’t a good patient, and if he’d been irascible before, because of a loss of comfort, he was even worse now.
‘A papist shaman and charlatan, fit only to cure a goat. And I doubt we’ll find better in Corte. I’d rather go all the way back to Bastia, any day, and place my trust to a good old British Army surgeon.’
Markham was tempted to ask why. In his experience, army medical men were generally there because of their incompetence, not their ability. No one questioned them when a patient died, nor inquired why so much of the rum issued to dull the pain ended up down their throats. Any of them who could have drawn a decent stipend in civilian life would do so rather than submit themselves to the rigours of campaigning.
‘We are on foot, sir,’ said Markham, holding up the cutlery knife that Bellamy had used to cut his bonds. ‘And probably without even the ability to rig a stretcher. Which means we’ll have to carry you for some time. That wound has part of your shirt in it, and that’s a sure formula for infection. We need to get you to someone who can deal with it as quickly as possible. Who is less important than when.’
‘He’s right, your honour,’ said Pavin leaning forward to come into the Major’s view. ‘We ain’t even got a drop of ardent spirit to be sloshing on the hole.’
‘G’damn you, man!’ Lanester growled. ‘Obey my orders.’
This was followed by a bout of painful coughing. Pavin looked up, his eyes meeting Markham’s. They didn’t need words, just a nod. Lanester, in pain from the constant movement, would be unlikely to have a clue where they were headed. Pavin moved away when Markham indicated that he wanted to continue in private, though the servant, as nosy as all his tribe, stopped well within earshot.
‘As you wish, Major,’ Markham lied. ‘But you must rest here a little longer, while I try and find out what alternative there is to a forced march through this labyrinth.’
‘How?’
‘By heading back to the monastery. Bellamy seems to think the French won’t come in here after us.’
‘And you believe him?’
‘The man just saved your life.’
‘Wrong, Markham,’ Lanester responded wearily. ‘He saved yours. I don’t recall mine being at risk until we ran from that damned building.’
‘Then you only have yourself to blame, sir,’ Markham replied acidly, though he dropped his voice so low not even Pavin could hear it. ‘Or me. Bellamy wanted to leave you and my men behind.’
‘Then I’ll see him hang.’
‘You won’t, because I’ll never repeat those words to you or anyone else.’
There was a wheezing sound in the Major’s chest as he struggled to put force into his next words. ‘You’d take the part of a nigger against your own kind?’
Markham stood up, wondering whether his reply was the truth or just a convenient response. ‘Nine times out of ten, yes.’
‘I was told you were poor quality stock, Markham. After what I saw you do at Fornali I didn’t believe it. Now I’m not so sure.’
Any number of people could have said that without causing distress. But coming from Lanester, a man he’d initially taken to, it was wounding, regardless of what had happened on the journey. And his response was an involuntary thing, which with more careful consideration he would never have voiced.
‘Am I poor enough stock to sacrifice to a Corsican assassin in the lines at Cardo?’
Lanester tried to push himself onto one elbow, but failed. ‘What are you talking about, man?’
‘A convenient way to shorten your journey, Major, by leaving the Corsicans in no doubt that I had information to give Pasquale Paoli. Almost an invitation to the traitor to reveal himself by sticking a knife in my back.’
Lanester gasped, as much from the effort of breathing as from surprise. His face, red and still sweating, took on an expression beyond physical pain.
‘Everything I had to tell Paoli, including what you told me in private, was listed at my insistence, and in case I failed in a letter from Admiral Hood. I hope and pray you believe that to get it, they would have had to kill us both.’
That produced a sudden bout of coughing, and Lanester turned his head away as Pavin rushed to his side to comfort him. Markham stood for a moment looking at him, wondering where the truth lay, especially since this was the first time he’d heard mention of Hood’s letter. The notion of getting the admiral to write something of that nature made sense, removing any temptation to make Lanester a scapegoat for subsequent failures. Part of him felt he should apologise. It was base to accuse a man in Lanester’s condition of anything. But, in reality, anything said now that the accusation had been aired would be pointless.
He moved over to Halsey and gave him his orders, basically to stay still and quiet. Then he signalled to Rannoch, who followed him as they retraced their steps towards the monastery. Following the path they had created wasn’t difficult, but neither was it straight. They traversed right and left across the forest, until they heard the distinctive sound of several blades chopping at thin wood.
‘So much for the black man,’ hissed Rannoch.
‘If they’re carving out a path, we have time to get further into the forest,’ Markham replied.
