Pemberley to Waterloo: Georgiana Darcy's Diary, Volume 2 (21 page)

I am glad now that I did. At least, I suppose in a way I am glad.

Because soon after I saw Ruth, the men wounded in yesterday's fighting at
Quatre Bras
started to pour into town.

At first Kitty, Mrs. Metcalfe, Harriet and I went out into the streets to see whether we could gain any reliable news. But after a bare few minutes, it was clear that the injured and dying were in need of any assistance we could give. There were so many of them. So, so many. And a bare handful of army surgeons to see to them all.

Mrs. Metcalfe looked at the scene before us: soldiers sprawled in the streets, huddled in the small shelter of doorways with blood-saturated, filthy rags pressed against their wounds. And then she turned to Harriet and said, "Go back to the house and tell that Madame Duvalle to give you every sheet and towel in the house. They can be ripped up for bandages for us to use out here."

Harriet looked completely sick. Sick and ... lost. Since the regiments of the militia never are sent into battle, I suppose she was not at all prepared for what it would mean to be the wife of an officer in the regular army. "You mean you want to--to stay out here? I couldn't." She gulped, trying to swallow, and pressed her handkerchief over her mouth. "I can't--the smell--the blood--"

To my surprise, it was Kitty who interrupted her. She had been staring at a man--a boy, really, he looked horribly young--slumped against the side of a house on the far side of the street. His head was all wrapped up in bloodied bandages. "Oh, do shut up, Harriet, and just go and fetch the towels," Kitty said. "What if Colonel Forster is somewhere out here?"

Harriet's mouth opened and closed, and she turned a shade paler--her plump, pretty face was nearly green. But she did turn back to the house to fetch the household supply of spare linens.

Kitty herself was sick three times before we had gone the length of the street, bandaging wounds and giving men drinks of water from the flasks Mrs. Metcalfe herself had gone back to fetch. We all were. I felt bile rise in my throat every time I looked at a raw wound or leg shattered by a cannon ball.

Kitty and I kept going, though, working together when we could. And even Harriet stayed through the early afternoon, when Mrs. Metcalfe began to look too tired to carry on. I think she
would
have carried on, for all that. But Kitty and I insisted she ought to rest, at least for a little while. And Harriet--looking greatly relieved--agreed to escort her grandmother back to the house.

"Not that I blame Harriet." Kitty watched them go, stretching as though she were trying to ease an ache in her back. "I can't help but look at the men's faces. Every time I see a soldier with an officer's sash, I'm afraid it is--"

She broke off. But she didn't have to finish. I felt exactly the same. The suffering all around us was horrible--so horrible it was almost numbing.

And yet every time I saw a man in officer's uniform lying on the ground, my heart contracted at the thought that it might be Edward. And every time I saw that it wasn't he after all, I drew a breath of guilty relief.

"I know," I said to Kitty.

We each took a sip of water--lukewarm by that time--from the flasks we carried. And then I asked her, "How do you feel? Do you think you can keep going?"

Kitty pressed her eyes closed for a moment. But then she nodded and tried to smile as she pushed perspiration-soaked hair back into the knot at the nape of her neck. "I'm fine. Only I must look worse even than I had thought. Three of the last men I helped called me Mother."

And then we looked at each other, and I felt tears sting my eyes even as Kitty's eyes filled, too. Because so many of those too delirious with pain even to know their surroundings
were
calling for their mothers. Hardened veterans and raw young recruits alike.

In a book, I would have discovered a new-found passion for caring for wounded soldiers, or at least found I had unexpected nursing skills. But in reality, neither of those happened. I am glad we could help the wounded men, but I hated every moment of today--the bloodied wounds and torn limbs; the copper-sweet stench of blood and sweat and filth.

Some of the men were too much hurt and too exhausted even to walk, and had to crawl. Some simply collapsed and died on the streets; several times today I crouched down to offer help to a soldier, only to realise that he was already gone.

I don't wonder Edward has nightmares, if he has ten years' worth of scenes like today to carry in his head.

And with all of them I felt so completely clumsy and inept, with no idea how even to begin to treat wounds of such severity, when the worst I had seen before today was a pricked finger or skinned knee.

There were a good many other ladies out, besides Kitty and me, all of them looking as sick as I felt. And by some strange quirk of fate, we were all the wounded men had.

