The Ribbon by Ceri “We’re a sorry pair of sissies aren’t we?” Alex joked, looking at their tattered khaki uniforms, caked with blood and dust.

Mrs Leander Kester considered charitable acts de rigueur for a woman of her station. While any arriviste might scatter alms, she believed the greatest benefit one could bestow upon the poor, was to provide an example of industry and rectitude. To this end, each Sunday after church, she would proceed with the grace and inevitability of a Cunarder, through the town’s meanest quarter, so that even the humblest could witness the fruits of her husband’s labours. The undisguised, if unvoiced, scorn of people, who were seldom much farther from the workhouse than a pawn ticket, served only to reinforce her belief that poverty was turpitude’s reward.

Bobbing in the wake of Mrs Kester’s considerable bustle were the fruits of her labours; Alice, aged ten, and Albert, two years her senior. Insufficiently inoculated with their mother’s prejudice, the paupers’ manifest contempt drove the children close to each other, where their quietly continued their squabble; as was usually the case, it had no particular reason beyond sibling enmity.

Daughter of a matriarchal household, and fired with a passion that would one day find her chained to Buckingham Palace’s gates, Alice aimed to provoke her brother into an outburst sufficient to earn their mother’s wrath. For his part Albert sniped, to score a petty point - or two - before punishment descended; whatever that was, it could be no worse than the sailor suit in which he had been dressed that morning.

Although he would not dare admit it to another soul, the difference in their clothes rankled. Mrs Kester dressed Albert, as she dressed her husband, in greys and sober tweeds; however, Mr Kester had been spared nautical attire — a rare triumph for the Kester men. By contrast, Alice had her every whim indulged, no expense spared or hidden: cotton would not serve when there was silk, richly coloured and always trimmed with lace. According to the stricture of the day, children should be seen and not heard - around Alice, Albert was neither.

“Give it back!” Tearing the ribbon from his sister’s hair was a spiteful move, and holding it out of reach even more so. Against the blue of the sky, the ribbon appeared green, but only marginally so; when compared to a dandelion straggling from between cobbles, the only greenery in the street, it appeared blue. Whether this was due to the dye makers’ art, or the material’s natural iridescence, Albert did not know, he was content to watch as the colours shifted, whichever way the wind shifted.

“Albert Alexander Kester!” Sharp words, hissed in the same tone his mother used around the help, brought him back to his surroundings with a jolt. Alice seeing her chance half tore the ribbon from Albert’s grip, but it was whipped away on the wind landing at the feet of a barefooted boy, twenty yards distant. She started back to retrieve it and was pulled up short by a peremptory ‘leave it’ from Mrs Kester. Before being dragged away, Albert turned to see the boy fish the ribbon from the gutter, holding at as he had, so that the light caught it at different angles.

Second-lieutenant Alex Kester pressed his nose into the parched veldt as fervently as the most devout Mussulman’s salaam he had seen in the East. While praying, however, it was no act of piety, but the simple necessity of placing his body, as far as he was able, beneath the bullets cracking overhead. No one had warned him what marksmen the Boers were, or what persistent hunters. They had been tracking him since bringing down his horse, watching for every stir in the long grass where he had taken shelter.

There was no love lost between British lancers and the Cape Dutch farmers; to an Imperial cavalryman they were treacherous irregulars, who would expect to surrender seconds after shooting his comrades, to them Alex was a spear wielding murderer, no better than the despised Zulus. Five of his six man patrol, had already fallen in the ambuscade at the ford, the Mausers’ smokeless cartridges concealing their assailants, and giving the lancers no chance to return fire.

Thankfully, the Boers had stayed on the far bank, showing no inclination to beat him out of cover — he was leaving spoor enough to track if they did. Alex could have remained hidden, the wound in his thigh was bleeding only slowly, and the rest of the force would come up in a few hours. Gunfire in the distance, however, told him that the infantry was heavily engaged farther up the Modder, and information about a lightly defended crossing on the flank could be vital. Ignoring the pain in his leg, he half crawled, half burrowed toward his own lines.

Luke Hodge realised he was not dead an instant before feeling his hand being prised open. “Gerroff,” he muttered, pulling back his hand, and blindly half rising.

“For Christ’s sake man, stay down,” a voice hissed, followed shortly by the crack of a nearby bullet’s passing.

Opening his eyes Hodge found himself face to face with another British soldier, an officer by his accent, but grimy as any pit boy at shift’s end. “Sorry Sir, I thought yo’re one of ‘em thieving sods from t’ambulance.” As if taking hint, the officer released Hodge’s hand.

“What’s your unit,” the lieutenant’s — he was still showing a pip on one epaulette - voice was urgent, not quite panicked, “where are the rest?”

