As Meat Loves Salt

This made the boy worse. I heard great snorts as he fought to swallow his food.

‘What ails him?’ I asked, vexed at his silliness for I felt I was somehow being made a mock of.

‘Me and my bravado. He knows I am no brawler, eh Nat?’ Ferris handed me more beef. Nathan continuing to giggle, I rose, sensing myself in a false position. The two of them turned laughing faces up to me.

‘Where did you get the meat?’ I asked. ‘I will try for some more,’ and indeed I could have eaten the whole lot twice over.

‘That fire over there.’ Nathan pointed. ‘But they won’t give you any. It was a favour to me.’

‘We shall see.’ I made my way to the fire he had indicated and found some beef still in it, roasting on a stick. This I seized. The two whose food it was crying out in protest, I offered to fight first one then the other for it, and appealed to the others sitting around to judge if that was fair. They, being bored and ready for any diversion, said that it was. I then held myself upright and let the beef-cooks get a good look at me. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘which of you shall be first?’ and made to take off my coat. Neither budged, so I took up the meat and left them to the contemplation of their cowardice and the jeers of their companions.

Ferris and the boy were pushing one another, still laughing, when I returned with my trophy. They stopped at once upon seeing it, and Nathan gasped, ‘How did you persuade them to that?’

Ferris leapt up. ‘I can guess how,’ he said, and he had the stick away from me before I knew it. ‘I will tell them it was nothing but jest. Nat, give me this,’ and picking up the cloth he strolled off towards the other fire while I stood amazed, considering whether I should bloody his mouth for him if he returned.

Return he did, cloth in hand, and after grinning at me straightway sat down at my feet.

‘What do you mean,’ I said, ‘by – hey, you, what do you mean?’ It was awkward standing thus over a man on the ground and talking to him. Nathan glanced anxiously up at me.

‘Sit here and I’ll tell you.’ Ferris patted the grass. I squatted next to him, my anger ready to flame out at a very little thing.

‘That’s the second time today I’ve saved your life,’ he said.

‘Saved my life! They were near beshitten for fear of me.’

‘Can you catch musket balls in your teeth? Those men are musketeers.’

I recalled Mervyn’s syllabub.

‘I have told them you were in drink, meant the thing as a jest and would have brought it back, only you forgot the place,’ Ferris went on. ‘I suppose you are not really the Duke of Plunderland? They do say he goes about in disguise.’

Had someone at home – Zeb, or Peter – said such things, he would have smarted for it. I glared at Ferris.

He looked steadily back. ‘Ah, yes. You are full as big as he. Able to put me in the ground without a weapon, eh?’ He began untying the cloth. ‘Are you still hungry? Are you, Nat?’

A flush spread over my cheeks.

‘Here.’ Ferris opened up the last folds and pushed the bundle of meat towards me. ‘No bread this time.’

Nathan was full of admiration. ‘Brave Ferris! Where did you get it?’

‘From them, of course. I begged another share as reward for bringing it back.’

‘Many thanks,’ I muttered.

Humbled, I finished the meat in silence and endured Nathan’s prattle with as much patience as I could muster. After a while the boy said, ‘Ferris, we are to see Russ before turning in for the night.’

‘I forgot. Where is he?’

‘Methinks on the far side of the camp.’ The boy stood up. ‘We should go now.’

‘Agreed.’ Ferris rose. ‘You will be snug enough here,’ he said to me. ‘Warm, and plenty of comrades round you. Sleep well.’

They picked their way across the grass. The boy was indeed the taller of the two, and I observed with a pang that he put his arm across Ferris’s shoulders as I used to lay mine over Izzy’s. Where, I wondered, was my own dear brother? Was he suffering for my crimes? To walk with my arm round him, to seek his advice, these were things which most likely I should never do more. I looked around me. The men were sprinkled about in groups and I could see none so utterly alone as myself. I have been loved, I wanted to call out to them, for it felt like leprosy.

