The Street Philosopher by Matthew Plampin Read Free Book Online Page B

darkened to the colour of port, and the dense patterns of gold braid on their cuffs and epaulettes glinted in the lamplight as they pointed off into the gloom.
    And then, without a moment’s hesitation, Cracknell of the Courier swaggered before them.

4
    ‘Have them flogged,’ Boyce was saying coolly, adjusting his cocked hat. ‘If they are so drunk that they cannot rise from their tent, let alone lift a rifle, then they must be flogged. Before the entire regiment, at first light.’
    Captain Wray saluted and was about to go back to his company when his eyes flickered to the side, and a look of absolute disgust twisted his previously expressionless features. Boyce followed his gaze. Mr Cracknell, the despicable Irish war correspondent, was sauntering casually into their lamp’s nimbus.
    The Lieutenant-Colonel drew himself up to his full height, glowering fiercely at his adversary. He was a tall, athletic man of forty-five, his neat oval face adorned with a magnificent moustache that was the pride of his existence. Thick and dark above his narrow mouth, it tapered to two sharp silver points, both of which stuck out from his nose at precisely the same angle. It required a daily half-hour of careful maintenance. But the result was worth it–a moustache so perfect, so forbidding, that it inspired awe and respect in equal measure. Boyce liked to think of it as a symbol of sorts, an example to the men of the importance, and also the possibility, of keeping up appearances in their current trying circumstances.
    It was an indication of his wrath that, as he faced the Courier man that night, he forgot his moustache completely. The Lieutenant-Colonel was not stupid; he knew thatsomething had begun back in Constantinople. The blasted Irishman had been drawn to his wife like a fat, hairy fly to a piece of perfumed meat. Throughout their stay in that cramped, broken-down, filth-caked city Boyce had been dogged by the feeling that every time he entered Madeleine’s private rooms, someone else, someone male, had just left them. In the fields of Varna this feeling had grown stronger; whenever he returned to his tent, there had been the rustling of canvas covering close escapes, guys swinging in the wake of recent passage, and strange, conflicted expressions on the faces of his men. And now, after a few days without this feeling, it had suddenly returned in force when he had greeted his wife that afternoon.
    She’d been all innocence and light, of course, claiming that her state of undress was in expectation of his arrival. This had been said so earnestly that Boyce had almost checked his laughter; he honestly couldn’t recall the last time they had been intimate with one another. Probably late one night, back in Chelsea, when he’d come home from the barracks full of brandy, shown the little minx the back of his hand, and then exercised his conjugal rights without delay. Hardly roses and poetry, he had to confess; but he was her husband, damn it, and a man of action.
    As he searched the tent, throwing furniture this way and that, he heard a scuffling commotion outside. The Lieutenant-Colonel emerged to be told that several of his subalterns had run off in pursuit of an intruder. When they finally returned, they were lined up and ordered to explain themselves. Lieutenant Francis Nunn, the oldest and best-born among them, declared that they had chased what they believed to be a Russian spy out of the camp. Gently stroking his moustache, Boyce looked Nunn in the eye. The boy could only meet his gaze for a second or two, before staring out over his shoulder. It was quite plain that he was lying, both to protect Mrs Boyce and to save his commander from embarrassment, but he wouldn’t change or enlarge on his story. Boyce didn’t need to hear it, though. He knew that it had been Cracknell.
    And now the foul knave stood before him, the horrible,stout little paddy. It made his dishonour all the more acute to think that this wretched