Tarleton's Wife

by Blair Bancroft

  She shut her eyes and bowed her head. The mangled bodies, the agonizing sounds, the ghastly odors drifted away. In their place rose an ice-blue breast with a whimpering baby nuzzling at the frozen breasts. Oh, dear God, why that? Wasn’t this present horror enough? Think of home…the ships waiting in the harbor. Pray for all souls, living and dead. The regiment. Papa. Nicholas.

  Julia opened her eyes to a pair of tall black leather boots, standing on the far side of Ensign Welland’s body. Her head rose a fraction at a time, delaying the inevitable. The boots were Tom Pickering’s and his unaccustomed silence told its own story.

  His once magnificent bandsman’s uniform was a shambles, soaked with blood and stained with black powder. His long lugubrious face was a match for the uniform. “I’m that sorry, miss,” he announced quietly. “The colonel took a direct hit from a twelve-pounder. There wasn’t…that is, we…he…um…he didn’t suffer, miss. Killed instantly, he was.”

  Julia fixed her eyes on the muddy toes of Pickering’s boots. What the bandsman was trying so hard not to tell her was that there had not been enough left of her father to bring back from the battlefield.

  A firm, comforting squeeze gripped her hand. Julia gasped. She had thought him unconscious but Ensign Welland was returning the comfort she had so freely offered to him.

  A hand touched her shoulder. Mechanically, Julia accepted Runyon’s offer of a canteen, only mildly surprised to discover it contained brandy. With solemn formality they passed the canteen round, even trickling a bit down young Jeremy Welland’s throat.

  “He was a good officer, Miss Julia,” Runyon pronounced as they drank their toasts. “A fair man who always stood fast.”

  “The major’s taken command, miss,” Pickering added, “and just as I told ye, the Frenchies come barreling round the lower ridge thinking our boys was running and ran smack dab into our Reserves. When I left, we was drivin’ ’em back up the valley. Daresay those twelve-pounders will be ours afore nightfall.”

  “Thank you, Pickering,” Julia managed with dignified formality. “It was kind of you to come and tell me.”

  With a grimace which was a mix of grief and embarrassment, the tall bandsman sketched a salute, turned and hurried off to look for number one hundred fifty-one.

  Julia continued to sit, holding Ensign Welland’s hand. Other women now moved among the wounded, tilting canteens, cleaning away blood and black powder, murmuring words of encouragement. Randolph Wedderburn, the regimental chaplain, had joined Daniel and the orderlies, moving among the wounded with a gentle smile, a comforting touch. Although he held a prayer book in his hand, he never seemed to need it, reciting the passages from memory as easily as the small jokes and heartening words he bantered with the less seriously wounded.

  As Julia kept watch by Jeremy Welland, her view of the sharply etched suffering of the wounded was gradually dimmed by the lengthening shadows of the short winter afternoon. But the suffering was no less intense. She should be helping. She should get up…

  “Damn the bloody bastards!” bawled a voice that rang through the vast room. “They got the general. Bloody cannon blew his bloody shoulder off!” A red-coated sergeant stood in the doorway, one hand braced against the wall to keep himself from falling. His anguish did not come from his own wounds. “I seen the ’ighlanders carryin’ ’is litter through the street just now. He’s done fer, he is. Not a prayer.” The sergeant’s voice broke. He slumped against the door.

  Daniel Runyon and an orderly ran to his side. The sergeant shook them off, pulling himself up to his full height. He regarded the room bleakly. “Baird’s been hit too. And just when we was about to mount that bloody ridge.” The sergeant shook his head and finally allowed himself to be led to a pallet where he was quickly surrounded by a crowd of the walking wounded.

  “Sir John Hope’s taken command,” Daniel reported to Julia a few minutes later. “He’s been fighting on the left all afternoon. Doubt he’ll have time to figure out what’s going on before nightfall.”

  “Will he order the embarkation?” Julia asked, almost afraid to hope.

  “Seems a good time for it,” Daniel grunted. “A long dark night it’ll be. A smuggler’s night. We could all be aboard by morning, I’m thinkin’.”

  Julia’s lips curved up in a surge of relief. “Did you hear, Jeremy? We’ll probably be aboard ship before morning. Jeremy?”

