The Scarlet Thief by Paul Fraser Collard Page B

known for his prissiness, especially with regard to standards of dress. Such pickiness irked the newly arrived captain, although it was the martinet‘s orderly who bore the brunt of his obsessive demands for perfection. Even now, after hours of slogging through rain and sand, McCulloch seemed to gleam, as if he had been buffed from head to toe.
    If McCulloch noticed the lack of an enthusiastic greeting from his fellow captain, he did not remark on it.
    ‘I have got someone I would like you to meet. I know you have some absurd notion that you can manage without an orderly but by the look of that greatcoat, it is obvious to us all that you are deluding yourself. More importantly, the colonel agrees and so, as of this minute, he insists that you utilise the services of one of the men.’ McCulloch raised a hand immaculately clad in a tan kidskin glove to wave away the protest that he knew was about to emerge from the small gap between greatcoat and shako in front of him. ‘None of that. The colonel insists and that is that. So allow me introduce the man we, your fellow officers, have selected for you. He has been nagging us for this opportunity for ages now, more fool him.’ McCulloch turned to a figure wearily trudging towards them. ‘Keep up, Smith, for goodness sake. Now then, Fusilier Thomas Smith, meet your new lord and master,’ McCulloch gestured theatrically at his fellow captain, ‘Captain Arthur Sloames.’

The rain stopped shortly before dawn. It was small relief to the thousands of British soldiers who had spent the night trying to rest in the stinking quagmire that had formed around them. They were bereft of any comfort other than a single blanket each. Even the generals had to endure the pitiless storm without cover. The general commanding the Light Division, Sir George Brown, was forced to sleep with only an overturned cart for protection from the elements.
    Jack had given up trying to sleep long before the rain stopped, preferring instead to endure the misery of the night awake, waiting for the day to break, shivering through the cold and lonely hours. He looked in envy at the tumbled heaps of bodies spread around the muddy bog that had been assigned as the Light Company’s bivouac area. The fusiliers huddled together in small groups to keep warm, any desire for privacy overwhelmed by the bitter cold and the pervading damp.
    Jack well remembered what it was to sleep jumbled up with his messmates. He had never thought he would miss it but, as he sat, cold, wet, and alone, he was jealous of the small comfort the men obtained from their closeness.
    It had taken all of his courage to take Sloames’s uniform jacket from its peg and place it on his own shoulders. It felt as if it had doubled in weight, the responsibility and power it gave its wearer physically manifest in the bullion epaulets and gold buttons. The innkeeper had been all too willing to help dispose of Sloames’s body. He had quietly palmed the guineas and summoned a local undertaker content to take away the corpse of a dead orderly, the name of Jack Lark now buried along with the body of the officer he had served.
    Once he had taken those first, terrifying steps, everything had fallen into place. He had been accepted and brought into the fold of the regiment without so much as a murmur or raised eyebrow. There had been plenty of time to practise his deception, first at the fusiliers’ depot in Woolwich, then later on board the steamship during the long, tedious voyage to the East. By the time he had finally joined his new battalion he had become so accustomed to his new role that he occasionally forgot he was not truly the person he claimed to be.
    Yet the long journey to meet up with the battalion at its camp at Varna had done little to dull the pain of his loss. The circumstances of his departure festered in his soul, a canker he could not resist picking over, keeping the scab fresh and the wound painful. But he refused to give in to grief