Beat the Drums Slowly (14 page)

Round a bend in the track, Bobbie swerved hard to avoid a braying and bucking mule. The mare’s hoofs narrowly missed Jenny Dobson, sprawled on the ground, her eyes closed and a trickle of blood coming from her lips. Her cap had fallen from her head and her long dark hair was spread around her like a fan. A few yards away a big soldier in a silver-grey helmet with a black horsehair plume and wearing a long blue cloak stood in the centre of the track, long sword drawn and facing Private Hanks. Hanks fired his musket, but the flint sparked on to damp powder. The Frenchman turned to look at Williams, and his hope that it was one of his own comrades died at the sight of a red coat.

Hanks lunged with his bayonet, striking the man’s body squarely. The Frenchman reeled, staggering back a step as the other man looked in bafflement at his blade bent almost double. A rapid jab with the sword, and Hanks dropped his musket to claw at the steel sunk deep into his throat.

Williams forced Bobbie between the two men, and before the Frenchman could react, the tall officer jabbed down with the butt of his musket and struck the man on the peak of his helmet. Bobbie’s chest pushed against the Frenchman’s sword, still embedded in Hanks’ neck, but although it had fallen from his grasp, the wrist strap prevented it from falling. As the mare pushed, the sword was wrenched from Hanks’ flesh, which pumped blood like a fountain, and the enemy soldier was falling. Williams hit him again, breaking his nose with the end of the musket, but the blow unbalanced him and he slumped down from Bobbie’s back, rolling as he fell.

The Frenchman was on his knees, his cloak open to reveal a metal cuirass, but he was groggy from the blows and slow as he fumbled to get his fingers back around the handle of his sword. Hanks choked and gasped as he died, kneeling down and then toppling forward.

Williams pressed with his hand to get to his feet, and then kicked the Frenchman in the face, tumbling him back. He drew his sword, point reaching out towards the cuirassier, who pushed up and forward so that the tip of the Russian blade went through his left eye. He died with no more than the gentlest of sighs.

Breathing hard, Williams looked around him. Hanks and the Frenchman were both obviously dead, the former in a pool of his own blood. Bobbie stood on the path, idly munching at the long grass, so that the froth around her mouth was turning an unsightly green. He walked over to Jenny and was glad to see that she was stirring. A bruise was blossoming on her cheek and he guessed that the Frenchman had struck her, cutting off her last scream.

‘It is all right,’ he said, and then realised the folly of that statement when the woman’s husband was lying dead a few feet away. ‘Are you hurt?’ He worried that the child might have come to harm.

‘Bastard!’ she said. ‘God-damned French bastard!’ She reached up, licked her fingers, and rubbed away the blood from her face. ‘Going for a girl when she’s about to have a baby. Bloody French.’ She began to get up. ‘Come on, give me a hand,’ she commanded.

‘I am afraid the Frenchman has done for your husband.’ Williams tried to make his tone as gentle as possible.

Jenny glanced at the corpse. ‘Poor Tom,’ she said flatly. ‘He weren’t much of a man, but he were kind.’ Williams was to be disappointed if he expected any greater grief.

He heard a man shouting from back the way he had come. The voice was not speaking English. ‘Can you ride?’

‘Reckon I can. You’ll need to lift.’ He helped Jenny climb on to the mule, and was surprised at the ease of lifting her in spite of her current bulk. Then he turned, picked up his musket, and went over to Bobbie. By the time he was in the saddle, two men had appeared around the bend in the path. One was another cuirassier, in a long blue cloak just like the dead man. The other wore a cocked hat, and a very dark blue jacket and breeches. He shouted, and cocked a pistol.

‘Go on, Jenny,’ yelled Williams. As long as the girl was with him he could not risk fighting, especially as he did not know how many more men were behind the two Frenchmen. The girl hit her mule with a stick and the animal trotted away. The man in the cocked hat levelled his pistol, but the cuirassier stopped him, and instead began to draw his sword.

