Chapter 31
Murphy’s Laws of War #2
“Military Intelligence is very accurate.
It is either completely right or completely wrong.”
At the bottom of the hill, Melissa watched her captain untying his horse. Just as he was going to mount, Colonel Graham came to the door, and with an arm around her, called down, “Captain, please come up. I would speak with you.”
The captain paused, staring at the ground for a moment. She wasn’t sure whether he would comply or not. Finally, with resignation in every movement, he limped up the steps, and her uncle waved him inside.
Once inside, her captain stood at attention, looking severe and, Mel thought, lost. “Colonel,” he whispered.
With a curious but patient mien, her uncle said, “Is it Captain Starke or Sparhawk? I have reports of both.”
After a pause, Rig said, “Sparhawk.” He slipped out his red book and held it out to Colonel Graham.
Graham waved away the pay book. “No need, Captain. I can imagine how Sparhawk could be misheard as Starke amid our harried retreat. I hope your wounds are healing well.”
Melissa’s jaw ached from the tension tying up her body. Rig wouldn’t meet her gaze. What was he thinking? Feeling?
Rig nodded. “They are, sir, thanks to your niece.”
Colonel Graham frowned at his silence. “I thank you for all the aid and protection you provided Melissa, at the obvious risk of your own life and health,” he said, pointing to his arm in the sling. “I am most grateful.”
Without much emotion, the captain nodded again. “You’re welcome.”
When nothing more was added, Colonel Graham pursed his lips, took out a slip of paper, and handed it to the captain. “I’ve provided a billet for you. It is in the Citadel. It is the house of a wealthy gentleman, Don Bernardo Mascoso. I’ve asked him to have his household take diligent care of you.”
Looking at the paper, then glancing at Mel, Rig met Graham’s gaze and said, “Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. If there is nothing else?”
Her uncle frowned hard, studied the captain and then Mel, who still stood like a statue, staring at the captain, hands held tight together. With a hint of a smile, he said, “No, nothing else now. I’ll send word where to find your company. The army will arrive on the morrow. Please come dine with me and other officers on the twelfth at seven sharp. By then you will have seen to your command, and recovered some, I pray. I can give you any details regarding our orders and the army’s further plans then.”
“Thank you, sir.” Rig saluted, palm down. With a small bow to her and a “Miss Graham,” he stiffly shuffled out the door.
Melissa stared after him, battered by her emotions, silently cursing her nana. Rig hadn’t disappeared back to his time. Now, he could only despair and despise her. She wanted to run to him.
Uncle Thomas watched her with an expression that could only be concern. “Come, lass, he’ll be fine. He is played out with all he’s endured and would not appreciate your attentions now. Give him time.”
He patted her shoulder. “Your trunks are here. Let’s have the servants scare up a bath, and clean clothes for you. There is a Spanish maid who is handy with such details. I am sure that is just the thing.”
~ ~ ~
Rig felt eviscerated, his guts ripped out and scattered to the winds. There was nothing to fill the void. Riding blindly along for some time, he finally thought to ask Spanish passersby how to get to the address of this Don Bernardo.
Entering through another fortress gate, he found the house of the Don as the sun was tinting the white walls of La Corunna orange. The moment he introduced himself to the servant answering his knock, he was ushered into a beautifully furnished parlor.
There, sitting around the fireplace sipping wine, were two officers and a stout, well-dressed gentleman, who wore bright embroidery on his sleeves and the lapels of his brown coat. When he was announced, the gentleman jumped up and approached with a broad smile. The stout gentleman told the servant to fetch wine for the captain and take his bags to his room.
The man introduced himself as Don Bernardo Julio Albanca Mascoso, asking if Rig was well. When Rig answered in Spanish, inquiring about the Don’s health in return, Don Mascoso raised his hands in admiration at Rig’s refined dialect and began peppering him with questions in Spanish about his experiences.
When Rig hesitated, unsure what question to answer first, one of the red coated officers interrupted, shaking Rig’s hand energetically. “Captain, it’s very good to see you made it, old boy.”
It was Major Brooks from the treasury wagon. “Major, it’s good to see you too.”
Mascoso said, “Ah, me, the introductions. It is inexcusable. You know Major Brooks. Let me introduce you to my other guest, Commissariat Schaumann.”
