Send Me Safely Back Again by Adrian Goldsworthy Page B

colonel and Baynes.
    He missed Pringle and the familiar faces of the grenadiers. Even more he missed Hanley, and wondered where he was. Wickham had admitted that he saw the lieutenant fall, but did not see him wounded or killed. Williams wanted to believe that his friend was alive, although that increased his sense of guilt that he had done nothing to find him. The explanations readily came to mind. The Spanish had lost the field to the French and it was impossible to return. As importantly, he had almost immediately been ordered away as escort to the Doña Margarita. Reason might be satisfied, but in his heart he wondered whether the affair would have happened differently if he had been with Hanley instead of escorting Baynes.
    The carriage rolled on. Another night was spent in the out-house of an inn, heavily populated with vermin of all kinds, stinking of decaying meat and resonating to the snores of a dozen pedlars on their way south.
    The next morning they turned off the main road and struggled along a track where the mud was deep and sucked at the wheels. Ramón, who seemed to have excellent eyesight, spotted movement in the trees edging the road and called a warning. The former hussar pulled the blanket away to uncover his loaded blunderbuss. Dobson brandished his own heavy firelock and Williams very obviously readied his pistol. They caught a glimpse of a villainous face with a red headscarf lurking behind a low wall, but no one dared to challenge them. Ramón drove the team on as fast as the mud permitted. The horses were tired, since they had had no opportunity to change them and this meant that they had to rest the team more and more often.
    The country was rugged and empty, the track winding through valleys where rows of olive trees clung to the slopes. They crossed little bridges and went through long stretches of forest without seeing any other travellers.
    Once again it was Ramón who spotted the rider at the moment when they were ready to begin after a rest of an hour,during which Wickham had dismounted and done his best to be genial and draw a somewhat sullen Williams into light conversation.
    ‘I see ’im,’ said Dobson. ‘On the crest to the right of those pines.’
    Williams searched the slope, caught the movement and saw the silhouette of a cloaked horseman slip behind the trees.
    ‘Looks like a soldier,’ said the veteran.
    Williams nodded. He had even thought he glimpsed the shape of a helmet.
    ‘Could be a deserter, or a wandering Spaniard,’ said Wickham dismissively. ‘Even if they’re French the Doña Margarita’s pass will surely get us through. Nothing to worry about.’
    Williams’ instincts made him doubt such a sanguine assessment, and he sensed Dobson felt the same. So too did Ramón, and the driver used his long whip mercilessly to push the team hard and get quickly through the series of defiles they saw up ahead. He was good at his job, and if the carriage rocked on its springs as it took the tighter corners, he never lost control. Wickham yelled in protest, but then came the higher, sharper tone of La Doña Margarita ordering the driver to keep going.
    A sharp corner led to a bridge, and Ramón braked for a moment as the horses’ hoofs threw sparks off the cobbles as they swung to turn in time. The left wheels brushed against the parapet, their iron rims sending up more sparks and squealing as they scraped past in a dark flurry of old mortar, but the carriage was still moving on. Williams looked back to see several stones tumble from the wall and splash into the brook.
    They were going uphill now, and the horses naturally raced up the rise. Williams was still looking back, and on the longest stretch saw a horseman following them, with two more behind him. Then the man reined in hard and his horse reared up as he stopped sharply. He was bare headed, and wearing a long cloak.
    A musket ball flicked a long splinter from the wood of the carriage roof just beside the rail he held.