Fortune's Bride (17 page)

Fortunately, Robert had taken her frozen rigidity of
absolute horror to be indifference. And when he began to tell her of the
distance between the armies and that it was likely that the French would retreat
for several days longer while they grouped their forces and brought up
reinforcements, Esmeralda’s immediate anxiety had melted enough for her to
reply to his conversation rationally. Even so, Robert had his doubts as to the
wisdom of Esmeralda moving farther south, but the two evenings he had spent
alone with her had sharply reinforced his pleasure in her company. As on that
first evening in Oporto, they had talked about army affairs, played cards, and
laughed a great deal.

By now Robert was growing quite expert in finding excuses to
keep Esmeralda close, and she aided and abetted him with the agility of mind
developed by years of outwitting her father. Between them, they found reasons
enough for her to continue south with Robert to Caldas on the morning of August
15. There had not been even a smell of the French, Robert told himself. There
could be no danger in moving her south once more.

His conscience should have stabbed him, because early the
next morning four companies of the Sixtieth and of the Ninety-fifth Rifles came
upon French pickets established at the windmill of Brilos, just about a mile
outside of Caldas. Upon order the English troops drove the French out without
the smallest difficulty, but their officers, being more gallant than sensible and
lifted to enthusiasm by finally coming upon the enemy, unwisely followed the
fleeing French troops, firing as they ran.

When the mill was clear, Sir Arthur dismounted to climb to
the top of it to survey the countryside. He examined the terrain minutely while
the sound of the firing diminished into the distance. After fifteen or twenty
minutes, he dropped his glass from his eye and cocked his head to listen to the
intermittent sound of the guns still fading. Then he
tchk’d
and lifted
his glass to his eye. After a few minutes more, he turned his head toward his
staff.

“Campbell, Spencer’s division should be well forward to our
left. Tell him to send a brigade on to Óbidos with all the speed they can make.
Moreton, ride after those idiotic Rifles and tell them to stop at once. They
can hold their ground if it is reasonable to do so, but they are to retire to
Spencer’s protection without further contact if threatened by a superior
force.”

Campbell was already gone down the stairs, and Robert
followed him, leapt into the saddle, and kicked Mars into a full gallop. The
skirmishers were well in front, however, and it was apparent by the time he
came close that it was too late. The sharp cracks of the rifled weapons still
came intermittently, but there was a heavy roll of the duller explosions
produced by unrifled muskets. Robert could see a thick fog of gun smoke spread
over the rising ground, behind which, he presumed, lay the village of Óbidos.

Cursing fluently, he drove Mars even faster. It was clear
that the advance skirmishers had run into the rear guard of Delaborde’s
division for whom they were no match. Quickly Robert ran over Sir Arthur’s
orders in his mind. Sir Arthur expected his orders to be obeyed as they were
given, but sometimes there was leeway in how to obey. Robert did not believe it
was still possible to retreat without bringing the rear guard after the English
troops. If he had been certain just where Spencer was, that might be a clever
move because Spencer’s division could then surprise and overwhelm the French,
however he did not know how far away Spencer was.

At this point in his ruminations a ball whizzed by so close
that Robert flinched automatically. It was nearly spent and could have done
little harm even if it had hit him, nonetheless, he began to look for cover.
Aside from low bushes, there was none. All Robert could do was ride off the
road itself to where bushes and irregular ground might confuse the eye. For all
of that, he had scarcely slackened his pace. Mars was sagacious about where he
put his feet. A shot plucked at Robert’s sleeve, and he cursed again. Then, off
to the right, he saw a Rifleman sitting behind a bush trying to stanch the
bleeding from one shoulder.

“Have you come back far, Rifleman?” Robert shouted.

“Haven’t fallen back at all, sir,” the man replied. “I was
one of the first hit.”

Seeing as he came closer that the bush was taller than he
had first thought, Robert pulled up and dismounted. He ripped off his sash and
tied it quickly around the trooper’s shoulder, hoping the pressure would
decrease the flow of blood. It was not a gratuitous act of mercy. Robert wanted
to use the man.

“Hold my horse in this shelter,” he ordered. “If you go
faint, tie him to you or the bush. I don’t wish to walk back to Sir Arthur.”

The Rifleman nodded, and Robert began to run forward.
Bullets flew by with more frequency, but they were, he thought, the result of
bad aim rather than any attempt to shoot him. Most of the fire was still
concentrated ahead of him. Another two minutes brought him to a corpse, then
another, then a man doubled forward, breathing hard.

