To Do and Die. Patrick Mercer
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‘You heard Colonel Kemp, exhorting you to fire that awful gun – I mean no disrespect – only when you could be sure of killing with it. Have you prayed about this, can you tell me that Christian nations, today, are really not able to settle their arguments in some other way?’
‘But this war is a just one, someone must protect Turkey from being bullied.’ Morgan was struggling now. He'd read the Parliamentary debates in the papers and whilst he would much have preferred to adopt Keenan's stance that, as a soldier, he'd go anywhere and fight anyone he was told to, he knew that wouldn't do for the intense Mrs Smythe. Where were the barrack God-botherers when you needed them, Morgan thought, and why couldn't this comely woman pester his father and not him?
‘Can any act of war or killing be described as just, Mr Morgan? If you really believe that God could smile on those who seek to kill in his name, then I can only pray for you. Forgive my saying such things in your home on this your last night here, but I have to let you know how much I hate the idea of war and all the unhappiness it will unleash.’ The strident note had quite gone from Mrs Smythe's voice and her eyes were cast down almost demurely.
Tony wondered if his father had seen this side of Amelia. She'd made her points with a persuasive passion that had made him think seriously about what he was embarking upon for the first time. Could he continue to hide behind the simplistic arguments that his brother subalterns used and the jingoism of the press? Keenan and the other soldiers might be able to shelter behind the claims that they weren't paid to think or reason, but he was an officer who, if all this talk came to anything at all, would be required to lead men to their deaths.
Later, when cleaning and balancing his gift he questioned whether he would be able to do the things that war required. Would he be capable of taking this elegant tool and bludgeoning another man with it as Kemp had done?
Dinner finished late and Morgan was almost immediately asleep. Every creak of the house, though, every dream-grunt from Hector in the kitchen below woke him, making him check the half-hunter by the light of the moon, but still Mary didn't come. On this, of all nights, he wanted to see her to say a leisured goodbye, to store up memories that would warm him in whatever solitude and latitudes lay ahead. Then, with the first signs of light, his door opened and Mary – stepping wide in her bare feet to avoid a squeaky board – was with him. Cold beneath the eiderdown, her kisses covered his mouth and face, as she slipped from her nightdress and reached for him in one well-practised movement.
‘I'm sorry to be so late, your honour, but the table and kitchen won't clean themselves and James Keenan had a wee party as well as you!’ Her mouth tasted of drink.
‘I hope the Staff were kind to him … Oh, Mary.’ She smiled up from the shadows deep below the sheets.
‘We were, and herself said that we had to find you a gift, just like your father did. Trouble was, we had nothing to give you, so I thought this might answer.’
‘I'm glad that you came to give me the present and not Mrs O'Connor.’ The joke was old but Mary trembled silently as only she could. When she laughed her whole body was consumed by it. Her eyes screwed tight shut, the lines about them deep-etched. It delighted Morgan.
‘Tony, take me with you, I can't be without you.’ The mirth quickly faded. All the bounce, all the confidence had gone from her, her face crumpled as she pushed her head into his shoulder.
A great surge of joy and pleasure welled up through Tony as the idea seized him, but then it died as quickly as it was born. ‘Don't be daft, girl, we're going to war. There'll be time enough to catch up once I'm back.’
It was as if he'd punched her. From sweet softness and warmth she turned to blazing fury, hurling herself from the bed, her eyes alight, her whole body shaking with anger. ‘If I'm not good enough for you, Lieutenant-almighty-bloody-Morgan, I know someone who thinks I am. Well then, I shall accept ordinary James Keenan of Clonakilty's proposal of marriage – he's twice the man you'll ever be!’ She gathered her clothes around the gifts that nature had so generously given her and stormed from the room.
Morgan winced as the bedroom door banged yet again in the early morning. There was no denying how he felt about the girl, but he had hoped that the war would somehow magically resolve things. Knowing Mary, though, she would certainly carry-out her threat and no doubt conspire to embark with the regiment for whatever adventures lay ahead, married – goddamn her – to the soldier who would always be at his elbow. He groaned and turned into his pillow.
Handshakes, then Finn driving the jaunty. More goodbyes and stowing of gear before the coach took them on to the station at Cork and then to the Dublin packet which was full of officers and men from the Irish garrisons and others, like them, who were returning from leave. In the last, easy familiarity before the tendrils of the regiment coiled round both of them, Keenan and Morgan smoked together at the rail.
‘So, sir, Glassdrumman will miss you and I expect Miss Hawtrey will as well.’
‘Well, Keenan, we'll have to see, there's much ground to travel. And what of you, I was surprised that you didn't get down to Clonakilty to see your people. Did you write?’
Keenan tinkered with his stubby, clay pipe. ‘I did, sir, Mary gave me a hand with the letter, so. Jewel of a girl, that Mary.’
Morgan darted him a look, expecting some embarrassing reproach. But no, Keenan's face was set and sincere.
‘Sir, I need to ask you something. Mary's coming to join me in England and we're to marry. Will we be allowed to live together in barracks?’
Morgan couldn't believe what he was being told. So, Mary had been true to her word yet Private Keenan gave no sign of knowing what his future wife's actual relationship with his master really was. His departure for war, for deeds and glory, should have simplified things. Instead, the piquant little treat that he'd been pleased to dip into every time he came back to Ireland on leave was going to follow him back to the Regiment, married to his own servant.
‘You will, Keenan, but if we do get sent to war, there'll only be a handful of wives allowed to come with us and you'd better get used to the idea that a newly wed wife is unlikely to be selected.’ But even as Morgan replied to Keenan, he knew that if Mary was half the girl he thought she was, then she would somehow manage to be with them. He sighed deeply to himself.
There was a stamp of feet as the sentries stepped smartly from their wooden boxes outside the barrack gates and presented arms. Morgan touched his hat in acknowledgement of the salute whilst noting how both men had been alert enough to see an officer in plain clothes approaching in a civilian carriage. What he had failed to see was James Keenan's silent but frantic signals to his confederates from the open top of the vehicle: anything to avoid an officer's displeasure.
As they rattled through the gates of the modern, red-brick and tile barracks, Keenan couldn't resist the time-honoured greeting to those whose lot it was to stand guard. ‘It'll never get better if you pick-et, you bastards!’ whilst he flicked the oldest of discourtesies.
‘For the love of God stop it, Keenan,’ Morgan had half-expected something ribald from his servant as they approached Weedon Barracks – he had been in tearing spirits ever since they had boarded the carriage at Northampton station a couple of hours before.
‘We're not at Glassdrumman now and I've trouble enough with the adjutant without you adding to it!’ He was more giving voice to his own thoughts than trying to reprove Keenan, who in any event ignored his master, leaping from the carriage as it approached the Officers' Mess and busying himself with bags and cases.
‘Your honour will want to be in uniform? The other gentlemen are wearing their shell-jackets, sir, so I'll lay yours out with your sword and cap. Try not to tear that trouser strap again, sir, I had a devil of a job with it last time!’
Keenan's