A Shred of Honour Read online

  ‘Make your presence known to Yelland, give him some water, then take up a position on the blind side of the crest. Stay low and keep him in view. If you see Yelland coming towards us, double back and get me. I’ll relieve you both in an hour.’

  ‘Water bottles off,’ he snapped, his eyes raking the rest of somnolent men. ‘Take a good drink now. Tully, Hollick,’ he called to the two nearest Bullocks.

  ‘He’s Hollick, I’m Tully,’ the man replied, without adding a ‘sir’ or making any attempt to stand up. Added to that his pock-marked, ugly face had a sour, insubordinate expression.

  Markham thought hard, but then had to admit the man was right, which made him clench his jaw in anger as he issued his instructions. ‘On your feet, both of you.’

  ‘Christ, there’s no peace,’ Tully moaned.

  But he’d begun to rise, so Markham let that pass. Hollick, his fair skin burnt red, hesitated for a split second before doing likewise. He had them collect the water bottles, then led them back to the village to fill them. Once they were fully occupied, Markham turned to look around. It was odd that the place was deserted. Not that he imagined it ever bustling, but there should have been someone around.

  The Provençal architecture was dissimilar, but it still reminded him of those small Loyalist townships in the Americas, hamlets that would empty as soon as a red coat was sighted on the horizon, the people taking to the woods until the soldiers had passed. He’d been told the locals, afraid of the Terror, had invited the British ashore. Perhaps that didn’t apply to the people of Ollioules. Or maybe just the sight of one armed man, of an unknown nationality, was enough to send them into flight.

  ‘Tully, I’m going to see what food there might be in the inn. Come and tell me when you’ve finished.’ That was answered with a slow nod. Markham was tired and hot, and well aware that imbuing this lot with discipline was going to be an uphill struggle. All of which added real force to his response.

  ‘The correct response is “yes, sir”, and don’t you ever forget to use it again. If we retreat, I intend to poison that well. The quickest way, I’ve found, is to tip a dead body into the water.’

  What emerged from Tully’s throat wasn’t the right response, but it was close enough to satisfy a man more interested in a drink than the exercise of authority. Taking his hat off as he ducked under the low lintel, he could feel the coolness of the interior on the rim of sweat that circled the top of his head. It was dark, too, after the bright sunlight of the roadway, so his eyes took time to adjust. The empty flagons that littered the tables engendered curiosity, which was immediately forgotten as the assailant shot towards him.

  Chapter four

  If they’d come at him together he wouldn’t have stood a hope in hell, and he was glad that the first one tried to crown him with a bottle rather than get him with a knife. The backlift required to put any force into the blow slowed what was intended and gave Markham just enough time to duck under it, so that it took him on the shoulder rather than the head. He still felt a sharp pain followed by a spreading numbness, but the amount of effort used by the attacker knocked the bottle out of his hand, and it clattered onto the stone floor and shattered.

  Markham had already managed one loud shout, praying that the combination of noises would bring him help. He could only see two men, but in the dingy interior there could be dozens. He got his arms round the waist of the bottle smasher and turned him towards the second man, whose access was impeded by a table. He was carrying a knife, of the small variety, sharp, vicious and curved, used for gutting and filleting fish. Frightened that he was about to skewer his companion, he pulled the weapon to one side, which, surprisingly, threw him off balance.

  Loosening one hand, Markham struck viciously for the groin, jabbing first. Then feeling the loose sack of skin, he took a tight grip. His assailant shot bolt upright, emitting a scream, his lips pulled back to show a fine set of white teeth. Markham tried to get his free hand across to unsheathe his sword, but his own arm was in the way.

  The man with the knife had staggered round the table and was coming at his unprotected side when help finally arrived. Tully, standing on the elevated doorstep swung his boot high and took him right on the side of the head. Markham had a fleeting impression of a swarthy complexion, dark curly hair and slightly glazed eyes, before the light went out of them and the attacker crashed to the floor. Tully stepped forward, his bayonet out, and dropped to one knee.

  ‘No!’

