Margaret McPhee - A Regency Captain's Prize

The doorway was open; the wood remnants that had formed the once sturdy door had been tidied to a pile at the side. Blood splatters marked the walls and had dried in pools upon the floor. The smell of it still lingered in the room, despite the great portal of a window within the room and the lack of a door. Of her father and those of his men that had fought so bravely there was no sign. Josie stared, and stared some more. Their bodies were gone. Their weapons were gone. Their pouches of bullets and powder were gone. Only the stain of their blood remained.

She backed out of the room, retraced her steps down the stairs and peeped into the great hall. The rabbit stew still hung in the corner above the blackened ashes of the fire. The stone floor flags were stained with blood. Yet here, as in the room upstairs, there were no bodies. She turned, moving silently, making her way through to the back and the stables. The two horses were no longer there; nor were the donkeys. Of the supplies there was no trace.

Josie’s heart began to race. Her feet led her further out on to the land that had once been the monastery’s garden. And there they were.

She stopped, her eyes moving over the mounds of freshly dug earth. At the front, one grave stood on its own, distinct from the others by virtue of its position. She moved forwards without knowing that she did so, coming to stand by that single grave. Only the wind sounded in the silent, sombre greyness of the morning light. For a long time Josie just stood there, unaware of the chill of the air or the first stirrings that had begun to sound from the Frenchmen’s camp. And for the first time she wondered if perhaps her father had been right, and that Captain Dammartin was not, after all, a man completely without honour.

It was not difficult to trace Josie’s path. Several of his men had seen the girl go into the monastery. No one challenged her. No one accosted her. Some knew that she was the English Lieutenant Colonel’s daughter. Others thought, as had the sentries, that she was now their captain’s woman. The misconception irked Dammartin, almost as much as the thought of her escape had done. Yet he knew that it was not the prospect of escape that had led her back to the monastery.

He found her kneeling by her father’s grave.

Dammartin stood quietly by the stables, watching her. Her fair hair was plaited roughly in a pigtail that hung down over her back and her skin was pale. Her head was bowed as if in prayer so that he could not see her face. She wore no shawl, and Dammartin could see that her figure was both neat and slender. He supposed she must be cold.

Her dress was dark brown and of good quality, but covered in dirt and dust and the stains of ot hers’ blood. The boots on her feet were worn and scuffed, hardly fitting for a Lieutenant Colonel’s daughter, but then holding the 8th at bay with a single rifle was hardly fitting for such a woman, either. He watched her, unwilling to interrupt her grieving, knowing what it was to lose a father. So he stood and he waited, and never once did he take his eyes from Josephine Mallington.

Josie felt Captain Dammartin’s presence almost as soon as he arrived, but she did not move from her kneeling. She knew that she would not pass this way again and she had come to bid her father and his men goodbye in the only way she knew how, and she was not going to let the French Captain stop her. Only when she was finished did she get to her feet. One last look at the mass expanse of graves, and then she turned and walked towards Captain Dammartin.

She stopped just short of him, looking up to see his face in the dawning daylight. His hair was a deep, dark brown that ruffled beneath the breeze. Despite the winter months, his skin still carried the faint colour of the sun. The ferocity of the weather had not left him unmarked. Dammartin’s features were regular, his mouth hard and slim, his nose strong and straight. The daylight showed the scar that ran the length of his left cheek in stark clarity. It lent him a brooding, sinister look and she was glad that she was much more in control of herself this morning.

‘Mademoiselle Mallington,’ he said, and she could see that his eyes were not black as she had thought last night, but the colour of clear, rich honey.

‘Captain Dammartin.’ She glanced away towards the graves, and then back again at him. ‘Thank you.’ She spoke coolly but politely enough.

A small tilt of his head served as acknowledgement.

‘After what you said…I did not think…’ Her words trailed off.

‘I was always going to have the men buried. They fought like heroes. They deserved an honourable burial. We French respect bravery.’ There was an almost mocking tone to his voice, implying that the British had no such respect. ‘And as for your father…’ He left what he would have said unfinished.

Beyond the monastery she could hear the sound of men moving. French voices murmured and there was the smell of fires being rekindled.

They looked at one another.

‘What do you intend to do with me?’

‘You are Lieutenant Colonel Mallington’s daughter.’ His expression did not change and yet it seemed that his eyes grew darker and harder. ‘You will be sent to General Massena’s camp at Santarém until you can be exchanged for a French prisoner of war.’

She gave a nod of her head.

‘You may be assured that, unlike some, we do not ride roughshod over the rules of warfare or the protection that honour should provide.’ His face was hard and lean, all angles that smacked of hunger and of bitterness.

It seemed to Josie that Captain Dammartin disliked her very much. ‘I am glad to hear it, sir.’

He made some kind of noise of reply that said nothing. ‘If you wish to eat, do so quickly. We ride within the hour and you will leave before that, travelling with the escort of Lieutenant Molyneux.’

Side by side, without so much as another word between them, Josephine Mallington and Pierre Dammartin made their way back down into the village and the French soldiers’ camp.

‘What were you playing at, Pierre?’ Major La Roque demanded.

Dammartin faced the Major squarely. ‘I wanted his surrender, sir.’

‘Foy is asking questions. What am I supposed to tell him? That it took one of my captains almost two hours to overcome twenty-five men, without artillery, holed up in a ramshackle village. Given our fifty dragoons, seventy chasseurs and four hundred infantrymen, it does not look good for you, Pierre. Why did you not just storm the bloody monastery straight away like I told you?’

‘I wanted to interrogate him. I would have thought that you, of all people, would understand that.’

‘Of course I do, but this mission is vital to the success of the Army of Portugal and we have lost a day’s march because of your actions. Not only that, but your men failed to catch the British messengers that were deployed! Only the fact that you are my godson, and Jean Dammartin’s son, has saved you from the worst of Foy’s temper. Whether it will prevent him from mentioning the débâcle to Bonaparte remains to be seen.’

Dammartin gritted his teeth and said nothing.

‘I know what you are going through, Pierre. Do you think I am not glad that Mallington is dead? Do you think that I, too, do not wish to know what was going on in that madman’s mind? Jean was like a brother to me.’

‘I am sorry, sir.’

La Roque clapped his hand against Dammartin’s back. ‘I know. I know, son. Mallington is now dead. For that at least we should be glad.’

Dammartin nodded.

‘What is this I hear about an English girl?’

‘She is Mallington’s daughter. Lieutenant Molyneux will take her back to General Massena’s camp this morning.’

‘I will not have any of our men put at risk because of Mallington’s brat. These hills are filled with deserters and guerrillas. We cannot afford to lose any of the men. The child will just have to come with us to Ciudad Rodrigo. Once we are there, we can decide what to do with her.’