The Summer Fields

  ‘You speak English,’ Elen says.

  ‘And so do you. What a clever couple of cats we are.’

  ‘Would you mind standing with these trunks while I try to secure a couple of rooms inside?’

  ‘Well, you don’t hang about,’ the woman says, popping her eyes at her. She peels Elen’s hand from her wrist, grasps it firmly and shakes it up and down. ‘How d’you do. Mrs Sarah Barker, at your service.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ Elen says. ‘I think I have been rude. My name is Elen Griffiths and I didn’t mean to ambush you. It was such a relief to hear words I could understand.’

  ‘Oh, don’t you worry.’ She peers round Elen at the pile of luggage and shouts in English to the men at the table.

  ‘Hey, you… and you. Off your feet, help us here.’

  The men shrug, look at one another, determined to misunderstand. Mrs Barker shoves one of them by the shoulder, points at the luggage, miming at them to lift them from the ground.

  She claps her hands and they rise, grinning sheepishly, lifting the trunks and following her through the door of the hostelry.

  Mrs Barker substitutes volume for Dutch, secures rooms for Elen and orders the tavern keeper to have the luggage taken upstairs.

  ‘And now,’ she says, turning, ‘let’s find ourselves a bit of bait.’

  She pushes her way through the press of soldiers crowding into the tavern. Elen shuffles along behind her tall companion, turning sideways to force her way through as they fight towards a table at the back of the room. The noise is deafening, every man and woman within, bellowing conversations at one another. Dogs scavenge under the tables for food, cowering if a hand is raised above them, snarling should another dog approach.

  ‘Finally,’ Mrs Barker says, sinking onto the bench with a gasp and loosening the kerchief at her throat. ‘Come on my dear, sit beside me where I can give the devil’s eye to any man glimming you. We’ll organise something to eat the moment your father gets here.’

  ‘I am not travelling with my father.’

  ‘Ha! Trust me to let my tongue rattle on,’ says Mrs Barker, with a roll of her eyes.

  ‘I assure you, you do not. I am here to assist Dr Argyll.’

  ‘Oh, I see. And should I wish to jibe you a little more, I could ask, assist him with what?’ and her new companion throws her head back and laughs loudly.

  Elen guesses that Sarah Barker is probably no more than ten years her senior but her confidence of manner and ample bosom give her the authority of an older woman. She towers above most of the men in the tavern, which makes Elen feel almost delicate and feminine in comparison.

  Her new companion’s red hair is not so much greying as fading but still it crowns her head with the thickness of youth, great snakes of braid pinned up into her cap. She has clever eyes and a wide, open face. She tends to lean a little too near when speaking, grasping Elen by the arm to pull her closer. Her harsh accent suggests she has lived her life in the rougher environment of a city; another reason Elen is glad of her patronage, confident that Sarah Barker can keep her safe from this hoard of rough soldiers.

  ‘Left someone at home, I imagine?’ Mrs Barker says.

  ‘No. I have not,’ Elen says, feeling a blush rising to her cheeks. Mrs Barker does not notice for her eyes have returned to scanning the faces around them.

  ‘So why are you travelling with this Dr Argyll?’ she asks presently.

  ‘I am a nurse,’ Elen says with a confidence she still doesn’t wholly own.

  ‘I knew the moment I clapped my eyes on you that we were sisters under the skin. I’m nurse and assistant to my dear husband. Mr Barker’s a medical man too.’

  ‘Is he?’

  ‘Barber surgeon – and here’s the darling man himself.’

  Elen’s new friend jumps to her feet and bawls a salutation across the crowded tavern. A hat is raised above the crowd and as they part with resentful glances, the owner of the hat pushes his way into view.

  He is a good foot shorter than his wife but stockily built. He greets Mrs Barker with a hearty kiss full on the lips before taking his place on the opposite side of the table, pulling his club wig off his head and giving his scalp a good scratch. He is a pugnacious-looking fellow, a deep scar across his chin, dark eyebrows sprouting long white bristles and eyes bright with good-natured amusement.

  ‘I am quite unable, Mrs Barker, to leave you alone for more than half an hour if you haven’t gone and found yourself a new friend.’

