Every fusilier has fouled himself. ‘It is the gunpowder,’ Sarah says. They swallow it each time they tear the paper cartridge with their teeth. It opens the bowels. That and the fear. When she pulls away the breeches, some don’t care. She breathes through her mouth and flings their stinking clothes to the ground. Others try to hide their humiliation, grabbing at their belts as she struggles to free the leg for the surgeons. They are stupid with pain and fear. They cannot hear her, deaf from the musket fire.
The sun rises high in the sky and the heat beats down on the barns and still the wounded come. Her apron is stiff with blood and mud, her nostrils thick with the smell of death. She works like an automaton.
The men whom the surgeons cannot save are laid out in the meadow in the shimmering heat. Some writhe and yell. They cry out for their mothers. Some lie mute and trembling. Elen tries to scan every face. She knows his uniform by heart, the deep cuff of green against the scarlet. She dreads recognising the dragoons’ justacorps, but she longs to see it. And then, as the sun drops lower in the sky, she sees the cuff. It is green. The green of the Wood’s Regiment of Horse.
She is up on the wagon in an instant, pushing her way through the wounded. She is on him. The man looks up at her in wonder. But it is not Mordiford. This man has red hair and freckles. This man is a lieutenant.
Elen feels suddenly weary. The soldier shuffles a few inches to the edge of the wagon, his knee swollen to the size of a man’s head. An orderly comes to help, and Elen thinks, this soldier will know if Mordiford lives. She pushes the orderly away and helps the lieutenant down, taking him away from the barn even though his leg must come off. She must question him before losing sight of him. She takes her knife and snicks the buttons from his boot.
‘You ride with Wood’s Regiment,’ she says, breathing hard as she works.
‘I do.’
‘You know a man called Mordiford?’
‘Captain Mordiford? He led the charge.’
She sits back on her heels. A tremor passes through her body. She hears Sarah shouting for her, but she must know if Mordiford rides still. The guns are ripping and rattling and booming. She must ask, does he live? Why can she not ask it?
She shrinks from the words, too afraid of the damage they will wreak. She hears Sarah shout again, closer this time. She peels the boot away. The shot is lodged against the linen of the stocking.
‘Elen. Leave that man. His boot has saved him. There’s no wound there. Leave him.’
‘Let me soak his cravat and cool the bruising.’
‘Leave him.’ Sarah has her by the elbow, pulling her up and dragging her away.
‘I will come and find you,’ Elen calls back to him. She still has the shot in her hand. She breaks away from Sarah and shouts to the lieutenant, ‘Mordiford rides still?’
‘Yes,’ he calls back. ‘When I left the field, he rode still.’
* * *
The sun sinks lower. Elen’s neck is slicked with sweat. It trickles down her back, between her breasts. Her cheeks burn with heat. The din from the battlefield thunders and roars. The flies follow the wounded to the field hospital, droning in swarms over the dead and dying. The flies are winning, she thinks. They are growing fat on flesh.
She cannot find the lieutenant again. She finds others. She says, are the cavalry defeated? She hears that Prince Eugene is foundering on the allied right flank.
The cannons boom, shaking the earth at her feet.
She says, do you know a Captain Mordiford? She hears that the Duke of Marlborough is pinning down the French.
A ferocious salvo rattles and pocks.
She says, he rides with Wood’s Regiment. She hears the French are trapped in the town.
Horrible wounds start to arrive, different wounds. Men torn open by bayonets. They are fighting hand-to-hand now. How can he survive? He must be dead. He can’t be dead. She would know. She feels him. Every wound she sees, she sees on his body and yet he lives in her thoughts.
The sun is low in the sky. Surely night will fall before either side gives in, but as darkness comes, the guns stop and the screams of the wounded fill the vacuum. Just then, Sarah finds her. A loan rider has arrived with news.
Elen’s heart leaps. ‘He has news of Captain Mordiford?’
‘No, my dear. Not that. The French have laid down their arms. The French are defeated.’
