Mary Nichols - The Price Of Honour

They could see the river again, narrower than it was but cut even deeper into the mountain rock, so that it lay at the bottom of a precipitous gorge. Straddling it, high above the foaming water, was a narrow wooden bridge. On the other side of the bridge, its walls continuing the face of the cliff as if it were part of it, was a monastery, guarding the bridge and the approach road. On the road was a French supply train, which had halted just short of the monastery.

They watched from their vantage-point on the other side of the river as the escort to the wagons exchanged fire with unseen protagonists hidden in the rocks and trees of the mountainside.

‘ Guerrilleros ,’ Olivia said.

‘I told you to stay back.’

She ignored his censure. ‘They got ahead of us.’

‘It’s hardly surprising; they know the terrain like their own backyards.’

‘But what is a supply train doing so high up in the mountains?’

He smiled. ‘Like us, they have been driven up here by the blowing of the lower bridge. Now Don Santandos has them where he wants them. Anyone holding the monastery holds the pass. Nothing can get through.’

He seemed to be right, because the murderous gunfire had killed most of the French troops and the rest had thrown down their arms and surrendered. The partisans poured out of their hiding places and surrounded them. Olivia could see Don Santandos giving orders to his men to drag the wagons into the monastery and then he turned to his prisoners. She cried out in horror when she saw him deliberately shoot them as they knelt on the ground.

‘Monster!’ she cried. ‘Barbaric monster. They had surrendered.’

‘I told you he was ruthless. Perhaps you will believe me now.’

‘Oh, I believe you. And will you admit I was right and we should have turned south?’

‘I admit nothing.’

‘No, because you are pigheaded.’

He laughed aloud. ‘I must be a very strange animal; a leopard with a pig’s head. Perhaps if I have no claws I might be permitted to have tusks.’

‘It is no laughing matter. What are we going to do?’

‘Wait until dark. Then I will go down and look.’

‘Not without me, you don’t.’

‘You will stay behind even if I have to tie you up, do you hear? Good God, woman, you don’t know how to keep silent and I mean to go as close as I dare.’

‘To what purpose?’

‘We have to cross the bridge.’

‘Right under their noses. I suppose you have a plan to make us invisible?’

He did not consider the question worth answering but turned and made his way slowly along the top of the cliff, looking for somewhere to shelter. She followed, very aware that they were exposed to the view of anyone who might happen to glance across the river. Luckily the Spaniards seemed more concerned with taking the wagons into the courtyard of the monastery than in posting look-outs. The path grew very narrow and they were obliged to dismount and lead the animals. ‘I hope you know where you are going,’ she whispered fiercely. ‘I do not fancy a cold bath, even supposing I survive the fall.’

His answer was to lead the way into a cave. This will do. Now we wait.’

They settled down in the mouth of the cave, with their mounts safely behind them, and in minutes he was sound asleep, which convinced her he had stayed awake all the previous night, in spite of what he had told her. She sat there looking at him. In sleep he looked young. Perhaps he was young, but there was nothing like a war for ageing a man. Tom had been immature and gullible when he’d enlisted, but within months, if not weeks, he had grown up, had become hardened, like well-worn leather, brown and creased, but tough. The soldier who had died was not the young lad who had fallen victim to the recruiting sergeant’s patter. And she was not the girl who had left home so consumed by love, so full of defiance, so confident she knew what she wanted. The confidence she had now was confidence of a different sort. It was all to do with self-preservation, the will to survive, the conviction that you never knew what you could endure until you put it to the test.

She smiled. If her contemporaries at home could see her now, they would be shocked to the core. Yet, looking back, it was an experience she would not have missed, but one she did not want to repeat. Home was her goal.

When the light began to go from the sky, the Englishman stirred and sat up. ‘Better eat,’ he said, going to his saddle-bag and fetching out the last of the hare. ‘Then it will be time to go.’

You are surely not going to leave me here alone?’

‘Most decidedly I am.’ He looked up from dividing the food. ‘If you are afraid, I will leave the rifle.’

‘Won’t you need it?’

‘No. This is purely reconnaissance.’ He bolted his meat and fetched the gun. ‘Here. It is loaded, so take care what you do with it. If you need me, fire into the air. Take hold of it so and point it upwards and pull the trigger. It will rebound, so be prepared.’

‘Very well,’ she said meekly.

He took Thor’s reins and led him out on to the path. ‘Don’t fire unless you really must.’

He paused, as if reluctant to leave her, or pehaps reluctant to leave the weapon. ‘How long must I wait?’ she asked. ‘If you do not come back.’

‘Until dawn, but I shall be back long before that.’

She listened as his footsteps and the clop of hoofs died away, then sat down to wait. But Olivia was not a passive person; waiting was something she had never learned to do. She decided to make her way back along the path towards the track which led to the bridge, to see if she could see him going over. And if he managed to cross safely, why then should she not follow? It would save him having to come back for her. She had no sooner convinced herself of the sense of that than she was leading the mule back along the path, feeling her way carefully in the failing light.

She did not see him, though her eyes ached with trying to make out his form among the shadows. She jumped at every sound — the bleat of a goat, the hoot of an owl. As she drew nearer to the bridge, she could hear sounds of revelry coming from the monastery. There was a guard on the far side of the bridge outside the entrance to the building, pacing up and down, watching the road from the east. He did not seem to be interested in the path from the mountains. Had Mr Leopard evaded him? Could she pass him too? The sound of the water was loud enough to muffle the sound of her footsteps, but to take the mule as well would be too risky. She left it with reins trailing and set off across the bridge, darting from shadow to shadow until she was on the far side and very close to the sentry.

And there she froze. Two partisans appeared and called cheerfully to the guard, who answered and then turned towards the bridge. He went down a few steps and peered downwards towards the water as if expecting trouble from that direction. Olivia noticed the rough path down the cliff as she moved lightly out and across the road while his back was turned. By the time he had returned to his post, she was in the shadow of the monastery gate. Now what to do? she asked herself.

The sentry was coming back. There was only one way to go and that was into the courtyard. She darted across to hide behind the nearest of the French wagons which stood just inside the gate. Here she stopped to peer out at the guerrilleros who stood in a circle, facing inwards. In their centre the Englishman sat on his horse with his hands tied behind him. Around his neck was another rope and the end of this had been thrown over a branch of a gnarled cork oak.

‘Thieves we hang,’ Don Santandos said, addressing his prisoner. ‘And it matters not whether they be French, English or Spanish.’