But he was also wondering, if there was a limit to how deep they dare go with no food or water. Perhaps it would be better to try and hide any trace of their route, then just stay still and hope the French lost their spoor. He put his hand on Rannoch’s shoulder to indicate retirement. The Scotsman stiffened, hearing a fraction before his officer the sound of a single galloping horse. A shouted exchange followed, indistinct but audible, indicating that the road was closer than Markham had reckoned. By his present calculation, in the dark, they’d covered less than half the distance he’d previously estimated.
‘They could have spat on us if they had wished,’ said Rannoch softly, having arrived at a similar conclusion.
This was imparted in his usual measured way, his ear cocked to make sense of the outcry that followed several loud shouts of alarm. The noise of men hacking at wood ceased. That which followed, hinting almost at panic, went on for some ten minutes, then died down suddenly, to be replaced by the clamour of impatient, stamping animals. Then a clear order floated through the air, followed by the sound of departing horsemen.
‘South?’ Markham asked Rannoch, and received a nod in reply. He then moved forward, till he saw the faint outline of the building through the thinning trees. He moved well to his left before crawling further, listening for any sound that would indicate the presence of a remaining horse; a stamping foot or a snort. There was nothing, and when he reached undergrowth thin enough to give him a view of the paddocks, he could see that they, as well as the clearing in front of them, were deserted.
‘We should look on the road, sir. I do not think it would be wise just to expose ourselves by walking in through the door.’
‘Good idea.’
They stayed in the trees, going slightly deeper into the forest, using what sunlight filtered through to hold their direction. The highway itself, when they came to it, was clear in both directions, and silent, allowing them to emerge cautiously before turning back towards the opening that led to the monastery. The evidence of the French departure, at the join between the clearing and the road, was clear from fifty yards away, the churned-up earth an indication of a troop of cavalry quitting the scene in some haste.
‘That saves the hide of your darkie,’ said Rannoch, with a shrug. ‘They had little time to fasten their girths, never mind to carry on looking for us.’
‘You still cannot bring yourself to like him, can you?’
‘I would not have it said that it was for the sake of his black skin.’
‘You expect me to believe that!’
Rannoch, by his lights, practically barked back at him. ‘I am not accustomed to being doubted by any man.’
‘Then why, for God’s sake?’
‘It is one thing to be clever, and no doubt good in its way. But it is coat of another cloth never to let anyone within ten feet of you forget it. And he does the same to you as he does to others. Look at the way he dragged out his tale.’
‘We’d best look inside.’ Markham replied, uncomfortable with the way his sergeant was looking at him, challenging him to agree. ‘But slowly.’
Markham raised the cutlery knife, sharp enough to cut through cooked meat and thin rope, but hardly deadly. At least the sight of it brought a smile back to Rannoch’s lips.
‘What can we have to fear? With such magnificent weapons we can take on the whole French army.’
The sound, as they approached the door, made them pause: a creaking, either like a door or what it turned out to be, a stretched rope. Duchesne was swinging slowly, his face deep purple with the strangulation which had killed him, tongue out and bitten, eyes half out of their sockets with the terror of death. He seemed, with the noose around his neck, to have no chin at all, and more expression in his suffused features than he’d had in life.
‘Oh! Jesus Christ,’ whispered Markham, as Rannoch swiftly crossed himself. ‘If you are judged, Captain, let it be by your last act of humanity.’
‘Shall I cut him down?’
Markham nodded, then looked at the blunt knife. ‘It would be easier to untie the rope. We’ll lay him in one of the cells.’
Markham helped Rannoch, the two men silent over the body of an enemy who’d paid the price for saving them. But once he was laid out and covered, they returned to their task. The chapel was a deserted mess, though not through any deliberate act. But there was no hiding the fact that it had been occupied by soldiers who’d left in a hurry. All the detritus of their occupation and their departure lay precisely where it had fallen. The cells occupied by Fouquert and Duchesne were no better, full of discarded items which had belonged to their captives, papers lying amongst the smashed wood of the boxes which had once contained wine.
There were bottles too in Fouquert’s cell, some full, others empty, one tipped on its side as though it had been knocked over, the stain on the flagstones showing where most of the contents had ended up, with only that in the bottle which was held back by the narrowing neck. Whatever else they had left, they’d taken the weapons and red uniform coats with them, though he found Lanester’s map case under one of the cots. Likewise, they’d left the rankers’ infantry packs, too heavy to carry. Markham followed Rannoch through to the kitchen, a windowless room with a chimney at the back of the building, the first thing to catch their eye the carcasses hanging from ceiling hooks, that followed by the wall full of knives, saws and an ancient rusted chopper.
