He was right. The first thing Wellington said to him, his face drawn, was, “My apologies colonel but we march at dawn. I shall need your assistance planning the road for our attack. I know this must seem importunate, but we have wasted far too much time already. And between your reports and others I have in hand, my path is clear.”
With one last regret for his wife alone in the room, Harry turned his attention to the maps in the center of the room. Within minutes he and the other officers were deep in discussion and everything else, even Prudence, was forgotten. Or if not completely forgotten, set aside in the secure knowledge that what he did now was as much for her safety as for anything.
He did spare one moment to hope that one of the few wives would take Prudence under her wing and keep her thoughts occupied during the fighting ahead. Although if he could, he would arrange for her to be sent home at once. If there was to be fighting, he wanted her nowhere near it.
That was why the news, when it came, that there was a ship in port, was so very welcome. Harry gave the necessary orders and prayed that Prudence would obey them.
Chapter 10
Prudence watched the men marching off down the road. In the distance she could barely see Harry, mounted on his horse, riding up and down the lines making certain everything was as it should be. How it hurt to watch him go.
But her hurt turned to anger when, once they were out of sight, a man suddenly appeared by her side. It was, she realized, Wilkins. Harry’s batman.
“Time to go, ma’am,” he said briskly.
She stared at him, his words making no sense to her. “Go?” she echoed blindly.
“Aye. Colonel ‘arry left orders. I’m to take you straightway to port and see you safely off to England. We’d best be going, Ma’am. He got word just afore they marched that there’s a boat there wot’ll take you back to England. But we’d best move right quick or we’ll miss it and I don’t wants to be ‘anging about port when I’ll be needed ‘ere.”
For a moment, Prudence could only gape at the fellow. Then her temper engaged. She bristled, visibly so for the poor man took a step backward.
“T’weren’t my notion!” he protested, holding up a hand. “T’were the colonel’s orders. And I’ve got to obey orders, don’t I?”
That gave Prudence pause. “Perhaps you do,” she agreed slowly.
The man gave a sigh of relief. “I knew you’d see reason. Now if you’ll come this way, Ma’am, we can collect your things and be going.”
But Prudence did not budge. Instead she shook her head. “Oh, no,” she said. “I am going nowhere.”
“But, but you said you understood,” he said, patently bewildered. “You said you understand I’ve got me orders.”
“I do understand,” she replied sweetly. “You must obey your orders. But I needn’t do so. I am not enlisted in the military. I am only the colonel’s wife. And I shall do as I choose. And I choose to stay here.”
The man’s jaw fell open even wider than before. “But what am I to tell the colonel when ‘e returns?”
“You needn’t say a thing, for I shall tell him all that needs to be said,” Prudence replied.
The man must have read the determination in her eyes for he took another step backward. As he did so, she could hear him muttering to himself. “The colonel won’t like this. ‘E won’t like it at all. But ‘e must know what she’s like. ‘E done up and married ‘er, after all.”
“Precisely,” Prudence said, startling the poor fellow, who had not realized she could hear him.
He took to his heels and Prudence turned to the other women, all of whom were watching the exchange with the liveliest interest in their eyes. Suddenly Prudence felt very cold and she shivered.
One of the women, Eleanor, put an arm around her shoulders. “They’ll be back before you know it,” she said. “And the colonel will be glad, I’ll be bound, that you’re still here.”
Prudence smiled but shook her head. “No, he will not. But I don’t care. I shan’t go back until I know he is all right. And until he tells me himself that he wishes me to go and why.”
Eleanor seemed to approve for she nodded briskly and said, “Well, then, no sense wasting time. Come along with me and I’ll show you how you can be of use. We ladies will be tearing strips of cloth to make bandages while we wait. And gathering all the simples we have to help with the doctoring when they bring the wounded back.”
In answer to Prudence’s unspoken question Eleanor said, “There are always more who need help than hands to help them. You will be needed and welcome if you’ll help.”
Prudence nodded. She drew in a deep breath. “I’ll help,” she said.
The hours passed slowly. Too slowly. In the distance they could hear the thunder of canons. And then the wounded began to trickle in. Eleanor had been right. There were more men than hands to care for them.
It broke her heart to see the wounds but there was no time for pity. Too many needed her. A sip of water here, a bandage wound tight there, a word of comfort when nothing else could be done for a man.
And all through the hours that followed she watched for him. For Colonel Harry Alan Langford. Terrified that he would be the next man she came upon. In the early hours of the morning he was.
His face was drawn with pain, paler than she had ever seen him before. He clutched his leg tightly but blood still seeped out between his fingers. He saw her at almost the same moment she saw him.
“You were supposed to be gone by now,” he said, weakly.
“I wouldn’t go,” she answered tartly. “Now stop complaining and tell me where you are hurt.”
“My leg.”
Two words. But his eyes told her the truth, that he knew how badly hurt he was and that the pain went far beyond anything physical.
“I’ll get a surgeon,” she said.
