Battlesaurus (30 page)

He turns to the soldier with the broken arm. “Tell me your name and company, soldier.”

“If you are speaking to my man,” Frost says, “his name is—”

“I would hear him speak with his own tongue,” Baston says.

Still the man is silent.

“Tell him who you are,” Frost says.

“Me name is Jack,” the soldier says quietly. “Private Jack Sullivan, G troop, under Captain Mercer.”

Baston nods and makes a note. The soldier's accent is clearly English. He is not the boy they are looking for.

Larrey arrives and stands at the rear of the wagon.

“You know these British soldiers?” Baston asks.

“I have examined them personally,” Larrey says. “One of them is gravely ill.”

“The man you speak of is Viscount Wenzel-Halls, son of the Earl of Leicester,” Frost says. “A valued prize indeed to your emperor but worth nothing at all without breath in his lungs.”

“And dead he will be by morning if I cannot transfer him to a proper hospital,” Larrey says.

Baston examines the man. A bloodstained bandage covers half of his head. From under it drifts a flow of dank reddish hair. Under the blanket there is a flat area where his right arm should be. On his left hand he wears a gold ring with the insignia of a crown and a lion.

“I would hear him speak,” Baston says.

“He is asleep with the fever, and I doubt he can be roused,” Frost says.

Baston prods the man's foot, but there is no response.

“I will take responsibility for this man,” Larrey says.

“So you shall,” Baston says. He nods his head to the guards. They open the saur-gate and the wagon drives out. He steps out after it and sees it crest the bridge and then turn to follow the river path.

Baston turns back to the gate, hearing voices. A woman in a gray smock stands just inside the gate, a pail in her hand. From the light way she carries it, it is empty. The guards have blocked her way.

“Monsieur,” she says. “I fetch water for the wounded.”

Larrey's eyes are now upon Baston.

“Of course, madame,” Baston says. “We treat the British wounded as we treat our own. But I cannot allow you outside the gates.”

“But, monsieur!”

“However, I would be happy to take the pail for you,” he says.

“Of course,” the woman says. “Thank you.”

Baston accepts the pail from the woman, and fills it at the river's edge, before returning it to her.

“You are too kind, monsieur,” she says, and carries the pail back into the village.

Baston turns to look back at the river path, watching the ambulance until it is almost out of sight. His eyes narrow. He runs outside the gate. “Halt!” he shouts.

The ambulance does not slow, the driver perhaps not hearing him over the rumble of the wheels on the rocky path. The ambulance disappears into the trees.

“My horse,” Baston orders, and mounts it as soon as it is brought to him. “Shut the gates, and let nobody out until I return,” he says.

The guards comply, pulling the gates shut as Baston gallops out.

“Halt!” Baston calls again as he nears the wagon, and this time it does slow, drawing to a stop just past a rocky depression that is strangely red-brown in color, as if stained with dried blood.

Baston pulls up behind the wagon and dismounts.

He draws his pistol and walks to the rear of the wagon.

“The viscount. Remove his blanket,” he says.

“He is very ill,” Frost says.

“Show me his right arm,” Baston says.

Carefully, nervously, the nurse reaches down and lifts the blanket from the unconscious soldier. He stirs and opens his eyes. Bloodied bandages encase the stump of what was once a right arm.

“Can I help you, Captain?” he asks, in perfect, unaccented English. His voice is weak, barely a breath of air.

Baston shakes his head briskly. “My apologies, Viscount. You may go.”

*   *   *

It is not long after this that the saur-gates open again and sixty French soldiers enter, marching three abreast. Thibault rides at their head. They are followed by a formation of cuirassiers on horseback, resplendent in their shining armor chest plates and fine helmets. The soldiers do not stop until they reach the village square. At the rear of the column a team of four horses skittishly pulls a cage wagon with bars of solid steel. Women grasp children to their skirts to avoid them seeing what lies within. But they cannot stop them hearing.

