by Carla Kelly
Lieutenant Soileau had no intention of allowing Hugh to run tame in his tent for the night. So he told Hugh, who translated for her. ‘You already know. He is taking me to the detention tent for another of our typical nights in the hands of our enemies, Brandon. I’m sorry.’
She was powerless against the dread of having Hugh Junot gone from her sight. ‘Tell Lieutenant Soileau I will go with you.’
The detention tent was no worse than other nights on the trail from São Jobim to this nameless spot in the foothills, and far better than the granary. While Lieutenant Soileau looked askance, Hugh made himself comfortable against a meal sack, obligingly held out his hands to be bound, then patted his thigh. Ignoring the Lieutenant, who refused to bind her hands, Polly sat down beside Hugh and rested her head on his leg, tugging the extra blanket around her. She was asleep in minutes, happy to be where she was.
They were up before daylight, prodded by the sentry, who grudgingly loosened Hugh’s bonds so he could attend to his private business and shooed Polly from the tent while he did so. Lieutenant Soileau’s blanket around her, she waited serenely in the mist, watching the Dragoons at their breakfast fires. Sergeant Cadotte and his men squatted by their own fires, and she noted with some relief, at least, that the Sergeant seemed to have retained all his rank.
As she stood there, Cadotte brought her a tin cup of what turned out to be chicken broth. She drank it gratefully, surprised there had been a chicken still on the loose in this picked-over terrain. The fowl must have been as determined to live as the Junnits.
‘I am sorry we got you in trouble, Sergeant,’ she said in French, after looking around to make sure Lieutenant Soileau was not in sight.
He shook his head. ‘Junot. Junnit. Good Christ, woman!’ Cadotte looked around, too. ‘I could not have killed you. It never was the bribe your husband so generously offered, and you may tell him that.’
‘Why, then?’ she asked, curious.
‘That nun was a spy and I did my duty,’ he told her. ‘You, however, were in the wrong place at the wrong time. God help me, but I don’t customarily make war on women.’ He looked away, as if contemplating his own family. ‘Heartless as I was at Sâo Jobim, God forgive me.’
She handed back the cup. He took hold of it, but did not take it from her. His fingers touched hers. ‘Be careful today. I’ll watch you two if I can.’
You’re my enemy, she thought, grateful for Cadotte. We owe you so much. ‘Merci,’ was all she said.
Cadotte was obviously one of the smaller cogs in the battalion, but he still managed to secure the same horse for them. She noticed he did everything quickly, before Lieutenant Soileau had the opportunity to impose his own regulations. Polly held her hands out to be bound, but Cadotte shook his head. ‘Not this time, Madame Junot. Keep your hands low in your lap, and I do not think the Lieutenant will notice. Be watchful and think quickly.’
When he touched his finger to his helmet and turned away, Polly twisted around to look at Hugh, who was watching the Sergeant with his own troubled expression. ‘I’m afraid,’ she whispered.
‘I am, too,’ Hugh murmured back. ‘Keep your eyes on Cadotte. He’ll help us, if he can.’
The column rode into a misty morning, the forest abnormally quiet of birdsong. Although admonished to silence by Lieutenant Soileau, there was no way to totally quieten the creak of harness, clink of mess kit, or the sharp strike of horseshoe against stone. Polly strained for the sound of other horses and men riding on their periphery, but she heard nothing.
The mist gave way to a morning as beautiful as any she had ever seen, the air crisp and the landscape scrubbed clean by the rain that had fallen in the night. They continued their downward path until Polly saw open ground in the distance.
‘The plains of León,’ Hugh said, and there was no mistaking the relief in his voice. ‘I believe we are less than eighty miles from the Bay of Biscay.’
It might as well be a million miles, she thought. Hugh seemed to read her mind. ‘Now we will turn east towards Burgos, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Ah, well.’
Lieutenant Soileau called a rest. When they were in the saddle again, Sergeant Cadotte stepped his horse out of the line and waited a moment until they were beside him.
‘This is the last pass to the plains, Colonel,’ he said, keeping his voice soft and looking straight ahead, ignoring them. She barely saw his hands move as he placed a knife in her lap. ‘Watch for an opportunity and take it. Bon chance.’ He touched spurs to his mount and moved up into the line, in front of his Corporal.
