The Street Philosopher. Matthew Plampin

       2

      More cholera cases were being carried down towards the sea from the camps, bound for the Arthur. Kitson and Styles pressed themselves against a row of ammunition crates to let them pass. The men already seemed beyond all help, flies clustering around their mouths and eyes in black knots. The illustrator felt a clammy nausea close around him. He was not yet used to such sights.

      The new colleagues walked on through a copse of short, small-leafed trees and out into a broad expanse of farmland. An undulating quilt of lavender and wheat stretched away to the horizon, dotted with farmhouses, fruit orchards and wide-bladed windmills. A few rays of sunlight broke through the clouds, dappling the landscape beneath. Soon the diseased soldiers were left behind, and Styles began to recover himself. The Crimean countryside was a welcome change indeed from the open sea, and seemed remarkably peaceful. Even the mass of white military tents pitched off to the east looked like the site of an enormous fair. Red-coated infantry drilled in long lines, the shouts of their sergeants mingling with the jaunty tunes of regimental bands, and the clanking of countless pans and kettles.

      Styles asked whether they might stop for a moment, so that he could take in this sight properly–perhaps even make a quick sketch. Kitson continued to stride on ahead at some speed, however, with no sign of having heard him. Hands in his pockets, he was staring down at the ground, entirely absorbed in private thoughts. The illustrator didn’t repeat his request. He was determined not to prove an annoyance. Kitson’s heavy beard and dusty, discoloured clothes seemed to rebuke him for his late arrival on the campaign, for the months of hardship he had missed–and to demand that he demonstrate his suitability for the task that lay ahead.

      Thomas Kitson, also, was someone with whom he felt he had a deep kinship. During the course of his briefings at the London Courier, Styles had heard a good deal about the junior correspondent. More than two months after Kitson’s departure, the magazine’s offices on the Strand still hummed with talk about the unaccountable fellow who had abandoned a promising career in art criticism to follow Lord Raglan’s Army. He was exceedingly knowledgeable, these gossips said, and had been expected to rise to the summit of his profession before long–yet he had decided to risk everything, his very life included, to chase after battles with the notoriously unpredictable Richard Cracknell. The verdicts of his former colleagues were harsh–they theorised that Kitson, in the last years of his youth, had developed a craving for glory, for a reputation that anonymous reviews of picture-shows could never bring him. Either that or he had received some sort of hard, disorientating blow to the head.

      But one powerful voice had been raised in Kitson’s defence, sending his detractors scuttling for cover: that of old Mr O’Farrell, the Courier’s editor-in-chief. ‘The man of whom you speak so dismissively can summon forth images with his pen that none of you wretched inkhorns could ever hope to match,’ he had snapped. ‘He desired a challenge, a subject of import, of weight, well away from the vapid commonplaces of Metropolitan conversation–and I was not prepared to deny him it!’

      This outburst had heartened Styles enormously. This was his wish as well–to witness something great, something that would make him more of a man and more of an artist. He, too, had met with his share of opposition, from fearful relatives and uncomprehending friends, all looking at him in utter mystification when he told them of his contract with the Courier. Hearing O’Farrell speak of Kitson in this manner had made him believe that his decision was justified, that he was off to perform a noble task with like-minded souls. Yet here he was, out on the campaign at last, in Mr Kitson’s company no less, and they had barely exchanged a word beyond their initial greeting. This was not how he had envisioned his first hour as a member of the Courier team.

      The two men started along a narrow mud track, and the silence stretched until Styles could bear it no longer. ‘May I ask where we are heading, sir?’ he said, loudly and a little plaintively. ‘I’d assumed we’d be going straight to camp in order to commence our duties, but we seem to be heading in the very opposite direction.’

      Kitson pointed towards some nearby chimneys, just visible over a bank of brush to their right. ‘Mr Styles,’ he began, a touch of amusement in his voice, ‘you will soon discover that our foremost duty as Mr Cracknell’s juniors is not to draw or write but to secure the Courier’s provisions. We will find what we need over there.’

      ‘Does the army not provide for us?’

      This prompted a sarcastic laugh. ‘The army, my friend, can hardly provide for its own. On the first night here the soldiers had no tents, let alone sufficient rations–and this was in heavy rain. Sir George Brown, commander of the Light Division, was obliged to take shelter under a cart. We newspapermen are a long way down the list of priorities.’ Kitson waved a thin forefinger in the air. ‘The first lesson of life on campaign, sir: make your own arrangements!’

      The track wound around a low hill to bring them before a large manor house with a walled yard. It was a smart residence indeed, built from even blocks of pale stone. Heavy shutters, painted dark green, covered every window; the house’s owners had clearly left to escape the approaching war. The wide, cobbled yard was fringed with outbuildings and stables, somewhat cruder in style but all coated with a creamy whitewash that made them glow warmly against the surrounding hedgerows.

      Kitson headed confidently across the yard. A handful of peasants stood behind carts and barrows that had been