TEARS OF THE FOOT GUARDS

RONDO - STAVE LXIII

S T A V E

LXIII

Eyes open and close. The day shifting – afternoon, dusk, evening. Soul rising, he floats. She takes his hand and pulls him back. Tongues his seared fingers. On his cheek a blown breath, her face hovering. Her tears, cold drops to wash him – Voices.

A raindrop splashed his cheek, hot from human bits. Geordie opened his eyes. A cottony sky all gray. Another drop. A cluster, till the clouds opened up. A wet chill reviving him. A hiss in its white noise . . . Whispers. Weeping. Máthair. He propped on his elbow best he could. A twisted lump next to him. He closed his eyes to clear his vision. It hurt to look. An arm jutted across the chest, hand frozen in a gesture, a blue-coat MaryLand soldier. Was Geordie, himself, dead?

He touched his cheek. Pulled a shard with its bloody tip. And there, on the ground – red shapes, blue shapes, moving like worms forced up by storms. 'Cross his face, a cut like a second mouth, burning. Rain invigorating the dried blood. He rolled and next to him, a mate with the jaw and cheek gone. He shut his eyes hard – another dream, but it was there . . . and it breathed. He took its hand, still warm and it squeezed.

Storms through the night and moans lessened as men expired. Then the smell of rotting meat. Geordie and Tim, glorious after battle, holding hands . . .

A nudge on his foot. Another stronger, parting his legs. Then a nip on his shin. Geordie kicked and a grunt. It turned on Tim. Geordie groped for a rock and coming across a bayonet, with all his strength, he stabbed the pig chewing on Tim. It squealed and dashed.

Dawn – intermittent drizzle with spurts of hard rain. Geordie, his hand still with Tim, but the fingers cold. He'd held that hand dancing on the weather deck of the Royal George so long ago . . . Up my boys, dance for the King. The Doodles'll run a damn sight faster. How can you catch him with wobbly knees? Up there Willcock. Up there Moddy. Mr. Burrows, Mr. Burrows, you fading on me? You going to make Vaughn drag you about the deck like a sack of meal? How about I take a chunk out your arse with my teeth? . . .

He shivered, his throat raw and thick, and forced himself up with a musket to steady him. All about, the dying where they fell. He tugged on Tim's hand, now meat. The corpse on the picket line, the acceptable casualty to win the War. He went through Tim's pockets. Took his soldier's knife and kissed his hand. Fuk thu, a leughadair ghaoil airson breineachadh sam bith a tha agad.

On the Salisbury Road wagons came out of the treeline; the Quartermaster corps come to collect the wounded and dead. Them too like carrion.

Geordie tried to call, but his voice gone. He started to wave, but stopped and looked at the treeline, imagining how 2nd Battalion must've looked crossing the field, their rage to grip the enemy – so too the Grenadiers. And now, broken like so many bits for battlefield scholars to detect – what happened here, they'll wonder. Where did Stuart fall? Had the Grenadiers mixed in? Were there ever Guardsmen named MacEachran and Crotty? Had the British even won? Will the Whigs come out of the woods and finish them? MacLeod's artillery was gone. Had it intentionally fired into their own men?

Against a dead horse Elliot sat with his scalp peeled back and sticky with blood. He watched Geordie mumbling. A flicker of recognition between them and Geordie stumbled over to sit next to him. They leaned on each other to draw warmth.

Women and Negroes walked the field, rifling through dead men's clothing and robbing wounded Americans too weak to resist. Others tended wounds and wrapped them in blankets 'til the wagons came.