back into St. Clemens' Ravine.
Even so many men did not make it through. Captain
30 Mary Balogh
Scherer did by some miracle, despite a useless right arm. Major Lord Tavistock, fighting by sheer instinct, his sword flashing in all directions, his mind numb, fell wounded and would probably have been finished off by a Russian bayonet had not a sergeant and a private dragged him with them to safety. He lost consciousness as he was being carried back to the hospital tents, a musket ball through the muscle of his left arm and one embedded between the calf and bone of his left leg.
******************************************************************
*****************
He almost died. It was amazing that he did not. Many thousands of the wounded who wanted desperately to live did not do so. He did not even want to live and yet did.
He cursed the surgeon who would have amputated both his arm and his leg, and threatened him with death or worse if he did so.
Both balls were removed at the hospital at Balaclava. And then the fever set in, the fever that killed far more men than either the wounds or the shock of amputation ever did. The fever made him quite unaware that he was moved yet again and set on board ship and transferred to the barrack hospital at Scutari. Perhaps he would have died there—almost certainly he would have done so—if there had not been a group of lady nurses newly arrived from England who insisted on organization and cleanliness and air and space.
Even so it was amazing that he lived. One of the nurses—their leader—warned him that he might not.
"Your wounds are healing nicely, Major," Miss Nightingale said to him quite matter-of-factly some weeks after his arrival, "and the fever has receded. But you are dying. You know that, don't you?"
For all the care she showed her patients, she was not a woman to mince words. Major Lord Tavistock only just stopped himself from telling her to go to hell. She was a lady after all.
"Only you can heal yourself the rest of the way," she said. "Your real wounds are ones I have no skill with, nor the surgeons either.
You cannot forget all the killing?" Her voice was suddenly gentle, understanding.
"I killed my brother," he told her with closed eyes.
She did not answer him for a long time, and he did not open his eyes to see if she had moved away.
¦¦i^HBa^mMS Tangled
31
"I do not know how literally you mean that, Major," she said. "Do you have a wife? Or a mother and father? Or any family? Anyone to grieve for you when you are dead? Is it not self-indulgent to die when you might live?"
When he finally opened his eyes, she was gone.
He had killed Julian. Julian, whom despite everything he had loved. He might have yelled again and deflected that downward flashing blade. Or he might have shot an arm or a leg. Instead he had aimed for the heart.
He had killed her husband, the man she loved more than anyone in the world. He could never go home and face her. He tried not to picture her being told the news when it was brought to her. He tried hard but could see nothing else behind his eyes for hours at a time, whether he was awake or asleep. The thought of finally having to come face-to-face with her, knowing himself to be her husband's murderer, made him long for death and become envious of those about him who died with such apparent ease.
He tried not to picture his father being given the news of Julian's death. And then he pictured his father learning of his own death too.
He was his father's only son, his only child. His father had opposed him buying a commission with the Guards when his position as a landowner in his own right and as heir to an earldom should have kept him at home. But he had had to get away. He had had to get away from her. An ironic fact, as it had turned out, when his joining the military had brought Julian into it too a mere few months before his marriage.
Could he deliberately die and cause his father all that suffering?
Could he?
He
Even so many men did not make it through. Captain
30 Mary Balogh
Scherer did by some miracle, despite a useless right arm. Major Lord Tavistock, fighting by sheer instinct, his sword flashing in all directions, his mind numb, fell wounded and would probably have been finished off by a Russian bayonet had not a sergeant and a private dragged him with them to safety. He lost consciousness as he was being carried back to the hospital tents, a musket ball through the muscle of his left arm and one embedded between the calf and bone of his left leg.
******************************************************************
*****************
He almost died. It was amazing that he did not. Many thousands of the wounded who wanted desperately to live did not do so. He did not even want to live and yet did.
He cursed the surgeon who would have amputated both his arm and his leg, and threatened him with death or worse if he did so.
Both balls were removed at the hospital at Balaclava. And then the fever set in, the fever that killed far more men than either the wounds or the shock of amputation ever did. The fever made him quite unaware that he was moved yet again and set on board ship and transferred to the barrack hospital at Scutari. Perhaps he would have died there—almost certainly he would have done so—if there had not been a group of lady nurses newly arrived from England who insisted on organization and cleanliness and air and space.
Even so it was amazing that he lived. One of the nurses—their leader—warned him that he might not.
"Your wounds are healing nicely, Major," Miss Nightingale said to him quite matter-of-factly some weeks after his arrival, "and the fever has receded. But you are dying. You know that, don't you?"
For all the care she showed her patients, she was not a woman to mince words. Major Lord Tavistock only just stopped himself from telling her to go to hell. She was a lady after all.
"Only you can heal yourself the rest of the way," she said. "Your real wounds are ones I have no skill with, nor the surgeons either.
You cannot forget all the killing?" Her voice was suddenly gentle, understanding.
"I killed my brother," he told her with closed eyes.
She did not answer him for a long time, and he did not open his eyes to see if she had moved away.
¦¦i^HBa^mMS Tangled
31
"I do not know how literally you mean that, Major," she said. "Do you have a wife? Or a mother and father? Or any family? Anyone to grieve for you when you are dead? Is it not self-indulgent to die when you might live?"
When he finally opened his eyes, she was gone.
He had killed Julian. Julian, whom despite everything he had loved. He might have yelled again and deflected that downward flashing blade. Or he might have shot an arm or a leg. Instead he had aimed for the heart.
He had killed her husband, the man she loved more than anyone in the world. He could never go home and face her. He tried not to picture her being told the news when it was brought to her. He tried hard but could see nothing else behind his eyes for hours at a time, whether he was awake or asleep. The thought of finally having to come face-to-face with her, knowing himself to be her husband's murderer, made him long for death and become envious of those about him who died with such apparent ease.
He tried not to picture his father being given the news of Julian's death. And then he pictured his father learning of his own death too.
He was his father's only son, his only child. His father had opposed him buying a commission with the Guards when his position as a landowner in his own right and as heir to an earldom should have kept him at home. But he had had to get away. He had had to get away from her. An ironic fact, as it had turned out, when his joining the military had brought Julian into it too a mere few months before his marriage.
Could he deliberately die and cause his father all that suffering?
Could he?
He
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