TEARS OF THE FOOT GUARDS

ALLEGRO - STAVE XIII

S T A V E

XIII

Flight of geese in a piebald evening sky. Below, a sea of tents in neat rows on the pastureland framed by maples, oaks and ash at the peak of Autumn colour. Lazy columns of smoke rising white and gray from dancing fires. The snap of green wood licked by flame. Oblations to Providence for keeping them safe. An orderly, leisurely city. Fiddle tunes and voices. Hands clapping. Singing. Laughing. Somewhere off a farmer burns bundles of dried cornstalks. In an orchard the perfume of fallen apples and from the cider mill the sweet ferment of pulp. Messmates 'round firepits smoking pipes, drinking beer, playing cards. America with her Charms. Is it real or just some artist's fancy? Never had light been infused with such Colour. And them in their Red. Mr. Gainsborough must've painted it.

Geordie lounging on an open knapsack with a full belly, watching embers fly to heaven, and there Tim and Dan Burrows and George Harrison in a hand of Loo. Our merry war. He leaned back against a log. What more could a soldier ask for? How he loved the Coat. God help him if he'd not taken the shilling on the Kirkcaldy fairground.

The log knocked against his head. Someone stepping over, tugged by a petticoat's hem. Before he could look up, Obedience plunked down next to him. No smile, no greeting, just a look.

Tim turned from his hand of Loo to give Geordie a rope of tobacco. "Keep this or I'll lose it." And there – Obedience. "Just let me fill my pipe when I need to and we'll split the winnings. Don't give it back whatever I say . . . Mrs. Gill," he acknowledged. She nodded warily. "See to him, Mrs. Gill," Tim stammered. "Don't let me sway him." Her eyes narrowed. Tim looked at his cards and said to Dan Burrows, "I'll have you naked tomorrow save your shirt – that I'll leave ye."

"Kiss my arse, bogtrotter," Burrows guffawed. "Listen to him."

Geordie held the tobacco, his ears glowing red, and said to Obedience, "Don't let him sway me."

She took his hand. "Come on."

"There goes your keeper," Burrows said to Crotty as they left.

Down the rows they went. The camp streets filled – soldiers, women, children. Faces turned to see. Looked them up and down, MacEachran and Mrs. Gill. What are they about? What Notton said must be true. Willcock got choked for it. And Elliot, Five Hundred. Will he live?

Obedience, undaunted, pushed past the marquees and dining flies, the camp kitchen with its smells of baked pumpkins and boiling beef, past the cords of wood, some logs sour and some green. Then up the rise past the wretched latrines and out toward the tree line. But not too far. Don't want to run into the pickets. Certainly there should be a clump of bush, a large rock or a stand of trees. Even the tall grass.

But there – a lone sycamore. The very thing – old and wise, holding out its branches.

She pulled him under its canopy and took him on top of her in a slow fall back, her lips in a rapacious kiss as both their hands worked down his trowsers. They tussled up her skirts and he paused, tight and stiff, burning to see her Secret Spot as auburn as her head. Then took her. Or so he tried, poking her high on the mons, then off on the left and off on the right, battering her labia, till she grabb'd it. Almost cracked it, jamming it down and in. And there he was . . . fucking Mrs. Gill. The beguiling, the unattainable Mrs. Gill – like the press of two silk pillows.

She peered up at the ancient tree; its massive branches in their twists and turns, mimicking the writhe she hoped to feel. She grappled his head for another kiss, then mashed her cheek against his. He came in an instant and she lunged too late at the splash inside her. No matter, she kept pressing. Then a final, furtive plunge.