  He smiles benignly at them both then stands to reach across the table, grasping Elen’s hand in his bear-like paw and pumping her arm up and down. She is disconcerted to see that he has several drops of dried blood spattered across his forehead. ‘And who might you be, my dear?’

  ‘This is Miss Griffiths, travelling with Dr Argyll who is not her father but…’ Mrs Barker raises a warning finger towards her husband. ‘…nor is he anything other than her employer, it would seem.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Mr Barker says, reseating himself. ‘A physician, I assume, not a man of letters.’

  ‘Maybe both, Mr Barker, maybe both.’

  ‘Dr Argyll is very well read,’ Elen says. ‘But he is here in the capacity of physician, and I am here to help him.’

  Mr Barker pulls a disbelieving face. ‘I hope the good doctor knows what is expected of you. I wouldn’t ask a slip of a thing like you to help me.’

  ‘Of course you wouldn’t, Mr Barker,’ his wife says. ‘But your craft is altogether different. You’re not concerned with a peck of this or a prick of that. No, yours is a blood sport and damned good you are at it too.’

  ‘Why, thank you, Mrs Barker,’ her husband says, sitting tall and widening his chest like a bantam cock. ‘Still, I should imagine Miss Griffiths here will have to deal with her fair share of the bloody flux and that is a very unpleasant sickness.’

  ‘As is the pox,’ Elen says. ‘I have recently and successfully nursed a patient through that.’

  ‘Have you now?’ Mr Barker says with a change of attitude in his voice. ‘That is a singularly horrible distemper.’

  ‘As I’ve said a hundred times before, Mr Barker, you cannot judge a wine by its barrel,’ his wife says.

  ‘You certainly cannot.’ He reaches out and grasps his wife by both hands. ‘See these wrists, Miss Griffiths? You may not think it, but there is power in these wrists.’ He shakes them gently and beams at his wife. ‘Power and confidence. I could have done with both this afternoon, my sweet. I was swinging on that man’s molar for a good half hour before a foot to his chest gave me enough purchase to get the devil free.’

  ‘You always win a fight with a molar, Mr Barker.’

  ‘I haven’t met one that’s beaten me yet.’

  Elen spots Dr Argyll fighting his way through the crowd but unlike Mr Barker, he stops so often to tap a shoulder and raise a hand of apology, that he makes very slow progress indeed.

  He sees Elen and smiles but when he spots her companions, a frown forms on his forehead. ‘Good evening, Miss Griffiths,’ he says. ‘I am sorry I have taken so long. Did you manage to secure some rooms?’

  ‘I have, sir, thanks to Mrs Barker here.’

  ‘We’ve become such friends already,’ Mrs Barker says, ‘we’re almost on first name terms. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Dr Argyll.’ She lifts one of her powerful wrists from the table and shakes the doctor’s hand. ‘This is my husband, another medical man.’

  ‘Indeed,’ says Dr Argyll, looking down on the grinning face of the surgeon.

  ‘Mr Barker, barber surgeon,’ he says, half rising in his seat.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘We were waiting for your arrival before we asked for food,’ Mrs Barker says. ‘Will you be joining us?’ The doctor clears his throat and looks around the room as if hoping for an alternative place to sit. ‘Or perhaps you’ve eaten already?’ she adds.

  Apparently unable to spot a means of escape, the doctor loosens his cape and says with reservation, ‘No, no I
haven’t,’ before perching on the end of the bench beside the surgeon. Elen is sure his hesitancy has not gone unnoticed because an awkward silence descends on the table.

  ‘Well, Mrs Barker,’ the surgeon says presently. ‘I suspect that if we sit here waiting to be served, our stomachs will think our throats have been cut. Beat a path through this crowd for me, Mrs Barker, and the pair of us will fetch ourselves and our new friends some supper and some wine.’ The husband and wife set off into the throng.

  The doctor removes his riding coat, rolls it into a ball and places it in the centre of the bench, his hat on top. He is building himself a barrier, Elen thinks, and looks down to hide a smile.

