The Summer Fields

  ‘I would not call nursing the bloody flux pleasant.’

  ‘No, it’s not, but I tell you, worse things drop out of a man’s body once musket and canon ball start flying.’

  ‘Why does everyone treat me as if I tottered out of the cowsheds yesterday? Have I not spent months boiling water and feeding it into the mouths of men with faces shrunken to skulls from the flux? And let them clutch at my hands as their bellies knot in agony?’

  ‘Elen, Elen. What’s got into you this morning? I thought this news would chirp you up. I didn’t mean to upset you so. We all of us have many beastly things to do and you know how much the doctor values you. But those hospitals are terrible places, truly terrible. Stay away for as long as you’re able. Whoever this fellow was, he’ll find you if it’s important. If he doesn’t, it’s but a nothing.’

  Elen wants to tell her, longs to tell her, but she hesitates. Her affections are so extreme for Mordiford but her sense of future happiness is fragile, based on dreams and imaginings. She does not want her friend to turn her penetrating reason onto her fantasies.

  Chapter 3

  Ignoring Sarah’s advice, Elen goes to see if she can persuade Dr Argyll to take her over to Hellenstein. She finds the doctor arguing with a sergeant outside the barn where many of the dysentery patients lie.

  ‘New latrines must be dug daily,’ the doctor is saying. ‘As far away from where the soldiers are bivouacked as possible.’

  ‘It is not possible, sir. This rain has turned the earth to clay and mud and so many of my men are sick, we cannot dig new latrines every single day.’

  ‘Then sickness will destroy the English army before we ever draw the French out.’ The sergeant stares at the doctor with a cussed expression on his face but does not reply. ‘Oh, do the best you can,’ the doctor says wearily.

  ‘At least the rain has stopped today,’ Elen says when the sergeant has gone.

  ‘Yes, that is a blessing,’ the doctor says. He sinks down onto a bench and beckons her to join him. ‘We seem to have reached a kind of curious, dragging anticlimax since the skirmish at Schellenberg. It looks as if that infernal marching has ceased for a time. They say the duke is busy destroying the countryside across Bavaria at the moment…’ he shakes his head. ‘So much devastation and still he longs for more.’

  ‘Perhaps we are over the worst, sir,’ she says.

  The doctor gives her a mournful look.

  ‘The duke will draw the French out, you can be sure. Schellenberg will seem like a scuffle compared to what is to come.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘From Mr Barker. The officers waiting their turn to have a limb hefted off over in Hellenstein know what is to come. He says most are glad to be on their way back to England before it begins.’

  ‘Officers? I did not know Schellenberg was a battle.’

  ‘It was not. They merely stormed a town but there were terrible losses. The fort is in the hands of the English now but you can be sure there is far worse to come.’

  ‘Perhaps the French will rethink their tactics after that defeat.’

  ‘They will not. Tens of thousands of them are closing in. Tallard marches through the Black Forest and if the duke cannot force the Bavarians to engage before the French army arrives in force, we are merely in the eye of the storm. Mark my words, the next engagement will be more deadly than the last. In fact, I have been wondering for some time now if the moment has come for you to return to England.’

  Had the doctor said these words when they left The Hague, she would have sprung back to Radnorshire like a bowstring, but now Sarah has seeded the suspicion in her mind that Mordiford may be in Franconia, she cannot go. If the doctor is correct and a great battle lies ahead, she must find Mordiford. She must stay in case, once again, he needs her at his side.

  ‘You know, sir, that I cannot return to England,’ she says.

  ‘It is midsummer. Whatever Mordiford planned to do to ensure your safety is surely done by now.’

  A sudden thought strikes her. Perhaps the doctor himself has come across Mordiford. ‘Do you know this?’ she says.

  The doctor looks at her with a frown.

  ‘Of course I do not know, but I am sure it is true. You can return to your father who will be heartily glad to see you.’ The doctor sighs and his expression softens. ‘I do not have the constitution of Mr Barker who can munch toasted almonds from his waistcoat pocket while he saws off a man’s leg. I cannot look at those poor men with terrible injuries and not suffer with them. You have been saved it thus far. If the duke engages the French army, you will be forced to see men in a hideous and parlous state.’

