Читать книгу Chivalrous Captain, Rebel Mistress - Diane Gaston - Страница 8

1812—Badajoz, Spain

The heavy footsteps of the marauding mob were close, so close Lieutenant Allan Landon smelled their sweaty bodies and the blood staining their uniforms. Allan and his captain, Gabriel Deane, hid in the shadows as the mob moved past, intent, no doubt, on more plundering, more rape, more slaying of innocent civilians.

Was there anything more loathsome than men gone amok, egging each other on to more violence and destruction?

Fire ravaged a tall stone building and illuminated the rabble from behind. Brandishing clubs and bayonets, they rumbled past Allan, whose muscles were taut with outrage. These were not the enemy, but Allan’s own countrymen, British soldiers, lost to all decency, all morality, in the throes of madness.

After the bloody siege of Badajoz, leaving thousands of their comrades dead, a rumour swept through the troops that Wellington had authorised three hours of plunder. It had been like a spark to tinder.

As the marauders disappeared around the corner, Allan and Gabriel Deane stepped back on to the street.

‘Wellington should hang them all,’ Allan said.

Gabe shook his head. ‘Too many of them. We need them to fight the French.’

The loud crack of a pistol firing made them both jump back, but it was too distant to be a threat.

Gabe muttered, ‘We’re going to get ourselves killed and all for damned Tranville.’

Edwin Tranville.

Edwin’s father, Brigadier General Lionel Tranville, had ordered them into this cauldron of violence. His son, who was also his aide-de-camp, was missing, and Allan and Deane were to find him and return him safely to camp.

‘We have our orders.’ Allan’s tone sounded fatalistic even to himself, but, like it or not, his duty was to obey his superior officers. The rioting crowd had forgotten that duty.

Two men burst from an alleyway and ran past them, their boots beating sharply against the stones.

From that alleyway came a woman’s cry. ‘Non!’

Women’s screams had filled their ears all night, cutting through Allan’s gut like a knife, always too distant for Allan and Gabe to aid them. This cry, however, sounded near. They ran towards it, through the alley and into a small courtyard, expecting to rescue a woman in distress.

Instead the woman held a knife, ready to plunge its blade into the back of a whining and cowering red-coated British soldier.

Gabe seized the woman from behind and disarmed her. ‘Oh, no, you don’t, señora.’

The British soldier, bloody hands covering his face, tried to stand. ‘She tried to kill me!’ he wailed before collapsing in an insensible heap on the cobblestones.

Nearby Allan noticed the body of a French soldier lying in a puddle of blood.

Deane gripped the woman’s arms. ‘You’ll have to come with us, señora.’

‘Captain—’ Allan gestured to the body.

Another British soldier stepped into the light ‘Wait.’

Allan whirled, his pistol raised.

The man held up both hands. ‘I am Ensign Vernon of the East Essex.’ He pointed to the British soldier collapsed face down on the ground. ‘He was trying to kill the boy and rape the woman. I saw it. He and two others. The others ran.’

‘What boy? ‘ Gabe glanced around.

Something moved in the shadows, and Allan turned and almost fired.

Vernon stopped him. ‘Don’t shoot. It is the boy.’

Still gripping the woman, Deane dragged her over to the inert figure of the man she’d been ready to kill.

Deane rolled him over with his foot and looked up at Allan. ‘Good God, Landon, do you see who this is?’

‘Edwin Tranville,’ the ensign answered, loathing in his voice. ‘General Tranville’s son.’ Allan grew cold with anger.

They had found Edwin Tranville, not a victim, but an attempted rapist and possibly a murderer. Allan glanced at Ensign Vernon and saw his own revulsion reflected in the man’s eyes.

‘You jest. What the devil is going on here?’ Allan scanned the scene.

The ensign pointed to Edwin, sharing Allan’s disdain. ‘He tried to choke the boy and she defended him with the knife. He is drunk.’

The boy, no more than twelve years old, ran to the Frenchman’s body. ‘Papa!’

‘Non, non, non, Claude, ‘ the woman cried.

‘Deuce, they are French.’ Deane knelt next to the body to check for a pulse. ‘He’s dead.’

A French family caught in the carnage, Allan surmised, a man merely trying to get his wife and child to safety. Allan turned back to Tranville, tasting bile in his throat. Had Edwin murdered the Frenchman in front of the boy and his mother and then tried to rape the woman?

The woman said, ‘Mon mari. ‘ Her husband.

