Captain Fantom by Reginald Hill

Author:Reginald Hill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2019-01-16T16:00:00+00:00

1643

Bedford — Lincolnshire — Nottingbamsbire

A man who has been very close to death suddenly realizes how futile and vain are those things so valued by the commonalty of man, as friendship, honour and the so-called comforts of religion. My resolve to grow rich was confirmed by my experience in Winchester. A wealthy man could die as easily as a poor one. So I set about surrounding myself with a troop of like-thinking fellows, who were not far to find. The constitution of regiments was not yet so clearly regulated as it was to become in the New Model Army after 1645 and my troop of some fifty men though small was nonetheless acceptable. I had as my lieutenant a crop-shaven shabby boy of twenty-two or -three who had the look and language of one of those bible-waving preachers who were the only entertainment permitted in this miserable army. His name was James Croft and I would have avoided him like the plague had I not caught him ransacking my quarters one night when I returned unexpectedly. When I challenged him he showed no alarm but answered, ‘In the name of Our Saviour, Captain, this is well met, for I have been instructed by the provost-marshal to search your belongings, upon traitorous and malicious information that you carried missives between the King and certain disaffected gentlemen of our party. But, praised be the name of the Lord, I have found nothing and was presently hastening to you with the news – you are innocent!’

He made it sound like a genuine discovery worthy of celebration and I found myself on the point of taking his outstretched hand. Instead I hit him in the stomach and as he doubled up, I went behind him, seized his ankles and shook him in the air till most of what he had stolen fell to the floor.

After that, I gave him a glass of brandy which, for a fervent denouncer of the evils of strong liquor, he downed with great skill. When he had drunk another and regained his composure, we talked. An hour later he was my lieutenant.

My cornet was Thomas Turner, a fresh-faced lad who reminded me of Christopher. I found him sleeping drunkenly beneath a bush one night with a poinard in his hand, its steel dulled by dried blood. He was a thorough-going villain despite his looks, yet because of his resemblance to the dead trooper I always kept him at a distance.

There only remained one more commissioned place to fill, that of quartermaster, and this I left vacant till the right man should present himeslf. The combination of talents needed in a good quartermaster is most rare – he must have the accountant’s gift of reckoning, the lawyer’s gift of concealing, the merchant’s gift of trading, the carrier’s gift of transporting, the priest’s gift of deceiving, and the soldier’s gift of not caring. Such men are hard to find and they are usually politicians or prelates – or sometimes kings. To be a quartermaster a man needs something extra – a disability which keeps him out of great place.

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