Suppose, she reasoned, they felt him too incapable to go further and commanded him to return to the town.
Finally he appeared carrying a meagre ration of meat and bread.
“I was worried,” Elvina whispered as he sank down beside her and they both started to eat.
“There was little left,” he replied. “As usual the graft and greed of the men at the base endangers the fighting soldiers’ lives more effectively than any bullets from the enemy.”
He spoke bitterly and Elvina said wonderingly,
“Do you mind how much French soldiers suffer?”
“They are still human beings with empty bellies.”
Elvina sat considering this, her little face serious and Lord Wye smiled at her expression.
“You must learn not to hate, Imp,” he said.
“I know it’s wrong,” Elvina replied. “But the French have been so cruel and brutal that it is hard to think of them as ordinary men.”
She shivered at the memory of the atrocities committed by Napoleon’s Army.
Lord Wye put his arm around her.
“Let’s sleep while we can. Come close to me, you are tired. It is warm now, but it will be cold before dawn. We are a good deal higher up than we were last night.”
He pulled his blanket from his pack. It was threadbare from long usage, but it still had a little warmth in it.
He tucked it round Elvina.
“I shall be warm enough,” she murmured drowsily.
He looked down at her face lying against his shoulder, her eyelids drooping with exhaustion. Her body was so thin and so light that he could hardly feel its weight against him.
“It’s an adventure, is it not, Elvina?” he asked. “And I could not have managed it without you.”
“I will look after you,” she said indistinctly, her voice fading away into the dreams that were changing reality into fantasy.
Lord Wye smiled above her head.
If anyone had told him a week ago, he thought to himself, that he would be relying on a little, ragged Portuguese child for help, that he would be in the midst of the enemy Army, dressed in their uniform and under the leadership of Napoleon’s most able and virile Marshal, he would have thought them demented.
He looked round at the men camped out the side of the mountain and thought that all Armies were much the same when they were not fighting.
Off duty the soldier was only a man who was hungry and tired, who wanted to laugh, drink and make love.
Not far away there was a crowd of soldiers and their women singing round a fire.
They had a bottle of wine between them and were passing it from hand to hand, each man taking his share and no more, each man, for a moment, content with the comradeship of his countrymen and a full stomach.
Lord Wye gave a little sigh.
The friendliness he sensed amongst those men was one of the reasons why he had begged the Prime Minister to let him join the Duke of Wellington’s Army, even if only for a little while.
It was a friendliness that he could never feel at Carlton House and was something he often found lamentably lacking in the salons of the great London hostesses and even in the exclusive and select Clubs that he frequented.
Elvina stirred suddenly and gave a little cry and his arm tightened around her.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Don’t hit me – please,” she whimpered and then awoke with a start as Lord Wye’s hand covered her mouth.
“You are speaking English.”
“I am sorry,” she whispered. “I was having a nightmare. I thought – I thought that my stepmother was about to – beat me.”
“She shall never do it again,” Lord Wye said. “You are away from her now.”
“You will never send me back – you promise me that?” Elvina asked. “Even – even if we have to go to England via Lisbon?”
It was a fear that had been lurking at the back of her mind all day. She had been working out what would happen when they did reach the Duke of Wellington – if they did so. She guessed then there was every likelihood of Lord Wye being sent to Lisbon to find a ship to take him to England.
It was then that she thought of herself and how, once he was among his own people, Lord Wye might no longer wish to carry her to England.
He did not speak and she said, looking up at him and with one hand holding the lapel of his coat,
“Promise me! Promise me – that you will still take me with you – and that you will not leave me behind.”
“Do you really trust me so little?” he asked. “I have given you my word because you have saved my life. Do you think I would go back on it?”
“N-no.”
“I have made myself responsible for you and, God willing, we will both land in England together.”
She felt the tears come into her eyes at the relief that swept over her. She had not even realised in that moment how afraid she had been.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you. Thank you.”
She could see in the light of the fire the sudden look of tiredness in his face.
Because somehow his kindness was overwhelming, she hid her face against him.
“Poor little imp.”
She heard his voice above her.
“It ought to have been so easy to take you to England and now I have got you into this mess.”
“It is not – your fault,” Elvina murmured.
“I am afraid I am responsible. If I had not been in such a hurry, if I had listened to the Captain, pray Heaven he has escaped, poor man, and the others on board.”
“At least they had – money,” Elvina said consolingly. “Being a prisoner is not so bad if you can pay the guards. The gold you have given your men will give them a great many luxuries – so long as it lasts.”
“The War itself will not last long,” Lord Wye said.
“How can you be sure of that?” Elvina asked.
“I am certain of it,” Lord Wye replied. “This is the Emperor’s last throw and the dice are loaded against him.”
Elvina gave a little sigh and snuggled a little closer. She felt his encircling arm about her holding her comfortably as she drifted once again into sleep.