Baby-faced Schaumann rose and held out his hand to shake. In his German accent, he said with a tepid smile, “Well met, Captain. I see my supplies saw you through.”
Rig studied the outraised hand before he shook it once, saying, “Yes, the Commissary supplies were certainly a great help, particularly when the two wagons of wounded I traveled with didn’t have enough.” Even though the words were delivered matter-of-factly, Schaumann rushed to assure everyone that he had nothing to do with such a mistake.
Mascoso ushered Rig to a chair and his wine was served, a sweet Madera. “Tell me, Captain, about your fight at the bridge and the guard chasseurs.”
Rig thought of the society he was sitting with, unsure how to answer indirectly, but politely. Being reminded of Chief, Rig asked that his horse be taken care of.
Mascoso assured him that his horse had already been led to the don’s cuadra, stables, around the back of the house, rubbed down and fed. “Your packs and weapons have been delivered to your room.”
Rig thanked him in Spanish, saying he was cansado, tired. Now indoors, he realized his uniform was noticeably aromatic, and asked if he could be shown to his room. He excused himself, but not before Major Brooks suggested the two of them ride out to view the city and the army’s arrival tomorrow, to which Rig agreed.
When the servant opened the door to his room on the second floor, they encountered a servant girl leaving the room carrying a large pitcher. The manservant introduced her as Esmerelda, the upstairs maid. With a wide-eyed glance up at Rig, she said in Spanish that his bath was ready.
In the middle of the room sat a brass tub at least six feet long, steaming in the afternoon light coming through the far window. She curtsied and said that towels were on the bed along with a robe. If he would place his uniform outside the door, she would clean it for tomorrow morning. The manservant left without a word.
Esmerelda inspected his battered black shako. Frowning, she said in Spanish, “I will try to repair it, but I cannot make promises.”
Rig thanked her in Spanish and just before he shut the door, she asked, “Would the Captain enjoy help with his bath?” Her smile said it all.
He replied, “No, pero gracias” and shut the door.
To one side of the well-appointed room opposite the bed was a dresser with a swivel mirror. He limped over and gazed at his reflection for the first time in two weeks. A gaunt, windburned face with a scraggly beard and an empty expression stared back at him. He didn’t recognize himself in the dusty-green uniform, his left arm in a dirty sling. He was marooned in time, alone without even his name. His reflection was a dead man walking.
He let a grin escape, more a grimace, remembering again the lyrics to the Ranger song, “. . . never coming back.” He was living the 75th Ranger’s motto, “Sua sponte,” Of Their Own Accord. He didn’t know the people, the society, the technologies, or lack of them. He didn’t know the military.
Close to a full-blown panic attack, he recoiled from the stranger in the mirror. A hopeless black terror settled in his chest, his breath coming shallow and quick. The dread ignited shivers and he fell into one of the chairs in the room.
After a long time in the black abyss, his Ranger training kicked in. They were taught to face hysteria. For a warfighter, giving in to the terror is pointless and always dangerous. It revealed a man without a plan, without control, without confidence: A man ignoring his training.
Seize control, create a plan and confidence will return. He took a deep breath and expelled it. First things first.
Crap,the bath water would be getting cold.
He awkwardly stripped off the uniform, emptied his pockets, and placed all his clothes, including dirty socks, last T-shirt, sling, and shorts outside the door as he’d been instructed.
He took out his shaving equipment, toothbrush, and paste. He cut off the bandages around his leg. He sank gratefully into the hot water, keeping his stitched arm braced on the tub edge. Who would take out those stitches? Mel? As he watched the water develop a brown tinge, the delicious warmth unraveled his muscles. He avidly eyed the bed and decided though invited, he would forego cena, supper, tonight. He had no appetite.
~ ~ ~
January 11th
In the late morning Rig rode down to the Travesía Uxes thoroughfare with Major Brooks to see the army march in. He wore a clean uniform, a lighter green having been boiled for lice. He’d enjoyed a substantial breakfast. Even his sling was now white. The morning had been a blur. He had woken feeling drugged, having had frightening dreams he thankfully could not remember. Lying in bed staring at the ceiling, emotionally numb, Rig tried to think of what to do. Returning Mel to her uncle had kept him together and focused for the last two weeks. He had driven toward a goal with all he had, and once achieved, the prize evaporated. It was successfully completing the grueling RASP tests to become a Ranger, only to find the 75th Regiment didn’t exist.
