Rhys witnessed the horror of the French cavalry decimating the British Guards and dragoons who were too caught up in their moment of success to hear the call to retreat. He had to turn away and ride back to his regiment knowing David was among them. He ought to have impressed even stronger on that foolish boy that the battle was no place for him. His stomach clenched. Would he have to deliver the news to Helene that her brother lost his life? Odds were not great for him to have survived.
By the time he reached his company, the artillery barrage resumed and his men all lay flat on the ground so they were not visible to the French observers on the opposite ridge. His men had not been involved in the first infantry attack, but more was coming. The air filled with smoke from the guns, the cries of the wounded and the scent of powder.
His men looked at him with impatience, as occasional cannonballs rolled and bounced into their ranks killing or maiming at random and they were ordered to do nothing to retaliate.
‘Stay firm,’ Rhys told them. ‘Your time will come.’
It came sooner than he thought and in a manner he could only describe as bizarre. Instead of an infantry attack, thousands of French cavalry appeared over the ridge. The Allied infantry immediately formed square, a formation largely impenetrable by cavalry. The front line of men crouched on to their knees and leaned their muskets, with bayonets attached, out. The second line and third lines fired volleys of musket balls. Cavalry horses would not charge the bayonets and the musket fire felled many a cavalry man. If any were able to fire into the square, the injured or dead were pulled inside and the ranks closed up the spot.
The cavalry charged again and again. Rhys, in the middle of the square, yelled his orders, ‘Present! Fire! Close ranks!’ until his voice was hoarse. When he could spare a second, he glanced over at Grant’s company and was reassured to see his friend still mounted on his horse, barking the same orders.
The cavalry charges eventually ceased, and some of his men sank down into what had once been a field of rye to rest. Others carried the dead and wounded to the rear. Rhys figured it to be late afternoon, but time seemed to move differently in a battle. He took the chance to drink some water. Grant rode over and Rhys shared his canteen with him.
‘Do you know the time?’ Rhys asked.
Grant took his timepiece from a pocket. ‘Five.’ He put it back. ‘How did you fare?’
Rhys rubbed his sweating face with his sleeve. ‘Not too bad from the cavalry. The artillery weakened us, though.’
Grant nodded. ‘Never took the French to be such fools. Using cavalry against squares.’
The ground was littered with the French casualties.
The French artillery resumed and Grant rode back to his company.
Rhys’s men were hot and tired and the cavalry attack had shaken them.
‘You got more of them than they got of us,’ Rhys told the men. ‘Stay firm. We’ll get through this.’
But the cannon fire kept picking them off, weakening their numbers.
A second attack from the French infantry, though completely repulsed, weakened them further. The day was advancing and it looked to Rhys as though the Prussians were not going to come to their aid.
But finally word came that the Prussians were spotted. The tide of the battle turned and the men rallied. When Napoleon released his Imperial Guards, his best, most seasoned soldiers, the British regiments were more than ready for them. They cheered when these elite troops broke ranks and ran.
It was the end, Rhys realised. The Allies had won.
For Helene time passed not with minutes or hours, but with the numbers of wounded. As more men appeared needing help, more help also arrived. Other women came to render assistance and soldiers with relatively minor wounds. Helene’s day was a blur of bandaging wounds, providing drink, holding the hands of the dying.
The surgeon—she still did not know his name—sawed off limb after limb, dug out countless musket balls, sewed up many wounds. The limbs piled up as did the number of dead. Blood pooled at their feet and Helene’s boots were soaked through. She did what needed to be done, though, not allowing herself to think about it, or, God knew, not allowing herself any emotions. Especially picturing Rhys as one of the countless wounded. Or piled up dead. It was like being caught in a nightmare.
She’d long ago lost track of her brother’s caped coat, and she could not remember when her hat had fallen to the ground and rolled away. She had not bothered to chase after it. Eventually her hair came loose of its pins. She tried to pin it back up, but only succeeded in lacing it with blood. She tried not to let her exhaustion stop her from tending to the endless numbers of wounded men. She simply did what was necessary.
The sun dipped lower in the sky, providing some relief from the heat, but the sounds of the battle continued, mingling with the cries and moans of the wounded. All of a sudden, a new sound reached her ears. She and everyone else looked up from what they were doing.
Cheers. Loud cheers. Too close to be the enemy. The cheers came from the Allies.
One of the wounded men tried to sit up. ‘That’s the end of it!’ he cried. ‘He’s done it. Wellington’s beat Napoleon!’
