Page 95 of The Soldier
Nor Winnie. Of course she didn’t want Winnie to go.
“You cannot leave that child with me, Emmaline Farnum,” he said in a low voice.
“Nonsense.” Emmie took a fortifying sip of tea. “Winnie has a better chance of growing up on the straight and narrow and being accepted by decent society in your care than in anybody else’s. We’ve been over this, Devlin.”
“You don’t know what sort of man you would inflict on that child,” he said, holding his cup between his two hands. “You think you know, Emmie, but you don’t.”
“Tell me. If you think you’ve some terribly objectionable quality, St. Just, and that you must unburden yourself of it to me, then I will listen. I doubt I will change my mind though.”
“You asked me once to tell you about Waterloo,” he said, swallowing and closing his eyes as he got the name of the town past his lips.
“I did,” Emmie replied, the first frisson of unease creeping up her spine. He’d seen and done terrible things; that much she knew. Things soldiers were expected to manage in times of war, but something about the dread in his eyes told her this was worse—at least to him.
“You know I’ve killed many men,” he said. “I’ve killed men so young as to be more properly called boys; but because they wore enemy uniforms, that is excused.”
“I don’t just excuse it”—Emmie set her tea aside, wanting to take his hands—“I applaud you for it. I am grateful to you for what you did, though I regret the toll it has taken on you.”
“I’ve killed two women, as well,” he said, watching her eyes. “Executed them as spies for the French. They were not in uniform, Emmie, and I actually pulled the…”
He stopped and dropped his gaze while Emmie reached across the table and put her hand on his wrist.
“They were the enemy,” she said gently. “All the more heinous because they were women, and much more difficult for you to execute. It waswar, Devlin, and they knew the costs.”
He nodded again but carefully withdrew his hand from her grip.
“I will tell you about Waterloo,” he said in a soft, resigned voice. “You have a right—a need—to know what Winnie will face if you leave her with me.”
Emmie waited, listening to the fire blaze in the hearth.
“Bonaparte’s army wasn’t the most disciplined; they hadn’t the best equipment nor the best horses. They were not the most professional, but by God, they were brave. When Bonaparte escaped from Elba, he moved them the length of France and on toward Brussels, when all had hoped he would stop at the border. Wellington had time to range his lines along a ridge outside Waterloo, and there he waited for the emperor to advance farther across the border.”
His voice had become distant, his gaze focused inward, but in his eyes, Emmie saw looming horror.
“You’ve noticed I am… unnerved by thunder.” His gaze flickered up to hers.
“I have, though it seems to be getting better.”
“It isn’t just thunder, Emmie. It’s rain, thunder, the buzzing of flies, the smell of mud, the sound of a Spanish guitar, the sound of horses galloping en masse… For the first few months after Val dragged me home, I wanted only silence or the sound of his playing. He sensed I needed almost every other sound drowned out… But I digress.”
He took a slow, deep breath and let it out before continuing.
“It rained the night before battle. Not just a little summer shower, but ugly, cold torrents that made deploying along that ridge a nightmare. I will never forget the smells if I live to be one hundred. The mud, the wet uniforms and soggy tack, the fear… The next morning, the heat came on and made the day even more unbearable, and the artillery, of course, went to work. But then, just when we thought we’d go mad from the damned cannon, the guns fell silent, and that was much worse. We waited, expecting the French to charge any moment, because our reinforcements drew closer as the day wore on.”
Emmie watched as his memories fought to overwhelm him and recalled the scene with Winnie’s soldiers: Why don’t the bloody French just get on with it?Oh, God…
“Eventually, they came on, and the ground was still a boggy, horse-laming mess, but the French had to charge up that hill, over and over again, and each time they tried, there were more bodies, more maimed and dying horses running loose, struggling to get up, more comrades fallen who could not move to safety.”
He fell silent for a long moment, though Emmie feared all that narrative was just setting the stage. She gripped his hand again, and this time he allowed it.
“When the fighting was over, there were fifty thousand dead and wounded soldiers, and almost half that again in dead or mortally wounded horses. I led a detail of men onto the battlefield to recover what gear and tack we could. The scavengers were already at work, rifling the pockets of men not even dead. The medics went through ahead of us, but my unit was to collect what arms and tack and ammunition was… salvage… salvageable.”
“Some of my party were wounded, but they knew to admit to serious injuries was to be cashiered out, so we slipped and struggled and cursed our way from one fallen horse to another, but Emmie…” He gazed past her with eyes that saw into hell. “They weren’t all dead. Some of them had been wounded two days prior, some just a few hours before, and they weren’t…”
Emmie squeezed his hand and held on tight, and though she wished he wouldn’t, she willed him the strength to resume his story.
“Every man in that detail gave me his weapons and ammunition, and when we found an animal still suffering, I shot it.” He swallowed, eyes fixed on his terrible memory. “This was a violation of orders, but not one man protested the use of ammunition for such a purpose. When we ran out of shot, we used our knives until I lost count…”
He was gripping her hand with punishing strength, but Emmie held her silence. He needed to tell this tale, or he’d be haunted by it for the rest of his life. That much she knew from carrying her own secrets and burdens for too long. She could do this much for him and be privileged to have his confidences, no matter how bleak and hellish.
