Women of Courage (166 page)

She felt Marianne’s eyes upon her, and realised she was smiling.

“Ann! How can you look at it like that? Don’t you find it horrible?”

“I knew it would be horrible, Marianne. I have been with the army already.”

“But how can you talk of it so lightly? Those same soldiers rescued you from the cruelty of the rebels. Where would you be now if it were not for them, you ungrateful girl?”

“With my father.” The truth came very soft and quietly, so that she was not sure Marianne had heard or understood what she had said. So she spoke more clearly. “I would be with my father, Marianne, and my betrothed, who are down there now with the men of my village, fighting for our King Monmouth and the true religion. The story Robert told you was a lie. He rescued me, or at least found me alone in a wood, but only because I had nearly been raped by some of Lord Churchill’s dragoons - those men down there, who you feel such pity for! They raped the two young schoolgirls who were with me - one of them still hasn’t been found. I suppose Robert lied because he was ashamed to tell you what his own men were like.”

Marianne stared at her aghast, her usually cheerful face blank with the double shock. Ann noticed how the beauty patch on her cheek stood out sharply against the sudden pallor of her skin. “But ... you are a rebel, then! And your father too?”

“Yes, Marianne. I didn’t wish to pretend, but it was Robert’s idea. Lord Churchill knew it too.”

“And I sheltered you in my house, and lent you my clothes, and my horse.”

“It was really most kind of you, Marianne. I am most grateful. I didn’t mean to deceive you.” Ann was suddenly conscious of the careful calculating look in Simeon’s eyes as his horse edged in her direction. She kicked the little pony smartly in the ribs, so that her last words flew over her shoulder as she trotted downhill. “I shall remember your kindness, if our army comes to Bath!”

And then she was away, concentrating on the ride, guiding the little pony as quickly as she could down the slope towards the soldiers of her father’s army.
Good little pony - don’t stumble now, whatever you do!
She ducked as she rode through a little clump of low trees, pulling him sharply to one side to avoid a group of startled sheep, and then came out onto a smooth sloping meadow.

She looked back. Simeon was still slithering cautiously down the first part of the slope, and Marianne sat where she was. Even as Ann watched, Simeon’s horse slipped, and the old man lurched forward in the saddle, clinging round the horse’s neck to stay on. He would never catch her now.

She reined in, and looked up at Marianne on the hilltop. She felt grateful to her, even now. Had Marianne been so kind just because she had thought it had been the rebels who had attacked Ann, and because she wanted to help Robert make her his mistress? Had that been all? Ann waved tentatively as she rode on, but there was no response.

At the foot of the field she turned left, to avoid any fleeing royal soldiers, and approached the army in a wide sweep that took her between their own lines and the village. As she came closer she wondered what she should say. If she could find her father’s regiment it would be easy, but there were thousands of men down there, all busily engaged in deploying for battle. They had no time for lost girls. And if she did find her father, he would hardly be pleased to see her now, when he thought she was safe at home.

But in the end it was easier than she had thought, for no-one had time to take any notice of her. She reached the lane just as two field-guns were passing along it, the sweating teams of horses urged on by an excited troop of gunners and their officer. Ann found herself squeezed into a gateway while they passed. A hand caught her stirrup and she looked down to see a face looking up at her; an old, simple face, of a man about her father’s age, tired and anxious, black with stains of gunpowder round the mouth and right cheek.

“Miss? Do ‘ee know where surgeon’s to? Have ‘ee seen him?”

“No ….why?”

“‘Tis Davy there. ‘E’s got a ball in the neck and ‘e’s still bleedin’, whatever I does. But ‘e’s not dead yet, ‘e’s still breathin’. I reckon surgeon could save ‘un if only I knew where ‘e was to!”

He waved at a younger man who was lying weakly in the hedge, a wet, bloody bandage round his neck.

“I don’t know.” She looked helplessly round at the lane and fields, thick with marching men and horses. Where would Nicolas Thompson, or any other surgeon, be amongst all these? “Perhaps ... I think he’ll be in the villlage.”

“If only us could get ‘un there. I’m sure surgeon could save ‘un!” The man looked desperately at his friend, whose eyes opened weakly for a moment, and then closed. But ‘e’s bleeding like a pig, an I can’t stop it.”