“Loyal’s Sir, an’ them as not lying here ‘bouts,” Corporal Hodge kept his voice steady, the subaltern looked edgy, “would’ve run for t’stand of trees a way back.”

“Good man,” the officer smiled encouragingly, “can you lead me back?”

“Like as I can, but gi’ us a minute,” the corporal laughed softly, his surprisingly good teeth flashing from a mask of blood, “I’ve been shot in t’head yo' know.”

After an hour crawling on his stomach under a high sun, Alex was not entirely certain of the direction he was taking, if he was heading away from the river, or even in circles. His map case, and compass had been attached to his saddle, as had his canteen. Fighting a way through the veldt’s coarse vegetation, he had dispensed with his Sam Browne, preferring to carry his Webley in hand after a chilling confrontation with a large brown snake. Hope arrived with English voices on the wind, how near he could not tell, but closer than the battlefield, and its continual dull crump of artillery.

Determined to regain his own lines Lieutenant Kester crawled in the direction of the voices, even after a fresh volley of rifle fire silenced them. Blessing the Boer snipers’ wandering attention, Alex was able to rise a few inches from the dirt, and make better progress. The first corpse came as surprise, its eyes still open beneath the hole neatly drilled in the infantryman’s forehead. Alex had seen dead bodies before, no regimental field day went by without one trooper breaking his neck, and beggars lay where they perished in the streets of India, but this was the young soldier’s first intimate — no more than a hand’s breadth — contact with death. Shaken, Alex crawled on wondering if a similar fate awaited him that day.

By contrast the fallen corporal’s face seemed almost peaceful, despite being awash with blood; his eyes were closed, his expression calm, almost resigned. Not wishing to intrude on this very private end, Alex passed on as quickly as he was able until brought up short by the man’s outstretched fist, or rather, the length of faded blue-green ribbon wound about it. Any reminder of home, no matter how trivial, or how transitory, can drive all thought of danger from a man’s mind. Alex began to unwrap the dead corporal’s still warm fingers from their prize. Luke Hodge’s subsequent resurrection came as almost as much of a surprise to Alex, as it had to the corporal.

A livid gash across Hodge’s temple indicated a bullet graze, wound enough to drop a man where he stood, but the greater part of the blood came from a nicked ear; a lucky escape, perhaps, if they could regain their own lines. As always, Alex was impressed by the non-com’s composure — nothing ever seemed to rattle British NCOs. Calmly, Hodge gave him a brief report of the battle so far: the Guards Brigade had been stopped by long range musketry while advancing on the Modder, and the Ninth Brigade — of which he was a part - had then been deployed on the left in a flanking manoeuvre. Advancing across broken terrain and under sporadic fire, Hodge’s platoon had lost contact with the Yorkshires on their right, but their commander had them press on for the river until brought down five hundred yards short of its banks.

Alex listened intently, although his mind was still half on what the other man clutched. Hodge’s accent was more than familiar in the Kester household; no family member ever spoke so, but their servants did. Very few of his sister’s clothes came from the area; everything but cotton his mother bought in Preston not Betherswick, and even had a local store kept stock, he doubted Hodge’s means ran to imported silk ribbon. So where had he obtained such a frippery, and what significance did it hold for him that he brought it half way around the world?

“That’s a good question Sir,” Hodge said, pocketing the ribbon, “there were this woman, reet snooty, used to parade down t’road every Sunday with her childer — t’lass dressed up like cake shop window, and t’lad...”

“In a sailor’s suit,” Alex finished to Hodge’s evident surprise, “that was me, Corporal.”

“Crikey, Admiral Albert!” Alex winced at his hated first name, and confirmation of the derision he had earned, “sorry Sir, no disrespect like, that’s what we called yo’.” Equally struck by the coincidence, both men stared at each other in silence.

“So, you were the boy who picked it up?” Hodge nodded, “Why have you kept it, for what, ten years?”

“Yo’r Mam did us a favour Mr Kester, Sir,” the corporal’s voice was suddenly sober, “I never knew people were so rich they could afford to throw fancy things away in t’street, but I knew I’d not be that rich if I stayed where I were,” he took a drink from his canteen before passing it to Alex, “not as half-timer in t’mill any road, so I signed up for a drummer boy in t’Loyals t’next day.”

“My mother would be very pleased to hear that Corporal Hodge.” Alex smiled, she would indeed, but not perhaps, that it was an act of waste, not thrift, that had been Hodge’s inspiration; he looked forward to telling her — if he ever had a chance to.

”You’re not telling me you admired my sailor suit are you Corporal?” Both men had crawled to within sight of Hodge’s ‘stand of trees’, though that was a rather grand description for a straggling baobab, and a clump of withered bushes.

