Not Quite a Husband

by Sherry Thomas

  He relaxed and tossed her a fig. “That is pure slander. I will have you know that I stayed calmly uninvolved as pandemonium erupted all about me.”

  “Captain Bartlett further said that when the sight on one of the machine guns malfunctioned, and their regular sharpshooter became injured, you were the one who held off the enemy while the sepoys repaired the sight.”

  “A momentary lapse. I blame it on the general panic among the men.”

  “A momentary lapse that lasted a day and a half?”

  “Will you forgive me if I tell you that all throughout I was extremely, excessively careful with my stitches?”

  “Your dressing was soaked in blood.”

  “Was it?” He looked genuinely surprised. “I didn’t know.”

  “The stitches mainly held. But it took a while to clean and disinfect.”

  “I didn’t know that either,” he said sheepishly. “I thought you came, took a look at it, then …”

  They both flushed again. She’d always viewed such sexual acts as analogous to cliff-diving: survivable, and no doubt thrilling to a tiny portion of the population, but what was the point really? Yet as she’d knelt before him that afternoon, she’d remembered the searing pleasure he’d once given her in just such a manner. One day you will return the favor, he’d whispered in her ear that night. And she’d decided to return the favor then and there, because they might not live to see another day.

  Perhaps she ought to rethink cliff-diving. Because she certainly enjoyed its analogous act more than she’d ever thought possible for anyone. Even the scramble at the end.

  She cleared her throat. “I’m going to write a letter to the Times,” she said, changing the subject completely. “The last man I operated on was hit by friendly fire. The bullet shattered upon impact. And it was horrible—took me four hours to extract all the fragments. Ranjit Singh told me that these Dum-Dum bullets are designed to do that, to inflict maximum damage. I understand that bullets are supposed to be deadly, but surely it is against the spirit of the Geneva Convention to have bullets that maim so viciously when they don’t kill.”

  He sighed. “This entire thing is mad. We spent untold amounts to maintain these forward posts, because we fear the Russians would come sweeping down the Pamirs any day. But I’ve seen photographs of the Pamirs taken from the air: It would be worse than Napoleon marching on St. Petersburg for the Russians to invade India via the Pamirs—they’d have a better chance sacrificing half their army in Afghanistan first.”

  She took a bite of the fig he’d given her. “I didn’t know there were photographs of the Pamirs taken from the air.”

  “Remember my purpose for being in Gilgit, the balloon expedition? It wasn’t to survey the Nanga Parbat, but to take aerial images of the Pamirs and study the routes the Russians could take.”

  Her eyes went wide. “You were on a spy mission?”

  “It wasn’t exactly spying since the Pamirs don’t belong to either side. But I’d certainly gone to Gilgit in service to the empire. So I’m not quite as innocent a bystander in this uprising as you are.”

  It was her turn to speak sheepishly. “And here I thought you were merely following me around.”

  “I was.” He finished his fig and wiped his fingers on a handkerchief. “I always had something legitimate to do, but I could have gone to Sweden and Italy instead of Germany and America. I chose to be closer to you.”

  She looked down into her lap. She still had trouble thinking of him as devastated by their annulment—before she left for Germany, he’d entertained quite grandly at his hotel, leaving her to draw the very reasonable conclusion that he was more than happy to be rid of her as a spouse.

  But then there had been that microscope. There had been the way he’d looked at her, hope and despair fused into one single, scalding emotion. What stupid children they had been, to cause each other such pain and then to hold on to their wounds so fiercely.

  She got up, walked to him, and very carefully wrapped her arms about him.

  He kissed the top of her head. “I wish we had more time.”

  But there was no more time to be squeezed from the all-consuming battle—he couldn’t have had more than twelve hours of sleep in the five nights and days they’d been here. Sometimes it seemed to her that she’d lived her entire life in this fort, that there had never been anything in her years but this siege and this desperate struggle.

