by Anne Groß
She stirred Mrs. Gillihan’s pot and wiped her eyes and nose on her sleeve, hoping no one noticed.
They didn’t.
“Dick! There you are,” Bill called out as Richard approached from the town. He brightened to see his partner in music. “I wasn’t sure you’d be joining us this evening.”
“The officers’ve got their heads together, making plans. Best not to distract them.”
Elise rolled her eyes. Lady Letchfeld had to attend to her own husband, apparently.
“Tell us what you’ve learned,” Cox said. “You must have heard something we haven’t.”
“Well, one thing I’ve learned is there’s no love lost between the Portuguese and the French. The reason that the locals have been so welcoming is because the French slaughtered everyone a town over—men, women, and even children.”
“Bastards,” Collins growled.
“We’ll kill those frogs, won’t we lads?” Bill said.
“We will, but you won’t. You’ll be picked off first thing.”
“Shut your fat mouth, O’Brian,” snapped Collins.
“Everyone knows it’s the drummer boys and the color bearers that go first. They do it to lower morale.” O’Brian shrugged. “That’s just how it is.”
“That’s not true!” shouted Bill. “Tell him, lads. Tell him that’s not true.”
“Don’t you fret, Billy,” Thomas said quietly. “Musket rounds and cannon balls have got no names attached to them. It’s any one of us as could die tomorrow.”
Thomas had meant to be encouraging, but the silence that met this statement felt awful to Elise. “What else did you hear, Richard?” she asked.
“I heard the man as killed all those people is moving his forces to join that fellow we just ran into today, and sounds like they’re close. Our Wellesley doesn’t wish that to happen. He himself climbed to the top of a windmill on the other side of town and saw that we outnumber them as long as reinforcements don’t arrive. If we put a wedge between the two French generals, they can be defeated separately, and then he’ll lead us to Lisbon to roust out Marshal Junot and the rest of the frogs! If all goes well, we’ll all be back in England before year’s end!”
At the last pronouncement, the men cheered Sir Arthur Wellesley in particular, the British Army in general, and then, of course, each other.
After sharing Mrs. Gillihan’s stew of salted beef and root vegetables, they spent their time drinking, gossiping and obsessively polishing their weapons late into the night, despite Richard’s insistence on getting a good night’s sleep. When everyone had finally settled into their blankets, fear began to well up in the silent spaces of the dwindling conversations. “How about you give us a song, MacEwan?” piped up Bill, a small voice in the dark night.
In the shadows cast by the dying campfire, Elise saw Thomas sit up and draw a hand through his hair. She closed her eyes, waiting for his soft baritone to wash over her.
“The minstrel boy to the war is gone. In the ranks of death you will find him—”
“Bloody hell, Tom! Not that one, for pity’s sake,” cried Collins.
You could hardly call it morning when they were roused off their blankets by Sergeant Taylor. Judging from the stars still wheeling in the heavens, it was night. No man would get up at such an ungodly hour unless the devil himself was coming to get him. Thomas grumpily folded his blanket and tied it to the top of his pack. Then he nudged Bill with the toe of his boot. When the lad stubbornly rolled over, pulling a corner of his blanket around his shoulders, Thomas smacked him with his shako until he finally groaned acceptance. “Up and get your drum,” Thomas growled, replacing his hated, and now battered, hat back on his head. On the other side of the cold fire ring, he could see Elise was doing much the same to Richard.
There was no breakfast, and no one expected it, or even thought of it. After a hasty, but thorough inspection, the company fell in with the column to be marched a short distance farther south. By the time they reached their destination at the foot of an embankment of wooded hills, the sun was just beginning to rise. The army was louder now, and felt much more haphazard with the addition of raw Portuguese recruits into the infantry and calvary. Although they didn’t mix with the more disciplined English soldiers, their enthusiasm was infectious. They were anxious to send the French packing and regain their country.
