The Field #3
Fitzwilliam did not reply at once. He did not permit himself the comfort of blaming anyone but the enemy and the map.
He looked down the slope again, through the thin veil of mist. Shadows moved near the far bank. Men resetting. Muskets lifted. A drumbeat sounded once, dull, then stopped.
Fitzwilliam had taken the bridge.
The French still held the road.
He could press forward, cut his way into ground that would kill horses and men by inches. He could hold here and wait for his infantry, let the French choose the next constriction.
Neither choice felt like victory. He raised his hand once, small and exact.
Withdraw.
He would not buy ground with bodies.
No hesitation. No argument. His men turned their horses as though they had been built for obedience alone. Fitzwilliam mounted Perseus and held the rear, visor down, sabre ready, eyes fixed on the mist where the French would appear if they meant to finish what they had begun.
They did not.
The French stayed behind their bridge and watched the British depart.
Fitzwilliam rode with his head forward and his jaw locked. He counted the men who remained. He counted the places where the line broke and rejoined.
He did not count the ones who would not ride again.
He had done everything correctly.
The road had taken its due regardless.
* * *
He wrote by lantern-light, the paper weighted at the corners by musket balls and a spent pistol-flint; the map beneath pressed up into his thoughts.
My dearest Mother,
I have received your letter, and the two that followed it, and I thank you for the care with which you told me what you could and spared me what you ought.
I know the hour was chosen for sense, not show; I know you did not ask the day to wait for me.
Still—I have missed it. That is the plain truth, and I will not insult you with any finer phrasing.
You have married my sisters on the same morning, beneath the same roof, with the same prayers spoken over them, and two men I should be glad to call brothers in more than name.
I can picture it with uncomfortable ease: Phoebe steady enough to make everyone else unsteady, and Ellie smiling as though it were a secret she had kept all her life.
I can hear them, too, if I allow it. I do not allow it for long.
Tell them I remember them as they were before they learned the trick of appearing grown.
That I do not doubt they performed the day without a stumble, nor do I doubt you corrected whatever the clergyman did wrong by the mere force of your attention.
Give them my respects as wives, and my affection as ever. They will understand the difference.
You could not keep two new husbands waiting upon the courtesy of my return, nor should you have tried.
As for their husbands, the Lord cousins, Alderwick and Redbourne—inform them I hold them to what they have taken. They know of me from Cambridge well enough to hear it as blessing and warning in the same breath. They have both chosen wisely.
It is a strange thing to sit down and attempt tenderness with ink, as though it might travel farther than a man can.
I find I have very little to say that will not sound like command.
Perhaps that is the fault of my profession.
Perhaps it is only mine. Either way, I ask you to forgive it.
You are the example of what duty costs. You did not teach me how to be absent from my own life.
I will not speak of danger. I will not speak of privation. I will speak only of what you may use: I have kept myself upright. I have kept my men moving. I have not yet disgraced your grandfather’s Christian name. That must suffice until it can be otherwise.
I beg you to kiss my sisters for me—once each, and no more, for Phoebe will endure it and pretend she does not mind, and Ellie will mind and pretend she does not endure it.
Tell them I expect them to be happy. I expect it with the same certainty with which I expect the sun to rise, and I advise them to disobey me at their peril.
You and I both know they never would.
Your most affectionate son,
R.
He read it once.
He folded the paper, unfolded it again, and struck through the final sentence with a single, precise line.
“Villiers,” he called out.
* * *
Badajoz, Spain, April 1812
Rain pattered against the canvas. Inside, the officers’ tent was thick with pipe smoke and the sour scent of wet leather.
Fitzwilliam sat alone at a side table, coat unfastened, a carafe of water and a glass his sole company.
Mud clung to every boot that crossed the threshold and dried in ridges, cracked like old paint.
A lantern burned low and uneven; its wick smoked, then steadied.
Damp wool held the heat and refused to give it back.
Three lieutenants and two captains—men whose names he would not keep—laughed too freely, dice rattling across an upturned drumhead.
Their talk rose and fell in bursts: Lisbon girls, wine rations, a colonel’s gout.
A year ago, though he had been a captain, he had never sat among them—never played, never boasted.
Never died like them.
Campo Maior—one lieutenant.
Sabugal—a major, two captains, three lieutenants.
Elvas, Ciudad Rodrigo—too many to count.
The ranks of the dead came to him with the places attached; a map doubled as a ledger. He did not give them faces. He would not learn the names of the living either.
His name slid into their frivolity.
“Rode through a French general,” one murmured.
“Cannot be killed,” said another.
“Wellesley’s butcher.”
Uneasy laughter followed; their eyes darted to him, then away. A man took a swallow too quickly and coughed. Another bent to inspect a die.
Fitzwilliam closed his eyes. Now he was a major; the regiment would lay siege to Badajoz.
Another herd of nameless officers would not live past next week—culled by French lead and English delay.
He tried to think of purpose, but only orders came to mind.
A siege promised time. It promised rot—men sickening where they stood, horses breaking down, tempers fraying, and courage spent in increments too small to be called battle.
