The Resolute Runaway

by Charlotte Louise Dolan

  “I must join my regiment,” he said, looking down at her. “We are marching out tonight to meet the French.”

  Although she felt as if she would die from terror, Joanna did her best to hide her fears from her brother. Forcing a smile she did not in the least bit feel, she said, “I know you shall defeat them.”

  “Defeat them?” He laughed. “Napoleon has said the French eagles will soon be borne in triumph through the streets of London. Well, he is correct, but it is English soldiers who will be carrying them, not French conquerors.”

  Moments later he and Captain Goldsborough were gone, as were all the other young men in their smart uniforms. With them went all the gaiety that had marked the evening, and it was not long after that that the other guests began to depart.

  Joanna followed Mr. and Mrs. Dillon down the stairs as if in a trance, her mind totally occupied with fears for her brother’s safety. As they rumbled along in their coach, she was scarcely aware of Belinda chattering beside her.

  “Oh, is this not exciting? After all this waiting, at last the time for battle has come. Oh, look, Joanna, there is a regiment of foot already marching off. Is it not glorious? They are so handsome in their uniforms. I declare, it is positively inspiring to see our brave soldiers going off to fight for us, do you not think so?”

  So great were Joanna’s anxieties, she totally forgot her place and responded from the heart. “Glorious? They are going off to die, and you find it inspiring? Have you never once considered that many of those handsome young men you have been dancing with this evening will be dead by this time tomorrow?”

  Belinda gasped, and Mrs. Dillon rushed to her daughter’s defense. “That is quite enough, young lady. You will not mention such morbid subjects again, is that clear?”

  Tears filling her eyes, Joanna turned her head away from the others and stared blindly out the window. It was true, no matter what the others called it. War was not a matter of pretty uniforms and gaudy medals. Battles meant death and suffering. There was nothing glorious about young men being blown to pieces by cannonballs or hacked to death by swords or...

  She could no longer control her tears, but allowed them to stream unchecked down her cheeks. Luckily the three Dillons were too busy discussing Belinda’s success at the ball to pay Joanna any further attention on the ride back to their hotel, and soon she was able to escape to her own room, where she cried herself to sleep.

  * * * *

  Joanna stood at the window of the private parlor Mr. Dillon had rented and looked down at the street. Since shortly after noon, a steady stream of wounded soldiers had been pouring into Brussels. Some were still able to walk, but others were carried on litters or trundled along in rude carts.

  So much had happened since she had said good-bye to Mark. The regiments had marched away during the night with fifes playing and drums beating. By early morning—was it only yesterday—the town was virtually emptied of men in uniform.

  About three o’clock in the afternoon they had heard thunder to the south of the city. Except it had not been thunder, it had been the artillery. Wellington had engaged the French at Quatre Bras, and Napoleon himself had attacked the Prussians under Blucher at Ligny. So far no one knew precisely what the results had been, but the more wounded soldiers poured into Brussels, the less likely it appeared that the English had scored a victory.

  Behind her Belinda asked, “How long do you think it will be before we can go to Paris? Oh, how I have longed to stroll down the Champs-Elysees. Just think of the dresses, the bonnets, the shoes! And they say the opera has no equal in England.”

  When Joanna did not reply, Belinda said in an irritable voice, “Oh, do come away from that window, Joanna. I cannot imagine why you wish to see such revolting sights. Really, the sight of blood makes me quite nauseated. I do not understand how a lady can involve herself in such matters.”

  Joanna clenched her teeth together to keep from uttering the words she wanted to say, words which could easily alienate Belinda forever.

  Yet despite her friend’s comments, Joanna could not move away from the window. Her attention stayed fixed on the wounded men; her eyes kept scanning the crowds. She could not stop looking for her brother’s face, always afraid she would see him.

  The door to the sitting room opened, and Mrs. Dillon bustled in. “Oh, dear ... oh, dear, the most dreadful thing—your father has discovered someone has stolen all our horses right out of the stable, and the grooms have disappeared to a man.” She joined Belinda on the settee and clasped her daughter in her arms.

