Lisbon, December 1813
Colonel Fitzwilliam stood at the quayside watching the continual bustle of activity. A royal army ship lay in port and was being unloaded of cargo, all supplies to be sent to Wellington to the troops up at the border though perhaps they had, by now, crossed over and were fighting the French on their own soil.
He ran his hand over the bristle of his three or four days' worth of beard. He missed Moor, John Moor. His valet had been killed in the battle at Ordal and he felt it was a burden he would not be able to ever repay. Moor had braved the fighting at Vittoria to retrieve Fitzwilliam's broken body and heal him; finding a traveling nurse, Elizabeth K.—in reality a soldier's wife—to staunch his bleeding, bind his wounds and then Moor had shielded him from vermin and looters until the Marquis of Wellington had won the day and the casualties could be accounted for in a proper manner. Then Moor had stayed by his side through the long days of pain, as Fitzwilliam had wavered in and out of consciousness, cradling him, caring for him, healing him. Caring for his body's needs in all capacities, far beyond what any man should be asked to do. The Marquis still lived, Fitzwilliam still lived, Moor did not and such was war.
Fitzwilliam had, since being reunited with his battalion at Valencia, not dared to engage another valet and so took to his own care for he had no real possessions to speak of anyways. And once or twice a week he could engage a roving barber to shave him. Some of his fellow officers had made a lot of money from the spoils of war, especially after the battle of Vittoria, but as he had been out of commission that day he had missed the chance to partake of a great bounty—King Joseph's left-behind treasures—as so many officers and enlisted men had done.
Perhaps this ship might take him on the ten to twelve day journey home. He might be home for Christmas or by the New Year. If not on this ship there would be another, in a week or ten days' time that would carry him home. His new appointment in a staff post in London gave him flexibility; it also meant his need to return home was not a pressing one over supplies or whole regiments to be moved.
His general had explained that letters to his family, his Mamma, had been dispatched to explain his status as missing after the battle with Suchet so his family had stopped writing to him and he could expect nothing from the mail bags that, along with food stuffs and other supplies were being unloaded as he watched. Fitzwilliam worried excessively about how his mother was faring over the news that had been sent about him. It had to be such a blow to her loving heart to have to worry about him. In most cases when a soldier is reported missing it simply meant that he was dead and not found. He had written from Tarragona and again from Valencia but so far no letters had found their way back to him; it had to be twenty or twenty-five days in transport around the Iberian peninsula and up to England.
The business of the port was a welcome distraction and he liked to come and to watch and lose himself in the activity while he waited for his transport home.
He tried not to think too much of Elizabeth Bennet; how to woo her when he returned. It would not be possible to correspond with her, but he was determined to solicit an introduction to her family in some way and crafted many sorts of meetings in his mind as he stood and watched the unloading and loading of ships with goods and men—and a few women—and contemplated his return to England. He should just like to ride to her family's estate, though he only knew she lived in Hertfordshire, and proclaim himself. But he contemplated having his sister, Lady Susanna, invite her to London, or his mother do the same to their family estate; or to somehow ask his cousin Darcy for his friend Bingley's permission to use his estate, it helped to pass his long days while he waited for transport back to England, and home and potential happiness.