‘Careless,’ said Rannoch.
‘They were in a hurry.’
‘To leave food behind, they must have been in terror.’
‘Not as much as Duchesne,’ Markham added.
Rannoch looked at him, strangely. ‘We all of us saw that door open and shut. I was sure we were undone.’
‘Duchesne was an old-fashioned soldier, Rannoch, and a cavalryman at that.’
Rannoch snorted then, though out of respect he forbore to say what he was thinking: that cavalry were stuck-up pigs who could never be relied upon to arrive when they were supposed to. It was the view of every foot-slogging infantryman, who often saw fodder for horses taking precedence over their own requirements for food. In victory, cavalry got to the spoils first. In defeat they made safety long before their compatriots on foot. If starvation threatened, they were astride their last meal. And when it came to boasting they were, to a soldier’s mind, only surpassed by sailors. The troopers of the mounted regiments were bad enough, but nothing as compared to their officers.
‘Odd, really. On a battlefield he’d have skewered me on his sabre with great relish. But he couldn’t stomach handing me over to Fouquert, especially when he heard him boasting to Bellamy of some of his previous exploits. He’d be alive now if he’d been prepared to go further than that.’
‘Then you don’t think he was fooled by the acting the black man put on.’
Markham touched his neck. ‘Obviously not. He might have rumbled Bellamy, but he didn’t know Fouquert at all. If he had, I doubt he would have lifted a finger to save us.’
‘Best to think he would have been Christian enough even then,’ Rannoch responded. ‘May the good Lord bless him and keep him, even if he did go to war on a horse.’
‘I have a mind to get everyone back here, Rannoch. At least they can be fed before we set out for Corte. Men with a meal inside them will move at twice the pace, and with these saws and things we can rig up a proper stretcher for the Major.’
‘That will slow us down, sir. He might consent to stay here, with a guard, till we can fetch someone back to tend to him.’
‘I need him with us, Rannoch.’
‘With respect, sir, if you need him that badly, he has to be alive.’
‘You suggest it,’ Markham replied, pulling a face.
The men emerged from the maccia like long-term prisoners coming into daylight, those not carrying the comatose Major Lanester blinking and brushing themselves as if they wanted to remove the last traces of their confinement. Markham let them drink some water, ordered Pavin into the kitchen, then sent Ettrick, Quinlan, Dornan and Bellamy back into the woods to search for bodies. They found the four men who’d kept this place within minutes. Their hands had been tied behind their back, so that they could be strangled before being tossed into a clump of bushes not forty yards from their home. They must have died within earshot of him and his men as they stumbled up the hill towards the monastery.
‘Bury them,’ Markham said, when he was shown the bodies, ‘and Captain Duchesne as well. There’s some soft ground at the back of the paddocks. There’s no time to go deep, just make sure they have covering enough to keep off any animals. We’ll be moving out as soon as we’re fed.’
Lanester had passed out on the journey through the maccia, so that by the time they got him into one of the cots the notion that Rannoch had suggested seemed to make more sense than moving him again. What colour the major had was now gone. His face was pallid, seemingly devoid of blood. Since this was a decision on which his servant should be consulted, Markham went to find Pavin in the kitchen. Of course, Pavin asked the obvious question, but with none of his usual ill-humour.
‘And what occurs if they Crapauds comes back this way?’
Markham shrugged, because he really couldn’t answer that. He had no idea where the French had gone. Bellamy had mentioned some kind of mission that would prevent their return to Bastia. If he had the right of it, they could be anywhere.
‘He’d be better not being jigged around, and that’s no error,’ Pavin added. ‘To my way of thinking, that would do for him.’
His satchel of spices and condiments was by his hand, and, having tasted the contents of the pot, he added something unknown to the largest of his copper pans. Then he began to stir. Markham knew he was ruminating, weighing up the pros and cons, and had to fight to contain his impatience. For a moment, the noise he was making, as he poked at it vigorously, seemed unnatural, until Markham realised that Pavin wasn’t the source. The sound of running feet in heavy boots was different.
‘Soldiers!’ shouted Rannoch.
