An Untrustworthy Army

by Lynn Bryant

  "Sir, don't. Please."

  "I'm sorry, but you need to know this. I asked her what was wrong and she told me to go into the kitchen. When I did, I found Robert's body on the floor. He can't have been dead more than an hour."

  Simon froze, staring at Wheeler in complete astonishment, his exhausted brain trying to process what he had just been told.

  "You didn't kill him?"

  "No. But the only people who know that, are the colonel and his wife, Captain O'Reilly and Major Swanson. I went to the provost marshal and told them that I'd walked in and found him with a pistol pointed at his wife and that I'd killed him to save her life. They believed me; the evidence of what he'd done to her was written all over her face and he was already charged as a deserter and a thief. It was a nice tidy ending, they took my evidence and practically thanked me. And it was over."

  Simon scanned the older man's face. "So who killed him?" he asked. "Surely not Mrs van Daan?"

  "No, although that was the story she told me. It was obvious it wasn't true, she didn't have a gun on the premises and besides it was a rifle shot not a pistol. I don't know the man's name, I never asked. A young deserter had stopped off at the farm to sleep in the barn and Nan found him and fed him. Typical of her. He'd left with some extra food but he saw your brother arriving and said he was worried about her, being there on her own. I suppose he was grateful. He doubled back to check she was all right and found your brother apparently about to kill her. He shot him dead."

  "Oh dear God," Simon breathed. "What happened to him? The man."

  "I let him go," Wheeler said. "He was still there, had stayed with her to take care of her when he ought to have run. I couldn't send a man like that to the gallows."

  Simon sat quietly for a while, thinking about what he had been told. Eventually he said:

  "Did you tell me this because you're going to die, so it doesn't matter who knows?"

  "No. I just wanted you to know. I was going to wait until we got back and tell you then, but we've run out of time."

  Simon was suddenly furiously angry at the thought that this man was going to die. He also felt a deep and painful sense of grief and abiding loss. He could not bear the thought of saying goodbye, of getting up and walking away.

  "Thank you for telling me," he said. "It's good to know the truth. I won't mention it to anybody else, not even Nicholas. But I should tell you, sir, that I don't give a damn."

  Wheeler regarded him in some surprise. "You don't?"

  "No, sir. Not just because of these last days with you, but because I've got to know people now. You, the colonel, his wife, Major Swanson. And I realise that even without this, I couldn't bring myself to believe that any one of you would be part of a conspiracy to murder an innocent man so that his wife could marry a senior officer. I'm glad you didn't kill him, because that makes it easier for you. But if you had, I'd have understood."

  "Thank you, Simon, I appreciate that. Now stop finding reasons to delay this." Wheeler reached into his coat pocket and withdrew several folded notes. They were covered on both sides with small, neat writing in pencil. "I'd like you to take these. They're not sealed, I used my tablets and I'd not much paper left. I'm trusting you with them. One is to the colonel, and there's one to Major Swanson and to Captain O'Reilly. The fourth is to be given to Mrs van Daan. It's not for her, it's to a lady, but Nan will see that she gets it. Promise me."

  Simon could feel tears wet on his face as he took the letters and put them carefully into his coat. "I promise, sir," he said. "I didn't know...I mean, you're not married, are you? I'm sorry, it's none of my business."

  Wheeler gave another painful smile. He looked, to Simon's distraught eyes, as though he was fading already. "I'm not married," he said. "Caroline...oh what, the hell, I can trust you. She isn't mine, Simon, she's wed to a fellow officer. They moved to Dublin. We were in love, but she's married. She left when she knew she was with child, and her son could well be mine. There's never been anybody else for me, I never expected to see her again. But I love her as much as I did the day she left, and I wanted to be able to say that one more time."

  There were tears on Wheeler's cheeks, mirroring Simon's own. Simon scrubbed fiercely at his own eyes and got up.

  "I'm going," he said decisively. "Before I do, I'm building a fire and making sure you've got enough water, in case you get too weak to move. I'll leave you my bottle as well as yours; ration it. I'll pile as much wood as I can within reach, and I'm leaving you my greatcoat, and all the blankets, I'll travel lighter without them."