Now, he found it hard to think, hard to find reasons to get up. It was an unfamiliar experience after so many years in the Rangers.
He needed to cultivate allies, like Major Brooks, and generate a plan. What finally propelled him out of bed and riding Chief to a military parade was the Ranger dictum, ‘Never give up.’ The first thing to do was control himself. Then plan.
Chatting with Brooks as they rode out, Rig mentioned planning to see Miss Graham. Major Brooks, looking startled, laughingly said, “I do admire the free manners among the Canadians. But call on her? To what purpose, Captain?”
When Rig gave him a blank look, Brooks shook his head and went on to explain. “You see, old boy, men, particularly officers, asking to meet with a respectable, unmarried woman, one who just happens to be the niece of a superior officer, you only attempt it if you plan to court her.”
“Court her?”
“Do you mean to marry Miss Graham?
Rig shook his head. “Now? No, that’s not possible. Not smart at all.”
Robert gave Rig a hard look. “Then you visit the family, the colonel, not the lady. If You asked to see Miss Graham directly, you would be considered “calling on” her, which meant the intention of the visit was courting, and a marriage proposal. It doesn’t work that way in Canada?”
Rig shrugged. “Hey, it’s a wilderness.”
With a chuckle, Robert said, “Well, then consider this. Such an act would suggest intimacies during your travels with her you want to avoid.”
“Right.”
Robert went on to explain that Rig should not talk to Miss Graham alone or at least not out of sight of the family, in this case Colonel Graham or a servant. “You want to keep your commission, your honor, and her reputation intact.”
Rig just sighed. “Of course.”
Brooks gave his friend a sardonic glance. “Colonel Graham was not someone you wanted to annoy with inappropriate behavior, being a close friend of General Moore.”
“Absolutely.” It all left Rig’s brain in a twist.
A good deal of the city’s Spanish citizenry congregated on the edges of the Travesía Uxes waiting along with the British officers and families of the army. The army had finally all assembled outside the city yesterday, the main French forces still a day or more away.
Waiting on Chief, Rig knew what had been used as cleaning agents on his uniform. He smelled of lemon and vinegar from head to toe. His stovepipe shako couldn’t be saved from rain damage, so he sat bare-headed, his horse still looking a bit worn with weight-loss, but in good spirits, dancing a bit as Brooks and he waited. Mascoso had provided a blue saddle blanket to replace the tattered French Chasseur’s green shabrack as it was called.
The British crowd were all asking where the navy and transports could be. Robert leaned over to Rig as they waited for the Army “I’m bloody worried that we still don’t see a forest of ship masts in the harbor. The army must be evacuated before the French hordes converge on the city.”
Colonel Graham and Melissa rode up before Robert could say more. The colonel positioned himself between Rig and Mel, inquiring after his care and handing him another paper with the location of his command, the much-reduced Ten Company. Other than Rig introducing them to Brooks, which seems was his duty as he knew them all, the four of them waited with little conversation.
Graham invited Brooks to his dinner on the twelfth after asking about his regiment. Major Tomlin then joined them. Rig had to do the honors again. Mel leaned over to catch Rig’s eye and smiled encouragingly, but with her uncle between them, he couldn’t think of anything to safely say other than she looked well. She wasn’t wearing her sling. Her brown and blue dress was a woolen material with a short jacket and wide-brimmed hat. He did a double take when he realized she was riding sidesaddle. She was eye-catching in the outfit, straight and regal but he was unsure whether he should say so.
She appeared to be a strange, exotic creature, an aristocratic lady, not the able, down-to-earth Mel he knew. He sighed, eyes closed, disheartened by British society. A new world, a new Mel, a new set of rules he must master quickly in order to survive.
Rig glanced at Colonel Graham, straight-backed, every inch an officer, and then at Mel ten feet away. He expelled a deep breath. She might as well be a sitting thousand miles away. He turned his gaze down the road as the crowd grew louder. The dark columns were coming near with a band leading, playing a jaunty tune.
