Page 61 of The Work of Art

“Wasn’t he?”

“No,” Arthur said. “He wasn’t a soldier at all. But you’re right. I did kill him. I caught hold of him just as I caught hold of you last night. I crushed his throat.”

Philly went very still in his arms. “That’s why you were so certain that you might have killed me? Because of what you did to this other man?”

Arthur felt a sinking sensation in his stomach as he looked down at her. “I’ve frightened you.”

“Yes. Perhaps a little. I didn’t believe you when you said you could have harmed me. I thought you were merely distraught. But now…” She was trembling. “If you woke from a nightmare and thought I was this man…”

“I shouldn’t have told you. It’s served no purpose except to upset you.”

“It’s too late for that now. You must continue.” She tightened her fingers on the front of his waistcoat. “Who was he, Arthur? Why did you have to kill him in such a brutal manner?”

If he hadn’t told her so much already, Arthur would have said nothing more. But Philly was right. He must continue. “The last battle I fought in Spain…It was at Albuera.”

Her brows drew together in an elegant line. “It didn’t have a favorable outcome, I fear.”

“We won the battle,” Arthur informed her dryly. “We were annihilated by cavalry, cut to ribbons by musket fire, and by every measure smashed beyond all recognition, but we won the battle. Unfortunately, there were precious few of us left to enjoy the victory.”

“Oh, Arthur.”

“My regiment fought until we weren’t a regiment anymore. It was chaos, Philly. Cannon fire, smoke, and driving rain. The French pouring over the hills from every direction like a flood, and our own men outflanked and outnumbered. My horse, a chestnut named Lucius, took a musket ball through his shoulder, and I took one in my leg. I managed to continue fighting until a shot from a cannon cut Lucius out from under me. At the same time a piece of artillery shell struck me in the back of the head. I was unconscious before I hit the ground.”

She clutched his waistcoat even tighter, crushing the fabric in her fingers.

“There were too many wounded to treat, and those of us who couldn’t walk off the battlefield were left to lie there. It rained all night, even worse than it had during the battle, and there were sounds—all sorts of sounds like the howling of the wolves and the carrion birds that came to scavenge amongst the bodies, the sounds of men crying out for help, the sounds of men dying. I stayed on that battlefield, bleeding and insensible, for more than a day, halfway sunk into the mud and the mire beneath the dead bodies of my men. When the search parties finally came through, they didn’t see me.”

The sound of the wind rustling through the trees and the water lapping in the pond faded away. Arthur had a sense that he was somewhere else entirely.

“At nightfall, the human scavengers came. They stripped the bodies. Stole whatever was of value. If the soldier they robbed happened to have a little life left in him, they snuffed it out with a knife or a hammer. On the second night, a man found me there in the mud. He leaned over me to remove the buttons from my coat. It was enough to bring me round. I opened my eyes and I saw him there. His hand was on my chest, his fingers closed over one of the buttons. I took hold of his hand—to plea for help, I imagine. But he wasn’t there to help me. And when he felt the touch of my hand, he drew out the knife he’d brought with him.”

Philly’s already pale face drained of the little color it had left.

“I don’t know how I had any strength left to defend myself, but as he drew the knife, I took hold of him by the throat.” Arthur flexed his scarred left hand. “He slashed out at me. He cut at whatever he could reach, but most of all he cut at my hand, trying to get me to release him. It made no difference. I was a man possessed. The more he slashed the knife, the tighter I held him until, finally, I crushed his throat in my hand. It felt as if it lasted for hours. In truth, it was the work of minutes. Seconds. Fortunately, one of the search parties saw the struggle and came to investigate. That was how they found me.”

“But you had to kill him, Arthur! You were fighting for your life.”

“I know that. I’ve no regrets about killing that man. God knows why he’s haunted my dreams these three years. I assume it has something to do with the state I was in when he found me. Weak and vulnerable, unable to properly defend myself.”

Her lips compressed. “I think you defended yourself remarkably well.”

A shadow of a smile crossed Arthur’s face at the hint of pride in her voice. “I suppose I did.”

“I know I shouldn’t wish such a fate on any fellow creature, but he sounds an absolute scoundrel. A man without any honor at all. To steal the buttons from the coat of an injured soldier? What need had he of your buttons? And then to cut your hand with a knife in such a cruel and heartless fashion?” She took his left hand in both of hers and held it in her lap. “Still, I expect I must be grateful to this villain. After all, if you hadn’t struggled with him so violently, the search party would never have seen you and come to your rescue.”

“That’s certainly one way of looking at it.”

She traced her fingertips over his scars. Her touch was warm and soft and heart-wrenchingly tender. He wondered if she had even the slightest notion of the effect it had on him.

“Did they take you straight to hospital?” she asked.

“There was no hospital. They took me to an aid station. There was a harried surgeon there doing one amputation after another. He would have taken off my leg and removed part of my skull, except that I was so ill with fever by then it didn’t seem likely I’d survive.”

Philly’s eyes jerked to his. “They wanted to remove part of your skull? But why?”

“It had been fractured by the artillery shell that struck me during the battle. The surgeon thought to relieve the pressure on my brain. And so he might have, but I was already half-dead, and there were an endless number of soldiers for him to tend to. Soldiers who had a much better chance of recovering from their wounds than I did. I wouldn’t have the surgeon wasting his efforts on me when he could be saving one of them. I told him he’d better leave me to die. So, they dressed my wounds with lint, and propped me out in the rain with some of the poor souls who had just undergone amputation. There was no room in the tent for all the wounded.

“Later in the day, when I still hadn’t succumbed, they loaded me along with hundreds of other wounded soldiers in the backs of wooden bullock carts and we were evacuated to Lisbon. Many men died along the way, and those of us who lived arrived in Lisbon somewhat worse off than when we left Albuera. It was in Lisbon that I spent the next several months in hospital making my recovery.”