“Where are your officers?” Robert called.

“Lieutenant Bunbury’s dead, sir,” he gasped, and waved
vaguely farther to the right.

A dead officer was of no use to Robert, so he veered off to
the left, hoping positions had not been so inextricably mixed that another
officer would be toward the center of the action at a distance. Robert’s
movements were now necessarily erratic as he ducked and darted, using whatever
cover he could find.

“Damn your bloody ass!” a voice bellowed at him suddenly.
“Get down and use your gun.”

Robert sighed with relief as he bent double and crawled in
the direction from which that enraged and authoritative voice had come.
“Staff!” he shouted, not wanting his blue coat to be taken for a Frenchman’s
uniform.

“I suppose if I don’t get shot here,” the young officer said
bitterly as Robert flopped beside him, “the Beau will have us all shot when we
get back.”

Robert laughed. “You deserve it, but no, I don’t think it
will be as bad as that. He’s likely to peel off your ears, though.” As he spoke
he had pulled out his Ellis and cocked it. “What he said,” Robert went on as he
peered intently through the fog created by the repeated powder explosions for a
target within pistol range, “was to tell those idiots to stop at once. You are
to hold the ground if you can but retreat to Spencer’s protection without
further contact before a superior force.”

The officer groaned. Robert started to laugh again, but an
errant breeze pulled the smoke apart, and ahead of him just barely within
pistol range a blue-coated figure rose and leveled a musket. Robert fired. The
figure cried out and fell backward. The fog closed in again.

“How the devil can we retreat?” the officer snarled.
“They’ll be down on us like hounds on a fox.”

“You might not need to,” Robert offered, working the cocking
mechanism on his pistol. “A brigade of Spencer’s is coming to the rescue. It
depends on how far forward his division is, how fast he can move them, and how
long you can hold out here.”

“The French will run over us if they charge.”

Robert shrugged. He knew it. He knew, too, that technically
a staff officer should be able to offer advice within the bounds of the orders
he carried. The theory was that, owing to experience in the field and a wider
view of the battle situation, a staff officer could provide information a field
officer would not have. Robert was in a better position to offer help than most
of the ADCs since he had nearly ten years of military service and had seen
considerable action. However, he had never served in the field, and in this
case the possibilities were so limited that advice was useless. Obviously the
lieutenant with whom he was speaking could not make any major decision, either.

“Where is your captain?” Robert asked.

“Ahead, if he’s still alive. Bunbury’s had it.”

“Yes, I know,” Robert said, rising to a crouch and starting
off in the direction pointed.

Because the troops were pinned down, Robert thought he could
find the captain of the company in the same position, but he had moved. Robert
hunted for another fifteen or twenty minutes before he found Captain Leach,
with whom he was acquainted, worrying all the time he searched about what he
could say aside from the orders he had been given. Fortunately, just as he
squatted down to speak, the sound of Spencer’s drums came, very faint and
distant, but nonetheless unmistakable.

The crisis was not over, in fact the indication that a
supporting force was close might induce the French officers to order an
immediate attack to do as much damage as they could before they retreated.
However, with help coming, the solution was obvious. Robert delivered his
orders, identified the oncoming rescuers, and when Captain Leach snapped orders
to the buglers for the men to fall in to close defensive formation—which was
what Robert himself would have suggested—he relaxed. Sometimes a field officer
resented suggestions from staff that were not direct orders from a commanding
officer.

Robert did not, however, leave at once. It was his duty not
only to pass along orders but to report accurately concerning the situation,
and there was little he could say about it until he knew whether the
beleaguered troops would be rushed and, if so, whether they could hold out.
Essentially, however, the action had ended. The men successfully formed three
deep around the summit of a little hill, and although there was enough firing
to keep them pinned down, the rush they expected never came. When the light
began to fail, Robert made his way back to his horse, assured the Rifleman, who
was still conscious, that help was on its way, mounted up, and galloped back to
make his report to Sir Arthur.

Robert was too wise after years of service with Sir Arthur
to advance any personal opinion unless asked for it or to offer any excuses for
the action of men and officers as he might have done had he been serving with
Sir John Moore. He reported exactly what he had seen and done—no more, no less.

“Casualties?” Sir Arthur asked.

“Lieutenant Bunbury dead, sir. That was reported by one of
the men and one of the officers. I saw about a dozen wounded, three dead, aside
from Bunbury.”

