The Spanish Bride (11 page)

His tone whipped up her courage. She nodded to Kincaid to give her a leg-up. Perched high on the back of the big Portuguese horse, she looked Harry in the eye. ‘I am ready, and, in fact, quite tired of waiting for you, but I think it is right that you should know that I cannot swim.’

‘Swim! Who’s going to swim?” said Harry, removing the curb-rein from her grasp, and taking it in his own hand. ‘Sit tight, now, my little love, and be a brave girl!’ ‘I see nothing to be afraid of,’ she responded haughtily.

“Then don’t shut your eyes. You must learn to ford rivers without me to lead you. I may not always be at hand.’

‘I should be happy to learn, but I do not know how I may when you take my bridle away, without even asking me if I desire you to lead me, which, I assure you, I do not. Absolutamente no!’

‘Tirana!’ supplied Harry, forcing her reluctant mount into the river. ‘Espadachin!’ snapped Juana.

Kincaid, following on their heels, caught the echoes of a lively interchange of personalities. The river was crossed without any other mishap than the soaking of the skirts of Juana’s habit. Upon the opposite bank, she retrieved her rein from Harry, informing him that she desired him never again to lead her across a ford. ‘For you do it very badly, let me tell you; and by myself I should do very much better. Moreover, if you think that I am afraid of going through rivers you are quite mistaken, and a great fool—insensate!—for I am not afraid of anything. But nothing!’

Harry gripped her hand for an instant. ‘My sweet, I love you! Did you know? I’m off now. Don’t sit about in that wet skirt!’

2

Lord Wellington rode into Salamanca that day, Marshal Marmont having retired to Fuente el Sauco, on the Toro road. Salamanca lost no time in hanging out flags and decorations; and, upon the appearance of the English General and his Staff, went mad with excitement. His lordship had quite a difficult journey through the wide streets, for what with flowers being flung at him, and making his indignant horse shy, and hysterical women all but dragging him out of the saddle in their enthusiasm, it looked at one time as though he never would succeed in pushing through to his headquarters. He took it all very well—he had a surprisingly happy way with foreigners—and reserved his acid comments for the ears of his Staff.

The French occupation of the three forts did not in the least interfere with the English in the town. The task of reducing them was given to Clinton’s 6th division; his lordship made Salamanca his headquarters; and everyone who could contrive to snatch a few hours’ leave sought recreation there. It was a lovely, golden city, with broad streets and wide squares, a gracious Cathedral, and some very fine colleges. The shops seemed particularly good to men who had known nothing better than the sutler’s booths for months past; and if only everyone’s pay had not been in arrears, an orgy of spending would have been indulged in. Women were plentiful. A number of men acquired temporary mistresses, and were to be seen strolling under the colonnades in the Plaza Mayor with dark-eyed beauties on their arms. Several of Harry’s friends were thus fortunate, notably Kincaid, whose tall person had found favour with a brunette with very white teeth, and a pair of entrancing dimples. Juana said that she did not think his Dolores a ladylike person, but she did not in the least blame Kincaid for taking her. She had lived amongst soldiers for two months, and she already understood that women, next to the Commissariat, were most necessary to the army’s comfort. Only Harry was not permitted to cast an eye in the direction of the ladies of Salamanca. For the life of him, he could not resist flirting with a pretty female. He explained to Juana that there was nothing in it. She threatened to kill him with his own sword, and had to be fended off with a camp-chair. When he caught her in his arms, she boxed his ears, not in the least the trusting child who adored him, but like the jealous little vixen he called her. Only when, all cajolery failing, he shrugged, and said: ‘I hate shrews. I’m off to find better company,’ did her rage fall from her, leaving her defenceless, gazing at him with mute lips, and imploring eyes. He could never withstand that look. However angry he might be, and she very often made him blazingly angry, he melted before it, and held open his arms to; her, ‘Hija, hija, only teasing!’

Trembling in his close embrace, she said passionately: ‘You love me! Say it! Swear it!’ ‘Oh, my sweet!’ Harry said huskily. He kissed her again and again. ‘Little devil! Little vixen!’ ‘Do I plague you, mi Enrique?’

‘Yes, and yes! Dear plague!’

‘I am ashamed. But you smiled at her. You did! I saw you. Did you think her pretty?’ ‘No,’ lied Harry.

Her delightful gurgle of laughter broke from her. ‘Oh, it is not true! For she was pretty! Prettier than I am. I will be good.’