A large, four-wheel ambulance wagon loaded with the last of the patients waits outside the market hall where the doctors and hospital staff are busy packing and loading their own wagons.

Baston joins the procession at the gate and rides into the square alongside Thibault.

“Any sign of the boy?” Thibault asks.

Baston shakes his head. “No, General, but I have verified that he is here, and sealed the gates as you asked.”

“We saw an ambulance wagon on the Brussels road. Did that come from here?”

“Yes, General. Three British casualties on their way to the hospital,” Baston says.

“Get it back,” Thibault says. “Send a horse, and find that wagon. It will return here without delay.”

He turns to the column of men. “Round up everyone. Every man, woman, and child. Bring them to the square. Go house to house. Check barns and stables.”

He stops the last three soldiers before they can head off with the others. “Baston, take these three. Check these wagons. Confirm the identity of everyone in them. Check the supply and hospital wagons just as thoroughly.”

“General, these are my own wagons, and I am anxious to be on my way,” Larrey says. “I assure you that whoever you are looking for is not among my caravan.”

“So noted, and as soon as they have been thoroughly searched you will be allowed to leave,” Thibault says.

“Allowed to leave? General, every moment you delay me, more men die,” Larrey says.

“Most of whom will die anyway,” Thibault says.

“There is a coldness about you that exceeds even what I had heard,” Larrey says. “In case you do not recognize me, I am—”

“I know who you are, sir, and it does not move me,” Thibault says. “The favor you curry with the emperor will have little currency if this boy escapes. Your wagons will be searched and that is an end to this discussion.”

*   *   *

Not all the casualties are leaving. Some still lie in their cots in the shade inside the market hall. These are men who would not survive the journey, and will probably not last out the day.

Among them, in full vestments, walks Father Ambroise, administering last rites to those who request it. Fran
ç
ois is at his side.

Father Ambroise stops suddenly alongside the cot of the schoolmaster, Monsieur Delvaux, who has been moved here from the house of the healer. Father Ambroise is watching the new arrivals in the village square. His face drops, then hardens to stone. “Fran
ç
ois,” he says.

“Yes, Father?”

“Go and find your uncle, and quickly.”

Fran
ç
ois is back within the minute with Lejeune in tow.

“Ambroise?” Jean's father asks.

“The general.” Father Ambroise nods toward the doorway. “You know him? Or know of him?”

Lejeune shakes his head.

“His name is Thibault. I served under him in Syria, back in ninety-nine,” Father Ambroise says. He stops, and seems to be gathering breath.

“You know something of his character?” Lejeune asks.

Father Ambroise shuts his eyes. “For four days in early March we laid siege to a town called Jaffa. We breached the walls and invited their surrender. They answered with the head of our emissary on a pike above the town wall.”

“I did not know you were at Jaffa,” Lejeune says.

“The shame is deep,” Father Ambroise says.

“What happened at Jaffa?” Fran
ç
ois asks.

“Our troops pillaged the town,” Father Ambroise says. “There seemed no end to the raping and killing. Then under orders from Thibault, we marched the survivors, thousands of them, men, women, and children, to a beach, south of the city. It took two days to kill them all. We ran out of musketballs and formed squares with fixed bayonets. Then we advanced on them.”

“Spread the word quietly,” Lejeune says. “Tell our people to gather tools or knives. We outnumber the French. We will not lie down and accept such a fate.”

“No. No resistance,” Father Ambroise says. “We must give him no cause to do here what he did at Jaffa. But any that can get out should do so.”

“What about the children?” Delvaux asks from his cot. “What about my daughter?”

“Fran
ç
ois,” Father Ambroise says, “there is a priest's hole in the rectory.”

“I know where it is,” Fran
ç
ois says.

“Take as many of the children as you can,” Father Ambroise says.

Fran
ç
ois nods and walks off.

“Fran
ç
ois.” Father Ambroise catches up with him out of earshot of Delvaux.

