The True Soldier: Jack Lark 6 Read online

  Jack was interested. The gang of lacklustre Irish toughs had mentioned the attack on Fort Sumter when they had accosted him earlier that day. He had not appreciated the significance of it then, but now he understood that it appeared to mark the opening of the war between two halves of the nation the world had come to know as the United States.

  Kearney turned to a rack beside his desk and fished out a newspaper, which he offered to Jack. ‘The Advertiser gives a good account of the events.’

  Jack leaned forward and took the paper. Kearney did not give him long to study the front page.

  ‘We must fight this war. Not because we want to subjugate the South, but simply because we must preserve the Union. The world looks to us! Or at least we like to think that is the case. Our forebears fought to be free of you folk,’ he raised an eyebrow at Jack, ‘something that cost us dearly, but look what it made us.’

  Jack kept his expression neutral. His natural reaction was to recoil from such fervour as Kearney was displaying. He did not have much time for politics. One of his former masters had worked for British army intelligence and had been only too happy to involve himself in the political machinations of the day. The man had proven himself to be something of a devil, and Jack had been inveigled into two of his schemes, neither of which had turned out to his benefit. Such experience had taught him to be leery of men who found passion in the affairs of state.

  ‘We don’t bow to people here.’ Kearney continued without pause. ‘We are free of the past, free from tradition. And we are succeeding. We are thriving. Oh, I know we are a young country, a mere babe in arms compared to the rest of the world, but we are prospering and growing, adding new land to the Union and expanding west.’ He paused, his eyes glittering, his pride in the Union obvious. ‘We are growing up fast. We are building factories, railroads and ports, whilst new cities are establishing themselves in every direction.’

  He had inched forward as he listed his country’s achievements. Yet now he stopped and sat back, almost slumping in defeat as he contemplated what he had said. When he resumed speaking, the passion was gone. It was replaced by sadness.

  ‘We call ourselves the land of the free, but we all know that’s so much balderdash. Half the people in the South are slaves. Slaves, Jack, you hear me. We boast of modernity, and we take such pride in our founding fathers’ message, but it transpires that the phrase of which we are all so proud, “all the people”, does not actually mean all the people.’ Kearney shook his head. ‘Those fools in the South are staining our land with this great hypocrisy of slavery.’

  Jack was intrigued. He knew so little of the state of affairs in the country he now found himself in. The notion of slavery had not even crossed his mind. It seemed so old-fashioned, an idea that he had believed had been cast into the darkness long ago.

  ‘Those damn Southrons.’ Kearney spoke with obvious distaste. ‘Down South, it is just like the dark days of old Europe. If they are left to their own devices they will build a new aristocracy, one just as iniquitous and unjust as anything your forebears ever concocted.’

  ‘There are no slaves in the North?’ Jack used the term carefully. He was trying to remember what the papers had said about the gulf opening up between the Northern and Southern states. He did know that the two sides were labelling themselves North and South, the split geographic as well as political.

  ‘Do you believe in slavery, Jack?’

  ‘I’ve not given the question much thought,’ Jack answered honestly. ‘We don’t have slaves in England.’

  ‘You must think on this question, Jack, you must. I will tell you that I find the very idea repugnant; this notion that one man can own another. I do my bit to make things better. I give them jobs where I can.’ Kearney pointed at Jack. ‘Have you ever seen as many coloured servants as I have here?’ He shook his head and moved on before Jack could form an answer. ‘Beecher Stowe shamed us all. Have you read Uncle Tom’s Cabin?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘You should do so at the first opportunity. I shall lend you a copy.’ Kearney paused and eased back in his chair. ‘We are the best experiment in history, Jack. We must not lose that, not in some argument over states’ rights. What we have in this country means too much for that. We are the United States. United we stand and united we fall.’

  ‘You said the South has attacked one of your forts. Does that mean you are at war?’