  Dr Argyll twists round in his seat and looks out across the room. When he apparently tires of watching the crowd, he turns back to her and says, ‘I reproach myself for bringing you into such a rough environment. This is no place for a young and impressionable woman such as you.’

  ‘I am safer here than I am in England, sir.’

  ‘So I believe, so I believe.’

  ‘Mrs Barker has been very kind to me. If she hadn’t helped me, I would have been most alarmed and anxious but she is very capable.’

  ‘I should have settled things myself. It was thoughtless of me.’ The doctor traces his finger through a pool of spilt ale from an earlier diner.

  Elen can stand the atmosphere no longer. ‘Why did you take such a swift dislike to the surgeon and his wife, sir?’ she says.

  Her abruptness makes Dr Argyll look up. He opens his mouth to speak, closes it again, sighs irritably and says, ‘The man calls himself a barber surgeon but let me tell you, people like that are little more than butchers. How dare that woman describe him as a medical man. He is nothing of the sort. He is just the type to revert to quackery to cover up his ignorance of medicine and anatomy. When he is not pulling teeth and lancing quinsies, he’ll be sawing away at cadavers. It is a barbaric profession and I am expected to sit at table and break bread with the man. Heavens above, the blood of his last victim still clings to his forehead.’

  ‘He had to perform an extraction before he arrived.’

  ‘Did he now? Well, it looks as if he did it with a quantity of blood-letting and very little skill.’

  Elen can still remember a time when she imagined her seniors were, without exception, wiser and more knowledgeable than she; watching the doctor playing with the pool of ale, she knows he is being unreasonable.

  ‘I am sorry you feel that way, sir. I find their company cheerful. They have both shown me nothing but kindness. I suspect, if the Duke of Marlborough does engage the French, Mr Barker’s skills will be in great demand.’

  ‘And mine will not?’

  She is excused a reply by the return of the Barkers. The surgeon brings wine and cups, his wife carries a large tureen of beef and potatoes, the dinner plates stacked on top to keep them hot. Elen thanks them heartily. The doctor eats his food in sullen silence.

  Later that night Elen climbs into the narrow plank of a bed, well fed and bone tired. She lies in the darkness listening to the laughter and singing rising from below and the heavy clop of wooden sabots on the floor above her head.

  She smiles to herself because, instead of irritating her, the doctor’s poor behaviour has brought someone else to mind, someone she cares for, someone who could also sulk like a child if he did not get his own way. He will be well and must have joined his regiment by now. He may even be here on the Continent. She imagines looking into the crowd of a tavern and seeing his eyes burning across the room at her. She turns in her bed, gathers the bolster against her body and slips off to sleep as if she lies next to him.

  Chapter 2

  July 1704

  Bavaria

  There is a hole in the canvas a few inches from Elen’s face. She can see the grey light of dawn through it. She sighs. It is a relief not to wake to the steady patter of rain, which has greeted her every morning for the past few months.

  She lies quite still under the blankets, listening to the familiar noises of a camp readying itself to leave. The scarlet caterpillar is usually on the move before dawn but she has not heard the drum signal yet. Surely she can lie here for a few more minutes before she has to drag herself off her bed and help to pack up their part of the camp.

  She feels deeply weary. Ever since the storming of the heights of Schellenberg, everyone has known a big battle is coming. A few months ago, the thought would have terrified her but she has seen enough, done enough, on the long march to the Danube to wish it would come and put an end to these months of mud and drudge and boredom.

  At first, she travelled with a glad heart, certain that Mordiford would find her. As the weeks passed and more and more troops joined the march, that hope guttered and died. Now she tortures herself by imagining he succumbed to a new sickness and was unable to rejoin his regiment. Worse still she fears he may have found comfort in the arms of Lady Arabella, consigning his dalliance with the dairymaid to memory.

  The distant drum signal nears. Wearily she swings her legs out from under the blankets and pulls her dress on over her chemise. Her skin feels tight but she cannot face a small beer first thing in the morning and dares not drink the water.

