by Wilma Counts
Her touch, her kiss, the feel of her in his arms, the scent she wore—all haunted him. Earlier images of her in the arms of some unknown lover had been painful; now that he knew who the lover was, they were more vivid and more excruciating. He shifted position on a leather chair in front of the fireplace, leaned back and closed his eyes to shut out the visions. It didn’t work.
His regret and despair were tempered by anger. Anger at an indifferent, abstract fate in which timing was all. Anger at himself for falling into this moonling state. And anger at her. Clearly his standing there at the altar had come as no surprise to her. She had known all along! He not only felt humiliated at being so duped, but also foolish for still wanting her. He sighed and refilled his glass.
His dark mood stayed with him during the long voyage back to the Peninsula. With winter hovering on the fringes of the world, the seas were often rough. Never one susceptible to seasickness, Zachary relished the stormy weather as a mirror of his own mood. In Portugal and then Spain, he was finally able to confine his pain to a less prominent place in his thoughts and memories. Dulled, but still plaguing him.
He quickly settled back into being merely one more soldier with the Allies on the Iberian Peninsula: those British and Portuguese forces supplemented by a German regiment and Spanish elements who opposed Napoleon’s having installed his brother Joseph on Spain’s throne. These were arrayed against the French, who sought to keep the incompetent Joseph on his seat of power, and such Spanish elements as had sided with the conquering French. In the north of Spain, the fiercely independent Basques added another ingredient to the often baffling mix.
“Just keep your head down and do your job,” Zachary told himself and anyone else wondering about this political mish-mash.
In the months following his return, Lieutenant—now Captain—Zachary Quintin had made a name for himself. He thought “Zany Zack” was a bit of a misnomer. He did not consciously seek risky assignments and he never knowingly exposed himself or others to extreme danger. However risk and danger seemed to pursue him, and he admitted to himself a degree of indifference to his own safety since returning to the war. He distinguished himself in the major back-and-forth skirmishes of that first year after his return—Ciudad Rodrigo in January and Badajoz—again—in March. However, by the end of that year, routine military duties were anything but “routine.”
At Badajoz, he had caught the attention of his commanding officer who demanded that he appear before a panel of three officers: Wellington himself and two colonels. The three senior officers sat behind a heavy, dark table in a room with whitewashed walls. There was a single dark wooden chair in front of the table.
“At ease, Captain,” Wellington said and gestured at the empty chair. “Have a seat.” He looked briefly at a paper on the table. “Since you seem intent on challenging both the enemy and yourself, we should like you to consider becoming one of our exploring officers.”
“Sir? You want me to be a spy?”
“That is what it amounts to. Working behind enemy lines. Gathering information on enemy troop movements—and terrain. Our maps are woefully inadequate and we desperately need better information.”
“You work with local partisans—and they are not always reliable,” one of the colonels said.
“It is extremely dangerous,” the other colonel cautioned. “You operate as a civilian, you know.”
“Yes, sir. I do know.”
“Then you also know that if you are captured, you may be summarily shot? No special treatment as an officer. No parole.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You speak Spanish, I’m told,” Wellington said.
“Yes, sir. And French.”
“Well enough to pass yourself off as a Spaniard or Frenchman?”
“I think so, sir.”
“Good. Then you are the man for this mission—if you want it. It is strictly voluntary, of course. You may take some time to think about it.”
“I’ll do it, sir.”
Wellington raised an eyebrow. “You do not wish to think about it?”
“No, sir.”
“Very well. You may choose your own team. Small groups of five to seven men seem most efficient—but they must all be volunteers.”
“Yes, sir.”