  “The French have utterly defeated Blücher,” Mrs. Dillon wailed, “and without the Prussians, there is no chance of Wellington standing up to Napoleon—not with that ragtag army of his. Oh, it is too late—we are doomed, doomed, unless your father manages to buy more horses. He is going out into the countryside to see if there might not be some horses available there, and he says we must be ready to flee to Antwerp as soon as he returns. I have given instructions for the maids to start packing. Oh, we should never have come to this wretched foreign country. The landlady here told me that Corsican monster has given his soldiers instructions to assault women and children!”

  There was a rap at the door, and Mrs. Dillon gave a little shriek and clutched her daughter even tighter. “Oh, save me, save me, they are here already—do not let them take me!”

  It was not the French, however, but only the aforementioned landlady. “There is a man here with a message for Miss Pettigrew,” the woman said. Standing aside, she let the stranger in.

  Except he wasn’t a stranger, at least not to Joanna. Despite the streaks of mud on his face, she recognized Davidson, her brother’s batman. She clenched her fists until her fingernails dug into her palms, but the pain in her hands could not compete with the pain in her heart.

  “Your brother sent me to fetch you, Miss Pettigrew. He has been wounded and is asking for you.”

  He was alive. Thank God, Mark was alive. Joanna let out the breath she had been holding, then moved quickly toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” Belinda’s question confused Joanna for a moment. Where was she going? Was it not obvious? “I am going to find my brother.”

  “Oh, but you cannot possibly go out there in the streets.

  It is too dangerous.” Mrs. Dillon did not hesitate to voice her objections. “Have you not been listening to a word I have said? No, no, you must stay here where you are safe, and we will send one of the footmen to inquire how your brother goes on.”

  Joanna did not even pause to consider other possible options. She could not. Her brother was wounded and was asking for her. She must go to him, she must.

  Belinda caught up with her in the corridor and detained her with a hand on the arm. “Joanna, this is madness. You have to stay with us. The French army is coming, and we must be ready to depart at a moment’s notice.”

  “My brother is wounded—how can you wish me to abandon him?”

  Belinda scowled, and her voice took on the petulant tone Joanna had grown quite used to in the last few weeks. “Well, it is not as though you could do anything to help him. You have no training in caring for the sick, and there are surgeons to take care of the wounded officers, after all.”

  Joanna shook off her friend’s hand and ran after the batman, who did not bother slowing his stride to allow for her shorter legs. Even as she caught up with him, thunder crashed overhead, and the first drops of rain began to fall.

  Chapter 4

  Captain Pettigrew was not going to live to see another sunrise. Davidson had figured that much out before he had gone, as commanded, to fetch the sister. Already, in the hour it had taken for that task, the captain had become feverish and was no longer lucid. But then, very few soldiers survived abdominal wounds.

  The batman touched his own abdomen, where his master’s money belt now resided. Who’d have suspected the captain would have had so many pieces of gold hidden away? It was sheer good fortune on the batman’s part that he ha
d found the hoard when he was binding up the captain’s wound.

  He felt a twinge of pity as he watched the girl weeping over her dying brother, but not enough sympathy to change his plans. Never again would the circumstances be so agreeable to his purpose. Not only was a small fortune in his grasp, a fortune that he doubted anyone else was even aware of, but the general confusion and panic in Brussels would make it well-nigh impossible for a search to be successful even if someone did discover the theft.

  Slipping out of the crowded tent, he found the captain’s horses where they were tied. Mounting the one and leading the other, Davidson turned their heads toward the coast, where a new life beckoned him—a life of prosperity, thanks to the captain’s unknowing generosity.

  * * * *

  The tent erected on the outskirts of Brussels offered protection from the pouring rain, but no respite from the nightmare in which Joanna found herself. All around her, wounded men were moaning, begging for help, and crying out for water, but to Joanna’s dismay, her brother uttered not a sound as he tossed fitfully on his rude pallet.