“No more than a dozen, Fran
ç
ois,” he says. “Just the youngest. The hiding place is not large. Instruct them to be silent. No matter what they hear. They are not to come out until we come to get them.”

“And if we don't come to get them?” Fran
ç
ois asks.

“Then they are to wait for at least a day, then head to the east. To La Hulpe. The priest there will care for them.”

*   *   *

It is as the ambulance wagon reaches the crossroads and slows to take the turn toward Waterloo that the guard hears something and turns to see the nurse reaching up under her skirts. Knowing that something is wrong, but not knowing what, he fumbles for his musket, but it is long and unwieldy and he feels the muzzle of a pistol, terrifyingly cold against his cheek. Still he tries to turn.

“I am not a soldier, but I know how to fire this pistol and I cannot miss at this range,” Willem says, taking off the nurse's bonnet. “Now stop the wagon.”

A few moments later the musket is in the hand of Wenzel-Halls.

Willem and the others climb down from the wagon, Jack helping Frost, who cannot see.

“Willem!” Wenzel-Halls says as Willem turns to depart. The officer extends his hand. “I would remove the ring myself, but I have no hand with which to do it. Take it, and return it to my family.”

Willem nods and steps forward. The ring slides off easily, sized for a different finger. Willem finds it too loose for his own fingers, and puts it on his thumb.

“Sir, I shall return this ring to you when I see you in England,” Willem says.

“I shall look forward to that day,” Wenzel-Halls says, smiling.

Willem reaches forward and shakes the captain's hand. Frost salutes, as does Jack. The captain returns the salute left-handed.

“Driver, a fast trot if you don't mind,” Wenzel-Halls says, and prods the driver lightly in the back with the bayonet when the driver does not immediately respond.

Tree leaves flutter and whisper to each other as the lieutenant, the artilleryman, and the magician disappear into the forest.

*   *   *

“Go to the church, wait for me there, say nothing to anyone,” Fran
ç
ois whispers.

When the guards are not watching, he taps the girl on the shoulder and she slips quietly down the alley between the market hall and the stables. Fran
ç
ois moves slowly through the crowd, and finds Pierre Chambaux, the son of the tailor. He is four years old. “Let me take your son to the church, he will be safer there,” he whispers to the father.

The tailor nods. He smiles at his son as Fran
ç
ois leads him away.

 

HUNTING PARTY

The hunting party consists of ten cuirassiers on horseback, and two saurmasters on foot. The saurmasters hold leashes, at the ends of which black and evil things drool and strain at their chains. Baston rides at the rear.

The rider sent to bring back the ambulance wagon returned with only the guard, one prisoner, and a disturbing story.

The hooves of the horses raise dust as the hunting party heads out and over the bridge. Their quarry lies ahead of them and so they do not look down, and therefore do not see the small girl with the ragged hair who peers out at them from the waters beneath the stonework, then quickly draws back, lest she be spotted.

*   *   *

They left the forest path many minutes ago, Willem leading them through tall trees with sparse undergrowth. He uses the sun to get his bearing, and his instincts are right. It is not long before they reach the river.

It has been difficult going for the lieutenant, stumbling along without eyes to guide him, but Jack has been there at every turn, at every tree, guiding him with a hand on his arm, catching him when he trips.

“I am slowing you down,” Frost says, in French. “More than I expected. Perhaps it would be better if you continued without me.”

Jack looks at him quizzically and Frost repeats what he had said, this time in English.

Jack shakes his head but says nothing.

Frost turns back to Willem. “He does not agree. But my father is wealthy. I would be a good prize. I will come to no harm and will fetch a fair exchange in a month or so.”

“And what will happen when I reach England?” Willem asks. “Without an introduction from you, what kind of reception would I get? The Netherlands have capitulated. They now side with the French. That makes me the enemy.”

“There is some truth in what you say,” Frost says.

“I need you as much as you need me,” Willem says. “Whatever we do, we do it together.”

Frost turns with alarm, looking back the way they have come. Without eyes, his ears seem to be increasingly sensitive.