An Ill Wind by David Donachie

come out of his fever when his time came. She found him, pale, obviously weak and looking wasted, trying to sit up in the bed, struggling with only one arm, an attempt he abandoned as she filled the doorway. Husband and wife looked at each other, neither wishing to be the first to speak. Only then did Emily notice that his eyes were red, as if from weeping; or perhaps it was a result of his fever.
    ‘There is a ship lying off the bay, a transport. We have to get you aboard.’
    ‘Where is
Brilliant
?’ Ralph Barclay demanded, struggling to sit up again.
    ‘I have no idea, husband,’ Emily replied, moving forward to restrain him. ‘There will be some orderlies here presently with a stretcher to carry you to the jetty.’
    ‘I can walk,’ he insisted, trying to get out of bed and failing.
    ‘You cannot, husband. You have had a fever, a bad one, after your…’
    She could not finish it, so he did it for her, his face as pained as his stump must be. ‘The loss of my arm?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Who took it off?’
    ‘Surgeon Lutyens.’
    ‘Did he try to save it?’
    There was bitterness in the way that was spat out, and Ralph Barclay’s face bore an expression his wife had seen before, one which implied that the whole world was against him, implied that perhaps Lutyens had set to with knife and saw out of spite, not necessity.
    ‘You were carried in unconscious, Captain Barclay, and it was obvious to Heinrich—’
    ‘It is Heinrich now?’
    ‘It has been for some time,’ Emily snapped, her eyes flashing at the implication of over-familiarity. ‘I challenge you to stand over men in distress as well as poor souls who are dying and still hold to formalities.’
    ‘You were in a place you should not be. You should have been where you belonged.’
    ‘Captain Barclay,’ Emily said, in a tired voice, ‘I no longer know where I belong.’
    Two orderlies appearing at the door stymied any response, one carrying the canvas stretcher, the other a pair of trestles that, at bed height, would ease the transfer of the patient. Once more Ralph Barclay struggled to stand on his own, the effort being toomuch, and it caused him to fall back on to the end of his stump, bringing from his throat, even if the contact was cushioned by the bedding, a loud wail of pain. Emily heard it in the corridor, on her way to the next patient.
    Pearce was within sight of the hospital when he heard the dull explosion of Driffield’s powder, wondering what had taken him so long; the fellow was, by his calculation, cutting it fine. He would have been even more discomfited had he seen the remains of the redoubt. The earthwork was intact, but the cannon, dragged from their positions, were shattered, especially the wheels, while the barrels lay hither and thither amongst the tattered tents and scattered cooking implements that had once been their encampment, the whole scene of destruction observed from a safe distance by Driffield and his men.
    They and their red coats were out of sight when the French, led by Colonel of Artillery Napoleon Buonaparte, crossed the top of the earthwork, to see before them the scene. Aware that the accusing eyes of his inferior officer were upon him, Buonaparte said, in an angry tone, ‘This Pearce has ensured that I will remember his name.’
     
    It was a grubby Sir Sidney Smith who sat making his report to Admiral Lord Hood, black from head to foot, this caused by a combination of smoke, sheer scrabbling in the dirt, and the various substances from tar toexpended powder to which he had been exposed. Aware that his mission had not been a complete success, he was trying to gauge how the older man was taking the news that many of the French capital ships were still intact, awaiting only rigging and sails, as well as crews, to be ready for sea.
    ‘This will not go down well in London, Sir Sidney,’ said Parker, the other officer present.
    ‘I am aware of that, sir, but my men did all that they were asked to