Flashman's Escape Read online

  The indignity of being left a sprawled, naked corpse filled me with more anger than the thought of dying at all. I did not have the strength to use my hidden sword but I remembered the pistol that I had managed to keep in my right-hand coat pocket. I pulled it out. The powder would be soaked but I hoped that the act of pointing and cocking it might deter those intent on making me leave this world in the same undressed state as I had arrived in it. I heard a movement to my right and looked around in that direction. Sure enough another of those harridans was working her way over the bodies. This one was alone, and instead of stripping was reaching down and emptying their pockets, doubtless with a weapon ready if needed. I lay back, hoping she would pass by without touching me, but no, she seemed set to travel along the tidemark of bodies I lay amongst.

  She was four bodies away when I moved. I sat up suddenly, gasping at the pain this caused in my chest. I raised the pistol and said hoarsely in Spanish, “I have a pistol. Keep away.” To emphasise the point I cocked the weapon.

  “Oh! Thank God you are alive, Thomas,” cried Lucy Benton. She was in the act of throwing herself into my arms when she stopped, her face frozen in horror. I must have looked a sight, half my face covered in dried blood and gaping holes in my chest and leg. She slowly surveyed my wounds, with her eyes coming back to the hole in my chest. She knew what that meant as well as I. “Oh, my poor Thomas. First Bill and now you.”

  “I am not dead yet,” I grumbled.

  “No, of course not, and some pull through from terrible wounds.” She tried to sound more cheerful but she was not convincing. “I will stay with you anyway.” She paused. “So that you are not alone.” The unspoken words ‘when you die’ hung like lead between us.

  “Could you get help?” I asked. “Someone to take me to the surgeons.”

  “Not now,” she replied gently. “The few that are left are just exhausted. They battled all day and have just dropped to sleep where they stopped, even in this storm. They will come back in the morning.”

  The talk of exhaustion made me realise how tired I was. I had used all my energy to make the challenge with the pistol. The rain still beat down around us and I was shivering slightly with shock, cold or both. I remembered the locals still working their way towards us. “Well, you will not have long to wait if those villagers come over here. I think they kill the wounded who resist being robbed of everything.”

  Lucy looked over at the line of villagers industriously progressing across the battlefield. “We will see about that,” she muttered firmly while reaching into her skirts and withdrawing a dagger that I had not known she carried. She marched across to the villagers, shouting at them in Portuguese. I did not understand all of the words, but the gist was that she would cut their throats if they came anywhere near us and her friends, the soldiers, would hunt down every last one of them. The peasants shouted some reply and, satisfied, Lucy came back. “Don’t worry, they won’t bother us now.”

  She busied herself amongst the bodies for a while and I realised that she was making stands of muskets around us. Then she rummaged around, finding blankets tied to packs, and stuck them over the bayonets in the musket stands to make a canopy over me. Finally she lay down beside me under the rudimentary shelter and spread more blankets across us. We talked quietly for a while about the battle. I told her how Price-Thomas had died and asked her to tell his uncle. She told me how the battle had been won and held me close. Even though we were both soaked through, slowly I began to feel some warmth.

  I must have fallen asleep again for it was dawn when I awoke, a dead dog under one arm and a pretty living girl on the other. As I watched the sun slowly creeping up into the sky, I began to think that if I had lived this long, perhaps I would not die of these wounds after all. It had finally stopped raining and some soldiers were slowly picking their way over the battlefield, looking for comrades and chasing off any of the villagers still working in the daylight. Eventually Lucy saw two men she knew from the Buffs and called them over.

  “Take my sword to Lieutenant Hervey and ask him to look after it for me,” I told her. “It is hidden under Boney.”

  A few minutes later I was hoisted up on a stretcher made, ironically, from a broken lance fed through the sleeves of several uniform coats. It was only as I was carried across the battlefield that I realised the true scale of the carnage. The ground was covered with mostly naked white bodies for hundreds of yards. It was estimated that over eight thousand men had died, with at least as many wounded. I remember seeing three wounded and naked men who had dragged themselves to a shallow trench in the mud, probably made by a cannon ball. It had filled with water during the night and they were drinking from the puddle to satisfy their thirst. I was grateful to Lucy, who had found me a canteen to drink from during the night.

  My stretcher bearers carried me down to the chapel in the village where the surgeons had set up their dressing station, but I was not seen by a surgeon. One of their assistants had a brief glance at my chest and directed the men carrying me to an open yard behind the church. There I was left with hundreds of other seriously wounded men. Officers were put alongside the wall out of the wind; even near to death rank had its privileges. The rest of the men were laid out all over the yard. There were shocking injuries all about me: chests flayed open by shot, stomachs cut open by bayonets, a head half smashed by a musket butt. The stench of fouled bodies made me gag when I first arrived, but I soon ceased to notice it. What I did see, though, was that hardly anyone from this yard was taken into the church where I thought the surgeons would be operating. Instead padres roamed amongst the prone men with pocket books, taking down last requests, while half a dozen men were fully occupied taking the recently deceased out of the yard to make room for more seriously injured coming in. Finally I realised that this was the open-air equivalent of something I had heard about after earlier battles, a ‘death room’. Surgeons, or their assistants, would put those that were beyond hope in a quiet space, where they could pass away in peace. That freed up time to deal with those that they thought they could save. Well, dammit; I was not ready to die yet.

