The mist was thinning. He felt the warmth of the sun on his back as he walked. As the haze lifted, so the full horror of the battlefield was revealed. The sight of the dead was enough to sour a man’s soul for eternity, but worse still was the wounded, the men who had survived the night and now faced the dawn with hope of salvation.
Most lay still, but he felt their eyes following him. A man wearing the uniform of the Zouaves stared at him as he approached. He looked like a living ghost, his skin the colour of ash. As Jack came closer, he shook with agitation and his lips moved in a silent plea for help.
Jack ignored him with difficulty. He walked to the nearest body, a man who had been hit in the neck by a shell splinter that had half severed his head from his body. The ground around him was black with old blood. He peered down at the face. It was not Palmer.
He moved on to the next. It lay on its front, arms and legs spread wide. Carefully he wedged his boot under a shoulder, then lifted the torso so he could see its face. Sightless blue eyes stared back at him over a fabulous black moustache. It was not the man he sought.
He straightened up, massaging the kinks out of his spine. He tried not to count the bodies. He moved on the next, and then the next. Some were already blackening, the flesh swollen and hideous. Flies had laid claim to many, and he was forced to flap his hands over ruined faces as he checked each one for the familiar features of the man he had begun to think of as a friend.
‘God save us.’ He could not help hissing the words. He had come to stand over the body of a boy. The lad’s drum lay a few feet away, the sides smashed and broken and the skin peeled back like a torn blister. He had been killed by a sword stroke that had cut through his skull so that it was opened from crown to chin.
Jack turned away, sickened to the core. It was only then that he spotted a familiar shape lying on the ground a dozen yards away from the dead boy.
It did not take him long to reach it. The man was larger than most of the bodies left lying in the bright morning sun. He wore the uniform of the Legion, but it was stretched tight across his back, the jacket not well fitted to his large frame. Jack did not need to turn the body over to know who lay face down in the muddy grave. He had found Palmer.
It was the final proof he had sought. The last of Ballard’s party had been accounted for. And it confirmed that Jack was once again quite alone.
Jack handed over the last cigar in the box.
‘Danke.’ The Austrian Jäger breathed his thanks as he sank back on to the ground. He lay rolling the cigar under his nose, his eyes closing in silent ecstasy as he smelled something other than the stench of his own corrupt flesh.
Jack did not wait for anything more. As ever, he felt wholly inadequate when confronted by the men living with their broken bodies. The cigars had been a good idea. He had bought up all he could find, then handed them out to any man who wanted them. It was a small gesture, but he did not know what else to do.
The people of Medole were doing their best. The Lombard villagers had opened their houses, taking in the wounded horde that had descended upon them, the men from both sides given the same care. There were still too many to be housed, and so dozens lay under hastily erected awnings. Even the village church was full, every last inch of space now a resting place for a wounded man from the three armies that had fought just two days previously.
Jack tossed the empty cigar box on to a grass verge, then went to find more water. The wounded men had an unquenchable thirst. They begged for water constantly, and he had spent much of the night going from man to man with whatever cruddy liquid he could find.
‘Putain! Do not throw that away.’
Jack glanced up sharply and found himself looking at a man wearing a formal business suit that had seen better days. The man was dark-haired, with a fine set of mutton chops. He looked haggard, as if he hadn’t slept for a week. At that particular moment he was glaring directly at Jack, his expression stern and disapproving.
‘Do you have nothing better to do, Englishman?’ He walked across and picked up the discarded packaging before thrusting it back into Jack’s grip. ‘It is a useful thing. It can be used to carry dressings. Leave it near the supply wagon by the church.’
Jack took the admonishment with good grace. ‘Who are you?’
‘My name is Dunant.’
‘You’re French?’ Jack tried to place the man’s odd accent.
‘No, Swiss.’ Dunant considered Jack for a moment. ‘I heard a foreigner was here. The cigars, they were a good idea. A kindness.’
Jack offered a thin smile at the praise. ‘I didn’t know what else to do.’
‘No, no one does.’ Dunant plucked at Jack’s elbow, then steered him to his side as he began to walk. ‘There is no organisation. The men who planned this battle thought nothing of this, of what would happen to the men whose lives they ruined.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘They prepare for battle. They manufacture cannon and rifles, their minds focused on how to kill better, how to break more men’s bodies. They do not think what to do with those bodies. If they put half as much effort into that, then think what they could achieve.’ He looked at Jack, his eyes glittering with barely contained passion. ‘Think what just one hundred trained nurses could do. We are overwhelmed.’
