Beat the Drums Slowly

by Adrian Goldsworthy

  ‘Mr Williams,’ she announced, ‘it is clear that we cannot move today. We need food – Mrs Hanks especially needs to regain her strength. We shall also need fuel for the fire. I will not let either her or the little one go cold. Most of all we need milk for the baby. I understand that it is often some time before the mother provides enough.’

  Williams was startled from his reverie. The boy had begun to suck his index finger and that in itself seemed such a truly remarkable and delightful sensation, even though it confirmed Miss MacAndrews’ judgement.

  ‘Well?’ she said.

  ‘Of course, I shall go at once, but …’ He lifted the boy slightly; the infant began to cry.

  ‘Let me take him.’ Jane sighed happily. ‘He can rest beside his mother soon.’ She took the little bundle and almost instantly the crying stopped. Williams stood beaming at them both. Miss MacAndrews gave him an arch look.

  ‘Of course, of course, I am going.’

  ‘Do not take too long,’ she said, as the child began to search for a source of sustenance on her.

  Jenny had been woken by the crying. As Williams left, Jane carried the boy over to his mother.

  ‘How do you feel?’ she asked.

  ‘Split in two,’ came the blunt response.

  ‘Would you like to hold him for a while?’

  ‘I’ve been carrying him for months.’ Jenny’s voice was weary and hard edged. ‘Someone else can do it for a bit.’

  Jane wondered whether mothers often took a while to develop affection for their infants. In truth she was more than content to clutch the tiny life to her. Going to the fire, she one-handedly collected a bowl of stew she had prepared with almost their last provisions. She took it over. ‘Have something to eat.’

  They said little while Williams was away, mainly because the mother had small inclination to discuss her offspring, while Miss MacAndrews could think of little else.

  ‘You should marry him.’ Jenny had insisted on getting to her feet and walking haltingly up and down the room. It seemed unwise, but she was determined and less inclined to follow orders than Williams. Jane was still surprised at her sudden pronouncement. She did not reply.

  ‘He’s good and kind.’

  ‘Was your husband not those things, Mrs Hanks?’ Jane was stirred to directness of her own.

  ‘Oh, in his way, he was kind enough. There are worse men. Dad chose him to try and keep me in his world, just like him and Ma, following the drum and never dreaming.’

  ‘Is that so very bad?’

  ‘Well, look what happened to her.’

  ‘And yet you would have me marry a soldier, who however good and kind may well get killed one day.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be here unless you was going to wed an old sodjer. Father or not, you’d be off sitting in fine houses and drinking tea. “Good day to you, squire, will you favour me with the next dance, and try not to stare at my …” ’

  ‘Jenny!’ The baby burst into tears as Jane shouted to interrupt the flow. Her pride at not being easily shocked continued to be eroded by Mrs Hanks’ directness. Yet there was something bizarrely fascinating about her image of polite society. She did her best to calm the child.

  ‘I do hope Mr Williams returns soon. The boy is very hungry.’

  ‘Typical man, never will wait for anything.’

  ‘Poor boy, never to meet his father.’ Jane once again endeavoured to change the subject. Part of her wanted the widowed mother to show more natural feelings, even at the cost of upsetting her.

  Jenny put her head on one side. ‘Well, he may, one day.’ She laughed at the surprise. ‘You don’t think it was Hanks, do you? No, this little lad’s da is a fine gentleman. Drunk off his head at the time, but I owed him a favour.’

  Somehow the revelation was less shocking than perhaps it ought to have been. Jane had now spent days in Jenny’s company, and they had talked longer and more freely than might ever have occurred in more normal circumstances. Apart from that, she had overheard a few conversations among the officers which hinted at such things.