“I’ll wait my turn.” She would have gone for help anyway but he stopped her with a hand on her arm. “I’ll wait my turn,” he repeated. “There are too many men wounded worse than I am.”
So instead she stayed. Binding up the wound as best she could. And sponging his brow. And when other men nearby called to her for water to drink or help with their wounds, she went.
Eventually it was his turn and when Prudence would have accompanied him into the surgery, she was gently but firmly turned away. She watched him disappear until he was completely out of her sight. Then she turned and went back to the men, working with grim determination. In the hours that followed, it seemed she did not have a moment to stop.
She was holding the hand of a soldier who would not see the dawn when someone came to find her. “Colonel Langford is asking for you,” the orderly said, sympathy in his clear brown eyes which were as weary as her own.
Prudence nodded. She squeezed the hand of the young soldier one more time and then she went. As they moved among the men, the orderly talked, his voice a necessary steadying force. “The surgeon said to warn you that you must not show any shock at his condition, ma’am. It will only upset him and that will make matters worse.”
“What is his condition?”
The orderly took a deep breath, ignoring his own advice as his voice shook when he said, “He may yet keep the leg. Within the week we will know.”
Prudence closed her eyes then opened them again. She also took a deep breath. “Thank you for the warning. It will make it easier to conceal my feelings when I see him. What can I do? To help him, I mean. To improve the chances that he keeps the leg?”
The orderly sighed. “I don’t know. We know so little about why one man will recover and another develop poison of the blood or tissues. Watch him. Care for him. Perhaps he will find a way to heal for your sake.”
Prudence nodded her understanding. “I will do what I can,” she promised.
And then they were by Harry’s side, where he lay on a pallet. If his face had been pale and drawn before it was ten times worse now. “Go away!” he said, at the sight of her.
The orderly
started to protest such cavalier treatment of a man’s wife. But Prudence gave him no chance. She stepped between the two men and said briskly, “Nonsense! I am told you asked for me. You cannot take the request back now. Just because you are feeling a trifle downcast. We will have you fit again in a trice.”
The corners of his mouth turned down in a way that tore at Prudence’s heart. Even in the darkest moments of their journey she had never seen him look so grim. She knelt down and took his hand.
“Grip it as tightly as you like,” she said softly, “if it will help.”
“Nothing will help,” he said, trying to push her hand away.
But Prudence would not let go. “I am here. And here I stay. I am, for better or worse, your wife. Whatever you face, we face it together.”
“You should go back to England.”
Prudence shook her head. “We go together or not at all. You cannot push me aside so easily.”
And then, before he could protest any more, she cradled his head against her breast as he had cradled her so often in the past few months. And if he cried, well there was no one else close enough to see. In the morning, if he asked, she would tell him the whiskey they had given him to deaden the pain had taken control. But for now, she wished him whatever comfort he could find, in whatever way it would come.
That was how they fell asleep, the both of them, exhausted beyond what anyone should have to endure. But that was, she thought as she slipped into dreaming, the appalling cost of war.
* * * *
Harry woke first. For a moment he could not recall where he was or whose breast he rested against. And then the pain in his leg brought him back to the present. With a groan he closed his eyes, trying to will himself back into oblivion. But it was not so easy and he knew it.
Already the men around them were stirring. And there was the orderly with the surgeon making rounds. When they reached him, Harry reluctantly woke Prudence so that she could move out of the surgeon’s way. Then he braced himself for the pain that he knew would follow.
It was Prudence, however, who asked the question upper most in both their minds. And it was to her that the surgeon addressed his answer.
“We must wait and see. I can tell you now, however, colonel, that it is not likely you will sit a horse anytime soon. As to whether it will affect your gait”—the man paused and shrugged—“only time will tell.”
“Will I lose the leg?”
In answer, the surgeon only patted his shoulder then moved on. Harry could not help nor hide the bitterness he felt. He looked at Prudence and said, “It seems you made a worse bargain than either of us could have known.”
“Do not say so!” she told him fiercely. “I never took you for a coward! I will not let you become one now. No, nor disparage my skills as a healer, either.”
“What the devil are you talking about?”
She knelt again by his side, a hand planted on each side of her on the ground. Her body leaned forward, her face only inches from his so that he instinctively pulled back.
“I have lived in many places with my uncle,” she said. “And nursed him through bouts of many things. I will not let you lose this leg.”
Harry gave a harsh bark of bitter laughter. “You cannot stop it,” he said. “An injured leg is nothing like what you have ever encountered before.”
He only meant to tell her the truth, to absolve her of blame if she failed. But that wasn’t what she heard. Instead she began to cry. “Don’t!” she said fiercely. “Don’t take away from me what little hope I have, what little faith, that I can help you. Don’t take away what little faith I have in the world that things may sometimes go right. Don’t, above all don’t push me away.”
He reached out a shaky hand to try to dry her face. But his hand was steadier than his voice as he said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry. We shall get through this together, I promise you.”
And when she clung to him, he clung right back. It was nonsense, all nonsense, but he could not, would not, take away what little comfort she might find.