  The shout made his fist tighten even more, producing another scream from the man he was holding. But it failed to stop Tully, who in one swift movement jabbed forward with the eighteen-inch blade and cut his victim’s throat from the inside out. Vaguely aware of Hollick standing in the doorway, Markham pushed hard, sending his attacker reeling across a table. The distance thus opened allowed him to get his sword out, and the tip, laid on the man’s ribcage, just above his fine waistcoat, removed any notion of continued fighting from his mind.

  ‘Hollick, take charge here.’

  As soon as the trooper responded, his own bayonet replacing the sword, Markham walked over to look at the other assailant, now on his back with a stream of blood running from his neck on to the stone floor. He noticed that he was dressed like a servant, his clothing of quite good quality without being as fine as that of the man on the table.

  ‘Damn you, Tully, there was no need to kill him.’

  ‘Safest way, I reckon,’ Tully replied. There was no passion in his voice, nor emotion in his pig-like eyes.

  ‘Come with me. Hollick, keep that man still.’

  There wasn’t much to search. The place consisted of no more than a front parlour and a cramped backroom that doubled as a bedroom-cum-kitchen. The girl, more of a child really, was lying with her back to them curled in a ball, her naked body showing even in the grim light the marks where she’d been beaten and assaulted. Markham bent down and touched her, producing a fearful shudder which ran right through her body, accompanied by a whimpered plea to be left alone. Turning to the soldier, he saw a look in his eyes that, ranging over the slim, bruised body, spoke volumes about what touched his emotions.

  ‘Out, Tully!’ snapped Markham. ‘Help Hollick get something round that fellow to restrain him.’

  ‘What you got in mind for her?’ Tully asked, his voice rasping and low.

  ‘Protection, man,’ Markham replied, reaching for a threadbare blanket. ‘And something to cover her shame.’

  ‘She’s only a Frenchie, sir. I thought we was here to fight them.’

  Markham stood up and faced Tully. ‘The men, soldier. Not the women, and certainly not a young girl. Do as I say and get out!’

  He was again faced with that look, the attitude of a man contemplating disobedience. If Tully thought himself a dissembler he was wrong. Markham could see, in his eyes, all the thoughts that flickered through his mind. The bloodstained bayonet was still in his hand. The man who stood between him and a chance to assuage his lust would be so easy to kill. Better still, the people to blame were to hand, one with his throat already cut. There was an air of desperation about him. Weeks at sea, without even the sight of a woman, had made him very dangerous indeed.

  ‘Out,’ said Markham softly. ‘There’ll be a whorehouse in Toulon for what you’re after.’

  Tully blinked and Markham didn’t, and that was what made the difference. He took a pace backwards. ‘There’s a mule around somewhere. Find it, we’ll need it to carry the water back.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Tully softly, before spinning on his heel and striding out. As he bent to reassure the girl that she was now safe, he heard him say something to Hollick. The walls made it indistinct, but it sounded remarkably like ‘all officers are the same, right selfish bastards’. The girl’s dark brown eyes, responding to the soft words spoken in her native tongue, fixed on his face. Whatever she saw there turned her whimpers to sobs, and tears streamed down the smooth olive skin of her face. Markham covered her with the blanket, and left.<
br />
  Hollick was standing in the same place, the man still splayed on his back across the table. He opened a shutter, filling the room with light. There were flagons everywhere, some empty, others half full, and their prisoner was no longer an indistinct shape, but a formed human being. Black-haired, carefully curled, with a thin moustache, he had a narrow face with sharp features, and the kind of hooked nose that hinted at Arab or Levantine blood. His thin red lips were parted, with a fine line of dried saliva where they’d joined. He was breathing deeply, eyes shut tight, as if trying to draw moisture into his dry mouth.

  The quality of his garments became even more apparent in the light; high quality linen, fine cambric waistcoat, good, if dusty boots and breeches so tight they were like a second skin. Markham saw a green silk coat and sword belt across a chair which he assumed to belong to his prisoner. In the inside pocket of the coat he found several official-looking letters, all addressed to a Pierre-Michel Fouquert. He was about to read the first one when Tully came back from his search for the donkey, his boots ringing on the flagstoned floor.