  ‘I believe it does. South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas have all seceded from the Union, and I can only imagine that Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina will follow, maybe even Virginia too. They have formed the Confederate States of America and have even named Jefferson Davis as their president. Their attack on Fort Sumter proves that the time for argument and discussion is over.’ Kearney spoke quietly and with great earnest. ‘The South will only listen to force, so we must go to war. We have no choice if the Union is to be preserved.’

  ‘So what will happen?’ Jack asked.

  Kearney sighed. ‘I think we will invade. I don’t like it, but those Southerners are giving us no choice. They are raising their own army. If we don’t invade, why then, I fear they will try to take Washington. We cannot allow that to happen.’

  He sat forward, some of his former enthusiasm returning. ‘One battle, Jack, that is all it will take, one hard fight to whip those Confederates back into line. President Lincoln has called for seventy-five thousand volunteers for three months’ service, and he has called out the state militias. Here in Boston, all five of our regiments are preparing to fight, and men from all over the state have answered the call to arms. In our ranks we have farmers, blacksmiths, merchants, labourers, mariners, piano makers, gentlemen, fishermen, sailmakers, hack drivers, carpenters, telegraph operators, fish dealers, bakers – why, we even have a whalebone cutter. All united behind our cause.’ For the first time in a while, he smiled. ‘Together we shall preserve the Union.’

  Jack was impressed by Kearney. He seemed to have a firm grasp on the facts and delivered them well. It would be easy to be swayed by his arguments, but Jack had long learned that there was more than one side to a story; his experience in India had taught him that. Kearney’s arguments were too black and white, his solution to the fracturing of the Union too simple. And there was one thing Jack disbelieved totally.

  ‘You really think there’ll just be one battle?’

  ‘I do. I hate the idea, Jack, and by all that is holy, I wish there was another way, but both sides have gone too far.’

  ‘And you think everything can be sorted out in a single fight?’ Jack could not hide his dubiousness.

  ‘I do. It will all be over by Christmas.’ Kearney shook his head with what appeared to be regret. ‘It has to happen like this. Oftentimes, the hard choices are the right choices.’

  Jack was not so sure. He had never heard of a single battle deciding anything. To his mind, the two sides were about to embark on what could only be a long, protracted and bitter civil war. ‘Does the North just have these state militias, or do you have a regular army?’

  ‘We do, and it is under our control. But it is small, fewer than twenty thousand men, if that, and it is spread all over the place. Many of its officers have left to join the South.’

  Jack’s eyes narrowed at the first crack in the certainty of Kearney’s arguments. Clearly a number of the regular army’s officers believed in the Confederate’s cause sufficiently to forsake their commands. He also noticed Kearney’s choice of the word ‘our’. It was a reminder that he knew nothing about the man sitting opposite him. Clearly he was a man of means, but there was surely more to him than wealth alone. Somehow, Kearney had power, something infinitely harder to tally.

  Kearney spotted his reaction. ‘I see what you are thinking, Jack. I understand their choice, indeed I do. A man must do what he thinks is right, even if he is misguid
ed, even if he is wrong. The pull of family and loyalty to one’s home state is strong.’

  Jack resolved to do a better job of hiding his response to the other man’s words. ‘So there is no regular army to speak of. Who’ll be fighting in this battle of yours?’

  ‘Some of the regular regiments will be available, and we have the state militia, but the bulk of the army will be made up of volunteers; men brave enough to stand up and fight for this Union. Why, if I were ten years younger, I would be joining them myself. All Boston, indeed all Massachusetts, is filled with enthusiasm. Men are coming in from Salem, Milford, Marlboro and Stoughton, and there are already enough to fill two or even three new regiments. Men are being lodged all over the city, forming companies as accommodation allows. Soon we will have an army the like of which this country has never seen, the like of which this world has never seen.’

  ‘You have it all in hand, then.’ Jack could not help the wry observation. He was not swayed by Kearney’s passion.

