A Call to Arms

day. ‘Sir!’

‘Turn ’im about, Corporal!’

Corporal Mossop knew the order would be pointless. He jerked him round to face rear.

Armstrong pulled the man’s long red hair roughly to one side. ‘I thought as much!’ he snarled.

Hervey, too, saw the ‘BC’ brand on his shoulder.

‘Why can’t them bringers look properly? About turn!’ he barked.

The man spun right-about like a top, ending up with his hands at attention by his side and his eyes set distant, exactly as if on parade.

‘And what might your former service be, my bonny lad?’

The man’s voice faltered. ‘Six years, sir. Thirty-fourth Foot.’

‘And why did the Thirty-fourth discharge you?’

‘Rather not say, sir.’

‘ “Rather not say.” I bet you wouldn’t.’ He turned to Hervey. ‘Sir?’

Hervey knew his serjeant-major wanted him to say ‘Throw him out of the gates’, for that was what the army intended when it branded a man ‘bad character’. But he recoiled more from the notion of branding than from the letters themselves. ‘Can we not see how he goes to his work while we try to find out why he was discharged?’

Armstrong suppressed a sigh. ‘I wouldn’t want him messing with the others to begin with, sir.’

‘He can sleep in the guardroom, can he not?’

‘He can, sir. Corporal Mossop, double this man away. I want an eye on him at all times.’

‘Sir!’

‘Not a good beginning,’ said Hervey. ‘How did you know to look for a brand? There were no lash marks.’

‘Just an instinct, that’s all, but I only thought there might be a “D”.’

‘Trying it on for the bounty?’

‘Ay. There was a man ’anged not six months back for it. Deserted and then ’listed again eighteen times before he was discovered.’

‘Well, five pounds and four shillings is an attractive bounty. But I wonder that someone on the take doesn’t go to the infantry for the other guinea.’

‘Maybe we’ve a soft name, sir.’

Hervey frowned. ‘Yes, we’ve both of us seen men who thought they were enlisting to an easier life because they rode to battle rather than walked.’

Armstrong screwed up his face. ‘But I’ll ’ave that bastard if ’e does prove a bad character. And I’ll ’ave that Mary-Anne — Mossop — for not being sharper. I’ll stop his bringing-money, that’s for certain.’

Hervey was beginning to wonder if one more recruit was worth the trouble. ‘The others look clean-limbed. You can’t fault Corporal Mossop for that.’

‘Ay. They do right enough. Yon dragoon!’ he shouted.

A smart-looking private man doubled over to them and saluted. ‘Sir?’

‘Who are you, lad?’

‘Ashbolt, sir. C Troop.’

The keen eyes said it all. Hervey sighed to himself. He wished he had twenty like him.

‘Well, when you’ve finished dusting them with that evil-smelling powder, line them up for inspection.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Ashbolt saluted and doubled away.

In as straight a line as the keen eyes could manage with them, the six recruits stood as upright as they could.

‘Name!’ barked Armstrong at the first, a well-made lad.

‘Harkness, sir.’

‘Work?’

‘Cooper, sir. Then there was insufficient so I was laid off.’ Broad shoulders told that he must have been useful when work there was.

‘Read or write?’

‘I can read a little, if you please.’

‘No “if you please”, lad: just plain “sir”.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And that “sir” is addressed not to me but to the officer on parade.’

Harkness looked confused.

‘You’ll learn soon enough,’ said Armstrong, moving to the next. ‘Name?’

‘French, sir.’

‘I’d change that quickly if I were you, lad.’

‘Please, sir?’

‘Never mind. Work?’

‘Counting-house clerk, sir.’

‘Lost your character, did you?’

‘No, sir.’ The boy — for that was all he looked — sounded indignant. His black curls bobbed as he shook his head. ‘I didn’t like the city, sir.’

‘Country, are you? Do you know horses?’

‘I’ve driven a pair, sir.’ His voice was not of the common stamp. Armstrong eyed him suspiciously and moved to the third. ‘Name?’

‘Smith, sir.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘Yes, sir. I was a boiler with the Oakley. I have a testimony from Lord Tavistock, sir.’

‘Why did you leave?’

‘I wanted to ’list in the horse guards, sir. But they said I was too short, sir.’

‘Read and write?’

‘No, sir.’

Armstrong turned to the next. ‘Your name, lad.’

‘Sisken, sir.’ The words were barely audible.

Armstrong looked down at the spreading pool by the man’s left foot. ‘Good,’ he said simply, and moved on.

‘Name?’

‘McCarthy, sor.’

Hervey looked closer. Armstrong continued: ‘Employ?’

‘Private man, Hundred and fourth Foot, sor.’

Armstrong’s suspicions rose like storm cones.

‘I had my honourable discharge, sor,’ the man insisted, the gentle Cork lilt now plain.

‘The Hundred and fourth were disbanded two years ago, Sar’nt-Major,’ explained Hervey, stepping forward a pace. ‘We have met before, have we not, McCarthy?’

‘We have, sor.’

Armstrong looked at Hervey for enlightenment.

‘In Le Havre — a little affair of rebellious Frenchmen. Private McCarthy has a cool head under fire.’

‘Thank you, sor.’

Armstrong eyed him up and down, taking his own measure, and moved to the last man. ‘Name!’

‘Mole, sir.’

‘Occupation.’

‘ ’Ireling, sir.’

Mole looked to Armstrong to be little more promising than Sisken, a harelip giving his face a permanent expression of alarm and rendering his speech awkward. ‘Read or write?’

‘No, sir.’

Armstrong turned to Hervey and saluted. ‘Carry on, sir, please?’

‘A word with them first, Sar’nt-Major.’ He looked left and right at the six recruits. Somehow by the miracle of