  ‘There’s a poor sod out the back lashed to the fencing with his balls cut off.’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Wouldn’t want to be alive without his nuts, would he, sir?’

  Markham jabbed the tip of his sword into the man on the table, which brought his eyes open. Black and bloodshot, they were nevertheless steady and full of hate, with an intensity that, allied to his other features, gave him a demonic look. What he’d seen in the back room, added to what Tully had just reported, indicated he might well be like that. He struggled, rather feebly, to move. Given the number of empty bottles in the place, it was a fair guess that he was suffering from the effects of too much drink, not all of which had worn off.

  ‘Get him upright and take him outside.’

  The Frenchman started moaning as soon as the soldiers grabbed his shirt-front, the supplication softening his features. The protests began as he was dragged outside. They were only halfway to the back of the building before he started sobbing, as though he’d worked out what was in store for him. The sight of the body, wrists and neck tied to the split wood fence, its feet splayed over the deep pool of mixed flesh and blood, brought forth the first hint of a scream. Tully hit him, a blow that swept across his moustachioed mouth, jerking his head to one side and producing an immediate flow of bright red froth from the split lower lip. Hollick, hanging onto another post, was trying not to retch.

  ‘Cut down that poor fellow and put this sod in his place,’ said Markham, his voice and manner as cold as ice. ‘And as soon as you’ve done that, undo those fine breeches he’s wearing and show him your bayonet.’

  That instrument, dull gleaming steel playing tantalisingly around the curled black hairs of his exposed groin, had the Frenchman gabbling replies to Markham’s question in a manner that guaranteed truth. He confirmed ownership of the letters Markham was waving, and that his name was Fouquert. He claimed to be a French naval officer, who’d been unsure which cause to follow, that of the Republicans or the Monarchists. The Royalist commander in Toulon, Admiral Trugueff, had been deposed. When Hood threatened that any warship which hadn’t landed its powder would be treated as an enemy, Fouquert and his men had gathered muskets and pikes, then abandoned both vessels and forts. He’d brought the main body here, then sent them on to Marseilles while he waited for the stragglers.

  ‘How far behind are these stragglers?’ It was hard to shrug in that position, but Fouquert managed it. If they’d been on the road, seeing his soldiers approaching, they must have taken to the hills. ‘How many men did you bring out of Toulon?’

  The reply produced such a shock in his lieutenant that Tully’s bayonet, acting like an extension of Markham’s surprise, drew blood from the inside of the man’s thigh. Both soldiers then looked at him hard, wondering what had produced such a response.

  ‘According to this turd there are five thousand well-armed French sailors roaming around these hills, mostly in front of us, God be thanked, but some behind.’

  The figure really wasn’t that surprising. Hood’s fleet, if you included tenders and supply ships, was manned by more than twenty thousand sailors. The French Mediterranean fleet would need that many, if not more, to be effective.

  ‘I say we make it one less,’ said Hollick, leaning forward so that his face was less than an inch from Fouquert’s, the words delivered in a growling, manly fashion to cover his recent, retching response to the sight of dead man’s blood.

  Tully waved the bayonet before the terrified Frenchman’s eyes, so close that Hollick had to pull back. ‘You ain’t got the stomach for cold death, mate. Best leave it to a man.’

  Hollick, upright again, had his own bayonet out in a flash. ‘Damn you, Tully, I can do it as easy as you.’

  ‘Never,’ the older soldier replied. Then he spat, deliberately, at the prisoner.

  Fouquert, convinced he was about to be stabbed, protested, pleaded that what had happened here had been none of his doing. That even as an officer he could hardly be expected to control men who’d run away from their duty. Markham, unsure if he was lying, told him to shut up, then ordered Tully and Hollick to take a step back. He continued to question him, noticing that as Fouquert answered his black eyes never left his interrogator’s face.

