The rain stopped in the afternoon, and when the sun went down it left a sky bright with stars. They were up in a little valley high in the mountains, reached only by a few difficult tracks. The farmer and his family were poor, but kept sheep and goats and somehow eked out a living on land rented from Don Antonio’s family. They had welcomed the British soldier, their landlord’s sister-in-law and the two guerrillerros who escorted them up here ten days ago, and made them as welcome as they could. It had been an excruciating journey for Williams, jolting on a mule over mountain paths, and had left him flat on his back for forty-eight hours. When he woke from an exhausted sleep the girl had once again been by the bedside, waiting and watching.
At noon today El Blanco’s entire band had arrived, and although they posted sentries on the only paths in and out, the rest prepared to mark the coming of the New Year with a great bonfire, food, drink and music. There was no sign of the French near by, but from what Don Antonio said, the enemy had been pressing them for weeks, forcing him to keep moving. They had never been close enough for shots to be fired, but they kept seeing the French, especially one regiment of dragoons who seemed to follow like bloodhounds. They had a leader with them, who wore a much paler green jacket than the cavalrymen and had the shako of an infantry officer with a tall white plume. No one saw him from up close, but when Williams listened it reminded him of a similarly dressed man watching from the shore at Las Arenas.
‘It has been a bad month,’ the guerrilla leader said. ‘Just a week ago Jorge Hernandez and his band were ambushed south of Ronda. He was shot dead by a French marksman, and half of his men killed or taken.’
Don Antonio’s wife was with him, looking very different in a dress rather than her usual trousers and riding boots. The dislocated shoulder had been reset and in the last months her broken arm had healed well. She was still pale, and said little, but gave a faint smile when she saw Williams.
‘It is good to see you well,’ she said, looking at the ground. Her sister appeared, and she had replaced her breeches with a flowing skirt in bright red which stirred as she walked. Guadalupe embraced Paula, and Williams was close enough to see that both were crying.
‘I am glad that you are recovered,’ Don Antonio said. ‘I owe you more than I can ever repay, but know that you will always have a friend in Don Antonio Velasco.’
‘And in his cousin,’ Carlos added. ‘And not just because it is reassuring for any physician to encounter a patient who remains alive. Now walk for me.’ He watched closely as Williams took a few paces, and saw the obvious pain. ‘There you are, as good as new. Mind you, no dancing tonight!’ He patted the tall officer hard on the shoulders.
As night fell two pigs and a sheep were slaughtered and roasted over the fire.
‘Nothing to the years of peace, but still a feast to enjoy,’ Don Antonio told Williams, who was to sit beside him in a place of honour. There was a little cured ham. ‘You must try it, it is the finest in the world.’ The Welshman was watched closely as took the slice on a piece of bread, and it seemed that all the conversation and laughter around the fire had died down. The taste was rich, the meat tender, although he was not sure there was anything especially remarkable about it.
‘It’s good, isn’t it,’ Carlos said.
‘Very good,’ he replied as they continued to stare at him.
‘The best.’
‘Undoubtedly,’ Williams agreed, and that was met with a great cheer. They laughed when he refused wine and continued to drink only water. ‘My stomach,’ he explained, rubbing it. ‘Wine does it no good.’ They roared with laughter, but did not begrudge the foreigner this eccentricity.
Early in the evening someone produced a guitar. Carlos played well, and his cousin was skilled with the flute, and as the hours passed most were filled with music. Some of the men sang and others danced on a square of planks laid down outside the barn.
‘Come, sing us something English,’ the guerrilla leader said.
‘I know one.’ Carlos Velasco began to pluck out the tune of ‘Hearts of Oak’. ‘Come cheer up my lads, come cheer up my lads …’ he began, struggling to remember the words. Williams stood, steadied himself and then waited for him to reach the chorus.
‘Hearts of oak are our ships, jolly tars are our men,
we always are ready, steady, boys, steady.
We’ll fight and we’ll conquer again and again.’
