Chapter Fourteen #3
She drew her horse closer to his, her brow puckered, but not appearing at all put off by his shortness of temper.
“You may not be an invalid now, but I know quite well that you were one until very recently.” Her tone was an odd mixture of the abrupt and the conciliatory.
“And you know it too, so please don’t get into a high dudgeon just because people care about you.
We should have stopped at just two farms today. The third was too much for you.”
He shifted in his saddle, annoyed by how correct she was, and unwilling to let her see his discomfort. “It’s just a little twinge.”
She shook her head. “Rubbish. I can see it’s not. We have nearly two miles to ride back to the Hall. Why don’t you tell me what caused your injuries? I’m a good listener, you’ll find. And I might even be able to help in some way.”
Harry leaned on the pommel in an effort to ease his leg, but that only made his back ache more.
He might as well tell her. She’d find out one day so it might as well be now.
He had to hope so doing wouldn’t bring on another of those waking nightmares.
It was bad enough having them at night without having to suffer flashbacks during the day as well.
“Shrapnel. It’s a shell that explodes into little bits and thus damages the most amount of people.
Very useful, so long as it’s not used on you.
” He managed a grin, determined not to conjure up any images in his head.
“I was inside what’s called an infantry square.
It’s defensive. Wellington fought quite a defensive battle.
He let Boney’s men do the hard work and come to us through the mud.
I don’t know if you know, but heavy rain fell for two days before the battle, and the whole place was a quagmire.
Bloody Belgium. Hate the place. Just mud and rain and more mud. ”
She nodded. “I’ve heard some of that. News travels fast. Especially of such a resounding victory.”
“Not quite the resounding victory you might have been led to believe. The weather played a big part in our win. That and the bad advice of Boney’s generals.
” He shifted again, the ache running up from his ankle to his hip.
“Wellington ordered us into defensive squares to withstand the cavalry attack. It’s a hollow square, with two lines of soldiers facing outwards on all four sides, about twenty strides by twenty strides.
The front line on one knee, bayonets forming a spiky wall, the men behind with loaded muskets.
The orders were not to open fire until the enemy cavalry was a bare thirty yards distant.
The best accuracy but also the most dangerous for the defenders.
If a cavalryman and his horse aren’t downed there, they’ll hit the square full on. Hence the bayonets.”
Contrary to his worries, telling her about this seemed to be having a calming effect.
He’d never spoken of it before, not even to Hester.
But talking to Miranda felt so natural, so unforced, so cathartic.
He’d wonder why it felt like that later, but a small part of him hoped he might be exorcising his nightmares by so doing.
“Were you involved in an infantry square?” she asked.
She was a natural horsewoman, her position elegant but relaxed, and her horse was at one with her, his long stride as relaxed as his rider. Unlike poor Lochinvar who must be wondering why he was being ridden by such a fidget.
“I was,” he said. “As regimental surgeon. I would have been at the battlefield hospital at Mont-St-Jean, but the medic who should have been in a square was wounded early on, so I volunteered to go out in his place. My job was to patch up the wounded and send them back into the front line of the square. So they could keep on fighting.” He hesitated.
“Most didn’t make it back out there, though.
The dead were piling up. I was doing my best.” He faltered and took a deep steadying breath.
Her proximity, and her gentle voice and expression, were soothing.
“A lucky mortar shot from the French landed in the center of our square. The enemy cavalry had so far had little to back them up. But this one landed only feet from me.” He took another breath and clenched his free hand into a fist, keeping his gaze fixed on her lovely, compassionate face.
“The last thing I remember is being thrown through the air into the mud and blood. It was probably a good thing I was knocked unconscious. The next thing I knew it was several days after the battle had been won, and I was in a hospital bed in Brussels with two surgeons, one of whom was a friend, arguing about whether to take my leg off below or above my knee.”
She was close enough to reach out a hand and lay it on his arm. A wave of heat shivered up his body at her touch. “But you still have both your legs, don’t you?”
He nodded, a grim smile curving his lips as he tried hard not to think about the dainty, comforting hand resting on his arm.
“You think waking up and hearing that conversation didn’t inspire me to insist they did neither?
” He shook his head. “I told them I’d rather die of an infection than lose my leg.
I must have been insistent enough, because when I woke again I still had both legs.
Had to check with my hands, but there they were.
” He gave her a swift grin. “It hurt like hell though, and still does from time to time. My back too.”
Best not to tell her it hurt all of the time. Especially since he’d weaned himself off the laudanum dependency.
“And it was shrapnel from the mortar?”
He nodded again. “It was. As luck would have it, I was turned away from where the mortar hit. It landed in mud, and…bodies…which reduced the blast. It took me down my right-hand side. My leg, my back, and a nasty blow to the back of my head.” He put his hand up to where the scar lay under his hair.
“You might say I was the luckiest soldier in the British army that day.”
She squeezed his arm, sending more glorious shivers through his body. “I’m very glad you were so lucky.”
He met her eyes for a long moment before letting them drop to her hand on his arm.
A warm feeling of what might be happiness washed over him.
For the first time since he’d woken up in hospital it dawned on him that he, too, might be glad luck had chosen him that day.
He pushed the images of mangled bodies out of his head.
He wouldn’t let them mar this beautiful day riding out with a beautiful woman.