She was entranced by Salamanca. She had never seen a larger town that Badajos, and spent hours gazing into shop windows. Her purchases were few, since Harry’s pockets were lamentably to let. Once she said wistfully that she wished they had some money. It touched him on the raw, and because he wanted to buy things for her and could not, he was angry, and said in an unkind voice: ‘What do you want money for?’

‘You need new shirts,’ she said, sighing.

His mouth quivered; she saw it, and directed an inquiring gaze up at him.

‘Juana,’ he said, and stopped short.

‘But what is it, mi Enrique?’

‘Nothing. I don’t need new shirts. When we reach Madrid—’ ‘Madrid!’ exclaimed Juana, ‘Are we going to Madrid?’ ‘By Jupiter, we are! Only wait till we settle accounts with Marmont!’ ‘It does not seem to me as though there is going to be a battle at all,’ said Juana. This opinion was shared by others, for Lord Wellington, numerically superior to Marmont, seemed oddly loth to engage with him. While Clinton besieged the Salamanca forts, the rest of the army remained inactive on the heights of Christoval, five miles to the north of the city. Twice an engagement seemed to be certain; on each occasion it ended in nothing but a little skirmishing, although for two days Marmont held his army in an exposed position on the plain before the Allied position. Many outspoken gentlemen said that his lordship, in pursuing so much caution, was making a mistake for which he would pay dearly; and even his admirers wondered at his making no attempt to prevent Marmont’s retreat to the Douro. Don Julian Sanchez’ guerilleros so infested the roads that nearly every French dispatch was intercepted; and everyone knew with what difficulties the Marshal was having to contend. Everyone knew, too, that for the first time in the Peninsula Wellington had more cavalry at his disposal than the enemy. But what very few men knew was how little Wellington could afford to run the risk of a defeat. Impervious to the feelings of his officers, his lordship adhered to the cautious path of his choosing.

‘One of these fine days we shall be forced to fight,’ said Jack Molloy. ‘You mark my words’ ‘Fight?’ said Eeles. ‘Where do you get these notions from? We’re not here to fight, my boy!’ ‘If anyone mentions the word manoeuvre, I shall vomit,’ said William Havelock, in a soft voice.

‘Speaking for myself,’ offered Cadoux, ‘I’m quite happy. I should hate to get my new coat cut up in a horrid, messy battle.’

‘Don’t worry! You won’t!’ said Harry.

Cadoux’ languid gaze drifted to his face; he smiled. ‘Oh, do you think I shan’t?’ he asked. ‘I wonder if you know? I should like to stay here for months. It suits me.’ ‘My dear fellow! Now don’t play the fool!’ begged George Simmons, intervening to prevent an explosion from Harry. ‘Depend upon it, we shall be on the move soon enough.’ ‘Too soon,’ murmured Cadoux. ‘This insufferable heat, George! One will be bound to sweat. The army’s no place for a gentleman. I can’t think why I joined.’

‘Nor anyone else,’ said Harry, getting up abruptly. ‘Coming, Jack?’

He walked away with his hand in Molloy’s arm. Cadoux watched him go, smiling. George Simmons said: ‘You should not, you know. It is very stupid. Besides, we ought to stick together, don’t you think?”

‘Oh, you Sweeps!’ said young Havelock gently, a scarlet coat amongst green ones. ‘You insufferable Sweeps!’

3

It was not until the 28th June that the Light division at last broke camp. The Salamanca forts had fallen on the previous day, after a protracted siege, and the same evening Marmont began to retreat towards the Douro.

‘Didn’t I say we should soon be on the march?’ demanded George Simmons, very hot and dusty, but jubilant. ‘Now we’ll show the Johnny Petits!’

He expressed the feelings of the whole army; but Lord Wellington had reason to be less sanguine. Only he knew how insecure was his position in Spain. Not all his victories had sufficed to silence powerful enemies at home. He had no illusions: a defeat would in probability mean his recall. His successes at Ciudad Rodrigo and at Badajos were all very well in their way, but had been costly, and had had no effect upon the main French armies. He wanted a victory, a big victory, but he was not going to run any risks to win it. To make matters more difficult, General Picton, who had been slightly wounded at Badajos, had had to relinquish his command of the Fighting division, and was in hospital at Salamanca. A grim old dog, Picton: foul-mouthed as any trooper, but one of his lordship’s best and most trusted Generals for all that. His lordship handed over the Fighting division to his brother-in-law, Ned Pakenham, perhaps the only man who could have taken the command of it to Picton’s satisfaction. Graham would be the next General to leave his lordship: a more serious business, that, for Graham, no soldier by profession, could be trusted to manoeuvre on his own. He was suffering, however, from some sort of eye-trouble, and would have to go home.

