The Scarlet Thief

Book 0: Jack Lark

by Paul Fraser Collard

Genres: Historical Fiction; Action & Adventure

Synopsis

The new Richard Sharpe bursts onto the historical adventure scene in a brilliant, action-packed debut of Redcoat battle and bloodshed.

1854: The banks of the Alma River, Crimean Peninsular. The Redcoats stagger to a bloody halt. The men of the King's Royal Fusiliers are in terrible trouble, ducking and twisting as the storm of shot, shell and bullet tear through their ranks. Officer Jack Lark has to act immediately and decisively. His life and the success of the campaign depend on it. But does he have the mettle, the officer qualities that are the life blood of the British Army? From a poor background Lark has risen through the ranks by stealth and guile and now he faces the ultimate test... THE SCARLET THIEF introduces us to a formidable and compelling hero - brutally courageous, roguish, ambitious - in a historical novel as robust as it is thrillingly authentic by an author who brings history and battle vividly alive.

Release date: May 9, 2013

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 249

Sample

20 September 1854. The banks of the Alma River, Crimean Peninsula

The redcoats staggered to a bloody halt. The men of the King’s Royal Fusiliers crouched at the edge of the vineyard, ducking and twisting as the storm of shot, shell and bullet tore through their ranks. Dozens of fusiliers went down under the Russian barrage, the men falling silently, their passing unremarked. Those still living pressed close to their comrades, the desperate need to be near to another human being overwhelming the rational thought that to be grouped together was to present a larger target for the enemy to hit.

Beyond the shattered vineyard there was no cover for the frightened fusiliers; a dozen yards of open scrub separated the last of the vines from the shallow banks of the Alma River. The bloodied redcoats clung to what little shelter they could find, stubbornly refusing to advance, no one willing to dare the killing ground to their front.

On their right, the men of the 2nd Division were going to ground, the heavy fire driving its battered battalions to seek cover in the ruined walls and burning buildings that were all that remained of the village of Burliuk. All along the line, the redcoats milled in confusion and fear, still yards short of the river they had been ordered to cross. The Russians poured on the fire ruthlessly, striking redcoat after redcoat to the ground, their bodies forming a tide line, a high-water mark for the advance.

General Raglan’s army was paying in blood for the simplicity of his plan. His decision to fling two of his divisions against the strongest point on the Russians’ right flank was the cause of the suffering being endured by the men who had been ordered forward. It was a plan devoid of all subtlety. A plan that now looked destined to fail.

Jack Lark forced a path through his men. He saw the terror on the faces of the fusiliers, a fear that he knew well as it seared through his own veins. It threatened to drive him screaming to the ground. It begged him to do anything to get out of the merciless fire that swept along the stalled line, yet he made himself move, even though his body flinched at every bullet that whipped past.

‘Fusiliers!’ Jack’s voice was huge. ‘Advance, damn you! Move! Move!’

Still the fusiliers refused to advance. Jack shoved at the men closest to him, trying to force them forward. But they ignored him, their eyes flashing in anger as he tried to bully them. The fusiliers were not advancing for anyone.

The men started to edge backwards, the movement fluttering through the packed ranks. The battalion was moments away from turning to flee from the unrelenting Russian fire that was flaying their ranks.

They had reached breaking point.

Jack cringed as a bullet cracked into the ground at his feet. The fear was paralysing him, ravaging his guts like a caged beast. Every part of him shrank away from what he was about to do. His mind pleaded with him to let someone else carry the burden of responsibility. Yet he had chosen to become an officer and now he would have to repay the debt that came with the gold epaulets and the respect that came from being addressed as ‘Sir’.

He shouldered his way through the snug pocket of men to his front, ignoring the oaths and the insults directed at him. He strode out of the vineyard and into the cauldron of fire.

‘King’s Royal Fusiliers!’

He turned to his men, his fury building, the anger driving out the last of his uncertainty. He might have stolen the right to command these men but now he would prove he could lead them. He goaded the enemy fire, prowling in front of his company, showing them he was bigger than the storm of fire that had bludgeoned the slow, steady advance to a standstill.

‘King’s Royal Fusiliers! Look at me!’ Jack demanded attention even as the Russian fire cracked and whipped through the air around him.

