The Spanish Bride (21 page)

‘Oh, yes sir, I can ride!’ O’Donnell said gratefully. ‘Only don’t leave me!’ ‘Wait, then. I’ll see what can be done,’ Harry said, and galloped off to where Ross was riding ahead with his six-pounders.

‘You damned fool!’ Ross said, when the matter was explained to him. ‘Very well, you can take one of my guns back. And I think you’re crazy, Smith, d’you hear me?’ ‘And I think you’re the best of good fellows!’ Harry said, reining back to allow the gun to be detached from the troop.

When they hoisted the wounded man on to the tumbril, it was plain that the slightest movement caused him great agony. He almost lost consciousness, but by an effort of will managed to cling to his senses, and to thank the gunner for so cheerfully giving up his seat. ‘I shall do now,’ he said, but they could only just catch the words, so faintly were they spoken. The gunner said that he was welcome, but he thought privately that Brigade-Major Smith was wasting his time, and the Rifleman would never last out half a day’s march. As a matter of fact, O’Donnell died two hours later, but the gunner, resuming his seat then, said that perhaps he would have chosen that rather than have been taken prisoner. Nothing more was seen of the French, who were finding it impossible to subsist any longer upon an already ravaged countryside. The day was marked by frosts, and by horrid sights encountered all along the line of march. The horses and the oxen seemed to be dying like flies; and the sick men who fell out of the column, to be shepherded on later by the cavalry in the rear, were growing steadily more numerous. A diversion was created by Sir William Stewart, a nice old gentleman, quite incapable of obeying an order (said Lord Wellington), who prevailed upon the commanders of the 5th and 7th divisions to join him in deserting the prescribed line of march to follow a route of his own choosing. Both these commanders were newcomers, and it was not until they found Sir William’s route blocked by the Army of Galicia, which had been ordered to follow it, that they realized how unwise they had been to listen to him. All three divisions were finally discovered by Lord Wellington himself, who had set out to look for them, waiting in the mud until the Spaniards in front of them should have moved on. ‘You see, gentlemen, I know my own business best,’ said his lordship, in withering accents.

The weather grew colder and colder, but on the following day, the eighth November, the army came in sight of Ciudad Rodrigo. “Thank God, I shall be able to cut the boots off my feet at last!’ said Kincaid.

Chapter Five. Winter Quarters

By the end of the month, the army was in its winter quarters, with Hill’s and division placed as far south as Coria, in Estremadura; and Cole’s 5th division as far north as Lamego, on the Douro. Lord Wellington’s headquarters were fixed at Frenada, a dirty little town only seventeen miles distant from Ciudad Rodrigo; and the Light division, with Victor Allen’s brigade of German horse, was posted, like a screen, in various villages on the Agueda, in Spanish territory. This was a cold, rather comfortless situation, but the Light bobs knew the locality so well that it was quite like home to them. The villagers gave them a warm welcome, inquiring after many men by name, and seeming really glad to see them again. The and brigade had its headquarters at Fuentes de Oftoro, a village which was still looking somewhat battered as a result of the battle which had raged round it eighteen months before. Vandeleur occupied the local Padre’s house, but Harry found a lodging at the other end of the village, in the cottage of a widower. There was some tolerable stabling near to this billet: an important consideration for a young gentleman owning six riding-horses and thirteen greyhounds.

