Page 16 of Caroline Saves the Blacksmith
“I shall bind the poultice to your ankle when I am done clearing up.”
With that, Caroline stood up and left the room. William squashed any burgeoning guilt. They had at least tonight and perhaps another day of each other’s company, and it was essential he maintain some distance. It would not do to get ideas about spending time together. As it was, his earlier offer had put images of courtship in his head, and that was an impossibility.
William recalled how, when he had returned home, he had had to tell his Uncle Albert and Aunt Gertrude that their only child was dead, without even a proper burial on foreign soil.
All because of him, because of his selfish desires.
After contending with their heartrending grief, his news destroying their very light, he had to inform Charles’s betrothed on the other side of the village. Nellie had shattered into pieces in his arms. She had mourned for the longest time until she finally met a man in Bath just a year ago and finally healed.
William had caused far too much unhappiness in his past to consider embracing sunshine in his future.
Nay, he had all but died at the Hougoumont farmhouse along with Charles, and he was not permitted to return to life.
To his relief, Caroline worked in the kitchen without her usual humming in accompaniment. Listening to her earlier had tugged at strange yearnings, and William wanted none of it. Sunshine needed to be kept at bay. It was his lot to live in shadows.
Before long, she returned clothed in a night rail and wrap, which was embroidered with neat, little flowers. Her work, perhaps? Silky hair was plaited to fall over her shoulder, and his fingers itched to pull on the primrose ribbon and comb through her wheat locks.
Sitting on the low table, Caroline bound the poultice, her fingers warm on his leg, then spread a blanket over him. It was only midevening, but his eyelids were heavy and he was more than ready to slumber.
Despite this, William’s eyes could not help themselves. They devoured the shape of her with hunger as she wandered about, quietly extinguishing the candles in the darkening room.
When she finally reclined on the opposite settee, William’s lids shut and he accepted the gentle embrace of sleep.
THE PAST
William opened his eyes to find himself once more at Château d’Hougoumont.
It was right about noon, with the sun beating down on the quagmire of mud left in the rainstorm’s wake earlier that morning, when the north gate was breached. A sous-lieutenant of the French First Light Infantry broke through the gate with an axe, enabling blue-coats to pour into the fortified courtyard that William’s regiment had been charged with defending.
William frantically sought his cousin’s position, yelling his name, when he caught sight of Charles near the gate. From thirty feet away, William raced forward to assist him, but he was too late. He could only watch helplessly as Charles was run through with a flashing steel bayonet, falling to the ground as if time itself had slowed down to drag out William’s agonizing futility.
For the span of a second, William was frozen as grief slammed into his body, almost bringing him to his knees. Even at this distance, there was no doubt his cousin was dead, with his empty eyes staring into the abyss.
But then there was no time to think as the tide of French soldiers reached him. Realizing there was no time to reload his musket, he raised it up to fight, as he had been taught weeks ago when Charles and he had signed up to fight Boney. Which was when he noticed that his bayonet was missing. William saw the soldiers were upon him, and he had no method to defend himself.
Recalling the training sergeant had said that Brown Bess had a thick stock and would not break if he used it as a club, William’s instincts as a blacksmith spurred him into motion while a mindless rage washed over him in a tide of red. They had killed his cousin, his best friend. If he were to die in the yard today, he would take as many Frenchmen down with him as he could!
William raised his musket like a forge hammer, swinging it down with the force and precision of a smith beating iron on his anvil. Cracking it down, he raised it once more and swung it down. And raised it and swung again. And again.
When William’s rage slowly dissipated, he was panting from his exertions. He groggily returned to his senses from the anger and hatred that had engulfed his mind, to find that he now stood with five dead Frenchmen at his feet. The north gate was closed, and his fellow red-coats were frantically fighting the remaining enemy left within the yard.
It was like this every night. Every relentless night since the battle of Waterloo.
This was the part of his recurring nightmare when he threw back his head to roar all the pain, and loss, and regret shuddering through him. Charles was dead, and William had killed five men in close combat with the skills of his livelihood turned to abhorrent violence. He did not even know the men’s names. Would never know their names. Or if they had wives, children, parents who would grieve them.
This was the precise moment he would now make his vow to—
Then he heard it, a melodic voice humming a Christmas carol.
Thus spoke the angel. Suddenly
appeared a shining throng
of angels praising God, who thus
addressed their joyful song:
‘All glory be to God on high,