A siege did not require brilliance. It required time, numbers, and enough indifference to keep digging. Fever and disease would take what shot did not.
A captain dropped heavily onto the bench across from him. The bench complained. The man’s boots left a wet smear on the plank floor.
“Fitzwilliam,” he said, glass in hand, “you’ve a legend about you. Tell us—is it true? Do you not take prisoners?”
“No.”
“Whyever not, old boy?”
Fitzwilliam looked up. Waited until the man swallowed. He watched the throat work, the glass tilt, the mouth open again. “Because I do not fight the same man twice.”
The man tried a smirk. “You jest.”
“Tell me something.”
The captain perked up. Straightened. “Out with it, then.”
“Defeat—or vanquished?”
“Pardon me?” The captain blinked. Swallowed. “Are they not the same thing?” he said, then grinned.
Fitzwilliam stared at him.
The smirk faltered. The captain’s lips drew back, as though he had tasted something bitter.
“You will learn.” He sipped from his glass. “Very soon.”
The flap opened. Villiers stood there, soaked through, his face etched from stone. Water ran from the brim of his hat in slow drops that struck the ground and disappeared into mud.
“Sir,” he said. “You’re wanted in the general’s tent.”
* * *
He followed Villiers through the mud, past tethered horses and dim lanterns.
The camp slept in fits. Men lay wrapped in blankets beside dying fires; others sat upright, staring into nothing, hands still closed around cups gone cold.
Somewhere a horse stamped and struck iron to stone.
A voice hissed it quiet. Torches flared ahead, throwing their light against a large tent.
The canvas bulged and sucked with the wind, as though it breathed. A sentry drew back the flap.
Fitzwilliam stepped inside and waited. Warmth hit him first—stale heat held by bodies, by smoke, by wet wool that refused to dry.
Rain continued its percussion on the canvas.
The table between him and them was crowded with pins, maps, and a half-drained decanter.
Candle stubs sweated tallow; wax ran in pale tracks over the boards and hardened again.
Colonel Lascelles talked as though the air were his by right.
“Your lordship may depend upon the Twenty-Fifth,” he said, the vowels round and deliberate. “My men are of excellent spirit, perfectly drilled, and eager for any service His Majesty’s command should require of us. The recent successes at Almeida and—”
Wellesley cut him short. “We are not discussing your recent successes, Colonel. We are discussing Badajoz.”
The colonel flushed. “Yes—of course, my lord. Entirely so. The regiment stands ready to engage wherever you may deem necessary.”
Wellesley looked up. His face remained still; only his eyes moved. “And what, pray, do you deem necessary, Colonel?”
“Why—ah—whatever your lordship’s design may require,” Lascelles answered, voice more hurried. “My own view, naturally subordinate to your superior judgment, is that the enemy must be met with firmness and—well—dispatch.”
“Firmness and dispatch are sentiments, not plans,” Wellesley said.
He tapped the map with his quill and spoke the particulars as if naming the bones of the operation one by one.
“Rations for ten days’ march; gunpowder for five assaults; pontoons to span the Guadiana; engineers to trace and mark the approaches; a reserve of shot for the sappers; fresh mounts from Elvas for despatch; the supply road kept open to Campo Maior; water secured at the ford; surgeons ready at Mérida. Have I omitted anything, Colonel?”
Lascelles’ face paled. “No, my lord. It sounds as though your lordship has the matter well at hand.”
“Does it.” Wellesley looked to Fitzwilliam. “Major Fitzwilliam—have I missed anything?”
“An initial cavalry foray.”
“What? Why?” asked Lascelles.
“To test whether their roving patrols have been reinforced or shifted under cover of night. If they have wider belts of scouts than reported, the main columns should not be led into the teeth of them.”
Wellesley turned his head slightly. “Have I expressed your opinion fully, Major?”
Fitzwilliam shook his head.
Wellesley inclined his head. “Quite right.”
He set the quill aside. “That will be all, Colonel.”
Lascelles hesitated. “My lord—”
“That will be all.”
The colonel coloured to the ears, bowed stiffly, and made for the door. His boots struck the plank floor; rain answered in the pause that followed.
A cavalry commander without spurs. Sacrilege.
Wellesley waited until the tent flap settled. Only then did he speak again. The camp’s sounds returned in muffled fragments: a cough, a horse snorting, a man swearing.
“The Twenty-Fifth will reconnoitre the ground east of the town,” Wellesley said, his voice even, his eyes on the map. “Confirm whether the French have strengthened their interior lines or withdrawn men for Albuera. I want precise numbers, not estimates.”
“Anything further, sir?”
“If there are pockets of resistance along the Guadiana, eliminate them.” He swept aside the tokens along the river. “Eliminate them all.”
Fitzwilliam inclined his head. Wellesley came closer, the lamplight striking the pale line at his temple until they were nearly nose to nose.
He smelled soap beneath smoke—an English cleanliness carried into a Spanish siege as if it might impose order by force.
“As long as you are victorious, your methods of dealing with the enemy will not be scrutinized. Am I understood, Major?”
Fitzwilliam nodded. He had his orders. Purpose enough—for now.
When the general turned back to his maps, he bared his teeth.