I slept that night with the others, as near the fire as I could get, and tried to ease my aching hips. The entertainment money was laid next my breast, where a thief could not lift it without waking me. Yet it was impossible to rest easy, and after a while I gave up trying. As the fire sank low, and more men drifted into sleep, I heard mutterings, sobs and rustlings all around me. Many unknowingly gave tongue to their pain: ‘Mary, Mary, no such thing,’ mumbled one nearby, and another screamed out in the night, ‘Save him, it falls.’ Later, from some distance off, I heard shrieks as if a man were having a fit. It seemed that all suffered, the good along with the bad. But then, lying dismal and quiet, I felt the surge in my head which announced the Voice, and straightway there came unlooked-for comfort:

Our affairs are all of them ordered, and shall we, with our puny efforts, direct them ourselves? You are sheltered within the Lord’s own army. Rest you there.

Daybreak was deathly cold. Swathed and huddled bodies flinched as the drum beat out reveille; I watched the man nearest me open his eyes on God’s sky and fall to silent cursing. He lay awhile propped on one arm, coughing up phlegm, before crawling off to the fire and laying the wood together. He then moved away, came back with a water bottle and seemed to pour it into the flames, for steam rose. After a time I understood that he was boiling a pannikin of water, something I had done countless times. The strangeness of the place had made me stupid.

A cry of ‘Rise, rise’ was heard nearer to us and the men commenced groaning. When we were all upright I thought I had never seen such wild-looking folks as some of the young ones. They were purple-grey with cold and their cropped hair stuck up at all angles. I passed my hand over my own head: tufts and angles too.

‘Where’s your lovely locks, Rupert?’ one called to me.

‘Sent them to his honey,’ said another.

I turned away.

‘Eh Rupert, want some bread?’

I limped on stiff legs to the fire. The one who had first called pointed to something like boiling slops on it. ‘Bread’s so old you can’t eat it without.’

‘Maybe he can,’ another replied. To me he said, ‘Big lad, aren’t you? Are they all big in your family?’

‘I’m the biggest.’

‘Do they all talk like you?’ Much laughter. Their voices came hard and unfamiliar to me but not unfriendly. They sounded something like Ferris, and something like Daskin; I could not always catch their meaning when they spoke fast together.

‘We’re from London,’ said the last one to speak, seeing my difficulty. ‘My name is Hugh, this’s Philip and that’s Bart.’

Bart took out a little pot and spooned some of the mess into it. I watched him blow on the brownish curds. It was the coarse bread called cheat; at home we had eaten the good white manchet, like the gentry. ‘You can have this after me,’ he said. ‘There should be beans, but we ate them all last night.’

‘And cheese?’

‘Cheese, lads! No, there’s been no cheese of late.’

‘A man gave me some yesterday.’

‘He’s a friend worth having,’ said Bart. He handed me the pot of boiled bread. ‘Must have picked it up somewhere. Is he here?’

I looked about and saw Ferris seated some yards off, examining the inside of a shoe. Turning to the rest I was about to point him out when I noticed their intense stare, like the eyes of dogs on a rabbit.

‘I don’t see him,’ I said.

That day I entered upon my training. First we learnt how to position ourselves by rank and by file, and the distances to be observed, such as touching with outstretched hands, with elbows and so on; then the various motions: facings, doublings, countermarches and wheelings.

The business started well enough. To The Right Hand was simple, for we all swung to face the right and were brought back again, or reduced, by the command As You Were. This the veriest fool could have performed without difficulty, and I began to feel hopeful; but when we passed through To The Right Hand About (which was still sweet and easy) into Ranks To The Right Double, there was some stumbling, as when young children learn a dance, and when we came to Middle-Men, To The Right Hand Double The Front, a sigh passed through the lines of men. The corporal was obliged to take us through this last five times at least before the move could be seen for what it was, and even then the soldiers were by no means sure of it, as was plain from their glancing about to see what their fellows did. One near to me, a thin man with yellow skin tight and shiny over his face, had been lost since we abandoned To The Right Hand, and could never make it up after. I saw him, baffled, whirling and stamping about. There were others equally out of tune with the rest, too slow or turning the wrong way entirely. Many seemed as raw as myself, and some few were evidently so stupid as to be hopeless of instruction.