Thus it was that Zachary and his small band of cohorts—sometimes four, sometimes six others—performed some of the most remarkable and dangerous exploits of the war in the Peninsula. Zachary had no trouble finding volunteers for his team, which soon came to be known as “Zany Zack’s Rangers.” His batman, Corporal Charles O’Brien, was the first to offer his services and Zachary welcomed him heartily. Charlie was famous for his ability to “find” things just when they were needed most. Ensign Trevor Harrelson, who had returned to the Peninsula on the same ship carrying Zachary and Charlie, was also welcomed with enthusiasm, for Trevor was one of the army’s best sharpshooters. Other members of the group were chosen for special skills: Lieutenant Adam Richardson was an engineer with a fine hand at architectural sketches and map-making; Lieutenant Cameron McIntyre, like Zachary, spoke fluent Spanish and French, but he was also a genius at breaking French codes. The rest of the team consisted of Ensign Jack Gordon, who had had some medical training; Sergeant Arthur Whitten, who was an excellent horseman; and Corporal Owen Penryn, who had simply refused to take no for an answer when he requested permission to join the Rangers.
When Zachary presented his choices to the commander, Wellington emitted his famous whoop of a laugh and said, “You’d make a fine politician, my boy!”
“Sir?”
“These names appear to represent a cross-section of British peoples.”
“Yes, sir. That just happened, sir.”
“See to it that Harrelson and Richardson survive this venture. I do not want to be writing the Duke of Tyndale or the Marquess of Rodham to tell them I’ve lost one of their sons. Don’t need them voting against us in Parliament.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Jack Gordon? Owen Penryn? Those names are familiar, too.”
“Yes, sir. They have been mentioned in dispatches. As have the others. Good men, all.”
Wellington nodded, approved the reassignments, and dismissed the team leader.
The French offered a tempting reward for the capture of any of the Rangers. There were some narrow escapes, but, besides truly fine mounts and their own cleverness in getting out of perilous situations, the explorers had the locals on their side—mostly. Portuguese, Spanish, Basque—even French—peasants knew that the English soldiers would pay for what they took—mostly. Wellington insisted on this—and that his own government see to proper supplies for men in the field. His expectations were met—mostly. French soldiers, on the other hand, were tossed into foreign lands and told to fend for themselves. Most were also peasants with few or no resources. So they stole, pillaged, looted—and left a sea of resentment in their wake.
In actual practice, Zachary and his lot were not continuously performing as spies or aiding partisans. They went out for a few weeks at a time—the longest period was ten weeks—to gather information and, most important, scout routes and draw maps. Then they would return to regular duties for a few days or even weeks until they were dispatched on another special mission.
At some point in those first months—he never knew exactly when—Zachary realized he had to get on with his life. Sydney was lost to him forever, but he was still a healthy young man with the usual desires, needs, and dreams of that element of the human community.
Between battles, an army battalion or even a regiment would be encamped near a Portuguese or Spanish town or city with allied officers billeted in the metropolis itself. As they waited for suitable weather or supplies before taking up the campaign again, dinner parties and balls as well as theatrics and musical events helped alleviate the boredom. Such diversions might be sponsored by local dignitaries or by groups of officers. Wellington himself sponsored gala affairs to celebrate the anniversary of a battle he
had won, or the king’s birthday, or a holiday.
Women at these soirees, far outnumbered by men, were wives of English, Spanish, and Portuguese officers or wives and daughters of local officials and aristocracy. Zachary and his friends rarely had any difficulty securing dance partners. In an effort to put Sydney out of his mind, he engaged in several mild flirtations and even a month-long affair with a certain Dolores, widow of a Portuguese nobleman. Whenever a certain bit of music or a snippet of conversation brought to mind an image of Sydney, he forced himself to ignore it. Nevertheless, he counted himself lucky when a new assignment for his exploring team rescued him from the lovely Dolores’s insistent demands on his time and attention.
There were, of course, many women among the long “tail” of the British army. Some were wives “following the drum” merely to be with their men. Officers were allowed to bring their wives—and servants, too—but at their own expense. Only a few did so. The army, recognizing women as useful to do cooking and laundry for the troops, allowed four women to ship out with each company of lower-ranking soldiers. These women, with no children, were chosen by lot. Zachary recalled with sadness the anguish of those who, having lost the lottery, were left behind on the dock at Plymouth.