The Swiss businessman led Jack across the road, darting through the procession of wagons that crawled along at barely walking pace. Jack had learned that they were heading to a hospital in Castiglione, although he had no idea how any place, no matter how organised, could hope to cope with the vast numbers of wounded being sent there. Officers, cavalrymen and infantrymen of both sides were lumped in together. All were bleeding, torn and exhausted, and all were still covered with the dust and grime of the battlefield.
‘Someone must do something!’ Dunant spoke fiercely as they approached the church. ‘This cannot be allowed to happen again. If the fools want to fight, they must be prepared to prevent such suffering as this.’
They paused as an orderly dragged a corpse across their path, its head bumping sickeningly against the ground as he hauled it along by the ankles.
‘Come.’ Dunant pulled at Jack’s elbow and they followed the orderly, who had disappeared around the side of the church.
Jack went reluctantly. He did not know why he had been selected for this lecture. He supposed Dunant needed to talk, to vent his anger and frustration. He did not blame him. He himself had fought in many battles, but he had never been forced to stick around to witness the suffering that followed.
‘There.’ Dunant stopped as they too turned the corner of the church. ‘Now you will understand.’
Jack swallowed the bile that surged into his throat. He was staring at a pile of bodies. It was like nothing he had ever seen. Hundreds of corpses, perhaps thousands, lay in a jumbled heap. At first it was hard to pick out the human forms amidst the twisted wreckage of so many lives. Then it all became horribly clear.
‘We don’t know how many we have put there.’ Dunant was moved to tears. He turned to face Jack, holding him firmly on each forearm. ‘We cannot let this happen again.’
Jack stared past Dunant’s shoulder. He could not tear his eyes away from the mountain of the dead. He shuddered. He knew he was looking at his future, at the fate that waited for him. One day his own body would lie in the midst of such a heap. It would be his bulging, staring eyes that would confront an appalled witness, his limbs twisted at impossible angles, his flesh distorted, swollen and black.
The noise of a commotion came from within the church. Dunant dropped Jack’s arms before bustling away. Jack followed, eager to leave the sight of the dead behind him.
The inside of the church was wonderfully cool. Dunant’s boots echoed loudly on the flagstones as he marched towards the source of the argument they had heard from outside.
A French Zouave was on his feet, his fists raised as he bellowed at four wounded Austrian soldiers lying on stretchers. He was being restrained by the slight figure of a French orderly, who had
placed himself between the enraged man and the target of his abuse.
Dunant strode into the melee without hesitation. He was a head shorter than the Zouave, but he got straight into the Frenchman’s face, calming him down before leading him back to his own place amidst some wounded comrades, the church once again falling into a respectful silence.
The Swiss walked back to Jack, shaking his head slowly from side to side. As he came closer, Jack saw the grey pallor of his skin and the dark puffy circles around his eyes. Dunant was clearly exhausted.
‘Such foolishness.’ He spoke softly as he approached. ‘That man, he thought those poor souls were Hungarians. Many of the French loathe them, something about their killing of the wounded. Whatever it is, it was enough to send him into a rage.’ He was still shaking his head. ‘How can man possess such hatred for his fellow man?’
Jack did not know how to answer. He knew hatred. He knew what it was to want to kill, to need to kill. The notion shamed him.
‘Come.’ Dunant was watching Jack closely. He must have sensed something of the turmoil going on inside the Englishman’s mind, as he was looking at him with concern. He took Jack by the arm to steer him to the door.
It was a relief to be led back into the morning sunshine. Dunant let go of Jack’s arm. ‘Thank you.’
Jack pulled a face. ‘You have nothing to thank me for.’
Dunant shrugged. ‘You are here. You are helping. I do not think you will get any other thanks for doing so.’
‘I’m not doing it for thanks.’
‘No.’ Dunant searched Jack’s face with his eyes. ‘You seem lost.’
‘I am,’ Jack replied with bitter honesty. He did not know what he was doing there, but he had nowhere else to go. He had once thought of returning to London, of searching for a man called Shaw. Revenge was long overdue, yet somehow the idea of another death now seemed tawdry. It meant nothing.
He thought too of Mary, and of going to find her to make sure she was well settled. He also thought of Ballard, and of finally discovering what had driven the intelligence officer to come so far to find the man he had known as Fleming. Ballard still held the key to Jack’s name and to his funds. A wise man would want to make sure that both were secured now that the mission was completed. But Jack was not wise, and he found that none of those things mattered. Nothing did.
‘You should go home.’ Dunant had said nothing as he watched the struggle on Jack’s face.
Jack snorted. ‘Home.’ The word mocked him. ‘I have no home.’
‘Then I pity you.’ Dunant reached out and patted his shoulder. ‘There must be somewhere you can go.’
‘No. There is nowhere.’
Dunant smiled. ‘Then you must do something. But make sure it is something useful. And no more littering.’ His face creased into a smile. ‘I am not going anywhere. Come and find me later. If you would like to help, I am sure there are good things you can do here.’ He turned away, leaving Jack standing outside the church.