  "Simon, no."

  "Listen to me. We can't be far. We're travelling like a couple of crippled snails at the moment, but on my own, I can move much faster. When we were back at the Huebra, before the battle, Major Corrigan told us we were only three days steady march away from Ciudad Rodrigo. I know we've not covered much ground during the past four days, but we've got some way. I can get help and come back for you."

  "Simon, even if you do..."

  "I can do it. We'll get you back and to a surgeon. You can survive this. You can tell your friends all this yourself. You can tear up that letter to Caroline and write a different one. Or not at all."

  Wheeler was shaking his head, and Simon could sense his immense weariness. "Lad..."

  "I know you've got a pistol in that coat and some ammunition," Simon said steadily. "I know that once I'm out of sight and earshot, you intend to use it on yourself."

  "Do you blame me?"

  "No. Christ, no, sir, I'd do the same. But please don't do it immediately. You can survive another day, with heat and water. Keep the pistol and use it if you have to. If I don't make it. But hang on for as long as you can."

  Colonel Wheeler was silent for a long time. Finally he nodded. "All right," he said.

  "You promise me, sir?"

  "Yes," Wheeler said. "Just don't take too long, Simon. I'm really tired of this."

  ***

  Lord Wellington had made plans to leave Ciudad Rodrigo on the morning of the 24th November, to return to his headquarters of the previous winter in Freineda. Paul's quartermasters had brought the welcome news that his previous brigade headquarters at the Quinta de Santo Antonio were ready for him to reoccupy and on the evening of the 23rd, with baggage packed and ready, Paul lay in the darkness with Anne in his arms and wondered when she was going to tell him that she believed that their child was dead. He had guessed, eventually, the cause of her sadness, and he wondered if it would be better for him to wait until she was ready or if it would be more helpful for him to broach the subject with her.

  She appeared to be sleeping finally, and he had no intention of waking her tonight to have a conversation which was going to be upsetting for them both. Time enough when they arrived back at the quinta. Paul was more worried about Anne's health than about the child, and he wanted to talk to Dr Daniels about her first.

  He fell asleep finally, enjoying the sense of warmth and security of lying in her arms. He woke abruptly, several hours later to somebody hammering on the front door. The banging was so loud that Paul thought for a moment that they were under attack. He sat bolt upright, his heart pounding, disoriented in the unfamiliar room.

  "Paul." Anne sat up beside him, huge dark eyes wide on his through the darkness. "What in God's name...?"

  Paul's heart was beginning to slow. "I've no idea, love, but it had better be good, because I am going to...what is it?"

  Anne had caught his hand suddenly, a completely different expression on her face. "Give me your hand," she said, ignoring the persistent hammering. Paul obeyed, letting her guide his hand to the swell of her belly under the linen shift she was wearing. He felt it immediately, a stirring, then a violent kicking against his hand.

  "Oh Christ," he whispered. "Nan, he's alive."

  "Or she is," Anne said. He could hear both joy and tears in her voice. "You knew? I couldn't find the words to tell you."

  "I couldn't find the words to ask you."

  The hammer
ing had stopped and there was the sound of voices below, one of them Jenson's. Paul completely ignored them and took Anne into his arms, kissing her for a long time.

  "I love you so much," he said, and she pulled him closer, running her hands through his hair. Paul felt, unexpectedly, the stirring of desire, and he read it in her eyes. They had not made love for weeks and in the misery of the retreat and their shared losses they had not thought of it, but he knew that she wanted to and he moved closer to her, hoping that whatever the crisis, Jenson could deal with it.

  "Sir! Sir, you need to get out here, now!"

  The urgency in Jenson's voice made them both turn. Paul got out of bed and went to open the door. His orderly stood there in shirt sleeves, his eyes bright with what looked suspiciously like tears.

  "What is it..."

  "Downstairs, sir."

