Cotton on Trial

Williams slid an arm round her waist, as she drooped against him. He had his eyes on her, but was aware of the Lieutenant watching them, drawing conclusions, damn him, that were as mean and nasty as...

"Bear up, Maggie. Cotton's got enough to bear without you being a worry to him. Stand up straight and look the bastards in the eye, you have to, or they'll grind you up as small as dust. Walk out of here with me. We'll find you somewhere to sit, and some gin."

"No, no," she murmured, twitching and shivering as he tried to make her walk. She looked back to where Cotton had been standing. "No, I have to go with Gable. Where'd he go? I'll stay here with Gable." Why wouldn't Williams let her sit down? All she wanted was to sit or maybe curl up lying on the ground and close her eyes for a few minutes. It would be all right after that. It could all wait a few minutes. Gabe. "Where's Gabe?"

Edrington ran a hand through his hair. "Vickery mentioned Hakeswill, though I don't think he knew much about him, other than what Padstowe told him. If - No, I don't disbelieve you, Mr Sharpe, but he can't be behind every theft or robbery. If he did plant the watch to incriminate Cotton in the attack on Padstowe, then he has not succeeded. I will send the watch to Lisbon, and a report on what we know here, but... It is not possible that he set Cotton up to steal the watch once he found it. That was the man's own bad judgement. And bad luck, in that Waldegrave found the watch before they had disposed of it."

Rifleman Cotton was still standing stock-still, staring unseeing at Edrington until Vickery pulled him away.

He didn't know where he was taken until he was pushed, gently, to sit down, and a mug with a generous portion of rum in was placed in his hands. He looked up then.

"But I di'n't do it," he said. "I ain't a thief, I ain't, I swear I ain't."

"I know." Captain Vickery's voice, the only sane point in a nightmare of madness.

"They won't let you go to him. It's not even as if you're his wife." He tried to get her to walk away, not to collapse in front of the officers. "Come away now. Mr Sharpe's with the Colonel. He'll try to talk sense into him. We'll go back to where Cotton's lot are. You can speak to Captain Vickery there. He..."

How dense was the man?!

"No, sir. He didn't set Cotton up to steal it from Vickery. He set him up to look like he'd stolen it from Padstowe. He wasn't supposed to find it; that was supposed to be Vickery's role. After all, Vickery wouldn't have it, and the only other person with access to that bag was Cotton. And as you say, taking it out of the bag after that was Cotton's own bad judgement. Nothing more than that."

"Gabe." She spoke and moved as if she were drunk, or perhaps like a sleepy child awakened too early. She tried to look back over her shoulder, but Williams seemed relentless in moving her out of the crowd. "I want to see Gabe."

Cotton clutched the mug like it was a lifeline. He looked up, misery etched on his face.

"An you won' want me no more," he said, his voice little more than a whisper. "Have a flogged soldier for your batman? Ain't right, that."

"Rifleman Cotton, I am keeping you in my service and I don't want to hear any more about it. Understand?"

Cotton nodded silently, though he didn't understand anything any more. "Where's Maggie?" he asked instead.

That was what he had said, wasn't it? "That is what I understood you to mean. But not only do you not have any evidence against this Hakeswill - and if you did, it would not be for me to judge it - but it does not make any difference. Not to the outcome for Cotton. Bad judgement, you say. I have found that it was theft, which is a form of bad judgement, I suppose."

Williams looked round. Cotton was still in the space where the court martial had been held, with Captain Vickery. He had a mug in his hand. "Wait here," he said to Maggie. "I'll speak to the officer."

Well, if nothing he said would move the man, two hundred wasn't such a bad sentence as all that. It could easily have been twice that, or more.

"Just as you say, my lord. I apologise for taking up your time."

"Please, wait a moment." Edrington was still thinking. "Captain Padstowe was attacked on the night before we left Lisbon. Do you believe that Hakeswill was responsible?"

"She's much the same as you. Being looked after, though in her case by a friend rather than an officer."

A feeble joke, but Cotton smiled, though it was a dutiful smile that didn't reach his eyes, unlike his usual grin, and that cut deep.

"I do, sir." This sounded slightly more hopeful, anyway.

"Can I see her? Please, sir?"

Though she'd probably throw him over but he needed to see her, badly.

"The watch had to get here somehow," Edrington mused. "And I am not prepared to suspect Captain Vickery. Did Cotton do it? I don't think he has it in him to inflict those injuries. I can accept that he might steal if tempted, but not try to kill a man in a robbery." He glanced towards the rifleman, who was near to collapse. "This does not please me, either, Mr Sharpe. But it was the only decision possible."

Williams cast a doubtful glance back at Maggie, as he went across to Captain Vickery. He caught Cotton's eye and tried a cheerful smile. "Sir, would it be possible for Miss Evans..."

Vickery glanced at Cotton, looking so miserable, a wrenching change from his usual cheerful self.

"He has been asking for her. Yes; I think a little time together can only help at the moment." He looked at the Private. "You seem to be a good friend to them, Private...?"

Dare he suggest what he was thinking? It would be worth a try, surely.

"The sentence was two hundred , my lord," he said, feeling slightly hesitant. "But you don't have to inflict the whole sentence, do you?"

He saluted. "Williams, Sir. And Cotton was a good friend to me, which is why he's in this mess now. He stood up to that damned Sergeant when he came onto my girl." He grinned down at Cotton. "I'll go and get Maggie for you, shall I? She needs to see you."

Maggie had managed to stay on her feet for the minutes that Williams was away, and soon he was back, offering to take her to Cotton. There he was, sitting in a chair and drinking from a cup. Where had he got a chair? And Captain Vickery beside him. She felt a strange unexpected comfort at being granted her wish to see him. He was looking down at his cup and didn't notice her until she was right in front of him. "Gable!" He looked up and she melted into sweetest smiles.

"Maggie. Oh, Maggie, I'm so sorry."

She wasn't listening. She was reaching out to wrap her arms around his neck.

Edrington looked at the Lieutenant. "No, I have the right to stop it at any time. And I don't like the idea of having my men flog a rifleman. They would not like it done the other way, nor would I require it. The sentence will be carried out by the men of Captain Vickery's company of course. And I will be there." He would not concede the point here and now. Cotton would be flogged, and the point would be made. Both to Cotton, and to the men under his command. Once that was done, he could stop the punishment.

"I presume, that as we Riflemen are attached to the 62nd, it will be a full Regimental punishment parade?" It would be the only way that Edrington could demonstrate his complete impartiality, after all. Merely to have the Rifles parade would seem to the redcoats as though it was a private parade.

And Vickery was going to love having to pick men to carry out the sentence on his own batman. But Sharpe could see the sense in it.