Most of the men were dead already, while others lay wounded and groaning in agony. Vevina could see ahead that the men were continuing to dig in the trench in the hope of getting their men closer to the second breach, but the French hailed bullets overhead like snow, and many were injured as it came down upon them. Vevina knew she could not stay there, for it looked as though this breach, like the others, was impenetrable.
While she crouched taking stock of the situation, no less than fifty men tried to break through Badajoz’s defences, only to be shot or blown up by mines. The tops of the walls were not only too high to reach without the tallest siege ladders, but they were all fortified with huge tree trunks encrusted with razor sharp blades like a lethal porcupine. Any man who got to the top would be torn to shreds, if the bullets didn’t get him first.
Vevina waited a few more moments until she had caught her breath, and was certain Stewart was not among this company of soldiers. Then, with a roar and crash she heard a third part of the wall fall in the distance, and her heart jumped into her mouth.
As she ran on, crouched low, dragging her weapons behind her, Vevina finally saw Stewart. Through all the smoke, and dark, a mortar flare burst into the night sky. She saw him in a blaze of light, like a conquering angel. He stood at the head of his men, and raised his sword. The breach was not very wide, but the wall had collapsed far enough down to make it possible for men to jump up and scramble over.
Vevina set off at a run, and as she came into rifle range, she discharged each of her rifles at the two French soldiers who were determined to stop Stewart at all costs.
Then Vevina charged forward with her musket, and killed one more. She reloaded one rifle as she ran, and shouldered the other musket. As she clambered onto the embankment, she saw the other men were not following Stewart into the breach.
She looked down, and saw that the French had launched tumbling stacks of burning hay onto the men. Those who had not been crushed or injured were desperately trying to put out the flames which had set fire to their uniforms.
Vevina could see Stewart getting closer and closer to the breach. Her heart told her that she could not allow him to go on alone. She ran on ahead, keeping low and tight to the wall, and shouted, “God Save England, lads!”
A few of her old comrades recognized her, the disbelief clearly written on their faces.
“Come on, the Major is breaking through!” Vevina cried, and mounted the wall. She shot yet another enemy soldier before throwing her musket away to lighten her burden. As she got over the top of the wall, she could see no sign of Stewart, and prayed to God she was not too late.
Then she realized why he had vanished. As another bundle of hay flamed into life, she saw a huge trench full of heaving humanity. Nearly all of the men who had gone over the wall first were laying at the bottom of a thirty-foot trench, many with broken limbs, others impaled on the bayonet blades the French had placed jutting out of the ground.
Vevina prayed, and saw Stewart struggling over to the other side of the trench by clambering over the bodies of the dead and dying. It was a vision of hell made all the more terrifying by the fact that he was alone, an easy target in his bright red coat amid a sea of blue.
Vevina quickly picked two of the Frenchmen off with her pistols, and then she had only one loaded rifle left, and her sabre. She had to think quickly. Stewart hadn’t been shot yet, but he had only his bayonet and sword, and even he could not hold out against the continuous onslaught of new foes.
Vevina called over her shoulder. “Thirty foot drop! Watch it, lads. Here, give me your gun. Gather up every weapon you can from these poor buggers, and start loading as if your life depended on, which it does. I’m going over.”
She grabbed the loaded musket from one of the men, and then took a mad leap at the opposite lip of the ditch. For a terrifying second she was convinced she would fall in, but she landed with a thud nearly at Stewart’s feet, and thrust upwards just as a French bayonet came down. Her attacker fell dead into the ditch, and the she was up on her feet, and shot the soldier who was just about to run Stewart through with his sword.
Stewart turned around in disbelief, blind in the darkness, and she shrieked, “Stewart!”
But it was no call of welcome, for another Frenchman had come up from behind. Stewart parried with his sword, but suddenly they were surrounded.
Vevina could see the looks on their faces as they recognized her as a woman in the darkness.
With a cry of “Vive la Revolution!” Vevina swung her sabre. Some of the soldiers were reluctant to take her on, but their hesitation was just enough to give her the advantage.
She thought of nothing but her relief that Stewart was still alive, and of her need to keep him that way. She slashed, parried, thrust, and still their reinforcements seemed to be taking forever. Fighting back to back desperately, the pile of wounded at their feet grew, and then Vevina realized she was alone. Stewart was pressing on into the town itself, and Vevina had little choice but to follow. She ran after him, and saw two men facing Stewart, both ready to attack.
Vevina shouted, “En garde!” and one turned to face her. She dived onto the ground and rolled, so the Frenchman’s blade swished viciously through the air as she came up under his defences, and ran him through. Then she switched her blade to her left hand, and killed Stewart’s assailant as well.
As she stood up panting, danger temporarily at bay, she could see Stewart’s face in the flickering light of the town, and heard him exclaim, “My God, Vevina, it’s you! What are you doing here? How—”
“Later, Stewart. We have a battle to fight.”
