TESSA CLAIBORNE
A
Novel
by Smcallis
This is a work of fiction. No similarities between any person living or dead is intended, and any such similarity is purely coincidental. All characters © 2007 by Smcallis.
NEW SHOES FOR THOMAS
DURING MY BRIEF THIRTEEN YEARS, GOING ON FOURTEEN-LIFE TIME, I thought I had experienced every imaginable scope of human tragedy. I guess I should have not been so complacent and satisfied that my suffering was complete. I found out very soon after words, that things could always get worse. That being dragged from my home and sold into indentured-servitude for the sum of four pound nine shillings, forced to work twelve hours a day six days a week for no money and little food, being beaten to with in a breath of ones life. None of this represents the height, width and depth to which human catastrophe can descend.
On that fateful June day, I witnessed human catastrophe on an unimaginable scale. One hundred and forty-nine people, co-workers, friends, I knew all their faces, if not their names. Women, girls and a few men, either burnt to death or plunged ten stories to the pavement. Such an all-consuming event as the Quadrangle factory fire leaves an indelible mark on your soul. As I sit here and write this, I can tell you in confidence, I am not the same person I was before that dreadful day. I grew up a lot as the result of those terrible events. Whilst my own personal pain was great, I cannot imagine the grief and depth of despair experienced by my poor Henry. He held himself personally responsible for the death of his brother. Indeed the official board of inquiry, the London Times, even public opinion agreed. All sighted irrefutable damning evidence that Henry B. Hawkins, second assistant to the Boiler Engineer was in dereliction of his duty. The effect on Henry was devastating. I found myself, powerless to console his grief.
Henry, cried himself to sleep every night. We huddled together, we cried, we talked, I tried to console him. He was destroyed as a person; I could no longer even pretend to empathize with him, such was the depth of his personal purgatory. While I remained faithfully beside Henry and did, what I could, at this point, out of shear necessity I began to think more of myself, and of my own problems. In the summer of 1878, the tragedy of my life was profound, so equally incomprehensible that I caught myself thinking it unfair that Henry continuously expected me to subjugate myself to his misery.
"She's only thirteen . . ." was all the buzz in society London. Fortunately, my picture never appeared in the Times, so I still enjoyed a comfortable level of anonymity. The worst part about being branded a harlot, was Henry and I were entirely innocent. Apart from some harmless cuddling and innocuous kissing, there was never anything between us.
In the days, weeks following the fire, I pretty much lived hand to mouth. I did what odd jobs I found. Life after WSPFS was more difficult than I ever imagined. I was thoroughly institutionalized, a domesticated beast, set free for the first time. I spent several cold frightening nights before I even found the wherewithal to meet my most basic needs. I did end up stealing a bit. While I regret it to this very day, in my defense, there wasn't a whole lot a thirteen-year-old girl could do to earn a penny on the streets of London. None of my naysayers or detractors ever so much as offered a farthing to relieve my plight. I didn't sing or dance, I resolved not to do the one thing I could have done. I was determined, even if I starved to death, my body was not for sale. In the end, I begged a little, I cajoled, borrowed and I did steal, all this just to keep from starving.
What I did find out was that the 24th Regiment of Foot, my Father’s regiment at Balaclava, a Welsh Regiment, was recruiting at Charring Cross Road. I knew I was hungry, I was starving, and I knew in the army, you at least got three meals a day and a clean place to sleep. Henry said I was fucking crazy. I told him I wasn’t so much crazy as I was desperate. The army represented a way out, a way from all of this.
“Jesus fucking Christ, how in the bloody hell do you expect to get into the army? You don’t even look sixteen.”
“They take boys.” I knew this was true.
“You’re not a fucking boy! You’re a bloody girl, for Christ sakes, you’ve got tits!”
