“Lincoln,” Abe groaned. “I’m Surgeon Lieutenant Abraham Lincoln, RNAS.”
The two Royal Marines had sat him up and started to dust him down.
They were obviously concerned by all the blood.
“A couple of nicks and grazes apart,” Abe assured them, “I don’t think much of the red stuff is mine, chaps.”
They checked him over, anyway.
“Who are you fellows?”
“Special Boat Squadron, sir.”
Abe had heard of the SBS; the elite Royal Marine Corps special forces regiment whose selection course was reputedly, a ‘man killer’. If you were not prepared to risk death to get into the SBS then frankly, you obviously were not made of the ‘right stuff’. He studied his new friends. They looked… ordinary. Except that they had taken him down quickly, silently and held onto him with positively iron grips.
“We’re on the island spotting for the boys in the planes.”
“And,” the Bostonian trooper added, “having a little fun on our own account, as you do.”
“You might have left a few more of the beggars for us,” his sidekick complained wryly.
“Sorry. I didn’t know you were coming.”
The SBS men peered above the surrounding vegetation.
“It looks like the Dagoes have buggered off.”
Abe let the other man, the trooper with the Connecticut accent, who was clearly the one with the emergency medical pack, inject something into his left shoulder.
“Opioid-based pain killer, sir,” the man reported. “And some other good stuff. Anti-biotics, vitamins. Drink some water. Empty the canteen if you can, you must be seriously dehydrated.”
Abe was too enfeebled to hold the canteen to his mouth.
The water in the man’s two-thirds full canteen was brackish, a little warm but marvellously… clean.
Presently, dribbling only a couple of mouthfuls down his chin and torso, he had drained every last drop.
He was helped to his feet, and with one Marine to either side of Abe, the three men began to head inland.
“Where on earth did you fellows come from?”
It seemed the obvious question to ask.
“The Navy delivered us onto the north side of the island, sir.”
Abe thought about asking how exactly that had been achieved. Decided against it, what little he knew about special forces men told him that they were notoriously secretive, uncommunicative, probably with very good reason.
In any event, he passed out soon afterwards.
Chapter 33
Wednesday 13th April
Ledesma, Castile and León
After they grounded the boat, they bypassed the small town on the high ground to the south of the river, walking through dusty olive groves, climbing leaden-footed up the gentle incline above the disintegrating single-track road to the west. Even by nine that morning the sun was beating down.
Only thirty more miles, give or take…
Melody and Henrietta’s feet had recovered somewhat since they had arrived at Navalperal de Tormes in what seemed like another lifetime but in fact, was only a little over a week ago. Back then they had had decent walking boots, now, having lost them back in the confusion at Puerto de Congosto, they were shod in ill-fitting clogs which they preferred to carry most of the time. That day, the ground soon became hot, and the going underfoot was stony in the olive groves; so, they stumbled along in a kind of waking dream.
Albert Stanton of Paul Nash carried Pedro.
Around mid-day they drank from a stream, chewed on the bitter, not yet ripe olives on the branches all around them. Even the indefatigable Paul Nash seemed weary, sweating, although burdened now only with the automatic pistol he kept in the waistband of his trousers, concealed beneath an old, filthy jacket.
Early in the afternoon a halt was called.
Melody, Henrietta and Pedro collapsed beneath a gnarled olive tree, and instantly dozed in the humid shade.
“You stay here awhile. Albert and I will forage,” Paul Nash informed them.
“How far do you think we’ve come today?” Henrietta asked when the women were alone.
“I have no idea. Three, four miles, maybe.”
“Only twenty-five to go, then?”
Melody giggled.
“What so funny?” Her lover inquired.
“Nothing. Hysteria…”
Now it was Henrietta’s turn to giggle.
“Isn’t this all too ridiculous?”
“Coming to Spain seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Sitting in the shade they were starting to catch their second wind.
“Come here, sweetheart,” Henrietta cooed at Pedro, drawing him onto her lap. She kissed the top of his head. “You’re tougher than all of us,” she murmured in Spanish.
He smiled shyly.
Henrietta sighed: “Do you think about Alonso?” She asked Melody. “And that night back in Chinchón?”
“Yes,” Melody confessed. “Quite a lot.”
“Because of the sex?”
“That, yes. But I was drawn to Alonso from the first time I met him. I know he had the hots for me from day one, too.”
“How?”
“I just did. The funny thing is, I think all that stuff about no woman being safe with him is rubbish.”
“Really?”
“It was just part of the smokescreen he hid behind in Philadelphia,” Melody said, stifling a yawn. “He was playing a part. I know you knew him quite well back in those days; you shouldn’t be too hard on him…”
“I’m not. But I hardly knew him at all, it seems.” Henrietta thought about it. “He never made a pass at me. Although, now I think about it, we used to have these harmless flirty talks most times we bumped into each other at receptions and diplomatic functions, photo calls and that sort of thing…”
Melody reached out and touched her lover’s knee.
She said nothing.
“Perhaps, he was trying to seduce me all along,” Henrietta giggled.
“But you were such a schoolgirl you never noticed?”
“Something like that. I was always too busy to have an affair, anyway. Mummy was ill, I was Daddy’s road manager. It is funny, people thought I hated that title, actually, I loved organising things, dealing with all the little details. And when I discovered the King and Queen were coming to New England…”
“Uncle Bertie and Aunt Ellie,” Melody teased gently.
“Yes, when Uncle Bertie and Aunt Ellie came to New England it was such a… rush. I know it is awful to say it but after that, well. Everything seemed so tame and I was restless all the time. And then I met you.”
“Oh, that. When you say ‘met’ what you mean is ‘shamelessly inveigled me into your world’,” Melody grimaced, unable to keep a straight face.
“Oh, dear,” Henrietta recollected, “I really must have seemed like a gauche little rich girl to you that day we met?”
“No, not at all,” she was assured. “Don’t forget I knew you’d been the one running around making sure the Royal Tour got back on the rails after the Empire Day atrocities.”
“Daddy couldn’t do everything on his own,” Henrietta blushed, lowered her eyes. “I just did what I could to help…”
Melody closed her eyes, rested her head against the tree at her back.
“It must be really weird growing up thinking of the King and Queen of England as your uncle and aunt?”
“Until I was about nine or ten, they weren’t the King and Queen, and nobody thought they ever would be. Least of all Uncle Bertie…”
Melody opened her eyes when Henrietta’s voice trailed away.
An old man and a teenage boy, both hefting single-barrelled shot guns of obviously antiquarian vintage stood in front of her, eyeing the two women and the boy on Henrietta’s lap with anything but casual disinterest.