That did not stop the wounded from appearing, so Helene continued to work, until she thought she could not stay on her feet another minute. She took a small break to lean her weary muscles against the barn wall. The surgeon walked past her and turned back to give her a puzzled look.
He walked over to her. ‘So, you are not a boy.’
She waved a hand. ‘It is too much to explain.’
He put his blood-caked hand on her shoulder. ‘You’ve done enough. Find the next wagon to Brussels and be on it. And know that you saved lives today.’
He walked briskly away. To lob off more arms and legs, she supposed.
She looked down on the ground and would have laughed if she’d been able. There was David’s caped coat lying against the barn wall. She picked it up and carried it over to a wounded man whose uniform had been torn to pieces. She laid the coat over him.
Nearby men were being lifted into a wagon, but she had no energy to climb on it. She was not certain she could bear to see another bleeding wound, another shattered bone. Instead she decided to return to the farm building where she, Rhys, Grant and their batmen had spent the night. She did not suppose Rhys and the others would return there. She did not know what happened after a battle, but she knew it was shelter and all she wished was to lie down and sleep.
The sky was still light enough that she easily found the farm building, after walking past soldiers here and there, just sitting in the grass, too weary to pay her any mind. When she neared the building, she was as grateful as if she’d been on the threshold of Carlton House, the Prince Regent’s London palace.
The door opened and Rhys stepped outside. He was in shirtsleeves and shook out his uniform coat. He turned as she approached and watched her as if witnessing an apparition.
‘Rhys.’ Her voice was no more than a whisper. When she came close enough, she reached out to touch him. ‘Are you alive? Are you really alive?’
Her whole body began to shake and the day’s worth of unshed tears burst from her. He took her in his arms and held her while she sobbed. She cried in relief and gratitude. He was alive! She cried for all the men who died and all who were wounded and maimed whose lives would never be the same again. She cried for herself, for all that she’d seen and heard that day that she would never be able to forget.
Rhys held her close while her body shook with sobs. ‘Helene. Helene.’
He’d not entirely believed this was Helene in his arms. What had happened to her? She was covered in blood.
He looked down on her. ‘Are you injured?’
She shook her head. ‘Just. Tired.’
He wanted to ask why she was covered in blood, why was she not safely in Brussels, but he’d wait. She was in no condition to explain anything now.
He lifted her in his arms and carried her inside.
Grant immediately stood. ‘What?’
‘It’s Helene.’ Rhys called to the batmen, ‘Bring her something to drink.’
Rossiter brought some water. Smith laid a blanket on the floor for her. Rhys lowered her to it. She sat and drank a whole tin cup of water.
She looked up at Rhys. ‘S-sorry, Rhys. T-tried to leave. C-couldn’t find my horse. The—the surgeon needed help...’
‘Surgeon?’ The blood now made sense.
Even her boots were stained with blood. He pulled them off her feet. Her stockings were red, too. Smith brought over a basin and rag. Rhys rinsed off her face and arms and hands. She let him minister to her as if she were a child’s doll. She needed clean clothes to wear. Grant brought a clean shirt. That would have to do. The other men gave them privacy as Rhys peeled off her bloody clothes and dressed her in the clean shirt, which reached her knees. He handed the bloody clothes to Smith.
‘I’ll clean them,’ Smith said.
Helene, no longer racked with weeping, lay down on the blanket. ‘Just want to sleep now,’ she murmured, but she reached for Rhys’s hand. ‘You are alive. You all are alive.’ She closed her eyes.
Rhys placed his cloak, all folded up and now dry, under her head as a pillow. The rain seemed so long ago. He covered her with another blanket. She fell asleep instantly.
‘Does she know about her brother?’ Grant asked.
‘I doubt it.’ Rhys looked down at her. ‘I’ll have to tell her tomorrow.’
The next morning Helene woke to the scent of ham frying in a pan and tea steeping. For a moment she thought she was back at Yarford House and that her maid had brought breakfast to her room. Then her aching muscles felt the cold hard ground beneath her. She sat up.
It took another moment to realise she was in the farm building. She brushed a hand through her hair, but her fingers caught in its tangles and the memory of the day before came rushing back.
She gasped and buried her head in her hands.
Suddenly someone was next to her. She looked up.
Rhys.
He lowered himself to the floor and stroked her face. ‘You are awake. We have breakfast for you.’
She reached for an embrace. ‘Rhys,’ she murmured. ‘You did not die. So many others...’