Defeated. But where is Mordiford? She hears shouts go up. Someone close by, fires a musket into the air. The sound is so loud, she winces, claps her hands to her ears. Victory, and yet she is utterly defeated. She wants to crawl out of her skin. She cannot wait for news any longer.
‘Take some rest,’ Sarah is saying. ‘The worst casualties are on their way to Nördlingen. The fellows arriving here can wait a few more hours. Mr Barker is dead on his feet. He is snatching a few moments’ sleep himself. He will start again at dawn.’
The night is full of voices. Men bellow and bawl, their shouts loud now that the guns have stopped. ‘I cannot rest until I know that Captain Mordiford is safe,’ she says.
Sarah takes Elen’s arm and draws her over towards the farmhouse, away from the groans and the yells in the barn, away from the shouts of triumph and singing in the yard. She pulls her down onto a bench and gives her arm a squeeze. ‘You must be ready, my dear, for the worst. The Duke of Marlborough has had a glorious victory today, but they say the last few hours of fighting were especially hard.’
‘What have you heard?’
‘I think the cavalry were at the heart of the most savage fighting by all accounts.’
Elen stares up at the sky, at the waning moon rising above the buildings. She wonders if the halo around it is mist or smoke. She sees Mordiford in a sea of blue, a horde of French. He is slashing and cutting, scattering the enemy. Suddenly she remembers the tapestry at the back of the vestibule at Duntisbourne, the tapestry she hated, even then – a white hart surrounded by dogs, snapping and snarling, leaping up. She sees the stag, the strong neck, the fine head, the crown of antlers. She remembers the hounds tearing at the flanks, pulling the mighty beast down into the pack. She thinks, not that. Please not that.
‘I would know if he were dead.’
Sarah pats her hand. ‘Let us believe for the time being that your Viscount Mordiford is alive.’
Yes, that’s what Elen believes. Not for the time being, but for ever. He lives for ever.
‘You must ask yourself, what awaits you now?’ Sarah says.
No, Elen thinks, I see no further than this moment. I cannot get past the fever of not knowing.
‘Campaign romances cannot survive ordinary life,’ Sarah is saying.
‘I do not care what lies ahead,’ Elen says. ‘As long as he lives, I can be happy.’
‘Are you sure of that?’
Oh, Sarah. What are you doing? Let us talk about him then. He is my dearest subject. You would not give me this advice and counsel if we knew he was dead, so let us continue to pretend he lives.
‘If you mean to remind me that one day he will be earl…’ Elen says. ‘I have not forgotten. You think that a dairymaid should not harbour such an affection?’
‘We are all free to love whomever we choose.’
‘And free to long for a soldier’s return.’
Sarah nods, pats her hand. Presently she says, ‘Does your happiness depend simply on his survival?’
‘I know I cannot hope for more.’
‘I think you can, judging by his obvious passion.’
Her words drop into Elen’s ears like honey. His obvious passion, witnessed by another, believed absolutely. How beautiful a thought. Crystal clear, like water rising clean and bright between the pebbles.
‘You do?’ Elen says.
‘Of course. His passion, at present, runs high because danger is at his shoulder. But I worry for you. Do you want to be a mistress? There is precious little other choice.’
Elen feels herself beginning to blush with a smile she must hide, for the word alo
ne makes her heart accelerate.
‘A high-born man is seldom free,’ Sarah says. ‘He’ll have a bride already chosen.’
And there it is, the jolt, the crunch.
‘He has,’ Elen says, as if it is a nothing. ‘Her name is Lady Arabella, but he has been away from home for so long, I have no idea if they are still betrothed.’
Sarah gives her a look, sympathetic, understanding, but there is something else. Is it pity she sees in her friend’s eye?
‘Be careful is all I say to you, Elen. The brightest flames burn out the quickest.’
Sarah gets to her feet with a stretch and a mighty yawn. ‘That is enough advice for one night. We have done well today. You get along and rest. I will be here for the late arrivals. Find a bed in the house. No one will disturb you there.’
Elen takes a lantern but before she reaches the farmhouse, she knows it is pointless. She aches with tiredness but she will not sleep. Even if she could, it seems a betrayal. She must keep a vigil tonight.
