Love Under Fire Read online

  He laughed again and Elvina felt a sudden fury shake her. How dare he mock them? How dare he talk in such a way? She felt hot words rising to her lips.

  As if he knew what she was thinking, Lord Wye gave her a warning glance.

  “You must come and visit me, monsieur, and then perhaps I shall be able to advise you on which one to choose.”

  The Commodore thought that this so funny that he almost fell off his chair. While he was laughing Lord Wye filled up his glass, but made no effort to replenish his own.

  From outside came the sound of laughter and coarse jokes being shouted by the Frenchmen.

  The Englishmen drank, but silently, sullenly resentful at being made prisoners, hating their captors but realising there was nothing they could do but to await incarceration in some stinking French prison, where they would remain, if they did not die, until the end of hostilities.

  The time was passing and Lord Wye sent for another bottle of cognac. The Frenchman expostulated, but by now he was finding it a little difficult to say anything very articulately.

  Outside on deck another barrel of rum was brought up from down below.

  “Avis! We must go! We must go!”

  The Frenchman swept the bottle off the table and rose to his feet.

  “To the Harbour, à toute vitesse!” he shouted and the cry was taken up by his second-in-command.

  “To the Harbour!”

  The French seamen put out their oars again and Elvina, going onto the deck, noticed that some of them were a little unsteady, but the majority were tough and the drink had merely made them noisy.

  “Slowly! Take her slowly!” Lord Wye said anxiously. “The tow-rope will break again.”

  His prophesy came true about a quarter of an hour later. The Captain had been inspecting the rope a few minutes earlier and then unaccountably it broke and the yacht was adrift while the men struggled to find a fresh rope.

  What with the inefficiency of the English in not being able to connect the rope and dropping it several times into the sea, it was nearly an hour before they were in tow again.

  By this time they seemed to have drifted some way down the coast so that it was an even longer journey to the Harbour of St. Jean de Luz.

  They managed about a quarter of a mile and the same thing happened. This time the Commodore was in a frenzy.

  “Get the ship into Harbour!” he ordered his men. “Arrange it yourselves. These damned English are putting a curse on it”

  He turned angrily to Lord Wye.

  “I believe your men are deliberately delaying matters,” he shouted. “It will not do them any good. They are my prisoners and there is no chance of any escape.”

  “We are all convinced of that,” Lord Wye replied quietly. “But if you prefer it, I will tell them to let your men do everything themselves.”

  He knew that the Commodore was short-handed and did not wish to spare a man to take over the wheel of the yacht.

  “Non! Non! Continuez,” the Frenchman muttered. “Nous avons besoin de tous.”

  “One thing, the steering is quite all right,” Lord Wye said comfortably.

  He walked cross the deck as if to reassure himself. Elvina, watching him, saw him say something to the Captain and stroll back again towards the Commodore.

  What did he plan? Was there any chance of escape?

  There were only eight Englishmen whole and unwounded against thirty Frenchmen.

  It was impossible, she thought. And besides the Frenchmen all had muskets. She could see the firing pieces lying beside them and the man at the tiller of the French ship had one in his left hand.

  Anxiously she looked out to sea. Not a sign of an English ship.

  The Frenchmen had now fixed the rope.

  “Keep away from it!” the Commodore cried to an English sailor. “Keep away, all of you!”

  He drew a pistol from his belt.

  “I will shoot the first man who goes near it. This time I will watch it myself.”

  He glared round the deck at the Englishmen and turned to shout to his own men,

  “Start rowing. Take it slowly! Don’t hurry. We will get this yacht into Harbour or I will clap the whole lot of you in irons!”

  It was a drunken threat, but Elvina could see that the French seamen were impressed. It was the sort of language they understood.

  The yacht was moving. Slowly and inexorably they were being towed towards St. Jean de Luz. Elvina looked towards the Harbour. For the first time she realised that the sun was sinking.

  It was a shining glory in the West, going down, golden and scarlet, over the sea, while above the first stars had appeared, twinkling where the sky changed from pale lucent gold to the first sable fingers of night.

  “May my daughter and I pack a few personal items, monsieur?” Lord Wye asked the Commodore respectfully.

  “You can pack them,” was the answer, “But I’ll be guillotined before I let you take anything valuable ashore. When I get you into Harbour, we will soon see to that.”

  Elvina saw Lord Wye’s eyes flicker, but he merely smiled.

  “Come along, my dear,” he said to Elvina.

  He drew her into the cabin, closed the door quietly and then bolted it.

  “Quick!” he said. “We have no time to lose.”

  “What are – we going to do?”

  Lord Wye went across the cabin to the porthole. He pulled it open. It was more ornamental than any of the others on the yacht with the glass set in small leaded panes. When it was open, it was large enough to admit the body of a man.

  Elvina watched him wide-eyed.

  “You can swim, I suppose?” he asked almost as an afterthought.

  “I have swum all my life.”

  “Good. You see that beach to the North of the Harbour. We will make for that. If they shoot at us and hit me, go on. Don’t wait for anyone.