Sir Arthur made a small sound of irritation, but his
expression held none of the rigidity that appeared when he was reining in his
temper. “Ah, well,” he said, his voice sounding indulgent, “it was very
foolish, but it shows an excellent spirit. They behaved very well, after all,
if not with great prudence.”

The army advanced into Óbidos with due caution, but the
French were gone. Small detachments of cavalry were sent out with strict orders
not to engage, but they found nothing as far as three miles south of the town.
Pickets were set up within the perimeter that the cavalry had covered, and Sir
Arthur settled into quarters. His genial behavior that evening showed he was
well satisfied with the march of events, and Robert was so exhilarated by his
first taste of action since the affair at Copenhagen that he forgot Esmeralda’s
existence entirely.

Even when the ADCs left the mess, the talk was all of the
coming action. It was not until Robert began to strip off his clothing to go to
sleep that he remembered Esmeralda would be expecting him and he had not even
sent a message. He paused in his undressing to consider whether he should ride
back to Caldas, but he was a little the worse for wine. Burghersh had laid his
hands on a very tolerable vintage. After a moment Robert continued with his
disrobing. After all, Merry had told him that he was not to worry himself if it
was inconvenient to send a message. If she did not care, why should he? It did
not take much more effort for Robert to decide that he was not fit to present
himself to a lady, and he tumbled into bed.

The next day it was discovered that the French had retreated
only a few miles farther than Sir Arthur’s scouting parties had gone, to a
village at the meeting of the roads leading to Tôrres Vedras, Montachique, and
Alcoentre, called Roliça. Sir Arthur decided to ride out to examine the land
himself, as was his habit, and his staff would naturally accompany him.
Fortunately, Robert had expected this and had made arrangements to warn
Esmeralda that he might be absent for several days.

Since more action was imminent, Robert could not detach
M’Guire from his unit, but he managed to locate one of the men of the Sixtieth
who had been hit in the upper arm and could not fire a gun but whose wound was
slight enough to permit him to walk the three and a half miles to Caldas.
Robert scribbled a note to Esmeralda to be delivered by this man. Having
relieved his conscience, he went buoyantly about his duties.

The position at Roliça taken up by the French commander
Delaborde was a good one. The sandy plain that stretched south of Óbidos became
enclosed on either flank by bold hills in the region of Roliça, and behind the
village lay a connecting cross ridge, broken by a sort of gorge through which
the road passed southward. To the right of the defile of the road just below
the heights of the ridge was another village called Columbeira. On the other
side, but some distance behind, was Zambugeira. However, Delaborde had placed
his men on an isolated rise of ground some distance ahead of the cross ridge.
On the eastern slope of the isolated rise was the village of Roliça.

The names of the villages beyond Roliça and the lay of the
land were determined by a combination of observation and information obtained
from the local people. Robert was detailed to the duty of questioning the
inhabitants of Óbidos, since he had become reasonably fluent in Portuguese.
Often when he missed a word and had to ask for repetition or explanation, he
found himself wishing for Esmeralda. Once or twice he found himself wondering
whether it would be possible for him to get back to Caldas—and he was rather shocked
at having such an idea when it was plain Sir Arthur was waiting only for the
whole army to be assembled and given a night’s rest before they attacked in
earnest.

Nonetheless, once the idea got into Robert’s head it kept
recurring, and with each recurrence it seemed more reasonable. It was less than
four miles to Caldas. He would not stay the night, he told himself. He would
only ride over for an hour or two to tell Merry what was going on. She was
always so eager for news.

Now and again common sense reared its ugly head to point out
that visiting with Merry, even for an hour or two, was an invitation to sexual
discomfort, if not actually to a sleepless night then to very restless dreams.
That, Robert told himself as he finished the written report of the information
he had gathered, was not Merry’s fault. Merry never flirted with him or made
suggestive remarks. Robert paused with the report in hand. How odd that was.
All the young women he knew flirted and made suggestive remarks to him if he
gave them half a chance. Yet he had spent hours alone with Merry and she had
acted just like his sisters, except of course a hundred times more sensibly.
Why? It had been pleasant at first because he was able to be relaxed with her.
Why was it no longer pleasant?

The questions were not to be answered immediately. Somerset
came out of the room Sir Arthur was using as an office and said, “Oh, there you
are. Sir Arthur’s ready for you.”