  Paul shoved his feet into shoes and reached for his greatcoat as the closest warm garment. "I'll be back in a moment, love. Stay here and keep warm."

  Paul was halfway down the stairs before he realised who stood below in the panelled hallway. Lieutenant Simon Carlyon was covered in mud, even his hair looked plastered in it. He was thin and gaunt, his face dirty and white in the light of Jenson's lamp and his eyes looked sunken in their sockets. But he was very clearly alive, and not a prisoner.

  "Simon," Paul said, coming forward. "Oh lad, it is very good to see you. Come in, you shouldn't be hanging around here, have you..."

  "I can't," Simon interrupted forcefully. "There's no time. Sorry, sir, but we need to get out there with a wagon and some food. He needs doctor, and it can't wait."

  Paul's heart stopped. "He?"

  "Colonel Wheeler, sir. I had to leave him, he walked for four days, but so slowly, he's hurt. I promised I'd bring help. But it needs to be soon, sir, or he'll be dead."

  Hope surged through Paul, and he admitted to himself for the first time how terrified he had been that Johnny was lying in the forest, dead or dying.

  "Simon, breathe. We'll get there, I promise. Let me go and get dressed. And you need a change of clothing and some food."

  "No. We need to go now. I'm so frightened he'll give up. He's in so much pain and he's got a pistol. He promised he'd wait as long as he could, but I need to get back to him. I..."

  Paul felt ice settle in the pit of his stomach. "He wouldn't," he said. "Not Johnny."

  Simon Carlyon met his eyes and Paul saw tears. "Sir, he's in agony," he said. "You haven't seen him."

  Paul turned to Jenson. "Get the grooms up. Saddle up Rufus and Nero. Fill the saddlebags with supplies and then send a message over to Dr Daniels - he's working in the hospital at the Casa Peron, it's only in the next street. We need a hospital wagon hitched up. Simon, you need to show me where he is on a map, I've one in my baggage, I'll bring it down."

  "Simon."

  Paul swung around to see Anne coming down the stairs. She was dressed in one of her velvet robes in dark green, her hair still loose and her face was alight with joy. She ran forward and into Simon's arms and he held her close, all awkwardness gone.

  "Johnny's alive?"

  "He was when I left him, ma'am."

  Anne looked at Paul. "I'll feed him," she said. "We'll be in the kitchen, go and get dressed love. This way, Simon. I'm so glad you're safe."

  ***

  Johnny slept, a fevered, restless sleep, coming awake late in the day to realise that the fire had almost died and he was shivering. He forced himself to sit up and reach for the wood that Simon had left, building up the fire carefully. He had drunk most of the water. Slowly and painfully he dragged himself to his feet and made his way down to the stream, holding on to trees to support him, and filled both bottles again, then made his way back to the sheltered spot between several huge shrubs that Simon had found for him, and settled down, lying on a blanket, covered with two coats and two more blankets, his head on Simon's abandoned pack.

  The pain in his leg was unbearable now, but it was strangely comfortable lying there, compared to the previous days of hobbling along the rutted road. Johnny wondered if Simon Carlyon would make it back to him before he died. He felt curiously detached about it, as though it was an intellectual problem to be considered rather than a matter of life or death.

  Johnny had been wounded several times during the twenty years he had served in the army, but the only other time he had been this close to death had been nine years ago on the field of Assaye, in India, where he had almost bled to death from a savage tulwar slash across the middle. He could still remember lying outside the surgeon's tent, waiting his turn among hundreds of other wounded men, feeling, along with the pain, the same peculiar detachment, knowing that it was very likely that he would die before a surgeon reached him and finding it hard to care as long as it stopped the pain. It would probably have happened then, if it had not been for the determined intervention of his young captain, who had been promoted over him only a day earlier, who had limped into the tent, ignoring his own wounds, and demanded that Johnny be seen immediately.

