Saving Time

Chapter 17

Murphy’s Law of Combat, #44

“If finally camped for the night in unpleasant circumstances, be thankful. It’s just ‘situation normal.’”

The night grew still and colder with each passing hour. Distant thunder growled in the mountains, each rumble an accusation as Mel waited. With nothing to do in the darkness but think, she kept repeating their last conversations in her head, his annoying and confusing words and behavior, trying to make sense of her emotions. To avoid the recriminations she felt, Mel lit the clock a dozen times as the captain’s deadline approached.

Captain Starke obviously thought the French would be less than an hour behind them, but just as she decided they would not attempt such a thing at night, she heard a new thunder. It grew until she could make out the clink of bridles among the pounding of horses’ hooves. Torches appeared among the trees far below and she held her breath, patting her mount to be quiet. The torchlights flew on toward the southwest.

As the time neared the eleven o’clock deadline, and she’d heard nothing more, Mel began disparaging the captain and his high-handed orders. She couldn’t leave him. Then, far in the distance, she heard the thin pop-pop of the captain’s rifle. A dozen shots echoed through the trees, mixed with shouts and the lower bark of muskets. Then silence settled around her once more. Eleven came and went. Mel waited. At eleven-twenty, a rider galloped past heading east, his torchlight flaring between the trees. Where was the captain? Worry began to eat at her. The small clock read eleven-fifty when a crunching sound froze Mel’s blood. Close by, it suddenly stopped. She didn’t dare move.

“What the hell are you doing here? I told you to leave an hour ago.”

“Captain? Are you well?”

“Miss Graham, when I tell you to do something, I expect you to do it.”

Mel could hear the weariness in his voice, but she refused to be brow-beaten for her concern. “I have no intention of obeying your every command like some Johnny Newcome.”

“Like a what?”

“Like a green recruit.” She lit the flashlight and aimed it at his chest.

He barked a curse and flipped up his black eye goggles, rubbing his eyes. “What are you trying to do, blind me?”

“It’s a wee thought, Captain.”

“Look, I’m the one getting you back to your family. I expect you to help every so often by doing what I need you to do.”

“What ye say is true, but when ye leave without . . .” She ran out of words, unable to ignore her relief and joy at his return, seeing him unhurt. To hide her feelings, she flicked the light at his face. There was blood on his brow, black in the white glare. Squinting, he waved the light away.

“You’re wounded!”

He shook his head and dabbed at his forehead with the tan handkerchief from his pocket. “A lucky shot. It hit a rock and the splinters caught me.”

“We should bandage it.”

“No, we shouldn’t. We don’t have the time.” He reached over, took the flashlight, and turned it off.

Neither spoke in the blackness, but Mel could feel him, sense his stiff back, and what thoughts he entertained concerning her. The glowing eyes of his goggles disturbing in the blackness.

Suddenly, he grabbed the reins out of her hand, frightening the breath from her. “Let’s get out of here. Quietly.” Her horse resisted for a moment and then moved off at a fast walk.

~ ~ ~

January 1,1809

The next several hours were spent following deer trails and gullies, always moving up into the mountains. Once they were out of the trees, the wind began to howl across the bare slopes and wet snow pelted them. The captain never halted, never asked to see if she needed a rest. When the overcast sky began to lighten in the east and the wind died down, Mel finally had to ask him to stop.

Without a word, the captain sidled up to a boulder and eased out of the saddle stiff legged. He then led her horse over to the flat rock and offered a hand. She did not deign to take it, annoyed with his boorish behaviour up until his one courtesy. Melissa jumped down instead and walked off into the dark.

When she returned, the captain had taken the horses over to a small rivulet to drink and sat heating water with his little burner, its sputtering flames illuminating the trees. Though it continued to snow sporadically, the air had stilled. It felt good to stand, but her thighs were rubbed raw. Without a word, he handed her a cup and poured the hot coffee. He passed her the sugar and the odd, powdered cream. He placed some dried apricots in her hand and hobbled over to sit on a rock some distance away.

She hated his silence but did not know what to say. When they were finished, he took her cup and packed everything away. She knew she should respect his wishes, his desire to keep her safe, but the man continued to be so arbitrary and condescending in his pronouncements, like an Anglican bishop preaching in Perth. She must say something.

“Captain.”

He paused in checking the girth straps and waited.

“I wish you happy this New Year.”

“What?”

“Tis the morning of the first of January 1809.”

He gazed at her with an empty expression for a moment and then twirled a finger in the air. “Whoopee.” He turned back to the horses. “It’s mid-February for me.”

She eyed the annoying man. “Society doesn’t celebrate the new year in your time?”

“Yes, of course we do.”

“What festivities do ye attend?”

“Me?” He glanced at her. “I usually go to a party with a date. We drink, dance, maybe a kiss at midnight and sing ‘Auld Lang Syne.’” She had no idea what ‘with a date’ meant, but she started at the song’s title. “Are ye Scots after all?”

“No. My family’s German.”

“But ye observe Hogmanay?”

“What?”

“New Year’s Eve? Auld Lang Syne. That is Braids Scots—a Scottish ballad, ‘Long Time Ago.’” She cocked her head. “Do Americans all sing it?”

He blew out the little stove and all was dark again. “Many do, though I never thought about it. It’s a tradition, I guess.”

“There must be many Scots in the United States.”

There was a huff. “Quite a few.”

She frowned, but persevered. “Would you like to sing it now?”

“No,” he snapped. “Let’s mount up.”

