Although Robert’s heart was still pounding so hard he could feel the vibrations in his throat, he had enough common sense to know that the best way to protect Merry was to prevent the French from getting into Vimeiro at all. The fact that Sir Arthur had immediately planned the most efficient troop movements to accomplish that purpose and was already giving orders to start the counterattack further helped to steady Robert.
The trouble was that he could not believe there was enough time. He was afraid that by the time he got to Acland and the general set his men into action, some of the grenadiers would have been able to pass around behind the men holding off Anstruther’s counterattack and reach the village. He would save half a mile by riding across in front of Vimeiro. Of course, he would be riding right across the front of the oncoming French troops also, and if he were shot down. Sir Arthur’s orders would not arrive at all.
Robert was an experienced soldier. Under normal conditions, he would have known that the likelihood of what he was envisioning was nil and that the time saved by cutting half a mile’s travel on a fast horse could have no effect. But fear does very odd things to the mind. At the moment, every second seemed like a very long time, a period in which French troops could cover great distances and perpetrate unspeakable crimes. When Robert’s mount reached the easy slope of the base of the hill, he did not turn left toward the river to go around behind the sheltering buildings of Vimeiro but charged straight forward.
When he reached the Tôrres Vedras road he saw the main body of French troops in the distance, coming into the small valley along one tributary of the Maceira. They were too far away to be any danger to him, but Robert knew there must be skirmishers preceding the columns. The first shot rang out simultaneously with his thought as he crossed the road, and then another.
Robert used his whip to inspire the last ounce of speed of which Jupiter was capable and then drew his pistol. He did not really expect to be able to use it. He hoped the skirmishers would be too far away for accuracy with a pistol, and he had no intention of wasting shot and powder in a vain effort to discourage their advance. Experienced soldiers would pay no more mind to pistol shots from a galloping horse than to flies. There was a small chance, however, that a few men would be close enough to pop up and try to stop him. The pistol would be useful for that.
Several more single shots rang out. One was close. The bullet buzzed by Robert’s head like a bad-tempered bee, and he bent low, close to his horse’s body, to present a smaller target. Just then several guns exploded together, very near. Jupiter screamed, gave a huge convulsive leap ahead, and crumpled forward. Robert yelled, too, but with fury and chagrin rather than from pain. Nonetheless, his feet were free of the stirrups as the animal fell—it was not the first time he had had a mount shot under him—and he rolled away as the horse dropped.
There was a moment, as his legs tangled in the scabbard of his saber, when he almost despaired, for one arm was under him and the other hand carefully holding the pistol away so that if it went off, he would not shoot himself. He rolled again, closer to the kicking, screaming horse, working his legs to push the scabbard out of the way and praying that Jupiter would not get him in the head or break any bones. His luck in war held, and he found himself free and unhurt in the next instant.
His first shot was into the head of the horse. Even if the skirmishers were atop him, he could not allow Jupiter to suffer. But actually he was reasonably sure that the French were at least fifty yards away. Now the still body was also a defense, and he knelt up a little, looking out warily as he worked the reload mechanism on the Ellis repeater.
He was only just in time, for he had been wrong about the distance between him and the French soldiers. Three men were rising out of the brush hardly more than twenty paces away. Robert did not know whether they had seen the pistol in his hand and waited for him to fire, thinking he would not have time to reload and thus would be little threat to them, or whether they had only delayed to reload their own guns. He grinned, not caring which mistake they had made. Either was equally fatal.
Aiming carefully, Robert fired and grinned again as one of the oncoming Frenchmen went down and the others uttered surprised cries. Robert ducked behind the horse’s body once more to reload, this time with greater care. The Ellis repeater had a tendency to jam. But a single-shot pistol would have left him helpless now, and the Ellis was more than accurate enough for his present purpose, if only the French had not taken fright and hidden themselves in the brush again.