‘We will advance. You hear me? We will advance!’ His voice faltered, his throat half closed. Yet he forced the order out, screaming the words at his men who watched him as if they were staring at an inmate of Bedlam let loose on the field of battle.

Jack turned his back on his men and bounded across the few open yards between the vineyard and the river. It felt as if every Russian skirmisher was firing at him but by some miracle he made it to the shallow bank of the river without coming to harm. As he slipped and slithered down the bank, he turned to glare in accusation at his men.

The fusiliers were stationary, as if petrified.

Then, finally, they moved. Prompted by a secret signal the battalion surged forward. The open ground that had caused such fear was crossed in moments, the fusiliers streaming forward to slide down to join Jack in the shallow water of the Alma. The Russian fire doubled in its intensity the moment the fusiliers abandoned the shelter of the vineyard, striking dozens from their ranks. Yet the redcoats ignored the casualties, storming forward, their paralysing fear forgotten.

They had crossed the line.

In the melee, Jack was pitched unceremoniously forward. The river flowed over the tops of his boots, the water icy cold where it splashed against his legs. The fusiliers careered through the water, the ordered line forgotten, the men moving together in one amorphous mass. The wiser heads among the redcoats lifted their ammunition pouches and rifles away from a soaking in the river but they were few in number amidst the crazed, adrenalin-fuelled mob.

The gravel bed of the river was treacherous, the weeds and slime making the footing uncertain and twice Jack slipped and would have fallen if he had not been so tightly pressed into the pack of redcoats. Around him, his men cursed angrily as they forced their way across the river, elbows working furiously, fighting each other to reach the relative safety of the south side of the Alma. The south bank was far steeper than the north side, rising three to four feet before levelling out and forming a shelf above the river. The redcoats threw themselves up the slope with abandon, churning the ground to slick mud as they tried to find purchase with their wet boots.

On the ledge the fusiliers were screened from much of the Russian fire. Above their heads, the awful barrage continued. To move forward would mean walking straight into the enemy roundshot and musket fire.

For a second time, the advance halted. The wet, mud-splattered fusiliers caught their breath after the wild scramble through the river and steeled themselves for what was still to come.

‘You bloody idiot!’ Jack’s orderly, Tommy Smith, thumped into the ground beside his officer, ducking away from a flurry of musket fire that whistled past less than a foot above their heads. ‘You’ll get yourself killed if you carry on like that, Jack.’

‘It had to be done.’ The shock of walking into the open ground still coursed through Jack’s body and he shivered at the memory. He felt the cold hand of near death.

‘But not by you, you damn fool.’ Smith had to shout to be heard above the din. ‘You might be dressed as a bloody Rupert but that doesn’t mean you have to do it all by yourself!’

A flurry of activity prevented Jack from replying. Another officer was indeed taking control, showing his men what he expected of them.

General William John Codrington was fifty years old. He had joined the army thirty-three years previously, yet this was his first taste of action, the only time he had heard guns fired in anger. Codrington commanded the 1st Fusilier Brigade, part of the once famous Light Division. Although it was no longer made up from the same regiments that had marched to such renown and fame in the battles Wellington had fought in Portugal and Spain forty years earlier, Codrington was determined his command would live up to their high standards. He had watched his brigade march into the violent storm of the Russian barrage and he had witnessed their desperate plunge into the Alma. Now he had to show his men what he expected them to do next.

Mounted on a small white Arab mare, Codrington spurred his way across the river, encouraging the young horse up the far bank. The men of his command watched the grey-haired general charge straight into the terrible fire that was raging above them.

Jack looked on in astonishment. He flashed a smile at Tommy Smith and then, saying a silent prayer, he pushed himself up over the lip of the shelf, determined to be at the head of the attack.

With a huge cheer, the redcoats followed.

The steep undulating slope led up to the four-foot-high wall of the great redoubt, the fortified position that was the key to the Russian general’s right flank. The Russian skirmishers had moved back up the slope and were already re-forming on the crest around the guns hidden in the redoubt. It was up this slope that Codrington’s brigade would have to advance, into the mouths of the guns that waited to sweep the attackers away.