Williams walked his horse after Jenny, wondering whether the man wanted to avoid the sound of a shot, or perhaps was squeamish enough not to fire when there was a chance of hitting a woman. Jenny’s mule was surprisingly fast, and a glance showed that she was leaving him behind, so he trotted on to follow her, still looking warily behind him.

Capitaine Dalmas watched the red-coated officer ride off, and wondered what an Englishman was doing outside the outposts of the army. He strode along the track, saw the dead British soldier, and his own man stretched out in the grass. Guibray had been a good man. Not imaginative or fit for promotion, but a brave, reliable soldier, whose only weakness was the speed with which he was distracted by women. Like a lot of the fellows from those early days of the revolutionary army, he had fallen into bad habits when discipline was so slack. Dalmas guessed that he had seen the girl and that had prompted the attack. Still, perhaps he had simply stumbled across the English. He was supposed to have been watching their horses, inside a sheep pen in a fold of the ground.

‘Let’s hope the English did not get to the horses,’ said the engineer Lieutenant Maizet. Dalmas had noticed a tendency in the man to state the obvious. He had brought him because his eyes were keen and his memory good, and anyway his other officers had things to do. They had come to watch the English army, and make sure of the routes they were taking. Dalmas wanted to look at their patrols and outposts and judge how vigilant they were likely to be. He did not want to fight, still less to be drawn into running skirmishes with the rearguard. They would look and then go north and wait for better opportunities as the retreat continued and the enemy grew tired. It would be better if the British officer could not get back to their lines quickly, in case the commander of the rearguard started to get too aggressive. Dalmas had left the remainder of his cuirassiers some distance back. The Poles were with him, stretched out in a line to observe, and the Englishman was already behind that line. He should not be able to get back to his own people. That was enough. Nothing useful would be gained by devoting too much effort to finding him, and the girl would prove to be a liability as Guibray’s useless death had shown.

‘Yes. Well, we might as well go and see.’ The cuirassier had been silent so long that the engineer officer had almost forgotten his own question. Now he surged through the undergrowth beside the track, and the other man struggled to keep up. A moment later they found the three horses where they had left them. It had been a chance encounter, then, or one brought on by Guibray’s lust.

There was little time to talk as Williams and Jenny rode across the rolling fields.

‘Have you seen Miss MacAndrews?’ he hissed as soon as they had left the two Frenchmen far enough behind.

‘Her?’ Jenny frowned. ‘No.’

He decided not to pass on farther news until they were safe.

It was hard to see far in any direction, and he was unsure how many French were there. After five minutes he turned west, thinking to swing round and get back. Before they had gone more than a few hundred yards, some movement caught his eye. Two lancers whose blue jackets had yellow fronts emerged from a sunken road a quarter of a mile away. They did not seem to have seen him, and he quickly led Jenny back into a dip in the ground, where they followed the line of a gully. For a moment he stopped, got down and then edged his way up to peer over the bank. The two lancers were some way away, but another patrol was nearer, barely three hundred yards from where he lay, letting their horses crop the grass.

Williams tried going east, but all the while they were also going north, farther and farther away from army. The day was getting on, and by now the reserve must have marched. Probably the light regiments and the cavalry of the main rearguard were already drawing back. Yet as he tried to loop east they kept spotting the blue-jacketed horsemen. He thought of doubling back to try again in the west, but the line seemed solid. Then they stumbled on another pair of lancers on the farthest side of a small walled field. It was still raining, and no one bothered to attempt a shot. Williams and Jenny fled as fast as her mule would run. The Poles gave up the chase after a few minutes, but he felt it prudent to keep going at a trot for longer. They came to a stretch of better road, and went for a mile before they slowed to a walk. Williams was surprised when he looked at Jenny and saw the exhaustion in her young face. Her condition had slipped from his mind as they dodged the French patrols.