In ten seconds the gun was safely loaded. Cautiously Robert raised himself high enough to see and breathed a sigh of relief. The two remaining men had come on boldly, either simply determined to stop him from delivering the orders they must know he was carrying or perhaps thinking that he had had two guns and had now expended both their charges. Another man went down, the force of the bullet at the close range carrying him backward. The other man fired as his comrade was hit, and Robert was twisted to the left as a blow struck his upper arm. He exclaimed, more in anger than in pain, and dropped down, snarling as he heard a triumphant cry from the remaining French soldier.
All that bothered Robert was the temporary numbing of his arm, which was interfering with his ability to reload. He knew pain would come soon and that the Frenchman was either fixing his bayonet or reloading his piece, but Robert’s mind was on his own immediate problem. The shadow loomed over him just as the lever finally went home. Robert flung himself backward, flat on the ground, raised the pistol, and fired as the bayonet came down. The power of the striking bullet saved him, deflecting the soldier’s aim so that the weapon plunged into the body of the horse instead of into Robert, which permitted Robert to jump to his feet, knock off the man’s shako, and strike him brutally on the head with the pistol.
It was hardly necessary, but Robert had not realized the soldier was falling sideways rather than trying to pull his bayonet out of Jupiter. It was, in fact, the gun fixed into the animal by the bayonet that had kept the man upright for the few seconds it took Robert to strike the blow.
He went down with his victim but shook loose of the weight and came to his feet again to dash toward the banks of the stream. Several shots followed him. Fortunately, however, none of the Frenchmen farther back had hurried his advance, and no one was close enough to fire at point-blank range or to interfere personally. Robert could only assume they had been sure he was finished when his horse went down and three of their own men had advanced on him.
Once in the brush he was relatively safe from their bullets, and he ran through it and into the stream as fast as he could, ignoring the pain in his arm and the way the brambles tore his face and clothing. He was bitterly aware of his stupidity. Instead of saving time, he had lost double what it would have taken to ride the long way around. He was so concentrated on his self-blame that he was scarcely aware of the scratches or the increased pang in his arm when he tripped on the pebbles and stones of the streambed and fell in the water—he only gasped curses under his breath and struggled on.
The French had lost track of him in the brush so that he was halfway through the stream before they began to shoot at him again. His irregular movements as he slipped and slid on the unstable footing of the streambed made him too difficult a target, and he stumbled up the far bank and into the brush and small trees there without being hit again. After that he was essentially out of danger. It was possible that he would be pursued, but he did not think they could catch him. He was out of sight of the skirmishers, and they could not know what direction he would take.
Actually, the skirmishers had abandoned their interest in him once he disappeared afoot on the opposite bank. Their business was with any British force coming down the valley to oppose them. They did not know of Acland’s brigade a short distance to the north. But Robert had no idea they had given up, and he struggled on northward, keeping within the shelter he had found until he felt he must be just below Acland’s position. Then he came out of cover and began to
climb the rising ground, but there was no sign of the troops he had expected to see.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Esmeralda and Molly finished washing the dishes and setting the bedchamber to rights, and then there was nothing else to do. Although Robert had given her permission to watch the battle, Esmeralda really had no inclination to do so. Her previous experience had been very disappointing. Nonetheless, she did go to the church and climb to the tower since she could not bring herself to sit quietly sewing. This attempt to discover what was going on was futile because Vimeiro was behind and below the rising ground on which the troops were stationed. She could see nothing at all but the hillsides upon which only a few sheep and goats moved.
Exasperated, she returned to her lodging. There was nothing to do but sew, and Esmeralda decided to embark on an ambitious and difficult enterprise—a second riding dress. She had got as far as laying out the new cloth on the table when the first crash of gunfire came. Involuntarily she gasped and dropped her box of pins all over the floor. Molly, who had been holding one edge of the cloth, jumped also and turned her head in the direction of the sound as if she could stare through the walls.
“Whose guns…?” Esmeralda faltered.
