A Mother's Sacrifice (25 page)

‘He was angry when he found the deer. I tried to explain but he wouldn’t listen to me.’

‘Patrick had no chance of justice, did he? Farmer Bilton made sure that he would be taken away. He’s a wicked man.’

‘He’s gentry, Mother.’

‘But only to those who do not know him as we do.’

‘Well, they still look after their own. The old Squire looked after Father, though. What did Father do for him all those years ago?’

‘I’ve told you; he was a good servant to him,’ Laura answered shortly.

Her tone implied the matter was closed, but Quinta persisted. ‘Was it anything to do with the farm?’

‘It’s in the past, dear. We have your future to consider now.’

There is no future for me, Quinta thought desperately. She wondered how she was going to go on without Patrick. Yet she had to for her mother’s sake. She hugged her arm closer. ‘We’ll stay out of the workhouse somehow.’

‘How shall we do that, dear?’

‘Farmer Bilton can have his tenancy back if he wants. I’ll find work here in town.’

They were halfway up the High Street. Laura stopped to catch her breath. ‘I can’t live here, my love, with all the smoke and smells. It makes me cough so and the physician said I need country air and delicate food.’

‘Then we must go home immediately.The garden is growing well and we have the hens. We’d best get back to them. We have left our house empty for too long.’

‘We cannot leave until after we have buried the sergeant, dear. George was prepared for the worst to happen and had left instructions with the surgeon.’

‘Then we shall have to move from the Crown. We can’t afford to stay there.’

‘The innkeeper’s wife told me it was all taken care of. George was thorough with his affairs.’

Quinta took her mother straight to the chamber they would now share at the Crown and took off her bonnet. She placed it on the chest of drawers next to a brown paper parcel that had languished there unopened. ‘Are you going to unwrap this, Mother?’

‘It’s from the draper’s shop. It’s for you, dear. You do it.’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s a gift, my dear; from Sergeant Ross. His wish was for you to wear it when you married his son.’

Quinta carefully took off the wrapping. The exquisite lace and ribbons lay neatly folded. She leaned weakly against the drawers. ‘He bought it f-for me; for my wedding to Patrick.’ She could no longer stop her tears. She did not try. She crumpled into a heap on the floor and sobbed.

Chapter 16

Patrick’s grief was consumed by fury. His initial disbelief that his father was dead had turned to anger with himself for not following his instincts and being there with him. While he was sealing his love for Quinta his father was dying. He saw it clearly now. His father had known the risks and had been prepared for the worst. He did not want him to have a lonely future on the road. Patrick’s turbulent thoughts so destroyed his reason that he was hardly aware of the guards manhandling him to a cell, or the later march, still chained, to join a ragged band of raw recruits for His Majesty’s army.

If that farmer hadn’t lied about what he had really seen, there would have been doubt about his guilt. Sir William might have believed him and he would be free, free to bury his father and to grieve for him; free to love Quinta, to wed her in a church and . . . and . . . The image of a family beneath the walnut tree near the cottage sprang into his head. This time it was Quinta in his vision, with a child, no, two; one playing around her feet and another suckling at her breast. It was then that he cried. He cried for the loss of his father, for the loss of Quinta, the girl - no, the woman - who had shown him how much he could love. And now she was gone. They were both gone for ever from his life. His life was gone.

At first he was consoled only by the thought that his life would be short. He knew what they called foot soldiers: cannon fodder, to be fed systematically to enemy fire until the King had killed more men than his enemies, or the other way round, and the battle was over. He wondered when that day would arrive. Europe was at peace and had been since Napoleon’s final defeat. The King’s army had been fighting further afield, the other side of the globe, building an empire.

But as he came to terms with his grief, he realised he did not want to die. He considered an escape and was planning how when two other men as desperate as he broke out of line and ran. One was taken down by a bullet and killed. The other was hunted like a fox, brought back and flogged as an example to the others, who were obliged to watch.