It was true. It was hard to see where the bandage ended and the neck began, there was so much blood. Ann felt sick to look at him. What could she do? Even if she could find the surgeon in the village, the man would have bled to death before she could bring the surgeon back here. And what would he do if he came? She remembered what Nicolas Thompson had said when she had helped him with the wounded men at Chard. “If a wound’s bleeding, pressure will stop it, nothing else. Bind it up tight and let the pressure stop it.” He had shown her how to put a tourniquet on an arm or a leg, but that was dangerous, he said - the bloodless flesh below the tourniquet could die, and then the limb have to come off. So she could not put a tourniquet on a neck; but should that bandage be tighter, perhaps?

“Hold the horse. Let me see him.” She dismounted quickly and gave the reins to the soldier. He looked startled.

“But surgeon ...”

“There’s no time for surgeon. I worked with him. Let me try.”

The man’s neck was slippery with the warm blood, everywhere, so that at first she could not find the wound. Then she moved the bandage, a strip of loosely tied cloth, and her fingers found the dark hole in the side of the neck. The blood was not pulsing out of it, but slowly filling it like an inexhaustible well. She gulped down her disgust, and turned to the man.

“We need a tight bandage. Where ..? I know, his shirt. Help me get his coat off. We’ve got to tie it up with his shirt.”

The thick leather coat was difficult to get off, especially as the wounded man alternated between feeble resistance and helpless lolling, but at last they did it, and the man tore the thick woollen shirt apart into long strips.

“Now, a pad. Look, we’ve got to press hard on it.” She folded part of the shirt into a thick pad and pressed it down hard over the wound.

“Tie that tight over it. Round here and under his arm. As tight as you can. Mind his throat - he must be able to breathe.” The tightness of the bandage forced the man’s head away from the wound, onto his shoulder, and his opposite arm up, so that they had to tie it down to his side, but when they mopped up some of the blood it seemed to Ann that there was less coming. The pad and the bandage were red, but not soaking.

“I think we’ve staunched it,” she said, sitting back uncertainly. If they hadn’t, she didn’t know what else they could do.

“I think we have too. And ‘e’s still breathing.” The man bent forward to listen to his friend’s breath, and cleaned a smear of blood from his nose. “Oh Davy, Davy, don’t ‘ee go to the Lord just yet! Us’ll save ‘ee - just ‘ee hang on, now! Oh thank ‘ee, miss, thank ‘ee, miss! You saved ‘un for me!”

“I hope so,” said Ann. “But he’ll still need the surgeon. I don’t know what to do next.”

“Let ‘un rest yer, miss, maybe, now ‘e’s not bleeding. I’ll stay with ‘un now and fetch ‘un back to surgeon soon as I can.”

“Yes, perhaps. I don’t know what else to do.” Ann looked at the pale, limp figure slumped in the grass of the gateway. Probably there was more a surgeon could do, but they did not yet know where the surgeon was, and for the two of them to attempt to carry him in this state would probably make things worse. “I’ll go and look for the surgeon, and see if I can send someone back for him.”

“Right, miss. Thank ‘ee again.”

She got on the pony and rode purposefully down the lane towards the village, urging the pony down the side of the lane against the advancing tide of troops. Some of them glanced at her curiously, but these looks did not hurt. She was no longer imprisoned and vulnerable, a prey to every man who could catch her and force himself on her, but her own free person again, with a purpose, a part of the great collective movement of the whole army. She smiled back at the soldiers, and spurred the pony forward.

33

A
DAM HEARD the rattle of musket-fire again, and saw the smoke puff from his own barrel. Yet there was no noise. The smoke enveloped him and he tossed his head from side to side to see what was happening. He heard the cheers of his own side, and saw Tom and the pikemen charging forward, spearing the helpless enemy on the ground. “It’s good, he’ll be all right,” said a voice, and the blue steaming entrails burst out of the enemies’ stomachs, more and more of them, writhing on the grass like snakes. The snakes caught men around the ankles, and dragged them down to devour them.

“
It is our sin! We have killed when we should not, and offended the commandment of the Lord!” he cried out, but his voice was lost in the sound of muskets and cheering. Then the pikes and snakes came for him too, and he was running, and weeping with fear and shame.

