by Lynn Bryant
"Sir. Sir, he's awake."
"Stop yelling," Johnny said, indignantly. "I've got a headache."
"All right, Colonel Wheeler," another voice said, soothingly. "By the look of you, I'd say that everything aches. Lie still, close your eyes, and rest. We've stolen one of Dr McGrigor's hospital wagons, so I'm hoping the journey isn't too bad, but it's going to hurt, that leg's a mess."
"Paul," Johnny croaked.
A hand took his. "I'm here. So is Simon. Don't try to move, we've got you well wrapped up."
Johnny turned his head and saw Simon Carlyon's young, anxious face on his other side. "You did it," he whispered. "You got back in time."
"I did. You'll be all right, sir. You just need to rest. I'm going to stay in the wagon with you. It's only seven miles and the horses are fresh. Settle back and try to rest."
Johnny could feel his eyes closing again. He reached out and felt the younger man's hand grasp his. All he could feel, drifting back into unconsciousness, was an overwhelming sense of relief and gratitude. He had worried, over the past days, if he might lose his leg, but at this moment it did not seem important compared to his life.
"Stay with me, Simon," he said drowsily.
"Right here, sir," the boy said, and Johnny slept, still holding his hand.
***
Johnny had no sense of the passage of time when he woke finally with his head feeling clear. He lay still, listening to sounds of movement in the house around him; the creak of a floorboard and the clattering of pans in a kitchen somewhere. He did not recognise the room; it was a whitewashed bedchamber with plaster flaking off the walls and signs of damp in the upper corner of one wall. He had stayed in many similar rooms during his army career and been grateful for this much comfort but he was not sure that he had ever felt quite such a sense of relief to be warm and dry and clean.
His leg hurt with a burning agony but he had heard men who had lost limbs claim that they could still feel them long after they had gone, so he reached down with his hand to touch it. A hand covered his.
"It's all right, sir, they didn't amputate."
"Oh, thank God," Johnny breathed. He opened his eyes and studied the face of the boy sitting on a wooden chair beside his bed. "Simon, what in God's name are you still doing nursemaiding me, don't you have other duties?"
Simon laughed, a little shyly. "Relieved of them until you can be moved, sir. I asked the colonel and he said if he'd managed without me while I was taking the long route back, he could manage a bit longer. Have some water."
Johnny drank. He felt, he realised, surprisingly well although he had no idea how long he had been here. "What day is it?" he asked.
"Saturday."
Johnny thought about it and laughed weakly. "Which Saturday?"
Simon grinned. "It's the twenty eighth, you've been here four days. Lord Wellington left for Freineda a few days ago and the brigade escorted him. The colonel would have waited for you but he was keen to get Mrs van Daan settled."
Johnny remembered suddenly. "Nan. Oh God, I'd forgotten. Simon, is she all right?"
Simon's smile had broadened. "She's very well, sir. Looking forward to the birth, she tells me she's bored with it now. I'm not sure if that's normal..."
"It's normal for Nan, trust me."
"They left me all kinds of messages for you and I promised to send word as soon as you awoke properly, you've been asleep for most of the past few days and there was some fever. You won't remember, but Mrs van Daan insisted on cleaning your wound and stitching it herself. It took forever, she was so careful."
"You've no idea how glad I am to hear that, she's very good."
"She wanted to stay and take care of you, but the colonel said he'd trust you to me. She was quite cross about it."
Johnny knew that he was grinning from ear to ear and could not help himself. The sheer relief of hearing normal gossip from the brigade made his recovery real to him. He lay quietly for a while, thinking over the few days when he had begun to believe he was going to die and then turned his head to look at the young face of the boy sitting beside him.
"I owe you my life," he said. "Simon, thank you."
"Don't, sir. It was my duty."
"No, it bloody wasn't. It was your duty to get yourself back with your men and to keep yourself alive. You've a family waiting for you who care about you. If I catch you doing anything that mad again I'm going to give you a bollocking you'll never forget. But I'm so glad you did."