  ‘You told me once that I would not fear death and suffering if I understood it. You have taught me to do that. It exhausts and drains me but I do not fear it.’

  The doctor makes a small nod of his head. ‘I own that you do your duties with calmness and courage, but you are also a young woman with the whole of your life ahead of you. I do not want that kind heart stunted by the horrors of war. I want you to fill it first with beauty and wonder.’

  ‘Why doctor, you must be tired to wax so lyrical this early in the day.’

  Dr Argyll smiles at her and says, ‘Mr Barker is a fine surgeon, I admit that now. I saw him in action last week. His skill is speed, his technique is almost balletic in execution. Once the gag was between the man’s teeth, he wrapped his arm around the limb and with a swift coup de grâce, was through the flesh and onto the saw almost before the screams had time to begin.’

  She winces at the thought of metal through flesh and a saw against bone.

  ‘There now,’ the doctor says, ‘that’s your empathy making you gasp. I could not stand to see you become as inured as Mr Barker to the suffering of others. It greatly concerns me that, should you stay, dispassion would replace the very qualities that have earned you the name of angel.’

  She shakes her head. ‘That is just something the soldiers say about the women who tend them.’

  ‘Ha! You think so? Can you imagine any poor soul referring to the good Mrs Barker as an “angel” when she pinions him down, telling him to stop his screaming in case the French hear and think the English soft?’

  Elen laughs. ‘Perhaps not,’ she says. ‘But, I must stay. Take me over to the hospital. Let me see these horrors so that I can be of some use to you when the real battle begins.’

  ‘I am not so sure.’

  ‘I am. Let us find ourselves some transport. Take me over to Hellenstein, sir.’

  The doctor holds her gaze for a few seconds more and gives her a weary smile of reconciliation. ‘Perhaps I should. I can think of nothing more sure to send you back home than the sight of that hell hole.’

  He gets wearily to his feet and picks up his hat, plucking at a patch of mud on the rim before placing it on his head and giving the peak a little tug. ‘You can go and enquire,’ he says. ‘I will accompany you if you are determined.’

  * * *

  By the time she returns, the doctor’s mood has turned from gloom and anxiety to suppressed excitement. ‘Forget our trip to Hellenstein,’ he says.

  ‘Please, sir. I have organised a trap.’

  ‘Did you not see the hussar ride in?’

  ‘A hussar? No, I did not.’

  ‘He came post haste to find me. You will not believe the thing that has happened. The surprise, the honour…’ The doctor becomes speechless for a moment but calms himself, digs into the pocket of his coat and, pulling a handwritten letter from it, he brandishes it in the air and says, ‘I have been summoned to Friedberg.’ He nods at her, his eyes eager with excitement.

  She stares back at him, smiling at his pleasure but frowning at the same time. ‘Friedberg?’ she says. ‘And what is at Friedberg?’

  ‘The Duke of Marlborough is at Friedberg – that is what. I have been summoned to administer to the Commander-in-Chief of the allied armies, John Churchill himself.’

  ‘He has been wounded?’

 
; ‘No, no, no,’ the doctor says with good-natured irritation. ‘For the past two days, his blood has been so heated that he has been quite prostrate with the most violent of headaches. Apparently – and this is the most extraordinary piece of good fortune – there is a man in his company who knows of me and has extolled my experimental treatments of a whole range of conditions. When asked if I had ever dealt with hemicranial afflictions, this good fellow apparently could not say enough in praise of my liberal and alternative ideas.’

  ‘Who is your champion?’

  ‘Well…’ the doctor stops short. Perhaps he had not considered the question. ‘The hussar did not say.’

  ‘It must be Viscount Mordiford, must it not?’

  ‘The viscount? Is he here?’

  ‘I do not know, but Sarah said this morning that someone was enquiring about you, asking if you and I were stationed near here.’