“
I meant to fight, Lord, though You do not love me, but it is too cruel, and Your Heart is too hard.”

Then Israel Fuller damned him, and cast him out from the army of the Elect. Adam walked weeping past the scornful eyes of his family, Mary and Ann and Simon and the little girls and Oliver, and the Lord blotted out the sun from him. In the darkness he felt the first big drops of rain on his face, and he joined the other damned on their endless night march to Hell, their feet rotting in their shoes as they hauled their useless guns and carts through a swamp of rain and mud.

“It’s me, father - Ann. Don’t worry, I’m here.”

He turned his head away sharply from the horrid vision. It was too cruel - even in his worst dreams he had never thought the Devil would look like his own daughter! He groaned, waiting for the soft hand on his head to burn him, the rough straw bed to turn to a heap of coals. But nothing happened; the cool hand gently smoothed his hair back from something rough on his forehead and the raindrops fell on his face.

“It’s only me, Ann. Don’t you know me?”

He looked again. The face had not darkened, no fangs leered from a devilish grin. Only Ann, stroking his forehead softly, tears from her wet cheeks dropping on his face. He risked a question.

“Ann?”

“Yes, father. It’s only me. You were dreaming.”

“Ann, where am I?” He half believed it now - but it could be a worse torment, to put his own daughter with him, in Hell.

“In a house in the village. Surgeon’s seen to your head. He says you’ll be all right, but you’re to lie quiet.”

He put his hand up to his head, and felt the pad and the bandage where the musket-ball had been deflected by his helmet. “But how are you here?”

“‘Tis a long story, father. You’re to rest now. I’ll tell it later.”

He lay back, weak but suddenly content, and looked at her. She was the same Ann, yet changed. The face framed by the loose red-brown hair was older, more womanly than he remembered. And the dress - where had she got that dress? He meant to ask her, but somehow, the effort seemed too great, and he fell into a calm sleep, blessed by the memory of her gentle smile.

34

A
NN FELT her smile wear thin as the afternoon dragged on, though she knew it was needed now more than ever. In the farm kitchen where the surgeon had improvised his hospital, the pans on the wall shook and hummed regularly as the artillery crashed and boomed outside. It was like thunder that was stuck overhead and would not go away, she thought. At intervals, tired anxious men would come in out of the storm, shouting for the surgeon to see their friends whom they had carried bleeding from the field. They never came at the right time; often they came with three desperate cases when Ann and the other women were busy holding down a man for the surgeon to probe delicately for a bullet in his shoulder, and two other groups would follow the first. Then, after an hour’s desperate, frantic work, there would be a pause during which they had nothing to do but bathe foreheads, smile, and clean up blood and vomit.

It was in one of these periods that they brought in young Davy, the boy whose neck Ann had bandaged. He was paler now, but conscious, though he did not move; only the wide pupils of his black eyes stared out of his white face with a shocked, final awareness that reminded her of a bird whose wing has been broken by a cat. She spoke to him, and smiled, but there was no recognition in the eyes; just the empty, liquid stare that saw her for a second and then moved on around the room, finally resting on the group around the bloody kitchen table where the surgeon was at work.

Ann did not have time to spend longer with the man, for another group arrived at the same time - two soldiers carrying a third on a rough litter of wood, and an older man, a sturdy, grey-haired officer in his mid fifties. The officer stood firmly in the doorway, grasping the edge of it with his right hand to stop himself swaying, while his left arm hung uselessly beside him, bits of bone and bloody flesh dangling in the rags of sleeve below the tourniquet. There was a thumb, but no hand. Ann gasped and turned away, her hand to her mouth as the sickness welled up inside her; but only a little came, and then she turned back to face him, ashamed and trembling, trying not to look at his face and not to look at his arm. The face was as pale as the grey hair that framed it.

“Is the surgeon here? Let him see to this man here as soon as he can. I fear his legs are shattered.” The officer nodded at the soldier on the litter.

“The surgeon will see to him as soon as he can. If you would lay him down here we will clean the wound for him to see. But your arm, sir. Wouldn’t you like me to look at that first? This man is unconscious.”