Bolitho replied quietly, 'Thank you, Ashby. I will see her. myself.' Then he picked up his hat and walked out into the noise.
16. A FACE IN THE CROWD
Bolitho reined his borrowed horse to a halt behind a massive stone barn and lowered himself to the ground. Ashby, who had stayed with him all afternoon, also dismounted and leaned heavily against the wall, his chest heaving with exertion.
It was early evening, but so thick was the drifting smoke that it could have been nightfall, and in the deepening shadows the savage gun-flashes and the sharper pinpoints of musket-fire seemed to ring the small town with an unceasing bombardment.
Ashby said, 'This is as far as we go, sir.' He gestured towards the pale line of the road. 'The French are within a hundred yards of us here.'
Bolitho moved along the wall and ducked behind a rough barricade of wagons and earth-filled barrels. He could see the scattered line of soldiers spreading away on either hand, their movements slow but regulated as they loaded and fired towards the road, their red tunics dark against the dust and loose stones.
A young lieutenant crawled from behind an upended farm cart and ran swiftly to Bolitho's side. Like his men he was bedraggled and filthy, but his voice was quite calm as he pointed' towards the deeply shadowed hills beyond the road.
'We've come back about fifty yards in the past hour, sir. He ducked as a musket-ball whimpered overhead. 'I can't hold on here much longer. I've lost half of my men, and those which are still able to fight are down to their last powder and shot.'
Bolitho opened a small telescope and peered above the barricade. It was already darker, and as he stared towards the bright flashes he saw too the spreadeagled bodies, the white crossbelts which marked every yard of the retreat. Here and there an arm moved, and once in a brief lull he heard a cracked voice calling for water.
He found himself thinking of the makeshift hospital by the jetty. He had seen the girl working beside two army surgeons and the town's solitary doctor, her dress stained with blood, her hair pulled back from her face with a piece of bandage. It was not like the enclosed horror of the Hyperion's orlop, but in some ways it had seemed worse because of its primitive desolation. The crowded ranks of wounded, the stench and -the pitiful cries, a never-ending stream of limping figures coming down the street from the firing line, and from the look of the doctors' haggard faces it had seemed to Bolitho that they worked with neither respite nor feeling, their eyes only on the wretched man who happened to be in front of them at any particular time.
Then she had seen him, and for a long moment their eyes had embraced above the bowed heads and agonised figures between them. Bolitho had told the senior surgeon what he intended to do, but all the while he had been looking at the girl. The surgeon had eyed him with something like disbelief. As yet another wounded man had been carried in he had said wearily, 'We'll get 'em to the boats, Captain! If we have to swim with each one on our backs!'
Bolitho had taken the girl aside to a small room, which appeared to have been a children's nursery at some time. Amidst the litter of soiled dressings and torn uniforms there were crude pictures painted and drawn by some of the children who were now trapped or dying in the beleaguered-town.
She had said, 'I knew you would come, Richard. I just knew!
He had held her against his chest, feeling the tautness in
her limbs, the sudden pressure of her head on his shoulder. 'You're exhausted! You should have gone in the Vanessa!' 'Not without seeing you, Richard.' She had lifted her chin
and studied his face. 'I'm all right, now.'
Outside the building the air had vibrated with gunfire and the sounds of running men. But in those few moments they had been alone, remote from the bitter reality and suffering around them.
Gently he had prised her hands from his coat. 'Seamen from the squadron will be here very soon. Everything will be done to get everyone away from St. Clar. Please tell me that you will go with the others?' He had searched her face, holding on to it with his mind. 'That is all I ask.'
She had nodded very slowly. 'Everyone is saying that you are responsible for the evacuation, Richard. They speak of nothing else. That you returned against orders to help us!' Her eyes had been shining with tears. 'I am glad I stayed behind, if only to see what you are really like!'
Bolitho had replied, 'We are all in this together. There was no other way.'
A shake of the head, the gesture so dear in Bolitho's memory. 'You may say that, Richard, but I know you better than you think. Sir Edmund did nothing, and while others waited, all these men died to no purpose!'
'Do not be too hard on the admiral.' It had been strange to hear his own words. As if in the last few hours he had seen Pomfret through different eyes, had even understood him a little more. 'He and I wanted the same thing. Only our motives were different.'
Then the first sailors had appeared inside the hospital, their check shirts and clean, purposeful figures alien and unreal in that place of despair and death.
And now, as he crouched beside this pitiful barricade, he could still picture her as he had last seen her. A slim, defiant figure amidst the harvest of war, even managing to smile as he had mounted his horse and ridden to the other end of the town.
A soldier lurched back from a low wall, emitting a shrill scream before pitching headlong beside one of his comrades. The latter did not even turn his head to look at his dead companion, but continued with his loading and firing. Death had become too commonplace to mention. Survival merely a remote possibility.
Bolitho turned and stared behind him. There was the bridge, and below the ridge of earth and scorched grass lay the river. He made up his mind.
'Have you laid the charges, Lieutenant?' He saw the man nod with relief. 'Very well. Fall back across the river and blow the bridge.'
There was a sudden jangle of harness, and as he swung round Bolitho saw the Spanish colonel trotting calmly along the narrow track, and behind him, their breastplates and helmets glittering in the gun-flashes like silver, came the remnants of his cavalry.
Bolitho ducked and then ran back to the high barn. He snapped, 'What are you doing here, Colonel? I told you to prepare your men for evacuation!'
Don Joaquin Salgado sat quite motionless in his saddle, his teeth very white in the darkness. 'You have much to achieve before tomorrow, Captain. Be so kind as to give me the benefit of knowing my profession also.'
'There is nothing beyond this line of men but open ground and the enemy, Colonel!'
The Spaniard nodded. 'And as someone remarked earlier, if the enemy reach the southern headland before you get clear you are all dead men!' He leaned forward slightly, his saddle creaking beneath him. 'I am not leaving my horses to rot, Captain, nor am I going to shoot them. I am a soldier. I am sick and tired of this kind of warfare!' He straightened his back and drew out his curved sabre. 'Good luck, Captain!' Then without another glance he spurred his horse forward and galloped straight for the barricade. The effect on his men was instantaneous. Cheering and whooping like madmen they thundered in pursuit, the flying hoofs skimming past the dazed soldiers by the. barricade, their sabres gleaming like fire as they fanned out and headed for the enemy lines.
Bolitho shouted, 'Fall back now, Lieutenant! That fool has given you the chancel' As the soldiers struggled to their feet and retreated towards the bridge Bolitho turned to stare after the charging cavalry. 'And he said I was brave!'
In the darkness he heard the screams of wounded horses, the sharp exchange of shots, and above all the sudden blare of a cavalry trumpet. But the enemy barrage had stopped. There was no time to stand and marvel at any man's courage. Not now. But later… Bolitho shook himself from his thoughts and ran to his horse.