  There was intelligence there, that was obvious. With each question his fear was evaporating, to be replaced by a rather superior demeanour that began with those same eyes, but soon spread to his thin cheeks. Markham watched, fascinated in a detached way, as they relaxed, soon followed by the clenched jawbone. The lips, hitherto compressed, eased to become full and red. The Frenchman knew that for all the bluff, and the threatening behaviour of the men he had with him, this British officer was not going to kill or mutilate him. By the time he’d finished his interrogation, there was something very close to a smirk on those same red lips, a look which seemed to convey that should the positions be reversed, Fouquert wouldn’t hesitate.

  Markham had somehow surrendered the initiative, but was at a loss to know how to regain it. Short of torture, he had few options, and he was neither prepared to indulge in that, nor turn the kind of blind eye that would let Tully loose.

  ‘Leave him tied up here. If we’re reinforced and hold out, I’ll send him back to Toulon. There’s his own kind there to find out the truth and deal with him.’

  ‘What if we have to run?’ asked Tully, his eyes narrowed.

  ‘In that case, soldier, I’ll make you his keeper. He’s an officer and a Republican, who probably cut up this poor sod, which in Toulon could well mean the rope. But to us, he’s a prisoner of war, and will be treated as such. If he dies before we get back then you’ll probably hang in his place.’

  He was tempted to go on, to say that they were British soldiers, not renegade Republican sailors. To tell them of the effect of unlicensed and unbridled rapine on a local populace. To explain that he’d seen it in America, during a war so unpopular that the King, unable to field enough men from his own land, had been forced to recruit German mercenaries to fight the colonists.

  That was when Markham had to shut his eyes, fight to block out the personal memories, those that only normally came to him at night, producing an overwhelming sense of failure and loss. He succeeded only by opening those eyes again, and observing in the faces of both Hollick and Tully an inquiring look.

  ‘We need the locals to trust us,’ he said, his eyes ranging around the high escarpments that hemmed in the village. ‘Don’t be fooled by those empty houses. The people who lived in them will be in the hills around here, perhaps so close they’re watching us now. Killing their own kind won’t make them trust us.’ He kicked viciously, and suddenly, at the ground, sending a cloud of dust into the prisoner’s smirking face. ‘Even a shit like this.’

  Spinning round, he saw that the donkey and the two under-nourished horses had retreated to the other side of the paddock, as far away as possible from the smell of blood. ‘Get t
hat donkey down to the well.’

  Tully stepped forward and drew his bayonet gently across the Frenchman’s throat, then laughed at the look his action produced.

  ‘Move,’ said Markham, softly.

  The two soldiers headed across the paddock, spreading out to hem in the animals. Markham went back inside the inn to look for food. The girl was hunched by the blackened grate, still with the blanket around her shoulders, gently dabbing a cloth into a pot of water slung over the embers, trying to wash herself. Judging by the pressure she was applying to her skin, it wasn’t only dirt she was trying to remove. The sudden realisation of his presence made her clutch the blanket tightly to her.

  His questions regarding food, delivered to her partially hidden face, produced mumbled answers. More men than his two attackers had passed through from Toulon – this said in such a rasping, painful way that Markham should understand the true depth of her ordeal. In the course of her mutters he discovered that her name was Celeste. The men who’d abused her cleaned the place out, torturing and murdering her father in front of her to try and find if he had anything hidden. Contrary to his earlier belief, the other inhabitants of Ollioules hadn’t fled to the hills. They’d been driven out of the village ahead of the deserters, herded like cattle carrying their meagre possessions, as a punishment for their lack of revolutionary fervour.

  As gently as he could, he established that Fouquert was, indeed, the leader. She started to curse softly, and then a stream of words tumbled out. He listened carefully as she detailed how Fouquert had abused her, the pain he inflicted and the contempt he had shown. When he was finished, he’d handed her over to some of his drunken supporters. The temptation to confront him with his guilt was strong. Would he smirk at this girl if she had a bayonet in her hand? It was an alluring image, but pointless, since Fouquert well knew what he’d done.

  ‘Where did they go?’

  The girl waved a hand in the general direction of Marseilles. ‘They drove off the livestock, as well, leaving the two horses for their companions.’