  As darkness came, Johnny fed the fire, careful with the wood, not wanting to run out and have to try to stumble around in the darkness trying to find more. His fever was getting worse, he could tell, his clothes soaked with sweat. Johnny drifted in and out of an uneasy sleep. He dreamed of battle and fire and blood and death. He dreamed of Caroline, lying beside him in bed, her fair hair falling about bare shoulders as she leaned over to kiss him. He dreamed of some unknown horror and awoke with a cry, hearing a scampering in the bushes and realising in sudden terror that some creature had thought him dead and come to feed on him.

  The thought kept him awake through the rest of the night. Sunrise came with mist, a thick, cold miasma across the forest floor, which made Johnny cough. Coughing hurt his chest, which felt as though it was on fire.

  Johnny managed one more trip for water, and then staggered about in the swirling mist to find more wood, feeding the fire until it burned brightly again. Collapsing back into his nest of blankets and coats, he thought for the first time about the pistol.

  He had no idea if it would even fire, after the dampness of the past days. He kept it as a security against the worst, against long hours of dying of thirst, his fever burning him and the pain intensifying, but he could not actually imagine ever using it.

  When Johnny awoke again, he could not, for a long time, remember where he was or how he had got there. The blank part of his memory panicked him, and it was momentarily a relief when memory came flooding back. The fever had a grip of him now, and he could feel himself drifting in and out of unconsciousness. The fire died and the water was gone, and Johnny tried desperately to push himself up for one last effort, and fell back, too weak to stand. With the last of his strength, he drew the coats and blankets around him. Strangely, the pain was less now, more of a dull ache than a raging agony. He remembered Anne once saying that it was often the way with a man dying of his wounds, as though nature intervened to make the end kinder.

  The pistol was in his coat pocket and well within reach, but Johnny did not search for it. He had thought it would feel like a release but instead it felt more like defeat, and Johnny discovered that he was not ready to surrender. He had never done so, in all those years of fighting, and he could not bring himself to do it now. He was certain that Simon Carlyon would come back for him, and it saddened him that the boy might well find him already dead, but he would not add to his unnecessary guilt by committing suicide. More than that, Johnny realised that he wanted Paul and Carl and Michael to know that he had held on for as long as he possibly could. They would expect no less of him.

  Unconsciousness was another matter. Johnny yearned for it and then fought it, feeling suddenly that it would be for the last time. If he must go, he wanted the awareness of going, as though his life had meant something. Johnny was not particularly religious and had occasionally envied the steady faith of Carl Swanson, the parson's son or even the somewhat eccentric but nevertheless sincere beliefs of his c
ommander. He was surprised to find that at this moment, prayer came easily to him, not for himself but for the people he was leaving behind. He prayed for Michael, whom he remembered as a hot-headed young private, permanently in trouble when he first joined, and for Carl Swanson, whom he had liked from the day he had first arrived in barracks and who was going to find it difficult to lose both Johnny and Pat Corrigan. He prayed for Anne, whose warm friendship had helped him through the difficult months after Caroline's departure, and for the child she carried. He prayed for Paul, with a sense of passionate gratitude for ten years of uncomplicated friendship and unwavering support in both his career and his personal life. He prayed for Simon Carlyon, who was beginning to find his way out of the misery created by his brother.

  Johnny thought finally of Richard Longford, who might well be his son. The boy was a year old now, being raised by a man Johnny disliked and the woman he would never stop loving. Richard would never know about him and that was as it should be; no child needed to hear that he might be another man's son. Johnny had always hoped, nevertheless, that he would at least see the boy one day and it saddened him that he would not. He prayed for him and for Caroline and his last thought, feeling the darkness claim him again, was that he hoped that Richard was his, and that he was leaving some part of him behind.

  Voices confused him. There had been no voices where Johnny had been, and the noise was an intrusion into the blessed darkness where he felt no pain. Coming slowly back to consciousness, the pain was bad, and he realised in some bewilderment, that it was because he was moving, being lifted by a collection of careful hands, into the back of a wagon. There was a thin, straw filled mattress under him and somebody was tucking blankets around him like a devoted parent. Johnny's eyes seemed glued shut, but he made an enormous effort and forced them open. A pair of worried eyes studied his face.