He didn’t run; he couldn’t. He walked forward, slowly, sword flopping at his side, stopping where he found a man down. Some he could help, with a drink or a hand to press upon a wound while a friend tied a cloth around it. A word, a blessing where he could. Some were gone, and he laid a hand on them in farewell and commended their souls to God with a hasty prayer.
He found a wounded boy and picked him up, carrying him back through the smoke and puddles, away from the cannon.
Another roar. The fourth column came running through the broken ground, to throw themselves into the fighting at the redoubt. He saw an officer with a flag of some kind run up shouting, then fall, shot through the head. A little boy, a little black boy in blue and yellow, grabbed the flag and then bodies hid him from view.
“Jesus Christ,” Roger said, because there wasn’t anything else he could possibly say. He could feel the boy’s heart beating under his hand through the soaked cloth of his coat. And then it stopped.
The cavalry charge had broken altogether. Horses were being ridden or led away, a few of them fallen, huge and dead in the marshy ground, or struggling to rise, neighing in panic.
An officer in a gaudy uniform was crawling away from a dead horse. Roger set the boy’s body down and ran heavily to the officer. Blood was gushing down the man’s thigh and his face, and Roger fumbled in his pocket, but there was nothing there. The man doubled up, hands pressing his groin, and saying something in a language Roger didn’t recognize.
“It’s all right,” he said to the man, taking him by the arm. “You’re going to be all right. I won’t leave you.”
“Bóg i Marija pomóżcie mi,” the man gasped.
“Aye, right. God be with you.” He turned the man on his side, pulled out his shirttail and ripped it off, then stuffed it into the man’s trousers, pressing into the hot wetness. He leaned on the wound with both hands, and the man screamed.
Then there were several cavalrymen there, all talking at once in multiple languages, and they pushed Roger out of the way and picked the wounded officer up bodily, carrying him away.
Most of the firing had stopped now. The cannon was silent, but his ears felt as though fire-bells were ringing in his head; it hurt.
He sat down, slowly, in the mud and became aware of rain running down his face. He closed his eyes. And after some time, became aware that a few words had come back to him.
“Out of the depths I cry unto you, O, Lord. O, Lord, hear my voice.”
The trembling didn’t stop, but some little time later, he got up and staggered away toward the distant marshes, to help bury the dead.
93
Portrait of a Dead Man
THE AIR STILL SMELLED of burning, and the onshore wind in the evening had added a faint stink of death to the usual smell of the marshes. But the battle was over, the Americans defeated. Lord John had turned up in the afternoon, stained with powder smoke but cheerful, to assure her that it was over, and all was well.
She didn’t think she’d screamed at him, but whatever she’d said had made his face set beneath the mottling of black powder, and he’d squeezed her hand hard and said, “I’ll find him.” And left.
The next day, she’d received a note from Lord John saying simply, I have walked the entire field, with my aides. We have not found him, neither dead nor injured. A hundred or so prisoners were taken, and he is not among them. Hal has sent an official inquiry to General Lincoln.
“We have not found him, neither dead nor injured.” She whispered that under her breath, over and over, throughout the day, as a means of keeping herself from going out to comb that bloody field herself, turning over every grain of sand and blade of saw grass. And in the evening, Lord John had come again, worn and weary, but with a clean face and a smile.
“You said that your husband meant to speak with a Captain Marion, so I went into the American camp with a flag of truce, looking for one. He’s now a lieutenant colonel, it seems, but he did speak with Roger—and he told me that Roger came off the field with him, unhurt, and went to help with the burial of the fallen Americans.”
“Oh, God.” Her knees had given way and she’d sat down, her feelings in chaos. He isn’t dead, he wasn’t hurt. And the feeling of relief at that was enormous—but instantly shot through with doubt, questions, and an abiding fear. If he’s alive, why isn’t he here?
“Where?” she managed, after a moment. “Where … did they bury them?”
“I don’t know,” Lord John said, his brow creased a little. “I’ll find out, if you like. But I think the burials must surely have been completed by now—there was considerable carnage on the field, but Lieutenant Colonel Maitland thinks there were not above two hundred killed. He was commanding the redoubt,” he added, seeing her blank look. He cleared his throat.
“I think that perhaps,” he said diffidently, “he might have then gone with the army surgeons, to help with the wounded?”
“Oh.” She managed to take a breath that completely filled her lungs; the first one in the last three days. “Yes. That—sounds very reasonable.” But why the hell didn’t he send me a note?
She gathered enough strength to get up and offer Lord John thanks and her hand. He took the hand, drew her in, and embraced her, his arms the first warmth she remembered feeling since Roger had left.
“It will be all right, my dear,” he said softly, patted her, and stepped back. “I’m sure it will be all right.”
BRIANNA VACILLATED BETWEEN being sure, too, and not being sure at all—but the balance of evidence seemed to indicate that Roger probably was (a) alive and (b) reasonably intact, and that semi-conviction was at least enough to let her return to work, seeking to drown her doubt in turpentine.
She couldn’t decide whether painting Angelina Brumby was more like trying to catch a butterfly without a net or lying in wait all night by a waterhole, waiting for some shy wild beast to appear for a few seconds, during which you might—if lucky—snap its photo.
“And what I wouldn’t give for my Nikon right now …” she muttered under her breath. Today was the first hair day. Angelina had spent nearly two hours under the hands of Savannah’s most popular hairdresser, emerging at last under a cloud of painstakingly engineered curls and ringlets, these powdered to a fare-thee-well and further decorated by a dozen or so brilliants stabbed in at random. The whole construction was so vast that it gave the impression that Angelina was carrying about her own personal thunderstorm, complete with lightning flashes.
The notion made Brianna smile, and Angelina, who had been looking rather apprehensive, perked up in response.
“Do you like it?” she asked hopefully, poking gingerly at her head.
“I do,” Bree said. “Here, let me …” For Angelina, unable or unwilling to bend her bedizened head enough to look down, was about to collide with the little platform on which the sitter’s chair was perched.
Once settled, Angelina became her usual self, chatty and distractible—and always in movement, with waving hands, turning head, widening eyes, constant questions and speculations. But if she was difficult to capture on canvas, she was also charming to watch, and Bree was constantly torn between exasperation and fascination, trying to catch something of the blithe butterfly without having to drive a hatpin through her thorax to make her be still for five minutes.