The next few months taught nurse Elizabeth Dashwood all she would ever need to know about pain, suffering and death. She wondered at her naivete of her old life where killing a single scoundrel had caused such a fuss. She went where she was ordered and found there was plenty of death and destruction to go around, but also plenty of bravery and ambiguity. The real stakes of the war were difficult to evaluate. Was this a war of greed or survival? Was Napoleon savior or butcher? Was England threatened or inconvenienced? She had no way to be able to answer those questions with any certainty and wondered if the men leading the armies knew any better.

In the end, it eventually became easier to deal with simple truths. Broken men were brought to her, and she did her best to send them away whole, or at least less broken. That was her role, and she executed it with more and more skill. The first amputation she attended nearly left her incapacitated for a week, and while it never became routine, it did become bearable over time.

The end of July found her attending her duties at what became called the Battle of Talavera that left so many injured it was impossible to count, and then a fast retreat back to Portugal when the French counterattacked amongst infighting among the Allies, which was just about as she expected to find with a bunch of roosters trying to decide strategy amongst themselves.

She was kept busy, some weeks moving half a dozen times, and other times staying in one spot for weeks at a time, but always busy as could be.

She was still with Viscount Wellington, in the middle of the fighting as usual. Through the long winter of 1813 and the early spring of 1814, she continued to do her duty. Sometimes it was harder… sometimes easier. Sometimes they moved every week… sometimes they dug in for a longer stay. Some men were exemplars… some were scoundrels… some were little more than boys.

One day, she was looking after a badly damaged man with a fever, when a surgeon she had never met before breezed into the room.

"Nurse, we need to get this man up and on his feet?"

"He can barely manage to lay there without pain, Sir. Does he not need rest?"

The surgeon looked at her as if preparing himself for a long battle, which would be repetition of previous long battles, so Elizabeth forestalled him.

"Please, Sir. I am not being recalcitrant. I truly wish to know what is best. Could you explain your reasoning?"

The man looked at her as if to judge her intelligence and continued.

"It is simple, Nurse…?"

"Dashwood, Sir."

"Ah, Nurse Dashwood. Are you Elinor or Marianne?"

Elizabeth gasped at the question but was reassured when the surgeon gave her an exaggerated wink.

"Do not fear, Miss Dashwood. I may the only authority on the entire continent that has read that novel."

Elizabeth laughed, and said, "Mother, Sister or wife, Sir?"

"Sister… I share guardianship of my younger sister with a widowed aunt. I am to approve all reading material."

"I hope you approved it, Sir?"

"Of course. I suggested more of the same. Oh, I am Dr. Smithson. Do you want orders or explanations?"

"The latter if you have time."

"Well, Miss Dashwood… men who are injured like that who just remain in bed 'resting and recovering' are simply practicing for death, and sooner or later, they opt for the real thing. Men that are up and about are practicing for life, and they similarly will get what they work at. Nothing comes for free."

"So, you are saying that moving about will help them heal?"

"Yes, that has been my experience."

Dr Smithson watched the nurse carefully to judge how long it was going to take this one to listen to him and was gratified to see her eyes kind of cross while her fingers were unconsciously counting. She stayed that way for a few minutes, apparently remembering past patients, and finally replied.

"I believe you are correct, Sir. I am sorry I did not think of it before."

"Do not be. It is counterintuitive and against prevailing nonsense… errr, wisdom.."

"Yes, Sir. So, may I ask some further advice?"

"Of course!"

"These men are for the most part big and reluctant towards pain. I am, as you can plainly see, tiny. How am I to coerce them to do my bidding when you are long gone."

The doctor just chuckled, and said, "You have to act like an officer, Miss. Some of them will react to orders. If you have time to build up their respect, they will out of respect for you; thought doing it out of respect for your profession is a bit much to hope for."

"Sounds like a hopeless business, Doctor. I do not have time to laboriously build up their respect."

"The fear is your friend, Nurse Dashwood."

Elizabeth gasped, and replied, "Fear, Sir?"