Most of the other camp followers—the women, children, and peddlers who floated in the army’s wake—had remained behind, but Elise now traveled with Russell and Jenkins. Everyone on the medical team were working hard to turn a nearby farmhouse into a field hospital. Thomas caught glimpses of Elise moving furniture to the lawn, tossing dirty water from a bucket, rolling bandages on the front porch. He’d never seen her work so willingly before. She belonged with the healers, that was sure.
And he belonged with the fighters. Thomas sighed and shuffled his feet. He stood in a long line of men that stretched across a field strewn with boulders and edged by a pine forest. The problem with being a soldier was you fought only when told to fight, and the waiting was endless. He looked over at Richard to see how he was getting on, and snorted in laughter. “Dick, what have you done to your hair?”
“I’ve powdered it. I think it looks quite sharp, don’t you? The Lady Letchfeld,” he hissed, looking around to see who was in earshot, “was generous enough to lend me a bit of black ribbon to tie a queue. Luckily my hair has grown just long enough.”
“That is lucky, indeed,” Thomas said. Richard looked twenty years older with white hair, but perhaps that was what the lady preferred. It would explain her marriage to the elderly major.
“Quiet in the ranks!” snarled Sergeant Taylor. “The officers can’t hear themselves think with you hens cackling. Eyes forward.”
Thomas sighed. More mindless waiting then. He stared into the woods where they knew the French were gathered to his left. Wellesley’s army was grouped in front, with the Portuguese forces under Colonel Trant to his right, and six cannons and a third large force under Ferguson and Bowes. Thomas suddenly realized that the army was positioned to enclose the French and defeat them from all sides. It would be a clever maneuver on Wellesley’s part, if they could first get everyone in place—not an easy task when it involved eleven thousand men. Thomas thought of all the drilling they had undergone for exactly this reason. Had they not been drilled into stupefaction, there would be no way to organize a battle, much less a war.
Give the men some credit, he chastised himself. They were all good, bold lads. They would stand when lesser men would break the line. One only had to see the chaos within the ranks of the Portuguese to know the difference between good soldiers led well, and green soldiers with questionable leaders.
“No, I must insist.” The sound of Major Letchfeld’s voice drifted to Thomas as he approached with Lieutenant Mason, fresh and neat, having had a lovely night’s sleep well billeted. All the details of the major’s uniform were attended to—his jacket was brushed, his epaulettes dusted, his boots gleamed with fresh blacking. Marching their way over the broad expanse of the major’s gut were freshly polished brass buttons. They were begging to be filched by Elise’s sticky fingers, thought Thomas with a smile. And his hair, like Richard’s, was freshly powdered. Thomas would have given anything to turn and look at the expression on Richard’s face. It seemed Lady Letchfeld’s powers of influence were strong.
“Pardon me for saying so,” the lieutenant was saying to his superior, “but I cannot see the wisdom in ordering Mr. Russell to follow the flag. Who would replace him should the unthinkable happen?”
“The medical officers always follow the colors into battle. It’s always been done,” Letchfeld sputtered. He seemed surprised to be challenged on protocol.
“But these are modern times, sir, and modern times calls for modern warfare. Normal military tradition should not apply here.”
Letchfeld attempted to draw himself higher, but there was really no point—he outranked Lieutenant Mason, who was
being quite bold. He merely had to bark an order and that would be the end of it. “Modern war? Modern war? What is modern about leaving our wounded men on the battlefield without help? Is the indignity of being dragged from the field to a hospital a modern innovation? If that is modern, then may I say that I am proud to be old fashioned.”
“Sir, I merely ask that you consider the loss of morale should our battalion lose its only surgeon. He cannot care for the men if he is dead, sir.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. The men don’t give a damn whether they’ve a surgeon. They march with honor, without thought for their own lives. They fight for God and King, sir. For God and King. You would do well to look to your own men for your inspiration. I begin to question your mettle.”
“You there!” the major turned sharply on his heel to address Cox, who shrank from the attention. “What do you think of this modern nonsense? Surely you’d rather Mr. Russell was with you on the battlefield?”