  A knock came at the door. “Mr. Marsden, it’s Richmond. We are due back on the rampart in two minutes.”

  “I’ll be right there,” Leo answered.

  “Must you go?” she complained. “There is no fighting.”

  “But the enemy is still out there. Which is why I need to go, so that the next batch of sepoys can rest. I was just about to leave when you woke up.”

  “I wish you could stay,” she murmured, as she kissed him just above his collar. “I am having an extraordinarily difficult time letting you out of my arms.”

  She was both surprised and not surprised to feel tears roll down her face. He kissed her tears. “It doesn’t matter where I am; I’m yours.”

  After a half day lull, all hell broke loose. Ranjit Singh informed Bryony in an unsteady voice that whereas they’d had two or three thousand attackers earlier, now they were surrounded by well over ten thousand Pathans, every last one of whom was dead set on storming the fort.

  Bullets slammed into the fort as if they were some malicious god’s idea of manna from heaven. The casualty rate rose sharply. A camp follower and two sepoys died not from battle but from the flying bullets while traversing the interior of the fort.

  For some time Bryony existed in a state of abject fear. She was not ready to die. She was not ready for Leo to die. Or for Ranjit Singh or Captain Bartlett or her patients or the brave cavalry soldiers who’d ridden from Malakand or anyone at all in this fort to be hacked to death.

  Then the hours passed, the defenders still held, and her terror subsided to a grim apprehension. She went on with the work of the surgery, which was unfortunately all too plentiful. Leo sent her a hurriedly scratched note: B., The stitches are fine. I changed the dressing—no infection as far as I can tell. Be sure you eat enough and sleep as much as you can. And walk in the open only under the most extreme caution. L.

  She barely ate and slept for two days, but when she finally returned to the quarters, she did proceed under extreme caution—Ranjit Singh had found a pair of spare shutters from somewhere and had accompanied her, the two of them each holding a shutter as a shield, running the gauntlet.

  Leo came and lay down next to her at some point. She was so tired she couldn’t even grunt to acknowledge him. But if it was possible to sleep with a smile on her face, then she must have—whether she had enough grace to die bravely she did not yet know, but at that moment at least she was strangely at peace and unspeakably happy.

  He stirred when she got out of bed two hours later—she needed to make her rounds.

  “Hullo,” he said, his eyes still closed, his voice barely audible.

  “Hullo,” she said, sitting down again at the edge of the bed. “Since I’m here, let me take a look at you.”

  He obediently moved as she needed to help her. The wound on his arm had healed almost entirely. The cut on his side was also coming along nicely. Even the one on his thigh had made satisfactory progress, though the eventual scar promised to be much uglier than if he had been able to recover unmolested.

  “You know what is tragic?” he murmured.

  “What?” she said, smiling at his wry tone.

  “That in what could be my final days on earth I spend all my waking hours killing men I’ve never laid eyes on before, and scant minutes making love to you.”

  “The very thought makes tears stream down my face.”

  He opened his eyes and touched the back of his hand to her cheek. The tenderness in his look was almost enough to make tears stream down her face in truth. “Bryony.”

  She placed her
hand over his heart. “Is it as bad out there as Ranjit Singh says it is?”

  “Worse.”

  She sighed. “I don’t know why, but I have this huge regret over having never seen Cambridge. I hear it’s a lovely place.”

  “It is. You will like it.”

  “Do you really think I’ll have a chance to visit it? And your house on the river with the cherry trees?”

  “I do. You’ll make it, Bryony. And one day you will be the first woman to be admitted to the Royal College of Surgeons,” he said, his tone brooking no disagreement.

  “Of course,” she said, growing ever closer to tears.

  “There are two letters in my bag, one to my brothers, one to my godfather. If something should happen to me, I want you to deliver those letters.”

  “Shh. Don’t talk like that.”

