and he looked up now at Jennings with the eager anticipation of a waiting terrier.
‘Colonel, Sah. Permission to proceed with the punishment, Sah.’
Farquharson nodded to Jennings who in turn nodded to Stringer.
‘Lay it on, Sarn’t.’
Two drummer boys in their shirtsleeves had taken up their positions on the left and right of the ghastly frame. Their comrades continued the drum roll as the prisoner was led to the wooden poles. Steel barely knew Cussiter. Certainly, he had seen him many times about the camp and on the march, but the man had never made a particular impression. He seemed somewhat anonymous, not at all the sort of fellow you might mark out as a potential criminal. Steel wondered exactly what he had done to deserve this punishment. Theft certainly, but of what and of what value? True, in the measure of things a hundred lashes was relatively light. Some men were sentenced to 1,000 lashes and more to be administered over a number of days or weeks. At least in Cussiter’s case it seemed likely that it would be done in one session.
The drums stopped as the man was tied with one hand on each side of the central halberd and his feet spread out at the wide base of the triangle. A corporal pressed a piece of folded leather into his mouth, a precaution lest he bite off his own tongue with the pain, but also a gag to prevent him from screaming and thus further disgracing himself and the regiment. Stringer stood to the left of the frame and nodded to one of the young drummer boys.
‘Drummers, do your duty.’
Steel watched as the boy raised the cat o’ nine tails above his head and rotated it twice in the air as he had been taught to do by the regimental farrier. It seemed to hover in the air before the boy brought it down with a slap across the man’s back. Steel watched as the white flesh began to seep red and winced as Cussiter’s body arched away from the blow. Now it was evident why the fifth halberd was tied across the triangle. There was to be no chance that the prisoner might be able to sink his torso forward and avoid the lash.
Stringer’s cruelly jubilant voice rang out across the silent parade ground: ‘One.’
The boy’s hand came up again and again the whip journeyed round his head before falling on the white back.
‘Two.’
Now the drummer boy drew the tails of the cat through the fingers of his left hand, as he had been taught to do between each stroke, to rid them of excess blood and any pieces of skin or flesh which might have attached themselves. Again the whip descended.
‘Three. Keep ’em high, lad.’ The last thing they wanted was for the strokes to fall on the man’s vital organs thus resulting in his death or being invalided out of the regiment.
‘Four.’ The cat whistled down again, the thick knots at the top of each thong cutting into the soft flesh of Cussiter’s back.
It seemed interminable. After the first twenty-five strokes the drummers changed and with the new boy came fresh agonies for the prisoner as the strokes began to fall from a different side and with a different pace.
‘Twenty-eight,’ boomed Stringer, his face split wide in a grin.
‘Twenty-nine.’
By the time they had reached fifty, the halfway mark, Cussiter’s body was sagging down, but his head still seemed to be holding itself aloft. The drummers paused as Stringer stepped forward to investigate what seemed to be a piece of exposed bone. He addressed the Adjutant. ‘Think I can see a rib sir.’
Steel looked. It was true. There was a glint of something pearly white against Cussiter’s bloodied flesh.
Jennings spoke: ‘No matter, Sarn’t. Carry on.’
There was an audible groan from the battalion. The battalion Sergeant-Major responded: ‘Silence in the ranks there. Corporal, take names.’
Two of the officers opposite Steel also began to whisper to each other. This was certainly most irregular. The idea was not to lay the man open to the bone so quickly. The punishment should really be suspended. Jennings nodded to Stringer and the drummers began again.
‘Fifty-one.’
Having had the blissful remission of a few seconds without the lash, Cussiter’s back arched out in a new extreme of contortion as the next stroke descended with renewed fury. Blood splashed up with every cut now. The drummers were soon covered and it flowed in slow rivulets down the victim’s back to form puddles around him in the dust. Even Steel looked away and wished the thing might end. In whatever way.
Looking across the parade ground to where Williams sat, he noticed that the young Ensign’s complexion was now quite white. Farquharson face too had turned ashen and it was evident that the Colonel was attempting to divert his eyes away from the spectacle.
Jennings, on the other hand, was staring with ghoulish fascination at the wreck of Cussiter’s back. After what seemed an eternity the words came at last.
‘One hundred.’
Stringer turned away from the bloody tripod and addressed the Colonel: ‘Punishment completed, Sah.’
Farquharson, mute with emotional exhaustion, said nothing, but merely nodded. Jennings gave the command: ‘Take him down.’
At the words the battalion seemed to relax as a man with a great sigh of relief that it was finally over. Hands fumbled at the ropes binding Cussiter to the halberds and he toppled sideways into the arms of a corporal, then steadied himself on his feet and attempted to walk away. It was a brave show, but in reality he needed two men to help him back to the company lines. Steel heard the clock tower chime. Half past ten. Damn waste of time, half-flaying a man alive. He would now most certainly be late for his appointment. But how could he have excused himself from attending without giving anything away? Not waiting for the other officers, Steel quietly told Slaughter to take over and turned his horse back towards the lines.
It was a good twenty minutes past the appointed hour before he found himself within Marlborough’s campaign tent. It was quite a fancy affair he thought, as befitted the Commander-in-Chief. Its walls were lined in red striped ticking and on the ground were laid a number of oriental carpets. Several pieces of furniture stood about the walls. A handsome console table with ormolu supports and a camp-bed, draped with red silk, stood in one of the darker corners, while in the centre of the room lay a large, polished oak table covered in maps and papers and several chairs.
The Duke stood with his back to Steel, who had been announced by an aide-de-camp, who stood hovering beside the tent flap. He was hunched over one of the maps, his fists pressed down on the tabletop. In another corner of the tent, apparently absorbed in leafing through the pages of a leather-bound book, stood Colonel Hawkins. As Steel entered he looked up and smiled before looking back at the pages. Marlborough spoke, without turning round.
‘You are late, Mister Steel. Tardiness is not something of which you make a habit, I hope.’
‘Not at all, Your Grace. My sincere apologies. The regiment was paraded for punishment. A flogging.’
‘Never a very pleasant business, Mister Steel. But absolutely necessary. We must have discipline at all costs, eh? Be fair to the men, Steel, but be firm with it. That’s the way to make an army. But now, here you are.’
The Duke turned and Steel recognized that face. Although it looked somewhat care-worn now, the brow furrowed as if by pain, yet still quite as handsome in close-up as he remembered. He had met the General only once before, at a court assembly, and doubted whether the great man would remember him. Marlborough, as usual, wore the dark red coat of a British General, decorated with a profusion of gold lace and under his coat the blue sash of the Order of the Garter. Most noticeably, rather than the high cavalry top-boots, favoured by most general officers, he wore a pair of long grey buttoning gaiters. He stared at Steel for a good two minutes as if getting the measure of this man to whom he had entrusted his future. Finally, he seemed satisfied.
‘Yes. Discipline is paramount. We cannot allow the army to run amok can we. It’s all they know, Steel.