But at that moment Sir Arthur himself came out and said,
“Come along, Moreton. We’re going to compare all the information we’ve picked
up, and there are likely to be questions that can’t be answered by a report.”

Robert followed Sir Arthur into a larger chamber, in which
most of the general officers were already sitting and talking. Lord Fitzroy
Somerset and Lord Burghersh had preceded him and Sir Arthur. Burghersh was
refilling glasses as they emptied, and Somerset remained seated inconspicuously
at a small table with writing implements and paper for taking notes. Sir Arthur
greeted his officers genially. Nothing could have pleased him more than a
chance for action. With the immediate threat of supersession hanging over him,
he was very eager to make some mark.

“Well, Taylor,” he said to the commander of the Twentieth
Light Dragoons, which had been scouting the area, “what have your men to tell
us?”

He listened to that report and to other fragmentary
information, to the details Robert had extracted from the local Portuguese, and
at last turned to Somerset and asked, “What have we, then?”

“General Delaborde seems to have four to five thousand men
and about five or six guns,” Lord Fitzroy summarized. “All reports agree that
he has taken up a position on the hill behind Roliça. The Portuguese believe
that General Loison was recently as close as Alcoentre and is marching to
support Delaborde with as many as ten thousand troops and twenty guns.”

“How reliable is the last rumor?” General Henry Fane asked.

Sir Arthur looked to Robert, who replied, “I should say the
numbers are exaggerated. I got wild variations in estimates of troops. Those
who are afraid we will run immediately give ridiculously low numbers. I have
been told over and over that Delaborde has no more than fifteen hundred or two
thousand men. Then there are those locals who fear that if we fight and
then
run, the French will punish them. They give much higher numbers, six or eight
thousand for Delaborde and ten or fifteen guns, to discourage us from fighting.
I’ve heard as many as twenty thousand for Loison and that he is hiding just over
the hills at Zambugeira until we launch an attack.”

“What I like,” Caitlin Crawfurd said sardonically, “is the
universal opinion that we will be beaten. The only doubt seems to be whether we
will run away before the fight or after it.”

Fane laughed. “There seems to be considerable surprise among
the locals that we dared challenge the pickets at Brilos.”

“The less said about that the better,” Sir Arthur remarked,
but not with any great severity. “I like to see dash in the men, but a little
prudence would have accomplished the same result without any loss at all.”

“I have spoken to my brigade,” Fane said, with just a shade
of stiffness in his voice.

“What
I
want to know,” Rowland Hill put in smoothly,
“is what Delaborde thinks he is doing on that silly hill in the middle of
nowhere. If the information we have about his guns is correct, he can’t hope to
hold us off with artillery. As the ground lies, he’s just asking to be
encircled and swallowed. I wonder, could Delaborde have more guns than we
believe? Could he know more of Loison’s position than we do?”

“Anything is possible,” Sir Arthur admitted without a shade
of worry, “but it is my belief that Delaborde is afflicted with the same
conviction as the Portuguese. Frankly, I am convinced he thinks we are afraid
of the ‘invincible’ French. I imagine he hopes that we will either retreat or
sit here trying to find the courage to attack until Junot’s main force comes up
from Lisbon.”

There was a low, throaty sound in the room. Robert was
surprised by it for a split second and then, as he realized he was contributing
to it himself by growling like an animal, he almost laughed. Gentility, he
thought, was spread very thin when a man’s courage was brought into question,
and Sir Arthur he realized with another near spurt of laughter, had
deliberately poked his finger into a sore spot. How many of his officers
did
think Bonaparte’s troops were invincible? How many might have counseled caution
before Sir Arthur had made that statement? Robert repressed a temptation to smile.
Not one would do so now.

Quite naturally, Sir Arthur now moved into the planning
stage of this conference. Just as Robert had surmised, there was not a single
protest or suggestion that more reconnaissance might be necessary. Indeed, the
only objections voiced at all, and those were humorous, were by the officers
relegated to reserve positions. Once the general designations were made, Sir
Arthur suggested that they have dinner before they got down to particulars.

The night of August 15 was the worst of Esmeralda’s life
since that of her mother’s death. She had not worried much at first.
Occasionally Robert had come in very late, even when they had been at Figueira.
However, by midnight she had given up hope and gone to bed. Over and over she
told herself that there were endless reasons for his absence, but none she
could think of gave her any comfort. Even the most harmless, that Sir Arthur
had required some service that sent Robert too far to return to Caldas, implied
some serious situation had arisen. And there was the recurring fear that the
quiet evenings had become boring and that Robert simply preferred being with
his cronies.

