Tarleton's Wife

by Blair Bancroft

  A tiny smile played over the generous curves of her lips. It was true. All of it. He did not love her, of course, that was too much to ask. But what had passed between them was more than she had ever dared hope. Someday, perhaps…

  Oh, dear God! The silence. How could she not have noticed? Dawn had come and gone and there was no bombardment.

  Julia snatched at the watch fastened inside a pocket of her gown. Gone nine o’clock and as quiet as the depth of night. With some difficulty she struggled into her chemise and her layers of coin-filled petticoats, the money belts from Nicholas and her father and the old brown gown, also sewn with its share of coins. Over them all she donned her battered cloak and a modest-brimmed brown bonnet. With some irony, she reflected that she would have to take great care not to fall overboard on the trip out to the transports. She would sink like a stone.

  When she descended the stairs, Daniel Runyon was waiting for her. Although his, “Good morning, miss,” was as cheery and nonchalant as ever, Julia was quite sure she detected a knowing twinkle behind his innocent blue eyes and she blushed fiery red.

  Embarrassed to be the cause of her discomfort, the Irishman kept his eyes down as he led her to the dining table where he seated her as if for a formal banquet. From his pack he proudly produced half a loaf of bread, a wedge of non-moldy cheese and a fat Spanish sausage whose strong garlic content caused her nose to wrinkle in anticipation. As did the smell of Brazilian coffee wafting from a silver pot.

  “You’re a treasure, Runyon,” she commended, bringing a pleased grin to the Irishman’s round face. “I trust this isn’t your own breakfast.” When he assured her he had already eaten, she attacked her feast with relish. Life would be better. Had to be better.

  “You’ve located the hospital, Daniel?” Julia asked at last. For nearly five years, over all objections, Julia Litchfield had aided the doctors and orderlies at the field hospital, giving what comfort she could to the wounded as they were brought in from battle. A sudden erotic picture flashed into her mind. Nothing, nothing she had seen in hospital prepared her for the sight of a naked man—in the fullness of his manhood—standing beside her bed. Once again, her cheeks flamed red.

  “Aye, miss.” Daniel Runyon turned abruptly away, fussing busily with the coffee pot. Poor lass. ’Twasn’t right she should have the whole world watching her wedding night. And knowing the wedding was yet to be. If at all. Both stubborn, they were. Might as well have been Irish.

  Once again Julia struggled back to reality. “Why haven’t they attacked, Daniel? It makes no sense.”

  “Don’t know, miss. Major says they’ve moved twelve-pounders onto the ridge above the valley. Their men be in as bad shape as ours but their artillery’s got us beat to flinders.”

  “Do you suppose…” Julia spoke slowly, thinking the mystery through. “If Soult’s men are as weak and hungry as we are, he may be playing a waiting game, hoping we’ll break ranks and begin the embarkation. That would give him a much easier target than men ready and waiting on a battlefield.”

  “Best guess, Miss Julia,” Daniel agreed. “You’ve your spyglass by you?” When she patted a pocket inside her cloak, he added, “There’s a wee flat spot on the roof. They’ve a cistern up there and a lookout point atop a tower. Doubt we could find a better place to see what’s happening.”

  * * * * *

  Only a portion of the battlefield was visible, they discovered. La Coruña was situated on a peninsula jutting out into the bay and guarded by ramparts at the peninsula’s narrow neck. Some two miles south of the city, partially hidden by low-lying coastal ridges, was the battlefield. French heavy cannon sat on a high escarpment above the valley floor. Arranged along the ridge behind the artillery was Marshal Soult’s army, an army which had already conquered most of Europe and did not know what it was to lose a battle. Soult’s army was merely one among Napoleon’s many. Sir John Moore’s army was all of Great Britain’s military might. To destroy it was to take not only Spain and Portugal but to pave the way for the invasion of England itself.

  And yet the French commander did not fight. The great guns remained silent. The morning was cloudless, the Iberian sun warming the rooftop as if the icy horror of the mountains had never existed. Julia unbuttoned her greatcoat and pushed back her bonnet, allowing the sun to beat down on the neat braids she had coiled into loops on top of her head. For the twentieth time she put the telescope to her eye and searched for signs of activity.

