Beat the Drums Slowly Read Online Free PDF Page B

envied the smile the girl gave him.
    Wickham looked directly at her. ‘I can ride hard and fast and always last till the end.’ He paused. ‘There is the whip if I need it.’
    Jane blushed, and Williams was not quite sure of the cause, but felt a flash of anger at Wickham.
    ‘And yet I fear your sword was not called upon to do any work.’ Williams tried and failed to make the statement sound innocent. Wickham kept his gaze on the girl.
    ‘I do not consider pride in killing appropriate. I’ll do my duty, and stand shot’ – Williams was sceptical about both claims – ‘but if it can be avoided I shall be glad never to shed blood.’
    ‘A strangely gentle philosophy for a soldier,’ said Jane in quick response.
    ‘The only fitting one for a gentleman,’ was the equally prompt reply. He was still studying her closely, his eyes wandering far beyond her face. Williams struggled with a most ungenteel desire to tip the man off his horse into the grubby snow.
    ‘Good day to you, Captain Wickham, Mr Williams.’ Mrs MacAndrews was tall, dark haired and still striking although now comfortably into middle age. She spoke in the formal drawl of the Carolinas – indeed, seemed at this moment to be exaggerating it.
    They replied to her greetings. Williams found the formidable wife of his commanding officer as unsettling as her daughter, if in a different way. He also liked her, and was slowly becoming used to her barbed humour.
    ‘I have liniment in my baggage if you are uncomfortable after your journey, Mr Williams,’ she offered. ‘It rubs on.
    ‘Captain Wickham, it is good to see you. I saw a shawl in Salamanca that I am sure your wife would adore.’ Esther MacAndrews had obviously noticed the attention the captain had being paying to her daughter. ‘Be sure to extend our best wishes to her when next you write. I trust that she is well?’
    ‘When last I heard,’ Wickham confirmed.
    ‘I am most pleased to hear it. Come, Jane, the regiment is here and we ought to rejoin them, otherwise your father will make a mess of things when billets are assigned. Will you ride with us, Mr Williams? Or should your prefer to walk?’
    He shrugged. ‘I fear walking is all that I am capable of at present.’
    ‘Then we will bid you good day. Come, Jane!’ Mrs MacAndrews set off at a canter. Her daughter smiled down at Williams, then glanced with a lesser, markedly nervous smile at Wickham, before following her mother.
    Williams led Bobbie along beside the road. Neither he nor Wickham had felt the need for any acknowledgement as they parted. The ensign stared wistfully at the rapidly diminishing figures of the ladies.
    ‘Bills, you old rogue!’ Pringle’s animated greeting interrupted his thoughts. ‘Glad to see you brought her back in one piece!’ The 106th were passing, and the Grenadier Company in their place at the head of the battalion.
    The bespectacled Pringle was an inch or so shorter than Williams, but thickset and inclined to plumpness, which the rigours of campaigning had so far not in any way diminished. He came over and nuzzled Bobbie, who responded by snapping at him. ‘Ah, your usual friendly self, my darling,’ he continued, having just dodged her yellow teeth. ‘Hmm, I am sure she had two eyes before I was generous enough to lend her to a friend. How did she do?’
    ‘Fine, but I see what you mean about her gait.’
    ‘Ah well, she is more suited to someone with an elegant figure resembling my own.’ Pringle reached back to pat his behind. ‘Helps to pad things. I was going to ask you to ride to the rear and check on the stragglers.’
    ‘I’ll walk,’ said Williams firmly.
    ‘Don’t blame you!’
    Williams strolled happily past the battalion’s column. He knew all the men of the Grenadier Company. Dobson, the old veteran who had taught him so much about soldiering, had nodded as he passed. Williams knew all the officers of the regiment, and there were plenty of men in the other companies