As Stewart’s men finally caught up with them, the town became littered with the dead. Vevina withdrew from the fighting once she was too exhausted to continue, and only when she was certain that they had carried the day.
But she was tormented by what she had seen in the trenches, and as the British soldiers became drunk with their success, and stolen French brandy and wines, she decided she had had enough of the war.
As she headed back for the breach, she stumbled over Mitchell, who was gathering up and loading rifles. As the mass of humanity still groaned and writhed in the ditch, her patience snapped
“Mitchell, you and some of the others, over here on the double. We can’t just leave them here to die like dogs!” Vevina shouted.
Mitchell looked at her as though he had seen a ghost, and then grinned. “No, miss, you’re right, of course.”
He grabbed several of the men who were still flooding over the wall, the last of Stewart’s company, and said, “Come on, we have to save the wounded.”
Of course there was no glory, and hardly any spoils of war compared to the wholesale looting that was going on in the town, as French and Spanish alike fell victim to the men’s joy at winning, but at least there there would still be some rewards out of the dead men’s pockets, and some comrades to save.
Vevina and the men worked tirelessly, trying to distinguish living from dead, and those who needed immediate treatment from those who could wait a bit longer. The men with broken bones were awkward to get out of the pit, but at least they could wait. Those with bad bleeding Vevina tried to patch up with her scanty medical supplies, which she untied from around her waist. She stitched and sewed until she ran out of thread. Much to her horror, she even had to perform several amputations in the field, using her sabre cleansed with only the flame from a torch, while Mitchell and two others pinned the unfortunate victims down.
She hesitated at first, looking to her comrades to make sure she was doing the right thing.
“Go on, luv. It’s the only way to avoid the gangrene,” Mitchell urged.
In the end she had been forced to bring the hot blade down with an appalling hiss.
Vevina thought she would feel relief at seeing the dawn, but it only brought home to her even more forcefully the extent of the carnage of the battle of Badajoz. More men came to help sort the living from the dead, and count the casualt
ies.
As Vevina stood on the battlements and rubbed her aching back, she could only guess at how many had died on the British side alone. At least four thousand, closer to five, of England and Ireland’s finest young men lay dead, and God only knew how many more wounded.
Vevina struggled on, determined that gangrene and blood loss would not finish the job the French had started. She sent endlessly for supplies from the surgeons’ tent, and was able to save many with her treatment.
Eventually Vevina had to leave her patients to the other men so they could be carried off to the surgeons’ tent, but she pressed on, offering her services to the beleaguered doctors. She worked on for the rest of the day, and though she took a very dim view of her own efforts, she was in fact instrumental in saving the lives of many.
Doc Gallagher told her this, but she waved his compliment away as meaningless. “It is the least I can do, Doc. There’s no need to thank me.”
“Not many women of your class and breeding would do this, my dear, and very few of the camp wives. Plus all the clothes you brought. You gave up your entire wardrobe for bandages. Men would have bled to death without them. Now if I may say so, Viv, you have done enough. Go and rest.”
Vevina tried to carry on, but he took the needle and thread she was shakily trying to use out of her hands, and said firmly, putting his arm around her affectionately, “You must rest. You’re in no condition for this. You’ll lose your baby if you don’t look after yourself.”
Vevina shrugged, suddenly weary of the whole disaster, but not willing to give in to the doctor without a fight. “There’ll be other babies. Pray God there will never be another Badajoz.”
As she turned back to her patient, her eyes met with Stewart’s across the crowded room, and joy flooded through her limbs. He gave a tight smile, and after gazing down inscrutably at her stomach for several moments, he turned on his heel and left without a word.
Vevina knew he was busy, and no doubt shocked at her pregnancy, but she wished he might have stayed even for a moment to exchange a word with her.
But she had little chance to worry, for yet another batch of wounded was brought in, and she worked on throughout a second night trying to save as many men as she could from the utter destruction Napoleon had brought upon Europe.
She thanked all the gods that at least she had stopped Samuel and spared Ireland such horrors, but all the same, it was cold comfort as yet more corpses left the tents, and still more wounded entered.
Chapter Thirty-two
Finally at dawn the next day, the third day after the taking of the great fortress of Badajoz, there was a relative calm in the medical tent, and Doc Gallagher called her over.
“I am given to understand by ADC Monroe here that Wellington wants to see you immediately.”
The ADC looked scandalized as he surveyed at Vevina’s appearance, but she had little time to change, and in all honesty really didn’t care what anyone thought of her appearance anymore.
“Right you are, Doc, I’m going.”
“And Viv, don’t you dare come back. You've done more than enough for these poor men.”
Vevina nodded. "I can see you have things under control now, so yes, it's time for a rest. But I shall see you later."
She followed ADC Monroe wearily to the waiting horses. He was a tall, good-looking man with sandy hair and a very upright manner at odds with his comparative youth. He was like a very formal younger version of Wellington, she thought with an inward smile.
