Tarleton's Wife by Blair Bancroft

fast.”
    “The major’s taken command, miss,” Pickering added, “and just as I told ye, the Frenchies come barreling round the lower ridge thinking our boys was running and ran smack dab into our Reserves. When I left, we was drivin’ ’em back up the valley. Daresay those twelve-pounders will be ours afore nightfall.”
    “Thank you, Pickering,” Julia managed with dignified formality. “It was kind of you to come and tell me.”
    With a grimace which was a mix of grief and embarrassment, the tall bandsman sketched a salute, turned and hurried off to look for number one hundred fifty-one.
    Julia continued to sit, holding Ensign Welland’s hand. Other women now moved among the wounded, tilting canteens, cleaning away blood and black powder, murmuring words of encouragement. Randolph Wedderburn, the regimental chaplain, had joined Daniel and the orderlies, moving among the wounded with a gentle smile, a comforting touch. Although he held a prayer book in his hand, he never seemed to need it, reciting the passages from memory as easily as the small jokes and heartening words he bantered with the less seriously wounded.
    As Julia kept watch by Jeremy Welland, her view of the sharply etched suffering of the wounded was gradually dimmed by the lengthening shadows of the short winter afternoon. But the suffering was no less intense. She should be helping. She should get up…
    “Damn the bloody bastards!” bawled a voice that rang through the vast room. “They got the general. Bloody cannon blew his bloody shoulder off!” A red-coated sergeant stood in the doorway, one hand braced against the wall to keep himself from falling. His anguish did not come from his own wounds. “I seen the ’ighlanders carryin’ ’is litter through the street just now. He’s done fer, he is. Not a prayer.” The sergeant’s voice broke. He slumped against the door.
    Daniel Runyon and an orderly ran to his side. The sergeant shook them off, pulling himself up to his full height. He regarded the room bleakly. “Baird’s been hit too. And just when we was about to mount that bloody ridge.” The sergeant shook his head and finally allowed himself to be led to a pallet where he was quickly surrounded by a crowd of the walking wounded.
    “Sir John Hope’s taken command,” Daniel reported to Julia a few minutes later. “He’s been fighting on the left all afternoon. Doubt he’ll have time to figure out what’s going on before nightfall.”
    “Will he order the embarkation?” Julia asked, almost afraid to hope.
    “Seems a good time for it,” Daniel grunted. “A long dark night it’ll be. A smuggler’s night. We could all be aboard by morning, I’m thinkin’.”
    Julia’s lips curved up in a surge of relief. “Did you hear, Jeremy? We’ll probably be aboard ship before morning. Jeremy?”
    Daniel laid his ear to the young ensign’s chest, raised the boy’s eyelids, then sat slowly back on his heels. He stared at a point past Julia’s shoulder, his words not making any sense at first. “According to the sergeant, we’ve got the Frenchies on the run right back up behind those bloody cannon. That means we’ve saved ourselves. We’ve lost our general, we’ve lost our colonel—God bless ’im—we’ve lost this boy but we’ve just saved the whole bloody British army. There’s fifteen thousand of us going home, Miss Julia. It won’t bring back the dead but they had the satisfaction of knowing they died for a damned fine reason.”
    “Thank you, Daniel.” Julia took the hand he held out and struggled to her feet. Men were still being brought in. There was work to be done.
    With the last rays of light the guns fell silent. Having failed to annihilate the British Army, the French withdrew.
    Sir John Hope gave the order for all troops to embark.
    The news ran in rippling whispers from pallet to pallet. A ragged cheer went up. Home, by God. Home at last.
    Home. Nicholas. Nicholas, Nicholas…home. Papa. Oh, dear