by Mary Nichols
‘No, he never would. I am asking Robert Lynmount to come to his senses and make up his mind whose side he is on.’
‘He knows which side he is on.’ He stopped walking and the horse nuzzled into his shoulder. Absent-mindedly, he stroked its nose as he looked up at her. ‘You may join Don Santandos if you wish. I will not stop you.’
‘But you will not come with me?’
‘No.’
She was silent. If she went, what then? Where did she want to go? Home? Was that still her goal? Whatever he had done, could she turn her back on him and ride away? Oh, what was happening to her? It was the second chance she had been given and the second time she had hesitated. All she had to do was turn Pegasus towards the convent. Why couldn’t she do it?
‘Come, Olivia, you are not usually so indecisive and I have no time to waste.’
Her answer was to click her tongue at Pegasus and set him off to where Colonel Clavier, determined to lead the assault himself, was deploying his troops. He had sent one group up the hillside to try and approach the monastery from the bare mountain above it, while others were dispatched into the trees on the lower slope and ordered to approach as near the front of the building as possible. The signal to begin the assault would be the firing of the six-pounder, which had been drawn up on the road itself.
He was puffing and blowing, riding from one section to the other. ‘There you are, Santerre,’ he said irritably. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ Then, remembering the captain could not speak, added, ‘Get back to your post by the gun.’ He turned away, ignoring Olivia. Thankfully she realised he had not recognised her in the overalls, though the disguise would not stand up in daylight.
‘Go to the rear and stay there,’ Robert said, as soon as the commander was out of earshot. ‘That is an order, and heaven help you if you disobey.’
‘Yes, sir!’ She gave a mock-salute and pulled on the reins to turn Pegasus. Robert turned from her with a chuckle. She was irrepressible, but he would not have her any other way and now he could not imagine life without her. Later, when all this was over… But he would not let himself think of the future; he had no future.
Olivia had hardly gone a hundred yards when she heard a fusillade of shots coming from the monastery. So Miguel Santandos was there and he had seen the danger and fired first. She turned in the saddle to see two men fall, but the French were trained soldiers and were soon returning the fire. She heard the six-pounder boom once and then an ear-splitting explosion. Pegasus reared in terror. She calmed him and turned back along the road, her only thought that Robert might be hit and she had to go to him. The little cannon was nothing more than a heap of twisted metal and its crew lay sprawled in death around it.
She spurred the horse forward. ‘Robert! Oh, let him not be dead! Let him be alive.’ She was torn apart by guilt as she jumped from the horse and ran to the bodies. Why had he been so stubborn? Why hadn’t he gone to the monastery? Why, oh, why?
‘Here!’ Robert’s voice came from behind her. She turned in relief. He was standing a little way off, his eyes gleaming in a blackened face, but apparently uninjured. She ran to him. ‘I ordered you to the rear.’ It was the sharp voice of command and held no forgiveness. She paused, unsure of herself. ‘You want to be a soldier,’ he said, holding out a rifle and a bandolier he had taken from one of the casualties. ‘Then be one. Take this to the rear and watch our backs. Fire a warning if you see anything.’
She took the weapon and turned from him. He was hard and unyielding and she wondered why she had ever thought him anything else but a ruthless soldier, and a mercenary at that. And she had almost fallen in love with him! How thankful she was she had discovered the truth before she made a fool of herself.
The battle continued with concentrated small arms fire until she began to wonder who would run out of ammunition first, but after two hours the shooting became more desultory, and then Colonel Clavier ordered the drummer to beat the retreat. He had lost too many men and the monastery seemed impregnable.
In the confusion, as the men gathered to return to the village, Olivia went in search of Robert. She found Thor, tethered near by, but no sign of him. He was not among the tired, defeated group who lined up in the road, nor among the wounded being transported back in the ammunition wagon, nor, she discovered as she searched the hillside, among the dead. Leaving Pegasus with Robert’s horse, she made her way slowly back up the road, looking from right to left, stopping to listen every now and again, alert for the sound of footsteps or the groans of someone wounded. She found him at last, standing alone by the parapet of the bridge, apparently deep in thought. He looked up as she approached. Was he still angry with her? His expression gave nothing away.