‘Forward the fusiliers!’ Jack screamed, leading his men up the slope. Around him, the fusiliers were horribly disordered, the different companies now hopelessly intertwined after the mad scramble across the river. The precise two-man line was gone and the redcoats moved forward bunched up in groups. The angle of the slope pulled at their already aching muscles. In the middle of the disorganised crush the young ensigns carrying the colours found the strength to wave their heavy ash staffs from side to side, forcing movement into the lifeless silk that refused to stir in the still, breathless air.

As the three battalions of Codrington’s brigade erupted from the confines of the river, the attack snarled back into life.







Six months earlier. Aldershot Barracks, England

The officer groaned with relief as he eased his heavy scarlet coat off his shoulders, the thick bullion epaulets jangling as he tossed it on to the iron bed that dominated the small room. He let out a sigh of tired exasperation.

‘Lark!’ the officer barked. He listened for any sound that showed his servant was rushing to answer the summons. To his annoyance, he heard nothing.

‘Lark!’ the tall officer bellowed for a second time, his voice rising in anger.

‘Sir?’

The officer’s servant half ran, half stumbled into the small bedroom, wiping his hands furiously on a stained lint cloth as he entered.

‘You don’t have time for that now, Lark.’ The officer’s face betrayed his annoyance despite his best attempts to keep it under control. ‘Where is my best uniform?’

‘In your cupboard, sir.’ Jack Lark was new to the ways of being an orderly. He still had much to learn.

‘What good is it there?’ Captain Arthur Sloames ran a hand over his thick, black, mutton-chop whiskers and through the mop of unruly hair that he would soon spend some time attempting to subdue. ‘You should have it out and ready.’

‘Sorry, sir.’ Jack looked around for a convenient spot to dump the stained cloth he was carrying. Seeing nowhere suitable he stuffed it into the waistband of his grey fatigues before making towards the tall, mahogany wardrobe that stood in the corner of the small room.

‘You cannot do it now, you fool. I have no intention of attending on the dowager countess this evening stinking like a damn navvy. Go and wash your hands thoroughly. I’ll do it myself.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Jack muttered a curse under his breath. He had forgotten to have his master’s finest uniform ready. The list of chores to be done in a single day was taking him too long. He knew he would have to work harder if he were to remain in his new position. He turned to hurry from the room, determined to wash quickly and make up for his error. He would not throw away the chance he had been given. An orderly was a step up from being an ordinary redcoat and Jack was desperate to succeed.

‘Wait.’ Sloames snapped the curt command. ‘You can help me with my boots before you go.’

The young captain turned his back and offered up his foot for Jack to hold. The two men were of a similar height, both a shade under six feet tall, yet their faces betrayed their relative status as eloquently as the badges of rank that adorned their uniforms. Sloames’s fleshy face and thick waistline betrayed his privileged lifestyle, his blue Oxford uniform trousers straining across his generous backside. Where Sloames was portly, Jack Lark was gaunt, his hard face and wiry physique the result of a youth spent in London’s slums. His ill-fitting fatigues may have hung from his sparse frame but his rolled shirtsleeves revealed a pair of finely muscled forearms. Jack may have lacked his officer’s bulk but there was strength in his sinewy build, strength that he needed as he strained to pull the tight, calf-length boots from his master’s feet.

‘You must try to improve, Lark,’ Sloames grunted as the first boot was tugged free. ‘I’d have thought you would’ve begun to get the hang of things by now.’

‘Sorry, sir.’ Jack bit his lip as he took a firm hold on the second boot. ‘I lost track of time.’

‘What were you doing?’ Sloames sighed with pleasure as his right foot found freedom.

‘I was polishing your sword, sir. Coxy, I mean Private Cox, told me you would be likely to inspect it to make sure I was keeping on top of everything.’

Sloames chuckled. ‘He was right. You would do well to listen to Cox. He is a good man. Major Hume is fortunate indeed to have him. Let us hope you are as good one day.’

‘I’ll try my best, sir.’ Jack stood up and looked his officer in the eye. ‘Sorry about the uniform.’

