Chapter Seven
Portugal at war was everything Nate had expected it to be, and more. It was hot and dry. There was never enough food, or fresh water. Life was lived in short bursts, interrupted with long marches between forts, followed by morale and life-sapping sieges, before moving on to the next town to do it all again. Nate tried to bear his lot stoically.
But, while giving orders or cleaning a rifle he had thankfully not yet had to shoot directly at a member of the enemy forces, he remembered the sunny, warm day Christine tripped over an exposed root, offering him the chance to hold her in his arms. Thoughts of those days, and the happy times he and Christine had shared throughout their lives were his saving grace. He clung to his precious memories tightly.
He wondered if she would forget about him and be swept up by another who would waste no time professing his love. A good man, he hoped, who would not have to fear ostracism, or being dis-inherited to be with her – someone who could love her and take care of her in the ways he would never be permitted to do. She deserved every happiness even if her joy would mean a life of lonely solitude for him.
Nate had not wished to enter the army, yet he had come to find something within himself he never knew he possessed. Discipline. He had no reason to live with discipline before he had taken this responsibility even though it had not been his choice to do so. He had also learned that his common sense and pragmatism were traits that were highly admired by his superior officers – especially the incomparable Arthur Wellesley.
However, though Nate truly wished to do his duty for his country and was proud to do so now that he was here, he did not know how much more of the brutality of war he could take. The wounds the soldiers received were often fatal. If the wounds themselves did not immediately do the killing, the infection that set in would do it instead. Those men suffered untold agony as the poison spread through their bodies and there was not a thing Nathaniel could do to help. He hated to have to stand by and watch their suffering.
Nate hoped fervently for that final battle, the one that would finally send Napoleon back to France. He dreamed of the end of war, that no man would ever have to give up his life for another’s political gain. The financial toll alone, to the locals was staggering. Their crops were taken, their animals slaughtered, their homes and barns pillaged and razed to the ground. The fields were left trampled underfoot at best and burnt to a cinder at worst. Many of the people were forced off their own land and straggling columns of refugees could be seen along the roadside as the army marched on by.
Nate longed for home. He longed for Christine. He fulfilled his duties and did his best by his men. He ran errands for Wellesley and, as his father had promised, he never had to take part in the fighting himself. Instead, he stood in the command tents, marking troop movements on the map and trying to think of ingenious ways to outwit the enemy. With each passing day, he felt more and more that he was no man. A real man would be in the thick of the fighting, offering up his life to protect King and Country and his men.
“Sir,” he said tentatively to General Blenkinsop one morning as they packed away Wellesley’s tent ready to move on.
“Yes, Sheffield?”
“Sir, I was wondering if I might be permitted to lead the skirmishers,” he said, his heart thudding hard against his ribs. He had chosen to request the most difficult of roles to prove himself. The skirmishers went ahead of the battalion, they undertook vital reconnaissance work and were often captured and tortured for information by the enemy. They took the brunt of enemy fire, often, being the first on the scene.
“Sorry, lad,” the general said. “We have our orders. “You are here at Wellesley’s request.”
“No, I am not. I am here at my father’s request. Just because I am fourteenth, or some such ridiculous number, in line to the throne I am to be nannied? I want to fight. I drill my men every day, and I watch them as they march into battle. I should at the very least be at their head, taking the shot alongside them. Would you wish to be so coddled?” Nate beseeched the man.
“No, I would not,” General Blenkinsop agreed. “There is little I can do about it. You will need to take it up with Wellesley himself. Only his order can grant your request.”
It was not for a mere captain to gainsay a great military commander like Arthur Wellesley, yet Nate was determined that he should take his rightful place – leading the men under his command into battle – at least once. It was not right that he should always be spared the horror, the fear and the thrill of fighting for his country. Screwing up his courage, he left the tent and went in search of the enigmatic leader of England’s army.
Wellesley was found looking out over the valley, a spyglass in one hand. He was pointing to a spot on a map in the other, and the group of men gathered around him were nodding.
“Sheffield?” Wellesley’s hale voice called. “Just the man.”
“Sir?” Nate said, hastening towards his superior officers.
“Yes, indeed. I was just saying to the generals that we need to retake Badajoz. Its position is imperative.”
“I agree, Sir,” Nate said, wondering what Wellesley wished him to say. Everyone knew that the Spanish town was a key target.
“General Black was just pointing out, that there may be some resistance and that we should perhaps think of capturing Almeida first,” Wellesley said, pointing it out first on the map, then gesturing roughly in the direction of the town. “I disagree.”
Nate swallowed, and looked at the map. He drew his finger from Badajoz, to Almeida and then finished a triangle by moving to Ciudad Rodrigo. He looked up at the horizon, and then at the men in the camp around them as he remembered the details of that morning’s reports. “Intelligence from the skirmishers says that Badajoz is expecting an attack imminently. We may stand a better chance of catching them off-guard if we attack not just Almeida, but Ciudad Rodrigo first,” he said bravely.