He held her. ‘We are all alive and unhurt. Grant and Rossiter and Smith. We are all here.’
‘Morning, miss!’ Rossiter called.
The three men came into her view, all smiling.
‘Good morning, Lady Helene,’ Grant said.
She stood and hugged each of them. ‘I am so glad to see you. So glad to see you.’
While tending the wounded, hearing their screams, holding hands of the dying, she’d not allowed herself to think of Rhys or these other dear men, but, now, seeing them, touching them, she knew the fear had been there all along. The fear of death.
‘Are you ready for some breakfast, miss?’ Smith grinned at her.
She returned his smile. ‘I am famished!’
‘Stay right as you are.’ Smith gestured for her to sit. ‘Rossiter and I will bring it to you.’
Rhys and Grant sat with her as the batmen readied their plates and brought tea.
She gazed at the tin cup before she took a sip, remembering it from before the battle, as if it were some relic from a distant time. She also remembered she’d broken her promise to Rhys.
She lifted her gaze to him. ‘I tried to keep my promise to you. I tried to leave, but my horse disappeared—’
He lifted a hand. ‘You told us last night.’
‘Did I?’ She blinked. ‘I don’t remember. I don’t remember much after walking away from the...’ She did not know what to call it. The place of death and dying?
‘You were exhausted,’ Rhys said.
‘Asleep before your head hit the pillow,’ Grant added, taking the plate Rossiter handed to him and placing it in front of her. ‘How the devil did you get roped into helping with the wounded?’
She shrugged and took another sip of tea. ‘The surgeon asked me. The wounded kept coming so I stayed.’
She caught Rhys’s eye, seeing sympathy and pain there. She did not want them to feel sorry for her, though.
She straightened. ‘I was glad to stay. There were others helping, but we were all needed.’
Rhys and Grant knew very well what Helene had endured. A surgeon’s table, a makeshift hospital, endless numbers of wounded men with horrific wounds. Blood everywhere. Perhaps some day Helene would tell him of it, describe the pain and gore, and purge it from her memory.
Although he did not forget all he’d seen these last five years, in battle after battle.
Her brow furrowed and her voice shook. ‘I never saw David. I hope he—’ She didn’t finish.
Rhys exchanged a glance with Grant. He looked down at his food, then raised his head and turned to Helene. ‘I saw David.’
Her face brightened. ‘You did?’ Then worry returned. ‘Where?’
‘He was with the Duke of Richmond and his son.’
She let out a relieved breath.
‘But—’ How to tell her? ‘—but he got caught up in the cavalry charge and rode with them. They—they were attacked by French cavalry. I did not see David return.’
She paled and her voice shook. ‘Then he could be dead?’
‘Or wounded,’ Grant said.
‘He rode in a cavalry charge?’ she asked in disbelief.
‘He got caught up in the excitement.’ It was the only explanation Rhys could think of.
She glanced away. ‘Why would he do such a foolish thing?’
If only David had heeded Rhys’s warnings.
She started to rise. ‘I have to find him. ‘How can I find him?’
Rhys leaned towards her and clasped her hand. ‘You cannot find him. There are thousands still lying in the fields. It would be impossible.’
‘I can’t leave him there.’ She stood. ‘I must at least try to find him.’
Rhys jumped to his feet, as well. He held her by her shoulders. ‘You cannot go on to the battlefield. I cannot allow it.’
Her eyes flared in defiance. ‘You cannot stop me! I am finished being told what I can and cannot do!’
Grant stood, as well. ‘Lady Helene, the battlefield will be full of horrors. There are things you should not see—’
She cut him off. ‘I have already seen countless things I should not have seen.’ She tried to pull away.
Rhys continued to hold her. ‘He might not be there. He might be among the wounded. He might even have come through unscathed. He could be anywhere. It is more important we get you back to Brussels.’
She wrenched away. ‘I am going to look for him here. I’m not leaving until I have at least tried.’
Rhys wanted to argue with her, wanted to insist she do as he said, but was not he the one who’d wished she’d followed her heart instead of listening to her father?
No soldier wanted to return to the battlefield the day after a battle. It was a nightmare of a place, showing the true cost of men fighting over such things as land or power. The thought of her stepping into that scene made his stomach roil.
He tapped his fingers against his leg, not wanting to say what he was about to say. ‘Very well, Helene. But I will search for David on the battlefield. I saw where he rode. I have the best chance of finding him.’
She straightened again. ‘I will go with you.’