  Kearney was watching him closely. ‘No, not everything is quite as we would like it. Our men have enthusiasm. They have a righteous cause, and they are determined to do whatever it takes to preserve the Union.’ He looked Jack straight in the eye. ‘What they don’t have is experience.’

  Jack finally understood why Kearney had summoned him, why he had been treated so well, and why he was sitting here, late in the evening, listening to one man’s justification of the North’s cause. He wondered when the older man had first decided upon this course of action, when the notion of Jack’s usefulness had first emerged in his mind.

  ‘And I have.’ He stepped ahead in the conversation.

  Kearney raised an eyebrow. ‘Colonel Scanlon commands the 1st Boston Volunteer Militia. He and I have known one another for a long time and he needs experienced men. I can arrange you a place, if you agree. But you will need to decide quickly. They will be under orders to march to Washington any day now. Richmond, the new Confederate capital, is just sixty miles to the south of Washington. The South are sure to mass their troops there, just as we must do at Washington. Our men are to be some of the first to protect the city.’

  ‘Your friend Scanlon, what makes you so sure he’ll take me?’

  ‘If I ask it, then it shall happen.’

  ‘Why?’

  Kearney offered something that could be considered a smile. ‘Scanlon owes me. He will do as I ask.’

  Jack heard the certainty in his host’s voice. It was time to piss on Kearney’s parade. ‘I’m not looking to fight in a war that’s not my own.’ He was deadly serious. He was a soldier, but not a mercenary. The war between North and South was not his war, and he felt no compulsion to make it so.

  His comment fell on deaf ears. ‘My daughter’s betrothed, Ethan, commands one of Scanlon’s companies. You can serve there alongside my son Robert, who is one of Ethan’s lieutenants.’

  Jack did his best to remain composed as he absorbed several pieces of news at once. He could not help but wince as Kearney pronounced the rank ‘loot-tenant’, and there was a moment’s disappointment as he learned that Elizabeth was engaged to an officer in the regiment Kearney was proposing he join. He also caught a whiff of something odd in the way the man’s tone had changed when he mentioned his other son.

  ‘Your new friend, Bridges, will be there,’ Kearney continued. ‘He serves as second in command to Scanlon, can you believe. Bridges is a good man, but he is most certainly not a soldier. Still, Scanlon must take him, I suppose. The men chose him, after all. I pity poor Scanlon, although I am sure he will have the need of a solid administrator to help with the day-to-day running of the regiment. Just so long as Bridges leaves the soldiering to others. That man should have more sense and know when to hold his peace.’ Kearney shook his head. ‘He never seems to know what is and what is not his concern.’

  Jack was barely listening as Kearney described Bridges’ failings. He was now certain he was not being told the whole story. Kearney was as slippery as an eel. ‘I doubt they need my assistance,’ he said.

  ‘Scanlon would value the addition of a veteran soldier to his command. I would make sure that you would not serve as a common private. I am sure we could do better: a corporal, perhaps even a sergeant.’

  ‘You can stick a feather up my arse and call me general, but I’m still not doing it. I didn’t come all this way to fight in another war. Not for you. Not for anybody.’ Jack tried to rile the older man in the hope that it would lead them to the truth, but Kearney made no remark at his choice language.

  ‘You will be paid. As a sergeant, you will earn seventeen dollars a month.’

  Jack grunted as he heard the first bribe. It was no small temptation. He no longer carried a letter of credit from Cox and Cox, one of the British army’s most respected agents, that he could lodge at one of the local banks. His funds were running out, the valuables he had stolen in Bombay all those years before converted to cash; cash that he had lavished on the Frenchwoman. But money alone was not enough to change his mind.

  ‘My answer is still no.’ He held Kearney’s gaze.

  ‘Is it not enough that you would be supporting the Union?’

  ‘No.’

  Kearney smiled with what Jack took to be genuine warmth. ‘You are a shrewd fellow, Jack Lark.’

