under Grammaine’s protective aegis. It would be a cold, uncomfortable ride. They would be jostled by the crowds at the station. Excuse after excuse just so that, when the time came for the final step aboard the train, her nerve would hold. She could not leave, she thought, if they were there to beg her to stay.
‘It’s been a good few days,’ Elise remarked.
‘It has,’ Emily agreed. ‘It really has.’
She saw Grant approaching the door, dusting his hands off, and she stood, with a soldier’s proper resignation, hoisting her pack up on her shoulders. Mary and Alice bustled in just then, and she hugged them each in turn, tight as she could.
‘You will come back to us,’ Mary insisted. ‘I could not bear it if anything happened to you.’
‘I will. If God permits.’
‘And tell that wretched husband of mine to write to me.’
‘I’ll tell him. I’ll even force the pen into his hands.’
‘And you come back, too,’ Alice told Elise. ‘We want to see you here. Come back in the season and I’ll introduce you to all the best people.’
‘I’ll be back,’ Elise promised, ‘just you see. I’ll come back with a wound and a medal, like proper soldiers are supposed to.’
Grant moved to help them up into the buggy, like ladies, but they climbed up themselves like fighting men, and thought nothing of it.
There was a real mob around the station, what with the departing soldiers in their reds, and all their friends and relatives, their mothers and sisters and children, pressing them from all sides. As Grant reined in the horses, Emily could hear the train itself arriving, the great slow rhythm of its ponderous wheels, the hiss of steam as it slowed and ground to a halt alongside the station platform.
‘Looks like a mess,’ Elise said. ‘Hey, if we just start shovelling everyone onto the train, we’ll get double the recruits we had to start with. They’ll give you a bonus for that.’
Emily jumped down from the buggy and reshouldered her pack. ‘Who’s in charge here?’ she shouted, and then had to shout it twice more before the closest soldier noticed her.
‘What’s that?’
‘Who’s the ranking officer here?’ Emily asked. ‘What’s going on?’
‘We’ve got no officer here,’ said the soldier, a frail-looking girl Alice’s age. Then she jumped visibly and said, ‘Sir! Ensign, I mean,’ and saluted, jogging the next woman with her elbow.
‘There must be someone outranking me here,’ Emily said, but Elise was busy looking at sleeve after sleeve.
‘I don’t see one. Looks like you’ve got command, Ensign.’ She grinned with the easy grin of a woman who doesn’t have to be responsible for what is happening.
Emily looked at the great mess of soldiers, and of their relatives who would not willingly allow a minute here to be wasted. They would be forever taking their leave, yet the train was here now.
She had a duty. Major Castwood had placed this burden on her when he gave her the promotion. It would be a harsh baptism for her, her first task as an officer.
She could shout, like Bowler; she could bellow and swear at them. What would it accomplish? She looked around from face to face, and saw some streaked with tears or red-eyed from weeping. Some hugged their loved ones close to them, and others sat on the ground beside their packs, clutching their muskets and looking ill. This would have to be done firmly and gently.
‘All right now,’ she said to the frail girl nearest. ‘Say your last goodbye and get aboard. You, too,’ she said to the next. ‘Come on, soldiers. Kiss them goodbye and everyone get on the train. We’ve got to be somewhere else tomorrow morning.’ She moved through the crowd, laying her hand on arms and clapping shoulders. She avoided the fake joviality that some sergeants seemed to prefer, and instead adopted a manner of mere efficiency. A quiet word, a touch, then she moved on. Behind her, the crowd began to unbutton itself like a shirt. Soldiers gave their families a final hug, a last fond word. Women began to embark onto the train in a steady flow, and still Emily passed amongst them, saying, ‘All right, now, say a last goodbye. You all knew this was coming. We can’t keep them waiting up at the front. Come on, soldiers, time we were going.’
At the far end of the platform, she turned to survey her handiwork. The crowd was disintegrating, the soldiers – her troops – were vanishing into the