He sang all the verses he knew in his deep voice, his Welsh blood coming to the fore as he relished the chance to sing to an audience. The partisans cheered, and began to join in with each ‘steady, boys, steady’, although not always at the appropriate moment. It took little urging for him to give them another, and he soon launched into the ‘Minstrel Boy’, letting Carlos pick up the tune as he went along. Then they tried to teach him some Andalusian songs and there was much merriment at his efforts.
‘Señora, please dance for us.’ The cry began and was soon picked up. ‘Please, señora, please.’
‘Don Antonio’s wife is truly excellent,’ Carlos whispered to Williams. ‘The men love it when he lets her dance for them.’
Paula shook her head and looked uncomfortable.
‘Please, El Blanco, beg your wife this favour.’ The partisans persisted, and the farmer’s wife appeared with a pair of castanets and a tambourine hung with bright ribbons. Don Antonio smiled and whispered to his wife. She shook her head again and whispered something back. The exchange went on for some time, as the men kept calling for her to dance. The partisan chief looked surprised at his wife’s reluctance. ‘Do not make me, I cannot.’ Williams was close enough to hear the whispered words and to see her distress.
The bells on the tambourine rang as it was flipped with great vigour, and then the castanets began to click. There were gasps from all around the great fire.
‘Jesús, María y Joseph,’ Carlos said when he saw that Guadalupe stood on the wooden boards, arms raised ready. ‘She has not since …’ He did not finish and simply stared, until the young woman glared at him.
Carlos began to play and the girl began to dance. Her face seemed frozen in terror, some small hint of what this cost her, and at the start her movements were stiff. No one spoke, and there was only the sound of her shoes on the wood, the guitar and the clicks and jingles as her hands twitched. Don Antonio reached for his flute and took up the tune.
Guadalupe danced, a little faster, and a little faster, and all the while the life seemed to grow within her. Her movements took on a grace that had not been there before. Williams did not know this dance, and could not judge the correctness of each step and gesture, but even to his untutored eyes this was something truly special. The partisans were clapping now, that rapid clapping which seemed to come naturally only to the people of the south. The pace changed, slowing and then returning at redoubled speed as her heels pounded the wooden planks. There was an energy, an agility, a grace and passion of a sort he never seen elsewhere. He watched, feeling himself absorbed by each beat. More than at any other time he noticed the fine form of this unhappy young woman. He watched when her skirt flicked up and revealed her shapely legs, watched when she spun, took in the shapely rear, out-thrust bosom, and the proud head and straight back and neck. On and on Guadalupe danced, no longer a person, but part of the music, and Williams felt his pulse racing, and if some of his thoughts were of Miss MacAndrews with her dress flying in the breeze or held tight in his arms, they were driven away by the here and now, by this music and by the lithe figure who stamped and whirled.
The dance rose in a crescendo, the men cheering as well as clapping, and Guadalupe spun and slammed her heels down. Her face was still expressionless, but perhaps this was part of the dance, for when she finished at last she flashed a brief smile at him as the guerrilleros shouted their praise. Paula Velasco wept, but only Williams and her husband noticed, and Don Antonio embraced her.
‘It is a new year indeed,’ he said to Williams a moment later, as Guadalupe retreated to the house,
refusing the pleas to dance again. ‘There may still be hope,’ he added. His wife was shaking as he held her close.
Soon afterwards they too went back to the house. Some of the guerrilleros were already rolled up in their cloaks and sleeping beside the fire. Others drank or ate, or sang softly as Carlos played to them. As far as Williams could judge it was well after two in the morning, and yet he did not feel tired. He sat and listened to the guitar and stared into the flames, struggling to remember his own world, the one outside these mountains. Thoughts came of staying here, of fighting the French by stealth and ambush, with a woman by his side who was beautiful and also a warrior as brave as any man. It was romantic nonsense, fit more for a novel than real life, and he despised himself for entertaining so foolish a dream at all.
He loved Miss MacAndrews, even if treacherous thoughts kept coming to his mind as he wondered about touching the skin of the Andalusian girl, of pressing her close, and clamping his mouth against hers. Yet he loved Jane and only Jane, even though he knew that he could not make her his wife and be with her. Guadalupe was lovely and kind, and he owed her his life. His heart swelled with pity for someone who had endured so much and had not been destroyed by it. He pitied her, was fond of her, and was stirred by her beauty, but did not love her. He was sure he did not.
