Tilly Trotter Wed (The Tilly Trotter Trilogy)

by Cookson, Catherine

  ‘Home.’

  The captain now drew Tilly aside, saying, ‘If his wound isn’t stitched up ma’am, he’ll bleed to death. We can have him in the fort within an hour and a half. Do you agree with me?’

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded wearily.

  ‘We’ll have to carry him by sling, but once there they’ll be able to provide a cart.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She looked around the room, then closed her eyes tightly as the tears rained down her face. And now she spluttered, ‘It was so peaceful, so beautiful,’ and the captain replied, ‘I have no doubt, ma’am, I have no doubt. But they have a habit of breaking the peace, in all ways they have a habit of breaking the peace. But I warned your husband this morning for there’s been unrest all along the line. There were a number of raids last week, and once they start they go on until their lust is dry, or until we manage to finish them first . . . Come, there is nothing you can do here.’

  When he put his arm out towards her she raised her head and looked down at her blood-smeared coat and nightgown, and now she said simply, ‘I must dress,’ and he answered, ‘Yes, of course, ma’am. Yes, of course,’ and both he and the sergeant turned briskly about and went out.

  She got into her clothes, all the while looking down on Matthew’s dead white face and inert body. And as she did so she silently asked, ‘Why should this happen to us? We could have gone back. I could have insisted. I should have insisted. But no, I seem fated to bring people to their deaths. Little Hans. But the Indians would have got him anyway, if we hadn’t stayed, or he would have soon died from the disease that was eating him up. But why should it fall to me to shoot him? Oh God, why don’t you give me an answer? Why am I plagued like this?’

  The moon was still high when they placed Matthew in a canvas sling and four of the soldiers carried him out. Then, supporting her, the sergeant led her down the steps and lifted her bodily on to a horse, and when he spoke to one of the soldiers the man mounted and rode close to her, putting his hand out now and again to steady her in the saddle.

  There was a numbness on her now and she had a great desire to sleep. Automatically she would turn from time to time to look back towards the men carrying the sling.

  The tiredness lifted from her somewhat when, it seemed eons later, she passed through two big gates and into a stockade and what appeared to her a confused bustle of soldiers and civilians . . . and Indians.

  Her eyes, wide now, focused on the Indians. They alone weren’t moving about, they were in one corner of the stockade, and when the soldier assisted her down from the horse she turned and stared open-mouthed towards them as if as much in surprise at seeing women and children among them. Some of them were lying on the ground and some were standing, but they were all motionless.

  When dully she turned to go towards the men with the sling two women came and, standing one on either side of her, moved her away towards some steps and up them into a room. This room, too, seemed packed. At one end were cot beds with people lying in them, their heads and arms bandaged. There were also men lying on the floor.

  The women sat her in a chair and one of them said, ‘Where are you hurt, my dear?’ and she shook her head at them, then pointed to where the soldiers were carrying the sling into the room, and she said, ‘My husband.’ The words came out on a rasping sound.

  Her throat was dry as if she had been swallowing sand and when one of the women said, ‘Drink this,’ she gulped at the water, then pushing the women aside, she now stumbled up to where they had laid Matthew on the floor. It was near a table on which a man was working. She noted he was wearing a rubber apron and that every part of him seemed covered in blood, even his face, and when he looked down towards the sling his voice was a growl as he said, ‘What’s it here now?’

  As she went to say this was her husband who was very ill, the captain came to the table and drew the man to one side.

  A few minutes later they lifted a still form off the table and put Matthew on to it.

  The women were at her side again. One had a very soft voice and she said, ‘Come, my dear. Come.’

  ‘No! No!’ Her old strength was back in her arms and she thrust them forcibly from her, much to their surprise, and watched the sheeting being unwound from Matthew’s body. And when the man pulled the pad away and unwound the last binding and she looked on the great, gaping hole she closed her eyes tightly for a moment; then they sprang open again as the man said, ‘I can do nothing with this; let’s have it off.’