After a quiet ride through the fresh air of the morning, Vevina suddenly realized she was achingly tired and bitterly cold.
As she rode along, a sudden movement out of the corner of her eye distracted her, and she was certain she heard her name being called.
She wheeled the horse around, and galloped over, to where she found Beckett lying under the body of a dead horse. Monroe helped her heave the carcass aside, Vevina’s anger and fear giving her unnatural strength.
“Ride quickly to the baggage train. Get his wife Martha Beckett, and hurry,” Vevina whispered urgently as she checked his wounds and waved frantically to the other men in the field for help.
She saw Mitchell in the distance, and though he saw her, he suddenly stopped dead, and scooped up a small figure into his arms and began to run.
Vevina gritted her teeth, and hefted Beckett off the ground and looped his arms around his shoulders. He was barely conscious, and could hardly move his arms.
“Hang on to me, Beckett, Martha’s coming. Don’t you dare die on me now! We’re going to see Doc Gallagher. He’ll fix you up.”
She was sure her back would break, or her arms would come out of their sockets, but slowly and inexorably she got him up onto her horse and managed to bring Beckett into the surgeons’ tent. There she found Mitchell gazing down in horror at the bloody young face which rested on the clean white sheet.
Bob’s eyes opened, and he screamed, “God, it ‘urts! I can’t see! Where am I! I can’t see.”
Vevina’s knees buckled with the shock and the weight of her wounded friend. Mitchell and Doc Gallagher caught Beckett just in time and laid him out on the bed.
“Don’t worry Bob, it’s me, Viv, I’m here now, you’re going to be all right! Just hold onto my hand!” Vevina pleaded.
“God, I’m blind! What am I going to do! No family or friends! Just leave me, Doc, I’m better off dead!” Bob shouted.
The blood ran in rivulets down his face, so much of it that she had no idea exactly where he was wounded. Vevina had to pin him down on the bed forcibly to prevent him from running away.
“No, Bob, you have friends, me and Mitchell here, and you’ve been like a son to me! I’m your family now! We would never have made it, me or Wilfred, if it hadn’t been for you, Bob. I’m not going to forget that. No matter what happens, whether your blind temporarily or forever, I’m your mother now,” she vowed.
Bob held onto her hand as the Doc removed the fragment of bullet which had lodged itself in his temple. Mercifully, Bob fainted, and Vevina turned her attention to Beckett.
“Martha!” he called.
Vevina held Beckett’s hand and said, “She’s coming, soon.”
“I’ve been trying to ‘ang on, see her one last time, like. I thought she’d come looking, find me. Viv, summat’s ‘appened to my Martha, I can feel it.”
“Sush, don’t be silly, Wellington’s man Monroe has gone off to get her. She’s coming,” she reassured the dying man.
Vevina asked Mitchell to have a look outside the tent for the horse, and then she heard a choking sound outside as the hooves thudded against the ground urgently.
Vevina ran outside, as Monroe lowered Martha’s battered body into Mitchell’s waiting arms.
“Fleeing French attacked the baggage train. They raped and killed the camp wives. I’ll get some men to help me bring the wounded,” Monroe, close to tears, informed them.
Vevina paled. “The baby, baby Jack!” she shouted, as the ADC started to ride off.
“A couple of women are still alive, and a few children. I must go help,” Monroe asserted, still shaking with the horror of what he had seen.
“I’ll come in a minute!” she called after him. As she reentered the tent, the Becketts were saying their goodbyes to one another.
“Viv, for God’s sake, my baby, you must take him!” Martha cried.
In the space of only a few minutes, once again Vevina found herself promising, “I’ll be his mother. Try not to talk.”
“Thanks for everythin’, lass, and thank your Major for us, and say goodbye,” Beckett sighed.
Then she heard the death rattle as he passed away peacefully.
Martha shut her eyes, and said, “Me too.”
The tent was eerily silent, as she and Mitchell stared at each other in horror.
“They’re gone, they’re all gone, except you and I, Wilfred, and Somers,” Vevina sighed.
“Dunno where Somers is, but we’ll find him. You go see about
baby Jack, and I’ll meet you back at Headquarters. All the regiment’s things will be stored there, and letters will have to be written,” Mitchell said in a choked voice.
Vevina nodded, oddly dry-eyed. She knew the tears would come, but as she tore out of the tent and raced across the fields to where the baggage wagons had parked, her only concern was whether the baby was all right.
She searched frantically through all the children laying on the ground in the hope of finding any still alive, and then went through the women in turn. So many familiar faces, made ghastly by death.
There were some soldiers among the corpses. They had given their lives trying to defend the women. Vevina gazed down at the ground for an agonizing moment, and then thought grimly as she crossed herself and knelt down to close the young man’s eyes that she would have to tell Mitchell she had found Somers.
Scars Upon Her Heart (The Scars of The Heart Series) Page 28