"I'm glad I was with you," Simon said, somewhat abruptly. "I'm glad we talked and that I know...do you want something to eat and drink?"
"I do. I also want to sit up. Any chance of something stronger than water?"
Simon looked doubtful. "Do you think you should, sir?"
"If I can walk eight miles with only one leg and a half-baked greenhorn for company and survive it, I can sit up in bed and get a drink. And get one for yourself. That's an order from a senior officer, Lieutenant."
It took some time for Simon to locate the householder and slightly longer for him to bully the man into bringing food and wine. Johnny leaned back against the pillows which smelled fairly strongly of mould, and listened to his junior haranguing the man in an appalling mixture of English, French and atrocious Spanish. He reflected that Simon could probably do with a few language lessons from Lieutenant Witham whose conscientiousness was already making him a target for other companies looking for transfers. Johnny liked Witham and admired his studious competence but he already knew which of the two he would choose.
Eventually Simon returned, shepherding a middle aged Spaniard with a round face and a sour expression, bearing a tray with bread and cheese and a dusty bottle of wine. Simon chased him out and closed the door firmly behind him then set about pouring wine and serving the food.
"He tells me he has nothing left because the English stole all he had when they stormed the citadel," he said. "It appears he forgot about this."
"He might have been telling the truth," Johnny said. "It was a bit of a shambles."
"He's had a year to recover, and he didn't get that fat on nothing," Simon said sagely. "I reckon he's been making a good profit selling to both sides, and hates having us billeted on him because it's harder to fleece us. I've told him if he gets you well quickly he'll see the back of us sooner so I think he'll be feeding you like a Christmas goose from now on. Here."
He passed the wine to Johnny who drank. It was not particularly good but he did not really care at this moment. He ate the slightly stale bread and cheese and drank the coarse wine. Abruptly, Simon said:
"Sir, may I give you these back?"
Johnny took the letters, surprised. "Oh. Oh, lord, I'd forgotten. Thank you, lad. I don't think I'm going to need them now."
"I sincerely hope not, sir."
"Just as well, I wasn't at my best, I've a feeling they were a bit sentimental. Will you drop them in the fire for me?"
Simon took the letters and then hesitated. "All of them, sir?"
"Yes. Why not?"
"I just wondered if you might want to keep this one. To the lady."
Johnny took the folded letter and stared at it for a moment. "I can never send it to her, Mr Carlyon."
"I know, sir. You shouldn't. Perhaps you never will. But it just occurred to me...you don't really need the letters to your friends. Normally, they'd be there anyway. I hope nothing else bad ever happens to you. But if it ever did...wouldn't you like to know that she'd get that letter? She's bound to hear. Shouldn't she hear from you, how much you still cared? I don't mean send it now. But somebody could keep it for you. A friend. To be sent on just in case."
Johnny studied him, stopping himself from smiling. Carlyon was so earnest and so young and it made him think back to his own early days with the 110th, broke and struggling even to pay his mess bills, hoping desperately for a way to earn promotion. It had taken him many years of hard work and patience and barely concealed resentment and when it had come, it had been at the hands of
a younger man who had passed him on the way. He had learned a lot from the young Paul van Daan all those years ago but he was surprised and somewhat pleased that he still had a fair bit to learn from the latest generation of young officers.
"Would you do it, Simon?" he asked.
"Yes, sir."
"Thank you. Keep it for now. When I'm back in winter quarters with some time, I'll rewrite it, rather better. But it was a good thought, I'm very grateful. Now get yourself out of here and let me sleep, I'm exhausted. You can spend your time working out how to beg borrow or steal a wagon to get me to Freineda because I'm not staying here longer than I need to, I want to get back to my men. Is my orderly about?"
"In the kitchen, I think, sir."
"Send him up later to give me a shave, would you? I feel like a sanding block."
"Yes, sir."
Carlyon got up and went to the door and as he opened it, Johnny said:
"Simon."