  Eventually I managed to catch the attention of one of the passing padres.

  “What is it, my boy?” he asked solemnly. “Would you like to pass on a message for a loved one?”

  “No, I would like you to fetch Surgeon Price for me.” Price was Ensign Price-Thomas’s uncle.

  “The surgeons are far too busy dealing with the injured to be interrupted now,” exclaimed the padre, sounding slightly indignant at the very idea.

  I gritted my teeth to stay calm for a moment. Getting angry would not help and I did not have the strength to box his ears. “You may have noticed that I am a little injured myself,” I said acidly, but then I thought I would be better served to play on his Christian heartstrings. “I was with Price’s nephew when he died,” I explained, trying to adopt a look of God-fearing piety. “He was only fifteen, and as he prepared to meet his maker he begged me as a charity to speak to his uncle for him. With his last ounce of strength he made me give an oath that I would do so.” I was wringing my hands at this point like a proper Christian martyr. “He insisted it was the only way he could pass into heaven with a clear conscience. I beg you, sir, let me fulfil the boy’s dying wish.” It was of course errant bosh – poor Price-Thomas had died alone with at least one lance driven clean through him – but the padre did not know that. The Bible thumper was positively wiping his eye when I had finished and he assured me that he would do my bidding at once.

  I sank back against the stone and shut my eyes in relief. In what seemed no time at all a voice was calling out, “Captain Flashman.” I looked up and in front of me there was a vaguely familiar cove in a blood-soaked apron with more bloodstains up his arms to his shoulders. The padre also hovered nearby to overhear the conversation. “Lieutenant Hervey has already told me what you…” The newcomer paused before continuing. “… and your dog did to save young Edward. I am much obliged to you. The pad
re says you have a message for me.”

  I looked at the padre, who leaned in close to hear the message and nodded at me encouragingly. “Thank you, Padre,” I murmured. “If we could have a little privacy…”

  “Of course, of course,” replied the padre, looking crestfallen and moving away.

  I looked the surgeon in the eye and asked quietly, “This is a dying room, isn’t it?”

  He glanced around briefly at those nearby to check that they were not listening and then slowly nodded.

  “Well, I am not ready to die. I want to be looked at by a surgeon.”

  “What was the message from Edward?” asked Price sternly.

  “He declared you were the best damn surgeon he knew and that if I was ever wounded I should ask for you.” For a moment I thought Price was going to walk away, but then a sad grin crossed his face.

  “I very much doubt he did say that, Captain Flashman, but Edward did speak warmly about you. So for his sake I will examine you. It is only the chest wound that matters; the rest can be healed.”

  He got down on one knee beside me. I expected him to probe or prod the hole, but instead he moved his head towards my chest and smelt it. He gave a grunt of approval and made me lean forward so that he could smell the entry wound too. “The ball does not seem to have punctured your bowel, and it has missed your ribs. What about breathing – are you coughing up blood?” I assured him I wasn’t. “Well, it seems you are in the wrong place after all,” he stated at length. Then he beckoned some stretcher bearers and I was carried into the chapel.

  I will spare you a detailed description of that charnel house, but after one glance at the buckets of severed limbs and the sweating, screaming bodies tied down to one of the four tables in use, I began to wonder if I had been better outside after all. I joined a queue on stretchers of those waiting to be treated and can honestly say it was one of the most terrifying half hours of what had already been a colourful life.

  In battle there was always the chance you would escape unscathed, but waiting there you knew that in a short while you would be hauled up onto one of the blood-soaked doors resting on barrels that served as operating tables in this primitive field hospital. Anyone who tells you that he lay there like a gentleman and had a civilised conversation while his leg was sawn off is a lying bastard. By that point the surgical brandy to numb the pain had long since been used up, as had any opiates. The assistants were exhausted, like the surgeons, and instead of trying to hold down the struggling victims, they had taken to lashing them firmly to the table before proceedings started. Even then the poor devils under the knife thrashed about. I saw one fellow, mad with pain, get a cudgel to the head for his trouble. As he slumped unconscious it seemed a kindness.

  By the time my turn came I was gibbering with terror and trying to drag myself back out of the door I had schemed so hard to enter.

  “That one next,” intoned a tired young man, pointing in my direction.

  “I am feeling a little better,” I called back hopefully. “Why don’t you look at someone else?”

  The assistants took no notice and in a moment I was deposited none too gently on the gore-stained planks. Close to I saw that the surgeon, despite the tired eyes and blood-spattered cheek, looked no older than me. He was by far the youngest of the surgeons present and I cursed my luck to get the least experienced man.

