The Spanish Bride (17 page)

3

There was every facility for dancing. Those who could not obtain tickets for the state balls could go any night of the week to the Principe, and enjoy themselves at the public balls held there. Nor was dancing all that Madrid had to offer its visitors. There were theatres; and concerts; plenty of sport to be had in the Grand Park, which abounded with game; public executions in the Plaza Mayor, if you had a fancy to witness a garrotting; and bull-fights in the Plaza de los Toros, shut for years, but opened again in honour of the British army. Business in Madrid on a bull-day was at a standstill. From ten o’clock in the morning onwards, crowds besieged the gates of the bull-ring, struggling and fighting for the best places, and apparently quite content, having won them, to sit for hours in all the heat and glare of the August sunshine, waiting for the show to begin, with nothing to do but to drink lemonade, and eat sticky sweetmeats fast melting into glutinous masses on the vendors’ trays.

The English liked some part of the bull-fights, but very few cared to see the slaughter of broken-down horses which formed an apparently essential feature of the spectacle; and all of them were agreed that it was no sight for women. Harry would not take Juana, which made her cross, until she heard that Kincaid had seen his erstwhile baggage-horse driven into the ring, and then she was glad, and quarrelled with Kincaid for laughing about it. The garrison of the Retiro surrendered within a few days, and Lord Wellington, having given a superlatively grand ball at the end of August, left Madrid, with the 1st, 5th, and 7th divisions, some Portuguese troops, and two brigades of heavy cavalry, to reinforce Clinton. He left the 4th division at Escurial, and the 3rd and Light divisions in and around Madrid. He had learned, late in the month, that Soult had at last begun to evacuate Andalusia, raising the siege of Cadiz, which had been dragging on for a little matter of three years. General Hill, commanding the containing force in Estremadura, wrote that Drouet’s troops in his front had vanished, presumably having marched off to join Soult, who was concentrating at Granada. Since King Joseph, with the Army of the Centre, and the most immense train of baggage and refugees ever seen, was marching slowly eastward to Valencia, to effect a junction with Suchet, there could be no possibility of Soult’s continuing to maintain himself in Andalusia. He, too, would in all probability march eastward. That would take him many weeks, and a warm welcome he would receive from King Joseph (if ever he got into touch with that much-harassed monarch), for he had been behaving in the most intransigent fashion, quarrelling with him in dispatch after dispatch, giving him quite erroneous information, and even refusing to obey his positive orders.

Lord Wellington, deciding that no immediate danger threatened Madrid, left the city on the last day of the month, instructing Hill, as soon as he could be assured of Soult’s departure for the east, to march on the capital, and to take over the command of the troops left there. When he should have settled accounts with the French Army of Portugal, which was lifting up its head again, under Clausel, his lordship meant to return to Madrid, to confront the combined forces of Joseph, Suchet, and Soult.

Meanwhile, the divisions left at Madrid continued to amuse themselves as well as they were able. Lack of money was, as always, the chief bar to enjoyment, but there were ways, if one was an old campaigner, of getting over this difficulty. One enterprising gentleman, instead of indulging in a little honest plunder, or some legitimate pilfering, took under his protection a singularly ill-favoured widow who owned, in addition to a large wart on her nose, quite a tidy little nest-egg. But such shifts as these were not much approved of in the ranks. ‘You’d marry a midden for muck, you would!’ a frank-spoken friend told the complacent bridegroom. The officers, most of them deep in the toils of moneylenders, contrived to go on indulging in all the usual amusements offered by a capital city. The Smiths, neither being handicapped by an imperfect knowledge of the language, made a number of friends, and began to lead, Harry said, quite a respectable and domestic existence.

‘If by respectable you mean that you’ve scraped up an acquaintance with a probably disreputable priest,’ drawled James Stewart, ‘and if by domestic you mean that your scoundrelly servant always manages to steal a hen or a sucking-pig for your dinner—’ ‘Ingrato!’ cried Juana. ‘You ate it! And as for Don Pedro, he is a very good man, very well educated, very intelligent, and not at all disreputable. Enrique likes him!’ ‘Your precious Enrique likes him because he’s a good shot, and as mad on sport as he is himself. Don’t tell me he cares a fig for his intelligence, because I’ll swear he doesn’t know anything about it!’