Everyone felt more cheerful when the retreat was at an end, but the sickness in the army was appalling. The hospitals were, crammed with cases of dysentery and ague; and nearly every man was found to be suffering from an unpleasant form of frost-bite. George Simmons, who had been obliged to mount Joe on his own horse during the retreat, had his legs covered with bad patches. He had worn out the soles of his boots, trudging beside a sick brother, and his feet were in a sad way. He made far less fuss about his ailments than many who were not nearly as seriously affected; indeed, he seemed to worry far more about Joe’s dysentery. Poor Joe had been so ill on the march that had it not been for George’s care of him he must either have died or have fallen into the hands of the French. Joe was one of Juana’s protégés, and he used to lie and watch the door to see her come in, her cheeks and her curls wind-whipped, a basket on her arm containing delicacies she had cooked for him, and always a laugh in her roguish eyes. A visit from Juana, Harry’s sick friends said, did one more good than all the bark-wine the doctors made them swallow, Harry had many sick friends, and Juana spent her time cooking for them, and riding to the various villages where they were quartered. Charlie Eeles was down with dysentery; John Bell of the 43rd regiment; Jack Molloy; and any number of others. Harry, of course, was as well as ever he had been in his life, and sporting-mad. While Juana and the Padre cooked, he went out coursing every day. James Stewart had a pack of harriers, and asked Harry to act as his whipper-in; there were Harry’s own greyhounds; and, when these forms of sport began to pall, there was fox-hunting to be had with Lord Wellington’s pack. If you had a fancy for shooting, you could go with Jonathan Leach, and stand up to your middle in icy water, waiting for wild-duck; or try for woodcock anywhere in the vicinity of the Agueda; or practise your marksmanship on the white-headed vultures which seemed to hover day-long above Gallegos. It was a mistake, of course, to shoot this scavenger of the skies, but somehow the sight of these rather horrible birds tugging the putrid flesh from the carcases of the horses which lined the route of the army’s late march made the men feel an irrational anger. Wolf-hunts were popular amongst the rank-and-file. The country was infested with wolves; they used to sunk after a marching army, hidden by the never-ending gum-cistus, but howling incessantly at night, and always waiting for the chance of finding a wounded man on the road, or a shot horse.

There were five thousand men missing when the army went into winter quarters, and an overwhelming number of those still present were suffering from one form of sickness or another. Everyone thought that the hardships of the retreat had been aggravated by the inefficiency of the Commissariat, and the Staff generally, so that the Memorandum issued for the consumption of officers by Lord Wellington sent a storm of indignation through the army. His lordship, in the worst temper imaginable, had condemned every one of the regiments under his command on the strength of the excesses of a few which had come under his own eye. A Memorandum to officers commanding Divisions and Brigades, the document was headed, but there was not an officer in the army who had not a copy to read. The Light division officers, proudly showing a return of only ninety-six men missing out of five battalions, looked in vain for some acknowledgement of their devotion to duty. All they found was a bitter reference to the habitual inattention of officers of the regiments to their duties. ‘My God!’ Charlie Beckwith said, when Kincaid read this aloud.

‘Wait, that’s not all!’ said Kincaid. ‘You’ll be glad to know that the army has suffered no privation which but trifling attention on the part of the officers could not have prevented!’ ‘That’s one for the Commissary-General’s Staff,’ interrupted little Digby. ‘Quite true, too!’ ‘Not at all! It must be obvious to every officer that from the moment the troops commenced their retreat from the neighbourhood of Burgos on the one hand, and of Madrid on the other, the officers lost all control over their men,’

‘Ha!’ said Young Varmint. ‘Someone told him about the Enthusiastics getting drunk at Valdemero. Go on, Johnny! Any more tributes?’

‘Oh, the devil, this is too bad!’ George Simmons exclaimed, reading the Memorandum over Kincaid’s shoulder. ‘Just listen, you fellows!—I have frequently observed and lamented in the late campaign the facility and celerity with which the French cooked in comparison with our army.’

‘He has, has he?’ snorted Leach. ‘Well, if we could boil those damned kettles of ours on anything less than half a church door, we’d cook with facility and celerity too!’ ‘Wrong!’ said Kincaid. ‘The cause of this disadvantage is the same with that of every other—want of attention of the officers to the orders of the army and the conduct of the men. Now we know, don’t we?’

‘God, I think I’ll sell out!’ said Digby disgustedly.

‘My oath! I’m glad I’m not on the headquarters Staff!’ said James Stewart, taking the Memorandum out of Kincaid’s hand, and glancing through it. ‘I suppose the truth is that that pig-sticking affair annoyed him. He’s a bad-tempered devil.’

‘Daresay the lot he took to Burgos did misbehave themselves,’ said Leach. ‘That ought to be a lesson to him in future.’

‘What the hell does he mean by irregularities and outrages were committed with impunity?’ demanded Digby, in his turn seizing the document.