‘Are you satisfied with your night’s work, Captain?’ she asked, taking the offensive, which was her usual way of dealing with his anger. ‘I wonder how many loyal Spaniards have gone needlessly to their deaths tonight?’
‘None at my hands.’
‘How can you be sure? And now that the colonel has been sent back to Villa de Fuentes with his tail between his legs, what next? I cannot imagine that is the end of the matter. He is hardly likely to give up fighting and go back to France to keep chickens, is he?’
A fleeting smile crossed his face. ‘Don Santandos has only to hold the monastery until General Craufurd arrives in a day or two, then he will be able to recapture his village.’
‘How do you know the general will come?’
‘I do not, but Miguel Santandos seems confident of it.’
‘You have spoken to him?’ She was astonished.
‘Before the attack. I was coming from a meeting with him when I found you, skulking in the trees.’
‘Then you led the French into a trap? It was planned all along?’
He smiled. ‘Of course.’
‘You might have told me. I should not have…’ She paused. ‘Oh, I see, you did not trust me.’
He sighed, and put his finger under her chin to lift her face to the moon, which had come out from behind a scudding cloud. Her beret had fallen from her head and her soft curls framed her face. In spite of the soldier’s overalls, she looked very feminine and very vulnerable. ‘What you do not know, my lovely Olivia, you cannot tell. It is safer that way.’ He lowered his face and kissed her gently on the lips; it was a kiss of forgiveness and this time it provoked no retaliation.
‘Are you going to join Don Santandos now?’ There was a slight tremor in her voice.
‘No, I go back to the village. There will be reprisals and I must do what I can.’
Olivia was horrified. ‘You can’t do that! If the colonel finds out you led him into a trap…’
Robert smiled. ‘Why should he?’
The whole idea of returning was so senseless that she could not believe he meant it, but, looking into his eyes, she saw nothing to make her think he was jesting. ‘But they were already mustering when I left; they will be halfway down the hill by now. How will you explain your absence?’
‘I will think of something. I could have been wounded. Or taken prisoner and escaped.’
‘Just as you were hanged and escaped! The same trick will never work again. And how will you speak? Has your voice been miraculously restored to you?’ She laughed, a high-pitched, unnatural sound that seemed loud in her ears and made her realise how near to hysteria she was. ‘And with an English accent too!’
‘I will manage.’
‘Robert, you have done what you were asked. Don Santandos expects no more. We can go back to our own lines from here.’
‘No!’ Robert shouted. ‘Damn you, woman, you still don’t understand, do you? I cannot go back.’
‘Then we had better set off at once; the longer we delay, the worse it will be to convince the colonel.’
‘Oh, no. You, my lady, you will stay with the guerrillas. I hesitate to burden Don Santandos with you, but he owes me that and he will hand you safely over to General Craufurd when he comes.’
‘You will
have trouble enough explaining your absence,’ she said amiably. ‘But explaining the loss of a wife as well…’ She took his arm as if they were out for a moonlit stroll. ‘Do not make it more difficult for yourself.’
Robert knew she was right and, in spite of her wilfulness or perhaps because of it, did not want to be parted from her; he allowed himself to be persuaded but not without a great deal of grumbling, which had no effect on her at all.
They went back to the horses and set off in the wake of the returning patrol, down the mountain path, back to the village, riding in silence. They had said all there was to be said and talking only seemed to make matters worse between them. On the way they passed the broken six-pounder and the bodies of several French soldiers, and although the colonel had been sensible enough, or coward enough, to realise how high the odds were against him and had withdrawn before too many casualties had been inflicted, he would not let it rest there, they both knew that. There would be other trials to come.