“Well, sir, I should like. . .that is to say. . .”
“Russell’s predecessor would have never stood for it,” Letchfeld continued, ignoring Cox’s stuttered reply. “Did you know Mr. Williams, lieutenant? No? Of course not, but I can tell you Mr. Williams would never have stood for it. Now he was a great surgeon. He died a soldier’s death, on the green with the lads, honorably, bravely, without a word of protest. He never would have stood for watching the action from the safety of a hospital.”
“Did not Williams die instantly?” enquired Lieutenant Mason. “I believe a cannon ball ricocheted off the green and took his head clean off his shoulders.”
“Just so,” agreed Letchfeld. “God rest his brave soul. Never a word of complaint. Ah, devil take the French. There go the cannons now, there’ll be action soon. Fetch Mr. Russell, if you please, lieutenant. At the double.”
The rest of the army wasn’t going to wait. Word of the advance came quickly and Letchfeld was brought his horse. Bill’s drum began to roll along with the drums of other lads in other companies. Fifes began to trill. It was a heady sound, and put fire in the belly. The music compelled the feet to lift and move the body forward even when the mind doubted the wisdom of it all.
It was a slow march, and after twenty feet or so, they were called to volley rounds into the hillside. The English artillery sent cannon balls whizzing overhead and caused trees to explode into splinters. It was a terrific noise, but the French had the better position on top of the hill, and no soldier shooting upwards into trees could possibly do any damage to an enemy line. No matter how many times the stock of Thomas’s musket slammed against his shoulder, it was still for nothing. He was more certain than ever that the goal was to make enough noise to keep the enemy’s eyes on the center line, giving the flanking troops time to close the circle.
The enemy, however, situated on higher ground, was hitting targets with much more accuracy, and they weren’t shy about firing back. Thomas couldn’t see through the smoke, but the dread that fell over him made it clear men were dying. Skirmishers hidden behind the trees were picking them off, one by one. Every time he had to step to the right or left, he knew it was to close the gaps created when a man had fallen. Thomas blanched as the first cannon fire hit the line further east of where he was standing. The screams cut through him and the line jostled broadly as the men adjusted. He wondered if Mr. Russell was nearby. Perhaps Letchfeld was right—it did make him feel better to know he was there. It also made him feel terribly selfish to think such a thing.
It was midmorning when the French cannons stopped. Thomas’s mouth was so dry he licked his lips, hoping to drink the sweat that ran in rivulets down his face. Instead he tasted blood on his cracked lips. His eyes burned from gun smoke. His ears rang. His arms and shoulders ached. Lack of sleep and lack of food made it difficult for his legs to hold him steady. But, thus far, he was still alive.
“Hold your fire!” cried Sergeant Taylor. The valley echoed with the same orders made by other sergeants all down the line. The French had not been fooled by Wellesley’s trick. They’d fallen back, slipping out of the closing circle, and now the British were advancing once again through a field of boulders and into a thick expanse of trees. “Stay together,” Sergeant Taylor called as they marched forward.
Thomas broke file to walk around a three-foot tall block of granite. Sometimes, it just wasn’t practical to follow orders.
“Out of the question,” Russell said to Elise, hand up, eyes closed to argument. “Absolutely not. You will stay here and await the first casualties.” She watched him trot away with Jenkins and Lieutenant Mason and waited until they were twenty paces ahead before leaving the safety of the farmhouse to follow into the already raging battle.
As she ran, the occasional spent musket ball fell out of the sky to bounce off her chest. The first one made her stumble in fear, the second one made her feel invincible, and the third made her realize how foolish it was to be running towards the front line where last she saw Russell before he was cloaked from view by clouds of gun smoke. She saw him again when a small breeze stirred the smoke. He was setting up his station near the standard-bearer, which, Elise realized with a start, was the precursor of a red-cross banner of first aid. Next to the standard bearer, Bill kept up a rolling drumbeat. Elise could see his stiff back, and her heart ached as he stood banging away on his drum, exposed and vulnerable. Although the colors weren’t being flown for the sake of the surgeons, it still worked well as a marker for finding help, and the wounded were already stumbling towards it.
