“No, to give him an honest chance, I shall take it up myself.”
Fitzwilliam scowled. “Let him be tonight. Tomorrow you may retrieve him.” He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “You tell that boy that even the smallest error now shall see him stripped of his rank and left to find his own way home.”
Darcy nodded.
“Again, Vaughan,” Darcy said flatly. “More quickly this time.”
“Yes, Major Darcy,” the boy said. He shot his gun, set it down, and began to reload.
“Prime. Load. Shoot.”
The boy did so.
“Faster.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Prime, load . . . faster, Vaughan.”
“Yes, sir!”
Darcy sighed. Still too long. He glanced at his watch. Over the past weeks, he had tested Vaughan’s skills with a sword and been pleased. The gun was another story. It was a mystery how he had made it through training, and a miracle the boy had not shot himself before he injured the general. Still, he was now loading two balls a minute with accuracy. Unfortunately, he needed to be able to load and fire three.
“Enough,” Darcy called at last. He held out his hand for Vaughan’s gun, which he would earn back only when Darcy approved. “That is all for today, but you will report to me at daybreak.”
Vaughan rubbed his shoulder. He must be sore after so many shots, but better in pain than dead. He had mentioned a sickly mother back in England who depended upon his pay. How much worse would it have been had the general not forgiven him? How much worse should the boy fall in battle because he could not load his own weapon quickly enough to remain alive?
“We will make a soldier of you yet,” Darcy grumbled.
The boy’s eyes shone with gratitude.
“Go have your supper and take your rest,” Darcy said with a bit more kindness.
Albuera, Spain
20 May 1811
“Wake up, you idle lout,” Darcy heard someone say. He lifted one heavy eyelid and after a moment realised that it was his cousin accosting him.
“Why?” he croaked.
“The post has finally caught up with us,” Fitzwilliam said, tossing a small bundle at Darcy’s head. “Vaughan has brought our letters. You should make him your batman. He is always about.”
Darcy sniffed, palmed the letters, and closed his eyes. “I shall read them later.”
Their latest battle had ended a few days prior. Fitzwilliam had already rested, but Darcy was in pain and even when he was not, had always required more repose than his cousin. Fitzwilliam was in fine form on only a handful of hours a night.
“You shall have to wake soon anyway. Beresford wants to speak with all the officers in an hour.”
Fitzwilliam knew him well. Unless there was an emergency, it took Darcy at least thirty minutes and a cup of coffee before he was alert enough to meet with a superior officer.
Groaning, he swung his legs over the side of his cot and sat up, holding himself stiffly.
“How is it?” Fitzwilliam did not look at Darcy as he asked the question. He was pretending not to be affected, but Darcy knew him too well.
They had been supremely fortunate, the pair of them. In all the battles they had fought since arriving abroad almost four years ago, they had only a few minor wounds between them. They had each suffered a bayonet’s cut, and Fitzwilliam had been struck in the head with the stock of a musket, leaving him with a scar at his hairline.
Darcy had nearly broken a hand and been ploughed over by a Spanish horse without a rider, leaving him senseless for a time. Fitzwilliam had found him on the field of battle afterward and dragged him away. Darcy jested about it when he had recovered—he was a good deal taller and heavier than his cousin and he wondered aloud how Fitzwilliam had managed. But Fitzwilliam would not speak of it.