  Nothing.

  Warm. It was so wonderful to be warm, Julia thought. And shivered as the memory of the terrible annihilating cold of their passage through the Spanish mountains came flooding back.

  With a sigh Julia lowered the spy glass. “Daniel,” she said with quiet firmness, “you’ve not been telling me the truth about the baby. It cannot be good news, else you would have been full of it but I must know. You’d best tell me the whole.”

  “There’s no news atall, miss and that’s the truth.”

  “Daniel?” Julia chided gently. Miracle or tragedy, she had to know. No child could have survived…and yet, surely somewhere in the prolonged nightmare of the last few weeks there had to be room for one small glimmer of light?

  What she had seen on the highest point of that bleak snow swept pass through the mountains had been the single most horror-filled moment of her life. By day, as well as by night, Julia could not escape the haunting vision. The weary, snow-deadened tramp of boots and hooves, the jingle of harness, the labored breathing of Britain’s army running for its life. Hovering darkness…driving sleet…and then…a mewling cry…

  The icy wind tore down the slope of Monte del Cabiero, cutting through Julia’s many layers of clothing. Swirling, stinging crystals of snow and ice obscured her vision and clung to her face. Head bent, her mind as numb as the fingers gripping the reins of her horse, she had no thought left but the dogged determination to follow the struggling shadows in front of her.

  Rocky cliffs towered on either side of the straggling line of the retreating British army. Infantry, cavalry, riflemen, horses, mules, wagons, heavy artillery. And, straggling at the end of the long line, the women who followed them to war. They were all trapped in the never-ending white nightmare of the high pass they must traverse. Or die.

  A sound pierced Julia’s armor of bone-weary exhaustion. Nearly obscured by the lowering dusk and blowing snow, an oxcart lay to the side of the trail, one shattered wheel resting at a crazy angle against the boulder which had brought it to a final halt. The cart was just one more fragment of a rapidly disintegrating army. Julia would have passed by without a glance but the unexpected sound penetrated the snow-deadened tramp of boots and hooves, the jingle of harness, the labored breathing of Britain’s army running for its life.

  The wail of a baby. A tiny baby.

  “Bloody hell! Beggin’ your pardon, miss!” Daniel Runyon woke from his own fog of weariness into instant awareness. Daniel had long since designated himself Julia Litchfield’s protector during the long marches when the women struggled at the tail of the army, separated from their men. He had been trudging up the mountain pass, clinging doggedly to Astarte’s stirrup. When the horse came to an abrupt halt, sliding sideways on the icy track, Daniel Runyon came close to ending his life there and then. It was perhaps more that his hand was frozen to the stirrup than fast reflexes which saved him from going down under Astarte’s hooves.

  “Y’ can’t stop here, miss,” he bawled. Ye’ll be holdin’ up the line.” Julia paid no mind. Scarce an unusual occurrence, Runyon thought sourly. “Stay where you are, miss,” he ordered, for all the world as if he were the officer and not the servant. “I’ll see to it.”

  As he dragged himself up over the low open back of the wooden cart, Daniel thought of the days, only weeks earlier, when he would have vaulted into the cart with ease. One look at the sight before him and he crossed himself before biting his knuckles to stop a moan of anguish.

  From the vantage point of Astarte’s back, Julia coul
d see the contents of the cart almost as well as Daniel. A tiny newborn baby was sprawled in a wriggling tangle of red arms and legs across the bare breast of a young woman frozen into ice-blue stiffness, her black hair flowing about her. The baby, wailing in high thin hiccups, instinctively, frantically, searched for food from nipples whose milk would never flow.

  In the past weeks Julia thought she had finally become inured to horror and death. She had been wrong. She reached out her arms, tears rolling down her face, tears which froze before they reached her chin. Julia stood in her stirrups and twisted out of her cloak. Still numbed by the horror before her, she did not yet feel the knifelike thrust of the wind.

  Daniel Runyon, with awkward, nearly frozen hands, wrapped the baby in the voluminous cocoon of wool. “No, miss,” he said firmly, denying Julia’s outstretched arms. “There’s nothing you can do for ’im.”

  “Daniel, give him to me this instant!”

