Vermillion (The Hundred Days Series Book 1) (17 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

28 April, 1815 – Quatre Bras

Dear Fann,

We are on the third day of
boiling sheets, squaring off against a particularly tenacious crop of lice. The
river is a good distance off, and the men Webb has selected to haul water have
each had some of this month's pay taken for drunkenness. Disgruntled soldiers
are not productive soldiers. I pray you wish me luck.

I have waited so long to write
that I have forgotten much of what has passed these last few weeks. If I share
with you what I can recall, I am certain you will never believe it.

General Webb has taken me to
Brussels, to treat his mother. Are you surprised? I certainly was taken with
shock.

Her ailment was beyond my skill,
but she has been treated by capable hands and is recovering! My joy is partly
at having a hand in arranging the treatment, and also because I found the woman
strangely agreeable. Intelligent, a bit acid and forthright. More mercenary
than assassin. I like her.

Now for my second revelation: To
my astonishment, I like him, too. Perhaps you cannot account for it. Does my
change of heart seem sudden? I would have agreed with you until recently, when
I put half a morning's thought into the matter. Hindsight is a late-blooming
wisdom. He allowed me to stay when we lost Addison, defended me against Astley
and took the very great risk of granting me autonomy – more so now than ever.
None of that absolves him of barking after me like a hound some days, but I
confess it makes his behavior more endearing...

Urgent
. Kate scoffed,
stuffing the dispatches into her pocket, deciding there would be no peace until
they were in agreement about the definition of the word. General Webb wrote
constantly, about everything. It was driving her mad. Kate was convinced the
army was not crippled by syphilis or drunkenness near so much as bureaucracy.
By the time a runner had brought the fourth hastily scrawled note about why the
bandages were stored in carts, or an overdue inventory of the surgeon's chest,
she was bristling. There were patients to see, whole scores of them. Porter was
more than capable of managing the general's assignments, but his first and most
important job was to act as her second set of hands.

Kate hailed the first passing
soldier. “Where is the general this afternoon?”

He hooked a thumb toward the
crumbling field-stone wall just beyond the garrison's fortifications. “Musket
drills.”

Perfect
. That meant the
general was not too far away, and he was not going anywhere. She tucked up her
bun, preparing to do battle, and started across the camp.

At the gate she stopped, her
frustration checked by the scene out in the fields. Columns of red and gray
clad soldiers trailed off along the plateau, sprouting up from the high grass
until they resembled toy figures with muskets clapped to their shoulders. Every
time an order was barked across the lines, their guns snapped up, down, or
forward with precision.

Astride his beautiful gray, Matthew
trotted their length, wind billowing his short blue cape. A navy wool coat
covered him below the hips, but from there buff trousers hugged his legs to the
top of high black boots, revealing every grip and nudge of his thighs against
the horse's flank. Pursing her lips, Kate stifled an appreciative smile, taking
him in until he had covered most of the ground back towards the gate. She was
frustrated with him, she chided, and determined not to be distracted.

Leaning against the gate, she waited
until he trotted to a stop before her, lifting a cocked hat. A shadow from its
brim masked his pensive gaze and made the line of his mouth oddly sensual.

She must be especially tired.

Bremen nudged her shoulder, snorting
moist heat through the fabric of her dress. Laughing, she stroked a hand over
his coarse muzzle, and he snuggled deeper into her palm.

“Bremen, you traitor!” Matthew slid
down from the saddle, boots striking the ground with practice, and patted the
horse's flank. “His loyalties are always changeable if apples are involved, but
this is just unabashed preference.”

“Can you blame him?” Her wink went
unremarked while Matthew studied her from under his hat. His aid came up behind
her, grasping the reins, and Kate got in one last scratch behind the ear before
Bremen loped away.

Arms crossed, Matthew leaned his
weight onto one leg and looked past her toward the garrison. There were
probably statues of him like that somewhere. Kate swallowed her amusement. He
nodded toward the field. “Did you come out to see the maneuvers?”

“No.” She pulled out his notes. “I
came to discuss these.”