  When she saw him lift the chopper, an ordinary chopper, it was as if the Indians had come back to finish the job they had started, and when it came down through the remainder of the bone and Matthew’s arm fell to the ground she let out a high, piercing scream and went to rush forward, but there were arms about her and she was literally carried down the room. When she screamed again someone poured something down her throat and the soothing voice said, ‘There now. There now, my dear. He couldn’t feel it, he was unconscious.’

  She was gulping on the liquid that was still being poured into her mouth. She prayed to God to make her faint again but He didn’t answer her prayer, instead He made her vomit. The good meal that she had eaten the night before, the main dish of which had been roast hog, came bursting up; but when her retching was over they again poured something down her throat.

  After a while she became quiet inside, but she fought against it because this was no time to sleep, she must be with Matthew. Matthew! Matthew! Oh, my love. My love. His father had lost both feet and now he had lost his arm.

  Why God? Why?

  She was lying on a bed when she awoke. The sun was streaming through a small square of window. She lay looking about her; the quietness was still on her, yet she was aware of all that had happened.

  A door opened and a woman entered. She was tall and thin, almost as tall as herself she noted, and she recognised her voice when she spoke. ‘There you are, my dear,’ she said. ‘Do you feel rested?’

  Tilly stared up at her. There were questions in her mind, words in her mouth, but somehow she couldn’t get them through her lips. When the hand came on her head and stroked her hair and the voice said, ‘Your husband has regained consciousness,’ she came up in the bed like a spring; but the woman held her by the shoulder, saying, ‘Now, now, he’s all right. He has lost a great deal of blood and he is very weak, but otherwise he’s all right.’

  ‘You are sure?’

  ‘Yes, yes. I am sure. Now if you would like to refresh yourself you will find everything you need inside there.’ She pointed to a door. ‘When you’re ready you might eat a little breakfast; and then you can go to him.’

  ‘I . . . I couldn’t eat, but . . . but I must see him.’

  ‘You will see him, dear. Come.’ She helped her from the bed, then again pointed to the door.

  The room was a sort of closet, not unlike the one back in the nursery of the Manor. A bucket stood underneath a wooden framework on which was a round seat; there was a bench holding a basin and jug, also a table with a small mirror on it.

  The table was opposite the lavatory seat and whilst she sat she looked at the face staring back at her. There was no recognition in the eyes. She seemed to be looking at an old woman, an eyeless old woman with great dark sockets where the pupils had been.

  When she came out of the room the woman was waiting for her. She had put a tray on the foot of the bed and Tilly, looking at it, shook her head, then said, ‘Thank you, but . . . but I couldn’t eat anything.’

  ‘Well, drink this coffee.’

  She had merely sipped at the coffee when she said, ‘Please, please, let me see him.’

  The woman hesitated for a moment, then on a gentle sigh she said, ‘Come along then.’

  She remembered the room with the cot beds in it and the table at the end of it and, too, the man in the rubber apron, but she didn’t remember the smell; it was a mixture of blood and sweat and singed hair.

  The man was still at the table, but he had a cl
ean apron on and his face was no longer spattered with blood. He glanced towards her but said nothing, and the woman turned her gently and led her to a cot at the end of the room. Now she was looking down on a man who had changed as much as she had in the last twelve hours.

  Matthew had his eyes open. The colour of them was the only recognisable thing about him. She leant forward and her face hung above his for what seemed an interminable time, then gently she laid her lips against his. But there was no pressure from them. When she raised her head his lips moved and he whispered, ‘Tilly.’

  ‘Oh, my love.’ Her words weren’t even audible to herself, her throat was dry, she felt she was about to choke.

  ‘Tilly.’

  ‘Yes, my dear?’

  ‘Home.’

  ‘Yes, my dear, we’re going home. Lie quiet now, we’re going home.’

  She slowly raised herself upwards and was about to turn to the woman at her side when the voice of the doctor rasped through the room, saying, ‘Let the filthy buggers wait. If I had my way I’d burn the lot this minute right in the compound, there, and slowly. Aye, slowly.’

