Run Them Ashore by Adrian Goldsworthy Read Free Book Online Page A

this was no more than her natural interest in a close friend of her brother, reinforced when Billy had helped hunt a younger sister, Kitty, left with child and abandoned by her lover. Pringle had called the man out, wounded him in a duel, and convinced him to marry the silly girl – he still struggled to understand the whole affair and the decisions made by the pair. The husband was a light dragoon, and had since died, but at least Mrs Garland was a respectable widow rather than a ruined woman.
    He knew Anne was grateful, for she had thanked him several times, always with considerable grace. Yet there seemed more than that, some affinity stronger than any obligation, something both felt. Billy Pringle did not fully understand it, even to the extent of knowing what it was he hoped for. That did not make it any less real. She came to his mind often these days, with thoughts of the little things, her movements, gestures, the look of fixed concentration as she laboured at her needlework, the tip of her tongue pressed between pursed lips, or the slight frown when she struggled to follow a conversation, and the sheer joy in her laughter. He found himself thinking of her more than other women, even those he had known with far greater intimacy. There was one image stronger than all the others, a memory ofthe afternoon when at her mother’s insistence she had played and sung for them on the old pianoforte Mrs Williams had bought at the auction of property when a neighbour died. Never of the best quality, the instrument was barely in tune, and Miss Williams and her sisters had received only the little tutoring their mother could afford. Pringle had heard plenty of other, far more accomplished young ladies, and yet such simple songs had never moved him so deeply. There was something very natural about her performance for all its lack of polish, and he had watched entranced her hands on the keys, her face, and her chest rising and falling as she took breaths that were surely too tight for perfection.
    Pringle had not noticed that the music had stopped, the dancing and merriment stilled.
    ‘Gentlemen, you are welcome.’ The voice was deep, the tone those of a well-educated Spanish gentleman. Pringle and Hanley both sprang to their feet, returning the bow of Don Antonio Velasco. The source of his nickname was obvious, for his thick hair was white – not grey or mottled, but pure white. As the Spaniard straightened up, Pringle looked closely and saw that the chieftain could not have been more than thirty. He was a slim man, of no more than average height, but his every movement was controlled and precise. Dressed in a finer version of the garb of his band, he had a French dragoon’s musket over his shoulder and wore from his belt a sword, its hilt and scabbard lavishly decorated with gold inlay. It was a sword of honour awarded for bravery by Napoleon in the years before he had become emperor. That surely meant that El Blanco had met and killed such a veteran, and that in itself said a lot.
    There were four partisans with him, two much like the others in the glade, if more heavily laden with weapons. Each had a blunderbuss slung from one shoulder and a carbine from the other, with a couple of pistols and a knife in their belt. The other two were smaller and younger, their hair cut short. Each was swathed in a long black cloak, had black trousers and polished Hessian boots of the type worn by officers. Their faces weresmooth, neither old enough to shave, but each had a musket and sword. Pringle wondered whether they were more relatives of the leader, since they seemed unlikely bodyguards.
    Hanley launched into a suitable speech, praising the leader and expressing the hope that as allies they might work together more closely in future. Then he led them all to the piles of equipment lying stacked beside the tethered mules. Lifting one of the muskets, he passed it to Don Antonio.
    The guerrilla chief took it, felt the heft, examined the