She sets the lantern down and goes out onto the road. Wearily, she begins to climb the hill, thinking that perhaps she can walk far enough to look down on the plains. Although the night is warm and the moon high, she knows that the pale wraiths of mist that curve around her ankles will eventually wind slowly down into the darkness on the other side of the hill and curl around the twisted corpses lying on the plains.
A damp coolness rises up from the grass. She catches the sweet smell of countryside that has lain panting through a hot summer’s day and is now cooling; a perfume of hay, warm from the sun, blown on a lazy wind, but now tainted with the smell of smoke and sulphur drifting up from the battlefield half a league away.
Death is so close at hand and yet she feels an aching nostalgia for home, for those nights when she lay in the meadow behind the house, staring up at the sky, wishing for something to shake up her life. Back then she didn’t mind if it was a good something or a bad something. Either would have done, as long as it promised adventure. How she wonders at her innocence. Would she have wished so ardently for change if she knew that adventure came at such a cost?
She is only a few yards from the barns when she stops and stiffens. She turns. She knows something awful is about to happen. She hears the wheels of a cart on the road below. It stops outside the barns, the moonlight strong enough to see the orderlies gathering to carry the stretchers through.
She recognises Sarah’s silhouette, standing at the back of the cart. She sees her place a hand on the shoulder of one of the orderlies, then bend and peer at the soldier on the stretcher.
Elen stares down at the scene. She prays for Sarah to rise again and follow the stretcher bearers. She knows she will not. Her friend directs the orderlies to carry the soldier through. She walks to the foot of the hill. She calls softly to Elen to come with all haste. Elen starts to run.
Chapter 13
Elen lifts her skirts free of her feet and runs. She travels so fast down the hill that she nearly loses her balance, and lets go of her dress. Her strides are huge; she almost falls. She lands jarringly on the road and sprints across it. Sarah is heading towards the stables that run along the east side of the courtyard, the orderlies ahead of her, carrying the stretcher.
Elen thunders after them and bursts into the building. She sees a row of wide mangers at the back of the stalls, a few feet off the ground. Sarah turns, standing across the entrance to one of the stalls. She catches Elen by the shoulders as she tries to push past her.
‘Is he dead?’ Elen cries.
‘No, not dead.’
‘Badly wounded?’
‘There is a deal of blood.’ Elen feels her heart seize. Sarah says, ‘It’s not possible to tell how bad his injuries are until we have more light and can clean away some of the gore. Go now. Fetch me water from the well. Hunt for a lantern that still has oil in it.’
Elen hears a rustle of straw as they lift the stretcher up onto the manger and a sound that could be a word but may simply be a moan. He is conscious. She makes another lunge to get round her friend, straining against her, but Sarah resolutely blocks her way. ‘Go!’ she says.
Elen stumbles into the courtyard, snatching up a pail and going to the well. She hauls the heavy bucket up from the depth, grazing her knuckles on the rough stone of the parapet.
He lives, she thinks. He moves. He moans.
She is almost back at the stables, the pail rapping against her shin, the water spilling down her dress, when she remembers the lantern. She stops, barely able to control her feet. She drops the pail and rushes to fetch the lamp she left by the gate.
She gets to the stables as the orderlies are leaving. She clatters into the stall. The stretcher is on top of a wide manger the height of a table. Sarah is removing Mordiford’s scarlet topcoat. Elen drops the bucket, rushing forward with the lamp.
‘Here,’ Sarah says over her shoulder as she struggles to raise him and pull the coat free. ‘Hang the lantern up, quick as you can. Come and help me. Go carefully. He swooned again when I removed his boots.’
With shaking hands, Elen grasps the chain hanging above the manger, struggling to hook the lantern on. Her fingers will not obey. Finally the lamp drops onto the hook and she lets go. It swings away from her, like a pendulum above them, throwing fantastic shadows and shapes around the walls. She cannot catch it, cannot still it.
Sarah looks up and frowns. ‘Leave it,’ she says, ‘it’ll settle. Climb up and take the weight of his head while I slide out the coat.’