  There were a number of people attending to the wounded and they all stopped what they were doing and looked towards the table. A man in uniform was speaking to the doctor. His voice was low so that what he said did not reach the listeners; but the doctor’s reply to him did, and what he cried now was, ‘Sanctions, treaties, what do they know those sitting on their backsides down there? Tell them to come out here and they’ll damn soon see what their sanctions and treaties are worth . . . Sanctions and treaties!’ He actually spat the last words.

  Now the officer’s voice was louder and stiff as he said, ‘They need attention. Because they act like savages it doesn’t mean we’ve got to retaliate in the same way. Shoot them, yes, but don’t let them die in agony.’

  ‘Oh, away with you! Don’t talk such bloody claptrap to me! Die in agony, you said.’ The doctor’s hand holding an implement on which the sun glinted flashed in the air for a moment, then as he bent over the patient on the table he cried, ‘Sometimes I wonder which side the bloody army’s on. The Rangers don’t ask questions, they act.’

  ‘You’ll hear more about this.’ The words were low and muttered, and the officer now turned abruptly and marched towards the door where a soldier smartly opened it, and his last words were not inaudible but plain for all to hear as he said, ‘Drunken fool!’

  When Tilly looked at the woman at her side who had her head bent low she paused for a long moment before she asked her, ‘Who . . . who am I to see for a conveyance?’

  The woman slowly raised her head and for the first time Tilly saw that she, too, looked old. Yet she was younger than herself. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said; ‘he’s . . . he’s worn out, my husband’s worn out. Two days and nights he’s been working with hardly a rest.’

  A doctor’s wife in this place, in this shambles of a place. She glanced now towards the still form on the bed. Matthew’s eyes were closed. She herself was here in this shambles because of love for a man, and this girl, for she was little more than a girl, was here too because of love for her man. Love. Love was a chain that dragged you through pity and compassion to places like this.

  The young woman had hold of her arm again and was leading her out of the room. And now she was in the stockade and seeing it really for the first time. A large space surrounded by a stout high wall of timbers, just below the top of which ran a platform and on it dotted here and there were soldiers. The stockade itself was buzzing with life and the incongruity that struck her immediately was that of a small group of children playing at one side and the group of Indians huddled in a corner at the other side. There were few of them standing now and when her glance stayed on them she could see the reason for the officer demanding the doctor’s attention. Yet in this moment there was no pity in her for them because the sight of them was overshadowed by the picture of little Berta’s hairless skull and spattered brains, and she saw them for a moment heaped on the bonfire that the doctor had envisaged.

  The doctor’s wife had taken her by the arm and she was now being shown into the colonel’s office. The colonel was a short man with a beard and he rose from behind his desk and bowed towards her, then pointed to a seat and as if to waste no words, he came straight to the point, saying, ‘It would be unwise for you to travel without an escort and I have no soldiers to spare at the moment. Moreover, your husband would be better resting for a few days, anyway until the countryside has settled down again.’

  ‘How . . . how far have they got?’ she asked.

  He understood her question and answered it immediately by saying, ‘I’m not sure. I have three patrols out. The one that brought you and your husband in yesterday reported four other homesteads ravished. You can consider yourself fortunate, for there were no other survivors, that is unless they took some prisoners.’

  She said now, ‘I . . . I have left my children with friends. I am very anxious to return.’

  ‘You live, I understand, just beyond Boonville. Well, I don’t think they will have got that far. But again, you never know, they are unpredictable. Years ago, they thought of them as being so far away on the plains that they could never reach San Antonio; but they reached it and passed it and made for Gonzales. And people in the border area were always prepared for them, and they weren’t soft-footed new settlers, they were Americans born and bred. Both they and their forefathers had fought Mexicans and the Indians time and time again, yet what happened on that August day? Well, it’s history and I suppose you’ve heard all about it so I’ve no need to go over it, but the point I’m making is we never underestimate the length an Indian, especially a horse Indian, a Comanche, can ride, and so you’ll understand, Mrs Sopwith, that it would be very unwise for you to travel without a full escort until we’re sure that it is safe for you to do so.’