  Daniel laid his ear to the young ensign’s chest, raised the boy’s eyelids, then sat slowly back on his heels. He stared at a point past Julia’s shoulder, his words not making any sense at first. “According to the sergeant, we’ve got the Frenchies on the run right back up behind those bloody cannon. That means we’ve saved ourselves. We’ve lost our general, we’ve lost our colonel—God bless ’im—we’ve lost this boy but we’ve just saved the whole bloody British army. There’s fifteen thousand of us going home, Miss Julia. It won’t bring back the dead but they had the satisfaction of knowing they died for a damned fine reason.”

  “Thank you, Daniel.” Julia took the hand he held out and struggled to her feet. Men were still being brought in. There was work to be done.

  With the last rays of light the guns fell silent. Having failed to annihilate the British Army, the French withdrew.

  Sir John Hope gave the order for all troops to embark.

  The news ran in rippling whispers from pallet to pallet. A ragged cheer went up. Home, by God. Home at last.

  Home. Nicholas. Nicholas, Nicholas…home. Papa. Oh, dear God, Papa… Home. The litany ran through Julia’s head protecting her from the darkness, the horror that hovered just out of sight threatening to overwhelm her. In flickering light from a sparse array of lanterns and candles, Julia worked her way through the closely packed pallets, doing what she could, always murmuring those priceless words of encouragement, We’re going home.

  Her automatic bedside smile once again lit her face as she took leave of a captain. Still on her knees, she stretched her aching back before attempting to stand. She stiffened with a sudden awareness of ominous dread. Slowly, inch by inch, she looked up into the sad-eyed face of Tom Pickering. No! No…no…no. Julia opened her mouth but no words came.

  “He’s alive, miss,” Tom Pickering hastened to assure her, his kindly features distorting as he bit his lip. “He’s bad but he’s alive.” Since Julia seemed unable to move, the bandsman took her firmly by the arm and led her to a sheltered corner reserved for ranking officers. Daniel was there before her, bent over his major’s still figure, carefully cutting open Nicholas’ blood-soaked jacket with a knife. As Julia and Pickering approached, Daniel turned and bellowed for a doctor.

  “Nicholas!” Julia fell to her knees beside him, surprised to find him conscious, his steel gray eyes turned up to hers. Oddly, the emotion she saw was relief.

  “We have business, my girl,” he declared. “Daniel? Confound it, where is he?”

  “Here, Sir. I’ve brought the doctor.”

  Julia was thrust aside, to hover behind a wall of bent backs, her only coherent thought a prayer.

  When he finished his examination, Dr. Channing stood and guided Julia a few feet away, Daniel Runyon trailing behind. “I’m sorry, Julia, my dear but there’s little I can do. Keep him comfortable. I doubt he’ll last ’til morning.”

  “But, surely, aboard ship there are surgeons who can…“

  “He’ll never make it aboard ship,” Channing replied, truly sorry to be the bearer of such tidings to a longtime friend and helper. “I’m surprised he made it this far. Moving him further will surely kill him.” Unable to bear the pain in Julia’s eyes, he added, “Perhaps…if he’s left here he has a chance. A Spanish doctor? But, believe me, my dear, moving him is a guaranteed death sentence.”

  As Julia blindly turned back to Nicholas, the doctor was more blunt with Daniel Runyon. “If you wish to humor her, find a local doctor but the major will slip into a coma within hours and be gone by morning. I’m sorry but I must spend my time with those who have a c
hance of going home.” Head bent, Channing turned and threaded his way among the pallets.

  Daniel heard an agitated major once again calling his name. “Runyon, damn you, stay by when I need you!” Nicholas snapped as Daniel bent over him. “Find Wedderburn…and be quick about it. I want the thing done properly.” Laboriously, Nicholas turned his head to make sure Julia was still there.

  “Wha— Sorry, Sir. Right away, Sir.” Daniel put aside his thoughts of a Spanish surgeon and went in search of the chaplain. Odd, the major had never been much of a one for religion.

  “Now, listen carefully,” Nicholas whispered to Julia, sweat dotting his brow in spite of the cold January night. “I don’t know Woodworthy well.”