Gabe suddenly rose and strode back to Tranville. He swung his leg as if to kick him, but stopped himself. Then he pointed to the dead Frenchman and asked the ensign, ‘Did Tranville kill him?’

Vernon shook his head. ‘I did not see.’

Gabe gazed back at the woman with great concern. ‘Deuce. What will happen to her now?’ A moment earlier he’d been ready to arrest her.

Footsteps sounded and there were shouts nearby.

Gabe straightened. ‘We must get them out of here.’ He signalled to Allan. ‘Landon, take Tranville back to camp. Ensign, I’ll need your help.’

To camp, not to the brig?

Allan stepped over to him. ‘You do not intend to turn her in!’ It was Edwin who should be turned in.

‘Of course not,’ Deane snapped. ‘I’m going to find her a safe place to stay. Maybe a church. Or somewhere.’ He gave both Allan and the ensign pointed looks. ‘We say nothing of this. Agreed?’

Say nothing? Allan could not stomach it. ‘He ought to hang for this.’

‘He is the general’s son,’ Gabe shot back. ‘If we report his crime, the general will have our necks, not his son’s.’ He gazed towards the woman. ‘He may even come after her and the boy.’ Gabe looked down at Tranville, curled up like a baby on the ground. ‘This bastard is so drunk he may not even know what he did.’

‘Drink is no excuse.’ Allan could not believe Gabe would let Edwin go unpunished.

Allan had learned to look the other way when the soldiers in his company emptied a dead Frenchman’s pockets, or gambled away their meagre pay on the roll of dice, or drank themselves into a stupor. These were men from the rookeries of London, the distant hills of Scotland, the poverty of Ireland, but no man, least of all an officer with an education and advantages in life, should get away with what Edwin had done this night. The proper thing to do was report him and let him hang. Damn the consequences.

Allan gazed at the woman comforting her son. His shoulders sagged. Allan was willing to risk his own neck for justice, but had no right to risk an already victimised mother and child.

His jaw flexed. ‘Very well. We say nothing.’

Gabe turned to the ensign. ‘Do I have your word, Ensign?’

‘You do, sir,’ he answered.

Glass shattered and the roof of the burning building collapsed, shooting sparks high into the air.

Allan pulled Edwin to a sitting position and hoisted him over his shoulder.

‘Take care,’ Gabe said to him.

With a curt nod, Allan trudged off in the same direction they had come. He almost hoped to be set upon by the mob if it meant the end of Edwin Tranville, but the streets he walked had been so thoroughly sacked that the mauraders had abandoned them. Allan carried Edwin to the place where the Royal Scots were billeted, the sounds of Badajoz growing fainter with each step.

He reached the general’s billet and knocked on the door. The general’s batman answered, and the scent of cooked meat filled Allan’s nostrils.

‘I have him,’ Allan said.

The general rose from a chair, a napkin tucked into his shirt collar. ‘What is this? What happened to him?’

Allan clenched his jaw before answering, ‘He is as we found him.’ He dropped Edwin on to a cot in the room and only then saw that his face was cut from his ear to the corner of his mouth.

‘He is injured! ‘ His father shouted. He waved to his batman. ‘Quick! Summon the surgeon.’ He leaned over his drunk son. ‘I had no idea he’d been injured in the battle.’

The wound was too fresh to have been from the battle and Allan wagered the general knew it as well.

Edwin Tranville would bear a visible scar of this night, which was at least some punishment for his crimes. Edwin whimpered and rolled over, looking more like a child than a murderer and rapist.

The general paced back and forth. Allan waited, hoping to be dismissed, hoping he would not be required to provide more details.

But the general seemed deep in thought. Suddenly, he stopped pacing and faced Allan. ‘He was injured in the siege, I am certain of it. He was not supposed to be in the fighting.’ He started pacing again. ‘I suppose he could not resist.’

He was convincing himself, Allan thought. ‘Sir,’ he responded, not really in assent.

The general gave Allan a piercing gaze. ‘He was injured in the siege. Do you comprehend me?’

Allan indeed comprehended. This was the story the general expected him to tell. He stood at attention. ‘I comprehend, sir.’

A Latin quotation from his school days sprang to mind. Was it from Tacitus? That cannot be safe which is not honourable.

Allan shivered with trepidation. No good could come from disguising the true nature of Edwin Tranville’s injury or his character, he was certain of it, but he’d given his word to his captain and the fate of too many people rested on his keeping it.

Allan hoped there was at least some honour in that.