Dubious Allegiance by Don Gutteridge Read Free Book Online Page A

Waterloo, Culloden, and Agincourt—were in full retreat: beaten back by a rump parliament of farmers, tradesmen, and ordinary folk of every ilk.
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    Marc’s horse plodded wearily but dutifully alongside the scarlet ambulance-wagon that carried several of the wounded men, including Rick Hilliard. A light snow was falling, silent and peaceful, upon the length of the retreating column. It was after midnight, and they had just pulled out of St. Ours, little more than halfway to Sorel. Fortunately, one of the foraging parties had discovered a cache of potatoes in a barn en route, and Colonel Gore had consented to let the men stop long enough to roast them over an inconspicuous fire. Now they were back on the river road, the exhaustion of defeat added to the physical and mental fatigue exacted by the preceding thirty hours. A few of the mounted militia rode in desultory loops about the flanksof the column, but no organized pursuit or ambush materialized to harry them or provide some welcome distraction from the brooding weight of their failure.
    Rick had had his abdominal wound dressed to the point where any external bleeding had been stanched, but what was happening internally could only be guessed at. Rick remained unconscious. His breathing was either shallow or intermittently sharp and aching. Marc had removed his greatcoat and wrapped Rick in it. He never left his friend’s side, fearing that a sudden pain might cause him to move abruptly and loosen the cotton packing that had stopped the bleeding. But the only movement so far had been the anxious rise and fall of his breathing.
    The retreat from St. Denis had been neither orderly nor dignified. Once again Colonel Gore had not let the possibility of such a manoeuvre enter his wizened imagination. As a result of their initial haste, three or four wounded men had been abandoned on the battlefield, left to the tender mercies of the rebels. The twenty-four-pounder was dragged down from its useless perch (sixty of the sixty-eight rounds having been expended), limbered, and hauled towards the makeshift log-bridge constructed earlier in the day. But after bearing the weight of almost three hundred retreating men and a dozen wagons, the bridge collapsed of its own volition just as the cannon was crossing it. The gun was tossed sideways into the muddy water. With enemy skirmishers harassing them on three sides, and the danger of more cutting off their retreat as they crossed the river, Gore continued to shriek commands at the exhausted men and beasts. Half a dozen of the latter died in the traces and had tobe replaced by cavalry horses. The gun was hopelessly stuck, but Gore refused to abandon and spike it until the surgeon warned him that the men themselves would soon die beside the animals. As a result of this unnecessary delay, it had been dark before the column got started up the river road towards St. Ours and Sorel. The whoops of triumph from the rebels sang in their ears like a bully’s taunt. Fortunately, they were permitted to slink away, licking their wounds.
    No-one spoke. They were too numb to complain. It took energy to moan. The dried mud on their uniforms had caked and, whitened by the snow, made the men resemble perambulating ghosts. Marc was trying hard not to think about his own brush with death, about Rick’s savage anger and quixotic courage, about the colonel’s stubborn stupidity, about the patchwork army of half-starved youths who had humiliated them. There was nothing Napoleonic or glorifying about Papineau’s forces: they were fighting only to live, and be.
    â€œCould you spare a smoke?”
    The sound of an English voice uttering a full sentence startled Marc, and he glanced about in search of its author. None of the men tramping near him had looked up or shifted his rhythm.
    â€œI think I’d feel better if I just had a puff. . . .”
    It was a soft voice, weakened by fatigue or pain. And it came from