Markham guessed that before he spoke, just as he knew he’d been truly humbugged for a second time. Fouquert had been too shrewd to chase him through the maccia, and he’d been too stupid to see the trap that he set instead. The French had even left their horses and come back on foot. No wonder they’d left the food, the one thing guaranteed to keep hungry men still long enough for him to come back and recapture them. The sound of the boots, clearly moving at speed, increased until they seemed to invade the whole building. As silence fell, he dragged himself out of the kitchen and, watched by his men, who stood in an attitude of fearful anticipation, went towards the door. His hand rested on the handle for several agonising seconds before he could be brought to turn it and pull.
The air outside was still colder than that in the chapel, and the light from the low, early March sun, which barely topped the mountains, temporarily blinded him. He could see the figures lined up, indistinct shapes until his eyes adjusted. That and walking forward brought them into view. Looking along the line to find Fouquert, he was wondering if the cutlery knife he had put back in his pocket would do what he required, while cursing himself for not picking up something sharper from the kitchen. Even for dragoons on foot, the troopers seemed small, which he put down to a trick of the light. And the uniforms, in silhouette, showed none of their colour. But enough of the weapons were raised to catch the sunlight, and the command, in French, to raise his hands was one he had to obey.
But the voice was wrong and it certainly wasn’t Fouquert’s. First, it was of a higher pitch. And secondly, why address him in French, when Fouquert spoke good English? The idea that it was a different French patrol, though unwelcome, gave him some hope of personal survival, until he discarded that as wishful thinking. He took four quick paces forward, until the command to stand still could be spoken, which brought him into the shadow created by the mountains. Again that light voice spoke in French.
‘You were expecting someone else, soldier.’
She was uniformed and armed, wearing the dun-coloured jacket of the Corsican army, even to the point of having a coxcomb round hat on her head. So were all the other women. If there was a concession to their sex, it was the very elaborate embroidery that decorated their caps. Much as he was taken by the novelty of what was before him, he was too smitten with the leader to spare much attention to her inferiors. She was remarkable, and in every respect except her striking face and fulsome figure, she looked the very image of an infantry officer.
But the face – dark smooth skin, full sensual lips, and black eyes – was enchanting. He guessed the hair would be black too, that tone so deep it was almost blue, the kind of topping they said in Ireland had the Spanish Armada in it. The gun she held, a long, old-fashioned pistol, looked too heavy for her slight frame. But it was steady enough. Even through the dull cloth of the uniform he could detect the swell of her breasts, and in the split-second it took to discern all this, he felt his blood race a little as he began to smile.
‘Allow me to introduce myself, madame. I am Lieutenant George Markham of His Britannic Majesty’s Marines.’
‘In that coat!’
That stopped him in mid bow. He had forgotten about the coat he was still wearing, which even lacking a shirt identified him as a French dragoon. Absurdly, he was stuck, looking up while remaining bent over, the smile still on his face making him feel even more stupid.
‘Stolen to ward off the cold, madame.’
‘Not madame. Commandatore!’
Her retort at least allowed him to adopt a more dignified pose, standing fully upright. ‘Might I ask your name?’
‘Calheri.’
‘Then you may considerably outrank me. And if the French had not stolen my hat, I would perforce raise it in salute.’
‘Do you speak English?’
‘A leetle,’ she replied.
‘Then if you will forgive me, I will continue in French.’
Having now an in-built distrust of anything Corsican, he found himself being exceedingly circumspect. Particularly, Nelson and the impending attack on Bastia could not be mentioned. Markham confined himself to the line of the proposed visit, that their desire to see Paoli was purely social. He told her how they’d come to be captured, followed by a gesture towards the multiple grave. Expecting her to be shocked by the murder of the monks, he was surprised when she merely crossed herself and murmured an incantation for their souls, before bidding him continue. This was followed by the details of their escape, leaving out that which didn’t matter regarding Duchesne and Fouquert, all the while searching her face both to see how she was reacting and, he was forced to admit to himself, to admire her beauty.
‘You are, of course, free to step inside, and talk to my men. And you may wish to examine the grave. The man in charge of our mission, Major Lanester, is in one of the cells, carrying a wound. He’s an old friend of General Paoli and knew him in London. If he can talk, I think he will be able to convince you more readily than I.’
She slipped past him with ease, so that the long pistol was off its aim for no more than a second. ‘Call your men out.’
