“Relief?”Peter countered.“Senseless intoxication, rape, and murder.Is that what you truly believe they were in search of for relief?Perhaps it is our greater failing that we do not properly care for our men that they are driven to such measures.”
“The laws of war permit the sacking of a fortified city that resists our help.It was our right.”
“Then you do admit it was our fault,” Peter said, barely resisting shoving his finger in Davies’s face.“That the sacking occurred at our hands, not at the hands of the French.”
“I...that is...”Captain Davies stammered before bursting out, “You know as well as I do that higher leadership, even Wellington himself, ordered Graham that our men task themselves with destroying the enemy rather than the town and the people.That was his express wish.”
“That certainly worked out in our favor, did it not?”Peter spat, his words rough with sarcasm.“His order that the gates be shut except on strict business hardly lasted an hour.”
“You, I, and all other commanding officers were instructed to enforce the strictest discipline.But it is simply impossible to control so many desperate drunkards.”
“Yes, well, delegation has never been Wellington’s strongest suit, now has it?If the man wanted it done properly, if he truly desired to prevent another Badajoz or Ciudad Rodrigo, he would have needed to be there himself.At the very least for the disciplining.”
“And yet disciplining measures were still taken, even though he could not be there.Assistant Provost Marshal Edward Williams reported that he flogged sixty men.Offenders.And there were efforts to recuperate the plundered goods...”
“Afterthree daysof sacking!”Peter thundered.“By all accounts, Wellington wasn’t even informed of the burning until more than a day later.You and I witnessed all the destruction and dastardly deeds that were done well before anyone was capable of stopping them.I tried and was threatened and attacked, and very well likely would have stayed fighting my own countrymen until I was shot dead if I had not needed to rescue...”—Ana María—“...a person of utmost importance to me.”
Davies stepped closer to Peter now, his whisper intense.“Wellington was not pleased with any of it.In fact, he was furious.But as he has said before, it has fallen to our lot to take many cities by storm and siege.We must trust that this will help us make headway against Napoleon.”
“But he was furious with good reason,” Peter shot back.“San Sebastián contained more atrocities than the sackings of Bajadoz and Ciudad Rodrigo.Not to mention that we left the place a pile of soot.”
“You cannot deny that some of the rumors became furious, politicized.Like the unbelievable notion that Graham would have given the order to set the city aflame.That the action was a matter of warfare strategy or policy.And to think that there were reports that the French lit the torches as part of their defense.If anything, the Spanish should be blaming the French, not us.It’s preposterous.”
“We lost a number of our own officers in that firestorm,” Peter said.
“Precisely.Those Spaniards are trying to campaign against us, and after all we have done to defend them from the French.”
Smoke overwhelmed Peter’s senses, nearly as real as could be.Whether it was emotion or ash forcing him to cough, he could not tell.Piles of soldiers, drunken or dead, were rising on either side of him.A beautiful city burned was hovering before his eyes.Ana’s pain-racked sobs rang in his ears, a sound he thought he had long eradicated from his memory.
“Diplomatic tensions have not been so heated in many years,” Davies continued.“It has even created quite a sensation in London’s drawing rooms.My own mother wrote me, asking...”
Peter squeezed his eyes shut, words exploding from him.“Those Spaniardssaw their country ransacked, their livelihoods destroyed.No house was safe, no convent sacred enough to keep out the fury of their once-protectors.Those Spaniardssaw their tender daughters and...andwivesselfishly ravaged,” Peter’s voice shattered, and his hands fisted tight against his legs.“And at our hands, might I add.Those who were not shot down in their own doorways or mercilessly violated found themselves forced to jump from the rooftops to avoid being burned alive.”He blinked hard, suddenly unable to speak past the block of emotion in his throat.“It is all a great, unforgivable sin.It ought never to have happened.Not in San Sebastián, not anywhere.And certainly not at the hands of the soldiers who ought to have been defending them.It was not some sort of mistaken skirmish in the wake of the retreating French.It was frenzied but systemic.It was intentional, even if the fire perhaps was not.”
Finally, Davies was silenced.And the weighty dip in his shoulders and dark, haunted look in his eyes revealed that he knew the truth of it all, just as Peter did.
“And so, something must be done,” Peter concluded.“You must help me.It is of utmost importance.”
“Ashmore, you know as well as I do that speaking out against the decisions of our leaders in such open defiance and rebellion would have dire repercussions.Even now, soldiers are being banished for as much.”
Peter had heard of one such banishment.But the punishment was not decided for inflammatory comments.Murmured rumors among his men had evidenced that the poor soldier had taken up arms against a drunken lieutenant who was at the verge of forcing himself upon a helpless woman.It had not been a mere act of speaking out.It had been something much braver.A small part of Peter wished he could have done the same.But then he would not have been able to save Ana.And he would never regret that decision for as long as he lived.
He rubbed a hand over his eyes.“It remains unjust that so many have had to suffer for the pride of our superiors.”
“My friend, while I regret—and even hate—the unnecessary violence that has happened in the Crown’s search for Napoleon, I have served for a few more years than you.I was there at Badajoz.These things cannot always be prevented.In one way or another, they will always be a consequence of war.”He ran a hand through his hair, his expression tainted with helplessness.
“But it should not be so.Not when we harm our own.Not when our victims arethose we care for.”
Captain Davies stepped back from Peter, his light blue gaze scanning across his face.“Why are you acting so entirely strange about this?Do you have a Spanish relation?Perhaps you’re half Spanish yourself?”
Peter squirmed, pulling at the starched uniform collar that was rubbing his neck raw.Davies’s words were much too close to the truth.
But perhaps that truth was the key.Perhaps if he understood why Peter felt so strongly about this, he would lobby with him, defend the victims.Help him protect Ana.
“I do have a Spanish relation.A wife, in fact.”
“You are a married man, and I never had the slightest idea?I would offer my congratulations if not for the look of total distress on your face.”
“It is somewhat of a recent development,” Peter said.“After the sacking.”
