Chapter Two, The First Last Stand

I began to rise from my bed, to acertain my exact location (I knew I was in a British room- as a Russian prisoner my surroundings would have been much more luxorious) and how I had got there, from my resting place in the harsh, unforgiving valley.  The last I remembered, my two faithful defenders had been heading for home- how had they fared, I wondered? -and I’d been facing down a giant and bloodthirsty Cossack, barely able to raise my sword to defend myself against his storming blows.  Why was I not dead?

Not that I wasn’t grateful, you must understand.  On the contrary, I was indescribably relieved to discover that I hadn’t been skewered through by some foreign blade.  I just couldn’t see how.

My speculation was cut short by an agonising pain that ran up my left leg and fanned across my chest, petering out around my shoulders.  The sheer force of the pain caused me to cry out as I slid back down onto the bed helplessly, cursing through my teeth and blinking away the tears that had begun to well up in the corners of my eyes.  The racket I caused must have been heard by someone, and no wonder when you consider the volume I reached, for moments later a doctor (who bore shockingly close resemblance to an overweight rat) bustled in, right away checking over this or that, and muttering worriedly to himself.  He nodded briefly to me, and then scurried off out of the room again.  Bewildered, I lay there on the bed, waiting for the pain to subside so that I could find out what was going on.

After a short interval, the rodentesque doctor returned, with a vast armful of dressings, and began  to unroll a thick, linen bandage from my left leg, to replace it with an unbloodied one.  Behind him trailed none other than one of my own personal heroes Lord George Paget.  Of course, he lead our regiment so we’d met before, but for him to single me out in this way... I was more than a little overwhelmed, especially in my fragile state.  I had no idea why he was there, and although I didn’t much care at that precise moment, it was made clear that my questions would have to wait, as he began to speak almost as soon as he had drawn up a stool beside my bed.  What he said, however, was perhaps the most remarkable part of it all.

“Montgomery, my boy, you gave us quite a scare there you did!”  Lord George chuckled, but it was a humourless laugh.  “For three days now, you’ve been little more than a corpse, barely breathing and perpetually unconscious.  We had begun to fear the worst, my boy.”  Three days?  It couldn’t have been, surely?  “I could weep for joy to see you here with your eyes open and your chest rising and falling with such strength.  And yet, it saddens me deeply that this terrible state,” and at this he gestured to my feeble body still lying almost motionless upon the bed, “seems a true miracle, that your life so diminished and your body so broken and worn feels like a prayer answered, that compared with your previous condition you have made such progress.  For before, when you came into the hospital…”  Here he trailed off, and I was alarmed to see tears in the creased corners of his eyes.  How bad was I?  I spoke out for the first time since awakening, and to my surprise, my voice came out as no more that a cracked whisper, so long had it been since it was last in use, back on the bloody battlefield.

“How bad is it?” I asked hoarsely, forgetting all etiquette in my concern.  “I mean, it was just a sword cut, and a couple of blows, after all…”  I stopped, seeing his expression.  “Just a sword cut?”  He repeated, disbelief tingeing his voice.  “Dear boy, that cut almost took your life!  I am informed by the doctor here,” he continued, gesturing to the busy man who was now cleaning the part of the gash across my stomach, “that had the blade entered one quarter inch higher, your lung would have been pierced.  As it is the wound almost bled you to death.  When you got back to camp, your body limp and lifeless, you were almost encased in a layer of clotting blood, the wound oozing the liquid away so rapidly it was feared you would be lost before the good doctor here could get you to the hospital.  He stitched you up as best he could, and we’ve been waiting ever since.  Until now, we all feared you would die, as most of the other men brought in have by now.”  He spoke so matter-of-factly, but his eyes glittered with emotion.

“When Lieutenant William Harvey- the man you sacrificed yourself so nobly to save- brought your almost lifeless body to us, he told us of your selfless act in the battle, choosing to give up your chances of survival, slim though they were, to save himself and his comrade Sergeant Thomas Wilson.  When he described to us how you stood there, alone and badly wounded, prepared to die for your countrymen and for honour, well, I don’t mind admitting that I wept to see you then, a mere shell of the strong and upstanding young man from his story, watching you die by inches on this very cot.  How bravely you acted, with such courage and initiative!  Lieutenant Harvey tells us how you saved him, and speaks in all but reverential tones when he relates the tale to us.  I can only guess what noble act by your good self brought him to respect you so, my boy, but my eyes show me all too clearly the terrible, terrible consequences your valour has brought upon you.  It is by God’s grace, aye, and the skill of the good doctor that you’re still here at all.  That I am able to speak with you, one of the few heroes who survived the charge, is nothing short of miraculous.  I would do anything to ease your suffering, dear boy, for so plainly is your agony written across your face, though you struggle to conceal the pain.  Such a fine, brave boy! Such a noble hero!”  And with that final exclamation he broke off from his speech to dab at his eyes with a stained handkerchief.