Soldiers, be they Lobsters or Bullocks, look the same everywhere, even in tattered garments. But they were, to anyone with an ounce of military knowledge, not cavalry. Several men, like Quinlan and Ettrick, being small and wiry, could have passed muster. But no one but a Prussian martinet without brains would put a man of Rannoch’s height and build on a horse. Bellamy, like half the men present, was also far too tall. His colour made him the subject of much attention from the Corsican women, who murmured and pointed. Markham was only grateful that at least he’d found the good sense to rid himself of his tricolor sash, even if he’d done so for the wrong reasons.
‘We were informed there was a detachment of French cavalry here,’ she said, for the first time allowing her face to show a trace of doubt.
Markham was half tempted to ask, if that was so, why they’d walked in with such disregard for the consequences, nor even noticed as they did so that the earth they were walking over was well churned up by hooves. But this was a time for courtesy, not a discussion of either observation or sensible infantry tactics.
‘A squadron of dragoons. Around thirty men. They were here last night, holding us captive. We escaped into the maccia, which will go some way to explain the state of our dress. The French left less than an hour ago, in great haste.’
The tongue in which she barked the commands was incomprehensible. Several of her female troopers darted forward and made their way to the open door, the gait and gender openly admired by his men.
‘Eyes front, the lot of you,’ he barked, feeling like a hypocrite.
There was not much of a search to make. Only Pavin, who’d deserted his pot to take station beside the wounded Major Lanester, was still inside. To inspect the chapel, the kitchen and cells took no time at all, and it was only minutes before the searchers reported back, answering the questions she fired at them in rapid order.
While this was happening Markham had time to think, and to remember what he’d heard. Did the hurried departure of the French now have another reason? Was that panic induced by the knowledge that their presence here had been discovered? They must have been unaware of what force would be sent to root them out. Fouquert might well have remained if they had known.
But that didn’t alter the one salient fact. Someone was able to tell them of the danger they faced, and in enough time to let them get clear. Which added some verisimilitude to what Bellamy had told him about his drunken conversations with Fouquert. And they’d gone south, in the direction of Corte, not north to Bastia, which surely should have brought them into contact with these female soldiers.
Remembering suddenly how they’d doubled back to capture him and his men, he was wondering how far they’d moved down the road. If whoever was aiding them knew the maccia so well, they could have turned off the highway and headed for Corte by the mule tracks.
These thoughts were interrupted by Calheri barking another set of orders, which sent two groups of four women towards the road, where they split up and went off in different directions.
‘Would it help if I were to tell you where the French are headed?’
‘Back to Bastia, since we didn’t meet them on the road?’
‘Perhaps not,’ Markham replied, before shouting for Bellamy to come forward. ‘Please explain to the Commandatore what you gleaned from Fouquert and Duchesne last night. And this time keep it brief.’
Bellamy obliged, speaking fluently and convincingly, Commandatore Calheri moving closer to him to listen intently to what he was saying. The use of Paoli’s name, in this context, shocked her, as did the notion that the French would dare to try and arrest him. Markham, meanwhile, since Bellamy was talking, was able to study her in more detail, which only served to increase the depth of his admiration.
‘My sergeant and I heard them leave, madame,’ Markham said, as soon as Bellamy finished, ‘And if you look at what is left of their tracks in the mud by the pavé, I think you will see enough evidence to indicate which way they went.’
Calheri went to look, bending down and picking up a section of compacted earth that still clearly held the shape of a hoof, following that with a long stare down the road. It was still in her hand when she returned.
‘Please take your men inside, Lieutenant,’ she said, her face screwed up in concentration. ‘I require a moment to think.’
He was tempted to tell her she had no time for such a luxury, but held back. He’d intended to feed his men anyway, so that time used up mattered little. More important was that he convince her of both their true status, and their mission, so that they would be free to carry on to Corte.
‘We have food prepared, madame. If you and your troop would be prepared to join us, we can make it stretch.’
‘We will see,’ she replied.
Markham bowed again, and did as he was bidden, his main task to stifle the ribald comments of his men by informing them that the lady in command spoke English. It hardly served to stop Quinlan and Ettrick, who could not resist alluding to the kind of rigid salute that she would be getting from a certain marine lieutenant before the sun rose one more time.
‘It’ll be her hat that’s a liftin’, not his, Commandatore or no.’
‘Quiet, damn you,’ he yelled, to stifle the laughter. But on another mental plane, he could not help but contemplate the pleasure such a seduction would bring. Sharland’s added comment quite spoiled that.
‘Don’t you go thinkin’ your Croppie is going to have her? Seems to me she was more interested in the fuckin’ darkie.’