“And remind damned Humphreys that I want his written account of the battle and his actions by morning. I want him to think it all through again and remember what an idiot he was.”
“I’ll do that. I think you’ll find him a humbled man, this evening.”
Fitting his black officer’s shako over his head, Gabriel ducked out through the tent’s flaps. “He’d best be, if he knows what’s good for him.”
Even with the sounds of battle practically still ringing through the valley and the village of Salamanca itself, the vast camp of the allied English, Portuguese, and Spanish armies had already settled into its usual state of controlled chaos. He made his way among the tents and wagons and horse paddocks, heading for the slight rise on the northern edge.
“Major Forrester,” one of the lads in a group around a fire called, “I flatten out my buttons to pass them off as English coins. Never thought to use them as cannonballs!”
Amid the laughter, his fellows rose to toast him with their tin cups. “To the Beast of Bussaco, who saved all our arses again today! Huzzah! The Beast!”
Gabriel grinned, nodding. A few drunken toasts, he could manage. The first man who referred to him as Major Buttons, though, was definitely going to get knocked on his arse. “Thank you, lads. And if you have any spare buttons you haven’t hammered out yet, Sergeant Kelgrove has need of about eight of them. He’ll pay a shilling apiece.”
Wellington had been offered a villa on the far edge of Salamanca for his use, but as usual he kept to his large, plain tent where he could have ready access to his officers and men. The man lived as much on information as he did on beef and bread. When Gabriel reached the lieutenant general’s lodgings, a slender young man looking no older than twelve saluted. “Major Forrester.”
Gabriel returned the gesture. “Evans.”
“Lord Wellington is about to sit for dinner, sir.”
Stifling a sigh at how long he was likely to have to wear his heavy wool coat now, Gabriel nodded. “I’ll await his convenience, then. Please send me word when he’s avail—”
“Lord Wellington asks that you join him, sir.” Taking a step back, Corporal Evans pulled the tent flap aside and gestured him to enter.
Blast it all. He’d sat for officers’ dinners with Wellington before, and had on occasion joined the earl and other officers for drinks—and once, for a painful trio of hours at some local lordling’s house to listen to all the young misses in the area sing and play the harp and the pianoforte. There’d always been a distraction, or other, more clever-tongued people to carry on the conversation. This was different. Still, he supposed, it would be more agreeable to be dressed down over dinner than with naught to show for it.
The tent had been partitioned into several sections, to give the appearance that those inside had at least a degree of privacy. In the middle sat a table with room for a dozen or so officers, though at present only two chairs and two settings were visible. A private approached to take his hat and gloves, while another one pulled a chair out from the table.
Perhaps he’d been killed this afternoon, after all; with the candlelit gloom of the command tent and the prospect of carrying on a prolonged conversation with his famously reticent commanding officer, this was shaping nicely into his idea of hell. When the chair-holding private cleared his throat, Gabriel blew out his breath and sat.
In the next heartbeat Wellington stepped into sight, and Gabriel stood again. “General.”
“Major. You are going to remain for the meal, I trust? Not gallop off halfway through the roast mutton to go fling buttons at enemy soldiers?”
Damnation.Gabriel brushed at the front of his uniform. “My aide-de-camp asked that I not do so, my lord. He worries the army will run short of buttons and we’ll look too shabby to ride into Madrid.”
“And I second his very wise request. And his worry. Sit down, Major. Redding, wine.”
One of the privates scurried over to the tent’s liquor cabinet and unlocked the large mahogany tantalus. Wellington might scoff at soft beds and other luxuries, but the man knew his liquor. Personally Gabriel would have preferred something stronger than wine, especially if he was about to be reassigned to a desk in the Horse Guards, but he was very clearly in Rome, so to speak. Tonight he would drink wine.
Once Private Redding poured, the tent seemed to empty of all staff. It must have been prearranged, because accustomed as Gabriel was to looking for subtle signs, shifts in the battlefield, he hadn’t detected anything at all. The deep red drink was too sweet by far for his taste, but that meant it was likely more expensive than anything he could have afforded on his own, so he sipped at it and tried to look mildly impressed.
“I had a plan for the battle today,” Wellington said into the silence, his own glass sitting untouched. “A feint by my center to lure in the French cavalry, with cannons to smash them to bits while my foot soldiers ground theirs into paste.”
“Yes, sir. I’m aware of that.”
“And you informed your Lieutenant Humphreys of this, as well, I assume?”
“I did.” Gabriel took a breath. The lad didn’t deserve defending, but if he had truly learned his lesson today, he had the makings of a competent officer. “The smoke obscured the flags. Humphreys knew if he lagged that he would leave an opening for the cavalry to escape. In his… inexperience, he rushed forward instead of looking for confirmation.”
“So if you’d been there as you’d intended, you would still have all your uniform buttons?” Finally sitting back, the earl lifted his glass and took a long, slow drink.
“In theory, I suppose, though I have no way of knowing in what condition my uniform might have ended.”
“I won’t say you single-handedly won the battle of Salamanca,” the lieutenant general mused a moment later, “but I will say that you single-handedly kept us from losing it, Major. If they weren’t already praising your actions at Bussaco, you’d be the Savior of Salamanca after today.”
That didn’t precisely sound like a drumming-down. Yet, anyway. “I am a soldier, sir. I do what is required to win.”
“Just as well. Nicknames are tricky things to live up to.”