Polly could not stop the fear that seemed to ripple down her spine. She took the knife, and cut through Hugh’s bonds, as he continued to envelop her in his grasp, his hands in front of her. ‘Don’t drop the knife,’ he told her. ‘Do what I tell you when the moment comes.’
It was then that she heard other horses and riders, but they were above them in the pass. Some of the Dragoons were looking up, too, and gesturing. It was just a man here and a man there, standing, observing, dressed in brown to blend in with the dry plains of León. When the column turned, she saw Lieutenant Soileau in the vanguard, his head inclined towards one of his Sergeants, who pointed with some emphasis.
‘Lieutenant Soileau is too green for this assignment,’ Hugh whispered. ‘He is in over his head. He’s ignoring his Sergeants. Brandon, it’s going to be bad!’
He grasped her around the waist then, his hand tight. At a word from Cadotte, who rode ahead, the Corporal loosed the rope that bound his horse to theirs. Polly snatched the rope, leaning forwards across the horse’s neck.
When she tried to rise, Hugh pushed her down again into the animal’s mane, and leaned over her. He edged off the path just as the noonday calm erupted in screams and gunfire. ‘Get off and slide down the embankment,’ Hugh ordered, loosing his grip on her and lifting her leg over the pommel. ‘Don’t look back!’
She did as he said, as the guerilleros seemed to rise like rapid-growing plants from the hillside, and rain down fire. She stood at the side of the road, rooted there in her fear, as the Corporal suddenly slapped his ear, slumped across his horse’s neck, then plopped in a heap at her feet, a bullet drilled through his brain.
Polly needed no other encouragement. She slid down the slope, rolling and scrambling up and falling again as the column dissolved in gunfire. Horses screamed and pushed against each other as everyone tried to take cover. Other Dragoons had dismounted, true to their training, and were firing now from positions along the embankment she had slid down.
Scarcely breathing, she watched for Hugh through the growing smoke of the muskets, realising with an ache that he had not been so far from her side in weeks. She began to cautiously climb up the embankment, looking for him. Relief coursed through every fibre of her body as she saw a scarlet tunic and then Hugh as he slid off his horse and tried to follow her down the slope. As she watched in horror, one of the Dragoons pulled out his sidearm and aimed it right at Hugh.
‘Hugh!’ she shrieked. He had no weapon. She raced up the slope, blotting everything from her mind except Hugh. It wasn’t so far, and she suddenly felt strong, despite days of starvation, cold rain, and despair. Suddenly, she knew what it felt like to risk everything for what she loved the most. She understood what Sister Maria Madelena had tried to tell her at São Jobim.
As puny as it was, the Dragoon hadn’t expected an attack from the rear. Polly scrambled to her feet and lunged for the horsehair tassel hanging from the man’s helmet, jerking it with all her might. It earned her a clout on the shoulder, but he fell backwards, tried to struggle to his feet, then was stopped for ever by a bullet from a musket—friend or foe she had no idea.
Polly sobbed out loud, then shrieked as Hugh grabbed her around the waist and ran down the slope. Not until he found a fallen tree and pulled her behind it did he release his grip.
They lay in a jumble, arms around each other, until the firing stopped. She wanted to say something, but she knew it would only come out as
babble, so she was silent, feeling her heartbeat gradually slow, and the tingling feeling leave her arms and legs until she felt as heavy as the log they crouched behind.
‘I told you to go down that slope and not look back,’ Hugh said finally.
‘He came between me and you,’ she said, touching his face as though she had never thought to do that again.
He didn’t say anything more, but gathered her closer. They lay there, listening, until the voices above them were Spanish instead of French.
‘Do you know any Spanish?’ Hugh asked.
‘Not much. Do you?’
‘Precious little.’ He sat up cautiously. ‘It galls this Scot, but all I can remember is Ingleses. I have to tell them I am English.’
‘I’m coming with you.’
‘You are not!’ He took her chin in his hand and gave it a little shake. ‘And don’t give me that mulish look, Madame Junot! Stay here. I won’t ask you twice.’
