good eye he could see nothing similar on his foe.
‘Well done, sir, you've got him now. See how he's slumped over?’ to Morgan's surprise, McGucken seemed to be delighted. Certainly, Duffy's head was down and his second – a corporal from the Light Company – was working overtime with towel and sponge. Morgan suspected, though, that Duffy was just husbanding his strength.
‘Get out there, Mr Morgan sir, and belt the twat in the ribs, you've broke a couple already, he's on the run.’
Now it was the last round. Morgan had four minutes to salvage the honour of the Officers' Mess, four minutes to burnish his reputation. The leaning, apparently broken Duffy, however, had other ideas. The young officer ran into a barrage of punches that made his nose fountain and blocked any vision at all from his left eye. A flurry of blows had him covering up as best he could in his own corner when broad Glasgow was bellowed into his ear.
‘See his ribs there, sir, leather the bastards!’ And leather them he did. The best right he could find landed just where the earlier blow had and Duffy faltered, both gloves came down, and he sagged back into the centre of the ring. All that now remained was for Morgan to step forward and punch mechanically at a target that could no longer defend itself. Within seconds a towel flew into the ring, within another few seconds the referee had the victor's hands above his head and seconds after that he was receiving the cheers and slaps of every officer and soldier there. He'd never do that again.
A good, hard run was just the way to shift bruises, Finn always said. Got the blood pumping round the system and washed the contusion away from the skin, Finn always said. Certainly, when he'd fallen off his horse as a boy or been in one scrape or another, the groom back at Glassdrumman had always insisted that a run was the treatment; that's why Morgan had risen early, earlier than his aching limbs and muscles would have liked, to run the four miles out of the barracks, up over Todd's Hill and then home. Now he was back, agreeably blown and with his bruised face and ribs complaining in time to the pulse of his heart. As he padded back to the Mess past the stables, though, there was a hubbub of excited voices: men laughing and hooting before breakfast suggested something intriguing.
‘Stand up!’ As Morgan rounded the corner of the stable block still panting in his shorts and jersey, half a dozen men in undress, brown, canvas trousers and shirtsleeves braced to attention.
‘Leave to carry on, sir, please?’ A well-muscled lad whom Morgan recognized as a lance-corporal from Number Three Company, bellowed with a confidence that Morgan knew was designed to hide something.
‘Please do, Corporal…’
‘Fitchett, sir, Number Three.’
‘Sorry, yes of course,’ Morgan replied. ‘Who's this? You're a jewel, ain't you?’ In the arms of one of the other men was the gamest, little Jack Russell that Morgan could remember seeing in an age. His coat was dappled and smooth, his ears short, well-pointed and alert and his eyes like the blackest of coals. As the young officer stretched forward and stroked his muzzle, a tiny pink tongue flicked out and gave him a perfunctory lick, the salute of one sportsman to another.
‘Mine, sir, name o' Derby,’ the soldier, whom Morgan didn't think he'd ever seen before replied, smiling at the officer's obvious interest.
‘Well, Derby, shall we see you at your work?’ At this all the troops relaxed. A circle of bricks three high and about ten feet across had been improvised for the ratting session which, as long as no money changed hands, was winked at in the regiment. But it was quite clear from the time of day and the bearing of the men that this was a serious, commercial affair – quite against Queen's Regulations. That's why they had been worried by the approach of an officer, until Morgan had made his tacit approval clear.
‘We shall, sir,’ the dog's owner replied in a flat, midland accent. ‘Bobby Shone, tell the officer the stakes.’
Shone, saturnine and curly, the shortest of the group, held a leather bag that squirmed and squeaked as he shook it gently. ‘Twenny rats in 'ere, sir. We fancy Derby could earn a penny or two if he gets the practise, so we thought we'd give 'im a bit of a run.’ Shone waggled the bag again. ‘Halfa-crown a shot, Miller's the shortest stake on nothing more than three minutes; Corporal Fitchett's on the clock.’
This was the crudest form of rat-baiting, but excellent training for the serious matches when one dog was pitched against others, with weight taken and handicaps allotted. The rules were simple: the dog had to kill a specified number of rats as fast as possible, the winner taking two-thirds of the purse, the runner-up the rest with a whip-round for the owner. The referee might poke a rat about to see whether it was quite dead or even shamming, but it was no more complex than that.
‘Half-a-crown's a lot of money, boys …’ Morgan replied – and it was. In barracks a private soldier could expect to see no more than ninepence a day, ‘… and I've not a penny-cent on me.’
‘Gerraway, sir, you're bloody made o' money,’ challenged Shone. ‘Anyway, your word's good. You in?’
Morgan couldn't resist. It may have been quite against the rules, but it was more than sporting blood could bear – his rank could go hang.
‘Aye, of course I am. Three minutes, five and twenty seconds for me, is it free?’ he asked, any concerns about discipline or over-familiarity with the men quite forgotten.
‘Free as a hawk, sir, but you'll be skinned by Derby, he's a terror.’ One of the other men wrote Morgan's time down on a scrap of card.
‘Right, let's see the rats.’ Corporal Fitchett craned forward over the ring as Shone emptied the bag.
Twenty black, brown, sleek forms tumbled on to the earth floor, collected themselves in less time than it took to blink and shot for the edge of the circle, clawing at the bricks to find a scrap of cover. Their pink noses twitched – sharp, yellow teeth bared, scaly tails flicking in anticipation of something terrible.
And terrible it was.
‘Go on, Derby, me bucko!’ Morgan was rapt, fists clenched, yelling along with the rest of the men as the dog became a vortex of teeth, tail and death.
Furry forms were grabbed by the neck and shaken with one, two or three swift flicks of the neck till their backbones broke; then they were tossed from Derby's mouth against the bricks, flopping dead on the grit floor below. One rash rodent had the temerity to sink its fangs into Derby's lip and grip there whilst the terrier tried to rip it free. Cling though it did, the rat couldn't survive the dashing of its body against the rough bricks and after a few short but bruising seconds, it let go and fell with its comrades, cooling quickly.
‘Thirty seconds,’ bellowed Fitchett.
‘Nineteen!’ replied the throng, as each death was exulted. ‘Twenty!’ They roared as the last rat had the life snapped from it.
‘Two minutes and fifty on the nose, goddamn!’ Corporal Fitchett's watch was held for all to see. ‘Why, the hound's a bloody goldmine.’
Great silver half-crowns were produced as the brick circle was dismantled and Shone dabbed at Derby's bitten nose with a drop of brandy.
‘Thanks, Corporal Fitchett, that was a grand few minutes, quite unexpected.’ Morgan had hardly noticed the sweat chilling him. ‘Are there any other dogs around who might challenge him?’
‘Doubt it, sir. The Armourer-Sar'nt reckons his hound will be better over thirty or more rats than Derby; says he's got more stayin’ power. Anyway, sir, we'll try 'em out against each other in the next couple o' weeks,' Fitchett replied, formal and regimental now.
‘Well, let's hope they delay the war for a wee bit then.’ The men smiled. ‘Let me know when the match is to be, if you would. I'll send James Keenan to you with the money, Corporal Fitchett, if that's acceptable?’
‘Fine, sir,’ and as Morgan left, ‘Stand up: may I have your leave to carry on, sir, please?’
The gabbled formula reminded Morgan that he'd broken every rule that it was possible to break. Not only had he connived