“They’re not that big,” I cast a downward glance at my here to inadequate womanly figure, up to this point my boobs proved wholly unspectacular, and now seemed a fatal liability. As if to demonstrate, in my usual aptitude for the dramatic, I pulled up my shirt. I stood in front of Henry bear chested in all my pathetic glory, my chest heaved; I think it was the first time Henry had ever seen me naked.
Henry turned away, “Put your clothes back on, Tessa.” He was ashamed. I think he liked looking at me naked, but he was too honorable to enjoy looking at me. I wasn’t ashamed I was pragmatic. I had boobs, the problem was, what to do about them.
“I’ll cut my hair; I’ll bind my chest. All I need are some boy clothes, real boy clothes. You've still got mates. Lend me some boy clothes, let’s do this together.”
Henry did come through; he got some dusty, dirty boy clothes. We cut my hair. Henry, it turned out had a friend Abigail who cut hair, he took me to her flat and she agreed to cut my hair. A real boy hair cut. We used some of the clippings, and a bit of spirit gum to fashion a sparse mustache for me. I thought it made me look ridiculous, but Henry and Abigail assured me it was perfect. Abigail took me aside; she took off my shirt and wound cotton muslin tight around my chest. She rapped several turns around me. It wasn’t that I was so big, but she said she needed to “flatten” me out. She then showed me how I could do it myself, how I could loosen it if I became too uncomfortable. I felt quite boyish in my new disguise.
"Tessa love, we need to talk . . ."
I guess you might say I was abysmally ignorant in those days. I was still very much just a girl, Abigail's frank discussion came as quite a shock.
"You really didn't know?"
I shook my head, I started to cry, I felt embarrassed and stupid. “Why didn't Sally tell me? I can't do this."
"Yes you can." Abigail reassured me. I was grateful for Abigail's friendship. We talked for a long time; so long, in fact Henry became impatient and banged on the door asking " What the Bloody hell" were we doing.
"Girl stuff! No boy's allowed." Abigail and I fell in a heap on the bed, both of us laughed so hard we cried. What started out as frightening, became quite silly. As I left Abigail's flat that afternoon, I felt my confidence renewed.
In my new guise as a boy, I felt invincible. All those rough-and-tumble years, growing-up the only girl on a farm in Wales. Finally my life with eight brothers was going to come in handy. I strutted the streets of London, I spat, I cussed, I played ball. I did all of the boy things I’d always seen my brothers do but never could because I was a girl. I was quite self-assured until I came up against the formidable and immovable object of the recruitment office of the 24th Regiment of Foot. Suddenly I felt very small, inadequate and wholly ridiculous.
Henry squeezed my hand. He slipped me a piece of paper, and told me to put it in my shoe, in square block letters plainly written was the number sixteen. When ask by the induction officer as to my age. I now could truthful answer, “I am over sixteen.”
Colour Sergeant Bourne peered at me skeptically, I should think his steel blue eyes possessed the power to penetrate into my very soul. He was chary, as he was suspicious. He wasn’t the least bit convinced as to my age, as to my sex, I think if he'd even had the slightest inkling I was a girl, he would have tossed me out on my ear. A pure pencil pusher, he asked me my name.
“Tes . . . a . . . Thomas Claiborne. Sir.” I answered.
The Colour Sergeant eyed me up and down skeptically, he was suspicious, reluctant, finally with a certain air of diffidence, his pencil slowly scratched, "T. . .H. . .O. . .M. . .A. . .S, just how old are you Mr. Claiborne?”
“I’m over sixteen, Sir.” I lied.
“I don’t believe you, get out of my queue. NEXT!”
I panicked.
“Oh―please Sir, don’t do this to me.” I threw myself across the desk; much to his indignation, I ended up nearly in the Colour Sergeant’s lap. I think I might have spilled his ink-well. “You don’t understand, please Sir, I’m desperate! My father, he fought at Balaclava with this regiment, don't turn me away. Help me, Sir, please.”