He sat on the fallen log, brushing futilely at his scarlet tunic, which was torn, stained, and bloody. Most of the gilt buttons hung by threads. He pulled his gorget out of the front of his tunic and settled it where it belonged. He glanced at Polly.
‘You’re probably going to tell me I’m a dandy and I don’t smell very good, either,’ he muttered.
‘You certainly don’t,’ she teased, then reached for him. ‘Please be careful, my love. My love,’ she repeated, enjoying the way it rolled over her tongue.
‘Your love,’ he mused. ‘Brandon, I think—no, I know—your sister wanted you to wait a few years and then fall in love with a solicitor, or maybe a ship builder.’
‘Probably,’ she replied agreeably, since he was going to be a dunce. ‘I will be a sad disappointment to them, but not to me. I never wanted to harm anyone, but Boney gave me no choice. It’s my fight, too.’
He looked at her in admiration, then gently pushed her spectacles higher up on her nose. ‘I still can’t believe they are not broken.’ He started up the hill, moving deliberately, his hands up, calling ‘Ingleses’ every few feet until he was on the road again. Polly held her breath, fearing a volley of rifle fire, but the only sounds she heard were weapons being thrown on to a pile and the groans of the wounded, followed by shrieks. Dear God, they are killing the wounded, she thought. What kind of men are these?
When she did not think she could stand it another minute, Hugh came halfway down the slope and gestured to her. She wavered, not wanting to see the carnage on the road, but uneasy to be so far away from her love. Hugh won out, as she knew he always would, and she climbed the slope.
He grasped her arm to pull her on to the road, then held her tight, face against his chest. ‘We won’t be here long, Brandon. They have no plans to bury the dead or aid the wounded.’
‘Are we…?’ She couldn’t even think of the word. It had been too long.
‘Free? Indeed, we are. We are in the hands of General Francisco Espoz y Mina, himself.’ He pointed to a tall man, hatless, bending over what remained of Lieutenant Soileau. ‘He speaks only Basque, but his Lieutenant, Feliz Sarasa there, speaks Spanish and English.’
She only nodded, her eyes huge in her face, as she watched the killing ground. ‘Are they all dead?’
‘If they aren’t, they soon will be. The guerilleros aren’t inclined to give quarter. Seems a pity, almost, doesn’t it?’
She nodded, unable to take her eyes from the dead, who systematically were being stripped of what clothing might be useful in the guerilla cause, and then rolled unceremoniously down the slope she had just climbed.
Hugh’s grip tightened involuntarily. ‘Look you there. Sergeant Cadotte.’
She followed where he led, picking her way through the French until the hem of her skirt was crimson. She knelt when Hugh knelt by the side of the Sergeant, who lay with one leg bent in an odd direction, his hands bloody from clutching his stomach.
‘He’s barely alive,’ Hugh whispered. ‘What I would give to have your brother-in-law here, except I fear it would do no good.’ He put his hands on both sides of the Sergeant and leaned close until his lips were practically on Cadotte’s ear. ‘Sergeant, can you hear me?’
The dying man’s eyes opened finally. Polly could hardly bear to look at him, but when she did, she saw no fear, only weariness.
One of the guerilleros knelt beside Cadotte, too, his knife out. Hugh shot out his hand to stop the man. ‘No, por favor, no,’ Hugh said. ‘Este…este hombre…’ He stopped, his Spanish exhausted.
‘Su amigo?’ the guerillero asked, a look of incredulity on his face.
‘He saved our lives,’ Hugh said, leaning over Cadotte, shielding him with his own body. ‘Please leave him to me.’
The guerillero obviously didn’t understand, but shrugged and moved away, looking for enemies without friends. Hugh turned back to the Sergeant of Dragoons and carefully put his arm under Cadotte’s shoulders, raising him up slightly.
‘L’eau,’ he gasped.
Polly looked around. The Corporal lying nearby still had his canteen attached to his belt. Trying not to look at his ruined face, she cut the canteen with his knife and brought it back to Hugh. He tipped a little of its contents into Cadotte’s mouth. The water only dribbled out the corners and from the wound in his neck, but the Sergeant said ‘Merci,’ anyway.