  “I have told the Captain that every man is to fend for himself as soon as they get inside the Harbour. If anything happens to me, try and find one of the others or make your own way home. Is that understood?”

  She nodded.

  Somehow it was impossible to speak at such a moment.

  “I am sorry, my child,” he said gently. “It would have been safer for you to have remained at Lisbon.”

  “I am not sorry I came,” Elvina replied. “Even if I die now – it has been worth it.”

  He smiled at that and then lifted her up in his arms. Just for a moment he held her close as if to comfort her. Then he pushed her through the porthole.

  She clung for a moment to his hands, looking down at the water beneath her, before she dropped.

  She felt the sudden chill, felt the waves close over her head and then she was striking out, swimming for the shore with strong strokes, conscious only of the encumbrance of her skirts around her legs and that her slippers had already left her feet.

  Behind her she heard another splash and knew that Lord Wye was in the water. There was no time to look back.

  She knew that every foot they put between themselves and the yacht meant a greater degree of safety.

  How soon would they be missed? How soon would someone realise what was happening?

  They must have gone nearly fifty yards before she heard a shout. One of the men in the boat had spotted them and was pointing them out to the Commodore.

  There was more shouting and then Elvina looked over her shoulder.

  Someone ran across the deck and began hammering on the cabin door. They were still not sure it was them.

  “Don’t look back,” she heard Lord Wye say beside her. “Hurry! Keep swimming.”

  She obeyed him and now the voices seemed to be growing a little fainter. There was a sudden report of a shot. Now she could not help but look back again and saw that a shot had been fired into the air.

  The Commodore had taken aim at them, but the Captain had struck his arm upwards and the shot had exploded harmlessly.

  She could hear his shout of fury and distinc
tly across the water came the command to shoot.

  The men in the boat were levelling their muskets, but what with the drink, the movement of the sea and the fact that she and Lord Wye were nearly out of range, they could hear the reports, but the bullets were nowhere near them.

  “Hurry! Hurry!” Lord Wye was saying.

  She felt her soaked gown dragging her legs and wondered how Lord Wye was managing in his boots.

  Then she saw that he had taken off his coat and was swimming without it. His boots had gone too. She had a sudden glimpse of a white-stockinged foot.

  “Come on!” he called. “We have to hurry!”

  There were more shots, but now they were far away.

  Elvina suddenly felt the shingle scrape her knees and she scrambled to her feet.

  The beach was mercifully deserted. It was to the North of the town and beyond it there were no houses, only some fir trees growing on the edge of the sand.

  “Hurry!” Lord Wye said again.

  He dragged her by the arm and she struggled to keep up with him. The stones were hurting her feet.

  She wished she could stop and wring out the skirt of her gown, but she dared not suggest it.

  They were running now over the sand and into the shadow of the trees. Elvina was gasping for breath when finally Lord Wye let go of her arm and turned to stare back the way they had come.

  Far in the distance in the dusk he could see the boat towing the yacht. It was not yet in Harbour and the men did not seem to be rowing very well.

  There was certainly nothing rhythmical about it.

  “We are safe!” Elvina gasped.

  Lord Wye looked about him.

  “Not safe,” he answered. “We have only exchanged one difficult situation for another.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “I think we have about half an hour before they begin to look for us,” Lord Wye said quietly. “By this time some of my men will have escaped as well, so we may be certain that they will send out quite a large force.”

  “What can we do?” Elvina asked, looking at him.

  Even with his clothes wet and clinging to his figure it was impossible not to realise that anyone seeing him would recognise him for what he was, a gentleman of fashion.

  “We had better start moving,” Lord Wye suggested.

  But she heard the note of despair in his voice and realised that already he felt that there was little chance of their not being recaptured.

  They trudged through the trees, Elvina lifting her wet skirts high in her hands to prevent them from clinging round her legs and impeding her progress.

  Once she stumbled and Lord Wye put out his hand and took her arm, helping her along.

  ‘We must escape. We must get away,’ she told herself.

  She felt that they were like a hunted hare who must run in a circle and find danger on every side.

  South of them, as Elvina well knew, lay the Pyrénées, held by Napoleon’s troops. To the North of them was Bayonne with Marshal Soult gathering a large Army together, ready for a fresh attack on the Duke of Wellington. Behind them was the sea.

  ‘There must be somewhere we can go – somewhere,’ Elvina told herself.

  She started to pray with an intensity that seemed to her to strain her whole body, mind and soul with the urgency of her plea.

  ‘Please, God, let us find a way, please.’

  She must have closed her eyes, because she felt Lord Wye stop abruptly, his hand tightening on her arm. She looked and saw what had stopped him!

  In front of them was a camp of soldiers. There were a few tents, but most of them were bivouacking in the open.

  They were sitting round fires, there were women preparing meals, there were children playing around the baggage carts and there was the usual indefinable paraphernalia which are part and parcel of every camp, stretching away, it seemed to Elvina, indefinitely into the distance.

  Quickly Lord Wye pulled her back into the shadow of some thick bushes.

  “Troops!” he whispered. “We cannot walk through them.”

  Despairing Elvina looked towards the town. What could they do now? To go back was hopeless, to go forward was impossible.