  “No,” the Irishman repeated. “This wee mite needs food and that ye can’t provide. I’ll be takin’ ’im to Bess Fletcher, I’m thinkin’.” If she still lived. And he could find her. “She lost her own babe not three days since. ’Tis likely she’ll welcome this wee scrap.” If the babe lived. And wasn’t but one more sorrow heaped on the poor woman’s shoulders. “Go on now, miss. I’ll catch you up. And bring back your cloak ’fore you freeze,” he added under his breath. Not waiting for further protests, Daniel Runyon slapped Astarte on the rump and turned back toward the rear on as wild a goose chase as he’d ever been on. Well, now, it was Christmas, was it not? Not yet Twelfth Night. He doubted the Three Kings endured a journey half so hard.

  Julia turned her head, searching the trail behind but the Irishman had already disappeared into spitting bullets of snow and ice and the deepening gloom of the winter afternoon. They would have to stop soon. Try to find shelter where there was none. Food where there was none. Courage where…

  Come morning, a great many of those who lay down that night would never rise again.

  * * * * *

  Daniel Runyon toed the dust on the casa’s floor before raising his chin to peer out over the ramparts at the distant and silent, field of battle. “Spent half the day yesterday searching for Private Fletcher and his wife. No one’s seen ’em since the mountains, miss. Don’t mean they was lost. With all that’s happened they could be anywhere…” At the sight of Julia’s crumpled face Dan Runyon’s voice trailed into silence.

  “Oh, dear God.” Julia leaned her forehead against the parapet. “There must be something good to come from all this, Daniel. There has to be, for I shall see that mother and child for the rest of my life. If I ever have one of my own…”

  “Miss! Give me the glass, miss.” Runyon’s voice was urgent.

  Startled out of her depression, Julia thrust the instrument into his hand. “What is it? The battle can’t have begun. The guns are silent.”

  “They’re breaking ranks, miss. The Reserve, I think. Yes, that’s it! Columns coming this way, miss. Back toward the ramparts.” As he spoke, the Irishman’s voice rose in pitch, his excitement bubbling into joy. He returned the telescope to Julia’s eager hands.

  Tears obscured her vision. It was true. Long lines of soldiers were marching back toward the city, toward the waiting British transports. Toward home.

  In a remarkably short time the columns were raising dust in the street below, most of the soldiers grinning from ear to ear, though some showed their disgruntlement at not having a chance to fight. They waved to the people scattered across the rooftops of La Coruña, calling out derisive comments about old Soult being afraid to fight.

  The column wound on. The harbor blossomed with small boats bright with masses of red and green coats. The telescope revealed sailors scurrying about on board the transport ships, making sure that all would be ready to hoist sail as soon as the embarkation was complete.

  Julia’s joy knew no bounds. “Daniel, I can’t believe it. It’s really happening. We’re going home without a fight!”

  “Aye, miss.”

  Daniel’s gloomy tone brought her up short. “You doubt what you see, Daniel?”

  “Don’t get your hopes up, miss. ’Tis only the Reserve below. The main body’s not moved an inch. If Soult thinks we’re breaking ranks, odds are he’ll attack.”

  It was past one in the afternoon when it happened. The great roar of the mighty French cannons, eleven black balls of smoke that burgeoned into a charcoal cloud as the artillery fired again. And again. And again. Sending round after round of massive cannon balls and the even more deadly grapeshot into the British lines.

  At the first boom of the cannon, to a man, the long column of the Reserve stopped, about-faced, moved double-time toward the roar of battle. The vast array of small boats, loaded with men, started back to shore.

  Beneath the pall of smoke from the great guns, the downslope of the high ridge came alive with a waterfall of blue, a mass of French voltigeurs, the tough experienced skirmishers who led Napoleon’s troops into battle. Behind them came the massive columns of equally experienced troops who had already conquered nearly all of Europe. To the steady beat of the drums and shouts of “Vive, l’empereur!” they moved inexorably down the steep slope.

  As the British lines faltered, bent and fell back, Julia lowered her telescope. And wept.

  Chapter Three

  For women who followed the drum the time to weep was long after the battle when the guns had gone silent, the last of the wounded tended and frightened children soothed and put to bed. In the midst of battle there was no place for tears, fear or thoughts of self. There was only work to be done.