  Why did no one come to help him? Why was he left to suffer so? Where were the surgeons who were supposed to tend to the officers?

  There seemed to be no organization, no planning, no orderly system of care being given. Wounded men were carried in and laid down in rows, and the bodies of the dead carried out only when more room was needed. A few women moved about among the rows of injured soldiers, bandaging their wounds, soothing them, bringing water, or spooning broth into their mouths. No one paid the slightest attention to her brother except Joanna.

  “Wake up, Mark, do wake up! Oh, please don’t die!” Joanna clutched her brother’s hand. His skin was dry and brittle, so hot it felt as if it were scorching her own hands.

  She had to find a surgeon, she had to, even though it meant leaving her brother unattended for a short while. Maybe one of the other women would know where she could find help for Mark?

  Moving to block the way of one whose arms were filled with bottles of water, Joanna asked timidly, “Excuse me, ma’am, but—”

  Without letting her finish the question, the woman shouldered her aside and continued on her way through the tent.

  Her slight store of courage used up, Joanna was ready to burst into tears and abandon her search, but she could not afford that luxury. Her brother had no one else to help him, his batman having unaccountably disappeared.

  “If ‘tis water you need, miss, you’ll find a chemist’s shop about two hundred feet down the lane to the right. Giving us all the bottles of water we can carry, he is.”

  The soft Irish voice came from behind Joanna, and she turned to see a tall heavy-boned woman with a kindly face. “Oh, thank you, thank you. It is not water I need, but a surgeon to help my brother. Do you know where I might find one?”

  The woman did not answer directly. She paused, then asked in a voice full of pity. “Where is your brother now?”

  “Over here. Oh, please, for the love of God, you must help me find someone who can make him well again.” Clutching the woman’s arm, Joanna tugged her over to where Mark lay, the pallor of his skin in marked contrast to his flushed cheeks.

  “Ah, the saints preserve us, ‘tis Captain Pettigrew. Such a fine young man. My husband served as sergeant under him for many a campaign in Spain.” Kneeling down beside him, the woman pulled back the thin blanket covering him.

  Joanna had one glimpse of bloody bandages before the woman quickly replaced the blanket.

  “You must help me find a surgeon, you must. Please, I beg of you.”

  The sergeant’s wife rose to her feet and her eyes were sad.

  “No, no, it can’t be.” Joanna’s voice was no more than a whisper.

  The Irishwoman pulled Joanna into her arms and held her, rocking her back and forth as if she were a small child. “Ah, but there’s nothing the surgeon can do. In the hands of God, your brother is now.”

  “No, I cannot simply give up and let him die,” Joanna clung to the older woman and fought desperately against the tears that were demanding release. “I must find a surgeon, I must.”

  “Ah, colleen, the surgeons have no time for the dying. They must do what they can to save those who still have a chance,” the reply came, its harshness mitigated by the soft Irish brogue. “With such wounds as the captain has, there is naught anyone can do but pray that he does not suffer long.”

  Joanna took a shuddering breath, struggling to maintain control. With every fiber of her being, she wanted to deny what was happening. She wanted to make time retrace its steps—she wanted to go back to the evening before, when her brother had been well and whole...

  Someone tugged at her skirt, and she looked down to see a young boy whose left arm ended in a bandaged stump. His eyes were glazed with fever, but he was conscious. “Water, for the love of God, bring me water.” His voice was an almost unintelligible croak.

  No! He did not know what he was asking. She could not leave her brother’s side, not when Mark was dying. She could not!

  “The choice is yours,” was all the Irishwoman said, but Joanna heard the unspoken reproach.

  Grieving at her brother’s side was a luxury that would be paid for by the suffering of others. “Where is the chemist’s shop?” she asked, her voice devoid of emotion.

  “‘Twill be easier if I show you how to get there,” the Irishwoman replied.

  * * * *

  “Belinda, oh, my dearest Belinda, you must wake up!”

