'Then I'll stay with you,' said the other with resignation. There was some commotion off to their right and they traded an anxious glance. 'What's that noise?'
'Let's go and find out,' decided Abigail.
Picking their way through the tents, they came to an avenue down which a long column of wagons rumbled. Blood-curdling moans were coming from wounded soldiers brought back from the battlefield and the sound was swelled by wailing women who had just discovered that their husbands had lost limbs or had their faces shot off. Abigail and Emily were transfixed by the gruesome sight. Medical provisions were primitive and the most that surgeons had been able to do was to amputate arms and legs before gangrene set in, or to bandage hideous wounds without being able to stem the bleeding.
It was a scene of undiluted horror. Gallant soldiers who had marched off proudly into battle were now little more than bundles of bones in ragged uniforms, crying out pitifully for someone to relieve their agony. There were so many of them. The column stretched back out of sight. Abigail stood there and gaped as an endless stream of human misery went past. She blenched when she saw a man waving a bandaged stump of an arm at her and was sickened when she observed another who had lost both legs at the knees. Wherever she looked, there was some new assault on her sensibilities. It was like viewing an endless parade of corpses.
Yet she could not tear herself away. Afraid that Daniel Rawson might be part of the mournful traffic to Nordlingen, she forced herself to look into every wagon, revolted by the sight of so much blood and shocked by the fact that some of the men had already expired from their injuries. The cloying stench of death and the stink of putrifying wounds invaded her nostrils and made her retch with nausea. As she checked yet another cargo of mutilated soldiers, a skinny hand shot out and grabbed her by the wrist.
'Give me a kiss, darling!' begged a desperate man whose head and body were swathed in blood-soaked bandages. 'I need something to keep out this terrible pain.'
But even as he spoke, his strength waned visibly and he lost his grip on Abigail. His fingers fell away, leaving a bloody imprint on the sleeve of her dress. She jumped back in alarm. Emily had already seen more than enough.
'Come away, Miss Abigail,' she said. 'You shouldn't look.'
Abigail was trembling. 'I hadn't realised it would be like this.'
'Turn your back on it.'
'I have to see if Captain Rawson has been wounded.'
'If he has, you'll be told soon enough. He'd not want you to see him in the state these poor men are in. Most of them are nearer to death than life. Could you stand to see the captain like that?'
'No,' said Abigail, closing her eyes. 'It would be intolerable.'
'Then let me take you away,' suggested Emily, holding her by the arm and leading her off. 'You may not think it to look at them but those are the lucky ones.'
'Lucky!'
'They survived the battle.'
'But what kind of lives do they face with injuries like that?' asked Abigail as she envisaged their bleak futures. 'And what kind of burden will they be on their wives and children?'
'Women who marry soldiers know where it may all end. If they don't have to watch their man being buried, they may well have to care for an invalid. That's their lot and they put up with it because they have no other expectation. I told you before,' said Emily, 'they belong here and we don't. I think we should go home.'
Edward Marston
Soldier of Fortune
Sergeant Henry Welbeck had fought with his usual blend of skill and ferocity when they stormed the hill. Now that the battle was over, it was time for recriminations. Alone with Daniel Rawson, he felt able to express his complaints in language he would never dare to use to any other officer. Daniel's tent gave him the freedom of privacy.
'It was bloody madness, Dan!' he bellowed. 'Sending us up that hill was the worst fucking thing that Corporal John has done.'
'The end justifies the means, Henry.'
'He always used to care for his men.'
'He still does,' said Daniel, 'but there was no way that he could protect them yesterday. They had to be ordered into battle.'
'But why did it have to be British bloody soldiers who died? Aren't there enough Dutch and Danish and Austrian troops to send off to their deaths? Why did we have to provide the Forlorn Hope?' he went on. 'More to the point, why did you take leave of your bloody senses and volunteer to join it?'
'I wanted to be in the thick of the action.'
'Well, you came very close to being in an early grave. I had to organise the burial details. Do you know how many of my men I saw being dropped into the ground — what was left of them, that is. Going up that hill was nothing short of suicide.'
'What else could we have done, Henry?'
'We could've had a good night's rest, for a start.'
Daniel laughed. 'Have you ever rested on eve of a battle?'
'You know what I mean, Dan. We'd marched all day. We were in no condition to give of our best. Yet that's what His Grace, the Duke of Bloody Marlborough, expected us to do.'
'I saw nobody shirking on the battlefield.'
'It was needless fucking slaughter.'
'They had far more casualties,' said Daniel.
Welbeck glowered. 'Is that supposed to make me feel better?'
'We won, Henry. That's all that matters.'
'Thank you for telling me,' said the other sarcastically.
Daniel was sitting on a camp stool but his friend was striding restlessly to and fro. Both of them had picked up their share of grazes and bruises during the battle. Welbeck had been stabbed in the arm by an enemy bayonet and the wound was heavily bandaged. He had also acquired a black eye. Daniel's face had been washed but his scars and bruises remained and his lower lip was swollen. The gash on his back had been cleaned and dressed. Now that the thrill of battle had gone, he could feel every bruise and abrasion but, in view of their victory, it was an almost satisfying pain.
'At least, you were there,' said Welbeck, stopping beside him. 'I heard that someone tried to kill you.'
'Thousands of French and Bavarians tried to kill me, Henry.' 'I'm talking about what happened in this camp.'
'Ah, yes — that.'
Welbeck was scornful. 'Listen to the man!' he said. 'Someone fires a shot at him and all he can say is 'Ah, yes — that.' If it had been me, I'd be furious.'
'You always are, Henry.'
'What exactly happened?'
Daniel gave him a brief account of the walk beside the stream. When he was told that Abigail Piper had fainted in Daniel's arms, the sergeant emitted a howl of contempt.
'Bloody women!' he exclaimed. 'She distracted you, Dan.'
'I should have been more careful, I agree.'
'From the way you tell it, I could almost believe she led you to that particular spot so that an accomplice could take a shot at you.'
'That's arrant nonsense,' said Daniel hotly. 'Abigail loves me. She'd rather take a bullet herself than see me killed. No, Henry, it was pure coincidence that we were on the edge of the camp like that.'
'It was no coincidence that the man who fired the pistol was there. He was lying in wait, Dan. And although you didn't see so much as a glimpse of his arse as he ran away, I reckon I could put a name to the bastard.'
'Can you?'
'Of course — it was Will Curtis, as he used to call himself.'
'You could be right,' said Daniel, mulling it over. 'He crossed my mind as well. He or his accomplice failed to kill me in this very tent so he had a second attempt.'