What did he mean, ‘hero’?  I struggled to understand, my thoughts travelling sluggishly through the soupy fog in my skull.  The last I remembered, I’d been squaring up to the massive Cossack, his sabre slicing through my raw skin over and over… I shuddered at the painful memory.  Surely he couldn’t mean that- weren’t heroes supposed to come out of the battle whole and well, sabres held aloft and glistening with foreign blood?  Whereas I, on the other hand, had just awoken, allegedly days later, after blacking out over a few cuts. Well, maybe more than mere cuts, but still; I wasn’t at all sure that my little fiasco, as I saw it, could quite be described so handsomely.  Feeling it my duty to own up, enormously gratifying though Lord Paget’s fawning attentions were, I spoke up.  “Sir,” I began, unsure exactly how to begin.  “Sir, I feel compelled to admit that, marvellous though your oration was, I cannot quite see how it fits with the truth, if I may say so.”  Lord George looked down at me pityingly, no doubt assuming I was delusional from blood loss or the like.  I filled the silence, quickly explaining myself.  “You see, my lord, it came to my attention during that exceedingly complementary speech that what I did was not actually what you might call heroism, as such.”  I tried to let him down gently, but I suspect that tact was not really my strong point at that moment.  “I just faced up to the enemy like every other man, fighting desperately.  I did aid, I hope, the two officers with me, both more important than I to the force, escape to carry out their duty, as I did mine, but it was what any of the others would have done, sir.  You make it sound all so glorious, so noble, but in truth, sir, I was terrified.  When push came to shove, I carried out my duty merely because there was nothing else to be done.  So you see, sir, I’m terribly sorry to have disappointed you like this, but you must understand that I’m no more a hero than anyone else who stood and fought on that battlefield.”  I concluded my confession lamely, looking awkwardly at Lord George’s expression then down at my sheets, awaiting his verdict.  Maybe a thousand responses crossed my mind, none good, but what came I never imagined.

George Paget threw back his head and laughed, the sound quite out of place in that shabby, desolate field hospital.  To say that I was bewildered would be an understatement, at least.  “My lord, I assure you that I am completely serious!” I protested at his unexpected outburst.  “I wish it were otherwise, that I had opted to remain at my post for honour, or glory, sir, but I spoke the truth when I said it was necessity.  I have a duty to England, sir, and I’ll not break my word lightly.”  I tried to look nonchalant and manly as I sat there, but slumped and broken in a hospital bed that is a virtually impossible manner to achieve, although I am proud to say that I succeeded in maintaining an outward coolness at least, though the pain that coursed through me was one of the worst I have felt these many long years- certainly it was the most agonising sensation I’d ever experienced by that time in my young life- and it was almost unbearable to just sit there and smile on throughout it, when all the while I was longing, though I kept it hidden away inside, to scream out in pain and anger, or break down and weep at the apparent hopelessness of the whole situation.

“Montgomery, my dear chap,” began Paget, his deep, knowing eyes on mine; most uncomfortable.  “Do you not recount with pride your sacrifice, that you chose not to over-labour the fleeing horse, to save your own, precious life instead facing certain death at the hands of a blue ice devil?  For myself, I believe that you are a hero, however ardently you deny.  You, little more than a boy yet so much greater than most men, who risked all for no return?  You are an inspiration, and words cannot say how much your actions mean, especially to the men you would give yourself for, but to us all, for you have proven that fervour and strength of the youngest generation of Englishmen.”  He drew, at last to a close, and looked upon my pathetic figure with an almost paternal affection, holding my limp hand gently.

I sighed, and frowned deeply.  Were my actions those of a hero?  They certainly hadn’t felt heroic at the time.  Pain and fear were my sole companions in that lonely duel, courage and righteousness having scampered off at the first blows.  But, perhaps bravery is about doing something no matter what you feel, I pondered.  Maybe… maybe I could be a hero.  I remained unconvinced, but George Paget’s sympathetic face smiling down on me did nothing to hinder my dawning epiphany.  “Well, thank’ee sir,” said I, clasping his weathered hand in both of mine.  “You do me a great honour, you know sir, and if what I did was heroic then I’m proud of it, but more than that, I believe that every man in this force must also be a hero and saint, for each risked life and limb for another in that mad, wild charge.”  I stopped, my breath coming in short pulls as I spoke more passionately, my lungs protesting at each deep draw of air.

