Read Online Viva Jacquelina! by L. A. Meyer - Free Book Online Page A

her up and take her to the hospital. It is right over there.”
    I feel myself being lifted and carried. The eyelids finally flutter open and I see Montoya above me, astride his horse, his black sombrero framing his face.
    I twist my head and look about, all confused. There is a large jagged hole in the road where that shell hit . . . and, oh, no . . . there lies my poor Isabella on her side, her neck stretched out, and all the rest of her quite still and, I know, quite dead.
Oh, I only knew you for a little while, but you were a good little mare. If there is a heaven for horses, I hope you are there, little one, and I hope the grass is green.
    As all of my shaky senses return, I realize a strong young man has his right arm under my legs at the knees, and the other arm around my shoulders, while my head lolls about, my shako dangling from my neck on its leather strap.
    I start to squirm.
    â€œNo . . . no, I am all right,” I protest. “I don’t have to go to hospital. Just let me down, please, just let me get back. I must find—”
    â€œThe battle is over, Miss, and we have won the day,
gracias a Dios,
” says Montoya. He is no longer smiling.
    â€œBut then, why?”
    â€œBecause I think you will want to go there, Senhorita,” says the very rough man, with some kindness in his voice. “The man who kissed you the other day when I sat at his table. I found him
simpático.
He is in there. With many others.”
    I gasp.
Richard!
    I wriggle out of the man’s grasp and discover that I am standing in front of a large warehouse. From the sounds of pain and agony coming from within, I know exactly what it is—a battlefield hospital, little more than a charnel house, a place of butchery and despair and death.
    I meet Sergeant Bailey coming out, supporting a wounded Archie MacDuff, who has a bandage around his head, through which blood is seeping. Seeing me, he says, “Over to the left. Fourth bed. Sorry, Miss.”
    I rush in the door and am once again greeted with the cries and groans of the wounded. I had been in a hospital like this on the battlefield of Jena, where I said my last goodbyes to Captain Bardot.
Please, Lord, don’t let it be like that this time, please.
    There he is. He lies on his back on a rude cot. There is a cut to his head and blood covers half his beautiful face, but that worries me less than the bloodstain on his left side just below the rib cage.
    â€œOh, Richard,” I sob. “Can you hear me?”
    His eyelids flutter open and fix on me. He smiles.
    â€œHello, Princess. Good to see you.”
    â€œRichard, dear, I am so sorry!”
    â€œAh. It is but a scratch.” He moves a bit and groans, proving it is not just a scratch. “Did we win?”
    â€œYes, the day is ours.”
    â€œMy men?”
    â€œI saw Sergeant Bailey and Private MacDuff outside. They are all right. I don’t know about the others. I think most came through.”
    â€œThat’s good, I . . . I . . .” his eyelids droop and fall shut.
    No, Richard, don’t die!
    A man stands next to me and, seeing my concern, says, “We have given him something. For the pain.”
    â€œWill he live, Doctor? Oh, please say he will!”
    â€œHe might. And you should get that scrape patched up.”
    A cut on my forehead, which I had not yet noticed, persists on bleeding into my eye. Must have happened when I hit the dirt.
    I wipe it away and say, “Never mind that. What will happen to him now?”
    â€œHMS
Tortoise
is being made over into a hospital ship. As soon as we fill her up with wounded, she’ll be off for Britain. Then we’ll fill up HMS
Guardian,
too.”
    In spite of its distress, my mind clears and turns prac-tical.
    â€œDo you want to make an easy one hundred pounds?” I ask the surgeon.
    â€œI would not mind it.”
    The man has a notebook and he is writing in it—the