Several times during the night she awoke, feeling cramped or else aroused by some noise from the camp.
Each time she found Lord Wye awake, his arm still supporting her, his eyes looking out from under his bandaged forehead over the men and women sleeping on the ground around them.
Once she asked him a little drowsily,
“Why – do you not sleep?”
“I don’t want to miss anything,” he answered. “Besides for a change I am looking after you.”
*
Dawn found them both stiff and a little chilled. The skies were grey and there was a wind blowing in from the sea.
“It looks like rain,” Lord Wye remarked.
A little later, in some manner of his own, he managed to procure a torn blanket, which he placed over her shoulders.
Elvina guessed that he had filched it from one of the several men around them who had collapsed entirely during the night and who were obviously intent on straggling back down the hill to St. Jean de Luz.
She herself found a water bottle abandoned a little further up the road and they filled it from a clear mountain stream and felt that they might be glad of it later on.
As the day advanced, they pushed through the baggage carts and the women and were now a little nearer to the marching soldiers.
They were climbing again up another hill and the word went round that they were heading for St. Jean Pied de Port, where they were to join General Ney’s divisions who were bringing sixty-six guns.
All this information cheered the troops enormously and despite the hard walking there seemed to be a greater spirit of determination than there had been the day before. Batches of men burst into song and even good-humouredly jerked some of the stragglers to their feet and helped them on their way carryin
g their muskets.
“If we beat them at St. Jean,” one of the women said in Elvina’s hearing, “perhaps that will be the end of the War and we will be home before Christmas.”
“You said that last year!” another woman commented.
“And the year before!” cried another.
“Well, this time I believe I am right,” the first woman said defensively. “A gypsy read my fortune a few days ago and saw me in a house with a roof. That would be a change, I can tell you.”
The women round her sighed and Elvina realised that more than anything else they longed for the security and comfort of being static and not having to be continuously on the move.
They had only been marching for a little while when the grey skies of the morning fulfilled their promise.
Rain began to fall, soaking everyone indiscriminately with the exception of the ladies in the carriages, who closed the windows.
“Are you cold?” Lord Wye asked Elvina.
“No, only wet,” she answered.
They walked in silence as did nearly everyone else.
Elvina had hoped at first that it was only a shower, but the rain now began to fall in torrents and when a halt was called at midday it was difficult to find the way through the blinding rain to the food carts.
It was then that Lord Wye and Elvina learned that there was some confusion and difficulty over the food supplies.
Murmurs began immediately amongst the troops and an Officer finally appeared to explain what had happened.
“The Marshal has ordered you bread,” he explained, “but it has not arrived from Bayonne. It should have met us here. You will have to manage with what you have until this evening.”
There were murmurs and protestations, but the Officer galloped away. The soldiers, dripping and miserable, could only shout curses at his retreating back.
The women had a great deal more to say, but oaths supplied no one with nourishment. Hungry and resentful the Army moved on during the afternoon and late in the evening came into St. Jean Pied de Port.
It was only a small town and it was already overcrowded with troops, but, even so, Elvina and Lord Wye learned that a great many more were expected.
“The bridge over the Nive at Cambo has gone,” a soldier told a woman near them, “and the food carts cannot get through.”
There was a scream of rage and anger at this and Elvina saw that the men and women around them were glancing at the houses, wondering if there was anything left to sack.
The Army pillaged the French towns and villages as pitilessly as those of Spain. Colonels who carried with them baggage trains of thirty vehicles containing plunder and women were hardly in a position to reprove soldiers who wished to help themselves to luxuries.
Indeed they did not attempt it, but it was obvious even to a stranger like Lord Wye that the Army was demoralised.
An advance guard of General Ney’s soldiers came into the town almost simultaneously with the Division that Lord Wye and Elvina were a part of.
“We have been without food for two days,” they shouted. “Give us somethin’ to eat.”
“The food carts are here!” someone cried.
There was a general surge forward, everyone squelching through the mud, pushing and fighting, soldiers even throwing their muskets away in their anxiety to reach the carts that were coming slowly down the narrow streets.
“Bread! Give us bread!” the women cried and rushed forward.
And then a roar of fury went up.
“What is the matter?” Elvina asked.
Lord Wye, almost carrying her, had managed to wedge himself against a doorway two steps above the crowd.
Although there was no protection from the rain, they were at least not in danger of being knocked down by the jostling fighting troops and their women.
“I cannot see,” he answered. “Oh, now I realise what is the matter.”
“What is it?”
“The carts contain flour,” he answered. “They had hoped for bread, but there is only flour in the carts that have got through.”
“Well, they can bake some bread,” Elvina said practically.
“They are not going to get the chance,”
Lord Wye could see over the heads of the crowd and the women shaking their fists at soldiers slitting open the sacks. Senior-ranking Officers were giving orders, but no one was listening to them.