  “I’m not talking like that. God willing, I am going to lecture at Cambridge until 1960, when I am so old that my students will ask if I’d met Newton in my youth. But bullets fly in war—a sepoy standing next to me was killed on the spot—and I want to prepare for all eventualities.”

  “No, you—”

  “Listen, Bryony. In my letters, I wrote that we have married again.”

  “But that is not true.”

  “No. But should you survive Swat Valley and I do not—what if you should be with child?”

  “You know how unlikely it is for me to conceive.”

  “Yes, I know. But the irregularity of your courses could also disguise a pregnancy for months. I won’t have you ostracized.” He brought her hand to his lips. “And don’t worry, with Sir Robert and my brothers behind you, no one will dare ask to see a copy of our new marriage lines.”

  Her tears did come after all. He had thought of everything for her.

  “I love you,” she said, choking on her words, knowing that should things go ill, this was their farewell.

  “You’ll do it then, for me?”

  She nodded. He closed his eyes. She rained kisses on his hand. When it seemed he’d fallen back asleep, she rose to leave.

  “Almost forgot. There is something else I need to tell you,” he murmured.

  She sat down again. “What is it?”

  “The day before our annulment was granted, your father came to see me at Claridge’s.”

  “Did he?” She never knew.

  “As soon as we were alone in my suite, he punched me so hard that I was on the floor, seeing stars.”

  “No, that can’t be true.” Her father was a scholar who never did anything more strenuous than raising a pen.

  “Yes, it is true. And before I could get up he punched me again. So there I was with a bleeding lip and a cut on my cheek, and he said, ‘I trusted you to treat her right, you bastard.’”

  “My father?”

  He sighed. “Yes, your father. So there I was yelling that I treated you like a princess, that no woman in her right mind would act the way you did and why in the name of all that was good and sane would he choose to defend you when you hated his bloody guts.”

  She rested Leo’s hand against her cheek, shocked and strangely exhilarated. “And what did he say?”

  “He said that you hated him for damned good reasons. And so you must hate me for damned good reasons too. And with that he punched me again and left.”

  Her tears once again overwhelmed her control. “He never told me.”

  “Of course he wouldn’t have.” He rubbed away her tears with his palm. “When you see him again, do not think so harshly of him.”

  “I will try.”

  He smiled. “Good. Now go bother your patients and let me sleep.”

  The siege lifted as swiftly as it had begun. The cavalry literally came over the hill, the Amandara Ridge south of the river, the distant mobilization Captain Bartlett had promised at last galloping to their rescue. A loud, heartfelt cheer went up the rampart.

  At the sight of cavalry—and the knowledge their brethren at Malakand had already been defeated—the Pathans, so fierce and dauntless for so long, lost their will to fight. They scattered before the cavalry, some running for the hills, others throwing aside their arms.

  The men on the ramparts held their posts as Captain Bartlett rode out to meet the relief column. Even as the enemy retreated and capitulated, the sepoys dared not move freely: The walls of the rampart, piled high with logs, sandbags, rocks, and boxes of dirt, were a constant reminder of their impediment from snipers in the cliffs above.

  But eventually it dawned that they had done what they needed to do: They’d held an ill-placed fort against a much larger enemy for seven long nights and days. Even the snipers had fled. The valley, busy with horses, sowars, sepoys, and equipment on the move, was curiously devoid of further gunshots.

  Leo found himself hugged by Mr. Richmond, whose face was badly sunburnt, and whose glasses had lost the left side lens. He found himself shaking hands with sepoys whose names he did not know, but with whom he’d fought side by side and in whose skill and courage he’d entrusted his and Bryony’s lives. And he found himself, without his crutch, walking slowly along the rampart, looking out at this theater of war of which he’d only had the most limited view, hunkered down as he had been for fear of sniper fire, seeing the battlefield only through loopholes and narrow gaps in the crenellations.

