The Scarlet Thief by Paul Fraser Collard Page A

Digby-Brown would have judged the new commander of the Light Company to be of an age close to his own twenty-four years. They were similar in build, both standing just short of six feet tall, but where Digby-Brown was fair-haired, pale-skinned and showed the benefits of a privileged upbringing in his portly build, the captain was dark and gaunt, his face hard, his eyes uncompromising and intense. The captain sported several days’ growth of beard. Digby-Brown would never dare to do the same. He struggled to grow even a pair of sideburns, his attempts at which, to his shame, were often thin and patchy. The Captain’s face was more often than not creased in a scowl, as if he were constantly irritated by what was going on around him. Digby-Brown knew he would have to try harder to understand his new officer.
    The Light Company had learnt little about the man behind the stern expression. It would take time to find out what he was like as a leader, to discover if he would prove a dynamic commander or a hopeless tyrant. The Russian army would be the harshest test of his talents and no amount of rhetoric would help when the men were called into action.
    The whole army was under intense scrutiny; advances in communication would keep the home audience fully informed of events in the campaign. The British public would soon find out how good their modern army really was.
    A fine rain started to fall as the men sullenly re-formed into company column and marched to join the main battalion. It soaked into the men’s red jackets and dark blue woollen trousers, adding to their discomfort and wearing away their last reserves of energy.
    Wearily the fusiliers trudged into the battalion’s assigned bivouac area on the wide, grassy plain a mile inland from the beach at Kalamata Bay. The rest of the battalion had got there before them and now lay sprawled on the ground, the men already exhausted, their physical condition pitiful after months languishing on transport ships or in the fever-inducing swamps at Varna.
    The captain of the Light Company buried his neck as far into his sodden greatcoat as he could while trying his best to ignore the rivulets of rainwater that dripped from the peak of his Albert shako. The stubby, six-inch plume on top of the shako drooped under the weight of the water it had absorbed, its green hue darkened to a grey-black.
    The dress uniform he had been ordered to wear showed the damage a day’s slog through sand and mud had inflicted. His greatcoat was splattered with filth and soaked by the incessant rain, and underneath, the gold of his shoulder epaulets was already tarnishing.
    The Light Company’s new leader stood alone in the rain on a small island of grass in the sea of mud, enduring the discomfort as he watched his company fall out and prepare themselves for the night ahead. It would be spent in the open, with only the salted pork and hard biscuits in their improvised backpacks for nourishment, and brackish water in their canteen to drink. There was little prospect of a fire for warmth.
    A thin smile flittered across the captain’s face as he heard the first grumblings emerge from the grubby forms of his men, surprised that it had taken so long for the complaining to begin. As sure as dogs greet each other by sniffing arses, soldiers always follow a day’s work with a bout of whingeing; the soldiers’ right to grouse and grumble was inalienable.
    ‘There you are! By God, what a damned awful day. How are your boys getting on?’
    The commander of the Light Company chose to turn his whole body to face the newcomer rather than turn at the neck and thus risk a waterfall of icy cold rainwater running down the back of his shirt. The diminutive figure of Captain Michael McCulloch strode towards him. McCulloch commanded the battalion’s 2nd Company and he had appointed himself the new captain’s friendly guardian.
    It was an honour the Light Company’s captain would have happily forgone. McCulloch was well