He was a prisoner. He was a soldier and unlikely to return alive to his love. He did not even know whether he would get pay for his soldiering. But if he did . . . He resolved that Quinta would have it all. It was the only way left to him to prove to her his love was constant. What need did he have for money? Without Quinta, his life was finished. He decided that if his fate was to die in battle then he would strive to die later rather than sooner and to that end he determined to be a good soldier. When he was killed, he would die fighting, fighting to survive for his Quinta, and leaving everything he possessed to her so that she would know that he had loved her to the end.

He wondered how he could get hold of pen and paper to write his thoughts down as a testament, a letter to his beloved Quinta, to give for safekeeping to the officer in command. But as the days and weeks passed, he realised that this was a fantasy for a prisoner recruit. He bided his time for there was nothing else to do with it.

He knew what to expect from the army; his father had educated him with fighting stories all his adolescent life. And he soon realised that he had a quicker wit than many of the other foot soldiers who joined the ragged line tramping to Newark. Some were convicted criminals like him, and as likely innocent, too, but mostly they were wretched country labourers who had abandoned their poverty-stricken lives on farms for the grime of coal pits and manufactories that were spreading like a disease across the land. An industrial revolution he’d heard it called. Whatever it was, it was changing the face of England.

He recalled his father’s words: ‘Just did as I was told and kept my head down.That’s how I survived.The drill sergeants behaved like snarling, starving animals but they had a job to do, as I found out when I rose in the ranks.’

‘Just human beings like you and me?’ Patrick had replied.

‘Not all of them,’ his father had answered darkly.

As Patrick tramped in line he observed the officers and men who would control his life and kept his own counsel. His father had trained him perfectly to do that.

 

They had been marched for days and then drilled for weeks as a defence and killing force. He thought often of his father’s wisdom as he sweated and silently cursed at his superiors’ constant, degrading bullying. All the recruits were punished sooner or later whether they deserved it or not, and he took his exhausting extra drills like the man that he was.

His life on the road had served him well. He had the strength to push himself to the limits of his endurance and the stamina to survive. He did it for himself, for his father’s memory, and for Quinta. He resolved to battle for Quinta. If he was to die a soldier he would go down fighting not for King and country but for her. He wished so much he had a likeness of her. He never wanted to forget her soft fragrant hair, her fine eyes and kissable lips, and the night they had loved each other as man and wife.

His life could have been so different if only . . . But it was not to be. He was a soldier as his father had been before him and one day, one day through the clearing mist of his grief, he realised that he was proud of that. In spite of Farmer Bilton’s scheming he was not languishing in some rat-infested gaol or vomiting on a convict ship to the colonies. He was not even considered a prisoner; he was a soldier with a soldier’s pay.

Could he expect Quinta to wait for him, left alone with her sick mother to fend for? Farmer Bilton had seemed intent on wedding her himself. He did not doubt that they would be turned out of Top Field, come what may. In his worst moments he thought ruefully that she would probably have to marry someone. But Quinta was strong in mind and body with wits to match. He prayed that somehow she would find a way to survive for when he could come back to her. He was his father’s son and, no matter how long it took, he would endeavour to return to his love.

He was issued with boots for his feet, clothes for his back and a bed to sleep on in a cavernous, stone-cold barrack room. The rations of meat, bread and ale were adequate and his constitution thrived on the otherwise harsh regime. Others were not so lucky and were weakened rather than toughened by the life. They were given their own rifles, like his father’s Baker, and the red tunics of the regiment. Soon they would be on the move, ready to fight and to die.

At the end of morning drill he stood rigid, waiting for the sergeant’s inspection. His corporal walked slowly along the line.

‘You!’

‘Yes, sir.’ Patrick stood stiffly to attention and looked straight ahead, avoiding the corporal’s eye.

‘Are you the poacher? The one they say is the best shot?’

‘I can shoot, sir.’

‘Aye, well, we all know that scatter guns can hit owt.’ The corporal glanced about and sniggered. ‘Rifles is different. Takes skill, they does. Skill. Hear that, you lot!’ When there was no response he yelled louder, ‘I said, did you hear that?’