"Sir?"
"Thank you."
Two pairs of grey eyes met and Carlyon smiled. "You're very welcome, Colonel."
Chapter Eighteen
The Quinta de San Antonio was quiet, with both officers and men taking refuge from the appalling weather, as the creaking, ancient carriage pulled up beside the door to the main house. Gardens, pastures and barns were barely visible through torrential rain and Simon Carlyon scrambled down and helped Johnny out. They went directly into the main hall, dripping water onto the cracked tiled floor, and a familiar limping figure emerged from the kitchen region at the back.
"Colonel Wheeler. Good to see you back, sir. I'll get a couple of the lads to unload your baggage and take it up, you'll be in your old room."
"Thank you, Jenson. It's good to be back. Where have you put Mr Carlyon?"
"I'll show him; he's sharing with Mr Witham. Most of the officers of the 115th are in one of the estate cottages, but Mrs van Daan wanted Mr Carlyon in the main house. Come this way, sir. Colonel, why don't you go through to the office, Colonel van Daan is in there enjoying Lord Wellington's latest. If you're lucky, he'll read it to you. He's read it to everybody else he ever met, so it'll be nice for him to have a new audience."
Johnny grinned, allowing Jenson to take his wet coat. Walking was still painful but becoming easier with the use of a stick and he limped through an archway and found his way to the warm panelled room which had been used last winter as Paul's brigade office.
He found his commanding officer seated at the big table he used at his desk. Across the room, at a smaller table, was his wife, her dark head bent over a large book which appeared to contain medical notes. She was putting the finishing touches to a sketch of what looked like a spidery creature of some kind but what Johnny had a horrible suspicion might be some part of the human anatomy. He did not want to enquire which part. Anne sat back and surveyed her work with a critical eye, then nodded in satisfaction and added an annotation to the diagram.
Paul got up and came forward as Johnny saluted. "Come and sit down," he said, pulling out a chair as Anne got up and came to kiss Johnny. "You look a hell of a lot better than you did the last time I saw you."
"So do both of you," Johnny said, embracing Anne then lowering himself into the chair. "Nan, you have the most incredible powers of recovery; should you even be out of bed?"
"I would like to see somebody try to confine my lass to her chamber over something as trivial as childbirth," Paul said with obvious pride. "She does look better, doesn't she? Wait there."
He crossed the room and picked up a large wicker basket which had been beside Anne's desk and which Johnny had thought contained laundry. He was amused to see a tiny pink face, crowned by a few sparse tufts of fair hair, nestling among the linen.
"She is very pretty," he said, reaching out to touch the little fingers. "Georgiana, I understand? Wasn't she very early?"
"We think so," Anne said. "She gave us a bit of a fright to tell you the truth, I wasn't at all ready for this and I've never seen a child this small. But she seems very healthy. You may greet her properly once she's been fed; she's worse than her father for hunger, Will was nothing like it. How are you, Johnny, we've been so worried about you?"
"I'm very well now," Johnny said, watching as his commander returned the basket to its warm corner near the fire. "Glad it's winter quarters, though, there's no way I could fight like this, I'm limping like a greybeard."
"You'll recover quickly with rest and care," Anne said. "I'm going to take Her Ladyship upstairs for her feed and leave you two to talk. Is Simon with you?"
"Yes, I've sent him off with Jenson to unpack. Thank you for leaving him with me, he's been a blessing."
"I doubt I could have got him away, short of cashiering or shooting him," Paul said, going to bring brandy as Anne scooped up her child and left the room. "It's good to have you back, I've missed you."
"How's Lord Wellington?" Johnny asked innocently and Paul set the glass on the table with an unnecessary clink and looked at him suspiciously.
"Did Jenson tell you?" he asked and Johnny laughed aloud.
"Not much, only that he'd managed to piss you off again."
His commander sat down at his desk and picked up his glass. "I am over it," he said with great dignity. "After a few hours of complete fury, I have begun to see the funny side. Sadly, I suspect that is not a view which is going to be shared by every other officer in this army."