Flags fluttered colorfully in the sea breeze at the head of each battalion. The soldiers marching under them were a sad, emaciated spectacle. A number were not in uniform, whether guard grenadiers or lowly privates. Others had strips of blankets for shirts and shoes. Many reminded Rig more of the ragged homeless in Afghanistan than any soldiers. The Spaniards gasped and frowned, obviously shocked. Regardless of the surprised and horrified expressions of the onlookers, the men marched in time, a thumping beat of feet, carrying themselves erect. Their martial spirit kept the scene from being truly pathetic.
Rig whispered, “The army is a mess.”
Brooks nodded, but said cryptically, “They’ll fight.”
A stout man on a white horse rode up, waving what could only be called a Panama, wide-brimmed and white. He hailed Colonel Graham. Brooks informed Rig that the energetic man was the mayor of La Corunna. From the conversation in Spanish, Graham and the mayor were talking about work being done to strengthen the city’s defenses.
After more than two hours, the last of the army marched by, in the rear there were troops dressed in the same dark green as Rig. Physically, the last battalions were in better shape than most of the army, which indicated better discipline had prevailed. Brooks pointed with his head. “The Reserve Division, rear guard.”
Riding with the last of the column, several mounted officers came and crowded around Graham. Graham greeted General Moore, and the two shook hands enthusiastically. Moore expressed relief that Mel was safe saying she looked grand. General Moore was a younger Colonel Graham, the same height and long nosed British looks, dark hair instead of white. Graham introduced Rig, Tomlin, and Brooks to General Moore in a perfunctory manner. Then Moore and his staff gathered around to join the war council with the mayor and Graham. There was nothing more to see or do. With a parting salute and a nod to Melissa, Rig, Tomlin, and Brooks left. Rig had to see about the company he now commanded.
~ ~ ~
Melissa sat watching Rig ride away with a sigh. Moore, her uncle, the mayor, and the gaggle of staff officers pushed their horses together, squeezing her out, intently discussing how best to prepare for killing Frenchmen in the coming battle.
She could only imagine how lost Rig must be, feeling lost herself. Her heart actually ached, believing until now that ‘heart ache’ was just allegory.
It remained difficult to determine what he, a man from the twenty-first century, would be thinking. Only he didn’t look lost. Tall, he appeared for all the world like a veteran at ease in military society.
She ignored the voices debating among the officers as they ignored her. When they rode up there were introductions but all she received was one assessing glance. Being under her uncle’s protection inspired careful reserve in every officer’s address. What those officers thought of her now that she’d returned wouldn’t prove uplifting. Back with her uncle, her duties were again those of mistress of a house and three servants, requiring her to serve too.
She already hungered for the intimacy she’d shared with Rig. Isolated from Rig and from the men talking around her, she decided she should return to prepare the noon dinner, probably with several officers her uncle would invite, maybe even General Moore.
Meeting her captain a fortnight ago already seemed an eternity past in another world. Her body still felt his ministrations from three nights ago. Mel heaved a deep sigh and interrupted the officers to tell her uncle she was returning to the house.
The city had appeared so beautiful and exciting when she’d first arrived with the army, so different from gray Copenhagen a year ago. Now it all felt oppressive, too much like her constrained existence serving her sister’s family. Melissa shook herself, making her horse prance. She pursed her lips, annoyed with her indulging in such dowie thoughts.
What was wrong with her? Was she always to be discontent with her lot? She was afraid of the answer. When Colonel Graham returned, he found her setting the table for the noon meal with more energy than necessary. He came up behind her and gave her a one-armed hug, saying, “I canna abide spleen in my kin an’ luckie.”
Melissa started and shook her head. “I’m trig, Uncle Thomas. There’s no spleen in setting out the dishes.”
“Are you impatient with being my hostess now that you’ve returned safe? You have seen far more than a lass your age might or should.”
She moved out from under his arm. She rubbed her shoulder and gazed at him for a moment, then wiped her hands on her apron. “I have indeed.” She shook herself, like coming out of a dream and faintly smiled. “You are keeping me from my duties. I must ready the table and the meal for your guests.” She waved a hand toward the open door where several officers could be seen riding up.
Graham let her go. Frowning, he watched her retreat into the kitchen.