For the first time I noticed the Colour Sergeant was a little bit older than most, he was the same age as my father, if he were still alive. His face was ragged; scared with shrapnel, his left eye was milky white. I nodded to myself, this Sergeant has been places, he has seen battle, smoke, fire and death. No Colour Sergeant Bourne hadn't always been behind a desk.
Lieutenant Fry poked his head out of his office door. "What's going on out here? What's all this disturbance?"
"Lieutenant, Sir. Just a bit of confusion with the lads, Sir . . . nothing to worry about, Sir." Lieutenant Fry seemed indifferent, like a hermit crab, he disappeared into his hole as quickly as he came. Which once again left me as the sole object of Colour Sargent Bourne's scrutiny.
“Easy there lad. Stand up straight, calm yourself, recruit." The Colour Sargent adjusted his uniform that I had crumpled. "Tell me, lad, what was your father’s name?”
I came to my best attention, Papa had always taught us kids how to stand to attention. "FIRST SARGENT ROBERT CHARD CLAIBORNE, COLOUR SARGENT SIR!”
Colour Sergeant Bourne smiled a long contemplative smile. “I knew your father, we fought together at Balaclava. He was there at the charge, he was a good man . . . I always thought he was killed. I’m glad to learn he went back to Wales, and raised fine sons.”
An ink stamp later, a couple of paper signings, I was in the Army. They didn’t even ask me to take my clothes off. A prospect of exposure to which I was mortified. I tell you joining the Queen’s Army was a whole lot easier than being sold down the river to Wallace Squeers, Pierce, Fenner and Smith Co. They were mostly interested if I could read an eye chart, the doctor looked at my two front teeth, a hold over from the days when a soldier had to bite off the end of a paper cartridge. On the basis of the examination, I guess I should have been concerned as to the quality of the dregs of humanity that was in the Army of 1878. I couldn't concern myself with that. Here I was in August, enjoying the second train ride of my life. I found myself in an army barracks at Wiltshire, eight miles West of Salisbury, and nobody even knew I was a girl. I was not quite fourteen. I'd received a hot meal, a bedroll; I had two new shoes with both a left and a right foot. A bunk assignment and in the morning, I was to receive my rifle. I was in the Queen’s army.
* * *
Basic training was well, basic. The physical aspects of being in the Queen’s Army were if anything, not very difficult. I could run, climb, and stand at attention as well as any of the other recruits. Despite the neglect of WSPFS and Co., despite some months on the street, I remained for the most part relatively physically fit. After a few days of decent Army chow (some of the recruits complained, but I had never eaten so well in all my life), my energy level improved and I excelled at all the physical training. I could run the quarter mile, do chin-ups, push-ups whatever was required of me. I was at the top of my class, I actually ended up the scorn of most of my fellow recruits.
Conversely, things that were very easy for the average male recruit, I found very difficult. Colour Sergeant Bourne was very lenient when he enlisted me. It is a fact that I was significantly smaller and a slighter build than any other recruit in my unit. The rucksack, the standard issue combat load, spade, blanket, tent all the essential gear that I was expected to carry was quite heavy, some forty pounds of equipment. We had only been issued wooden facsimile rifles but already I was struggling.
I suppose it would be disingenuous if I didn’t say the worst part about being a girl in the Queen’s Army was going to the toilet. Henry did what he could for me at first, but we were split up strait away and assigned different platoons. I was left alone to fend for myself. I spent a couple of frightening days. I would sneak away in the dead of night after bugle call, “lights out” to relieve myself. I eventually learned to take advantage of any bush or twig and to pee quick and on the fly.
It was during one of those clandestine pees . . .
“Oy Mate, what the fuck’n-a you do’n?”
I was caught, in full squat, pee streaming from my cunny, what the fuck was I supposed to do? I wet myself, I jerked up my pants, it was too late. This was the worst possible situation, there are certain situation in life from which there is no possibility of recovery. Predicaments from which are so excessively obvious from which there is simply no possible explanation other than the facts. One of those life situations is the basic difference between when a boy pees and when a girl pees.
