Day of the Flogging

Cotton heard nothing of what was said, staring at the Colonel in front of him without seeing the man. A gentle tug on his arm brought him back to his senses and he swallowed before pulling off his shirt and letting Vickery take it, before being led to the triangle.

Formed of three Sergeants' halberds tied together at the top, it looked like a tripod awaiting a kettle or cauldron and a fire. There was a fourth halberd lashed horizontally across one side - the side nearest the paraded soldiers - and Cotton swallowed again before raising his arms so his wrists could be tied to this fourth halberd. Someone knelt to tie his ankles to the two uprights, before standing and moving in front to where Cotton could see him.

It was Jed Palmer. "I'm sorry, mate," he said, feeling awkward.

"Don't be. I'd rather it was you than any of them redcoats," Cotton replied.

The other man held up a piece of folded leather, and Cotton opened his mouth to accept it. It would be easier with something to bite down on.

"Oh God help," Maggie murmured, squeezing Sarah's hand and trembling. "I can't..."

"Shh, it will be over soon," Sarah whispered, holding her friend and fighting back tears.

He turned his head to the left, to see the Rifles, and braced himself.

The cat landed diagonally across his back, from right shoulder to just above the waistband of his trousers. He flinched a little, glad of the leather.

Maggie couldn't help that a cry escaped, as if the cat had struck her own skin. Gabe was so helpless and defenseless and cold and exposed, and she couldn't come to his aid. His back, so white and chilled, now had a painful red weal across it.

Harris could feel the strokes as they landed, and counted each one. Cotton would be counting too, but at some point, if it went on, the individual strokes would merge into one long torrent of pain. Two. Three

Cotton was ashamed that he had flinched when that first stroke landed, but he had not cried out. Would not cry out.

Nine

Ten.

It was starting to hurt now, and he bit down on the leather, concentrating on staying silent for the pride of his Company.

Behind him, one of the men shifted his feet, and Waldegrave turned, to see if he could identify the culprit. By the time he turned back, another couple of strokes had been applied.

Fifteen. Sixteen.

The trouble was, each stroke was adding to it and he wasn't able to get used to it before the next stroke landed. And with a cat-o'-nine-tails, one stroke meant nine stripes.

And it hurt.

Nineteen. Twenty.

Carty had gasped when the first stroke landed, but Cooper behind him had had the presence of mind to surreptiously grasp his wrist and give it a quick shake, to remind him to stay as still as possible. Cotton, kind Gabriel Cotton, was biting down on the leather now, and was completely silent. Carty was determined that he would not disgrace the kind man by making a noise himself. But he watched in horror as Cotton's back, white in the cold air, grew more stained with colour.

Maggie hadn't even realized she was weeping until a soldier turned around and discreetly pressed a handkerchief into her hand. Gabe's poor back was all over in red marks now, some of them bloody. How long could this last? How could it go on? How could he bear it for 200 strokes? How could she?

Sarah too was weeping, in sympathy for Maggie and pity for Cotton, but also in comprehension of the horror that her husband's brother must feel to be hurting his friend so deliberately. Soon it would be her own husband's turn.

There was a gasp from behind him when the first stroke had landed. Probably one of the two young lads, Perkins or Carty.

Sharpe had never been able to watch a flogging in the last ten years without remembering his own, and the pain.

Cotton was concentrating fiercely on the silent greenjackets. Sharpe could see it in the lad's face, the determination not to make a sound and shame his mates.

Maggie couldn't breathe. She had to keep telling herself, ordering herself to exhale. Then she would begin sobbing and gasping so much that she felt lightheaded. "Make them stop!" she sobbed. Sarah sobbed too, powerless to do anything. And now there was a pause: Sarah's husband was taking the place of his brother now, at twenty-five strokes.

"Stop!" she shouted before he could deliver the first stroke. She pushed past those who were blocking her way and tried to reach the triangle. She would stand in front of it and make them stop, or else they would have to strike her. "Make them stop!" she called out wildly, meaning her words to reach Colonel Edrington though she couldn't see him in all the crowds of men.

Sharpe turned, and saw Cotton's woman, looking wild with grief. He caught hold of her and held her so she wouldn't see what was happening.

"Easy there, girl, he'll be all right."

He scanned the watching people, trying to find someone to look after the poor girl.

"I'll take her, Sir." Williams took hold of Maggie with both hands, shaking her. "You'll do no good here," he said. "Have sense - they won't stop it on your say-so."

"Let go!" she protested, lashing out blindly at the man who was stopping her.

They had reached twenty-five strokes. Edrington gripped his hands together behind his back, and waited, knowing that each stroke was causing pain to a man whose only offence had been to succumb to temptation in a moment's stupidity. The woman's voice cut across the silence and he turned his head. Sharpe had caught her, and handed her off to the Inniskilling he had seen her with on the previous day.

Another man had taken the place of the first before he could turn back. His face betrayed no emotion.

Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight.

"I've got to make them stop!" Maggie sobbed, trying to push Williams away.

"Girl, you are shaming him," Williams said, without releasing his grip. "How can he stand it, if you start screaming at every stroke?"

There was a pause, and then a heart-broken cry.

Was it him? Had he somehow forgotten how to keep quiet? He tried to think through the pain... the voice had sounded somehow familiar. But it hurt too much and he couldn't think.

"Do your... do your duty," said another voice, closer. A man's voice, this. Captain Vickery.

And then the lash landed again, harder than the stroke just before it. And that made.... twenty-six.

Shaming him. That was it exactly. Shame. She was his shame, his curse. She could not stop her weeping, could not even speak through it now. She didn't try to fight Williams, for Williams it was who was holding her. All of her desperate energy died with his rebuke, and she wanted to die with it.

"There's better," Williams murmured as she stopped fighting him, and drew her head down onto his shoulder, where she could not see the second man take up the task of flogging her man. "You'll need to be strong for him, now, girl, more than at any time before or after. A shield maiden, that's what you'll be."

She wept - how she wept! She would go to Colonel Edrington and explain that it had been her. She would make them stop and she would take Gabe's place. He didn't deserve this. She did. "Let me go," she pleaded to Williams.

The pain on Cotton's face was matched by the expression on the faces of both Palmers.

Cotton seemed to have one thing on his mind, and Vickery could see the determination etched across his features: he was not going to make a sound. Not a single sound.

Thirty.

"No. No, Maggie. I'll take you away, if you like, but you can't go onto the square. It isn't right. This will all be over soon." He could not explain to her that Cotton was using every ounce of self-control already. But he did not release his grip on her.

Breathe.

Must remember to breathe.

Don't make a sound. Just breathe.

Not even half-way yet... not a quarter of the way yet.

Thirty-eight.