“Oors. ‘Tis got t’ be oors. It sounded s’ close. Th’ others’d be fainter, dooller.”
Had Molly’s voice been more certain, Esmeralda might have been more reassured. Without speaking again, both moved at once toward the door and out into the garden behind the house. They stood still, straining to hear, but the sounds had become confused, only a few sharp rifle cracks stood out from a general roar of musket fire, dulled and distorted by distance and the hill between them. After what seemed a very long time, the sounds seemed to die away.
Esmeralda turned eagerly to Molly. “Is it over?”
“No, ma’am. Only th’ first charge. If we beat ‘em bad enough, ‘ey moight retreat, boot our men’ll have t’ follow.”
This time there was not the uncertainty that Esmeralda had heard before, and, indeed, she herself was reasonably sure that the British army had had the best of it, because if the French had advanced, the noise would have approached them and it had not. They waited, but not for long. Realizing that their petrified vigil in the garden was useless, they returned to the task they had abandoned.
Esmeralda had finished picking up and setting her pins as markers for cutting the front of the skirt when the second phase of the battle began. She and Molly looked at each other and then toward the door, but there was no sense in going out into the garden again. They could hear the thunder of the big guns quite clearly enough from where they were. Esmeralda picked up the scissors, which she poised over the cloth. After a moment, she put them down again.
“I’ll only spoil it, Molly,” she said. “My hand is shaking too much.”
The older woman smiled and held out her own hands, which were also trembling. “‘Tis a shame,” she said, “thit th’ hoose is decent. Oi’d be glad o’ some scrubbin’, thit Oi would.”
Esmeralda sighed. “I, too. I feel like running around and screaming—and much good that would do.”
Molly looked surprised. “Doos it take ye thit way, too, ma’am? ‘Tisn’t thit Oi’m scared—’cept fer M’Guire a bit—Oi swear it. “‘Tis jist thit Oi need t’ do somethin’.”
About to nod agreement, Esmeralda paused. There was a new sound, closer than the battle noises, and this one was approaching steadily. It took her a little while to identify it as the screech of cart wheels because other noises mingled with and obscured the regularity she had come to associate with the sound. Esmeralda started for the front door, but Molly caught her arm.
“‘Tis no for ye, ma’am. Thit’ll be th’ wounded comin’ in. Oh, ‘tis too near we are. Had th’ captain toime, he would’ve sint ye away, Oi’m sure.”
“The wounded,” Esmeralda repeated.
Now that the sounds were identified, she was able to pick out the groans and occasional screams that mingled with the screech of the cart wheels. She stood undecided for a time, unable to go back to a task that seemed so puerile in contrast to what was taking place, but afraid to thrust herself in where she might not be wanted. She did not think she would be sickened or made faint by the blood or mutilations. There had been accidents and injuries in her father’s go-downs and even in the houses, and she had not been overset, only truly sorry and quite willing to help the doctor. There must be something she could do that would be more important than cutting out the skirt of a riding dress.
“Find out where they are taking the wounded,” she said to Molly. “I am accustomed to nursing. My father was ill for a long time. I know how to give a drink or feed a person who cannot help himself. I could write letters for those who wish to say a last word to their loved ones.”
Molly looked very doubtful, but the truth was that she was herself eager for an excuse to go to the hospital area, not so much to help—although she was willing to do what she could—but to see whether there were men of her husband’s regiment there and whether any of them had seen or heard of him. She found the buildings that had been selected easily enough, and almost at once was hailed by a friend of M’Guire’s with a gory but not fatal hole in his thigh, who told her that her husband had come through the first attack without a scratch.