  Julia dried her eyes, firmed her jaw and headed down the narrow stairs, Daniel Runyon hard on her heels. From the major’s room the Irishman gathered up a variety of leather satchels and canteens which had survived the hazardous journey to the Spanish coast. Together, they filled the canteens from the pipe running down from the cistern on the roof. Then, struggling with the weight of the water and the bags full of medical supplies, Julia and Daniel set off down the deserted streets of the city toward a warehouse near the ramparts which had been set up as a hospital.

  Through years of experience Julia had learned the knack of dealing with busy surgeons and skeptical orderlies. She simply brought her own supplies and did what she could to ease the suffering. Scornful at first, the military doctors had allowed her just one task—to comfort the dying. But as they found their patients washed and ready, with neat pads staunching the flow of blood, they had unbent and let her do what she could for the less seriously wounded while the surgeons struggled amidst growing piles of musket balls, grapeshot, arms, legs and corpses. It was no place for a girl but they had long since ceased to tell her to go away.

  So far only a dozen or so litters had been brought into the large stone-floored room but the surgeons were already bent to their grisly task. Julia and Daniel separated, making their way from pallet to pallet, offering water, comforting words and hope. As Julia finished wiping the blood from the face of a young ensign, her eye was caught by the flash of an ostentatious amount of gold braid—the familiar eye-catching red and gold of a regimental bandsmen. She waved at the tall, gangling young man whose shock of orange-red hair clashed with his uniform. His mass of hair was tied back with a black ribbon lest it obscure his vision while carrying out his dangerous double duties. Tom Pickering’s homely features creased into a grin as he recognized Julia.

  “Don’t look so sad, Miss Julia,” he called as he struggled by, holding one end of a litter bearing a wounded sergeant. “Things ain’t as bad as they look. Back in half a mo…” The bandsman’s voice trailed away as he passed on to the far side of the room.

  Tom Pickering had but two talents. He had an uncanny knack for winkling a wounded man out from under enemy fire, away from the threat of flashing swords or thundering hooves, and he played the fife in a manner which would have made the Pied Piper weep with envy. Nothing in his twenty years of life had given him a
s much joy as being a bandsmen, playing his heart out as the soldiers marched. Then, when the battle got rough, switching to the bandsmen’s alternate and highly hazardous duty as litter-bearer for the wounded. Others might exult in how many Frenchies they shot, sliced or blew to bits. Tom Pickering kept count of the men he pulled out of the thick of battle and brought to the rear. The current total was one hundred forty-nine this past year. And near half of them had lived.

  “God’s truth, Miss Julia,” Pickering swore as he paused beside her on his way back for another bout with death. “Moore’s a knowing one. Doubt old Soult’s caught a whiff of our Reserves. Hidin’ behind a bend in the ridge they are, right where they’ll surprise the hell out of the Frenchies when they round the ridge. Just wait and see if I ain’t right.”

  “And what makes you such a battlefield general, Thomas, me lad?” Daniel inquired. “An angel of mercy you may be but I doubt you’ve sprouted wings and flown above the smoke to see what Moore sees from his hilltop.”

  “And you’d be right,” Tom Pickering retorted cheerfully. “I was bringing back Ensign Welland when I heard the colonel and the major talking. We’re giving ground, drawing the Frenchies into the valley. When they round the ridge, we’ve two whole divisions waitin’ for ’em. We’ll drive the bastards—beggin’ y’r pardon, miss—right back up the mountain.” With a grin and a wave Pickering was off again, heading back through the ramparts to the battlefield.

  Ensign Welland was dying. At seventeen, he was the youngest officer in the regiment and he would never see eighteen. As the stone-floored room began to resound with screams, groans and curses, young Jeremy Welland’s quiet acceptance of his fate was almost more than Julia could bear. To the other men she had been able to offer words of encouragement, the promise of going home. Jeremy Welland knew better. He dictated a letter to his parents and when Julia had put away her pen and paper, he managed a lopsided smile before seizing her hand in his. His eyes closed. His grip on her hand did not falter. After one gentle effort to free herself, Julia simply sat quietly by his side.