Back on the trail, the way became steeper. After some hours, she could make out the trail in the false light before the dawn. Melissa wanted to ask questions about the times to come. She wanted to talk, do somehow ease the continuing tension between them. The words wouldn’t come. After thinking about ‘singing in the new year’ for several miles she began to softly sing.

“My bonny cuckoo, I tell ye true,

That through the groves I’ll rove with ye;

I’ll rove with ye until the spring,”

She liked the song because the ‘cuck-oo’ notes of the song sounded like the bird’s call.

“And then my cuckoo shall sweetly sing.

Cuckoo, sing girls, let no one tell,

Until I settle my seasons well.”

She’d always enjoyed singing, and now it bucked her spirits. After several verses, she became aware that the captain was listening, holding his gray closer as they walked. Self-conscious, Mel stopped. “I suppose I should remain quiet.”

“You weren’t that loud.” After a moment, the captain smiled at her. “That was nice.” An uneasy silence followed, his approving smile in the dim light having more effect than she wished to admit. He finally filled it with, “It reminds me of another song” and then in a baritone, sang a ballad quietly with an odd, hopping rhythm about a nightingale.

There were pauses and starts on half-beats that intrigued her. “What kind of music is that, an American ballad?”

“It’s the Blues.” He began to slap a strange counter-beat to his singing on his saddle. His resonant voice and the unexpected staccato beat mesmerized her.

He finished and gazed off into the distance. “Some friends and I formed a rhythm and blues band in high school. We had fun. “Nightingale” was one of the songs we did. Norah Jones wrote it.”

“A woman wrote it?” What was ‘high school,’ and a ‘rhythm and blues band?’

“Yeah, a cute woman.”

A jealous spark flared. “An acquaintance?”

He chuckled. “I wish.”

Then how would he know her appearance unless it appeared on the printed composition? Melissa asked, “With sheet music?” A woman had her name on published music?

“Yeah, with sheet music.” He grinned and shook his head at her question. “Norah has a killer voice, real sultry, but she wrote music long before she became known as a singer.” He let his breath escape, blowing a cloud in the morning air. “Will be known.”

They rode on for another mile, the pre-dawn light revealing only bare white hills in all directions. The captain kept turning his head, surveying the surroundings. He broke the stillness by turning to Mel to saying, “Sing your song.”

She waited for an explanation, but when he didn’t offer one, she began to quietly sing “My bonny cuckoo, I tell you true,” while he listened.

After a moment, he began to sing, “Nightingale.” It wasn’t a round, rather the strangest duet she’d ever been a party to, the melodies weaving in and out, but hitting the same notes together only once or twice per measure. Yet it sounded extraordinarily beautiful. On the last note, they met and held it together. The captain did a downbeat with one hand to end it and they grinned at each other.

Mel said, “That was exceptional.”

His smile slowly faded, his eyes losing their sparkle. He nodded and looked away, the world turning cold again. His change of expression couldn’t have shocked her more if he’d insulted her. As they rode on in silence, her stomach roiled at his contrary behavior. The sky grew lighter behind them as they had climbed into the mountains, their bare summits rolling up toward the west. Snow blanketed the ground and a frigid wind tugged at their clothes.

At the top of one rise Captain Starke twisted around to say something, but froze, staring off into the distance. He turned his gray around and trotted past her up to a higher knoll off the trail. Facing east, he took out a box from his belt and held it up to his eyes. Melissa reined in her horse and came up beside him. The morning sun lit the plains before them in bright gold for miles. Even at that distance, Melissa could see sparkling tiny black squares, the glinting metal of military formations, covering the gray-brown plain before the town of Astorga, nowtwo miles behind them. They had trooped leagues in a circle around Astorga, but in the end were only a few miles further west.

“It’s the French army.” The awe in the captain’s voice caught her full attention. “There must be eighty thousand troops down there—more than fought at Austerlitz. Infantry, cavalry, and artillery, everything lined up for review.” The captain held the green box out to her. This new consideration exasperated her even more, after his silence.

She took it without thinking and held it to her eyes. There were two spyglasses in the box, side-by-side, one for each eye. She held her breath when she realized she was looking through one of his ‘magic’ boxes. The spyglass rendered the far distant figures startlingly clear if wee size, and astoundingly bright numbers and lines shifted across her view as she studied the rows of infantry and cavalry so distinct. She watched a parade of limbered artillery as it rolled in front of the legions of foot soldiers and waving flags. The dancing numbers fascinated her. They stopped moving when she held the box still.

“Why are all those numbers doing a jig in here?” she asked, pointing at the box.

The captain grinned and said, “The Leica is a range finder. The numbers tell me how far away objects are when I look at them, but it doesn’t work out to more than a mile or two.”

Melissa frowned at the explanation and went back to following the artillery. They passed by a milling crowd of mounted men, all with waving plumes. She jerked the box away. “Napoleon.”

“Yeah, it could be. The one without the plumes certainly looks like the paintings I’ve seen, though at this distance, who knows?” He shook his head again. “What a place to review an army.”

“No. It is Bonaparte. He has been reported leading the French.” She nodded at the gray’s gold-trimmed horse blanket. “His Guard Chasseurs never campaign but with their Emperor.” She thought a moment and then added, “When among his generals during reviews, he is the only one permitted to ride a white horse. It is a New Year’s review of the entire army.”

The captain grunted. “Imagine, Napoleon.” He took the Leica and gazed through it for a time, then returned it to the pouch on his belt. “In that case, we’re in really deep kimchee.” He looked west. “From what I’ve read, that’s one Frenchman who knows how to pursue a retreating army.”