  In ancient times a Buddhist kingdom had flourished here, in the heart of the Swat Valley. The Chinese monk Fa-hien, passing through the country in the fifth century, had praised its forests and gardens. There were no forests or gardens to be found along the slopes of the wide valley in the present day, only rock and grass. But the valley itself was a robust green extending as far up-and downstream as the eye could see—paddy fields crowding either side of the river, pink and white begonias growing wild along the embankment.

  It would have been beautiful were it not for the scene of carnage. The dead lay thick on the ground, too numerous for their comrades to remove. The defeated huddled with their heads bent, their spirits sapped. Already the air was beginning to turn slightly fetid, from corpses left in the heat. Leo was not a praying man, but he bowed his head and said a prayer for all the men who had perished in this brutal, yet ultimately senseless, battle.

  In the distance field guns were on the move, dozens of them drawn by camels. Newly arrived officers surveyed the land and assessed the damages. Their sepoys organized the defeated to dig graves and bury the dead. The gears of the empire, once set into motion, would not stop so quickly. The fort would be repaired and made more secure. The officers would draw up plans. There would be retributive expeditions to Upper Swat Valley and Bajaur.

  But his part was done.

  He was going to live. And he would pass his days in the peace and fertile learning of Cambridge. And one day he would show Bryony his house on the river, with the cherry trees.

  “Mr. Marsden!”

  He looked down. It was Mr. Richmond. “The general would like to speak to you. He wants to know what you can tell him of the situation in Dir.”

  Leo sighed. It would seem his part in this war wasn’t quite done yet.

  Bryony’s last patient was none other than Captain Bartlett, who, after he led the charge, had been shot in the abdomen as he fought to retake the civil hospital outside the fort. As she operated on Captain Bartlett, she was dimly aware that another officer came into the surgery and watched her as she worked, but it did not occur to her to turn and look.

  Only when she was done and Captain Bartlett moved to the injury ward did she remember the intruder.

  “Surgeon-Captain Gibbs, ma’am,” the man introduced himself.

  That was the moment the war ended for Bryony. She shook the surgeon-captain’s hand with quite a bit more enthusiasm than she normally greeted strangers with and all but shoved over the records of the recovering soldiers and camp followers and the death certificates she’d signed.

  The surgeon-captain, an unsmiling man, toured the injury ward. At the end, he said solemnly, “Thank you, Mrs.
Marsden. I will ask that the officers recommend you for a medal for your services.”

  “Thank you but please don’t,” said Bryony in all sincerity. “That would be setting the bar too low. I but did what every surgeon would have done.”

  They shook hands again. And she was free. She walked into the hot sun of an August day, feeling light as a dandelion puff, daring to loiter outside for the first time in a week and forever.

  But the fort was crowded. Provisions and materiel rolled in the gates. The kitchen workers ran about in a frenzy, supplying everyone with tea and tiffin. And she was getting too many curious looks from all the men, Indian and British, for her comfort. So she abandoned her plan to stand in the open for as long as she could and removed to her quarters.

  Leo was there, shrugging into his coat. She hurried to help him. “Your arm! Be careful.”

  “My arm is quite fine. I can even do this. See.” He had her in a fierce embrace that quite crushed her breasts and squeezed every last molecule of air out of her. She could not get enough of it.

  But eventually he let her go. “I have to go see the general, or so I’ve been told—he wants to know about Dir. If it were any other man, I’d have told him to go bugger himself for keeping me from you. But since he and his troops rescued us, I am just going to ask him to hurry up with his questions instead.”

  “Well then go and come back fast.”

  He hugged her again and covered her face with kisses. “Take some rest, if you can in all this commotion. I’ll see if I can get us out of here today itself.”

  She tried, but rest was out of the question. With every raised voice, alarm shot through her—and there were plenty of raised voices as the men inside the fort tried to make themselves heard above the din. Two times she ran to the door and had her hands on the knob before she realized that the war was finished, that there would be no more injured soldiers needing her attention.