  Julia frowned, not remembering the name. Was Nicholas delirious?

  “I can’t trust him to carry out my wishes when I’m not there. So you’ll marry me. Now. At once. You’ll have proper papers saying you’re my wife and there’ll be no question about your being my heir. Understand?”

  Nicholas’ voice came in slow spurts but was perfectly clear. Perfectly lucid. She was to marry him. Now. In this place where he lay dying—so close, so agonizingly close to being saved.

  “There is no need, no obligation,” Julia whispered fiercely. “You do not have to do this, Nicholas.”

  “I’m dying, girl. Don’t argue with me.” He did not mention that he owed her marriage. Not here where anyone might hear. He also owed her respect. How like her to protest that he owed her nothing, that she had given herself freely. She was a trooper, his Julia. A glorious creature with a man’s fine sense of honor. The thought of Julia living at The Willows, sleeping in his great bed, tending to his acres and his tenants gave him peace. He was a soldier and it had been a good day’s work. No point in thinking about what might have been. He had been granted this bit of time to make things right between them and, God willing, he would live long enough to do so.

  Randolph Wedderburn had performed a surprising number of marriages during the past year, mostly for young soldiers marrying dark-eyed Portuguese and Spanish brides. He was never without a supply of marriage certificates carefully folded into his prayer book. Daniel Runyon produced the middle-aged wife of a captain to stand up with Julia and offered to do that office for his major himself.

  “Get the doctor,” Nicholas ordered. “I want him as witness too. Hell…get the whole bloody place to sign, Dan’l. I want no doubt about this.”

  Mrs. James, the captain’s motherly wife, removed Julia’s bonnet and fussed with her long strands of braids, tucking in stray wisps of lank brown hair. She washed a smudge of black powder from Julia’s cheek, streaks of blood from her hands. Through it all Julia knelt at Nicholas’ side, clutching his hand, never taking her eyes off his face, never looking at the reddened bandages covering the gaping wounds below.

  “We’re ready, Sir,” Daniel Runyon reported to his major.

  For all of her life Julia would hug in her heart the dark room with its flickering light, the sea of faces ringing the major’s pallet, Nicholas pale and determined, his grip on her hand so strong it was painful. The words from the well-worn prayer book were ancient and beautiful. They were not a recitation of a rote catechism but were repeated in every fullness of their meaning. For Julia the vows to love and honor were a heartfelt realty. It never occurred to her that for Nicholas the ceremony was anything more than a matter of honor and duty.

  As the final words of the brief service echoed into the cavernous darkness around them, she bent and kissed Nicholas’ lips, unable to prevent a tear from spilling over and falling on his cheek. “Silly widgeon he whispered. “I’d not thought you one of those who cry at weddings.”

  Daniel and Tom Pickering gently lifted the major’s shoulders so he could scrawl his name on the certificate of marriage. Nicholas insisted that the chaplain and the doctor sign below his name. “For I’ll not have Woodworthy saying that devilish scribble is not my signa—” he vowed, his words choked off by pain as the two men lowered him back to the pallet. At the major’s further insistence the signatures of all those present, including several of the walking wounded, were also affixed to the marriage document.

  The crowd began to disperse. Mrs. James, tears still flowing down her cheeks, gave Julia a hug and returned to ministering to the wounded. Tom Pickering went back for one final lantern-lit search of the battlefield. Daniel, with the delicacy of his Irish soul, turned away to grant the newly married pair a bit of privacy. Although Nicholas Tarleton had held out nearly as long as his dwindling strength would allow him, an awful thought suddenly struck him. He fought the darkness long enough for one last request. “A promise,” he demanded of Julia. “You must…promise…you’ll go home. No!” His grip, which had loosened, tightened like a vise. “You’ll go! Daniel, where’s Daniel?” His head moved frantically side to side, sweat poured down his face. “Daniel!”

  “Here, Sir.”

  “Promise you’ll make her go. Tie her up if you have to but see she goes home. Promise!” Nicholas managed to focus on Julia, whose lips were stubbornly closed. “You just promised to obey, my girl. You’ll go home as ordered.” His eyes shut, the world rapidly fading away. “Promise,” he murmured.