  To her relief, Williams came in at the perfect moment to permit them to drop the subject. He had ridden in search of an occupied farm or village. The first one he found was empty, and although there were two skinny cows and a calf in a byre he had decided to keep this as an ultimate reserve, in case he did no better elsewhere. Riding on, he had come to a cluster of five or six houses. There was no sign of any men, but women came to the doors. With some difficulty, he established himself as English, in need of food. With considerably more effort, involving a prolonged mime, which produced only laughter and confusion, followed by pointing at a baby in the arms of one of the women, which provoked a fear of kidnap, he was finally able to explain that there was also a child to be fed. The people were poor. They were also extremely generous. He suspected that had they been less distant he would have been followed back by half a dozen womenfolk trailing their own offspring in their eagerness to fuss over another.

  Apart from bread, vegetables, some smoked ham and a few eggs, all in a basket, he brought a jug of goat’s milk, which he had carried gingerly as he rode on Bobbie’s back. There were also some old but carefully cleaned clothes for the child. One of Jane’s gloves, placed in steaming water for some time and then pierced at the end of the finger, formed a makeshift teat. It worked surprisingly well, and the boy was soon sucking away with every sign of satisfaction.

  ‘Have you decided upon a name, Mrs Hanks?’ Jane felt this was a better topic for conversation, as well as an important step for the mother to take. ‘Perhaps after his father,’ she added automatically, before realising how inappropriate this was.

  ‘Well, I did wonder about Billy,’ said Jenny mischievously.

  Williams, who knew from the roster that Hanks’ name was Thomas, was puzzled. He also knew that neither Redman nor Hatch was called William.

  ‘Then I thought that Mr Williams here has been so good to us, perhaps I would ask if he would mind me naming the lad after him.’

  ‘That is most generous,’ agreed Jane.

  ‘But I can’t call him mister, can I?’ They both looked at Williams, who refused to catch their eyes.

  ‘I confess that I do not know your Christian name, Mr Williams,’ said Miss MacAndrews. ‘Pray tell us what it is?’

  The moment could no longer be avoided, try as he might.

  ‘Hamish,’ he said softly.

  There was silence, and then Jenny roared with laughter. ‘You poor sod,’ she said.

  Williams stared apologetically at Miss MacAndrews. ‘In every other respect my parents demonstrated the fullest affection towards me.’ His smile was thin. ‘My mother is very proud of being a Campbell.’

  ‘Now Campbell could be a good name,’ Jenny mused.

  Sensitive over such issues, Williams decided to protect the child’s interests before any damage was done. ‘Perhaps it would be fitting to name him after your father?’

  ‘He would like that.’ Jenny decided. ‘Fine, Jake it is.’ It seemed to end her interest in the boy, at least for the moment. Oddly, hearing it aloud made Williams realise that he had never once heard anyone call Dobson either Jacob or indeed Jake.

  ‘Jacob Hanks,’ he said aloud.

  ‘If you like,’ replied the boy’s mother.

  Williams was unconcerned enough not to insist on standing guard. He had seen no sign of the French when he rode out earlier in the day. They ate well, and after a few serious spells of crying, the baby became calmer and slept at last. It was early, but they were all exhausted in their way. Jane was twice woken when little Jacob stirred, and heard the child’s mother hushing him back to peace before she dropped off to sleep again. Williams slept heavily, oblivious to even these small noises.

  Jane woke first, and when she had waited and was sure, she stole over to Williams and looked for a long while at the baby resting beside him. Gently at first but, when this seemed to achieve nothing, somewhat more forcibly, she shook the man’s arm
to wake him.

  ‘Mrs Hanks has gone,’ she whispered as soon as she saw sense come into his eyes. Little Jake began to cry.

  13

  It was a strange procession. The man led, walking ahead of a scrawny, one-eyed horse on which the woman with a baby was perched. The man wore a red coat, although it did not fit him very well, and it had brass shoulder wings, one of which was badly mangled. This suggested that he was an officer, and if the strange misshapen hat appeared to contradict this, then he certainly wore a sword like an officer. The red jacket suggested an Englishman. It also seemed unlikely that the leading French patrols would have a mother and child in tow.

  ‘I keep looking around for the kings,’ joked the Spanish captain to his lieutenant.

  ‘We’re a few days early,’ responded the junior officer automatically. ‘And I reckon we’ll see an emperor first.’