‘Horrid scenes at Torquemada,’ said Beckwith. ‘I heard about that.’ ‘Damn it, we had nothing to do with it!’

‘Much his precious lordship cares for that! Blast him, why should we worry? If he thinks he can find a finer set of fellows than our men, let him go and look for ’em! Who’s coming out after snipe?’

2

It would be a long time before the army could forgive its Commander for his sweeping condemnation, but meanwhile there was much to be done to make the various quarters habitable, and to ensure suitable recreation for the winter. Most of the cottages which were requisitioned for billets consisted of two rooms built on a mud-floor, the outer of which housed not only the owner of the property, but any livestock he might possess as well. Fires were kindled in the middle of the floors, and the smoke was allowed to drift towards a hole in the roof, so that the first task on being allotted quarters was to build a chimney. The second was to cover up broken windows, to keep out the cold; and the third to ride to Almeida in search of crockery, and all other domestic comforts. There were sutlers to be found in Frenada, but the prices charged at headquarters were beyond the means of most officers’ purses. Six shillings for a loaf of white bread was what you would have to pay, if you were green enough to do your shopping there; and twenty-two shillings for one pound of good tea; while long-forage for your horse would not cost you a penny less than four shillings for one small bundle.

The officers of the Light division, who were famous for their dramatic talent, lost no time in looking about them for a suitable playhouse. They found it in a disused chapel in Gallegos. They soon had it fitted up, and gave some excellent performances, which were attended by everyone, including Lord Wellington, who was quartered near enough to make a ride to Gallegos feasible. The Bishop of Ciudad Rodrigo, when he heard of it, laid a solemn curse on the enterprise, according to Kincaid, but nobody cared a penny for that. The rank-and-file, meanwhile, were settling down with that peculiar facility of the most insular people in the world to make themselves at home in any quarter of the globe. A great many of the camp-followers, widowed during the retreat, were finding new husbands. This was usual; indeed it was inevitable, since there were no means provided for their return to England. Generally, there was no lack of suitors for them, since a capable woman who could be relied upon to get into camp ahead of her man and have a strong hot cup of tea waiting for him, when he arrived cold and tired and hungry, made all the difference to a soldier’s comfort. Most of them could be relied on, too, in spite of anything the exasperated Provost Marshal could do. Even when he had their donkeys shot under them, in a vain attempt to discourage them from choking the line of march, they struggled on afoot, carrying their chattels on their backs, calling down curses on his head, and impeding the army’s progress just as much as ever. The stoutest-hearted amongst them could never be induced to travel in the rear. ‘Sure,’ said Mrs Skiddy, ‘if we went in the rear the French, bad luck to them, would pick me up, me and my donkey, and then Dan Skiddy would be lost entirely without me!’ Most of them had had three or four different husbands since they landed in Portugal, and although there were some men who thought the advantages of possessing a woman to sleep with one, and to cook for one, were outweighed by the certainty of having a dead man’s head thrown in one’s dish every time the creature was out of temper, there were usually half-a-dozen candidates for the widow’s hand by the time the first shovelful of earth had been thrown on top of her deceased mate. They were a rough set, always fighting, even more addicted to plunder than the soldiers themselves, and every bit as hardy.

Juana’s henchwoman was no exception to the rule, and several times presented herself at the Smiths’ billet with a scratched face, or a black eye; but Harry thought that her fighting qualities would be of more practical use to Juana than any of the accomplishments of a real lady’s maid.

The Smiths had made their winter-quarters so snug that the Padre decided to remain with them until the spring. After his adventure at San Munoz, it had seemed probable that he would leave them as soon as he could. He was for a time extremely disgruntled, and moralized a good deal over the selfishness of soldiers. ‘When you told me at Madrid what were the hardships of a soldier’s life in retreat, I considered I had a very correct idea,’ he told Harry. ‘I see now I had no conception whatever. Everyone acts for himself alone! There you see a poor, knocked-up soldier sitting in the mud, unable to move; there come grooms with led horses. No one asks the sick man to ride; no one sympathizes with the other’s feelings—in short, everyone appears to struggle against difficulties for himself alone.’ “On river-banks, Padre?’ Harry said, with a grin.