“It’s wet! Soaked! Useless!”
The words swept round the town. There were more troops coming into the market place and they too started to shout.
“What is the use of wet flour? Feed it to the ducks!” a woman screamed and the soldiers took up the cry.
“Feed it to the ducks! We want bread! Feed it to the ducks!”
It looked as if the whole thing would turn into a riot and Elvina held tightly onto Lord Wye’s arm. The flour that had come such a long way over the muddy roads was being thrown about.
A Sergeant took a handful straight in his face and another man, attempting to grab some, had his hand lashed with a musket and the blood gushed out, mingling with the sodden mass of flour and water and making the crowd cry out even more derisively that they were being deliberately starved.
Fighting began in one corner of the market place and then suddenly a cry went up.
“The oxen! Get to the oxen!”
There was a surge forward and even as the crowd began to take the patient beasts from between the shafts, Marshal Soult, surrounded by half a dozen Officers and a large number of mounted troops, came hurrying into the market place.
The men who were unfastening the oxen were beaten off by force.
“There will be hundreds of them outside the town!” someone shouted.
“I will shoot the first man who lays a hand on my animals!” Marshal Soult roared. “Listen to me, you fools. The oxen we have here in St. Jean have been assembled to drag our guns to the summit of Roncesvalles. That is where we are going to meet the British and beat them.”
He slashed at a soldier near him with his sword.
“Do you want to fight without guns? Do you want to die merely because you cannot wait to fill your bellies? Fools! Idiots! Dolts! Life is more important than your own greed.”
His great raucous voice seemed to echo round the whole market place. The contempt and anger in his tone silenced those who were complaining.
“Food is on its way,” he went on. “Only the rain has prevented it from getting here. Other carts are at this very moment entering the town. Wait! Be patient. And you will all be fed.”
He placed a guard round the bullock carts and galloped away. The soldiers cursed, but turned their attention to the houses, most of which were barricaded as if against the enemy,
“They are so used to sacking any place they go to,” Lord Wye whispered to Elvina. “The fact that this is French territory is not going to stop them. Unfortunately for them, I doubt if there is much left.”
Men began breaking down doors with the butts of their muskets. Others waited sullenly until another bullock cart appeared and then fought for the food it contained.
It was all indescribable confusion. As the carts came into the town some received two days’ food, others got none. A dozen troopers defied all orders and in an obscure cul-de-sac roasted an ox whole, only allowing others to participate when they had gorged themselves.
By this time Lord Wye and Elvina had moved away from the crowded square and found shelter in the outhouse of a deserted mansion.
It must once have been a tool shed. There were still a few implements lying about and there were dry leaves on the floor.
“This will make a softer bed – than we had last night,” Elvina cried.
“I will go and find something to eat,” Lord Wye suggested. “Things should be quieter soon.”
Elvina sprang to her feet.
“No, no. Don’t leave me. I shall be – afraid.”
“That I would not come back?” he asked.
“Anything migh
t happen to you,” she said. “You might be killed – or worse still discovered.”
“At the same time we don’t want to starve to death,” he answered.
“We shall not. We are more fortunate than those who came from Bayonne. We have at least – eaten this morning.’
“All the same I could do with something this evening and so could you.”
“Let me try,” she begged. “Give me the francs that are left. I will go to one of the houses in a side street.”
“I will come with you,” he insisted firmly.
“No, I think I shall do better alone. People are afraid of, soldiers in this town and it’s not surprising.”
“I will not let you go without me,” he went on.
She remembered then the drunken revellers in St. Jean de Luz and knew what he feared for her.
“Very well. But keep out of sight for I cannot believe that there is any patriotism left – only a hatred of war.”
They went out again into the pouring rain. The street was deserted, but they could hear shouts and yells and not far away there was a golden glow in the sky as if a fire had started.
Elvina knocked on the door of four houses without avail.
At the fifth a voice asked,
“Who is there?”
“A child,” Elvina replied.
“A child?” the voice questioned.
“Yes, a child,” Elvina repeated. “No one else. I promise you.”
She signalled to Lord Wye to keep in the shadows. The door was opened a crack and she saw that an elderly woman stood there, shading a taper with her hand.
“I have money, madame,” Elvina said, “but I am starved. The soldiers have taken everything. There is nothing left in the town.”
“I have nothin’,” the woman answered and went to shut the door.
“Please, madame, please! For the love of God give me something to eat!” Elvina cried.
There was a moment’s pause, a murmur of voices inside the house, as if someone protested, and then the woman thrust a piece of bread and a few potatoes into Elvina’s hand.
“It’s all I have,” she replied. “No, I don’t want money. Go away, child, for fear someone should see you and others come beggin’.”
Love Under Fire Page 11
