Free Temptation by Leda Swann Page A

linen. He made a face at the sweat and grime that already dirtied it. There would be no clean clothes until they reached the new campsite, and at their slow pace it could take them another day or more.
    He splashed a little water on his face and hands from his canteen just to refresh himself. Thank heavens Beatrice could not see him now, unwashed and covered in dust. She might change her mind about him and decide that a rough-and-ready soldier was not to her taste after all.
    The fleeting thought brought a smile to his face. He was not worried about Beatrice’s fidelity—hadn’t she stayed his faithful correspondent these many months?
    Breakfast was cold rations again. The company commander did not want to linger to make a fire to heat their food. The men grumbled a little, but subsided when Percy reminded them that the sooner they left, the sooner they would make it to the camp, where there would be hot food aplenty and decent lodgings once more.
    This time the pipe band didn’t play quite so jauntily as they set off once more. Cold beef jerky and a lump of bread for dinner at night and then again for breakfast the next morning would dampen anyone’s enthusiasm for music-making.
    Percy felt no more like singing than the rest of the company. Though he had padded his feet with strips of linen torn off a spare shirt, still the blisters on his heels smarted with every step he took. And with every step that he took, his rage against the Boers, who had dragged them into this conflict with their refusal to accept British sovereignty, grew. Had it not been for their intransigence, he would be home in England, with Beatrice as his wife and a brood of children on the way.
    A home. A family of his own. It was strange how the attraction for such things had grown on him over the last year. Eighteen months ago he would have run screaming from the prospect of a wife and children. Now it was all he wanted out of life.
    Just before noon there was a commotion in the ranks ahead of them. Squinting into the distance, Percy caught sight of a plume of dust rising from the veld. It wasn’t large enough for a column of men, just half a dozen riders riding toward them.
    As they came closer, Sergeant-Major Tofts turned to him with a sniff. “Boers, by the look of them. I’d recognize their slouch hats anywhere.” He patted his own cork hat with a measure of self-satisfaction. “You can always recognize the quality of your opponent by the quality of his headgear.”
    Percy narrowed his eyes against the sun. “What do they think they are doing, riding up to the column of English troops in broad daylight?” Surely the six of them could not be thinking of mounting some kind of resistance. It would be little more than suicide for a handful of lone men to pit themselves against the might of an English regiment.
    The sergeant-major shrugged. His bushy moustache was thick with dust, the same dust that had stuck to the sweat on his face and made him look almost as brown as a Zulu. “Damned if I can read their mind. They’re not Englishmen. They don’t think like we do.”
    The regiment kept on marching as the men approached. The lone riders did not stop until they were directly in the regiment’s path, blocking their way. Awkwardly, the regiment shuffled to a halt.
    “This is Boer land,” the foremost of the riders called. He did not stammer or look intimidated at the might of the English soldiers in front of him. Percy was just forward enough in the column to hear every word carried clearly through the air.
    Lieutenant-Colonel Anstruther, the commander of their regiment, riding at the head of the column, drew himself to his full height and looked down his nose at the shabbily clad riders in front of him. “We are in British territory. I have a right to pass with my men.” He looked, Percy thought, like a turkey cock, pompously gobbling his indignation at being accosted in such a fashion.
    The leader of the Boer party gave a grim smile.