Gallant Officer, Forbidden Lady. Diane Gaston

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СКАЧАТЬ men were consumed with bloodlust, a result of the desperately hard fighting they’d been through that left almost half their number dead. A rumour spread through the ranks that Wellington had issued permission for three hours of plunder. It had been like a spark to tinder. The rumour was untrue, but once they had begun there was no stopping them.

      The real nightmare had begun.

      After the French retreated to San Crisobal and the looting started, Jack’s major ordered Jack and a few others to accompany him on a patrol of the streets. ‘We shall stop the looting,’ his commanding officer had said.

      The plunderers almost immediately turned on Jack’s patrol, who ran for their lives. Separated from the others, all Jack wanted now was a safe place to hide until the carnage was over.

      He ran through the maze of streets, turning so often he no longer knew where he was or how to get out. Finally the pounding of feet behind him ceased, and he slowed, daring to look back and to catch his breath. He proceeded slowly, flattening himself against the ancient walls, and hoping the sound of his laboured breathing did not give him away. All he needed to find was an open door or a nook in an alley.

      Shouts and screams still echoed and dark figures ran past him like phantoms in the night. The odour of burning wood, of spirits, blood and gunpowder, assaulted his nostrils.

      Jack sidled along the wall until he turned into a small courtyard. From the light of a burning building he could see a British soldier holding down a struggling woman. A boy tried to pry the man’s hands off her, but another soldier plucked the boy off and tossed him on a nearby body. The man laughed as if he were merely playing a game of skittles.

      A third soldier picked the boy up and raised a knife, as if to slash the boy’s throat. Jack charged into the courtyard, roaring like an ancient Celt. He fired his pistol. The soldier dropped the knife and the boy and ran, his companion with him. The man attacking the woman seemed to give Jack’s attack no heed.

      Fumbling to undo his trousers, he laughed. ‘Come join the fun. Plenty for you, as well.’

      Jack suddenly could see this man wore the red sash of an officer. The man turned and revealed his face.

      Jack knew him.

      He was Lieutenant Edwin Tranville, aide-de-camp to Brigadier-General Lionel Tranville, his father. Jack grew up knowing them both. Before Jack’s father had been dead a year, General Tranville had made Jack’s mother his mistress. Jack had only been eleven years old.

      He stepped back into the shadows before Edwin could recognise him. He’d always known Edwin to be a bully and a coward, but he never suspected this level of depravity.

      ‘Leave the woman alone,’ Jack ordered.

      ‘Won’t do it.’ Edwin’s words were slurred. He was obviously very intoxicated. ‘Want her too much. Deserve her.’ A demonic expression came over his weak-chinned face and his pale blond hair fell into his eyes. He brushed it away with his hand and pointed a finger at the woman, ‘Don’t fight me or I’ll have to kill you.’

      Jack stuck his pistol in his belt and drew his sword, but the woman managed to knock Edwin off balance and now stood between Jack and her attacker. She pushed at Edwin’s chest, driving him away while the boy vaulted on to his back. Edwin cried out in surprise and thrashed about, trying to pull the child off. He knocked the woman to the ground and finally managed to seize the boy by his throat.

      Jack gripped the handle of his sword, but before he could take a step forwards, the woman sprang to her feet, the runaway soldier’s knife in her hand.

      ‘Non!’ she cried.

      She slashed at Edwin like a wildcat defending her cub. Edwin backed away, but the drink seemed to have affected his judgement.

      ‘Stop it!’ he cried, the smile still on his face. ‘Or I’ll break his neck.’ He laughed as if he’d made a huge jest. ‘I can kill him with my hands.’

      ‘Non!’ the woman cried again and she lunged towards him.

      Edwin stumbled and the boy squirmed out of his grasp. The woman sliced into Edwin’s cheek with the knife, cutting a long gash from ear to mouth.

      Edwin wailed and dropped to his knees, pressing his hand against his bleeding face. ‘I’ll kill you for that!’

      The woman shook her head and lifted her arms to sink the knife deep into Edwin’s exposed back.

      She was suddenly grabbed from behind by another British officer.

      ‘Oh, no, you don’t, señora.’ He disarmed her with ease.

      A second officer joined him. They were a captain and a lieutenant wearing the uniforms of the Royal Scots, a regiment Tranville had once commanded.

      Edwin pointed to the woman. ‘She tried to kill me!’ He made an effort to stand, but swayed and collapsed in a heap on the cobblestones, passed out from drink and pain.

      The captain held on to the woman. ‘You’ll have to come with us, señora.’

      ‘Captain—’ the lieutenant protested.

      Jack sheathed his sword and showed himself. ‘Wait.’

      Both men whirled around, and the lieutenant aimed his pistol at Jack’s chest.

      Jack held up both hands. ‘I am Ensign Vernon of the East Essex. He was trying to kill the boy and rape the woman. I saw it. He and two others. The others ran.’

      ‘What boy?’ the captain asked.

      A figure sprang from the shadows. The lieutenant turned the pistol on him.

      Jack put his hand on the lieutenant’s arm. ‘Do not shoot. It is the boy.’

      The captain held the woman’s arm while he walked over to Edwin, rolling him on to his back with his foot. He looked up at the lieutenant. ‘Good God, Landon, do you see who this is?’

      ‘General Tranville’s son,’ Jack answered.

      ‘You jest. What the devil is he doing here?’ the lieutenant asked.

      Jack pointed to Edwin. ‘He tried to choke the boy and she defended him with the knife.’

      Blood still oozed from Edwin’s cheek, but he remained unconscious.

      ‘He is drunk,’ Jack added.

      The boy ran to the body of the French soldier. ‘Papa!’

      ‘Non, non, non, Claude,’ the woman cried, pulling away from the captain.

      ‘Deuce, they are French.’ The captain knelt down next to the body and placed his fingers on the man’s throat. ‘He’s dead.’

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

      The captain rose and strode back to Edwin. He swung his leg as if to kick him, but stopped himself. Edwin rolled over again and curled into a ball, whimpering.

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