‘If you were not so stupid that you cannot speak Spanish, and only very bad French, you would know that Enrique has very interesting talks, very clever talks, with the Vicar,” said Juana, bristling in defence of Harry.

But Stewart only laughed, and shook his head, and nothing would make him admit the domestic nature of the Smith’s life. He said that the only sign of domesticity he had ever been able to perceive was Juana throwing cooking-pots at Harry’s head, a statement which made Juana quite speechless with indignation, but drew a shout of laughter from Harry. ‘But it is not true!’ stammered Juana. ‘Enrique! Tell him!’

‘It’s no use, queridissima: he knows you for the wiry, violent, ill-tempered little devil that you are!’

‘I am not! Oh, I am not!’

‘Who boxed my ears for spilling ink on the table? Who sulked for five hours because I wouldn’t take her to a bullfight? Who—’

‘If you say one word more—but one, comprende!—I will run away, and never come back!’ Juana said, with very bright eyes, and very red cheeks.

She spoke in her own tongue, and he answered her in the same. ‘I’m not afraid of that. You’re a loving, always-faithful little varmint, hija!’

Her expression softened; she whispered: ‘I do love you, yes, and I hate you, too!’ 4

When Sir Rowland Hill’s force arrived in Madrid, George Simmons saw his brother Maud again, a doubtful pleasure, since Maud, an improvident young gentleman, was a great trial to his elder brother. Poor George had been obliged to slide away from his merrymaking friends, for he had received very distressing tidings from Joe, still sick in Salamanca, and had sent him his last gold piece stuck under the seal of his letter. Very unfortunately, he had been sitting for his likeness, which he had had taken for his sister Ann, so that he found himself, after sending off the gold coin to Joe, all to pieces.

Others were in much the same predicament, but by hook or by crook most men contrived, by the sale of still more of their belongings, to keep their pockets sufficiently lined to enable them at least to amuse themselves on the Prado each evening.

The divisions left to guard Madrid remained there until the end of October. The news that came from the north was not good, and it soon became apparent that Lord Wellington was not going to return with the rest of the army to Madrid after all. A whisper of retreat began to circulate through the ranks. His lordship, besieging Burgos with an insufficient battering-train, was making no headway; and, meanwhile, the forces of King Joseph, Suchet, and Soult had effected a junction, and were marching on the capital. The autumn rains, which Wellington had counted upon to make the passage of the Tagus an awkward business, were late in falling upon New Castile; the Tagus, General Hill thought, was still perfectly practicable. There was a good deal of coming and going between his headquarters and Wellington’s throughout October, and on the 23rd of the month, the Light division received unexpected orders to be at the alarm-posts at six o’clock in the evening. ‘Where’s Harry? Where are we off to? What’s the meaning of it?’ asked more than one of Harry’s friends, finding time to call at his quarters.

Juana only knew that the brigade was being moved to Alcala de Henares, north-east of Madrid. George Simmons said that Alcala was the birthplace of Cervantes, but Jack Molloy, who had made arrangements to attend a ball at the Calle de Banos, said that that made it no better.

Nobody wanted to leave the immediate neighbourhood of Madrid, but it was thought, on arrival there, that Alcala was a very good sort of a town, very clean, and with an air of antiquity lacking in the capital. But why the division had been moved few people knew. The truth was that Hill was in an uncomfortable position, with the army of King Joseph closing in on Madrid, the Tagus perfectly fordable, and General Ballasteros, who should have joined forces with him, nowhere to be seen. In point of fact, Ballasteros, instead of keeping Soult occupied, had got himself arrested by the Cortes, at Granada, as the result of seizing the moment of Wellington’s being made Generalissimo of the Spanish Armies, to publish a manifesto, violently objecting to the appointment; and to attempt a coup d’etat with the purpose of making himself supreme ruler of Spain.

The brigade spent four days in Alcala. On the 27th October, just, complained Kincaid, as everyone was beginning to feel at home, orders came for the division to move towards the right, to Arganda.

‘Here we go round the mulberry bush!’ said Jack Molloy. ‘We shall find ourselves back at Getafe before we know where we are.’

