Carla Kelly (3 page)

“How many of my men in your hospital?”

“Three, sir,” he replied, relieved to turn to medicine. “Jenks there with a chest wound. It’s healing now, but it’s slow.” He could have said so much more about the hours and hours after Salamanca at the private’s bedside, patiently reinflating his chest when his lungs collapsed, but he did not. “Holmes’ boils are about to head. I think he’ll be able to put on his trousers again in a few days. I am going to discharge Lewiston tomorrow.”

“Make it now,” Bones said. He stalked over to Holmes and flung back the blanket to look at the chafing boils on his thighs. “Get your pants on, Private.” Bones grinned at Jess. “I expect when Granny Sheffield gets back from Officers Call, he’ll have news for all of you. We’re retreating.”

Jesse held his breath as the major took a long look at Nell, then brushed past her—she tried to step back, but he was too close—to stand over Jenks. The private looked up at him with terrified eyes. “Jenks, I think you’re a dead man. Too bad, but there you are.”

“Major, there’s no call for that,” Jess said. “We will take care of him.”

“Oh, you will? Going to keep that ox cart from bumping him all over creation? Unlike you, little man, I am a realist.”

You’re a sadist, Jess thought. Jenks began to hyperventilate, taking greater and greater gulps of air into his sorely tried lungs. Daniel hurried toward the small bellows hanging on the closest tent post. Nell seemed rooted to the ground, and he knew then how great her own terror was.

Bones laughed. He went to brush past Nell again, but she moved away. He stopped, standing too close, but not
touching her. “Miss Mason, I hear your mother is ill. Pity, considering how busy our dear Bertie will be soon. Who’s to look after you?”

“We will, Major. How dare you bully my staff.” Jess said it quietly enough, and almost surprised himself with the menace behind his words.

It was enough menace to distract Bones from Nell, who had gone as white as a new bandage. Jess took a deep breath as Bones walked the length of the tent to where he still stood beside his desk. “I don’t care for your tone, Captain,” he said when they were practically toe-to-toe.

Don’t imagine for a moment that I won’t stare you down, Jess thought. How dare you? After a long moment—Jess wasn’t sure he was even breathing—the major turned away. “Hurry up, Holmes!” he shouted to the man struggling into his trousers. “Lewiston, help him, you sorry sod!”

He turned back quickly, swung his hand, and tipped over the inkwell on the reports. “Watch yourself, Surgeon.” After another long look at Nell, who was helping Daniel with the bellows, he left the tent.

Swearing under his breath, Jess ran to Jenks’ cot and held his hands while his steward continued to work the bellows. Nell ran to fetch a cool cloth. She dipped it in vinegar, their only antiseptic, and wiped it across the terrified soldier’s forehead as he struggled to breathe.

“It’s all right, Private, we know what to do,” Jess said, keeping his voice soft. “You just have to know by now that we will never abandon you.”

As they labored over Jenks, some of the other patients began to murmur to each other; one or two tried to rise. “As you were, men,” Jess said calmly. “As you were.” In a few moments, they were quiet again. Soon Private Jenks was breathing regularly, his eyes closed, exhausted from the effort.

Jess could feel two pairs of eyes on his, and he looked from Nell to Daniel, and back to Nell again, finding his own reassurance in her steady gaze. Well, Hippocrates, he asked himself as he gestured for Dan to remove the bellows, did you ever feel uncomfortable when people thought you knew what you were doing? He stood over Jenks a few minutes longer, then returned to clean up the mess on his desk.

To his gratification, Nell came to help. She moved quickly and surely around the table, moving books to keep them safe, and deftly pouring the ink that had pooled on the top sheet back into the bottle and saving the rest of the report underneath. How long have you been cleaning up after us? he thought, even though he knew the answer. He smiled at her as she worked, oblivious to his attention.

A chuckle made him glance over at the soldier lying on the nearest cot. As he watched, and felt his face redden, the man gave him a slow wink. Oh, Lord, I am a cloth head, he thought, but managed a weak smile at the whole row of invalids. To his dismay, one of them raised up on his only elbow and gestured with his head. “Hey, Doc, if that ugly customer shows his phiz in here again, bring him my way and I’ll puke on him.”

