‘I fear it would be impossible. Dearest child, how shall I say it? I don’t wish to frighten you, but have you considered-they say our casualties have been the heaviest ever known!’ ‘Yes, I have considered,’ Juana replied, quite calmly, but with a constricted throat. ‘If my husband has been killed, I must find his body.’
There was no moving her; she seemed all at once to be older than Mrs Craufurd had thought her; and nothing could have been more assured than the orders she gave for her servant’s following her with the baggage. She was plainly an experienced campaigner, and after trying for a little while to persuade her to await news of her husband in Antwerp, Mrs Craufurd gave it up, and busied herself instead with superintending the drying and cleaning of her soiled habit.
Taking an affectionate and grateful leave of her kind hosts, Juana rode out of Antwerp at three o’clock next morning, accompanied only by West. They reached the village by the canal in time for breakfast, and were fortunate enough to discover the lost dressing-case hidden away in the hayloft. By seven o’clock, they had reached Brussels, and almost the first sight encountered was that of a party of Riflemen, all of them wounded, and making their way through the streets to one of the tent-hospitals which had been hurriedly set up in the town. Juana spurred up to them, and was instantly recognized. They saluted her, but when she asked eagerly if they could tell her what had become of her husband, their replies were rather evasive, and they exchanged glances which at once aroused her suspicion. Finally; one of them said with a roughness which concealed his pity: ‘Missus, it ain’t no manner of use riding to the battlefield! There’s sights there not fit for a female. You go and bide quietly within doors!’
‘Loco! I was at Tarbes!’ she cried, striking her fist against the pummel of her saddle. ‘Tell me, instanteamente, is my husband alive? Is h e well?”
‘You’d best know the truth, missus,’ he said bluntly. ‘Brigade-Major Smith of ours was killed yesterday, quite early on in the day.’
She reeled in the saddle, growing so deathly pale that West put out a hand to catch her arm, fearing that she would faint. She did not, however. She looked at him in a blind fashion that quite unmanned him, and said: ‘We must hurry. We must make haste, for I must find his body.’
‘Missus, missus, don’t ask me to take you there!’ he begged. ‘Master wouldn’t have it so.’ ‘Master is dead,’ she said tonelessly. ‘I shall be dead, too, very soon, but I must see him once again before I kill myself. You need not come with me. I want no one now.’ He saw that it would be useless to try to stop her; he could only hope that on the battlefield she would meet some friend who would have more power to persuade her than he possessed.
They rode in silence, mostly at a gallop. The sights encountered on the chaussée leading through the Forest of Soignies were so terrible that West was not surprised to see Juana’s eyes dilated, with a look of horror bordering on madness in them. The endless procession of wounded soldiers, and horses, of carts with corpses in them, of dead men lying by the road, too shattered to have been able to crawl the weary miles to Brussels, was a nightmarish phantasmagoria comparable to nothing seen in all the years of the campaigning in the Peninsula. The village of Waterloo was full of wounded officers; farther on, at Mont St Jean, a horrible, creeping aroma of corruption set the horses jibbing and squealing, and made West break the long silence to beg his mistress to go no farther.
‘On!’ was all she said, forcing the Brass Mare through the village street. He followed, now seriously alarmed for her sanity, but unable to think of any way of stopping her. In a few minutes, the battlefield was reached, a stretch of rolling country covered with fields of wheat and rye which had been trampled down by countless hooves. A cross-road, a deep, sunken lane, leading to Wavre, marked the line of the Allied front. Where it bisected the chaussee, in the angle between the two roads, Juana saw mound upon mound of dead men, with soldiers near by, digging pits to throw the bodies into.
‘Oh, my God, missus, don’t look, don’t look!’ West begged. ‘Poor devils, they must have been killed in square! Oh, come away!’
She paid no heed to him, but addressed one of the men who were digging. ‘What regiment?’
The 27th, mum.’
Her eyes started; she said hoarsely: ‘Ours! one of ours! This was where he stood!’ The man stared at her. ‘Lambert’s brigade, mum. Was you looking for someone?’ ‘Major Smith!’ she managed to utter.
He shook his head. ‘I dunno, mum, I’m sure. The officers has mostly been buried.’ She became aware of graves, many graves, some with rough boards set up, others no more than mounds of freshly-turned sods. Suddenly it became of immense importance to look upon Harry’s face for the last time. She cried out in an anguished voice: ‘No, no, not buried! not buried! I must see him once more! I must, I must!’
Distracted, she began to ride from one grave to another, wildly reading the names scratched upon the rough crosses at their heads. She saw the body of a man lying a little way off, and spurred up to it, convinced it was Harry’s. The distorted face was strange to her; she passed on, searching frantically amongst the dead. Some Flemish peasants were dragging the stripped corpses to the pits, with hooks stuck callously through their heels; in the sunken road, and beyond it, French cuirassiers lay in tangled heaps of men, and breast-plates; a little farther, a sandpit yawned beside the chaussée, opposite a white farmstead whose walls were blackened and riddled by shot. Some green-jackets lay there, stiff and still under the hot sun. Juana began to moan, but softly, repeating over and over again: ‘Dear God, let me find him! Dear God, let me not be mad!’
She was unaware of West, dumbly following her; a wounded Frenchman groaned to her from the ground at her feet. He wanted water; she had none, and shook her head. Suddenly a voice penetrated to her brain. She heard her name called, and looked round in a blank way.
‘Juana, Juana, what are you doing here? My dear, it is not fit for you!’ A man on horseback rode up to her; she saw that it was Charlie Gore, and cried out: ‘Oh, where is he? Where is my Enrique?’
His voice, the one sane thing in a mad world, sounded reassuringly in her ears. ‘Why, near Bavay by this time, as well as ever he was in his life! Not wounded even, nor either of his brothers!’
‘Oh, dear Charlie Gore, why do you deceive me?’ she said in bitter reproach. ‘The soldiers told me Brigade-Major Smith was killed!’
‘Dearest Juana, believe me!’ Gore said, trying to take her hand. ‘It was poor Charlie Smyth who was killed-Pack’s Brigade-Major. I swear to you on my honour I left Harry riding Lochinvar, in perfect health, but very anxious about you!’
Her strained eyes searched his face. She said: ‘Oh, if I could believe you, Charlie, my heart must burst!’
‘Why should you doubt me?’ he said quietly. ‘You know I would not lie to you, and upon such a subject!’
She broke into a storm of weeping, bowed over the Brass Mare’s withers, and so shaken by sobs of sheer relief that West was afraid that the shock of hearing that Harry was safe had really turned her brain. But presently she managed to stop crying, and to straighten herself. Charlie Gore wiped her tears away with his handkerchief, murmuring a few soothing phrases.
‘I prayed to God for help, and He sent you, like a guardian angel!’ she said huskily. ‘How foolish you must think me, to cry so! Indeed, I am sorry, for crying women are the devil!’ He laughed to hear such an expression on her lips. ‘Ah, you had that from Harry, I know! But listen, amiga, I am on my way to Mons: can you muster strength to ride with me there?’ ‘Strength!’ she exclaimed. ‘Yes, for anything now!’