She decided she could not be afraid of this dying man and tried to think what Laura would do. She took him by the hand and was rewarded with the slightest of pressure against her fingers. It could have been her imagination.
‘Sergeant, we owe you our lives, twice and three times over,’ Hugh said, his mouth close to Cadotte’s ear again. ‘I remember your wife’s name, but is there a direction besides just Angoulême where I can send her funds for your farm? Is there a parish?’
The Sergeant was silent. ‘I asked him too much,’ Hugh said in frustration and near tears himself.
‘Lalage.’ In spite of his vast pain, Cadotte seemed to caress the name. A long moment passed, then, ‘Sainte Agilbert.’ He smiled at Polly. ‘If…girl, name…Lalage.’
Polly raised his bloody hand to her cheek. ‘I promise.’
Cadotte nodded slightly and turned his head a fraction of an inch towards Hugh again. ‘Cows. A new fence.’ He sighed, as though thinking of the farm he would never see again, and a woman named Lalage. The sigh went on and on, and he died.
His face a mask of pain, Hugh gently released the Sergeant and pulled Polly close to him. ‘I wish I had not deceived him.’
‘Lalage is a beautiful name,’ Polly said through her tears. ‘We will use it some day, husband.’
He managed the ghost of a smile. ‘No one will understand.’
‘Do you care?’
He shook his head and kissed her temple. ‘When the war is over, we will mend a fence near Angoulême. There will be a lot of cattle for it to contain.’
Chapter Eighteen
They were in the saddle again in less than an hour, riding at the front of the column now, next to a Lieutenant of Pakenham’s division, and dressed like one of Espoz y Mina’s ragtag army.
‘Wellington has sent a few of us into the hills to ride with the guerilleros, Colonel Junot, although I cannot for the life of me understand why,’ he said cheerfully as they rode along. ‘Good show this morning, eh?’
I wonder what this irritating Lieutenant would do if I suddenly knocked him out of his saddle? Hugh asked himself, his mood sour and his mind dark.
He knew how Brandon felt. As they rode away from the bloody ground, she turned her face into his chest and sobbed, which only made the British Lieutenant look at her in amazement.
‘I say, Colonel,’ he whispered. ‘Doesn’t she understand that we have freed you from the French?’
Hugh returned some non-committal answer, knowing it was fruitless to explain to this ninny that in any war, especially one fought as long as this conflict, there comes a time where reasonable men and women have had enough. His own heart was heavy enough, thinking o
f Lalage Cadotte and her two sons whom she would continue to raise alone. He didn’t want to think how many sad little families there were in France, in Spain, in England.
That’s it, he told himself, discarding every reason why the world would think theirs a foolish match. Polly is my love. He decided then that his home with Brandon would not be a sad one. He longed to take her to Kirkcudbright. He wanted to walk along the shoreline, watch the fishing boats, breathe deep of the fragrance of his late mother’s rose garden, and imagine the delight of a young child skipping along beside him. He knew he was duty-bound to the Marines until the war ended, at least, but there wasn’t any reason Brandon herself could not be his proxy, and settle into that lovely life he suddenly wanted for himself.
He looked down at her, wondering if she even knew how much she probably loved him, she who would have killed that Dragoon on the slope. If she did, something told him she would never allow herself to be settled so far away from him. He swallowed as his own heart raced uncomfortably at the idea of such a separation. Scotland could wait, as long as she was safely tucked into his quarters in Plymouth. Even then, he thought it would be hard to kiss her goodbye every morning and attend to his deskbound duties a building away. He wondered if a time would ever come when he would feel easy again without her in his line of sight.
They rode as hard as the French soldiers now lying slaughtered had ridden, in that last pass before the mountains gave way to the vast plain of León. At first, he listened with half an ear to the voluble Lieutenant who rode beside him, learning of Wellington’s triumphal entry into Madrid, then the need to move north and invest the stronghold of Burgos. There was hopeful talk of wintering in the Pyrenees and moving on France in the spring, rather than enduring another dreary retreat to Portugal and the safety offered by the lines of Torres Vedras and the Royal Navy close offshore.
