In Pale Battalions by Robert Goddard Page A

barrel-chested old man in faded blue frock coat and pale breeches, straw hat shading a white-whiskered face flushed with rather more than just the heat of a summer’s day.
    He greeted me with patrician good cheer. “Good morning, young man. You must be the famous Lieutenant Franklin.”
    “Hardly famous. I . . .”
    “Spare me the false modesty. I’m too old for it. Haven’t I come to collect you rather than leave it to a servant? Come. Hop aboard.”
    His twinkle-eyed humour was infectious. He wasn’t at all what I’d expected.
    I stowed my bag and climbed up beside him. “Forgive me, but . . . are you Lord Powerstock?”
    “Bless you, no.” He loosed a rumbling laugh, then twitched on the reins and started us back down the lane. “What do you think of Lucy’s bells?” He gestured towards the pony’s head. There were little silver bells fastened to the bridle, tinkling as we rode. It was the

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    same sound I’d heard on his approach—a puzzling sound, somehow out of place in the Hampshire farmland.
    “Very nice,” I said lamely.
    He laughed again. “They’re troika bells. From Russia. A personal gift from the Czar.”
    “Really?”
    “No. Not really. But they are from Russia. I did business there once.” He looked at me and winked. “When I was your age. A long time ago.” He paused and we bowled along the lane without speaking for a while. Then he began again, as if remembering something he’d been about to say. “Lord Powerstock? That’s a good one. No.
    I’m a skeleton in his cupboard, though a fleshy one, as you see.
    Charter Gladwin’s the name: a sort of relic of family history.”
    “For a relic, you manage this pony well, sir.”
    He laughed again, as he did often, with ease, unforced and bub-bling, like wine overflowing a re-charged glass. “Always defer to age, young man. It’s an excellent policy, though I never followed it myself. After all, who else in these parts is likely to be able to remember the old Queen’s coronation?” “Nobody—I imagine.”
    “Exactly. But you’ll be wanting to know what I’m to do with young John—Captain Hallows. Well, I’m his grandfather. My daughter was his mother. Now they’re both gone. Just me left.
    Comical, ain’t it?”
    “Well, I hardly . . .”
    “No. You’re right. Not comical. A damn shame. I liked John. A fine young man. Good few of ’em being lost out there, I dare say.”
    “Yes,” I said grimly. “There are.”
    “Poorly equipped, badly led, sadly wasted. Ain’t that the size of it?”
    “You seem well informed, sir.”
    “Not at all. It’s what they said about the Crimea. I didn’t think much could have changed.” He laughed and, this time, despite myself, I laughed with him.
    The lane was rising now, taking us between high hedges over the swell of a gentle down and away from the line of the railway.
    We were leaving behind the water meadows of the curving Meon and climbing through sheep-cropped pasture and shady hangers of oak.
     
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    “The house will be in view soon,” the old man announced. “I’ll try to be on my best behaviour when we get there. You’ll have to do the same.”
    “I’ll try not to offend anyone.”
    “It’s just there’s been a black mood hanging over the place since John died. Not that I’m saying he should be forgotten, but it’s been four months now. Edward—Lord Powerstock—don’t seem able to pull round. As for Leonora . . .” He tailed off in tongue-clicking disappointment.
    I recognized Leonora as Hallows’s wife. “She’s bound to have taken it hard.”
    Gladwin grunted at that and set his face to the road. We had reached the other side of the down now and were following a straight lane beneath arching chestnut trees. To the left of us ran a high brick wall, breached and patched in places. From the trap, glimpsed between thickly leaved trees, I could see a large house set in its own grounds. A few