  She looks down at her hands, at the nails, broken and dirty. With a sigh, she gathers up her plait to pin it in place and studies the brittle ends of her hair, dry from months of salt beef and bread. She longs to be in her father’s garden, eating fresh green gooseberries off the bushes or pulling carrots straight out of the ground to eat raw. She wonders how Libby is and if Rhodri is as tall as her now – he only had an inch to go before his mark on the doorjamb reached hers. And Marc at thirteen was growing at a terrific pace when last she saw him, his movements clumsy, his stride ungainly as if he hadn’t quite come to terms with the long limbs of adulthood. And Judy, would little Judy remember her? Or has she become a story, told at night by the fireside, the brave big sister who went to fight the French? Perhaps in a child’s mind she has ceased to be a real person altogether.

  Coming back from the latrines, she looks out across the countryside. There is so much space on the Continent, vast flat land stretching off into the distance. How she misses the valleys and foothills of Wales.

  She finds Sarah Barker seated on a barrel beside the ox cart. Her friend looks up and greets her with a smile, but Elen thinks she is also showing signs of fatigue. The surgeon and his wife worked with the casualties from Schellenberg, but Dr Argyll kept her in Schwabach with his dysentery patients.

  ‘Come and sit with me for a minute,’ Sarah says, for they are firmly on first name terms. ‘I’ve a little piece of gossip for you.’

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘Indeed I have. When I was over at Hellenstein yesterday evening, a rather nice young fellow was asking after your Dr Argyll. I had a feeling he was really asking about you.’

  Elen feels a clutch of excitement in the pit of her stomach. It must be Mordiford. ‘What was his name?’

  ‘Oh, my dear, I had no time at all to ask. The state of the place. There were wounded soldiers lying inside and out, drinking, smoking or just rolling around either half drunk or mad drunk.’

  ‘But he must have given his name. He was an officer, surely?’

  ‘You may imagine hospitals are safer places to recover than the field stations, but they are not. They’re hellish places. There are so many stretched out, it’s hard to work out who’s drunk and who’s dead.’

  ‘Tell me exactly what he said.’

  ‘And the women. Most of them have quite forgot they came in the hope of finding their husbands. The grog has turned them from angels of mercy into fiends.’

  ‘Sarah! The officer, the one who asked after the doctor? How did you come across him in this hell?’

  ‘Oh, I’m not sure he was an officer. He was a pleasant buck, wearing just breeches and a shirt. I spots him standing near, giving the impression he has a question for me. Am I travelling with a Dr Argyll, he says? I am, I says. And a
young woman, he says, tall, unusual-looking girl? She with him too? he says. Yes, I says.’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  Sarah shrugs. ‘Just then, right beside me, some girl sets up a wailing that’s enough to curdle your blood. She’s got the head of her husband crunched into her bosom, strong enough to kill him if he weren’t dead already. A foot soldier tries to wrestle her away and she clings to that cooling body, screaming so loud that Mr Barker bellows across to stop the racket and that was that. By the time I’d slapped the widow around the face a few times to stop her keening, the fellow was gone.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘I’ve said, haven’t I? He was a pleasant sort of fellow but I really didn’t get much of a look at him.’

  ‘His face. Was it scarred? Had he had the pox?’ Elen says.

  ‘I don’t know, I was helping calm that poor girl. She was mad with grief. Her husband was quite dead.’

  ‘Where did he go?’

  ‘Her husband? I’m no priest, how should I know?’

  ‘Not the woman’s husband. The officer.’

  ‘He could have gone anywhere in that hell. I wasn’t watching. Mr Barker needed my help straight away with another soldier who was putting up a ferocious struggle. In fact, I think I pulled something in my innards holding him still.’ Sarah presses her hand into her midriff and winces. ‘Either that or I’ve caught myself a touch of campaign fever.’

  ‘Sarah, I implore you. You must remember.’

  ‘Such alarm, Elen. I wish I’d kept the story to myself.’

  ‘No, no. You must never do that. Promise me you will never do that. I am sorry to press you so but I have a friend from home who means to follow.’

  ‘A friend?’ Sarah’s clever eyes narrow and a frown puckers her forehead. ‘Don’t you go running over to that hospital at Hellenstein to find your “friend”. The doctor has kept you from a deal of unpleasantness but there are sights there…’