The sun was just coming up behind the distant mountains as they neared the village. Down by the river a working party was already busy trying to build a temporary bridge strong enough to take the troops, with their horses, wagons and heavy guns, across the river. Colonel Clavier had decided not to risk the monastery road again, nor did he want to detour south where the British rearguard was most active. The rest of the regiment, dispersed among the orchards and olive groves, were stirring for another day and the clatter of pots and the sudden flaring of a fire announced that breakfast was on the way.
In the village street a few inhabitants were making their way towards the church, whose bell tolled for early mass. Olivia found it difficult to believe that a few hours before she had been in a battle, that men had died, and before long the whole process would be repeated. Wherever Napoleon’s army went, there went death and destruction. How could anyone condone that? It made her blood boil. And Robert? What game was he playing? But it was no game; he was deadly serious.
‘We had better establish what happened,’ she said as they rode down into the village. ‘If I am to speak for you, then I must know what to say.’
‘I was there beside the six-pounder when it blew up. The explosion knocked me out. I was out for a long time. When I came to, the men had withdrawn, leaving me for dead. As usual you had disobeyed orders and come looking for me. That will have to do, but you must make it sound convincing.’
‘How did the six-pounder come to blow up? The guerrillas only had small arms; they could not have disabled it.’
‘It jammed; they do sometimes, you know. The charge went off inside it.’ His chuckle told her that he had caused the explosion; he had been telling the truth when he said no Spaniard had died at his hands. She felt immeasurably relieved.
The story seemed to satisfy Colonel Clavier and Olivia came to the conclusion that he was a very stupid man. He was also very angry. He was convinced that someone in the village had warned the guerrillas to expect the patrol so that instead of encountering them on the open mountain he had found them in an unassailable position in the monastery. He questioned Robert long and hard but Robert, through Olivia, denied knowledge of the existence of the monastery. His map had shown the way to the camp where Philippe had died. The colonel might have been more sceptical if anyone but Olivia had been trying to convince him, but he was without his usual mistress, who had declared the heat and the flies and the constant sniping of the guerrillas insupportable and had fled back over the Pyrenees, leaving him looking for a replacement; Olivia had intrigued and fascinated him ever since she had been brought to him in Ciudad Rodrigo; he believed her because he wanted her and instead turned his attention to the villagers, threatening to massacre the whole village if the culprit was not delivered up to him in twenty-four hours.
‘What are we going to do?’ Olivia asked Robert later that morning, when she heard about this. ‘Do you think he really will carry out his threat?’
‘I expect so.’ He had come back from supervising the building work to have a meal and was sitting near the open door of their lodgings looking out on the square, where all the equipment, guns and wagons had been drawn up, waiting to proceed. Small children swarmed around them, poking and prying and being driven off by the few men left to guard them.
‘But there are only old men, women and children in the village; all the fighting men are in the hills.’
‘Then he will take women and children.’
‘Robert, we cannot allow that to happen.’
‘No!, I must tell him the truth, give myself up.’
‘No!’ Her cry was one of anguish. ‘You can’t! You must not!’
He turned to smile at her. She was wearing the brown dress she had taken from the empty villa and had a multicoloured shawl draped across her shoulders. It had been given to her by one of the women whose children she had helped the day the French had arrived. Her feet were encased in slim black dancing slippers with silver buckles which he guessed had come from Philippe’s pack; the Frenchman had obviously been something of a dandy as well as a soldier. ‘Olivia, I have no choice.’
‘Yes, you have,’ she said. ‘We will evacuate the women and children, take them to their men in the hills. They will be safe there.’
‘All of them?’
‘Why not? We could go after dark, in small groups. The colonel cannot punish them if he cannot find them.’ She paused, her eyes alight with mischief. ‘Father Peredo will help organise it. I am going to see him now.’ She tied a knot in the shawl and turned to leave. ‘Go back to your duty, soldier, this is woman’s work and the less you know about it the better.’
He threw back his head and laughed. It was the first time she had heard him laugh since the attack on the monastery and somehow it made all the difference. She would enjoy taking the children to safety under the noses of the garrison.