‘No,’ Grant chimed in. ‘I will go with Rhys. You can, if you wish, look among the wounded who have not yet been transported. He might be among them.’
Neither Rhys nor Grant really believed that, though. They knew the cost of that cavalry charge.
‘What say Smith and I help the lady look among the wounded?’ Rossiter spoke up.
It was settled.
Rhys and Grant would return to the battlefield.
Rhys and Grant walked towards the fields where the battle had taken place. What they saw before them was worse than their worst imaginings. The field was covered with the bodies of men and horses. The men were stripped naked, most of them, the plunderers already having swept through, taking whatever could be of value. Even the corpses’ teeth. Without clothing to distinguish one man from another, the task of finding David’s body was made even more difficult.
Their progress through the part of the battlefield where the cavalry charge took place was slowed, because they discovered wounded men still lying on the field. They had to carry these wounded back to others who’d see to their care. Rhys and Grant persisted, however, not talking much, trying not to retch at the stench of sun beating down on the carnage. They managed to carry twenty men off the battlefield.
Finally they pushed to the place where Rhys thought the cuirassiers and lancers had met the British cavalry. They came upon a dying horse and put it swiftly out of its misery.
Walking a little further, Rhys stopped. ‘Did you hear something?’
Grant listened. ‘Whimpering?’
‘Yes.’ Rhys started forward again. ‘That’s what I thought, too.’
They walked around a pile of corpses lying next to a bush and found the source of the sound. A thin, naked figure sat, his back to them, crying like a baby.
Rhys approached the fellow whose face was black with bruises. His cheeks were swollen and there was a cut above his eyebrow, but Rhys recognised him.
‘David?’
David looked up at him, but without any sign of recognition. ‘They took my clothes! And my leg hurts!’
There was a long, deep gash in David’s leg, and his body was covered with bruises.
Grant reached Rhys’s side. ‘Good God.’
Rhys leaned closer to David. ‘Do you see who I am? It is Rhys.’
‘Oh, Rhys!’ Tears rolled down David’s cheeks. ‘Look what they did to me!’ He glanced around. ‘I lost the Duke’s horse.’
Rhys filled with pity for him. ‘We’re going to get you out of here.’
David looked up at him with a helpless expression. ‘I cannot walk.’
‘We’ll carry you out, you dolt.’ Grant’s nerves were obviously frayed. He turned to Rhys. ‘I cannot believe it. We found him.’
‘Alive.’ Rhys had had no hope at all of even finding David’s body. He’d agreed to this search only to stop Helene from stepping foot into this nightmare. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
Rhys slung David over his shoulder like he had that night in Brussels when he’d come face to face with Helene.
David cried out, ‘My leg!’
‘We’ll get you to the surgeons,’ Rhys told him.
And to your sister.
Rhys and Grant found Helene at one of the field hospitals. She was talking to a man Rhys guessed was the surgeon because he wore an apron soaked in blood. Rossiter and Smith stood nearby chatting with some soldiers from the 28th.
‘Rhys!’ She rushed up to him as soon as she saw him. Her eyes widened when she realised he carried a naked man over his shoulder.
‘Is it?’ she said. ‘Is he alive?’
The surgeon appeared. ‘Here. Put him on a table.’
‘It is David,’ Rhys turned to answer her as he carried David to the table. ‘He is alive.’
Grant spoke to the surgeon. ‘He was conscious until a few minutes ago. I think he passed out because of pain to his leg.’
Helene came up to the table. She cradled David’s head. ‘Oh, David. Look at you.’
His eyes fluttered open for a second.
The surgeon, examining the gash in David’s leg, beckoned some of his assistants. ‘We need to clean this out and stitch it up.’ He looked up at Helene. ‘Your brother?’
‘Yes.’ She inclined her head towards Rhys and Grant. ‘These are my...friends. Captains Landon and Grantwell.’ She looked again towards the surgeon. ‘This is Mr Goode, the surgeon I helped yesterday.’
‘Captains.’ Mr Goode nodded. ‘You know you pulled off a miracle, finding him.’ He didn’t have to add finding him alive.
Rhys nodded to the surgeon. ‘If he can travel, I’d like to take them both back to Brussels today.’
‘We’ve been sending worse on to Brussels,’ Mr Goode said.
Rhys turned to Helene. ‘We have our horses. We’ll ride you back today.’
She walked over to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. ‘How can I ever thank you?’ She turned to Grant. ‘Both of you.’