Much cheered by this news, she went back for Esmeralda, who had sensibly wrapped a sheet, apron-style, around her delicate morning dress and collected paper, a stoppered inkhorn, and several pens, as well as a cup, bowl, and spoon into a small sack that she fastened around her waist. Thus armed, she followed Molly, trembling a little because she grew less and less sure of herself as she approached the hospital area. At first it was harder than she thought. Wounds made by bullets were far messier than those made by a misdirected knife or ax, and Esmeralda did feel sick, but there was a young man, hardly more than a boy, weeping, and she knelt down by him and murmured soothingly, and soon she was too busy to feel queasy at all.
When Robert came out into the open about halfway up the flank of the hill, he stared around, feeling that he had been caught in a nightmare. He had been very sure of Acland’s position, having taken Sir Arthur’s first order to move to him and carried back General Acland’s reply. And even if Acland had been some distance off, a brigade of men cannot be confined to a small area. In any case, Acland would have pickets out, and Robert now realized that he should have stumbled on one of those as soon as he came out of the brush. Nor could Acland have been attacked, beaten, and driven away; not only would the noise have been apparent during the action, but there would be dead and wounded lying about. But there was no one—no one at all.
Unbelieving, Robert labored higher up the hill, trying to convince himself that Acland’s troops might be on the reverse side, hidden behind the crown of the rise. He did not believe it, but he was dazed and in pain, and it seemed to be his last hope. However, as he reached the summit, he heard the thud of artillery to the north and a low confused noise which he knew must be a combination of musket fire and the screams of men. Robert sank down, panting. He was too late. Acland had been instructed to act as reserve to Ferguson and those supporting him on the left flank. He must have been needed and gone off, possibly even before Robert started.
It was little help to know that his own foolishness had not caused the disaster. The fortunes of war… Robert shuddered. Death or rape might be the fortunes of war for Merry. He started to rise, again nearly frantic with the desire to go to Vimeiro to protect her, but his knees gave way and even as he struggled to get up once more, he remembered his duty. He must get back to Sir Arthur at once and report Acland’s movement. He gritted his teeth. Both duty and good sense dictated exactly the same action, return to Sir Arthur, who could order troops to fill in and play the part Acland was supposed to have played, possibly Fane’s reserve could—no, they were already in action.
Robert fought back tears and levered himself to his feet. It would do no good to anyone for him to sit
and weep. Sir Arthur would manage something, he always did. He started down the hill, staggering slightly, aware now not only of pain but of the fact that blood was running down his arm. That did not trouble him except for the fear that too much bleeding would weaken him, and speed was again essential. Yet if he ran, he would lose more blood. Crazily he thought of a line from Shakespeare. “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”
The moment the idea came into his head, the instinct to protect Merry personally, which had been suppressed but not extinguished, made him think of Vimeiro. He could get a horse there, or if not, there was Luisa. And Vimeiro was not out of his way. The strength of hope flooded him, and he began to run, but a crash of musket fire made him drop to the ground and look around wildly. There was no one near him nor any sound of bullets humming or thudding into the ground. Robert sat up and listened to a second volley and then to the roar of cannon. A broad smile took the place of anxiety and fear in his expression, and he began to unwind his sash. There could be no mistaking those sounds nor the direction from which they came. General Acland had apparently seen the threat of the French thrust along the valley and had acted on his own to prevent an attack on Vimeiro.
With relief, Robert removed his coat and shirt and leisurely examined the damage to his upper arm. His shirt sleeve was soaked with blood, and there was an ugly gash in the flesh of his arm, but the injury obviously was not serious. His coat sleeve, however, was a total ruin, beyond repair, the whole back of it shredded apart where the bullet had blasted a path out.
Robert clicked his tongue wryly. His one good coat, aside from his regimentals, spoiled. Merry would have a fit. Well, perhaps she could patch it. He wound his sash as tightly as he could around his arm, slung shirt and coat over his good shoulder, and started for Vimeiro, where he knew he would find a surgeon to sew him up. As he walked, he laughed softly. His arm ached, but didn’t hurt nearly as much as it had before he knew how slight the damage was, and he no longer felt particularly weak, either.
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