"Yes… fear. It is quite simple really. When you come to a new place, find a bully. There is always at least one. Make him understand that you can make him hurt… publicly. That should usually do the trick?"

Elizabeth gasped in horror, and asked, "You are suggesting I torture a man to gain compliance?"

"Absolutely. What is a little pain compared to a lot of death, Miss Dashwood? Yes, they need to fear you. Do not worry… it usually only takes one."

"If you say so, Sir."

"I do. Then, as to the matter of your size… you are surrounded by anywhere from dozens to hundreds of soldiers. If someone needs to be dragged out by the scruff of the neck, just issue some orders. The men are accustomed to obeying orders so long as it sounds authoritative."

"So, I am to pretend to be an officer?"

"Absolutely!"

"If you say so, Sir."

Elizabeth was dubious but watched as he put his suggestions into practice. The first bully showed up within a half‑hour, as they usually did, and all it took to put him in his place was not being as careful with removing bandages as one might hope. Dr. Smithson also suggested things that could be added to food or water to make life unpleasant for a short time, and the time‑honored technique of simply rapping knuckles with something hard and sharp. English schoolboys had been taught for generations to react to that one.

It was some months before Elizabeth really felt comfortable with the technique, but she had to admit it was efficacious. She had men that were on death's door walking out of the surgery in no time and thanked the doctor for his advice profusely.

She respected the doctor and thought in another life she might well have liked him had she not already given her heart away, though little did the recipient know that. Her happiest day since leaving Longbourn was when she stood up as Dr. Smithson took another nurse to wife, and thought she might have made a river, or at least a middling stream of tears of happiness for her two friends.

Early November found Elizabeth in the Basque country in Northern Spain to attend the Battle of Nivelle. It was a victory for the Allied forces but came at a high cost as usual. With well over 2,000 killed or wounded, she was busy for days, and then weeks.

A fortnight later, she sank into her pallet in exhaustion, when another nurse named Smithson, who was no relation to the surgeon sank in beside her and started speaking.

"Ah, Lizzy. What a perfectly dreadful way to spend my birthday."

"I have lost count of the days, Jane. What is the date?"

"The 26th of November."

Suddenly, Elizabeth felt a bit of soul-crushing loneliness. It was one year to the day since the Netherfield ball, and in that time, she had traded the possibility of a fine life with the finest man she had ever known for a life of toil and drudgery. She did not regret her choice. If she could go back to that naïve young woman of the previous year, even with her knowledge of what was to happen, she would still advise her to be strong and make the right choice.

Though the decision and its aftermath had been difficult and dangerous, Elizabeth looked back on the previous year with satisfaction. How many young ladies of her station could brag of hundreds of healthy young men who would otherwise be dead young men? Were those not sufficient bragging rights to make up for missing out on mastering the latest bit of Mozart on the pianoforte? Yes, her choice had been difficult, but she did not regret it… most of the time.

"Well, a joyous birthday to you, Jane. Did you know I have an elder sister named 'Jane'?"

Elizabeth had shared some confidences with some of the nurses over the past year, and sometimes when she was talking to young men that might not survive the night, she had mentioned stories of her family, but she was still slightly uncomfortable with the disclosure.

"Was she older or younger?"

"She was the eldest. I was second, and then three behind me."

"No wonder you took up this occupation. It must have been a madhouse."

"Yes, I imagine I have been well trained to deal with dozens of men."

Both ladies laughed a bit.

Elizabeth looked around to make sure they were unobserved and pulled out a small flask of brandy that an officer had given her in appreciation. She rarely partook, but was this not a special occasion?

"Jane was the kindest person I ever knew. She never thought a single unkind thought in her life."

"I presume you are happy she is not here then?"

"More than I can say. This life would kill her."

"It will kill us as well after a while, Lizzy. We will either be dead-dead, or dead inside."

They both nodded, took their sips of brandy, and spend the rest of the evening talking about their families. Even though Elizabeth thought that Jane might have it right, that this live might kill her, she felt proud of her accomplishments and content with the choices she had made in her life.

