Carla Kelly by The Wedding Journey Page B

whole matter to Elinore on the walk. He looked at her, and she began at once.
    She had a lovely accent, and Jess found himself doubly impressed. Who, he reasoned, would ever turn down such a sweet-faced lady?
    It appeared to be a hard bargain. Elinore stated her case, and listened to the return flow from the alcalde. She inclined her head toward Jess. “He says he will give you a wagon for the tents and cots, but not a single horse. He says he has none to spare.”
    “He’s a liar,” Jess whispered back. “What good is a wagon without horses?”
    She returned to the bargaining. Don’t promise him too much, Jess thought. “He will not budge beyond a wagon. In fact, he wants to know what is stopping him from taking the whole lot after we leave? He reminds us that the French are just waiting behind the walls of Burgos for us to leave.”
    “Please tell the old wind satchel that we are still allies—in case he has forgotten—and that I promise to put a torch to the tent and the cots, rather than give them up.”
    She turned her charm upon the alcalde again, but even Jess could tell that the man had no other offer to make. Without bothering to wait for her translation, he told her to take the man’s offer. “And tell him to bring the wagon to the marching hospital right away.”
    “We still don’t have any horses, Captain,” she reminded him when they left.
    He tightened his grip on her fingers. “My dear, I amabout to engage in real skullduggery. Please look away. It is probably too much to ask you to stop your ears. Harper!” he called as they neared the tent. “I want you now!”
    I can’t believe I am about to do this, he thought as the private threw back the tent flap and gave another of his patently slovenly salutes. “Harper, you are to find me two horses. I don’t care how you do it. If you squirreled away any of the QM’s money when I wasn’t watching, use that. If your pockets are as to let as mine, just get me horses. Take Wilkie.” He thought a moment. “In fact, you may exchange him for horses.”
    Harper laughed. “Who’d want’im? Sir, you told me I was never to do anything underhanded again,” he reminded Jess virtuously.
    “What a fool I was, Private,” Jess replied. “Overlook it, please. Now, do it.”
    With a grin of absolute understanding, Harper sloped off. Jess took Elinore’s hand again and went back to his tent. As she watched, he picked out the best shirt and trousers among his tatters, one book of surgery in Italian that he could not bear to part with, a pair of shoes, and his comb and toothbrush. He crammed them in the canvas satchel and picked up his overcoat.
    “You will take your rosary,” she said, putting it in the satchel.
    “I am not much of a Catholic,” he told her.
    “You might want it,” she said calmly. “And this bay rum.”
    “Oh, my dear, I don’t need that,” he said in protest.
    “I like it.”
    Oh, you do? he asked himself. I had no idea. “Very well. I hate to disappoint the ladies.”
    The alcalde’s men brought the wagon and immediately began to dismantle the tent. Jess could hardly hide his disappointment at the wagon, a miserable affair with wobbly wheels and only room for two stretchers. The axles and wheels were entirely of wood and looked drier than bones. (Oh, dreadful word.) Well, it will not be a silent retreat from Number Eight of the Peninsular Royal Medical Corps, he thought.
    After some discussion, he and Dan lowered the stretcher bearing Jenks into the wagon bed. The second stretcherbarely fit, and was occupied by three patients who had only room to sit up, rump to rump, and lean back against the rough wood. “Chief, can you squeeze yourself in the wagon bed, too?” he asked.
    “I should probably walk and let Elinore ride,” Sheffield protested, but he made no more objection when Jess insisted. Jess watched him climb carefully into the wagon, wondering to himself when the Chief got old. It must have been during the siege,