at the start of their training, none of the recruits had seen much of their commanding officer.
‘No idea, Marshwic, but I wouldn’t keep him waiting. He asked me to send you to him before the class, but I thought you needed the practice.’
He was seldom found beyond the confines of his private office, was Major Castwood, and there was much speculation about him. Why was he not at the war? What was wrong with him – with his face? He had almost never appeared to his charges during the time they had been under his care, but it was known he spoke to the sergeants and the teachers every day or so, hearing reports of who was proving apt and who was slow.
Emily approached his door now with trepidation. Had there been some more news from the front, perhaps. Is it Tuba? Had the war taken her brother-in-law now? Mary would be inconsolable. Mary would need her support just when she could not give it. Or was it news from home: terrible news that only the major could give? Brigands, perhaps. Debts that had fallen due, threatening the future of Grammaine itself. Or perhaps one of the staff had died – old Poldry maybe? But, no, they would not trouble to tell me of a servant’s death. It was an oddly bitter thought. So many of the women she was training with, the same women she would be fighting alongside, were servants thrown to the Draft. Who are the powers that be to count their lives the less for it?
She rapped smartly and waited, before his quiet voice came clearly through the door. ‘Enter.’
Standing before his desk, she remembered to salute. The room was a small one, and nothing like Mr Northway’s opulence. There were maps on the desk itself and on the walls, with drawings and notes on them. She imagined the major had been fighting the war here, solely for his own benefit, or fighting and refighting his own past battles, perhaps.
He looked up at her, and she took the chance to study his face, never before seen so closely. The one side was the face of a man of later middle years, lined with pain and toil. The other was smooth, pale, and the eye stared out of it as unnaturally as if it sat on a dinner plate.
A mask, she saw: a porcelain mask, but done very finely. From any distance one might almost not realize, until he tried to speak.
‘Miss Marshwic,’ he said out of one side of his mouth, and then: ‘The answer to your question is that I was standing next to Demaine’s horse. Think about it.’
For an awful moment she almost laughed, but he was being quite serious. She composed herself.
‘You sent for me, sir.’
‘I did. Listen up, Marshwic. I hear things about you. Think you’re having a tough time of it here?’
‘No more than anyone else, sir.’
‘Is that so?’ He raised his eyebrow. ‘Word is you’ve been getting into fights, is that so?’
‘Isn’t that what we’re trained for, sir?’
His lips twitched. ‘That could count as insolence, Marshwic.’
‘Is there a problem, sir?’
‘Yes, there is.’ He stood up, his broad-shouldered frame looming over the desk, overshadowing her. ‘The problem is that I have four hundred green recruits – four hundred women, for the Lord’s sake – who aren’t going to last a moment when the war comes for them. My problem is that they ship sooner than I’d like, and there’s not a damn thing more I’ve got time to teach them. My problem is that I am sending troops to the war who are undisciplined, unskilled and frankly just unready for combat, and that I have no choice but to send them. Orders are orders. Do you see my problem, Marshwic?’
‘I do, sir.’ Emily might have felt apart from the mass of her fellow recruits, but now she felt a sudden surge of loyalty towards them, hearing them attacked like this.
‘Any suggestions?’
‘If you give us a chance, sir, we will not disappoint you.’
He stood back, regarding her through narrowed eyes. ‘Will you not?’ He sighed. ‘Well then, I’m afraid I’m going to have to make an example of you, Marshwic.’
She stood silent and stiff, waiting for it.
‘I’m making you an ensign.’
‘Sir?’
‘You must have heard of it. It’s the lowest rank in the army above soldier-at-arms. In the olden days they used to carry the flags around. Now it just means you get to do the jobs the sergeant doesn’t want.’
‘Sir, I know,