Sloames dismissed Jack’s apology with a wave of his hand. ‘Quick now. Wash up and hurry back to help me get dressed. The colonel hates to be late and I cannot risk keeping him waiting.’ He fixed Jack with a warm smile. ‘Even us captains have to do as we are told.’

‘You’ll throw this chance away if you’re not careful.’

Jack twisted away from Molly, his pleasure at seeing her waning in the face of her criticism.

‘I know, Molly. I’m not soft in the head.’

‘Well, you will be if you mess this up.’ Molly stepped back into Jack’s arms, ignoring his churlish response. ‘You have to make something of yourself or we’ll never get anywhere.’

She and Jack had been together for nearly three months. He came to visit her in the garrison laundry often, his new life as an officer’s orderly giving him a freedom he could have only dreamt of as a simple redcoat.

‘I won’t mess it up.’ Jack’s pride had been stung. He knew he had forgotten his master’s instructions and Captain Sloames was well within his rights to admonish him but he had hoped Molly would be more sympathetic.

‘You’d better not. I can’t waste my time on a redcoat. I want to make something of my life, even if you don’t.’

‘I’m not a waste of time. Sloames picked me to be his orderly, didn’t he?’

‘Well, just don’t make him regret it.’ Molly moved back and brushed at his lapel where a few of her hairs lay. ‘I know you like being a servant but it’s not that much of a step up, is it? It’s not like being a corporal, or a sergeant.’

‘I’m not a servant. I’m an orderly. It’s different.’ Jack’s fragile pride was offended. ‘It keeps me away from Colour Sergeant Slater and that is good enough for me.’

‘I don’t know why you’re so frightened of Slater. He’s not that bad. I think he’s a fine figure of a man and he’s always nice to me when he comes in here. And he’s a sergeant.’ Molly reached for Jack’s face, her finger sliding over Jack’s smooth and unfashionably hair-free cheeks.

‘Slater’s not a fine figure of a man.’ Jack looked at Molly warily, sensing she was showing more than a passing interest in his company’s colour sergeant. ‘He’s a bastard. If that’s what it takes to become a sergeant then it’s not for me, thank you very much.’ Jack’s words belied the ambition that burned brightly inside him. To be a sergeant would be the pinnacle of his time as a soldier. It was a position he was determined to achieve, his role as an orderly merely a stepping stone on his climb up the ranks.

‘Well, I can just see you with them stripes. Why, you could even become an officer and have your own servant.’

‘Orderly,’ Jack rebuked her. ‘I’m not about to become an officer. It’s not for the likes of me. You have to be born with a silver spoon in your muzzle to become an officer. If you have the money, you can become an officer. If you don’t then forget it.’

‘Some do it.’

‘Some do. But they never go far. Quartermaster is about all they’re good for. And even that’s as rare as finding gold in horseshit.’

‘You give up too easy. You’ll never get anywhere if you don’t try. I can see it even if you can’t – you this big handsome officer and me your lady,’ Molly giggled at the wild fancy.

Jack smiled at the notion. ‘It’s never going to happen.’

Molly’s hands disappeared behind her back, untying the knots that held her apron in place, her teasing smile making Jack’s heart race as he began to hope the afternoon’s visit would not be completely wasted.

‘My mam says you lot are going to be posted.’

‘What?’ Molly’s darting train of thought often left Jack lumbering to keep up with her.

‘You lot is going to be posted. Mam says that Billy who looks after Major Dansen told her.’ Molly tossed her apron to one side and started to undo the buttons of her blouse.

‘Billy Burton don’t know shit.’ Jack tore his eyes from the glimpse of flesh and took hold of Molly’s hands to stop her undoing any more buttons. Her words had changed the focus of his thoughts. It was exciting news if it was true. The battalion had been stationed in Aldershot on garrison duty ever since he joined it four years previously. It was dull and Jack chafed at the routine life that ground out through the days and months. A posting would mean going abroad, seeing the world and, with any luck, doing some proper soldiering.

‘Well, my mam says he said it, so there. You don’t have to believe me.’ Molly pouted.

Against his tanned skin the red rawness of her hands stood out vividly, the countless hours spent in hot water dealing with the battalion’s laundry taking its toll even on her young, seventeen-year-old skin.