It took all day to arrange with Father Peredo and the enthusiastic Pedro to help her. They went stealthily from house to house, giving careful instructions, emphasising the need for silence, swearing everyone to secrecy, and by the time dusk fell again everyone was ready. The soldiers who were busy trying to rebuild the bridge and those few who were off-duty and gathered at the inn or on the streets failed to notice that there were fewer villagers than usual seeing to their wants. The women and children left their homes in family groups at set intervals and made their way into the olive groves, where their appointed leaders took them down the steep cliff to the path by the river and to safety.
It was dawn again when Olivia returned to her lodgings, thoroughly satisfied with her night’s work. When reveille sounded in less than an hour’s time, the colonel would find a village without inhabitants and no one on whom he could take out his ire but his own men. Robert was not at home and she supposed he had found somewhere more comfortable to sleep. She smiled as she flung herself on the bed; poor Robert, she really did cause him a few problems but he would be proud of her tonight. She wondered why it was important that he should be proud of her. He was nursing a grievance that filled his mind; to him she was nothing but a necessary encumbrance and one he wished himself rid of. That being so, why had she refused to take the opportunities she had been offered to leave? Why stay with him?
The answer, she admitted, as she drifted off to sleep, was that she needed him as much as he needed her. Just how much or why, she would not allow herself to speculate; it was far too disturbing.
CHAPTER SIX
OLIVIA slept until the midday sun made the room like an oven and woke her. For a moment she could not decide what was different about the day; it was as hot as ever, the room looked just as it had been when she fell asleep, but there was something not quite right. She rose and opened the door; the sun beat down on the dusty square, a dog lay panting in the shade of a solitary eucalyptus, a cat stalked a wall, but there were no wagons, no guns, no soldiers that she could see. She went back into the room. Robert’s kit, his uniform, his boots and shako, his sword and pistol, his ammunition pouch, everything ha
d gone; there was nothing to show that he had ever been there. She washed and dressed hurriedly and went to see Father Peredo. In spite of being up all night, just as she had been, he had been working at his desk for some hours, and was expecting her.
‘Colonel Clavier has received orders to abandon the mountain route and go south to join the remainder of the army advancing on Almeida,’ he told her. ‘They marched out while we were taking the women and children to Don Santandos.’ He smiled suddenly. ‘A detachment has been left behind to hold the village and keep the French supply lines open, but the rest have gone. With God’s help Miguel will soon re-take the village and the people will be able to return.’
‘And Robert?’ she queried.
‘He went too.’ He watched the expressions chase each other across her face — perplexity, then hurt and finally anger. ‘He left instructions that I was to see that you go to Don Santandos and from there to General Craufurd.’ He opened a drawer of his desk and withdrew a folded sheet of paper. ‘He left you a letter.’
She took it from him, broke the seal and scanned it hurriedly. But it told her no more than the priest had done. Robert had decided to stay with the French troops.
You have done all that was asked of you and more. You deserve your reward. Go home to England and enjoy your life. Know that there is one here who wishes you the greatest happiness. Think of me sometimes, in the comfort of your own home, as a man you might have come to know a little better if circumstances had been different. Adieu, little leopardess.
She was surprised, as she stood with the letter in her hand, to find her vision blurred by tears. She brushed them away, angry with herself for her foolishness. What else could she have expected? Their meeting had been a chance encounter in the middle of a war and, for a time, they had been useful to each other, but that was all.
All! By heaven, it was not all! He had been hurt and dishonoured and he bore the internal scars of that; it did not mean he was beyond redemption, that she could stand by and let him ruin himself still further with his foolhardiness. She screwed the letter up into a tight ball and threw it into the empty hearth, smiling rebelliously at the priest. ‘If he thinks he can throw me off like an old glove, then he is in for a surprise,’ she said and, turning on her heel, left the house with Father Peredo’s laughter ringing in her ears.