  Jack could not help but laugh at the comment. If only his former commander, Major Ballard, could see him now.

  Kearney leaned forward and picked up one of the sheets of paper that was strewn across his desk. He held it for a second, then tossed it towards Jack. ‘Thomas mentions you. In his last letter.’

  Jack was surprised. He had not known the sergeant for long before the battle that had claimed his life. But it appeared that even that short acquaintance had been enough to warrant inclusion in his letters.

  Kearney’s smile widened as he read Jack’s reaction. ‘He says you are a danger to one of his men, that you are on some form of mission. He also says that you frighten him.’

  ‘Bollocks.’ Jack could not help the reaction. He had seen Thomas Kearney in battle. He had not been frightened of anything.

  ‘You can read it for yourself if you wish.’ Kearney gestured at the page. ‘He writes that you have a relentless purpose about you and that you let nothing stand in your way.’ His smile faded. ‘He also says that you fight like the very devil.’

  ‘That was nice of him.’

  ‘I want you to look after Robert.’ Kearney changed tack without warning. ‘He is not like Thomas. He is not cut out for this. But I could not let him avoid it; it would damage his reputation after we have won if he were to shirk the call to arms now. He has to do this, but I cannot bear to lose another son. I will not let that happen.’ He spoke slowly and forcefully.

  ‘You want me to be a bodyguard?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No.’ Jack stood his ground. ‘If there’s a battle, then there’s nothing I can do to keep your son out of harm’s way. No one is safe. No one.’

  ‘I appreciate that.’ Kearney’s eyes narrowed. ‘But I think I know you now, Jack. If you accept this responsibility, you will make sure you live up to it. Thomas saw this in you too, and your delivery of his letters confirms it. I shall pay you well, but I suspect you know that already.’ He paused. When he continued, he spoke softly. ‘It will also give you something else.’

  ‘And what would that be exactly?’

  ‘Purpose.’

  The single word was left to lie on the table between them. Jack lifted his chin. It would be easy to deny Kearney’s assertion that he needed such a thing. A few words would end the conversation and let him go free. He could forget the Kearneys and the impending war, and go anywhere he chose.

  ‘Robert must never know,’ Kearney continued, his eyes fixed on Jack. ‘He has his pride, and knowing that I paid for him to have protection would
be too much, I think. I would not wish to turn my son against me, but if that is what it takes, I will pay that price.’ He was watching Jack closely. ‘You would be doing me a great service. I would be in your debt. Make this happen and you can name your price.’ He fell silent, but his eyes never strayed from Jack’s face.

  Jack felt the pressure. He did not care for it. He was his own man. He chose where he would go, what he would do. Kearney’s arguments meant little. Save for one.

  He might no longer wear the famous red coat of the Queen’s army, but at heart he was still a soldier. Nothing had dented his pride at what he was; not even battle. He was a redcoat, and he could fight.

  ‘What do you expect me to do?’

  ‘Do your best to safeguard my son. After the battle, I shall arrange for his transfer to somewhere far from any further danger. Do that and I shall pay you handsomely.’

  ‘How much?’ Jack was a boy from the East End. He knew the value of money.

  ‘One thousand dollars.’

  He made a quick calculation. It was a good sum, enough for a man to live on in comfort for a year, perhaps two. But he knew how to tally his own worth. ‘Five thousand. Two thousand now and the rest after the first battle.’

  ‘Five hundred now and three thousand after.’ Kearney did not bat an eyelid as he named the sum.

  Jack sat back in his chair. He had not negotiated for his services before. He had always done what he had been told. Now he would serve of his own choosing and on his own terms. He knew which he preferred.

  ‘What if I say no?’

  ‘Then you will leave my house immediately.’

  Jack glanced over his host’s shoulder. It was darker now, and the rain was beating steadily against the window pane. But it was not the fear of a cold, wet night that made up his mind. It was the chance to be a soldier once again. To be what he was meant to be.