“Sir,” I said suddenly, a thought occurring to me.  “What of those two men I battled alongside?  Are they well and recovering- hopefully they fare better than I?”  In my confusion at my leader’s undeserved worship, my two comrades had completely slipped my mind, much to my shame and disgust.

Lord George’s whole manner was transformed in an instant: he gave a sharp gasp, and his face changed from pride and comfort to a mask of deathly horror.  He cried out so suddenly that it caught me unawares, “Oh!  Dear, dear boy!  Why do you ask… too weak to cope… the shock… Oh!”  He carried on awhile on this track, but he eventually managed to compose himself enough to speak coherently, his voice heavily laden with regret, “Your concern for your comrades does you credit, my boy.  That you ask after their well-being, when your own state is barely short of fatal-” He gave a deep, shuddering sigh, then continued unhappily.  “Of the two men whom you know escaped, only one returned to us.  The other, Sergeant Wilson, was shot down by an enemy gunner from a precipice in the valley walls.  I mentioned Lieutenant Harvey to you earlier, so you must have gathered that he survived the treacherous passage back to us, and he arrived here in fairly good shape, barring a smattering of superficial wounds of course, but he wouldn’t stay.  He insisted, after our doctor pronounced that his injuries posed no mortal threat, upon returning to the field.  Not to fight, you understand, but rather to collect you, my boy, or at least your body.  It seems that your sacrifice went not unnoticed, for he refused to stay and rest for even a moment, choosing instead to ride out once again into the hellish landscape, to recover what he expected to find left of you; your corpse.  You can imagine, then, his delight at the verdict that you might live, given the proper care and treatment.  He is doing fine now, in answer to your query, and I expect he’ll be overjoyed to see you awake again, at last.”  Lord George gave me a worried smile, and in my turn I squeezed his hand that still grasped my own.

“At least it was not in vain then,” I said.  “And the Russians I did manage to take out can only aid our cause, though Lord knows it was pitiful few.”  I managed a grimace for the great man; my smile coming out twisted by the discovery of my late comrade’s unhappy fate, and down my cheeks unheeded tears betrayed how hard the man’s death had hit me, in my emotional state.  “Dead though he is, Wilson was still a fine man, sir.  He saved my own life, you know, as I went to their side.”  I stopped, thinking of the gore, the desperation, the risks.  And yet he had come to my aid, in spite of the tightening Russian circle.  He was the real hero, not I.

“You say Lieutenant Harvey rode back for my body, sir?”  George Paget nodded, still watching me carefully.  I suppose now that it was due to my fragile state- he was extraordinarily concerned for my wellbeing in those early days, before he knew me quite so well as he came to do.  He soon learned that it takes more than a pack of uncivilised animals such as those Russians to better me.  “What the hell for?  Pardon my expression, sir, but why on God’s earth did he fling himself back into that hellish nightmare to drag back a cooling corpse?  Was he mad?  He risked his life, which he barely escaped with anyhow, to rescue a man he presumed to be dead.  Even if I had turned out to have survived my encounter with that mob of thugs, well, what then?  He hardly knew me, after all sir.  Why would a man risk death and damnation for a mere acquaintance, a man he met but fleetingly and knew nothing of?”  I concluded my speech, once again wheezing as the breaths came painfully, my ribs protesting at each movement.

“Why, dear boy, is that not precisely what you did?  You willingly gave your own life, and the long future of possibilities that stretched off before you, to save a man you’d never before met; you didn’t even know his name!”  Lord George chuckled, and shook his head, probably wondering at my recklessness when it came to personal safety, compared with this worried concern for my comrade.  That’s how he told it later on, in any case.  “And he knew something of you, my boy,” he added.  “He knew that you were brave, selfless and true.  That’s a fine enough reason to rescue anyone, in my book at least.”

Paget departed shortly after that, leaving me to my rest with promises of further visits, vowing to inform the anxious Lieutenant Harvey of my remarkable progress.  I could at last fully relax, once he had left me alone, sinking down into my sheets and drifting in and out of a troubled sleep, plagued by the disfigured faces of my friends, trodden down into the valley mud as they cried out in a wordless, eternal horror.