A muttered ‘Yes, sir’ rattled around the small group.

‘You, then.This is loaded.’ He thrust a different rifle at Patrick. He examined it with interest. It was a Brunswick, a new design and much talked about.The dusty drill square was deserted and the corporal swivelled around looking for a target. ‘See that wooden post by the captain’s office? Now if yer misses to the right you’ll hit the wall an’ he won’t like that at all. But if yer misses to the left you’ll hit the door. Newly painted that door is with his name on it, and he’ll be right mad when he gets back. He can be a nasty piece when he’s riled, can the captain.’ He looked at the other men and grinned again. ‘Go on then, poacher. Shoot.’

Patrick shouldered the rifle and aimed carefully. He was confident of hitting the post because it was a substantial piece of timber. But there were questions about the type of bullets for this gun and he wondered if the rifle barrel was true and shot straight. He guessed it wasn’t and the bullet would veer one way or the other. Not to the left, he reasoned. Even the corporal wouldn’t risk him defacing the captain’s office door. The chances were that the barrel might shoot to the right and hit the wall. The sergeant would expect Patrick to avoid the door at all costs, aim towards the right of the post and by doing do increase his chances of hitting the wall instead.

He aimed for dead centre of the post and squeezed the trigger.

‘You.’ The corporal pointed at a private, waved his hand at the post and the soldier trotted towards it.

‘Centre, sir,’ he called.

Patrick raised his eyebrows. The rifle was true.

‘Fluke,’ the corporal sneered.‘Beginner’s luck. Let’s try summat else, shall we.’ He reached inside his uniform jacket and took out a silk neckerchief. Clearly he did not believe that Patrick was a beginner because he handed him a cartridge from a leather pouch attached to his belt and said,‘Reload.’ He watched him closely as Patrick charged the unfamiliar weapon. Then he picked up a pebble, wrapped the silk loosely around it and threw it high in the air. The stone dropped away and the silk floated gently back to earth. ‘Hit that,’ he ordered.

Patrick’s eyes widened. He really did need a scatter gun to be sure of hitting a moving target but the neckerchief was much bigger than a pigeon and slower moving so he had time to judge its speed and aim. The bullet caught the edge, tearing the delicate fabric. It leaped once before resuming its gentle descent to the ground.

The corporal fell silent. His sergeant had arrived. He walked across the dusty square, retrieved the neckerchief and examined the damage. Then he demanded of Patrick, ‘Who taught you how to fire a rifle?’

‘My father did, sir.’

‘Poacher like you, was he?’

‘No, sir.’

‘What then?’

‘He was a soldier, sir, a sergeant in the Duke of Wellington’s army.’

The sergeant studied him closely for a moment as though he did not believe him, so Patrick added, ‘With the Ninety-fifth regiment, sir.’

‘Corporal, carry on,’ he barked.‘Ross, follow me.’The sergeant marched away briskly towards the captain’s office.

 

The next day Patrick had joined another group of recruits marching for the coast and a ship that would take him away from the Riding, from Quinta and from England. He had learned to guard, to shoot to kill and most of all to fight and win. Now he had to be a soldier prepared to die in battle. His father had done it before him and survived and he wondered if he might also.

However, his fate was not to fight on the battlefields of India or South America. His education and civil manners saved him. Within two months, as the English winter began to bite, he embarked with his regiment on a ship that would take him to the warmth of the West Indies.

His duty would be to guard the offices of the King’s representative, whose task was to ensure that emancipation was implemented peacefully on the sugar plantations. As the shores of England receded his hopes of returning to the South Riding faded with them. But his memory of Quinta did not dim. As though it was yesterday, she was in his head, in his heart, indeed in his soul. He wondered what was happening to her and if she ever thought of him.

Chapter 17

‘At least the Lord has seen fit to send the sun to see the sergeant on his way,’ Laura said as she and Quinta left the Crown to walk to the graveyard.

‘There is no sun in the sky for me,’ Quinta replied. ‘What kind of gentleman is the King if he will not let one of his soldiers attend his father’s funeral?’