Page 61 of The Forbidden Love of an Officer
‘Water,’ was all he asked for.
‘If you can help, I have a dozen things you might do…’ Ellen turned as a woman spoke. ‘There is water, and bandages, and we are looking for people to hold men who require treatment. Will you come?’
Ellen rose, and turned. ‘Of course, but let me bring water to this man first.’ Like so, she was swept into the mayhem of war. It was beyond anything she might have imagined as hundreds of men were brought back into the city, and as she worked, she constantly looked for Paul in each new cartful.
It was early evening when the first men arrived at the city gates on foot, hobbling, exhausted and bleeding.
Her heart beat out a steady rhythm, the pace of the drum the men had marched to, a beat or two away from panic as she waited for Paul to come back and helped those who had made it. Her panic was held at bay only by the need to do something for these men who had survived but were in agony.
‘Madam!’ The doctors and surgeons worked at the far end of the drawing room, where two dozen men lay on the floor.
She was kneeling beside a man with many wounds, holding his hand.
‘Madam!’ As the shout came again, and the doctor waved a hand, beckoning Ellen, the soldier’s hand fell slack in hers. She looked down. His eyes looked at nothing.
Her heart missed a beat, and sickness threatened, as she pressed a hand over his bloody coat. There was no sense of his heart beating, and no feeling of movement in his lungs.
‘Madam!’
She stood, not knowing what to do, and walked to the doctor as though she were sleepwalking. ‘I think the man I was with is dying.’
He looked over but when he looked back at her there was no hope in his eyes. ‘There is nothing I can do. I must help those who have more chance of survival. This man needs his arm taken off, and I need someone to hold his shoulder while I cut. Will you do it?’
A soldier who had a bloodied bandage over one eye but in all other ways seemed well, was already kneeling, holding the man’s legs down. Their patient looked up at them with wild terrified eyes. But the bone in his forearm was protruding from an open wound, shattered and in splinters.
Ellen’s stomach turned again, but she bit her lip and nodded. She would do anything to help these men – in the hope that someone would do the same for Paul if he was wounded, somewhere, needing help.
20
As the last sunlight painted the clouds above Paul orange, the battle could still go either way. Neither side had gained an advantage.
Napoleon’s force made another push to break through the centre of the Allied lines, trying to cut Paul and his regiment off on the left. The fight continued as daylight turned to dusk, and then edged towards night, and once again Paul was on the defensive, in a square, watching as a British troop charged past to push the French back down the hill.
A call rang from the left. Paul’s lieutenant colonel raised his sword, calling Paul’s square to break and move about.
Something was afoot.
Paul lifted his sword high, calling his men to break from the square and move. Then he saw the risk. The riflemen of the French Imperial Guard were running up the hill, seeking to break the Allied forces once and for all.
Paul ran ahead of his men, calling them on, his sword raised. The pole bearer ran beside him, holding up their colours, and the flag flew out on the breeze. ‘Halt and kneel!’ Paul bid his front row when they were in close range. ‘Present all!’ Three layers of men at varying heights all raised their rifles a moment before the French line formed into the same position.
‘Fire!’ he shouted.
‘Feu!’ the French officer called.
There was a sudden vicious volley of bullets, back and forth.
A force ripped through Paul’s stomach; a solid mass, tearing through his flesh and pushing him backwards off his feet, slamming him down onto the muddy ground as the air about him filled with the bitter smell of gunpowder and blood. There was no pain, only shock. Cold, disbelieving, shock.
My God!
‘Captain! Captain!’
One of his men was beside him, and Paul saw him for a moment before the world went black. ‘Captain!’
There was a foul smell in the air. Death. His death. The smell of a gut wound.
Ellen…