‘I think I will take a walk,’ he said as Carlos noticed him getting up.
‘Good. A patient should get plenty of exercise.’ The former surgeon was showing the signs of his prodigious drinking and waved him a cheerful farewell before resuming his playing.
Williams was cold and stiff, and for the moment felt only a dull ache. He rubbed his hands, although the night was not really so very chill. As he wandered away from the fire, life came back to his limbs and the pain increased, but he walked on, trying to push through it. It was a truly beautiful night, and the absence of the moon made the great field of stars even brighter. After a while he stopped and stared up at the sky, wondering how anyone could see such wonder and not believe in God. He thought of Hanley, that clever man who said that nothing in the world suggested purpose let alone goodness behind it, and he could not understand him.
He heard the soft footsteps, but did not turn, for he was not sure what to say. An arm came and looped through his as she stood beside him.
‘You should rest,’ Guadalupe said. Neither of them moved, and they stood for a long while looking at the stars.
‘Your dancing is wonderful,’ he said after some time, wondering whether he got the compliment right. His Spanish was now good, but many subtleties still escaped him.
‘It has been a long time. A very long time, and I never thought that I would dance again.’
Silence followed, save for the distant sound of Carlos’ guitar.
Williams turned and looked down at her. ‘You feel gratitude to me,’ he began. ‘Gratitude because I was in time to protect your sister from the worst, and there was no one there to help you.’
She did not speak, but she pressed close to him and he did not pull back. Her head rested on his chest, her hair against his chin.
‘I am sorry no one was there,’ he continued. ‘It was wrong and it was terrible, but there was no one. Now you have helped me to live when I would surely have died, and you have cared for me as if I was a child. It is not love, not real love, at best the love of brother for sister.’ He hoped the words were right.
‘You did and you did not save Paula.’ Her voice was muffled, for her head still leaned against him.
‘I do not understand.’ Williams patted her head and tried to make the girl turn her face to him, but she would not. ‘I thought I was in time,’ he said.
‘For the first men, you were. They hurt her and frightened her, but you stopped them before they did more. Then you left another officer to guard my sister, and he raped her.’
Williams groaned, pulling away from her and feeling a pain greater than any his wound had caused. He had failed, utterly and completely, for as soon as she spoke he knew that she was telling the truth.
‘I’ll see him hang,’ he said in English. He was shocked to learn that Hatch could do so foul a thing. ‘Or if they won’t do that then I’ll call him out and blow his bloody head off.’ It was rare for him to swear, but he felt the anger surging within him, a fury that burned bright. Then all at once it turned into sorrow and pity for this poor young woman, her own childhood and innocence cut short in so brutal a manner, and now no doubt living again all of those horrors.
He sprang forward, flinging his arms around her and pulling her close to him.
‘You poor child,’ he murmured, ‘you poor, poor child.’ She pressed tighter against him, and he felt her tremble as she wept, and he almost cried because there was nothing he could do to change what had happened. He kissed her on the top of the head, feeling her wiry hair, and when she turned her head he pecked her again on the cheek, mumbling words of sympathy.
Their lips met, and there was a desperation, even an anger, in the way she kissed him. One hand ran through her hair, smoothing it, and the other ran along her back, but hers were at the back of his neck, pulling him ever closer.
Guadalupe shook as they kissed, her whole body quivering. Williams’ face was damp as the girl sobbed uncontrollably, the horrible memories all coming back. She gasped as if in pain. He tried to pull away, but her grip was so tight that it was painful. They kissed again and he was drawn back into the moment, grabbing her almost as tightly.
A shot echoed up from the edge of the valley, and only then did they part, the army officer and the partisan both alert.
‘The French,’ she hissed. They looked down to the southern path and saw shapes moving where their sentry had been. There was a scream, very short, before it was cut off.