“Oh aye Mr Kester, reet fancy it was; mind yo’ I’d never had a pair of britches t’wind didn’t blow through - both ways.” Corporal Hodge allowed himself a laugh, offending his betters’ sensibilities was a vice he never turned down an opportunity to indulge. Offending his own was the thirty yard stretch of bare veldt before them; it would have made a good — if fast — wicket, if cleared of a few small rocks, and the body of Private Henderson. Just how a man with a leg wound, and another seeing double, could cross it without being shot was the puzzle.

“Do yo’ march in t’Lancers, Mr Kester?”

“Occasionally,” Alex answered, mystified by this turn in the conversation, “why?”

“Well Sir, if we’re to get across yon bit o’ground, we need three legs to work like two...”, and he briefly sketched how he would support Alex, while they double-timed to cover, “all we’ll be needing is summat to keep t’Boers busy.” ‘Summat’, however, was desperately lacking, and the two young soldiers faced up to a suicidal race to safety, trusting only to fortune. It was a time for last words, for confessions even, and it really did not matter what was said as neither was likely to live long enough to pass it on.

“It weren’t yo’r suit I was jealous of Mr Kester.” Alex turned his head to face Corporal Hodge, who was ashen, where blood allowed skin to show, at least. “It were yo’r sister’s. Sounds daft don’t it - a lad in lass’s clothes - but I always wanted to know what it felt like. That’s why I kept t’ribbon.”

“It felt wonderful Corporal, bloody wonderful,” Hodge’s shocked expression might be the last thing Alex would ever enjoyed, and there was little time to savour it, “even if I was thrashed when I was caught - and I was. Mother said the army would make a man of me, dead man of me more like, but it was worth it.”

For a moment even the sound of artillery seemed to recede, as the two of them considered the sheer improbability of what had happened, and the tragedy of finding a kindred spirit when they were both almost certain to die in a matter of minutes.

“Yo’ ready then Sir... what’s that?” Hodge gingerly raised his head into the open, where he saw his platoon commander stagger, cursing, to his feet, fifty yards behind them. His first instinct was to shout a warning to the officer, but he knew this might prove their deliverance. “Let’s be having you then Mr Kester.”

“What’s your name Corporal? I forgot to ask,” Alex’s leg had given way after only a few strides, and he now bounced along over Hodge’s shoulder, as the stocky little corporal weaved towards cover.

“Luke, Sir, my name’s Luke,” they were almost there, ten yards, no more but shots were ringing out behind them, “what’s happened to Mr Harris, can yo’ see?”

“He took a ball in the shoulder, but he’s still up on his knee returning fire with his revolver.”

“Daft bugger,” Luke puffed, dropping Alex behind the baobab’s scant cover. He looked back in time to see the infantry officer fling his arms wide as a bullet found home. “Brave bugger”, he added, falling flat as a few well aimed shots belatedly caught up with them.

“We’re not out of the woods yet Luke,” Alex pointed into the distance, “looks like the rest of your chaps have fallen back on that knoll there. It’s still a good way off.”

“Aye Mr Kester, but t’Boers aren’t that well sighted. If we keep our heads down we should make it.” Bullets whipped through the foliage as if to underline the importance of staying low.

“We’re a sorry pair of sissies aren’t we?” Alex joked, looking at their tattered khaki uniforms, caked with blood and dust. It was a far cry from the fine blue and gold he had proudly worn when first he left Sandhurst, or Luke’s redcoat, for that.

“We are that,” Luke joined in his new friend’s laughter, “any road, you’d better take t’ribbon. We’re both for t’hospital, and them orderlies would steal t’skin off an enlisted man’s shit, begging yo’r pardon Sir.”

Alex placed the ribbon in his last serviceable pocket, “You will get it back Luke, and when we get home to England I am going to buy us the two prettiest gowns on Bond Street. That’s a promise.”

Their friendship had raised more than a few eyebrows at home, socially the difference between them was vast, but some understood the bonds that develop in harm’s way. No one, however, would ever fully comprehend what underpinned their relationship.

Alex could hear Luke in the other room - the double vision had never left him and he was prone to banging into furniture — and stiffly stood up to greet him. Absently his thumbs sought the side creases on his clothes, Alex wondered how long this martial habit would last after resigning his commission. Would he be standing to attention for the rest of his life? Playfully he threw Luke a smart salute as he entered the room.

“Ah don’t yo’ be starting that wi’ me Alex,” Luke groaned.

“I am merely following tradition,” Alex lowered his hand theatrically, “even Lord Kitchener salutes the medal old chap.”

“But I’m no wearing t’bloody thing, not even t’bloody ribbon.”

“Really, no ribbon?” Alex arched an eyebrow, “then what’s that in your hair Lou?”