  Suddenly she gave a little exclamation.

  About one hundred and fifty yards away from them there were some large tents and outside them a pitiful queue of soldiers waiting patiently in the dusk.

  Elvina had seen this scene so often, seen the men on crutches or supported by their comrades, seen their roughly-bandaged heads and arms and the blood staunched usually with nothing more than a dirty rag waiting miserably but without complaint for medical attention.

  She drew a quick breath.

  “Listen,” she breathed to Lord Wye. “I have thought of – something. You see that hospital tent – over there?”

  Lord Wye nodded.

  “When men die,” she told him, “they throw out their uniforms and there is generally a pile of them waiting for collection. They take them to the quartermaster’s stores and issue them again.”

  “A pile of them?” Lord Wye questioned.

  He understood without a waste of words what she was trying to convey to him and his eyes lit with a sudden hope.

  “I will go and look,” Elvina said, “You stay here.”

  “No, no, of course you cannot,” Lord Wye expostulated. “I will go.”

  If it had not been so dangerous Elvina would have laughed.

  “How far do you think you would get?” she asked. “No one will notice me. Look at the women over there – the children playing in the dust. I am not much different from any of them, you can see that. Keep hidden. Stay here. If it is impossible for me to take anything – I will come back at once.”

  “You swear that?” Lord Wye asked.

  He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her round to face him.

  Then he tipped her face up to his.

  “Listen, child,” he said softly. “There is no need for you to stay with me. Go now and hide yourself in the town. You speak French and there are, I am certain, a hundred dialects gathered in St. Jean de Luz. No one will suspect that you are Portuguese. Say you are French from a different Province. Someone will take compassion on you, some honest burgher or his wife. Go now while you are still free. You have little chance with me.”

  “Do you think I want to take the hospitality – or even ask a kindness of the enemy?” Elvina asked. “I would rather die.”

  In Lord Wye’s eyes she saw a little flicker of admiration or pleasure and she added,

  “I will stay with you whatever happens. You have been very kind to me. Perhaps in some way I can repay that debt.”

  He released his hold on her and with a smile said,

  “There is no debt.”

  “Then we can share the danger – together.”

  He took her hand in his –

  “Your courage makes me ashamed.”

  “We must not stay here talking,” Elvina said with a sudden urgency. “Wait here. Don’t be seen. I will be as quick – as I can.”

  “For God’s sake be careful,” Lord Wye begged of her.

  “Don’t worry,” she replied.

  She slipped away through the trees.

  As she neared the hospital tent, she was in sight both of the camp and of the men waiting outside it, but, as she had suspected, no one paid the slightest attention to her,

  Her clothes were dried a little by this time. They were damp, but the dampness made little difference to the faded cotton, now stained by the seawater.

  The men waiting outside the hospital tent did not even pay her the compliment of a second glance. They were waiting with sullen faces and Elvina, who had heard how the French met defeat, guessed that some of them were from Vitoria.

  Through the open flaps of the tent she could see that the place was crowded. There was another tent beyond it and yet another. At all of them were the same queues of wounded and occasionally there was a cry of agony or a man shouting in a delirium
of fever.

  The orderlies, rough and often drunken, were flinging the slops and the blood onto the sandy ground outside the tents and, sure enough, as Elvina had expected, there were other things piled up outside.

  Corpses awaiting burial were inadequately shrouded with old blankets and sometimes the same one served two bodies. The dead men’s feet, protruding from the inadequate covering, were bare and Elvina knew they had already been stripped.

  Slowly she moved between the tents. No one noticed her, everyone was too busy to wonder what the dark-haired dirty-looking child could be doing.

  She found what she was seeking, a large pile of French uniforms, and even as she came upon it another tunic came whizzing through the side of the tent to fall on the pile and was followed by a pair of trousers.

  Most of the uniforms were in a deplorable state. The mud and the rain had soaked into them until the original colouring was almost lost.

  Buttons were missing, what should have been blue was now a dirty grey and there were great rents in the sleeves, while many of the seats to the trousers were worn completely away.

  Elvina started delving amongst the pile. She was not shocked or even disgusted by what she saw and had to do. She was intent only on one thing – saving the life of the man who had rescued her.

  Whatever Lord Wye might know about French prisons, she knew what those in Lisbon were like.

  She had seen the conditions that the prisoners lived under, often starved and ill-treated by their warders and without medical attention for their wounds so that death would be at times a merciful release.

  ‘This might do,’ she murmured beneath her breath.

  She found what she was seeking, a tunic that looked bigger than most of the others. It was worn and faded but not particularly ragged and, turning over the dirty garments, she found a pair of breeches that were also in a reasonable condition.

  She had no illusions as to what would happen to her if she was caught stealing. Fortunately everyone was too busy inside the tents to wonder what was occurring outside.

  Boots were her next problem. She guessed that Lord Wye would have a large foot. But the boots were in a deplorable condition, the soles almost worn away, the uppers cracked and the laces non-existent.

  There was not much time to choose. Elvina’s instinct told her that already she had been searching too long.