She now cursed herself for telling Robert there was no need
to keep her informed of his whereabouts if it was inconvenient to do so. At the
time it had seemed wise to her, but now she feared it was an excuse he had
seized eagerly. But painful as it was, that idea was preferable to the fear
that the army had met the French and Robert had been hurt. She had told herself
that Sir Arthur would not have neglected to inform her, but would he? He might
be too busy if the British had suffered a serious reverse or even if they had
had an important victory, to think about one woman. Nor was Esmeralda sure that
Sir Arthur knew she was in Caldas. What if he had sent a message to Leiria?

At that point, Esmeralda remembered she was less than four
miles from the army. Had there been a battle, she would have heard the
artillery. Still, when Robert’s messenger arrived, she barely managed to tell Molly
to offer the man, who identified himself as Tom Pace, something to eat and
drink. She read Robert’s note, standing quite still in the middle of the
bedroom fighting her terror. All women fear for their menfolk who are exposed
to the dangers of war, but Esmeralda’s situation was far more painful than that
of most others. She had no family, no close friends. Robert was all she had in
the world.

It was possible for Esmeralda to face the fact that she
might not be able to make Robert love her or be able to hold on to the
marriage, because she knew that even if the legal relationship were severed she
would not lose Robert completely. She was certain they were good enough friends
by now that he would never abandon her. She did not wish to make do with half a
loaf, with a friend instead of a lover, but to think that she might never see
him again, never talk to him again, never laugh with him again, nearly unseated
her reason.

Esmeralda had been emotionally isolated for years after her
mother’s death. She had grown accustomed to that cold state. Then, at the
governor’s ball in India, Robert had brought a tiny but glowing warmth into her
life. She had no thought that the feeling could ever be more than a lovely
memory, but she had cherished it. Their meeting in Portugal, their marriage,
had enlarged that little core of warmth. Not only had Esmeralda’s love for
Robert developed from a dream into a consuming passion, but their relationship
had opened to her a wealth of real human contacts, however Esmeralda believed
that every one of those contacts depended upon Robert.

She would have had hysterics if the need to obtain more
information from the messenger had not been so acute. Having lost all sense of
time while she was locked into her terror of losing the one human being in all
the world who had meaning for her, Esmeralda ran into the kitchen in a flurry
of fear that the soldier had eaten his fill, rested sufficiently, and already
departed. But in reality, less than a quarter of an hour had passed.

As she paused just outside the open door to assume a calm
she did not feel, she heard the soldier tell Molly that M’Guire’s unit had not
been engaged in the action. Esmeralda heard Molly’s sigh of relief.

“It was a nothing of a business,” the man said, “and not a
one of us would have been hurt, only it was such fun to chase the Frenchies, we
got a bit carried away.”

Just then Molly saw Esmeralda and stood up. Tom Pace also
stood, and Esmeralda bent her lips into a smile. She was a good actress from
long experience, the smile looked natural. “Please sit down, both of you,” she
said. “I hope I will not make you feel awkward if I join you. Molly, would you
be kind enough to get me a cup of tea, too? I have so many questions, and I
didn’t want to wait until you finished your meal, Pace. Also, I don’t know when
you must report back.”

Pace had resumed his seat, a little stiffly, but he answered
readily enough. “I have time, ma’am. I’m on sick list.”

“Are you hurt?” Esmeralda asked. “Is there something Molly
can do for you?”

“No, ma’am, thank’ee. I was hit in that little set-to we
had, but it’s nothing. The ball was near spent—only it caught me in a place
so’s I can’t hold a gun. Be right as rain in a week.”

The thoughtful interest Esmeralda had shown had relaxed him,
and he sat more easily and answered Esmeralda’s questions with considerable
verve. Of course, a common trooper knew very little, but the ranks were rife
with rumor and this he relayed with gusto. In this case, it so happened, the
rumors were not far off from the truth.

The French, Pace said, were holding a position somewhere not
far south of Óbidos. If they were not doing so, he pointed out, Sir Arthur
would not have stopped the march. He would have sent more screening parties
ahead while the main force advanced cautiously as they had been doing. He also
said they would attack the French the next day. His evidence for this was more
tenuous. It rested on the facts that inspections were being carried out on the
men’s fighting gear and battle drill was being practiced.