Jack sucked down a deep breath, then reached inside his jacket. He pulled out a wedge of letters held together with string. There was an address written on the face of the uppermost letter, the thin strokes of a pencil just about legible beneath black streaks of old blood.
He picked at the muck with a fingernail. He thought about Dunant’s words. Kearney had handed him the letters. They had been the last thing he had thought of before he died. That made them important.
Jack peered at the address. It was a long way away, and it would be one hell of a journey to get there. But he had nothing else planned. He would do as Dunant suggested. He would do a useful thing. He would deliver Kearney’s letters.
The Battle of Solferino involved over 300,000 men. It was the biggest battle fought in Europe since the days of Napoleon, and it directly inspired the creation of both the Red Cross and the Geneva Convention. Yet to my shame, I will admit to having never even heard of it until I started researching this novel.
The story was first inspired when I discovered a gem of an article in The Photographic News for Amateur Photographers – Volume 2, published in 1859. In the June edition there was a wonderful article titled ‘Photographer in the Seat of War’, written by a keen amateur photographer who had travelled to record the conflict as it unfurled. This was all fascinating stuff, but when I read that the correspondent had identified himself simply with the letters J and L, I knew that this was where I had to set the fifth of Jack’s adventures.
It was only when I began my research that I learned that the battles of Magenta and Solferino had been fought on an epic scale. Hundreds of thousands of men took the field in encounters that were to leave nearly 40,000 of them as casualties. At Solferino alone, the French lost around 11,000 dead, wounded and missing, the Sardinians around 5,000 and the Austrians over 20,000. This truly was suffering on an unimaginable scale.
If you want to see what the battlefield looked like after the fight, then I would recommend a visit to vintagephotosjohnson.com. This fabulous website specialises in collections of photographs, many of them early daguerreotypes or collotypes. The images of the battlefield around Solferino are truly appalling and give some idea of what death on such an industrial scale really looked like.
Like many civilian observers, Henry Dunant, a Swiss businessman, was appalled by the slaughter. After the battle, he was to work tirelessly to ensure that human beings were not left to suffer in such horrific conditions again. His book, A Memory of Solferino, makes for powerful reading, and I recommend it to anyone interested in learning more of what occurred after the battle. Dunant was a driven man, and it was his efforts that led to the eventual formation of the International Red Cross.
The campaign in North Italy also played its part in the Risorgimento, the long, protracted and often painful process of Italian unification. The famous revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi was there with his men, the Hunters of the Alps, taking their place on the Allied side with the Sardinian forces.
The battles of Magenta and Solferino happened largely as described in the story. Any reader wishing to know more would be well advised to start with Osprey’s Solferino 1859 by Richard Brooks. I can honestly say I have no idea how I would manage without the Osprey books, and this one has proven itself to be one of the very best.
As ever, the needs of a fictional story necessitated a few changes to the history of the battles, and I would like to make note of them here.
At Magenta, the Austrian troops were driven back before they reached the village of Marcallo, but I needed Jack and Palmer to find some action and so I let the Austrian skirmishers get a little further ahead than they actually did.
I also have to confess that no account of the battle of Solferino tells us of the French Foreign Legion rushing to join the fight on the other side of the battlefield after their assault on San Cassiano. But heroes need to be where the fight is at its fiercest, and so the Legion reinforced the southern flank to join Bataille’s brigade’s attack, one of the last actions fought before the great storm put paid to the slaughter.
The French Foreign Legion needs little in the way of introduction. It has found lasting fame both for the bravery of its soldiers and for its fascinating design. I recommend The French Foreign Legion by Douglas Porch as further reading on the history of this most fabulous regiment.
The notion of an American serving in the French army is not perhaps as fanciful as many would think. My Kearney is very loosely based on Philip Kearney, a US dragoon officer who had served in the Mexican war and was awarded the Légion d’honneur for his actions at Solferino.
There is little mention of British observers accompanying the French army, but there is a single image in the Osprey history of the battle that places a group of them on the battlefield after Solferino, and so I felt justified in allowing Ballard his place. Certainly the practice of sending observers to foreign wars was commonplace at this time.
Jack is still alive, having survived another battle. As ever, he does not know where
the future will take him. He has undertaken to deliver Kearney’s letters back to his family, but America is about to be tested by one of the bloodiest conflicts the world has ever seen. Civil war is brewing, and Jack will arrive just as the first shots are fired.
Let’s see what happens.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
About Paul Fraser Collard
About the Book
By Paul Fraser Collard
Dedication
Praise
Acknowledgements
Glossary
Map
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
The Last Legionnaire Page 33