Besides women legally following the army through Portugal and Spain and eventually through the Pyrenees and into France, there were hundreds of local females soldiers had picked up—and often abandoned—along the way. Many of these were whores who threw in their lot with a foreign army, but many were refugees with no other recourse. Zachary was especially touched by a group of seven nuns, aged fifteen to sixty, who had been driven from their convent by the French—but not before each had been repeatedly raped.
So female companionship was readily available to a rich young officer in His Majesty’s Army, but after the Dolores episode, Zachary rarely availed himself of it—partly because of the erratic nature of the explorers’ missions. And never did he allow himself to become involved emotionally.
Until he met Elena.
The Rangers were charged with two missions. Passing themselves off as local farmers and shepherds, they were to gather information on French troop movements and locate and map passes through the mountains. Zachary had sent the rest of the team into the mountains and he and Gordon and Whitten went to the small village of Segueros to meet with a partisan contact, a priest named Father Lorenzo.
Leaving their horses and two pack mules with Whitten in a copse of oak trees and low shrubs, Zachary and Gordon made their way along the dirt track of the main street to a small stuccoed church. Emerging from bright sunlight, they paused to adjust to the darker interior. Light came from open slits high on the walls and from two sets of candles before statues of saints. The walls had once been whitewashed; the altar was plain, with no intricate carving or gold leaf. A life-sized carved wooden crucifix was the focal point. About a dozen worshipers, two of them French soldiers, occupied the pews.
Zachary gestured to the soldiers and to Gordon, then pointed at himself and nodded toward the confessional set on the right wall. Gordon nodded and took a seat three rows behind the French. Zachary positioned himself near the confessional and waited for the low voices within to cease. A middle-aged woman dressed in shabby black and wearing a black headscarf stepped out of the confessional and Zachary stepped in.
He gave the password and asked in Spanish, “Is there any significance to those two soldiers being here, Father?”
“I don’t think so. They came in only a few minutes ago.” The priest chuckled. “It’s cooler in here than outside.”
“You have something for me?”
“This. Taken from a French courier yesterday.” The priest shoved some papers through the crack below the wooden screen.
Zachary quickly tucked them inside his shirt and rose to leave. “Thank you, Father.”
“You’d best wait a bit, my son.” Zachary noted amusement in the priest’s tone. “Unless you have been a very good boy indeed, it would take longer than this to recount your sins.”
Zachary laughed softly and sank back down.
“Besides,” the priest went on, “I have a favor to ask of you.”
“A favor. Of course. We owe you that much.”
“In my quarters I am hiding the partisan fighter who brought this message yesterday after an encounter with the French about twenty kilometers to the south. The situation is very dangerous here. I am sure I have come under suspicion.”
“And you want us to—?” Zachary left the question hanging.
“Help get this person out of Segueros.”
“Of course. When?”
“Tonight. Come after sunset. The moon is bright now, so you should be able to travel some distance before morning.”
Zachary and Gordon rejoined Whitten, but instead of leaving the village, they moved their horses deeper among the trees to await nightfall. Over a cold meal of bread, cheese, and watered-down wine, Zachary explained the delay.
“Ye ken this is a good idea, Quintin?” Gordon asked in his amiable Scots brogue. The Rangers were careful never to refer to rank when they were in the field and Zachary had, early on, encouraged his men to share freely any doubts or concerns.
“Probably not,” Zachary admitted, “but the partisans in this area have been very helpful to us. We can hardly refuse.”
“Right,” Whitten said with a yawn. “I’m for some sleep if we’re going to ride all night.”
Zachary looked at the pages Father Lorenzo had given him, but could not decipher the code. A job for McIntyre, he told himself, and followed Whitten’s lead.
