Love Under Fire by Barbara Cartland

Author:Barbara Cartland
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788670593
Publisher: PublishDrive
Published: 2018-04-30T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

For Elvina the next three days passed in a kind of nightmare in which she marched and slept and marched again until she was past thinking of anything except the effort of putting one foot in front of the other.

At times she felt that she could go no farther and that she must drop out as so many of the soldiers were doing.

She passed them lying in crumpled heaps on the mountainside, their eyes closed in the sleep of utter exhaustion that no longer could be denied.

Only the fact that Lord Wye was beside her kept her going. She clung to him and he pulled her along the rough stony roads where Marshal Soult’s columns, strung out like heavily moving snakes, had no room to deploy.

“I will carry you,” he said more than once, but she shook her head.

“If you are well enough to carry me,” she whispered, “you will be well enough to face the English in the front line.”

Actually, while Elvina scented danger around them all the time, those who marched beside them had little thought except for their own misery and discomfort.

The men cursed and many of the women wept, yet still they went on, climbing all the time towards the summit of the mountains where they had learned that by now the British had their outposts.

Elvina, with her aching legs and bleeding feet, had no interest in the strategy that she knew Lord Wye was considering.

Despite his habitual look of semi-consciousness he was taking in every detail of the mountainous terrain and missing nothing of the conversation around them.

The Officers, obviously under Marshal Soult’s orders, galloped up and down the lines trying to infuse some enthusiasm into the troops.

“We shall be in Roncesvalles by tomorrow!” they shouted. “There will be food there, food and wine and women! Get a move on if you want to enjoy yourselves.”

Their exhortations, all too familiar to the veterans, did little to relieve the general gloom and, when in the morning of the third day they were told to be ready to attack, there were only more grumbles than before and if possible less enthusiasm.

Officers ordered and bullied men at the rear of the columns into going forward. Scattering stones behind his horse, one galloped up to where Lord Wye and Elvina were resting.

“Get up to the front?” he called out roughly.

Lord Wye made no answer, merely sitting looking stupid, his musket held limply in his hands.

“It’s no use, monsieur,” Elvina said shrilly, speaking with a defiance that she had heard other women use. “He is still dazed and it’s my belief the British bullet is still lodged in his head. The surgeons in the hospital had no more sense or knowledge than a new born babe.”

Without wasting further words on what he sensed was a hopeless case, the Officer whirled his horse round and galloped on to find further stragglers.

“What do we do now?” Elvina asked.

“I don’t know,” Lord Wye answered, raising his head to search the top of the mountains.

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