Wellesley narrowed his eyes, scrutinising Nate carefully. Nate could barely breathe as he waited for the great man’s verdict. “You may be right,” he said eventually.
Wellesley turned back to his generals and continued his discussion as if Nate was not there. Essentially, he had been dismissed. But, for once, Nate was not going to follow orders – not his father’s, not Wellesley’s, not even those of polite society. “Sir,” he said boldly. “Sir, I would like to lead the skirmishers to bring back information that will help you to make your decision.”
Chapter Eight
Rolling clouds scudded across the night sky. Nate turned and looked at the determined faces of his small band of skirmishers. He nodded to them, and they fanned out across the plain, keeping low, advancing towards Almeida. The fortress had been taken by the French in 1810, and was on the main invasion route from Lisbon to Ciudad Rodrigo. Nate knew that Wellesley had been determined to retake it ever since it’s fall, and he was sure that its strategic importance would be clear when it came to taking both Ciudad Rodrigo once more and then moving onwards to take Badajoz.
From what Nate could see, and what his men confirmed upon their return, the garrison’s discipline seemed to be a little lax. There seemed to be large swathes of the walls unguarded, and the forces seemed very light on numbers. It was soon clear that a siege would easily break the garrison, returning the fort to Anglo-Portuguese army. Nate and his men travelled swiftly back to Wellesley’s camp where Nate gave his report.
“Sir, there is no doubt in my mind that it would be light work to retake the fortress,” he concluded.
Wellesley frowned. “I do not disagree, if it were not for the simple fact that I do not have the heavy guns required for a siege. Parliament is still dithering as to whether to send me further funds and munitions, whilst I have to watch my men die for the lack.”
Nate could sense the man’s frustration. Wellesley was known to be a little taciturn, but he was also a passionate man. He cared deeply for every single man under his command – from the highest generals to the lowliest batman. “Sir,
then might I suggest we simply blockade the fortress?” he asked tentatively.
“You think it possible?” Major General Erskine asked Nate.
“I do,” he said vehemently. “The fortress is easily surrounded, and we can ensure nothing gets in or out. I know a blockade is not courageous and means men will die slow and painful deaths of starvation and disease, but tactically it makes sense. This is war, and we need to control the strategic fortresses along that route.”
Wellesley brought his palms together up by his thin lips and tapped his fingers against each other as he thought. It did not take him long. “Erskine, take the Fifth; Campbell take the Sixth and get me Almeida,” he said decisively. “Take Sheffield here with you, he can bring back dispatches and keep me updated.”
“Yes, sir,” the two generals said, saluting smartly.
“Yes, sir,” Nate said, saluting and wondering what he had gotten himself into.
Marching was never pleasant under the blistering heat of the Portuguese sun, but Nate and his battalion made light of it by singing and joking as they made their way towards Almeida. Major General Erskine wanted them to arrive after nightfall, so the garrison would not see the mass of men taking their positions around the fortress, trapping the French inside.
Nate did not know what he had been expecting, but it turned out that blockading a fort was dull work indeed. All that was necessary was to stay in plain sight, but out of the range of canon-fire and to ensure that nobody got in or out. He followed orders, passed them on to his men and from time to time was sent back to Wellesley with an update of the progress of the blockade.
Wellesley often sent him back with orders for the generals, and he delivered these as swiftly as he could, but was surprised, in particular, by Major General Erskine’s tendency not to pass on those orders swiftly. Campbell also seemed immune to common sense. Nate was sure that he had posted too many soldiers, too far away. But Nate was a mere captain and his voice was barely heard even when he brought word from Wellesley himself. So, in many ways it came as little surprise to Nate when, during the night of the tenth of May, the French commander, Brenier, managed to find a way to slip out of Almeida with his remaining soldiers, blowing up the fortifications as they went, and escaping across the unguarded Barba de Puerco bridge.
Wellesley was understandably furious at the escape of the French troops, but the Anglo-Portuguese did now command the strategic site of Almeida. He began to set his sights on Ciudad Rodrigo. Nate was sent again to glean vital information.
“I do not see why a fire is such a risk, sir,” one of the soldiers under his command said, as they made camp ten miles out from their destination. “We have not seen hide nor hair of a Frenchie in days.”
“That does not mean they are not there, Wilkins,” Nate said patiently. “Just because we do not see them, does not mean they cannot see us. And remember that smoke rises and can be seen for miles around. It is why the army still uses beacon fires between fortresses, to warn of coming dangers.”
“Oh, indeed, sir,” the young man said, biting off a hunk of now stale bread.
Just looking at the dark and heavy loaf made Nate think of Christine, and her family’s bakery. There was no finer bread in all the world, and no finer person than Christine. His time here in Portugal had taught him that he cared little for other men’s opinions of him. He had served under some of the greatest fools he had ever come across who were supposedly good men because of the fortune of their birth. He had also served alongside men such as Wilkins, who had joined the army because it was preferable to going to jail for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family.