I stood up; I wet my pants, I confronted my accoster. He was a new recruit like me. Marty, he was older than my Henry, maybe twenty. Never the sharpest knife in the drawer, even still, a decent fellow. On one occasion I had helped him with his uniform, how to tie his shoe laces, polish his boots and make his bed. We had practiced with our wooden rifles together; Marty it turned out had a great deal of trouble learning his right from his left. Actually, he and I up to this point were nominal mates.
In the end, I do believe this is what saved me, outside of the fact that Marty was a wholly decent honorable person. Marty only really wanted to know the truth.
“You’re a girl . . . aren’t you? What's a bleed'n girl doin' in the Army?”
I nodded the most apprehensive nod of my life, “I'm a girl. Marty, please, please don’t tell, be a mate, they'll Court martial me for sure.” I wasn't exactly sure what it was I might have to do at this point to secure his cooperation, but I think I might have done enough.
Marty smiled a genuine, honest, non-judgmental smile. “I won’t tell, Thomas, you’re me mate, you helped me polish my boots.”
“That I did Marty.” I said with a sigh of personal relief, after that, Marty and I were best mates. Marty always went to the latrines with me, and made sure no one followed.
After that day, Marty and I did everything together. Marty was stronger than I was, so he often agreed to carry my extra gear. We were pup-tent mates; each one of us carried half a tent. A complete tent made what's called a “Shebang.” When you put the two halves together, hence the term, “The whole Shebang.” Marty, for all his good intentions, I discovered couldn’t read very well, he didn't know his right from his left, and anything mechanical befuddled him. We spent long hours working together to master assembling and disassembling our rifles, these were the old conversion rifles, the .577 Snider-Enfields.
I remember to this day, just two weeks before graduation, we all assembled on the parade ground. Lieutenant Fry came strutting out with the Ordinance officer a Colonel Carlton. The announcement was made that the Regiment was to turn in their old Snider-Enfields, the entire Regiment was to be re-equipped with the new Martini-Henry rifle. Lieutenant Fry made it sound like quite a momentous occasion, all I can remember is the stark look of terror and bewilderment on Marty’s face.
“Thomas, what am I going to do? I-I c-c-can't do this. I didn’t do so good wit the Snider, now dey wants m-me to learn a new rifle? Thomas, I c-can’t do this,”
“Yes you can, Marty, I will help you.”
The Martini-Henry was a bit heavier than the Snider; coming in at a little over nine pounds and at 52 inches it was a bit more unwieldy. It fired the modern rolled brass .455 cartridge, and even with a clean bore, kicked like a newly shod mule. A full load of ammunition was forty rounds dispersed in two separate cartridge pouches was enough to load down any soldier. I felt so heavy that I feared if I fell in a pond I'd go straight to the bottom.
The Martini-Henry was a fully modern, rolling block, single-shot, lever action rifle. The very same lever action patented in 1850 by B. Tyler Henry, and later more famously translated into the most iconic of all American rifles, the Winchester.
We were all issued the new Martini-Henry rifle. The Martini-Henry came equipped with that most lethal and ubiquitous of all military instruments, the bayonet. Known affectionatly as "The lunger," this eighteen-inch triangular steel piece of weaponry probably leveled more empires and is considered more lethal and more feared than any actual bullet issued from the bore of a rifle from the Brown Bess to the Martini-Henry included.
As with most things military, as long as it didn’t involve weight or feats of strength, I was actually quite good. I earned the medal “Expert Shooter” with the Enfield-Snider, and I did the very same thing with the M-Henry. Two days later, on the second day’s trial, I qualified as “Sharp Shooter.” My unit Commander, Major Dupont was very pleased.
“Recruit Claiborne, can you ride?”
I’d never ridden a horse in my life.
No comments:
Post a Comment