23
The thatched roof of the barn collapsed in a great shower of sparks. Beside it the house itself burned steadily, flames licking out from the windows. On the coast the sun was already coming up, but the steep-sided valley remained in shadow lit only by the fires consuming the buildings. It was lighter on the ridge top, and Williams and Guadalupe found that they were no longer alone as Carlos and two more of the partisans scurried up to join them, crouching so that they stayed behind the crest.
‘You left this behind,’ the former surgeon said, handing Williams his sword. He had taken to wearing it even though it rested against his injured hip, forcing himself to accept the discomfort in his impatience to get well. During the feast he had unbuckled it to sit more at ease.
‘Thanks. I thought that I had lost it.’ He suspected that his pack with all his other possessions had either been looted or was burning away in the farmhouse.
Carlos shrugged. ‘Not much of an armoury between us.’ One of the guerrilleros had a musket and the other a pistol in his belt. Each also had a knife, and after a short discussion they gave one to the girl and the other to the former surgeon, who were both unarmed.
‘Has anyone seen my sister or Don Antonio?’ Guadalupe asked, to be greeted by shaking heads.
‘There may be more of us scattered over the hills,’ one of the men suggested. ‘The first I knew of it was the shot, but poor Ramón died to give us that warning, and then they were among us.’
The light was growing, and Williams counted seven corpses sprawled around the fire and the buildings, as well as a circle of a dozen or so prisoners sitting under guard. There was no sign of a woman, but there had been shots and sounds of fighting from all along the valley floor and there were probably more dead where they could not see.
Williams reckoned that the French had consisted of a full squadron of dragoons and three companies of voltigeurs, the skirmishers of a battalion and men chosen to move quickly and use their initiative. Such men had yellow and green epaulettes and tall plumes to mark their status as elite, and one of the companies also had the yellow-fronted jackets of the Polish regiment which had fought so well at Sohail Castle. They had come first, slipping forward through the darkness, and only the vigilan
ce of the man on guard had allowed him to spot them in time to give a warning. Then the voltigeurs surged through the defile and opened a path for a score of the cavalry to charge towards the bonfire. Another company had marched all the way round to seal the valley off from the other side. It had been neat and efficient.
‘Didn’t think they knew this place,’ Carlos said, ‘but we were wrong.’ He sighed. ‘Don Antonio will miss Francisco. He was very fond of that horse.’ All of the mules and horses of the partisans were tethered in a row, being inspected by a dragoon officer. If others had escaped, then they would be on foot.
‘That’s if he is alive to care,’ one of the guerrilleros suggested.
‘They won’t get El Blanco.’ Carlos’ face belied such optimism, but then reddened with anger. ‘Ramirez is with them.’ They saw a man dressed as a partisan riding a piebald horse with a couple of dragoons. He had a musket slung on his shoulder and was clearly not a prisoner.
‘Whore-bastard,’ hissed one of the men.
‘Don Antonio threw him out for robbing anyone whether or not they sided with the French. No doubt he is being well paid.’
‘We will pay him properly,’ the other partisan said, fingering the lock on his musket.
‘We will, we will indeed,’ Carlos said, ‘but there is nothing we can do here, so we had better go.’
‘Just a minute.’ Williams was staring down as an officer joined the traitor and the dragoons. The man was mounted on a grey, had a plume in his shako, and wore a light green jacket. None of the voltigeurs wore green and this looked like the commander of the force. ‘I am sure I know that man.’ He wished he had his glass to be sure, but there was something about the way the man sat and gestured that looked very familiar.
‘You can wave to him later,’ Carlos said, and led them off down into the next valley. They moved with care, keeping amid the scrub as much as possible, before climbing up the far side and then dropping down into a ravine leading to a path which climbed like a snake up to a big peak. They had not seen any French coming up the side of the valley, but that did not mean that patrols were not roving the hills. Williams struggled to keep up, and his hip complained at every step. Guadalupe clung to him, giving support, and he could tell that she needed the comfort of touch, afraid not for herself, but for her sister. She never spoke during all the long hours they climbed. After a while, Carlos became even more wary, scouting ahead every few hundred yards before he beckoned them on.
Run Them Ashore Page 29