The other men laughed, and Jess had to laugh, too. “Promise?” he asked, then sat down at the desk again. He was smiling as he picked up his pen again, at least until Nell sat down suddenly beside him, and pulled the stool up close to his knees. “Are you all right, my dear?” he asked quietly, jolted into sobriety again by the fear in her eyes.

She looked at him for a long moment, as if willing him to understand what she was going to say, so she wouldn’t have to speak out loud.

He did understand. “He wasn’t far off the mark, was he?”

She shook her head. “He…he comes around our tent now and then.” Again the silence, longer this time, until her uneasiness was almost palpable. “Papa owes him money.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to reply that charming Bertie Mason probably owed everyone in the Peninsula. He inclined his head toward her instead, and she moved in closer, as though seeking comfort. “Tell me, Nell.”

“He looks at me, just looks at me! I don’t think he even blinks. And then he reminds Papa how much money he owes, and he leaves.” She leaned even closer, until he could smell the vinegar on her hands. “Mama tells me it’s nothing, but Mama never did like to face unpleasantness.”

You’ve had to face it for her almost since you were in leading strings, he thought, you and Will. Now Will’s enjoying Cambridge, and you are here in the mud still. Keep it professional, Jesse, he told himself, especially with that
whole row of pikers straining to hear. I swear they are worse than my old aunts! “Life’s not easy here, is it, Nell?” he commented, amazed at his own vacuity.

His reward was a quizzical look, and then a slight smile. “It’s all I know, Captain,” she said. She laughed softly, but he swore he heard uneasiness in it. “Do you mean there is someplace without heat and dust?”

“Dundee,” he replied promptly, then touched her hand lightly, hoping no one, including Nell, noticed. “How is your mother?”

Nell frowned, but did not move her hand. “Major Sheffield bled her this morning, but I do not believe she is any better.” She rose. “I need to go, if you can spare me.”

Never in a million years, Nell, my love, he thought. “Of course, my dear,” he said, rising, too, for Sheffield had entered the tent, followed by a familiar figure. “Let me send Daniel with you. If you need something more, please ask.” He sent them both off, then turned his attention to his superiors. “Tell me, sirs, are the rumors only that?”

Colonel James McGrigor, spare of limb, tall of frame, and devoid of meaningful hair, extended his hand and Jess shook it, always amazed at the formality of the man. We have stood, shoes deep in blood after Fuentes de Oñoro, operating side by side, and still you hold out your hand. Now comes the bow, eh?

It did, the stiff little bow, looking slightly silly from a man so tall and thin. And so shy. Jess knew better than to look at him longer than necessary, even if he was Sir Arthur’s inspector-general of hospitals, and deserving of all attention. “Lad, nae rumor bu’ fact,” he said.

Despite himself, Jesse had to hold back a smile, remembering the first time Nell had watched one of the great McGrigor’s inspections. “But, sir, I cannot understand what he says! Where is he
from
?”

“Scotland, like me,” he had told her, “but Glasgow, where they swallow half the words.”

He nodded to McGrigor, who turned away, and hands behind his back, walked up and down the rows of cots. Jesse could tell he was counting, and it chilled him. “How soon?” he asked Sheffield, who stood beside him.

“Hard to say.” The Chief shrugged. “One more river to
France, but it’s too far. Back we go to the lines.” He leaned closer. “I hear you had a visit from Major Bones.”

“Does anything move faster than talk from a hospital?”

“I doubt it. You know, Jess, it is one of the mysteries of life that good men like Fitzroy-Somerset lose arms, or worse, but the Major Boneses among us never even get a runny nose.”

They waited together until McGrigor finished walking up and down. He paused before them finally, and nodded, then left. “I will see you in Torres Vedras,” he said over his shoulder. “Carry on, men.”

Sheffield looked at Jess. “He wanted me to thank you for your reports. ‘No one’s as thorough,’ he told me.”

“Well, guess who taught me?” Jess said with a grin that widened as Sheffield’s own color rose in his face. “All right,
jefe
, do we start to pack?”

T
hey began to pack, but only after Jess’s least favorite hospital duty: releasing soldiers who weren’t quite ready. I need just a few more days on this one, and that one, he wanted to say. He sent them off to their companies instead, and wondered how soon he would find them drooping along the line of march. Ten men remained.

Sheffield did keep back two of the healthier ones to help with the packing, and it was accomplished quickly. What he could barely cram into his allotted two panniers at the beginning of the Salamanca campaign now fit in a medium-sized box, with the ubiquitous lint packed in here and there to keep his medicine bottles from rattling.

