Jack Steel Adventure Series Books 1-3: Man of Honour, Rules of War, Brothers in Arms. Iain Gale
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little back from the punishment block Farquharson still felt too close for comfort and pulling at the reins of his handsome grey mare he coughed, nervously.
‘You know, Aubrey, I really do find all this so very tiresome.’
He belched and wiped his mouth with a white lace handkerchief he kept hidden in his sleeve.
‘I suppose that I must really remain until the end, eh. Until it is erm … finished?’
Jennings smiled. ‘I really don’t see how you can do otherwise, Sir James. It is after all your regiment. Not good for the men to see you go before the … erm … finish, Sir.’
‘Quite so, quite so. It was merely that I remembered a prior engagement you understand. Staff business as it were. You were not to know. It is of no matter, no matter at all. How many lashes did you say?’
‘A round hundred, Sir James. You yourself signed the warrant.’
‘A hundred. Yes indeed. Dreadful crime. Quite dreadful. What was it again?’
Jennings turned back to the parade without answering. He knew the real reason for his commanding officer’s desire to leave. And that it had nothing to do with ‘staff business’. He did not in truth respect Farquharson any more than he respected Steel. Neither, in his opinion, was the sort of officer who was wanted in a modern army. Oh, it would suffice in the sort of army on which Milord Marlborough had set his heart. But Jennings knew that modern warfare needed a quite different sort of man in command. Ruthless, inspiring, pitiless. Certainly Marlborough had shown his grasp of the new warfare at Schellenberg. That was real war. War without mercy. But Jennings could see that their great commander, like the old fools who commanded the majority of his regiments, had no stomach for the sort of warfare he envisaged. The new breed of soldier needed nerves of steel and undaunted courage. And such a soldier could, naturally, only be commanded by men like himself. The square was almost complete now. The remaining officers of the regiment rode into place with their respective companies. Jennings was joined by Charles Frampton who had completed his immediate duties.
‘Good afternoon, Charles.’
‘Aubrey. Sir James. Bloody business this. Can’t say that I really care for it.’
Farquharson smiled. Jennings spoke:
‘Nor I, Charles, in truth. But it is what the army requires. Distasteful business though it is.’
‘Oh, I did not mean that I disapproved of it. Not at all. Quite so. Absolutely necessary. No other way. I was merely hoping to have been able to have spent the morning at drill. Most important you know. Now. Where are we? Where is the dreadful fellow?’
Another rattle of side drums signalled the approach of the prisoner and escort. Dan Cussiter was a scrawny looking Yorkshire-born Private from number three company. According to tradition, he was led by two Grenadiers and Sergeant Stringer, whose weasel face was suffused with a grin. Stringer relished all punishment parades and liked to see the men suffer. He would walk round the frame soaking up every moment of the agony, and he looked up now at Jennings with the eager anticipation of a waiting terrier.
‘Colonel, Sah. Permission to proceed with the punishment, Sah.’
Farquharson nodded to Jennings who in turn nodded to Stringer.
‘Lay it on, Sarn’t.’
Two drummer boys in their shirtsleeves had taken up their positions on the left and right of the ghastly frame. Their comrades continued the drum roll as the prisoner was led to the wooden poles. Steel barely knew Cussiter. Certainly, he had seen him many times about the camp and on the march, but the man had never made a particular impression. He seemed somewhat anonymous, not at all the sort of fellow you might mark out as a potential criminal. Steel wondered exactly what he had done to deserve this punishment. Theft certainly, but of what and of what value? True, in the measure of things a hundred lashes was relatively light. Some men were sentenced to 1,000 lashes and more to be administered over a number of days or weeks. At least in Cussiter’s case it seemed likely that it would be done in one session.
The drums stopped as the man was tied with one hand on each side of the central halberd and his feet spread out at the wide base of the triangle. A corporal pressed a piece of folded leather into his mouth, a precaution lest he bite off his own tongue with the pain, but also a gag to prevent him from screaming and thus further disgracing himself and the regiment. Stringer stood to the left of the frame and nodded to one of the young drummer boys.
‘Drummers, do your duty.’
Steel watched as the boy raised the cat o’ nine tails above his head and rotated it twice in the air as he had been taught to do by the regimental farrier. It seemed to hover in the air before the boy brought it down with a slap across the man’s back. Steel watched as the white flesh began to seep red and winced as Cussiter’s body arched away from the blow. Now it was evident why the fifth halberd was tied across the triangle. There was to be no chance that the prisoner might be able to sink his torso forward and avoid the lash.
Stringer’s cruelly jubilant voice rang out across the silent parade ground: ‘One.’
The boy’s hand came up again and again the whip journeyed round his head before falling on the white back.
‘Two.’
Now the drummer boy drew the tails of the cat through the fingers of his left hand, as he had been taught to do between each stroke, to rid them of excess blood and any pieces of skin or flesh which might have attached themselves. Again the whip descended.
‘Three. Keep ’em high, lad.’ The last thing they wanted was for the strokes to fall on the man’s vital organs thus resulting in his death or being invalided out of the regiment.
‘Four.’ The cat whistled down again, the thick knots at the top of each thong cutting into the soft flesh of Cussiter’s back.
It seemed interminable. After the first twenty-five strokes the drummers changed and with the new boy came fresh agonies for the prisoner as the strokes began to fall from a different side and with a different pace.
‘Twenty-eight,’ boomed Stringer, his face split wide in a grin.
‘Twenty-nine.’
By the time they had reached fifty, the halfway mark, Cussiter’s body was sagging down, but his head still seemed to be holding itself aloft. The drummers paused as Stringer stepped forward to investigate what seemed to be a piece of exposed bone. He addressed the Adjutant. ‘Think I can see a rib sir.’
Steel looked. It was true. There was a glint of something pearly white against Cussiter’s bloodied flesh.
Jennings spoke: ‘No matter, Sarn’t. Carry on.’
There was an audible groan from the battalion. The battalion Sergeant-Major responded: ‘Silence in the ranks there. Corporal, take names.’
Two of the officers opposite Steel also began to whisper to each other. This was certainly most irregular. The idea was not to lay the man open to the bone so quickly. The punishment should really be suspended. Jennings nodded to Stringer and the drummers began again.
‘Fifty-one.’
Having had the blissful remission of a few seconds without the lash, Cussiter’s back arched out in a new extreme of contortion as the next stroke descended with renewed fury. Blood splashed up with every cut now. The drummers were soon covered and it flowed in slow rivulets down the victim’s back to form puddles around him in the dust. Even Steel looked away and wished the thing might end. In whatever way.
Looking across the parade ground to where Williams sat, he noticed that the young Ensign’s complexion was now quite white. Farquharson face too had turned ashen and it was evident that the Colonel was attempting to divert his eyes away from the spectacle.
Jennings, on the other hand, was staring with ghoulish fascination at the wreck of Cussiter’s back. After what seemed an eternity the words came at last.
‘One