“Have you completed them already?”
he asked, looking pleased.

Arms flailing, she sputtered. “No! I
haven't completed anything. My day has been spent reading your instructions or
penning my reply.”

“With little work in between.” He
nodded. “We are in sympathy on that score.” Fists came to rest on his hips.
“Such is the nature of government. I chafe as much as you Miss Foster, but when
the division's inventory is off by a single jar of preserves, the war machine
must grind to a halt until it can be accounted for.”

She sighed, annoyance starting to
drain away. “How do you accomplish anything?”

Before he could respond, he was
thrown into her with such force that it dragged them both to the ground. A
spasm, a twisted ankle; Kate's mind wrestled with the question, winded half
underneath Matthew's limp body.

A rifle's report was the
unmistakable answer, echoing over the hills from a sharpshooter, concealed in
any one of the copses dotting the slopes around them.

Feet thundered past her head, the
company reanimating, scrambling into formation. She struggled to hear Matthew's
breathing, what the men were shouting, but for a moment the chaos deafened her.

“Form up to the east! Cover the
general!” Someone hammered out orders, bringing two lines of men to shield
them. “Make ready...
fire
!” Major Burrell's command was drowned by the
bark of twenty rifles launching at once. Their volley drove across the field,
into the groves, choking her in a pungent sulfur cloud of black powder.

He was dead
. It was her
prevailing thought, wriggling from under Matthew's prone form. More infantry
were already swarming them, muskets at the ready, but no one stopped to help.
Kate dug with an elbow, heels working at the loose soil until she pried free.
As her hands grasped Matthew's coat, he doubled up and yelled.
“God...damn...Christ Jesus...”

She yanked at Matthew's fists balled
hard against his right flank, relieved to be wrong. She smiled through tears of
relief. “I would not have guessed you for an overly religious man.”

When he still wouldn't cooperate
with her efforts to examine the wound, she waved over the biggest bull of a man
she could single out from the company. “Hold him.”

“By God don't...touch me,” Matthew
panted, thrashing, stubborn even after being shot.

His protest gave the soldier pause.
She snatched his coat, jerking the private in closer. “You can hold him or bury
him, but be quick about your choice.”

He knelt at the general's head,
grabbed his arms and heaved, extracting an animal cry. She jerked open
Matthew's heavy coat, jammed a finger into the crimson tear of his shirt and
inspected the wound, dabbing ineffectually at blood oozing out around a spent
ball.

It might have hit the gall sack, a
kidney, or simply perforated the flesh. She offered thanks that he probably
wouldn't die, at least not from the ball alone.

There was no examining him here
without equipment and with marksmen lying in wait. “Get him up and to the
surgery!” She bellowed over the shouts, musket reports, and six pairs of hands
obeyed. They slid beneath Matthew's writhing frame, hefting him without grace.

Major Burrell was beside her now,
half crouched and skimming the horizon beyond the aim of his men. “How bad?”

“I don't know. Find me in an hour.”
She ran with augmented speed, the rush in her veins propelling her across the
field, past the general's bearers, putting her in the hospital tent almost
before Kate knew where she was. Porter must have been on her heels; he brushed
past, immediately stoking the flames beneath an already steaming pot.

She threw back the battered lid on
her surgeon's chest. Astley had left it a mess, probably pawning half its
contents. Giving silent thanks for whatever forethought had encouraged her to
put it back together just days earlier, she began snatching out instruments.

“Linens, Kate.”

“Thank you, Porter.” She handed off
the small steel probe and bullet forceps. Porter tossed them into the boiling
water.

Searching the chest, she took a
mental inventory. “The suture case, if you would. And wadding, lots of wadding.
I'll get the good whiskey.”

The men shuffled in under a raised
flap, bearing their charge. Matthew was calmer now, panting and groaning, leg
spasming as the wound throbbed. Kate was well aware of all the sensation. It
was nearly the same spot where she'd been hit years before.

Porter bundled Matthew on his
shoulder, suddenly the target of an artfully constructed swear. He turned
Matthew onto the table, pinning him so he could not thrash himself off.