  ‘Ah, well, that is the answer then. I cannot think of another person who could recommend me by name. He would have told the duke from first-hand experience that I am not a great believer in purging and bleeding my patients. Of course, it must be Viscount Mordiford. Yes, yes, how capital. Oh, I am so delighted that he is fully recovered and will be part of a most glorious victory.’

  Elen is equally as delighted but to cover her excitement she says, ‘I haven’t yet heard anyone describe Schellenberg as a glorious victory.’

  ‘No child. I have told you, Schellenberg was a forerunner. The great victory is yet to come and we have been given the opportunity to play our own small part in it.’

  ‘I am to accompany you, sir?’

  ‘Of course. I have no intention of treating the greatest general our country will ever know without my angel beside me.’

  Chapter 4

  By the time they arrive in Friedberg, dusk is falling behind the tall, sloping roofs, turning the terracotta tiles a soft pink. They are escorted through the streets and on to the duke’s camp, which lies just outside the town’s boundaries. Towards the eastern end of the camp, where meadows deep with ripe corn sweep down to the River Lech, Elen and the doctor are escorted to a much larger tent, standing among the smaller bivouacs like the queen bee at the centre of a hive.

  Elen follows the doctor in. A curtain, heavy with crewel work, flops down behind them and to her astonishment, she finds herself standing in a large room. As they move forward, she sees that this is the first of several connected chambers. Elaborate oil lamps glow on tables, candles flicker in stands. Rugs and carpets dip and rise over the uneven field beneath and campaign furniture of the finest quality is arranged within this first ante-chamber. There is a large desk against one of the canvas walls, spread with rolls of parchment, the seals broken.

  Two subalterns stand to attention as the footmen used to at Duntisbourne and at the back of the room, two men sit opposite one another, deep in conversation. She steps behind the doctor who inches his way forwards, fidgeting with his hat. The duke has his back to them. He is dressed in fine clothes and wears a fantastic wig, white with powder, curled and silky like the ears of a spaniel.

  The doctor clears his throat and she looks meekly down at the ground. Surely it is impertinent to interrupt the duke. He pauses and turns towards them. She lifts her eyes, eager to see if everything they say about John Churchill is true.

  She is disappointed. Beneath his finery, he has a rather long, thin face, his eyes spaced wide in the skull at the top of a bony nose. She had always heard it said that the Duke of Marlborough was an extremely good-looking man, even now, in his later years, but he reminds her powerfully of a sheep.

  He waves them away with an irritable flap of his hand and resumes his conversation. How like a member of the aristocracy, she thinks, to demand that she and the doctor travel all day because he suffers, yet here he is, up and about, arguing in French with the vigour of a man in full health.

  The officer he addresses has large features but his face is not displeasing. There is something about the upturn of the mouth and eyes that indicates this fellow has a humorous attitude to life. He wears his own hair, greying at the temples and drawn back into a simple braided queue. His scarlet coat is lined with the blue of the ordnance.

  The discussion is heated and although he clearly understands the French that is being spoken to him, he makes all his replies in English.

  ‘We cannot possibly attack Augsburg without increasing our number of siege guns. You sir, promised to supply them but now it is down to the English.’ No, she thinks, the man with the face like a sheep is not the Duke of Marlborough. ‘You have wasted our time with your hollow promises and we are in danger of having all our communication to the north cut off by Tallard.’

  The gentleman in the wig snaps something back in French.

  The ordnance officer flings his hands up in exasperation. ‘There is little point cutting off Max Emanuel and Marsin from Bavaria now that they have accumulated enough resources in Augsburg to sit and wait for Tallard’s arrival.’

  The other gentleman gets abruptly to his feet. He stares down at the ordnance officer for a few moments, his eyes following him as he slowly stands, returning his glare with a mocking smile.

  The gentleman in the wig is the first to break, sweeping towards the exit of the tent with such fury that Elen, certain he will stop for no one, jumps aside to let him through. The ordnance officer catches her eye and shakes his head. At that moment, a weak voice calls from the other side of a thick, embroidered curtain, which partitions off another section of the tent.