I blinked hard and said to Kitty, "Don't make me cry, or I really
won't
be able to go on."

And Kitty said, "No." And then we both drew shaky breaths, and Kitty said, with another attempt at a smile, "I'll let you pick--do you want the right side of the street or the left?"

It's strange. I don't think I ever in a hundred years would have imagined living through a day like today. But if I had, and if I'd had to pick a companion for wading through all the blood and death, Kitty Bennet would have been the last person I would have chosen. But I was so grateful she was the one with me today.

It was just a short while later that we found Sergeant Kelly. Not that we knew who he was at first. I had crouched down beside yet another wounded soldier--a big, burly bear of a man lying on his side with his cheek resting in the muck of the gutter. And I was trying to brace myself for finding that he was yet another of those already dead and beyond aid. But when I took hold of his shoulder and rolled him face up, blue eyes flickered open, cleared, and fixed on my face.

"Can I help you?" I asked--just as I had all the other men.

The man cleared his throat and coughed, trying to speak, and I dribbled a little water between his lips. The man swallowed and coughed again and let out a sigh. "That's better, thank ye kindly, miss. Me throat was as dry as sand in the summer."

I won't even try to write the dialect properly--but his voice had a thick Irish brogue. And then he frowned, staring at my face harder as though trying to call up a memory. "Sure an' I know you, don't I? You'll be Miss Georgiana Darcy o' the Devonshire Darcys, isn't that right?"

I had fallen into a kind of numbed daze: moving from soldier to soldier, offering water or other assistance, and then moving on. But hearing my own name startled me out of the stupor and I stared at the man lying on the ground before me. He was an older man, forty or forty-five at a guess, with a bushy black beard and fierce black eyebrows and a pair of very deep-set blue eyes. His nose looked like it had been broken at least once.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I don't think ... that is, have we met before?"

The man let out a wheezing chuckle that ended in a grunt of pain. "No, we've never met. I knew you from the miniature the colonel carries with him. Must have been painted some years ago, I'd be guessing--but you've still the same look about you. Your eyes are the same."

I felt my breath go out in a rush and my vision shimmered for a moment at the edges. My voice sounded tinny and far away when I managed to ask, "Do you know Edward--Colonel Fitzwilliam? Have you ... do you know where he is now?"

The wounded man had a bandage wrapped around his right arm that was completely saturated with bloodstains, some already dry, stiff and rusty, some sticky scarlet. But he raised himself up a little on his good elbow and looked at me, bushy brows creased in concern. "He's not killed, if that's what you be fearin', miss. He was right as rain last night--he's the one that dragged me off the battlefield before I could get trampled on."

I dug my fingernails hard into my palms and managed to drive the dizziness away. "Are you one of Colonel Fitzwilliam's regiment?" I asked him.

The man nodded. "Sergeant Patrick Kelly, at your service, miss. Been with him since he was a wet-behind-the-ears lad o' nineteen."

The last words cut off in another grunt as Sergeant Kelly gritted his teeth together against what must have been another jolt of pain. I recollected myself and said, "You've been wounded. Can I help you at all?"

Sergeant Kelly looked down at his bandaged right arm. "This? Nothing but a scratch, miss. Got it while we were trying to rally the bleedin' Belgians to stand and fight. Beggin' your pardon, miss. But the buggers took one look at those Frenchies, turned around and ran like their tails were on fire."

He had slumped back against the ground, though, and he didn't resist when I started to unwrap the bloodstained bandage from his arm.

I ought by that time to have got used to the sight of raw, bloodied wounds. And I suppose I had, at least to a degree, because I didn't faint or gasp or even turn dizzy again. But still, I had to clench my hands to keep from stumbling backwards at the sight, and if I had had anything to eat I think I would have been sick again.

The wound was a cut--a sabre cut, Sergeant Kelly said--running up his forearm and laying it open nearly to the bone. He had tied a rag very tightly around his upper arm to slow the bleeding. But even still the cut oozed blood. "I think--" I took a breath and was surprised to find that my voice sounded almost normal. "I think that ought to be stitched?"

Sergeant Kelly glanced with apparent unconcern down at his own wound and shrugged. "So it ought. Don't have me sewing kit, though. I had to drop me pack somewhere on the road back to Brussels. Couldn't carry it and haul me own carcass at the same time."