She uncorked the green glass bottle
with her teeth, giving a sideways glance to the soldiers filling her tent.
“You're not allowed to stand around sniffling unless he's dead.” She waved a
hand, shooing them out so she had space to work. A pair of critical eyes was a
surgeon's definition of hell. “Sit him up,” she ordered.

Porter's large hand cupped Matthew's
neck, bending him sharply at the waist. Matthew cried out, legs kicking. Teeth
buried themselves deeper in his lip, muzzling his gasps.

She raised the bottle. “Drink.”

Matthew's head shook violently. “Hmm
mm.”

If he died, it would damn well be of
stubbornness before anything else. “I'm not asking, I'm telling you.
Drink
.”

His jaw finally relaxed. Kate poured
with a free hand, until a sputter and a cough told her to stop. She grabbed the
hard leather sole of each of his boots, shucking them from his legs and tossing
them aside. Porter filled a basin with steaming water, and she scrubbed her
fingers while the liquor went to work on Matthew's senses.

By the time she dried and Porter had
retrieved the tools from the kettle, Matthew was relaxed against the table,
breathing heavy but mostly still. His coat was gone, probably taken off by his
men, making her job that much easier.

“Porter, his trousers.”

Matthew jerked up his knees and
winced. “Absolutely not.”

They could argue anywhere. No
situation was sacred, apparently. “Are you wearing your small clothes?”

A nod.

“Then you've done your duty to
modesty.” She pointed. “Porter, trousers.”

Porter tugged them down, while she
grabbed the tail of Matthew's shirt, working it up his torso.

He had a tattoo
.

Kate paused in the middle of handing
the garment off to Porter. It was completely incongruous with what she
thought
she knew of the general. A rampant tiger swiped his paw deftly across Matthew's
well-defined left pectoral muscle.
When, why?

Kate snapped herself to attention,
brain cataloging the information for a later time.

Porter finished examining the
shirt's entry hole, and tossed it with the boots. “It's all there.”

“That's good news at least.” Fabric
scraps, along with splinters and dirt, all equaled infection.

She grasped the handles of her
pitted iron forceps. “The ball is almost through, so this is going to hurt. A
lot.”

“I know,” he bit out. His left index
finger jabbed at a corded scar across his ribs.

“Deep breath,” she warned, taking
one herself.

Porter clamped hands on Matthew's
shoulders. Kate plunged the forceps in after the ball, ignoring Matthew's
grunts, his strangled cries when she was forced to retreat and try again. He
thrashed against the table, legs thrusting as she worked to find a grip.
Ignore
it
, she repeated. He was a soldier, a patient. His blood oozed hot onto her
palms, spilling down her fingers and making it nearly impossible to gain
traction on the handle.

Porter darted from one side of the
wound to the other, swiping a chunk of the cotton wadding in a losing battle to
get her a look at the progress. Finally, the prongs knocked dully against lead,
deep in the hole. There was no making the process comfortable, but at least a
sensible approach could make it fast. Withdrawing a fraction, she took aim
again, digging the tips in around the rifling grooves. Matthew strangled a cry
in his throat, arching clean off the table. Kate bit her lip, braced her foot
against the table leg for purchase with eyes pressed shut, and tore the lump
free. She dropped the mushroomed bit of lead into the collection tray, panting
and swiping damp strands of hair from her forehead.

Porter let go of his limp, clammy
patient, taking up a pitcher and dousing the hole with a mix of water and
whiskey. Matthew hung across the table top, feeding his lungs with small gasps,
eyes squeezed shut.

Grabbing the cotton wadding, Kate
pushed it in, packing the wound. Using the heel of her hand, she applied steady
pressure, Matthew's abdomen tightening against the pain. New blood oozed out
against her palm, mingling with the water and old blood, making her hand slip
against the shelf of his rib cage. He barely flinched.

Matthew was still for long enough,
with eyes closed, that Kate thought he'd lost consciousness and began to worry
in earnest.