After Jane drank the rest of her brandy and fell asleep, Elizabeth dug into her bags and pulled out her money. She had started with the £137 that she obtained from 'GW' and had saved all her army pay to date, so she had quite enough to live well for several years. Perhaps, she could find a small village somewhere, and purchase a bookshop. It was a nice dream, that carried her into a contented sleep.

Traveling over the Pyrenees in December was not as diverting as it sounded, and Elizabeth arrived in Southern France, still traveling with the Viscount. Her life became a steady stream of battles, advances, retreats, and always… always… death and suffering and doing what she could do to reduce it.

By the time the one‑year anniversary of her conversation with Miss Darcy had come and gone, she was beginning to wonder if it would ever end, but she kept to her business without complaint. Viscount Wellington was seeing more and more success, and by the anniversary of her Easter visit with the Viscount and his sliver, she was elbow deep in the battle of Toulouse.

Two months later, everything changed. In June, Napoleon was defeated and abdicated. He was to be exiled to Elba Island, and Elizabeth's year and a half long association with violence and death came nearly to an end. There were of course more men to take care of, and more treatments to be done, but the army was not going to need quite so many nurses as they had in the past, and Elizabeth thought she was due a holiday.

She asked for and was granted a leave of some duration. It helped to have a friend in charge of all the allied forces. The Viscount asked her to remain with his retinue as he returned to adulation in England, and Elizabeth was tempted… very tempted. Word was that the Viscount was going to become the Duke of Wellington, and if anybody could set aside any worries about prosecution for Ramsgate, it would be a Duke… but Elizabeth was not ready to do that. To get the Duke to make it go away, she would have to admit to it. She did not really think that the man would care a whit about one scoundrel who had been killed several years ago, but Elizabeth just could not quite do it.

Jane was also ready to decamp and was planning to visit Brussels. Her father owned a bookshop, and Elizabeth thought that it might well be a place where she could be content for a while. The two ladies would be able to talk about their experience, and perhaps help each other through the absolute shock of seeing how ordinary ladies carried on in their daily lives. They expected it to be difficult.

Elizabeth wondered at her reluctance to return to England, and eventually just decided it was for the best. Her instructions to Mr. Darcy had been without ambiguity, and if she believed anything, it was that his honor would force him towards happiness. Yes, it might have been true that he could have loved her at one time if she put some effort into it, but her analysis with Lina had been correct. The daughter of an insignificant country squire did not become Mistress of Pemberley. Even less likely was the insignificant daughter of an insignificant country squire who had run away from home and spent a year among the roughest men in the world. No, that was one dream that would never come true, and aside from losing Mr. Darcy himself, Elizabeth would not allow herself to miss what was in the past.

March of 1815 found Elizabeth firmly ensconced in Brussels, and while she found the life easy, it was missing something. True to her design, Jane's father did in fact own a good bookstore, and she found a few months of working there to be the tonic she had needed after a full year of nothing but war. She wondered just how long it would take her to acclimate herself to peace, how long it would take her to quite waking up screaming in the middle of the night, just how long it would take to feel some contentment, and most importantly, just how long it would take to finally forget about a tall gentleman from Derbyshire, who was almost certain to be welcoming his heir sometime soon.

When she heard the news about Napoleon's escape from Elba and subsequent landing at Cannes, it was if the scales had fallen from her eyes, and she saw the future. She took every newspaper she could get, and in the book shop, that was just about every newspaper available. She took to haunting tea shops and coffee houses and sitting entirely too close to any men of consequence that she thought might be able to learn.

It was completely by chance that she was at the market picking up some fish for dinner when the Duke of Wellington entered the city. He made quite a spectacle as he always did, and she was somewhat fortunate to be right in front of a substantial crowd of people to see him march into the city.

She was unsure if she should be surprised or it was just destiny when the Duke stopped his horse right in front of her, and said, "Nurse Dashwood, you are out of uniform."