Wilkins was, in Nate’s mind at least, by far the superior man. He asked questions because he wanted answers. His mind was not already made up before he heard the answer. He was loyal and Nate knew that Wilkins would always protect him. The young man was poor, and he had broken the law, but he had done it to feed his family. Too many of the men of Nate’s own class also broke the law, but not one of them had ever done it to put food on the table. They did it because they could, because nobody would go against them.
Nate had learned of the disparity of the world in which he lived. After all, his best friend had come from a station so far below him that his family thought it unseemly for him to even know her. His father had sent him here to ensure he could not see her.
It was quite ironic and the thought was disturbing. He now associated daily with men of an even lower status than Christine and her family, but this fact would not bother his father a bit if this truth were to actually dawn upon him.
He missed her dreadfully, but there was little he could do about that. He had tried to write, so many times. But each time he tried he could never find the words. He did not want to tell her of his boredom, nor did he wish to tell her of the brutal injuries and deaths from disease he had witnessed. But honeyed words seemed wrong. They were not courting, and nor could they ever be. He could not bring himself to lie to her and tell her that all would be well.
But, then again, she had not written to him, either. Since he had been in Portugal, he had received only one letter – from his father – and even that he cherished as a tiny piece of home and the life he had once known.
Chapter Nine
The sudden death of her parents left Christine and her sisters the inexperienced and anxious owners of the village bakery. No longer was the idea of ownership a mere eventuality to be discussed with a dear friend. Now, the responsibility was real.
Christine felt that her lot in life had been decided and set in stone in one horrific moment. She wept, for her parents and for herself, but it did no good. Nothing could ever bring them back to her. Nobody was coming to make her life her own again. Life was not a fairytale and she would have no one to rescue her from her fate.
Once the stresses and strains of organising her parents’ funerals was done, and they had been laid to rest in the churchyard, lying side by side for all eternity, Christine had channelled everything she had into the bakery and raising her sisters. She barely sat still from dawn until dusk and was oddly thankful for the sheer volume of work she had to do. It had kept her mind from dwelling on her sadness and her anxieties about the future.
Emmeline, Daisy, and Rose were no longer able to avoid taking a full share of the work in the bakery now. Christine wished that things could be different so they did not have to work so very hard, but there was no help for their circumstances. They should be getting ready to take a place at one of the grand houses in service and possibly even courting a nice young man. But, none of that was meant to be for now.
She was very proud of how they had accepted the changes. Not one of them had complained of the long hours and hard work, though their exhaustion was plain to see as they all tumbled onto their pallets at night, falling asleep in no time at all.
The duke’s bailiff had arrived on the doorstep on the morning of her parents’ funeral. Christine had been surprised to see him, but had been incensed at the letter he had brought from Goldington House. Every night she re-read that dreadful missive. It had been fuel for her, driving her onwards to prove to the Duke of Goldingshire that he was wrong. It had made her determined to make him rue the day he had underestimated the orphaned baker’s daughter, Christine Langdon.
In the letter, he had assumed that as there was no male relative to take over the bakery, that they would wish to give up the lease and be moved to a smaller and cheaper property. He had offered Christine a position in the kitchens at Goldington House for a pittance of the wage she would be able to draw from the bakery. That was if she could continue to keep it prosperous, of course.
She had politely refused his offers and informed him that she would be continuing in her father’s footsteps, that she and her sisters needed no charity. She had heard nothing more from them, other than a notice informing her that the rent on the bakery would be raised starting with the next quarter’s payment.
To make the new rent would take no small effort, but
Christine had been determined that she would not complain. Nor would she beg for assistance. She would prove to the heartless duke that though she was a mere woman, that she was more than capable of running a successful and prosperous village bakery. She would be able to continue to satisfy all of the demand for her family’s baked goods across the entire county. Four quarter days had now passed, and she had proven just that.
From time to time, Christine wondered if things would be different for them, if only Nate were here to help. She had no doubt that he would not have left her and her sisters without counsel or support as his father had seemed so determined to do. She still felt that there was nobody she could turn to, and even Nate seemed further and further away from her.
He had not written, not even to convey his condolences, though he must know about her loss by now. Christine had written to him every week throughout the first year of his absence, then as things had gotten busier at the bakery she had written only once a month. She knew that during wartime that it could take longer than would be expected for mail to arrive – but surely, she should have heard from him by now?
She could only assume, sadly, that he had forgotten her. Christine heard the tales of the women who followed the army, hoping to snare themselves a wealthy soldier husband. What if one of them had managed to turn his head? What if he was gravely injured? Would she ever know? But, of course she would. Such news would ricochet around the village faster than the phaeton that had ended her parents’ lives.
Sitting around, feeling sorry for herself and what could never have been only led to heartbreak. Christine determined to make the best of her new reality, to focus on the things she could control and to forget those she could do nothing about. She may hate it, but she was an excellent baker. She began to throw her clever brain into developing new recipes and trying new ways to make the process easier for her and the girls.
Broken Boundaries: A Sweet Regency Romance Page 5