‘I believe you. It’s that fool Billy I don’t trust.’

‘I hope you don’t get posted. I wouldn’t know what to do if you up and left.’ Tears welled in Molly’s eyes.

Jack brushed the tears from Molly’s cheeks. ‘Don’t fret. There’s always talk. Nothing is going to happen. It never does.’ Molly nestled into his arms, consoled and safe in his embrace. Jack rested his chin on the unruly curls pinned on top of her head. His heart raced, his hopes coming alive at the idea of leaving. For a posting might mean facing the harshest test a soldier could imagine: battle.







Jack paused at the door to the barrack room, the stench emanating from the confined space like a physical wall barring his progress. The smell was always worse when he had stayed away for a while. The small box room Sloames allowed Jack to use in his suite was a palace compared to the confines of the rank barrack rooms the other redcoats were forced to live in.

The air was thick with the smell of pipe clay, boot blacking, damp clothing, and lamp oil. The forty redcoats who called this their home ate, slept, cleaned their kit, cussed, complained, drank, pissed and farted in the one small area. In summer they boiled, sweating and stinking through the warmer months, the meagre windows firmly shut and barred no matter how hot the room became. In winter, they froze; a single stove and limited ration of fuel left the accommodation cold, damp and inhospitable. But no matter what the season the room still stank, the smell of forty unwashed bodies and the sour smell of urine from the single piss pot ever present.

‘Have you boys been eating dead dog again? It smells like Satan’s arse in here.’ Jack pushed his way into the room, greeting his former messmates with a warm smile. He missed being with his fellow soldiers. The long hours he spent with his officer took away the companionship of his brother redcoats. Despite his best efforts, his new role had created a barrier between them, something he regretted.

The soldier closest to the door looked up briefly then returned his attention to the cross-belts of his uniform, which were laid carefully on his bed as he applied the thick layer of pipe clay that gave them their smart, white colour. A few other members of the mess greeted Jack’s arrival with a brief comment before they carried on with the serious task of preparing their uniforms for the parade their captain had ordered.

One burly redcoat ambled towards Jack, a wide smile spread on his face.

‘Hello, Mud. Come to check up on us?’

‘I couldn’t stay away.’ Jack took the meaty hand thrust towards him and shook it vigorously. He had been known as Mud ever since joining the regiment, a reference to the mudlarks of the River Thames that more than one of the redcoats had been before they had taken the Queen’s shilling.

‘You’re looking good. Being Sloames’s orderly is obviously good for you. I wish I’d taken the chance when he offered it to me.’

‘You had a lucky escape. Just think of all the extra bull, and Sloames can be a hard taskmaster.’

Private Jonathan Pike nodded his agreement. Of all the redcoats in the company, Pike had been Jack’s closest friend, the one who had looked after him in his earliest days in the battalion, saving him more than once from falling foul of Colour Sergeant Slater, who ran the company with an iron fist. ‘You got that right. Making us go through this bloody malarkey just because it takes his damn fancy.’

Jack slid the tall, black shako off his head, careful not to touch any of the polished brasswork. He ran his hand over the stubby red and white plume on its crown, picking away imaginary tufts of fluff. ‘You have it easy. What time did you start this morning?’

‘Four o’clock.’

‘See! I was up at three. Not only have I got to get my uniform ready, I also have to do his.’

‘All right. You win. Is it still raining?’

‘Only a little.’

‘It’ll still make everything get rusty. Which means more bloody work. So, Sloames didn’t need you to button his breeches this morning then?’

‘I don’t button his breeches, you daft clot. And no, he doesn’t. He spent the night at the Horse and Hounds in town. It was Lady Catherine’s ball last night which means he probably got boozed up.’

‘The lucky bugger. I expect he spent the night with that barmaid, Sally.’

‘Probably. He’s going to be knackered.’ Jack laughed at the notion. He was enjoying being back with his friend. The camaraderie the common soldiers enjoyed was the best thing he had discovered since joining the army. The bond that was formed from shared hardships and from surviving everything their officers and sergeants demanded of them tied the men together, creating friendships that many would never have experienced in their former lives.

The door to the barrack room was flung open. ‘Stand by your beds!’

The shout of command had . . .