These preoccupations, which made his lordship curter even than usual, did not weigh much with the rest of the army. Heat and thirst excluded other considerations from nearly every mind, for the plain that lay between Salamanca and the Douro was parched and treeless, so that the columns marched in clouds of reddish dust which got into men’s throats, and under their eyelids, and sifted into their clothes to rasp against their sticky bodies. One or two unwise souls, feeling themselves unable to bear the weight of their shakos, which seemed to tighten about their heads like iron bands, discarded them, and suffered all the tortures of sunstroke in consequence. Hardened campaigners, knowing that the first drink out of a water-flask made the craving for water only more insistent, refrained from broaching their flasks for as long as possible; but young soldiers could scarcely be restrained from draining theirs within the first few hours of the march.

It was thought that the Guards suffered most on long, scorching marches, and the Light Bobs least. The Gentlemen’s Sons, trained to a smartness of step and bearing that made them the admiration of all beholders, could never bring themselves to adopt the famous slouch which carried the Light Bobs unbeautifully over such incredible distances. But even the Light Bobs found the march towards the Douro more than ordinarily wearing. There seemed to be no water to be had for mile upon sweltering mile. The heat-haze danced and wavered before eyeballs that felt red-hot between dust-inflamed lids. Occasionally a soldier would lurch out of the column, and sink down exhausted on the road; and once a man went suddenly mad, and began to scream abuse in a cracked, maniacal voice. They said it was the sight of a bleached skeleton which had turned his brain, but the bones were after all only horses’ bones, and a common enough sight in all conscience. It was more probably thirst: when they overpowered him, it was seen that his tongue was blackened and swollen.

Brigade-Major Smith, harassed by boils, very busy now that the army was on the march, was anxious for his Juana, but whenever he came riding down the length of the column in search of her, dreading to find her wilting under the merciless sun, he found her sitting erect in her saddle, as gay as you please, staunchly disclaiming any extraordinary fatigue. Was she tired? Was she thirsty? Would she ride on one of the spring-wagons in the rear? Madre de Dios, de ninguno manera! George Simmons had told her all about those spring-wagons. She thanked her Enrique, but she desired nothing, and ailed nothing. ‘Nada me duele,’ she said always, when solicitous friends thought her pale, or flagging.

‘By Jove, m’dear, you’re the best soldier in the army!’ said old Vandeleur, patting her shoulder. ‘An example to us all, eh, Harry?’

It took the army five days to reach the Douro, where they found the French encamped upon the opposite bank. The Light division occupied the ground about Rueda, a blessed spot, abounding in wine-cellars which were huge caves hewn out of the rocks, so full of wine-casks that even the depredations of a thirsty army seemed to make little diminution in the store of liquor.

It was very pleasant at Rueda, with nothing to do but to watch the French across the river, to drink oneself into a stupor in the vaults, or to bathe in the Douro, exchanging good-humoured abuse with the enemy, similarly disporting themselves. ‘Coming across, Johnny Petit?’ would sing out a British private, wallowing in the cool water. ‘When we choose, sacri boeuftake!’ the answer would flash back. ‘You will run then, be sure!’

‘Come across, and see what we’ll give you!’ ‘In good time! Wait till we come to take back Salamanca!’ ‘You take back Salamanca? That’s a good one!’

‘‘But tell us, sacries pommes de terre, why do you not come across to us?’ ‘We will when we’ve finished up the wine on this side!’

This retort served well enough to bring the interchange to an end, but it is doubtful whether any of the Englishmen cooling themselves in the river knew the real reason for their inactivity. ‘Our orficers,’ said a stout individual, inspecting a blister on his heel, ‘are too bloody-well took up with dancing, that’s why.’ He added, thoughtfully, a groundless libel on the morals of his commanders, which was an instant success with his audience. The fact was that Lord Wellington, confronting the enemy across the Douro, considered the locality and the season quite unsuitable for an offensive action. The French held the bridge at Tordesillas, and the various fords were still too deep to permit of his crossing by them. If the Spanish Army of Galicia could bring the siege of Astorga to a close, and come up to threaten Marmont’s rear, the consequent diversion would place him in a more favourable position, but he had learned not to rely too much upon his Spanish allies. The Light and 4th divisions, forming the right wing of the army before Rueda and La Seca, found nothing to complain of during their fortnight’s sojourn there. Rueda was a charming little town, its female population much above the average, its light, sharp, white wines most palatable. Dancing was certainly the order of the day, and as only half of each division was obliged to bivouac before the towns each night, as a precautionary measure, there were always plenty of officers off duty to partner the ladies of Rueda to impromptu balls. 4