Suddenly she pulled free and stood. “I shall be back as soon as I can,” she said.
“Wait. Where are you going?” he asked, feeling oddly bereft.
But she didn’t answer. Instead she whirled away and in moments was out of his sight. When she was gone, he became aware that he was being watched. Every man within sight seemed to be staring.
He glared at them, but none looked away. One fellow, perhaps braver than the rest, said cheekily, “A right nice wife you’ve got, Colonel.”
In spite of himself, he smiled. “Yes, yes, she is,” he agreed.
And then, in spite of the pain, Colonel Harry Langford leaned back on his pallet and thought about just how lucky he was. Tomorrow he might, perhaps, feel again the guilt that he had pushed Prudence into marriage with a man who, so soon after her wedding, might be a cripple. But for today he would simply be grateful for his good fortune.
Chapter 11
Prudence wiped her forehead. Harry was sleeping. And “Harry” he truly had become to her. A man she scarcely knew. A man who had gone out to battle and killed because that was his duty. A man who came back injured and would not, except for that first night, let her close to his heart. The man she thought of as Alain was gone and it was Harry who was her husband, Harry who needed her now. At least he had been moved to a room where they could have some privacy.
She looked over at Wilkins and he nodded at the colonel. “A natural sleep ‘e’s in and that’s good, I’ll be thinking.”
Prudence nodded. “If he can only keep the leg.”
Wilkins growled. “‘E will. The colonel, ‘e’s a stubborn one ‘e is. And you’ve nursed ‘im right well. Everyone says so.” He paused, then added, as though against his will, “I didn’t like the colonel marrying you. But I were wrong. It’s good ‘e ‘as you.”
Now it was Prudence who smiled. “Thank you. Though I’m not so sure the colonel thinks so.”
“Aw, ‘e just broods. Worritin’ over ‘is leg ‘e is. But ‘e’ll come around, ‘e will.”
“I hope so.”
There was a sound in the doorway and Prudence looked over her shoulder. Wellington stood there looking at Harry, an expression of both fatigue and disappointment on his face. Quickly she moved away from the bed and to the doorway, not wanting to wake Harry.
“I have arranged for him to be transported back to England,” Wellington said, meeting her eyes.
“His leg is recovering,” Prudence said hastily. “He will hate being sent away.”
The most powerful Englishman in Spain sighed. “I know it. And I have talked with the surgeon every day. But Harry needs the care he can get at home. And even in the best of circumstances the surgeon tells me that Harry will never have full use of his leg again. Not enough to ride a horse in battle. Or fight on foot.”
Prudence wanted to deny it, but she could not.
As if he understood, the duke’s voice was gentle as he went on, “At home, surrounded by his family, perhaps he may heal more than we expect. If that is so, I shall welcome him back to my staff with the greatest joy. And if not, then he will be surrounded by family when he must come to terms with his fate.”
“How soon?” Prudence asked.
“Another few days before he is well enough to travel. By then there will be a ship waiting to take the wounded back to England. I’ve arranged a cabin for the two of you to share. You will have some privacy, at least.”
“Thank you.”
Wellington nodded. He turned to go then paused, his eyes steady on Harry’s face. “He was one of my best,” he said. “I’ve lost too many of those here in Spain. But we will be moving, and moving fast, in the days ahead, if I’ve anything to say about the matter. He would never be able to keep up. Not as he is now.”
Then, as if noticing Wilkins for the first time, he looked at the man and added, “You’ll go with him. He’ll want that, I think.”
Wilkins didn’t
argue, he looked too dismayed to be able to find his tongue.
And then Wellington was gone. Prudence turned back to the bed and was surprised to find Harry watching her with his eyes wide open. Instinctively she glanced at the doorway then back at him.
“You are awake?”
“Evidently.”
“Why did you not say so? I’m certain Wellington would have liked to have spoken with you.”
“I thought,” Harry said, not troubling to hide the bitterness in his voice, “I might learn more if the three of you thought me asleep. I was right.”
Wilkins edged toward the doorway. “I’ll just, er, go and make certain our dinner is cooking.”
Neither Prudence nor Harry tried to stop him. Instead, when he was gone and the door shut behind him, Prudence sat down on the edge of the bed. She was careful not to touch Harry.
Picking up the thread of their conversation from before she asked in a brisk, impersonal tone, “And just what do you think you learned by pretending to be asleep that you would not have learned had you admitted to being awake?”
“That we are going back to England. That Wellington thinks I am of no use to him any more.”
“Not in your present condition,” Prudence agreed in the same brisk voice as before.
“You are no comfort,” he said with a frown.
“I don’t mean to be. Not when you are awash with self-pity.”
He clenched his lips together and Prudence smiled. “You look like a very small boy right now, you know.”
That made him open his eyes wide with shock. She could not keep from pushing a wayward lock of hair off his forehead. “I know,” she said softly. “But what can we do except make the best of whatever future it is you have? I will repeat your own words back at you: we will go through this together and it will be all right, I promise.”
The Sentimental Soldier Page 8