  “George Guthrie,” he introduced himself and held out his reddened fingers. As I reached out a hand to shake it, one of his assistants passed a rope across my chest to start securing me to the table.

  “Thomas Flashman.” I had started to return the greeting automatically but then as the rope tightened across my chest and my mind flashed to what could follow I began to panic. “No, please,” I begged as I struggled to get up.

  Guthrie was already surveying my wounds with a practised eye. I found out later that despite his youth Guthrie was the chief medical officer there, having been apprenticed to a surgeon when he was just fourteen. “Belay the rope, John,” he said calmly to his assistant. “I might need to turn the captain over.” Already his hand was passing over my head and feeling the wound to my scalp. “A nasty cut, but no damage to the skull.”

  “What is he doing with that blade?” I asked, my voice rising in fear as John, the assistant, moved towards my leg holding a knife he had pulled from his belt.

  The answer was accompanied by a ripping fabric sound as Guthrie explained: “Don’t worry, he is just cutting the trouser away from your leg so that I can see the wound.”

  I winced as the blood-soaked cloth was torn away, taking with it some scabs around the hole in my leg. I could not see the actual wound as it was on the back of my thigh but it felt wet, as though it was bleeding again.

  “Would you like to sit up so that John can remove your coat and shirt without need of the knife?”

  “Thank you.” I sensed Guthrie watching me carefully as I struggled to sit up. He did not help but looked closely at how easily I could move different parts of my body. “It is a silk shirt,” I explained. “Bloody expensive but I save it for battles. I have heard that silk stays in one piece in a wound, reducing infection – is that right?” The assistant was now reaching for the coat I had shrugged off and was helping me lift the blood-stained shirt over my head.

  “That is indeed correct, Captain,” agreed Guthrie with a half amused smile. “Unfortunately it is not as good as linen for bandages.” As he spoke I heard more ripping of fabric and turned to see the grinning John running his knife straight down the back of my shirt.

  “What the devil?”

  “I am sorry, Captain,” replied Guthrie, “we have long since run out of bandages. But don’t worry, you will get your shirt back. And it is not for everyone to leave here bandaged in silk. Now let’s have a look at what we have.” He bent down to examine closely the star-shaped exit wound on my chest and went through the smelling ritual again. Quite how either surgeon could smell anything with the surrounding stink of blood, guts and shit was beyond me. “You have quite good movement, Captain, the wound smells clean and you are not coughing up blood. You will need some stiches to hold this wound together but let’s turn you over.”

  Between them Guthrie and his assistant helped me to turn over on the broken door table. I felt even more vulnerable face down as I was not able to see what they were doing. I felt Guthrie feeling my leg wound first.

  “Just muscle damage,” he intoned. “You will need more stitches. You are lucky he missed the bone and the major blood vessels.”

  I did not feel lucky a moment later when I felt an agonising stabbing pain in my back. I reared up but the assistant pushed me back down firmly on the board.

  “What are you doing? That bloody hurt!” I cried out as my cheek was pressed into the blood-stained wood.

  “I was just using a probe to pull out some of your jacket that had been carried into the hole by the musket ball. It had scabbed into the wound. I cannot find any of your silk shirt so we must hope that it was carried out with the ball. I just need to cauterise a couple of blood vessels and then we can stitch and bandage you up. Can you lie still for that or do we need to tie you down?”

  I lay still, holding my breath when told and sweating as I felt the heat of the cauterising iron move across my back. There was a sharp pain and a sizzling sound as it was used but I did not dare move a fraction of an inch with red-hot metal so close to my insides. Guthrie then put some stitches in my leg and chest and with his assistant started to bandage me in strips of my expensive silk.

  “You have been remarkably lucky, Captain Flashman. The ball missed your spine and ribs and seems to have passed between your lungs and your guts, doing little damage to either. Even your liver seems to have escaped its path.” I felt a huge surge of relief until he added, “If you can avoid infection, you might just live, but with such deep wounds that won’t be easy.” While such a diagnosis might seem grim, compared to the imminent death I had been expecting just hours before, it was a big imp
rovement.

  “Thank you, Doctor,” I said, shaking his hand again.

  But already his eye was moving to the crowd of men waiting on the floor. “That one next,” he called as I stood up from the table.

  I still had one good leg and with my improved prognosis felt a lot better than I did before. I thought I could hobble out of the chapel on my own, but quickly discovered that I was as weak as a kitten, probably due to loss of blood. Another orderly helped me put my coat back over my now bandaged chest and guided me out and into a different yard. This one was full of other patients with dressed wounds who had been judged worth saving. Most, like me, were still plastered with caked blood and filthy, but we were alive and we had hope of recovery. I did not want to lie down in the mud and so sat myself on a low section of wall with my bandaged leg stretched out in front of me. A weak sun was shining down and I closed my eyes and turned my face towards it. I felt its warmth on my face and stared at its gold glow through my eyelids, spending a moment relishing the simple joy of just being alive.

  Chapter 10