  ‘Yes. And not bringing any gifts we’d care for.’ They were the rearguard of the Army of Galicia, and General La Romana had left this brigade to hold the bridge at Mansilla. The captain knew a hopeless task when he saw one. He commanded the remnants of a regiment which now numbered scarcely two hundred men combined into a single battalion. Barely half wore the white coats with green front and facings, still less the cocked hats and red plumes in which the full regiment had paraded at the start of the year. The uniforms were threadbare and patched, but at least recognisable. The remainder of his men still wore the remnants of their civilian clothes, with just a red rag tied around their left arm to mark them as soldiers. All of his men had muskets, and that was something in this army these days, but the flints were poor and none of them had more than twenty rounds in their pouches. This was the second day when they had had no food apart from the little they could dig up. They had had no hot food for a week.

  Both officers had been among the men rescued by the Royal Navy from Denmark. The captain had also lost a brother at Trafalgar, but preferred to remember the more recent friendliness of the English, and his far deeper loathing for the French. He and his men waited, and did their duty. The old soldiers among them must have known as he did that they could not withstand any serious French attack.

  The sentry challenged them, prompting the redcoat to call out ‘Amigos!’ in such an atrocious accent that it farther convinced the captain that this strange couple must be English. He waved at the soldier to bring them over. A few words of English learned on the voyage from Denmark, combined with even fewer words of Spanish from the new arrivals, were enough to confirm that this was an English officer cut off from his own army and seeking to rejoin them. The captain assumed the young woman was the man’s wife and could not help envying him. To see such a gloriously beautiful girl on so grey and hopeless a day was an unlooked-for and precious joy. His own wife was in Saragossa, and he did not know whether she had survived the siege of the city earlier in the year. Yet when he watched his lieutenant lead the couple away towards the bridge he envied the man even more the freedom to leave.

  Williams was pleased to have reached Mansilla before the French, and even happier with the sense that they were now with allies. It was the same day that Jenny had absconded, and somehow her disappearance made them both feel more vulnerable. As they came closer to the town, the landscape seemed less empty and more hostile. They saw no enemy soldiers, but one stretch of mud road was pitted with many prints from shod horses, and Williams suspected that they were French, and heading towards Mansilla. He said nothing to Miss MacAndrews, but he feared that the French already held the bridge, and for a moment he had despaired because he could see no other way of them ever reaching the British Army again. They waited for a while, and the pace slowed as he tried to avoid open ground and stay under cover.

  The Spanish lieutenant was friendly, in obvious awe and adoration of Miss MacAndrews, but communication proved difficult and they said little as he took them through the Spanish lines. A few shallow ditches and earthworks had been constructed. Williams was scornful when he saw most of the allied soldiers sitting and watching while only a few dug, and then he realised that there were no spades or tools for others to use. Apart from that, the soldiers looked weak and emaciated. Some shivered as they sat or crouched, staring hollow eyed at nothing.

  ‘Typhus fever,’ said the lieutenant as he noticed the British officer’s gaze. Williams resolved to get Miss MacAndrews and young Jacob away from this place as soon as possible, and not stop to rest and search for something to eat as he had planned. The hope of finding another mount now seemed hopeless. He had not seen a single horse as they went through the Spanish lines and camp. If he had been able to find the words to ask the lieutenant, he would have been told that the Army of Galicia had no cavalry, or at least none with horses to ride.

  Capitaine Dalmas was not at all surprised at the absence of any Spanish cavalry screen, and happily profited from it. Taking just two lancers with him, he scouted the approach to the town, while the rest of the mixed squadron waited a few miles short of the enemy outposts. At one point he caught a glimpse of the English officer and a woman riding a mule. Dalmas and his two men were in the shelter of a treeline, looking down a ridge at the little figures. He did not need to learn the way from them, since he already knew where Mansilla lay, but it had amused him to see how they stuck to the least visible path. Most of the same route was suitable for his own men. Sending one lancer back, he summoned the squadron to follow him. As he watched the English officer and his woman reach the Spanish outposts, he knew that his men were arriving in a narrow valley just behind him. There they were invisible to the Spanish. Foot patrols were unlikely, and the enemy had no horsemen, so his men should be safe from discovery.