It was now late afternoon, and the rain slackened a little and then died away as the grey light of a cloudy winter sky began to fade. The land was rising steadily. They came to a valley, and the river that curved through the bottom was fast and swollen with rain from the mountains. Jenny was swaying on the back of her mule, and clearly could go no farther. Williams saw a small stone building clinging to the slope above the river. Telling her to stay, he rode over, dismounted, and walked cautiously up to the heavy wooden door. He knocked, felt foolish for doing so, and then lifted the catch to open it. He guessed it was a shelter used by the shepherds, as there were signs that animals were sometimes kept inside. As his eyes adapted to the gloom he saw sacks and a pile of straw and then neater piles of the chopped straw the locals used for most of their fuel. It would do.

Jenny looked almost ready to faint when he brought her over. He helped her down and then took her inside. She asked for the bags on the mule and he took them off and put them inside before bringing the animal in as well. Hopefully they had left the French behind, but it would be better not to advertise their presence. By the time he came back, the girl had lit the stub of a candle. He was surprised at how practically she began arranging the wide single room.

Williams went to attend to Bobbie. The clouds had split to let the setting sun shine its red light across the drab landscape. Even the wind had dropped, and for the first time in hours he felt a sense of peace, until sudden movement caught his eye.

The grey horse looked bright in the fading light. Miss MacAndrews, hat gone, and hair streaming behind her, struck again with her whip to keep the horse going, its sides a foam of sweat.

Williams swung himself up on to the mare, musket held across his body, left hand on the rein and the other slapping her rump as he urged her on. He headed for the gap between Jane and the closest Pole, but they were still a good quarter of a mile away. The man seemed to be gaining on her, and Williams bounced as he raced down the slope, but no longer noticed the discomfort. There was a shout as the second lancer spotted him, and slowed his horse cautiously.

Jane looked up, saw a man in a red coat, and only as she turned towards him recognised who it was. The leading Pole shifted direction to follow her.

Williams was sure the lancer would reach the girl before he could get to them. He stopped, dismounted and wrenched the rag off his musket’s lock. Then he reached to yank the cork from its muzzle. The Pole was some two hundred yards away, the girl nearer. He prayed that the musket would spark, and that the charge had not been so shaken around by the long ride and its use as a club that it would not fire the ball with any real power.

He let them come closer, almost fired, but just stopped as Bobbie chose to swing her neck against him. He took a couple of paces forward and kneeled. They were one hundred and fifty yards away, an absurd range for a soldier’s musket. Yet if he waited Jane, who was swinging towards him, would soon be between him and the pursuing lancer. He took a deep breath, half let it out, aimed at the horseman’s chest and then raised the muzzle to allow for the distance.

It was a miracle when the powder in the pan flared and the main charge went off. It was even more of a miracle that the ball fell true and gouged a deep furrow on the man’s left arm just beneath the shoulder. The lancer rocked with the force of the blow, felt his limb go dead, and dropped his lance to steer the horse with the other hand as he turned and retreated. Williams did not know that he had hit, but saw the man turn as the smoke of the discharge began to clear.

It was unfortunate that the grey horse panicked at the noise of the shot or perhaps the sudden flame and smoke, and bolted. Jane bounced in her seat as the animal swerved sharply, and with strength she thought long exhausted galloped towards the river. The girl dragged at the reins, but the animal did not stop. Williams barely noticed the two Poles retreat down the road as he clambered on to Bobbie and set off in pursuit of the girl.

At the high riverbank, Jane just managed to steer the animal away from the water. It reared, and somehow she stayed on the side-saddle, and then the grey horse galloped again, running along the top of the bank. As its weight fell on earth undermined by the recent floods, the ground gave way. The bank crumbled, and Jane for the first time screamed in fear as the grey lurched to the side and toppled into the river. She fell free, and the shock of the icy flow was terrible as she sank under the waves. When she came to the surface again she was being swept along, the horse already some distance ahead.

Williams drove Bobbie on, running at an angle, trying to judge where he could get in front of the girl. A bend in the river hid her from view, and he rode on in dark fear until with massive relief he saw the white of her face emerge from the brown water again. She was close to the near bank, and that gave him a chance, but he could see that she could make little headway in the torrent.