  “Really, Mother, must you shout so? ‘Tis the middle of the night.” Belinda rolled over in bed and pulled the blanket up over her head, but her mother snatched it away.

  “Get up, get up! Oh, do not delay! Every moment you dally brings the French soldiers that much nearer.” Her mother continued to shriek and flutter about the room, picking up one object after another, only to drop each one so that she could pick up something else. “Your father has finally returned with a pair of horses, and we must flee for our lives. Oh, if only we might have left yesterday, when there was ample time.”

  Wide-awake now, Belinda scrambled out of bed and rang for her maid, but no one came.

  “The servants have all run away during the night,” her mother wailed. “We have been abandoned to our fate.”

  “Papa?” Belinda asked.

  “He is obliged to harness the horses himself,” her mother explained. “Oh, do hurry and get dressed.”

  “I cannot dress myself,” Belinda said, shocked to the core that her mother would even suggest such a thing.

  “Then have Joanna help you, but hurry! Oh, dear, this is terrible. We shall all be killed—or worse!” Wringing her hands, Belinda’s mother scurried out of the room.

  A quick check of Joanna’s cot in the dressing room adjoining the bedroom revealed that her bed had not been slept in. For a moment Belinda was puzzled, before she remembered Joanna had gone dashing off to see her brother. It was the outside of enough, Belinda thought, struggling to take off her nightgown by herself and then pulling on the only dress she owned that fastened down the front. Talk about ingratitude! After all that Belinda had done for her, the least Joanna could have done was be at hand when she was needed. Such thoughtlessness, such selfishness on Joanna’s part was truly unconscionable.

  * * * *

  Mary Katherine O’Flannagan watched the sky begin to lighten in the east. It had been a long night of almost constant rain, but then, she was used to such, having followed the drum for fifteen years, ever since she had married Patrick O’Flannagan.

  For the moment, the city was still, and most of the wounded men in the tent behind her were sleeping quietly. Even while she savored the beauty of the morning, Mary Kate knew this day that was dawning so beautifully would bring a storm even more terrible than the one they had just endured during the night.

  Instead of thunder, their ears would be assaulted by the boom of artillery; instead of raindrops, the brave English soldiers would be exposed to showers of bul
lets and shot.

  From talking to the wounded stragglers who had trickled in during the night, she knew Wellington had halted his retreat at Mont St. John, near the little town of Waterloo. Where the Prussians under Blucher had taken themselves off to was anybody’s guess. As for the Belgian and Dutch soldiers, as fast as they were deserting, it would be a wonder if any of them were left to fire a shot at the French.

  No, in spite of the fancy talk of coalition armies, a victory this day would depend upon Wellington and the English foot soldiers. If the English squares could hold against the French cavalry, Old Douro would win the day. She thought of her husband, who would be in one of those squares, and she automatically made the sign of the cross.

  You form lines when the infantry attack, he had explained to her a long time ago. But when the cavalry attack, a line is a death trap. A soon as a man goes down, or two men or ten, there is a gap in the line, and the horses go through, and once the line is broken—once the cavalry are behind you—all is lost.

  Luckily, horses cannot be made to charge directly at a square, Patrick had told her. No more than you can get a horse to run straight at a wall. No, the silly beasts always veer off to the side and run between the squares. But unlike a line, it matters not if the cavalry get between and behind the squares. From whatever direction they approach, they still face a row of bayonets in front with two rows of guns behind. And no matter how many of your men go down, there are no gaps for the horses to break through, because you simply close ranks, and the square shrinks in upon itself.

  Her husband had explained it with such confidence, as if squares could not be beaten. But they could be, especially when half of them were composed of Belgian and Dutch foot soldiers, who had a marked tendency to throw down their arms and run like scared rabbits the first time they heard a shot fired.

  And even if by some miracle the squares held today, what price would be paid? How many men would be standing by the end of the day, and how many would be lying dead or wounded within the squares?