He had high hopes for this retreat, considering how orderly the plan sounded. Sheffield was less sanguine, even as he read over his notes again, taken in haste during Wellington’s officers call. “I think it generous of Sir Arthur to hold back on the marching hospitals and send us off one at a time, but only if no one gets confused,” he said.

“It won’t happen,” Jesse assured him. “Don’t you trust our friends in the Third Division? Aren’t we all veterans?”

Sheffield seemed on the verge of a comment when Daniel threw back the tent flap and came inside, shaking the rain off his cloak. He looked at Jess. “I don’t know what to do,” he said simply, discouragement high in his voice. “Please come.”

“I thought Mrs. Mason was improving,” Sheffield said, getting to his feet again with a sigh. “I took a good pint of blood off her this morning. What could have happened?”

Daniel held out his hand, as if to stop the chief surgeon. “Begging your pardon, sir, but Nell asked for the captain
here. She told me you were to go to your cot, put up your feet, and rub eucalyptus oil on your chest, to cut your cough.” He turned to look at Jess then. “Mrs. Mason specifically asked for you, too, sir.”

Sheffield sat down again, but he was smiling. “Who would think Nell would turn into a tyrant! Did you, Jess? Well, I will do as you suggest, Dan.” He looked at Jesse. “Hurry on, now, and answer the lady’s summons. Maybe it’s only a matter of another little bleeding for Mrs. Mason.”

Jess pulled his cloak tighter with one hand and took a firmer grip on his medical sack, a shapeless leather bag that had quickly replaced the elegant case—a gift from his mother—he had brought from home when he came to Spain. Through the rain he looked toward the damaged ramparts of Burgos, seen at a greater distance, now that they were quartered in one of the little towns nearby. Damn this siege, he thought. Maybe it is time for me to take up a practice in Dundee.

He and Daniel walked in silence for most of the distance to the officers’ quarters. At least the Masons weren’t in a tent. For some reason—surely not because he was thinking of his wife or daughter’s comfort—Bertie had managed to snag an abandoned
casucha
. Jess knew where it was, but had never been there. He was no cardplayer, so he was never invited to join a game. Besides that, he was as low on funds as most of Wellington’s army. Even beyond that, when did a surgeon have a moment for cards?

Nell met them at the door, relief palpable on her face. Jess sighed inwardly, recognizing that look, and steeling himself against it. I can’t give you a miracle, my dear, he thought. Don’t look at me as though I just came from turning water to wine at Cana.

“Hey, now, my dear,” he told her as she stepped aside so he could enter. “The Chief said your mother was looking good this morning. What can we do now?”

“Pray, do something,” she said. He wanted to run his finger over that frown line between her eyes and make it go away. He followed her down the short hallway, then paused at the door to take a deep breath.

In the smoky glow of a cheap tallow candle, he saw a woman dying. Audrey Mason’s eyes were sunk deep in her
head, her breathing was spookily irregular. He couldn’t be sure from the shadows in the room, but it looked like her blood had already started to pool, leaving her face drained of color, but her arms mottled.

“She wouldn’t eat anything today,” Nell said, standing next to him as he pulled back the coverlet to take a better look at her mother.

He looked, then tucked the coverlet back in place, not eager for a longer look at the woman’s rickety thin body. You’re a long way from home, Mrs. Mason, he thought. He leaned his shoulder against Nell, wanting the touch of her; there was nothing he could do for her mother. “I’ll go find your father, Nell. Any idea where he might be?”

She wouldn’t look at him. “Someplace where there is a card game, and you hear men laughing.” Her voice sounded unusually hard to his ears. The easiest thing in the world was to put his arm around her, which he did.

Jess turned to Dan, who stood in the doorway. “Can you find Captain Mason?”

“Go, too, daughter.”

Jess looked down at the bed in surprise. Audrey Mason’s eyes were open. It must have taken an enormous effort to speak, because drops of sweat formed a fine and dignified line across her forehead. It filled him with sadness that she had to die so far from England. He looked at the dying woman, deeply aware that he had always thought her frivolous and somewhat stupid for staying with the worthless Bertie Mason. I fear I never saw you, Mrs. Mason, he thought. I do not think Hippocrates would be so proud of me right now.