‘Don’t raise your hopes too high,’ recommended Captain Leach. ‘This looks to me like forming a battle-front. Well, I’m glad old Daddy Hill means to make a push to defend Madrid.’

The division marched south, crossing the Henares, and reaching Arganda at dusk. Arganda was found to be quite a small place, but no one cared a penny for that, since it was famous for the excellence of its wines. Upon being told to fall out, the men made haste to put the reputation of the town to the test; and Vandeleur, who was in temporary command of the whole division, General Allen’s headquarters still being fixed at Alcala, procured several bottles of something very special, and proceeded to make a night of it. By ten o’clock, the division had reached a state of brief, riotous happiness. An orderly arrived at the Smith’s quarters with an urgent message from Vandeleur for Harry to go at once to headquarters; and Harry, who had been sitting before a snug fire, with Juana on his knee, cursed, and said ‘What in thunder does the old man want now, I wonder?’ He went off to the house he had taken for the General. Vandeleur was seated at a table with an impressive array of dead men before him. When Harry walked in, he hailed him in a loud, cheerful voice. ‘Hello, is that you, Harry? That’s right! Go and order the assembly to sound, my boy.’

‘Order the assembly to sound?’ gasped Harry. ‘What, now, sir?’

“That’s what I said, isn’t it? Just heard from Alten. Whole division’s got to countermarch on Alcala.’ He waved a hand in a lordly fashion. ‘Sound the assembly!’ ‘But, good God, sir, we can’t march now The men are all top-heavy!’ expostulated Harry. ‘Drunken sots!’ said Vandeleur, with a magnificent disregard for his own condition. Harry glanced at the ADC, but that gentleman was smiling vacantly at nothing in particular, so that it was plain there was no help to be got from him. Harry turned his attention to Vandeleur again, saying persuasively: ‘Listen, General: it’s as black as pitch outside, and the brigade’s in no case to march. Wait a few hours, till the men have had a chance to get sober!’

‘Damme, sir, do I command the brigade, or do you?’ demanded Vandeleur, crashing a fist on to the table, and making all the empty bottles jump.

‘You do, more’s the pity!’ retorted Harry, no respecter of persons.

‘I’ll tell you what!’ declared Vandeleur. ‘You’re an impudent young dog, sir! That’s what you are! Good mind to have you broke. Go and order the assembly!’

‘You’ll regret it if I do. Now, sir, only be reasonable! The brigade won’t get back to Alcala any the sooner for reeling off now as drunk as wheelbarrows! Give me till a couple of hours before dawn, and I’ll engage to have ’em all in fit marching-order!’

But the good General had imbibed enough of the wine of Arganda to make him obstinate. He would listen to no argument, so there was nothing for Harry to do but to go off to order the assembly to sound. The trumpets blared through the town, and out of every house men came tumbling, buckling on sword-belts, hooking jackets together, falling down steps, and into gutters, and rollicking up to the alarm posts in varying stages of inebriety. Such a noise of good-humoured riot was never before heard in Arganda; and staid citizens, who had gone to bed hours before, hung out of their windows in their nightcaps to see what was happening; while those officers who were capable of any sustained effort tried to get the division into some sort of soldierly shape.

‘If any one thing is more particularly damned than another, it’s a march of this kind!’ said Kincaid, in a rage. ‘What’s it for? Whose orders?’

‘Comes of having Hill in command. Old Hookey would never have played us such a trick,’ said Eeles. ‘Damn his eyes, I’ve got the worst jag I

’ve had in months!’

‘Come on, boys!’ Private Hetherington sang out from the ranks, his shako over one eye. ‘Who’s for going rabbit-hunting with a dead ferret?’

‘Blur-an’-ouns, what did we come ’ere for if we was to turn cat-in-pan before we’ve ’ad time to play off our dust?’

‘Making panadas for the devil, that’s what we’re doing! ’Oo sent us ’ere?’ ‘Sure, an’ who would ut be but Fanner Hill, an’ he as wise as Waltham’s calf that ran nine miles to suck a bull?’

Cursing, stumbling over the cobbles, the division moved off into the darkness. The roads were rough, the way little known, and long before Alcala was reached Vandeleur was repenting of his obstinacy. ‘Where the devil are we?’ he asked testily, when a halt was called to discover which of two roads led to Alcala.