That evening they approached cautiously the rear of the priest’s cottage. They noted a sturdy Spanish pony in the shadows, saddled and bearing a rolled blanket and full saddlebags. At Zachary’s knock, the door opened immediately. The priest, a tall, thin man in his forties, filled the doorway, but the room behind him was dark. A small figure in a dark poncho, with dark trousers stuffed into boots, and wearing a floppy hat, darted out to mount the pony, achieving that feat somewhat awkwardly.
“Hurry,” the priest said. “The French were here earlier. They will be back.”
“Thank you, Father,” the pony’s rider said in a soft voice.
A female voice.
“Wha—” Zachary started to protest, but heard a commotion from the front of the cottage and quickly remounted his own horse.
“God bless you all,” the priest said in a voice barely louder than a whisper.
They pushed their horses hard for a quarter of an hour, then slowed the pace when there was no immediate pursuit. Zachary moved his horse near the pony.
“Who are you?” he demanded in Spanish.
“Elena Ramirez.” She seemed short of breath.
Both Gordon and Whitten emitted surprised gasps and Zachary felt his eyebrows rising.
“Your father heads the Ramirez band?” He knew that this group of partisans took a no-holds-barred approach to ousting the usurping French from Spanish soil, but he’d had no direct contact with them before.
She drew in a breath. “M-my brother.” She paused. “Now, please, let us get on. My people are a day’s ride from Segueros. Father Lorenzo insisted I not go alone.”
“We’ll see you there all right,” Zachary said, slightly annoyed at her peremptory tone. “First we have to meet the rest of our team.”
Sure now that they were not being pursued, Zachary called a halt before dawn in a small meadow near a stream. “Give the horses a rest, get some food and water,” he announced, dismounting and grabbing a packet of food from one of his saddlebags. The girl just sat on her pony, seemingly unaware of her surroundings.
Zachary tossed his packet on the ground and walked around his horse to hers. “Señorita Ramirez? Would you care to join us?”
She leaned over the pony’s neck, the reins lapped loosely over her wrists, her hand gripping the mane. Even in the dim predawn light, he saw blood on her left hand.
“Good God! Señorita!”
She swiveled her head toward him, staring rather vacantly. Then her eyes rolled upward as she fell into his arms, unconscious. He caught her and staggered back, but managed to remain upright.
“Gordon!” he yelled. “I need some help here.”
Jack Gordon, the unofficial medical man of the Rangers, quickly spread a blanket on the ground and Zachary placed her inert body on it. They removed the poncho to see that the left side of her tan shirt was soaked with blood.
“A shoulder wound,” Gordon said. “Gotta get the shirt off. Chemise, too. I’ll get my kit.”
Zachary removed these garments to find a blood-soaked bandage wrapped around her shoulder, covering her left breast and tied about her waist. He draped the cleanest part of the shirt over the exposed right breast and sat back to let Gordon do what he could.
“We need water,” Gordon said, and Zachary hurried to fill a canteen.
He returned to find that Gordon had removed the bandage to reveal an ugly dark hole in the soft flesh below her collarbone. Both her breasts were now exposed and Zachary could not help appreciating their perfection.
“Good job she’s unconscious,” Gordon said. “She’d probably be embarrassed. I probed the wound, but whoever bandaged her got the shot out. She’s lost a lot of blood.” He poured water from the canteen onto a clean section of the bloodied chemise and used it to wipe away the blood around the angry-looking wound.
“What do we do now?” Zachary asked, gazing at the pallor beneath what appeared to be a normally golden complexion. Wavy midnight hair framed an oval face. My God! She’s beautiful, he thought.
“Re-bandage and hope the fever passes,” Gordon replied. “Could you see if she has extra clothes, then help me get her shoulder tied up again? We’ll need to put her arm in a sling once she wakes up. That should have been done yesterday.”
Zachary found a clean shirt, along with a little food, a pistol, and extra ammunition in her saddlebags. He and Gordon were both carefully impersonal as they dressed the wound and then dressed her, but he was sure Gordon found it as difficult as he did to ignore what was a mature, attractive female body.