  ‘Blood,’ the man’s voice says, ‘a moment of your time.’

  ‘Your Grace,’ Colonel Blood says, going across to lift the curtain.

  ‘Come through, I beg you,’ the voice says. ‘I cannot stand the light.’

  Elen creeps forward behind the doctor and as Colonel Blood steps through the curtain, they slip around it before it drops.

  In the scant light that penetrates around the partition, she can make out a man lying on a bed, propped up on pillows covered in fine linen. The hair of his scalp is grey, close cropped and although his skin is pallid, she knows immediately that she is in the presence of John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough. The duke turns his head and looks directly at her before his eyes sweep across to the doctor. ‘Who is this with you, Blood?’ he says.

  ‘I have no idea, Your Grace,’ says Colonel Blood with some surprise to find he is not the only one to enter the chamber.

  ‘It is I, Dr Argyll and my assistant, Miss Griffiths.’

  ‘Thank God you have come.’ The duke struggles to swing his legs over the side of the bed. Although the light is low, Elen can see the stories are true. Even without the trappings of a wig and uniform, the duke is a fine-looking man, his eyes liquid black, his lips full and well defined.

  ‘I have been assured you can help me,’ he says to the doctor, before giving her an acknowledgement with a slight bow of his head. ‘But if you will excuse me for a moment, I need a word with the colonel.’

  He is clearly in great pain. He presses his fingers deep into the temple on the left side of his head, then runs his hand over his scalp and grasps the muscles at the back of his neck, straining his head up. ‘Blood, I have another job for that good friend of yours, Louis of Baden,’ he says.

  ‘Good friend? Pah! That man,’ Colonel Blood says, stabbing a finger in the direction of the exit. ‘He is a hot-head and a liability.’

  ‘He surely is,’ the duke agrees wearily. ‘I too am done soothing and parrying his short temper and Prince Eugene is suspicious of his close friendship with the Elector.’

  ‘There is little to be done about it.’

  ‘That is not the case. I have a plan for our friend. I am sending him sixty leagues further down the Danube to take Ingolstadt. He can secure another crossing for us in case we lose Donauwörth.’

  A canny smile lightens Colonel Blood’s expression. ‘The promise of a skirmish at Ingolstadt may tempt him. It would certainly remove a source of irritation from your
camp.’

  ‘Then hold your patience a while longer, Blood. But go now. I must put myself into the hands of this good physician.’

  * * *

  When Colonel Blood leaves, the duke struggles to lie back down. Elen would help any other man but she hesitates, wondering if she should touch a man so famous, of such high birth. He groans and she dismisses the notion immediately, guiding the duke back into the bank of pillows. She steps aside to let Dr Argyll come forward to hear his symptoms.

  ‘The pain in my head is almost unbearable,’ he says. ‘It throbs and pounds as if it will split my skull asunder. I cannot stand the light and the noise of those two arguing was intolerable.’

  ‘And have you experienced any nausea, Your Grace?’ Dr Argyll says.

  ‘I spent most of the previous day vomiting. Each time the pain was momentarily relieved but it returns with a vengeance. I have been a martyr to these abominable heads since childhood, but now is not the time for me to be prostrate and exhausted. All my limbs are heavy with fatigue.’

  Disease is such a leveller, she thinks. Here this man lies, surrounded by beautiful furniture, carried across the Continent for his comfort and yet he suffers just the same as a hop traveller, lying in a barn after too much cider.

  ‘That is not unusual, Your Grace,’ Dr Argyll says.

  ‘I am much afeared that when the French attack, I will not be fit enough to lead the armies.’

  ‘You will, Your Grace.’

  ‘You have a cure?’

  ‘I do indeed. However, even without one, I have noticed through my observations of this condition that, perversely, it is most likely to strike when the pressures on a man’s life lessen rather than the opposite.’

  The duke furrows his brow then says, ‘You are right. They seem to come just at the moment I have resolved a stressful situation and indulge in a little relaxation.’

  ‘Then you can be sure, whether my cure works or not, an engagement with the French will drive the wretched thing away.’