The shattering noise of the battlefield filled Elise’s head and squeezed her chest, making her gasp for each breath as she approached Russell. She threw herself to the ground under the rain of another volley of musket fire, one hand on her pack, one hand pressing the emerald against her sternum, and struggled to adjust to the crashing cannonade. The trill of the fifes playing “Hey Johnnie Cope,” over and over drilled through her skull. Smoke burned her eyes and throat. It wasn’t until she saw a wounded soldier stumbling towards her that she was able to pull herself together. She army-crawled towards a boulder where she could hunker down and work safe from being shot.
With protection at her back, she could start to concentrate again. She watched the line for men to fall out, allowing her time to mentally prepare for what was coming as soldiers dragged their broken bodies towards her. She formed a small team with Russell and Jenkins, working separately but close enough that equipment could be shared, tossed back and forth as needed. Elise was terrified something might happen to either of them—there were thousands of soldiers and so few medical personnel.
Her patient was weeping in pain as he stumbled away, making room for the next man. There hadn’t been anything she could do but tie a sling around his shattered arm. How long would it take for someone to circle back and care for the soldier properly? Too long, she thought, knowing there would be no possibility to save the limb.
The morning lasted years. The battle seemed endless. It was an all-consuming ocean with no edges. When the cannons finally stopped, it took a while for Elise’s bones to stop shaking in sympathetic resonance. Tears rolled silently down her cheeks in relief, but she didn’t have the luxury of taking a breath. She was too busy pushing her probing finger into a hole in someone’s flesh to feel for a musket ball. She stole a quick look at the troops, and was puzzled by their restlessness. As she drove her forceps into the hole, she prayed the battle was over. “Easy, honey,” Elise soothed as she pulled out the ball. His lips peeled away from his gritted teeth in silent pain and he bucked against his mates who held him pinned down on his back.
Suddenly the drums began a different rhythm. The earth vibrated as the men began marching again, pushing forward. Elise’s heart sunk. It wasn’t over.
What started out as an organized advancement quickly turned messy as the men were forced to move around obstacles in the field. The lines fell apart. Through the smoke, one man drew her attention as he stopped to adjust his pack. He was the only one with enough sel
f-possession to resist the forward thrust of the mob and just stand alone like a stone in a stream for the simple pleasure of taking the time to remove his hat and run his hand through his hair. Although dressed like the others, he remained singular, unique. For the length of a breath, there were no others in the world but that one man.
She wasn’t the only one to have noticed Thomas. Running perpendicular to the army from the direction of the trees, a French skirmisher was headed straight towards him with his saber drawn. Forty feet away, he crouched stealthily and circled to approach Thomas from behind. Elise knew Thomas could lay the Frenchman flat in seconds, but only if he saw him. Turn around, she begged him in her thoughts.
She didn’t hear the musket rounds whizzing past her ears. She didn’t feel the scarab, tucked between her breasts, pulse red heat to her arms and legs. She was already running when she made the decision to run. She was reaching for her knife before she remembered she was carrying it. Her mind was five steps behind her body.
Just as Elise leaped on Frenchman’s back, Thomas pivoted. His blue eyes were vividly framed by the black gun smoke that smeared his cheeks. His lips drew away from his teeth in a wolfish snarl as he ducked under the wide and wild swing of the skirmisher’s saber. Over the man’s shoulder, Elise saw Thomas’s blade flash as he stepped inside to punch his bayonet up through his opponent’s gut. Her own knife came down into the skirmisher’s neck.
It was almost too late when he saw her. Thomas just barely succeeded in shifting his bayonet six inches to the side; his forward momentum sent him crashing into the Frenchman. The three of them tumbled to the ground.
Instinct made Thomas jump up and reach for his weapon before reaching to check his anger. “Bloody hell, woman. What are you playing at? I could have speared you both!”