Whose Business Is to Die by Adrian Goldsworthy Page A

believe him to be robust or quick witted. Will he become a laughing stock, or still worse be disgraced? And yet most of all I dread having to write home and tell our parents that he has fallen. I suspect they naively believe that I can keep him safe.’
    ‘You will do all that can be done, and your friends will help,’ Pringle said, aware that it was little consolation.
    They walked in silence, and were about to part to go to their companies when Truscott whispered, ‘I know that I have not answered you, my dear Pringle. It is because I do not know what the answer is.’
    Formed up on the road in open column, the 106th stepped off at the stentorian command of the sergeant major. They marched for another five hours, stopping for breaks after each hour, and twice more held up by regiments ahead of them. It rained a few times, if never again the deluge of the early morning. The showers fed the already deep mud on the road, and by the time they reached Campo Major every man’s white trousers were covered in filth. The 106th had come out to Gibraltar with new uniforms, and had spent months in garrison. Even so the brief campaign of Barrosa and the march from Lisbon had already begun to take their toll. Pringle noticed that several of his grenadiers had the soles of their boots flapping as they walked, and made a note to have that attended to when they stopped.
    As they marched past the town the sun dipped beneath the frayed canopy of clouds and bathed the world in light. It had little warmth, but Pringle felt cheered. The sky to the west was a glorious canvas of pinks and gold, and he felt that no one could see such a sight and not feel hope growing within him.
    The battalion was led by a guide to a field beside the road and ordered to bivouac for the night. There was something very familiar and comforting about the routine of the camp, even if for the first time in weeks they were not alone, but had battalions all around them. It was the Grenadier Company’s turn to provide pickets so it would be a while before he had leisureto rest. Doing the rounds he passed an open space to the left of the camp, and noticed some of the subalterns staring at scattered white boulders. Spotting the diminutive shape of Samuel Truscott, distinctive in his immense hat, Pringle wandered over to see what they were looking at.
    Young Sam suddenly leaned over and Billy heard the sound of retching.
    ‘Oh, Truscott, you have covered my boots!’ squealed one of the others.
    The boulders were corpses, stripped naked before they were cold, the way he had seen the dead on so many fields. Coming closer he saw the pale bodies rent about the head and arms with dreadful cuts, the blood looking black in the fading light.
    ‘This was where the light dragoons broke the French,’ Derryck told him. They had heard rumours ever since they approached the town, accounts of a heroic charge and of bungling by generals.
    Samuel Truscott stood up, looking paler than the bodies, but then sight or smell struck him again and prompted another loud burst of vomiting. The boy sank down on to all fours.
    ‘That one is the French colonel.’ Derryck gestured at a body with its head terribly mutilated. ‘They say an officer came across with a flag of truce to find him and then wept by his side. It was his brother, do you see. Poor fellow.’ The sympathy was brief, and in a moment Derryck’s usual exuberance returned. ‘Come on, you fellows, enough of this ghoulish interest. There is a bottle or two waiting and food as well, so come along. Help Truscott up if he cannot stand.’
    Brothers were a concern, thought Pringle. He had heard that the Second Division were here as well as the Portuguese and their own Fourth Division, so he might be able to find Williams, and perhaps even learn what damage Ned had wrought on his friend’s hopes.
    The sun went down, not with the slow grandeur of home, but still moving enough in its way. Pringle sighed and made up his mind.

8
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