‘Because you listen and you concentrate, and you have at least some intelligence about you, or so I’ve heard. Sergeant Demaine says you’ve some idea of which way to hold a gun, which is more than most of them, even after all this time.’ He must have seen a hint of hubris in her expression, because he added, ‘But mostly because you’re a gentlewoman, and it’s bad form to have someone of good blood as a common soldier. And don’t get too proud of yourself. I’m making four ensigns and a sergeant today, so you’re not even top of the class. Any questions?’
‘What will this mean, sir?’
‘That you’ll have even more to worry about than anyone else. Dismissed, now, Marshwic. Off you go.’
10
In the forty days since we left home, we had ceased to think of the war. It seems incredible to me now but the very training to become a soldier had eclipsed the reasons behind it.
All such thoughts returned to us a few days before the end of our time at Gravenfield when we were brought before Major Castwood again. He explained that we were to be portioned out. Most of us would go to support the dashing cavalry of the Couch ant font: the mountain passes, the plateaus and the plains. This was Castwood’s old command, and Lord Deerling’s of course, offering the grand spectacle of war as we forced the Denlanders back beyond their own borders.
And some few would be consigned to the Levant font. Such a pretty name it is for such a place. Levant, meaning ‘to rise’, as Couchant is ‘to retire’; the nomenclature of the war dictated by the habits of the sun itself. But the sun has little enough to do with the Levant font. Here are only swamps, fetid jungles and a brackish salt marsh which draws no clear line between land and sea.
They were all terrified of being sent there. Not I.
The announcements were due to be made that day, and most of the morning there was a crowd of women waiting anxiously in the refectory or the dormitory. They talked in low voices about the future, muttering and murmuring about east and west. The war, staved off for so many days, was back with them, like a spectre haunting each and every face.
Emily had already made her way to the major’s office, only to find that others had got there first. There was a queue of women waiting to be seen, more than twenty of them, but none of them having to wait long. Each entered and was sent out again within a minute, with a set, despairing look on her face.
Elise came out next, and stomped down the line looking angry, stopping only when Emily caught her arm.
‘What did he say?’
‘He says we don’t get a say in it. We go where we’re put. Bastard. I asked Demaine to put in a word for me, but he said he couldn’t help either.’ Elise’s relationship with Sergeant Demaine had only just recovered from her discovering that she was not, after all, going to be an officer, and now it looked as though, at the eleventh hour, it was about to take another beating.
‘You might as well give it a miss,’ Elise advised. ‘He ain’t budging.’
Emily shrugged. ‘I’ll ask. What can I lose?’
‘Nob’s privilege?’ Elise asked her. ‘Take me with you, will you?’
Emily smiled, and saw that she was next to bring her petition. In such a short time the others had been disposed of, and there was still an anxious line behind her. She squeezed Elise’s arm and went in.
Major Castwood’s maimed expression, when he saw her before him, was one of disappointment.
‘Marshwic,’ he said. ‘I must have seen a quarter of Gravenfield’s complement today, but all of them soldiers-at-arms. At least those I promoted have had the sense and the duty to stay away, and accept what they’re given. Still, I suppose you are gentle born, and that usually counts for something.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Don’t,’ Castwood warned her flatly. ‘Your family gives you the right to be told this politely rather than summarily, that is all. There are soldiers required for the Couchant front, and soldiers required for the Levant front. The lots have been drawn. I will not borrow from one to pay the other, nor do I think it just to swap. Not even for your family name will I do this, Ensign Marshwic. The decision was made by pure chance,