The Bloody Ground - Starbuck 04 by Bernard Cornwell Read Free Book Online

best when the men are fighting the enemy, not each other." He flinched as the guard tugged on the prisoner's ankles again. "Hell," he said, reluctant to intervene, but also unwilling to watch any more brutality. He strode toward the horse.
    The guard who had tugged on the prisoner's ankles was a sergeant who turned and watched Starbuck's approach.
    Starbuck wore no badges of rank and had a rifle slung on his left shoulder, both of which suggested he was a private soldier, but he carried himself confidently and had a woman and servant, which suggested he might be an officer and the sergeant was consequently wary. "What's he done?" Starbuck demanded.
    "Being punished," the sergeant said. He was a squat, bearded man. He was chewing tobacco and paused to spit a stream of yellowish spittle onto the grass. "Sergeant Case's orders," he added as though that should be sufficient explanation.
    "I know he's being punished," Starbuck said, "but I asked what he had done."
    "Being punished," the sergeant said obstinately.
    Starbuck moved so he could see the drawn face of the prisoner. "What did you do?" he asked the man.
    Before the prisoner could give any answer the drill sergeant abandoned the companies on the parade ground and marched toward the horse. "No one talks to prisoners under punishment!" he screamed in a terrifying voice. "You know that, Sergeant Webber! Punishment is punishment. Punishment is what will turn this lily-livered rabble of squirrel shit into soldiers." He slammed to a halt two paces from Starbuck. "You have questions," he said forcefully, "you ask them to me."
    "And who are you?" Starbuck asked.
    The tall sergeant looked surprised, as though his fame must have been obvious. He gave no immediate answer, but instead inspected Starbuck for clues to his status. The presence of Sally and Lucifer must have convinced him that Starbuck was an officer, though Starbuck's age suggested he was not an officer who needed to be placated. "Sergeant Case," he snapped. Case's long neck and small head would have looked risible on any other man, and his ridiculous appearance was not helped by a wispy beard and a thin broken nose, but there was a malevolence in the sergeant's dark eyes that turned amusement into fear. The eyes were flat, hard, and merciless. Starbuck noted too that Case's gangly body was deceptive; it was not a weak, thin frame, but lean and muscled. He was uniformed immaculately, every button polished, every crease hot-pressed, and every badge shining. Sergeant Case looked just as Starbuck had imagined soldiers ought to look like before he discovered that, at least in the Confederacy, they were generally ragged as hell. "Sergeant Case," Case said again, leaning closer to Starbuck, "and I," he stressed that word, "am in charge here."
    "So what did the prisoner do?" Starbuck asked.
    "Do?" Case asked dramatically. "Do? What he did is of no business to you. Not one scrap."
    "What battalion is he?" Starbuck demanded, nodding toward the prisoner.
    "He could belong to the Coldstream bloody Guards," Case shouted, "and it still ain't your business."
    Starbuck looked up at the prisoner. The man's face was white with pain and rigid with the effort needed not to show that pain. "Battalion, soldier?" Starbuck snapped.
    The man grimaced, then managed to say a single word. "Punishment."
    "Then you are my business," Starbuck said. He took his folding knife out of a pocket, unsnapped the blade, and sawed at the rope binding the prisoner's ankles. The motion made the prisoner whimper, but it provoked Sergeant Case to leap forward threateningly.
    Starbuck paused and looked up into Case's eyes. "I'm an officer, Sergeant," he said, "and if you lay a damned hand on me I'll make sure you spend the rest of today on this horse. You won't walk for a goddamn week. Maybe not for a goddamn month."
    Sergeant Case stepped back as Starbuck cut through the last strands of hemp and put a hand under one of the prisoner's boots. "Ready?" he called, then