"What's he done?" Johnny asked.
Paul reached across the table and picked up a letter. "Settle back and enjoy," he said. "This is a memorandum which has been circulated to the officers of this army. Needless to say it is not going to stay within the officers of this army. I confidently predict it will be in every newspaper in London within the month and His Lordship's gallant officers are foaming at the mouth in sheer rage at the slur cast upon them. I won't read the first part, it concerns putting the army into cantonments for the winter and isn't that interesting. But it gets funnier." Paul drank some brandy, set the glass down, and began to read.
"I must draw your attention in a very particular manner to the state of discipline of the troops. The discipline of every army, after a long and active campaign, becomes in some degree relaxed, and requires the utmost attention on the part of the general and other officers to bring it back to the state in which it ought to be for service; but I am concerned to have to observe that the army under my command has fallen off in this respect in the late campaign to a greater degree than any army with which I have ever served, or of which I have ever read."
"Oh Jesus," Johnny said, setting down his glass. "Doesn't he know what happened on the retreat to Corunna?"
"Well he wasn't there," Paul said fair-mindedly. "But I can't see how he could have missed Badajoz. But it goes on.
"Yet this army has met with no disaster; it has suffered no privations which but trifling attention on the part of the officers could not have prevented, and for which there existed no reason whatever in the nature of the service; nor has it suffered any hardships excepting those resulting from the necessity of being exposed to the inclemencies of the weather at a moment when they were most secure."
Johnny picked up his glass and drank, thinking about the bodies he had seen lying by the roadside, pulled apart by animals and birds, often naked after looting by both the locals and their own soldiers. "Should I hear the rest of this?"
"Actually, you're obliged to; as your brigade commander - this is addressed to me, by the way - I am requested to share it with you."
"You don't have to enjoy it this much. My leg is aching again."
"Put it up," Paul said, shoving a wooden bench towards him. "Here, take this cushion and sit in respectful silence while I share the rest.
"It must be obvious, however, to every officer, that from the moment the troops commenced their retreat from the neighbourhood of Burgos on the one hand, and from Madrid on the other, the officers lost all command over their men. Irregularities and outrages of all descriptions were committed
with impunity, and losses have been sustained which ought never to have occurred. Yet the necessity for retreat existing, none was ever made on which the troops had such short marches; none on which they made such long and repeated halts' and none on which the retreating armies were so little pressed on their rear by the enemy."
Johnny looked down at his injured leg, now supported on the bench on an elaborately embroidered cushion and said nothing as eloquently as he could manage.
"We must look therefore for the existing evils, and for the situation in which we now find the army, to some cause besides those resulting from the operations in which we have been engaged. I have no hesitation in attributing these evils to the habitual inattention of the Officers of the regiments to their duty, as prescribed by the standing regulations of the Service, and by the order of this army."
Johnny felt an unexpected wave of sheer fury sweeping through him. He wanted to get up and leave but it was too difficult to stand. Instead he said:
"Stop reading this fucking letter, Paul, before I thump you with this stick, I've heard enough. How dare he sit there pontificating about my officers, it's a good thing he's hiding behind his fucking desk in the village because I'd like to shoot the arrogant Irish bastard right through his thick skull."
Paul got up and went for more brandy. "You're really not right yet, lad, are you?" he said sympathetically. "I'm sorry, I should have waited, you can hear the rest another time. Have another drink."
"I don't want a drink. Do we get any right to respond to this bollocks? I lost five good officers in the almighty fuck up that he created because he was too lazy or too arrogant to make proper provisions for a siege and a fair few good men besides. And I lost Pat Corrigan, who was a friend. The fact that, to my knowledge, none of our men died of exposure or hunger on that hellish march is due entirely to the care and attention of my junior officers who kept discipline, kept the line, managed their men and shared their last morsel with the sick and wounded. As did, may I say, most of General Alten's light division. It's a bloody disgrace."