Dust and Steel. Patrick Mercer

get ’im cut down an’ carried back.’

      The pair of them slung their rifles and lifted the man by armpits and knees, the way they’d carried a hundred casualties in the past, trudging back down the uneven path.

      ‘Bring him here, lads.’ McGucken had been about to visit the sentries himself when he saw Pegg and Beeston with their load. ‘Who is he?’

      ‘One of the artillery drivers, Colour-Sar’nt,’ Pegg puffed as they lay him on the ground as gently as possible. ‘Found ’im tied to a tree over yonder.’

      ‘Aye, he must be the boy who disappeared yesterday.’ McGucken bent down, pulled a tiny round shaving mirror from his haversack and held it against the man’s lips. ‘No, he’s bus. Well done for bringing him in though, lads. Nip over an’ tell the gunners, will you, Beeston.’ McGucken was matter-of-fact; he’d seen too many dead men to be affected by another. ‘They’ll want to get ’im burnt before we move on; poor sod.’

      ‘Mek’s you wonder though, Colour-Sar’nt, what this is all about, don’t it?’ Pegg and McGucken stared down at the grisly sight; the blood on the man’s shoulders where the flesh had been stripped away had started to congeal as death arrived, whilst flies crawled thickly over his eyes, lips and nostrils.

      ‘All that stuff about God’s mercy from Mr Canning that the officers lectured us about on the ship – ’as anyone told the fuckin’ Pandies to behave like Christians?’ Pegg asked.

      ‘Doesn’t seem like Christmas, does it, Colour-Sar’nt?’ Morgan tramped alongside McGucken, the whining of the bullock-cart wheels deadened only by the incessant buzz of flies.

      ‘No, sir, it doesna,’ replied McGucken, routinely swiping at the insects. ‘They’ll be punishin’ the grog back home, just gettin’ the measure o’ things for Hogmanay. What’ll be happenin’ back in Cork?’

      What indeed? wondered Morgan. He remembered his mother’s excitement when he was a boy whilst they covered Glassdrumman – the ‘big house’, as the servants would have it – in holly and pine cones; how she’d insisted on following the latest fashion from London by bringing an eight-foot fir tree into the hall and covering it with glass balls (to be greeted by, ‘Balls, indeed’, from his scowling father) bought at vast expense from Dublin. What would Maude (how pregnant would she be now?) be doing tonight, and how would Mary be spending the season of goodwill up in Jhansi – assuming she and Sam (what did the lad look like, was he sturdy, like him, or willowy like his mother?) were as safe as Keenan had assured him they would be?

      ‘Will you listen to that, sir!’ McGucken interrupted his thoughts with a delighted laugh.

      Just in sight, a mile away, rose the mud and brick fort of Deesa, the only European station for miles around, which it had taken them over four weeks of blistering, tedious marching to reach. Their only excitement had been the botched ambush two weeks before; now, as the heat started to make the dawn light wobble and the horizon to dip and rise, as the kites wheeled above them and the camels hawked and farted, the sound of a brass band came wafting down the breeze.

      ‘Ha…damn me, it’s “Good King Wenceslas”, ain’t it?’ Morgan smiled.

      ‘Aye, sir, “…where the snow lay round about, Deep an’ crisp an’ even,” – some bugger’s got a sense o’ humour.’

      And so they had. The artillery and its escort of the 95th was the last part of the column to reach Deesa, and as they approached they could see the white-jacketed musicians of the 86th under their German bandmaster, and a neat quarter guard in scarlet presenting arms whilst the guns, carts and limbers rumbled and groaned through the gates.

      ‘Makes you realise just how bloody scruffy we’ve become, Colour-Sar’nt, don’t it?’ Morgan returned the guard’s salute as they passed. The young subaltern in command, just shaved and freshly pressed, stood with his sword held gracefully akimbo.

      ‘Aye, sir, an’ here’s the commanding officer.’ McGucken had spotted some horsemen trotting slowly towards them. ‘March to attention, Grenadiers.’

      The troops brought their rifles smartly to the shoulder, trying to make up for their dust-ingrained, sun-bleached appearance.