17th October 1721

He lacked the spirit and strength to be angry.

Alexsander too had developed a fondness of the mare, also calling her Tabitha, and mounted the horse whispering apologies.

The land changed as he rode, growing bigger in every sense. The trees became monstrous. The horizon lengthened somehow, as if the road from Esteberg were really a kind of funnel. It could not continue in such a manner – the world would swallow creatures so small and insignificant as man and horse. Cresting a hill was a vertiginous experience. The rivers were like hurrying lakes. It made him lonely.

He played the fiddle from horseback. Mournful songs the soldiers knew, though he played bawdy tunes at their request. An officer – he didn’t know her rank – dropped back along the column to listen. She stayed for the better part of an hour without comment. Then she said, ‘You’ll be popular in the town, at the inn.’

‘“The inn?”’ he said.

She laughed. ‘Don’t worry, they like a drink in the south as much as anywhere.’

When Alexsander readied himself for sleep, he told me I should have packed his flute.

I woke to find the camp in turmoil. Soldiers ran back and forth in front of my tent, their jackets removed and red cloths tied over their faces. I stared, dumbfounded, wondering just what feverish or maddening influence had overtaken the dragoons. I was not so far from the truth, I found, when I hailed a trooper.

‘Pox, sir.’

‘Pox? Here?’ I said uselessly.

‘Best stay to your tent, sir,’ the trooper said. ‘That is, unless you are running a fever? Vomiting? Any pustules?’

I assured her I was fine, and rolled up my own shirt sleeves as a kind of evidence. I had some experience of pox and the like during previous investigations, though always in a civilian setting. I hoped the military would be more organised in the face of such crisis.

‘I would like to help,’ I said.

‘Help, sir?’

‘I have survived the pox, trooper. At the very least I can attend the suffering. Take me there, now.’

‘Right you are. This way.’

I hurriedly donned one of Alexsander’s burgundy shirts and tied a red-spotted handkerchief over my face, as the troopers had done. The demon pox did not like the colour. I joined the stream of red-clad men and women, all heading towards the far side of the camp. There, tents that were roped closed – using ropes dyed red, of course – held those afflicted. The sound of retching rang up and down the line of tents like a peal of bells. The slap of vomit on metal buckets added yet another layer to the horrible chorus of the pox. Determined to be useful, I entered the nearest tent.

I found four low-frame beds occupied by four squirming soldiers. Another trooper was struggling to attend them. His mouth-covering had slipped. He looked just as exhausted as those he helped.