  ‘When . . . when will your men be riding that way?’

  ‘None of my men patrol as far east as that but we could be having a company of Rangers dropping in at any time, they brought in some wounded last night. Yet again, the way things are at present I doubt if you’d be able to travel in their company; the best we can do for your husband on such a journey is to loan you a flat wagon, and in his condition that would have to be driven carefully. I’m afraid you’ll have to have patience, Mrs Sopwith.’

  She stared at him for a moment before rising to her feet, and as he rose stiffly from his chair the door opened and a sergeant saluted, then stood to attention.

  ‘Yes, what is it, sergeant?’ The colonel and the other officer in the room were looking towards the sergeant and he said in a voice that held a strong Irish accent, ‘’Tis Captain Collins’ Rangers have come away in, sir. They have six wounded with them and there’s a Ranger McNeill who asks for a word with you, sir.’

  Before the colonel had a chance to answer him Tilly swung round, crying now, ‘Ranger McNeill? Michael McNeill?’

  The sergeant still standing stiffly turned his head towards her saying, ’Tis what he said his name was, ma’am.’

  Tilly did not take leave of the colonel but turned and rushed to the door, and there she actually threw herself into the arms of Mack and he held her for a moment, embarrassment on his face as he looked over his shoulder at the three men standing within the open door. Then gently disengaging himself, he said, ‘It’s all right,’ and looking at the colonel and saluting, he said, ‘Ranger Michael McNeill, sir. I had leave of Captain Collins to speak with you, but now . . . ’ he ended lamely. Then looking at Tilly again, he asked quietly, ‘Matt, is he all right?’

  She shook her head, but before she had time to answer him the colonel said, ‘Tell Captain Collins I would like a word with him.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Mack saluted smartly and as he turned away Tilly hurried by his side, saying, ‘Are they all right? You left them all right?’

  ‘Yes, yes; but when Dan Collins called in soon after you left and told us of the trouble at this end I asked to join
in.’

  ‘Oh, Mack!’ She clung to his arm now. ‘I’ve never been so happy to see anyone in my life as I am you at this moment. Matt’s in a bad way.’ She shook her head, moving it wildly from side to side, saying, ‘They came so quickly. It was a tomahawk. He . . . he brought it down on his shoulder, right through. They’ – she gulped now on a mouthful of spittle before she could say – ‘they took his arm off last night.’

  Mack said nothing, he just continued to walk looking straight ahead. But then stopping, abruptly, he said, ‘Wait there a minute, I must see the captain. I’ll be back. I’ll be back.’

  She stood where he had left her and watched him go towards a group of dust-covered riders who were busily feeding their horses, and he spoke to a tall man in a slouch hat. This man’s clothes were grey with dust but this did not cover the dark stains on his shirt front, nor those on his trousers. She had heard of Dan Collins, he was famed as a Ranger who rode as fast as any horse Indian and had followed the raiders into the very heart of the Comanche country up in the high plains where the Indians felt safe among the great herds of buffalo and mustang.

  He now looked in her direction; then saying something to Mack, they turned together and came towards her.

  ‘Ma’am’ – he touched the front of the upturned brim of his hat – ‘Mack tells me of your trouble. I’m sorry we can’t escort you back to your home, ma’am; the best I can do for you is to release Mack and one other of my men to see you in safe passage.’

  ‘I am very grateful.’

  He inclined his head towards her, then said, ‘It has been a bad night, we must soon be on our way. Excuse me, ma’am.’ He now turned from her and in an undertone to Mack said, ‘Take Len with you; he’s had more than enough. I know he’s got a flesh wound in his leg but he won’t have it seen to. See what you can do for him when you get settled . . . Good luck.’