‘Four hundred quid.’
‘What?’ The captain’s smile falters. ‘If this is another of your jokes—’
‘Showpeople never joke about the posh, sir,’ Danny informs him. ‘Four hundred quid is what I earn a year working our rifle gallery. So believe me when I say a bottle of beer isn’t going to bankrupt me.’
‘But... but-but that’s more than a gentleman’s income!’ Beddowes blusters.
‘Is it?’ Danny wonders. ‘Well, thank the Lord I ain’t a gentleman then.’
It’s difficult to keep a straight face but somehow I manage it. Still, it feels important to divert Beddowes’ baffled rage away from Danny. ‘What is all this?’ I ask, gesturing at the hundreds of letters and field postcards stacked in front of me. ‘I don’t believe I’ve been assigned censor duty.’
The sly grin spreads again under that sorry excuse for a moustache. ‘Captain Morstan has been taken ill. There’s no one else available and so, on my advice, the colonel decided to assign the task to you, Lieutenant. All these letters home need to be read through and any inappropriate or strategically-sensitive passages erased by first thing tomorrow morning. I need hardly tell you that this is an officer-only task.’ Accusing eyes swivel in Danny’s direction. ‘So no servant assistance, please. That is, if the boy can even read.’
Now it’s Danny’s turn to flush red with anger.
‘Can’t this wait until we reach Albert?’ I ask. ‘Of course, I’m willing to go through all these, but we have a thirty-mile march tomorrow and it’s already getting late—’
‘Clearly not too late for you to consider joining your men at the local alehouse for whatever entertainment Private McCormick had in mind,’ Beddowes purrs. ‘Perhaps you ought to think of your duty before your... comforts? And of course, you wouldn’t want to disappoint all those wives and sweethearts back in Blighty, pining for news of their brave fighting Tommies? I’m sure there’ll be some gentlemen waiting for letters too. Fathers and brothers, I mean.’ The high tittering laughter returns. ‘Nothing unsavoury.’
I look from Beddowes to Danny. There’s a dark fury in his eyes, a simmering sort of anger that has balled his hands into fists. Fortunately, the captain isn’t looking in his direction. When Beddowes does turn back to him, a transformation occurs. Blinking hard, Danny unclenches his fists and the fury dissolves from his gaze. It’s a startling thing to witness. I can see the effort it takes, the sheer force of will, to push away the anger that has almost overwhelmed him. An anger that I would have said was completely alien to the man I’ve come to know.
‘That will be all, Private,’ I say.
Danny flinches. He looks at me, flustered and blushing, as if ashamed. ‘Sorry, sir?’
‘You can go and join the others. Give them my compliments and say that I expect you all to be in bed no later than twenty-two hundred hours.’
‘Sir, if I could just—’
‘That will be all, Private.’
‘But maybe if I stay, I could help with—’
‘You heard the captain. This is strategically-sensitive work. You have your orders, now go.’
This time there is no hurt in his eyes. I think he now understands the game that must be played. In any case, Danny snaps me a sharp salute and, head down, passes out of the room. A moment later, we hear the creak of the villa door. Despite the windows being shuttered, I turn my head to follow the hollow tread of his boots in the street outside until, at last, the echo fades away.
‘Interesting boy,’ Beddowes says, bringing me back to the room. ‘From what he said, I assume he must be some kind of gypsy. I suppose that would explain his impertinence: these travelling people have never respected authority. I remember when I was a boy seeing my father, and some of the men he used to hunt with, chase a band of pikies off the village green. It was quite the caper!’ Beddowes guffaws. ‘The huntsmen rode their horses right into the gypsy camp, trampled all the tents and used their whips to beat the beggars silly. Gave the devils a good fright, I can tell you. Never saw ’em on the green again.’
‘How brave of your father and his friends,’ I say, unable to disguise my disgust. ‘I hope they at least left the women and children unwhipped.’
Beddowes turns a vinegary glare on me. ‘I’m sure they did. Although sometimes with vermin, it is difficult to tell the young from the old, the male from the female.’
‘Especially when you’re mowing them down on horseback,’ I nod.
‘I dare say.’ Beddowes strokes his moustache with a bony finger. ‘Yes, a most interesting boy. I shall be keeping a close eye on him.’
His tone almost sends a shiver along my spine. Whereas Lieutenant-Colonel Gallagher has always reminded me of something you’d find squatting on a lily pad, Beddowes is more reptilian. A smooth, almost docile malevolence that waits patiently for its moment to strike. Yes, that’s how I see them: the toad and the snake. And now it feels important to divert the serpent’s gaze from Danny.
‘What’s going on here, Captain Beddowes?’ I ask. ‘All these fresh recruits and weaponry flooding into the Somme. And why was the colonel up in Étaples meeting the top brass? If there’s a plan for some kind of push, then I think all returning officers ought to have been briefed.’
He looks startled. ‘Why? What have you heard? If there have been loose lips, then I must inform the colonel at once.’
‘No one has told me anything. But I do have eyes.’ I point towards the shutters, imagining the vast encampment of men and artillery currently occupying the fields outside the village. ‘This isn’t just a resupply of manpower and artillery. Anyone who has spent more than a day or two at the Front can see that this constitutes a major build-up.’
I can tell by his haughty expression that I’ve offended him. Of course, Beddowes has never spent more than an hour in the trenches, and only then in Gallagher’s company during a routine inspection of the troops.
‘You can think what you like, Wraxall,’ he snaps at me. ‘But keep your mouth shut, especially around that little gypsy friend of yours.’
