Not that trying to prevent an unconscious man’s head from coming to further harm was without its own perils. Even though the wagon was well sprung, it couldn’t compensate for the churned-up state of the road. Every time they went over a particularly deep rut, Major Bartlett’s head would jolt no matter how firmly she thought she was holding it in her hands.
Pretty soon, she wondered if the only way to really protect him would be to kneel on the floor, wrap her arm about his neck and sort of cradle him to her bosom.
The thought of doing so made her blush all over. But then she chided herself for being so missish. He wasn’t taking liberties, after all. The poor man had no idea where his nose would be pressed.
Just imagine if this had been Gideon, she told herself sternly. Wouldn’t she have cradled him to her bosom, to prevent further injury during the trip back to Brussels?
The sad fact was, she’d never know.
Her vision blurred for a second or two. But she resolutely blinked back the tears, sniffed and reminded herself that though Gideon was past helping, this man wasn’t. By some miracle, he’d survived. So even though she hadn’t found Gideon, her search for him hadn’t been a total waste of time. She might not be good for much, but she could at least prevent the Major from coming to any further harm as the wagon bounced along over the bumpy road.
It was one small thing, one practical thing she could do to stem the tide of death that had swept Gideon from her. Gritting her teeth and consigning her gown to perdition, she wrapped her arms round Major Bartlett’s neck and held his bloodied head as tight as she could.
The scene that greeted her when they reached the makeshift hospital was one of chaos.
She clambered out of the wagon, and went to the driver’s seat to speak to the Rogues.
‘This is awful,’ she said, indicating the men with terrible injuries who were lying groaning all over the ground, flies buzzing round open wounds.
‘Aye, well it’s like this, miss,’ said the First Rogue. ‘Surgeons are too busy hacking off the arms and legs of the poor b-blighters they think they can save to bother with the ones who lie still and quiet, like our Major. They put those to the back of the queue. And by the time they get round to them, well, mostly there’s no need for them to try anything any more.’
‘We can’t leave the Major here,’ she said, appalled. ‘Do you know of some other hospital we can take him to? A proper, civilian hospital? Where he can get the treatment he needs?’
The First Rogue scratched his chin. ‘Hospitals in town are all full as they can hold. Saw them laying the wounded out in the park and all along the sides of the streets, too. And that was before we come out ’ere. Gawd alone knows what it’ll be like by now.’
‘Well, what about taking him back to his lodgings, then? His man could help, couldn’t he?’ Justin’s own body servant, Robbins, was always tending Justin when he was wounded. Gideon had told her so.
‘His man’s used up,’ said the Second Rogue brusquely.
She’d heard Justin apply that term to the butcher’s bill after a battle. He didn’t speak of his troops dying, but of being used up.
‘What are we to do with him, then?’ It never occurred to her, not for one moment, to simply mount Castor, ride away and leave him. In some weird way, it felt that if she just left the Major’s fate in the hands of providence, it would be tantamount to submitting to the horrid inevitability of death itself.
Which would somehow dishonour Gideon’s memory.
‘You’ve got all those medical supplies in yer bags,’ said Rogue Two.
‘How...how did you know?’
He shrugged. ‘Had a look.’
He’d gone through her saddlebags, while she’d been climbing over the wall, and throwing stones at the looters? Or had it been later, when she was washing her hands in the stream?
‘I didn’t take nothing,’ he protested.
‘Look, it’s plain as a pikestaff you’ve been sent here to save our Major,’ said Rogue One. ‘If you nurse him, there’s a chance he’ll pull through.’
‘Me? But...’ She thought of the wounds covering his body, not to mention the huge tear across his scalp.
Then she saw their faces harden. Take on a tinge of disappointment. Of disapproval.
Of course, they wouldn’t believe she didn’t feel capable of nursing their Major. They had no idea how inadequate she felt. They would just think she was too high and mighty to lower herself to their level.
‘I suppose I could try,’ she explained. ‘I mean, the little I might be able to do is bound to be better than nothing, isn’t it?’
‘I took a gander when we put ’im in the wagon,’ said Rogue Two. ‘His skull ain’t broke. A lady like you could stitch him up as nice as any doctor. And then it’ll just be nursing he needs.’
‘Plenty of drink,’ said Rogue One. ‘Get all his wounds clean.’
‘We’ll help you with that. Lifting him and turning him and such.’
They made it sound so simple.
They made it sound as though she was perfectly capable of taking charge of a severely wounded man.
Her heart started hammering in her chest.
Perhaps she really could do it. After all, they’d said they’d help her. And now she came to think of it, hadn’t she already done much, much more than anyone would ever have thought possible? She’d reached Brussels unaccompanied when everyone else was fleeing the place. She’d rescued the snarling, snapping Ben from the teetering wreckage of a baggage cart. She’d ignored the Hussars and made her own judgement about whether the French were about to overrun Brussels, and been right. She’d even stood up to those women who’d been trying to murder poor Major Bartlett. And that after riding across a battlefield without totally fainting away.
And she could sew.
And even though she’d never nursed anyone in her life, she had listened most attentively to every word of Bridget’s advice, because she’d believed she was going to be nursing Gideon. Marigold was for cleansing wounds to stop them from putrefying. Comfrey was for healing cuts. And apparently she could make a sort of tea from the dried meadowsweet flowers, which was less bitter and nasty than willow bark and almost as effective at reducing fever.
Poor Gideon wouldn’t need any of that, now. He was beyond anyone’s help.
But this man had fallen, literally, into her lap.
Had begged her to save him.
And there was nobody else to do it. He had nobody.
Just as she had nobody.
Well, she thought, firming her lips, he might not know it, but he had her.
‘Very well, then,’ she said, clambering back into the wagon. ‘I will do my best. We’ll take him to my lodgings.’
She’d already begun to prove, at least to herself, that she wasn’t that fragile girl whose only hope, so her entire family believed, was in finding some man to marry her and look after her.
This was her chance to prove to them, too, that she didn’t need anyone to look after her. On the contrary!
With her head held high, she gave the Rogues her direction, then knelt down to cushion the Major’s head