Elen clambers onto the manger. She has him. Finally, she has him. She slides her hand underneath his neck, feels the heat of him pressing into her, the dead weight of his head, his shoulders, as Sarah pulls at the coat.
With each swing of the lantern, Elen searches his face. His hair is filthy with dirt and blood, his skin glazed a horrible copper colour. Is it his blood or someone else’s? Black powder burns speckle his face and, as the light gleams and dims, she walks her fingers across his skin, searching for signs of shot. She finds none.
She clambers down, snatches up a cloth and soaks it in the pail of water. She climbs back up, starts to wipe away the blood and muck. Slowly the face she loves begins to emerge, the broad brow, the straight nose, the lips etched with pits along the margin. Once she thought him an ordinary-looking man. Now she thinks he has the most unique face she’s ever seen. Of course, the pox has roughened and dulled his skin, but it cannot spoil his looks.
As she gently wipes his face clean, she feels a great calmness wrap around her, bathing her, as she bathes him. When the blood is cleaned away she starts moving her fingers into his hair line. His scalp is hot, his hair catches underneath her fingernails. Beneath a wet rag of hair she finds a hard lump the size of a goose’s egg, the hair around it sticky with blood.
‘He’s had a blow to the skull,’ Elen says, ‘but I cannot find any shot to his face or head.’
‘Thank the Lord for that.’
Elen looks down on Mordiford. His eyes are closed, but the face she has longed to see throughout this endless and terrible day is here before her. The love she feels for him thrills her with a power that frightens her.
Sarah is busy unbuttoning his vest and confident she is unobserved, Elen lets her hand caress Mordiford’s forehead, her palm cupping his cheek with a loving tenderness. He moves his head. The lids flutter and slowly he opens his eyes, watching the steady swing of the lantern before coming to rest on her.
His voice is so deep in his throat she can barely make out what he is saying. ‘Am I quite dead?’ he murmurs.
‘No. Not dead,’ she says.
‘But I was in Purgatory and now a cool hand draws me through to Paradise.’
Sarah pauses between undoing vest buttons. ‘And who do you think I am?’ she says. ‘The ruddy ferryman?’
His eyes swing away from Elen and he lifts his head then struggles to sit up.
‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Mrs Barker.’
‘The very one, at your service.’
Elen slips down onto the floor and gently lays her hand on his shoulder, guiding him back. ‘Lie still,’ she says. ‘We must see where you are hurt.’
‘I hurt all over,’ he says, submitting to the pressure of her hands. ‘I have lain, God knows how many hours, underneath my poor Bucephalus.’
‘Aha,’ Sarah says, ‘and Miss Griffiths here thought you only had eyes for her.’
‘Do not joke, Mrs Barker,’ he says, lying back. ‘That magnificent horse was felled most dishonourably…’ His sentence is cut short by an involuntary but piteous cry that lances through Elen. ‘God’s teeth, woman! What are you doing to me?’
Sarah’s fingers are on his rib cage. Elen tries to push her away, but Sarah turns her back to block her.
‘What have we here?’ the surgeon’s wife says.
Before Elen can stop her, Sarah grasps the placket of Mordiford’s shirt, bending her head and bringing her teeth down on the opening. She spits out a thread and rents the shirt open with a mighty tug.
‘Stop!’ Elen says.
Sarah frowns at her in confusion. ‘You’ve held men down as their limbs fly, Elen. Don’t lose your nerve over a bit of bruising.’ Sarah probes and pushes. Elen feels Mordiford tensing and pleating, his breaths creaking as he tries not to shout out.
‘Your rib cage is mushy,’ Sarah says. ‘You have certainly fractured a number of ribs. Come, Elen, we need to make sure there are no more hidden wounds.’
Elen has examined the bodies of many soldiers, hunting for injuries lurking under the screen of skin and muscle, but now she hesitates. She’s dreamed so many times of running her hands across his body, of digging her fingers into the hardening muscles of his back; however, she fears her touch will reveal a wantonness.
Mordiford rolls his head to look at her, his eyes brittle in the half-light. Slowly she works his cravat free and slides it off as she has so often done in her dreams.
The Summer Fields Page 25