I nodded. "Can you stand, do you think? Walk, with my help? Here, take my hand," I added quickly, as the effort of rising made the sergeant sway unsteadily on his feet. Harriet had already agreed to take as many of the wounded as we could manage into the house. Most of the men on the streets were too weak to be moved--at least by us. But a few of the most gravely injured had already been carried back to the Forsters' by those of their fellow soldiers who could still stand. "If you can come with me," I told Sergeant Kelly, "We can get that wound seen to. It's not far."

I called across the street for Kitty to come and help us, and between the two of us we managed to get him back to the Forsters' house. Harriet was sitting in a corner of the drawing room, still looking pale as she ripped up sheets and towels for bandages. And Mrs. Metcalfe--looking completely recovered--was sitting in a big wing-backed brocade chair in the centre of the room. The scene looked like a cross between a hospital and a queen holding court; she had the wounded men who could still walk--I suppose there were eight or nine of them there, and more that she'd already treated going out the front door--form a line and then step up to her chair in turn.

Mrs. Metcalfe gave each man brandy and bandaged his wounds. And stitched some of them, too, when it was required. Part of me wanted to simply leave Sergeant Kelly to her. But she had her hands full. And besides, I was the one who had brought Sergeant Kelly there. It seemed like cowardice not to take care of him myself.

Kitty had taken fresh supplies of bandages and water and gone back out into the streets. So I told Sergeant Kelly to lie down on the carpet--all the space on the sofas and chairs was already taken--while I went to fetch a needle and thread.

Sergeant Kelly looked at me dubiously when I'd fetched the sewing supplies and sat down next to him. "Beggin' your pardon, miss," he said, "but I don't suppose you'll have ever done anything of this kind before?"

"Well, no," I said. "But I can do very good embroidery work. I promise you--the headmistress at my school gave me an absolutely glowing report."

"Embroidery, is it?" Sergeant Kelly tipped back his head and gave a shout of laughter at that, blue eyes crinkling at the corners.

I let out my breath and said, "Honestly, I have no idea how to stitch a wound. So it's up to you. I think that looks as though it ought to be attended to as soon as possible. But if you'd rather, I can try to fetch a surgeon. I'm not sure how quickly I can get one to come, that's all."

"A surgeon?" Sergeant Kelly shook his head. "No, they'll have enough to cope with just now, I'm thinkin'. No sense troubling them over the likes o' me. If you're game to try it, miss, you go ahead." And then he closed one eye in a wink. "Just don't be tryin' to add any fancy bits o' roses or such to your stitch-work, mind."

I probably hurt him terribly in stitching the wound closed--though he gave no sign of it and made no sound beyond a few quickly indrawn breaths. I felt my stomach lurch every time I had to pass the needle through his skin, and I was afraid the whole time that I'd make a mistake and somehow do more harm than good. But in the end I did manage to finish. The stitches looked slightly uneven and staggering--but the wound was closed.

I wrapped a clean bandage around his arm--and then went to fetch Sergeant Kelly something to eat and drink, because save for the few mouthfuls of water I had given him it appeared he'd had nothing at all since the previous day. He still looked tired when he'd finished the bread and cheese and apple I found for him. But he did seem restored, and he managed to sit up on his own. "Well, thank you kindly, miss. I suppose I'd best be taking myself off now."

"Wait." I put a hand on his arm. "Where will you go."

Sergeant Kelly shrugged. "Back to my billet, I suppose. Why do you ask, miss?"

"You could stay here," I said. " You ought to rest--and I'm sure we could find you room." I'm not sure what made me want so much for him to stay. Part of course was that he was a link, however small, to Edward--and I wanted to hear anything he could tell me of how Edward had been these last weeks, and how he had fared in the battle yesterday. But part I think was simply Sergeant Patrick Kelly himself. There was something reassuring about him: his broad, solid presence and humorous eyes. "We're on our own here," I went on. "Just four of us. Mrs. Forster"--I gestured towards Harriet--"and her husband have rented this house. But her husband is a colonel and has gone off to fight." I looked around the room at the other wounded men, lying on sofas and slumped in chairs. "Not that I imagine any of us cares for the proprieties at a time like this. But I think we'd feel safer, all of us, if you would agree to stay, at least for tonight."