  He felt her lips softly moving against his ear. “I want to stay, Nicholas. Please…let me stay.”

  He pushed the words out with great effort. “No…home. Promise.”

  “Very well,” she gulped, anger and frustration breaking her determined calm. “I promise.”

  Relief swirled through him as he gave himself up to the welcoming darkness.

  For some moments Julia simply stared at him—at the tangled mat of long sandy hair, the pale face touched by surprisingly long lashes, the fine high cheekbones, narrow mouth, the strong determined chin. Never would she let herself believe she might not see him again. That way lay madness.

  From her medical supplies she took her scissors, lifted her skirt and unpicked the stitching that held a muslin pouch of coins to the inside of one of her petticoats. “Daniel,” she instructed, holding out the pouch, “go to the nearest church and ask the priest who is the best doctor in La Coruña, then find him and bring him here. If this is not enough, tell him I’ll have more when he gets here.”

  Daniel Runyon hefted the pouch. “This should be enough for ten doctors, miss…missus, I wouldna offer anyone more.” At the look in her eyes he slipped the pouch inside his jacket. “Aye, miss, I’ll offer the moon itself if he’ll come. Never fear, I’ll find him.”

  He was back in under an hour. With him was a man whose features were nearly obscured by the brown robe and cowl of a monk. “This is Brother Miguel, missus. Says he’ll be glad to do what he can for the major.”

  When the monk finished his examination of the unconscious major, he thought longingly of what all that gold would do for his parish and fought a momentary battle with his conscience before commencing to speak in slow simple Spanish the two English might understand. “Señora, señor, there is little I can do here. The major is in God’s hands. He will live or he will die. It is most likely that he will die. I can sit with him but for this I cannot take your money.” He held out the pouch to Julia. “Comforting the dying is God’s work and I am his servant here on earth.”

  She would not cry. She would not collapse here in this strange city in this strange country in front of all the wounded of Britain’s gallant army. With fierce determination Julia closed the rift in the armor girding her emotions. “The money is yours, Brother Miguel. I honor your honesty and depend on you to do what you can. If the major should live, you will need some of the gold for his keep.” Her blue eyes studied the monk with fierce intensity. “There is also the no small matter of hiding him from the French. If he does not live,” Julia forced herself to a calm assessment of the situation, “I would gladly see it all go to whatever good use you wish to put it.” She swayed, grabbing Daniel’s arm to steady herself. “Whatever happens,” she continued steadfastly, “I am infinitely grateful for your h
elp.”

  “That we are,” Daniel added. “Come, missus, it’s time to go. Tom Pickering says the regiment is passing by now. I’m thinkin’ ’twould be best if we stayed with our own.”

  She couldn’t do it. She had lied. To him. To herself. Julia dropped to her knees beside Nicholas’ still body, burying her face in his neck.

  There was a long pause while Daniel Runyon struggled with his own emotions. “Very well,” he conceded, we’ll wait. But when they come to evacuate the wounded, we’ll be going. There’ll be no staying behind, miss. I promised the major and go back to England you will.”

  The long night wore on, broken only by the steady tramp of marching feet, the squeaking wheels of artillery limbers and supply wagons, the cries of the wounded, the gasping breaths of the dying. Nicholas Tarleton lay like Ensign Welland before him, unmoving, as if already dead, surrounded by those who kept vigil—his new bride, his Irish batman, a fife-playing bandsman and a Spanish monk who was, fortunately, as good a doctor as he was a man of God.

  At one point during those long dark hours Daniel Runyon slipped off, returning sometime later with a young woman whose face showed the ravages of tears. “Meg O’Callaghan, missus,” Daniel declared. “Corporal O’Callaghan’s wife. Widowed this night, she is and no family of her own. I thought she might do as a companion. And if she should suit, she’s willing to go to The Willows as maid.”

  “If y’ think I c’d learn, missus,” the young woman murmured, rubbing a tear from her cheek. “I’d be right glad for the position, I would.”

  Even with her senses dulled by the continual barrage of sorrow, Julia couldn’t help but acknowledge that Daniel Runyon had an eye for women. If there was a prettier one among the many camp followers, Julia had never seen her. There was no question of whether or not Meg O’Callaghan would join them. She had been chosen.