But if Cathy Audley remembered him, and recognized him, his lack of interest froze her out now — just as it had frozen Jenny herself out, these last few hours. Ian was only interested in one woman, and she wasn't here. Indeed, she wasn't anywhere.
'Did you expect to find any . . . musket balls, Cathy?' Jenny controlled her fears carefully. Because Ian's Frances Fitzgibbon obsession was all very well, in its place, however unhealthy. But now, when this eccentric child could lead them straight to Audley, Ian and his obsession were an dummy2
inconvenience — even, a quite unnecessary obstacle, which made her wish that he wasn't here with her, when she had more urgent questions on her mind. So — sod Ian!, as she looked down at the earth at her feet. 'Musket balls — here?'
'Oh yes!' Cathy Audley matched her move. 'On the Somme I found lots of them. Or not musket balls, actually — lots of shrapnel balls, I mean. But musket balls must be just like shrapnel balls — like round — ?' Her head came down so close to Jenny that she exchanged a strong whiff of childishly over-applied scent ' — and there should be lots of them hereabouts . . . because the poor Portuguese charged up here . . . and then down again . . . and then the French charged after them. And finally the British charged. So there should be lots. But I just can't find any . . .'
Cathy trailed off, and they both concentrated on scanning the field together for a moment, to the exclusion of all other matters.
Jenny straightened up finally. 'No — I see what you mean.
Perhaps they've just been ploughed into the ground, Cathy?'
'Oh no! It doesn't work like that.' Cathy shook her head vehemently. 'There's someone I know who's an expert, and he says that ploughing brings them up to the surface, it doesn't bury them. And I'm sure this is the right place.' She reached into the back-pocket of her jeans, producing a crumpled piece of paper which she then unfolded with grubby fingers. 'This was practically the centre of the battle
— at the start, anyway.'
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It was a map, neatly hand-drawn, but now rendered incomprehensible with its profusion of little red and blue squares, and diagonally red-and-white and blue-and-white rectangles, which followed the criss-crossing arrows of the rival armies' advances and retirements around and beyond the Greater Arapile.
'We're here — ' Cathy stabbed the map, and then shook her head. 'I simply don't understand it. It's most vexing.'
'Yes.' It was curious how, when Cathy Audley had stared at her she had seemed grown up, but now she was a child again.
'Do you collect . . . bullets and things, Cathy?'
'No ... not really.' The child-Cathy grinned at her. 'But, it's interesting finding things — isn't it? I got some super barbed-wire at Verdun. My father says it's German. It's got very long barbs on it, and they're much closer together than on modern barbed-wire.'
Jenny felt her jaw drop open.
'People in America collect barbed-wire, you know.' Cathy Audley nodded seriously. There are hundreds of different varieties, going back to the middle of the nineteenth century, almost. Some bits are worth hundreds of dollars, my father says — the first bits they used in the Wild West, I suppose.'
The repetition of 'my father says' recalled Jenny to reality.
She had established herself with the child. And now the child would lead her to the father, complete with an introduction of sorts. 'And your father collects battlefields, does he?'
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The child's eyes sparkled suddenly, and she laughed.
'Oh ... he collects everything — he's like a great big jackdaw, Mummy says: he never throws away anything.' She shook her head, becoming older again as she shared her mother's despair. 'But . . . yes, he does collect battlefields. In fact, this is a "battlefield holiday" — at least, the first two weeks are.'
She grinned fondly. 'Medieval ones coming down: Crecy, Poitiers and Chastillon — that's the place where the French finally beat us, in the Hundred Years' War, you know — did you know?'
'No.' Jenny sensed Ian chafing nearby. But Ian was wrong to chafe: so long as they had the daughter, then they couldn't lose the father.
'Oh yes! There's even a monument to poor old John Talbot, who got killed there, by the river. And my father says . . .
losing the American colonies was no great loss — no one minds losing them. But losing Bordeaux, where the wine comes from — that really was the most rotten luck. Because it's much too good for the French, he says.' She giggled again.
'And he said all that to a French couple and an American couple we met at the Parador at Ciudad Rodrigo — honestly, I thought Mummy was going to kill him . . . But that was later on. Because from Chastillon we came over the Pass of Roncesvalles — where Roland was killed . . . that was super . . . And then down the other side, to a lovely old Parador, in a medieval hospital — that was so he could show us the battlefield at Najera, where the English longbowmen dummy2
wiped out that Spanish-and-French army in five minutes —
like machine-gunners, Father said — wow!'
Suddenly, Jenny understood: this poor child had been holidaying for nearly a fortnight now, with her overwhelming father and disapproving mother, between whom she hadn't got a word in edgeways. But now she'd met a sympathetic English-speaking stranger, so the floodgates of pent-up speech had burst, just as they had done with the Spanish waiters.
'But this isn't a medieval battlefield surely, Miss Audley?' Ian intruded suddenly with the same silly question which he had put to her.
'Oh no — ' Cathy Audley fielded the statement almost joyfully. 'But we did the medieval battles the first week, you see — and Mummy's having a week in Paris, for shopping, on the way back — ' the grin twisted. ' — and so am I ... Father's going back to work and we are going shopping, Mummy and I!'
So 'Mummy' wasn't so stupid, thought Jenny: Audley himself paid for his idiosyncrasies — and quite properly, too!
'The middle week's the Peninsular War,' Cathy Audley concentrated on Ian. 'We've just come from Ciudad Rodrigo: another super old Parador . . . except Father hated the food there — ' She cocked her head at him suddenly, almost shyly, yet unchildlike. 'Are you staying at the Salamanca Parador, Mr — Mr Robinson?'
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Ian nodded, matching her shyness. 'We just checked in this morning, Miss Audley.' Then he blinked. 'The Peninsular War?'
'Yes.' Nod. 'We stormed Ciudad Rodrigo in 1812. And my father ... he wanted to see where "Black Bob" Crauford was killed — and where they buried him in the ditch there ... I mean, he used to flog them, and hang them, but they loved him, my father says . . . He's a great admirer of General Crauford.' Cathy Audley nodded seriously. 'He wanted me to see Badajoz too, where our army did a lot of raping-and-pillaging. But Mummy said we didn't have enough time for that.'
'Why the Peninsular War?' Ian, when a 'why ' eluded him, was as persistent as any child, regardless of raping and pillaging.
'Oh, not the whole of the war.' The child accepted his curiosity as quite natural. 'It went on for years and years, you know. But my father is only interested in 1812. And really he's only interested in here, because Salamanca is our special battlefield, Mr Robinson: my father has been talking about coming here for ages and ages.' She blushed slightly. This is a sort of reward for my A-levels — ' The blush combined with a grin ' — this . . . and Paris.'