because of that.
‘And where is your home?’ Meg persisted. She was packing away her bag again, apparently engrossed in the task. But the question had not been casual.
‘I am going to a village some distance outside Falmouth, on the Roseland Peninsula.’ It was easier to answer her than to evade her questions. Social conversation seemed difficult, as though he were speaking in a foreign language that he had not quite mastered the grammar for. And yet he had never been an unsocial man, not until the last few months when the reality ofhis future had begun to close in around him as a duty as heavy as chains. A bullet in the leg had removed any last lingering illusion of choice that he could stay with his beloved Rifles. His fate was plain: go back to where he had been bitterly unhappy and take over the reins from a father he disliked while surrounded by the ghosts that would never leave him.
‘How lovely that sounds.’ Meg straightened up and scanned the cabin, apparently looking for trifling signs of disorder as she folded his new trousers, put away the towel and twitched the corner curtain into place. ‘I am looking forward to arriving in Falmouth. I have always wanted to see the West Country and the coast, ever since I found a ridiculous novel about pirates and smugglers in the charity box.’ She smiled, apparently amused at the memory of her youthful self. ‘I read it secretly at night, straining my eyes and filling my head with tales of adventure and secret coves.’
‘I was seventeen when I left,’ Ross said. ‘Hardly an age when the beauties of the countryside are of much interest. But I did explore caves and climb cliffs and learn to swim in the sea.
‘But escape and the army were all that had truly interested me then. I knew I could shoot better than anyone for miles around despite my age. I’d haunted the footsteps of my father’s head keeper Tregarne by day, and I sneaked out to spend nights with Billy Gillan, a poacher.’ He closed his eyes, recalling the thrill; it had not all been unhappiness. ‘I could bring down a pheasant or a pigeon and I could stalk game unseen and evade Tregarne’s men as easily as the crafty old rogue who taught me.’
‘It will be good to return to the peace of the countryside,then, to be away from war and noise and killing.’
‘No.’ The thought of the quiet, the lack of the purpose he understood, appalled him. ‘The Rifle Brigade was what I dreamed of, a chance to use and hone my skill. The countryside taught me, that is all.’ The thought of the silence and the memories made him shudder. Strange that he had never anticipated that, far from becoming hardened to death as he had expected, it would come to haunt him. Other young men started out shaken by their first experience of battle or of killing the enemy by sniping from cover. Gradually they became used to it, indifferent. But for him it seemed as though it was the other way around and the horror had grown, slowly, insidiously until he felt as though Death himself walked constantly at his shoulder and sighted along the barrel of his rifle whenever he took aim. But then he had left a legacy of death behind him in England.
‘I suppose young men are interested in other things,’ Meg agreed. ‘Do you have a large family waiting for you?’
‘No one.’ He said it matter of factly and was unprepared for the sadness that transformed Meg’s face.
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘There is no need for you to be. My mother died eighteen months after I joined the army. My younger brother six years later. My father four months ago.’ Said flatly like that it betrayed no embarrassing emotion at all.
‘I have two sisters.’ Meg sat down and began to shake out his shirts, checking each for tears or loose buttons. Ross contemplated telling her that she shouldnot be valeting him, but if she was busy it kept that clear gaze off his face and he could watch her, which was curiously soothing. ‘I am the middle one.
‘And where is your home?’ Meg persisted. She was packing away her bag again, apparently engrossed in the task. But the question had not been casual.
‘I am going to a village some distance outside Falmouth, on the Roseland Peninsula.’ It was easier to answer her than to evade her questions. Social conversation seemed difficult, as though he were speaking in a foreign language that he had not quite mastered the grammar for. And yet he had never been an unsocial man, not until the last few months when the reality ofhis future had begun to close in around him as a duty as heavy as chains. A bullet in the leg had removed any last lingering illusion of choice that he could stay with his beloved Rifles. His fate was plain: go back to where he had been bitterly unhappy and take over the reins from a father he disliked while surrounded by the ghosts that would never leave him.
‘How lovely that sounds.’ Meg straightened up and scanned the cabin, apparently looking for trifling signs of disorder as she folded his new trousers, put away the towel and twitched the corner curtain into place. ‘I am looking forward to arriving in Falmouth. I have always wanted to see the West Country and the coast, ever since I found a ridiculous novel about pirates and smugglers in the charity box.’ She smiled, apparently amused at the memory of her youthful self. ‘I read it secretly at night, straining my eyes and filling my head with tales of adventure and secret coves.’
‘I was seventeen when I left,’ Ross said. ‘Hardly an age when the beauties of the countryside are of much interest. But I did explore caves and climb cliffs and learn to swim in the sea.
‘But escape and the army were all that had truly interested me then. I knew I could shoot better than anyone for miles around despite my age. I’d haunted the footsteps of my father’s head keeper Tregarne by day, and I sneaked out to spend nights with Billy Gillan, a poacher.’ He closed his eyes, recalling the thrill; it had not all been unhappiness. ‘I could bring down a pheasant or a pigeon and I could stalk game unseen and evade Tregarne’s men as easily as the crafty old rogue who taught me.’
‘It will be good to return to the peace of the countryside,then, to be away from war and noise and killing.’
‘No.’ The thought of the quiet, the lack of the purpose he understood, appalled him. ‘The Rifle Brigade was what I dreamed of, a chance to use and hone my skill. The countryside taught me, that is all.’ The thought of the silence and the memories made him shudder. Strange that he had never anticipated that, far from becoming hardened to death as he had expected, it would come to haunt him. Other young men started out shaken by their first experience of battle or of killing the enemy by sniping from cover. Gradually they became used to it, indifferent. But for him it seemed as though it was the other way around and the horror had grown, slowly, insidiously until he felt as though Death himself walked constantly at his shoulder and sighted along the barrel of his rifle whenever he took aim. But then he had left a legacy of death behind him in England.
‘I suppose young men are interested in other things,’ Meg agreed. ‘Do you have a large family waiting for you?’
‘No one.’ He said it matter of factly and was unprepared for the sadness that transformed Meg’s face.
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘There is no need for you to be. My mother died eighteen months after I joined the army. My younger brother six years later. My father four months ago.’ Said flatly like that it betrayed no embarrassing emotion at all.
‘I have two sisters.’ Meg sat down and began to shake out his shirts, checking each for tears or loose buttons. Ross contemplated telling her that she shouldnot be valeting him, but if she was busy it kept that clear gaze off his face and he could watch her, which was curiously soothing. ‘I am the middle one.
Similar Books