  Dalmas knew that Marshal Soult’s army was near, and that an attack was planned for today. He was well placed, almost behind the far right flank of the enemy position, ready to join the fighting if an opportunity presented itself. It was a curious chance that these same English had crossed his path again, but he dismissed that thought as he dismissed them. Instead he thought of possibilities, balancing what he might achieve with the cost to his command and its influence on his ability to fulfil his orders. It was the sort of problem Jean-Baptiste Dalmas loved.

  After half an hour Williams and Miss MacAndrews were crossing the stone bridge at Mansilla, having waved goodbye to their guide. The British officer could not see any sign that the bridge was ready to be demolished and had small confidence in this rearguard’s ability to hold it for long. It was yet another reason to press on. At the end of an hour they were climbing up the slope to the ridge.

  ‘Why not take the road?’ asked Miss MacAndrews. They had spoken little all day, and he knew that she felt he should have gone hunting for Mrs Hanks, instead of pressing on as if nothing had happened.

  ‘Our army is over there.’ He pointed with a confidence he did not feel to the north-west. ‘The road takes us a long way out of our way. It’s also clogged up with the Spanish baggage and stragglers.’ He did not add that he wished to be as far away as possible from the disease-ridden soldiers, or that he feared the road would soon be full of French cavalry, chopping mercilessly down with their sabres.

  ‘I do not believe that I could have found Jenny quickly,’ he said, beginning the explanation he had rehearsed in his head. ‘She had a head start, and that mule is surprisingly fast.’

  ‘Could she really travel far or fast so soon after her confinement?’ The reply came quickly, suggesting that Miss MacAndrews had also been thinking of what she would say.

  ‘I confess to know little of such things.’ To himself he added that he rather doubted whether she did either. Part of him resented the unkind fate which seemed to make Miss MacAndrews freshly angry with him just when he felt that their friendship was deepening. Who was that Greek fellow in the myths who had to keep on rolling a boulder up a hill? Tantalus? No, he was the one unable to drink or eat. It annoyed him that he could not remember.

  Williams did his very best to sound reasonable, and, he hoped, persuasive. �
��She could have gone in any direction. To search would have meant taking Bobbie away and leaving you and the baby on your own – perhaps for many hours.’

  Jane said nothing, and Williams was unsure whether she approved of his concern or resented his judgement of her inability to fend for herself and protect the child.

  ‘The French were nearer than we thought, so the risk was even greater,’ he added.

  ‘It remains a puzzle to me why she left. How could anyone abandon such a dear little child?’ On cue the baby began to scream hungrily. Miss MacAndrews held out the glove for Williams to fill from the bottle of milk he carried. The officer pulled the cork from the mouth of the green bottle and began to pour. He had washed the bottle as thoroughly as possible, but there was still the faint scent of ardent spirits.

  He grimaced. ‘I begin to fear that we may be raising a drunkard,’ he said, and was pleased to be rewarded with a smile. He handed back the glove, but the task of balancing on the awkward saddle and feeding the boy while still steering Bobbie defeated the girl. Williams took the reins, in spite of her protests, and led the mare on up the slope. Once again he was depressed by the thought of angering Miss MacAndrews.

  ‘Perhaps she was temporarily deranged?’ Jane said as the baby sucked contentedly on the finger of the glove. One fear had been nagging at her all morning since they had left. ‘What if Mrs Hanks comes to her senses and returns? How could she ever find us and her son?’

  Williams paused, wondering how to explain, for in the last months he felt that he had come to know Jenny well. ‘I do not believe that she intends to return.’

  His certainty was obvious, but Jane was unconvinced. She could not imagine abandoning any child, still less a helpless infant. ‘It would be most unnatural for a mother not to feel the deepest bond with her child. Perhaps not immediately, but I cannot believe that it would not swiftly grow in Mrs Hanks. For all her ways, she struck me as kind.’