The Spanish Bride (25 page)

‘Reward?’ stammered his guest, ‘Thieves? You don’t mean—they weren’t some of ours?’ ‘But they were!’ Kincaid assured him. ‘Turned out to graze—and you nobbled ’em!’ 8

By the 7th June, the division had come in sight of Palencia, the enemy always retiring before them. At Salamanca, the rear-guard left in the town had been pursued and rather mauled by light cavalry; and on the 2nd June, on the road to Toro, the 10th Hussars had made a. brilliant charge, taking two hundred prisoners.

The Douro was crossed by means of planks, and flying bridges, several arches of the bridge at Toro having been destroyed. Once across the river, the army entered upon a sunburnt, parched country, almost treeless, and badly watered. The water in the few small streams tasted brackish; the heat of the sun was terrific; men began to recall the sweltering marches before Salamanca. The Household Cavalry lost their fresh complexions, suffered agonies from blistered skins, passing through all the stages of bright red to the final leathery brown. White dust powdered their shining boots, and sweat darkened their uniforms. ‘Bite on the bridle, bite on the bridle!’ the old soldiers told them, when they groaned under the unaccustomed heat. ‘You don’t know what heat is yet!’

Rain fell, enough to make the chalky ground slimy. On a greasy bank, the mare Juana was riding slipped and came down, falling on her. The mare scrambled up unhurt, but Juana, after making an attempt to rise, gave a whimper, and clenched her teeth on her underlip. ‘Are you hurt, missus?’ West asked anxiously. ‘The clumsy creature! I knew we’d have a set-out like this!’

Rather white about the mouth, Juana said faintly: ‘My foot. I’ve hurt my foot. I don’t think I can stand on it.’

Fortunately, she had been riding with the column, and in a very few minutes Harry was beside her, and a young subaltern had been sent galloping to the rear to find one of the surgeons.

It was evident that she was in much pain, although she said it was not very bad. Harry made her swallow some brandy from a flask he carried, and George Simmons, gently handling the hurt foot, said that the boot must be got off it, as it was already swelling. This was an agonizing business, and Juana, held tightly in Harry’s arms, turned her face into his shoulder, and bit on the rough cloth of his jacket. Old Vandeleur, riding up in the middle of all this, in great concern, sent his orderly flying off to hurry the surgeon, told George to be careful what he was about, damned all stupid horses, and wished he had some hartshorn. ‘She’ll do, sir: don’t worry!’ Harry said. ‘Keep quite still, hija! What’s the damage, George?’ ‘I can’t tell that. I hope it may not be found to be serious. The thing is, how to carry her to Palencia?’

Juana unclenched her teeth, and turned her head. ‘I can ride,’ she said, in the ghost of a voice.

‘Ride? Nonsense, my poor child! Preposterous!’ said Vandeleur. ‘Where the devil’s that damned surgeon? We must have up one of the spring-wagons at once.’ ‘I won’t go in a spring-wagon. I am better already. See, it is true, I am quite better! Please put me on my horse again!’

‘Good girl!’ Harry said. ‘She’ll suffer less on horseback than in one of those wagons, General. Here, George, take my sash, and bind her foot up with it. Listen, alma-mia, we’re close to Palencia: you won’t have to bear it for long. George will take care of you, and bring you safely into the town.’

‘Oh yes!’ Juana said, pulling herself out of his arms. ‘You must go! You have your duty to attend to, and indeed I don’t need you! You will see what a good soldier I can be!’ ‘Best soldier in the whole division, my dear!’ Vandeleur said. ‘Now, we’ll all take the greatest care of you, never fear! When I see that damned sawbones I’ll—Get on with you, Harry, get on! And mind you procure a decent lodging for the poor child!’

Harry kissed Juana, put her into George’s arms, and rode off. Dr Burke came trotting up on his rat-tailed grey a few moments later, and after feeling and probing the swollen foot, an operation which made the tears roll down Juana’s cheeks, relieved everyone by announcing that there was not much damage done, only one small bone broken.

However, by the time the walls of Palencia were reached, George was obliged to walk beside Juana’s horse,; holding her in the saddle, and even Dr Burke, who was a very cheerful person, was beginning to be worried to know how to get his patient under a roof before she swooned right away.

The division camped outside the walls, only the Staff entering the town. An excited crowd of townspeople thronged out to welcome the troops, waving handkerchiefs and shouting Viva los colorados! Harry met the cortege escorting his wife just outside the gate, thrusting his impatient way through the mob. He had procured a respectable lodging on the main street, and no time was lost in conveying Juana to it. Once she was laid on her bed, Dr Burke was able to attend more particularly to her foot. It was very much inflamed, and he did not think she would be able to ride for quite a week, a pronouncement which made her cry, and deepened the harassed lines on Harry’s face. When the doctor had gone, he knelt beside the bed, petting and soothing Juana, promising that West should bring her after the division as soon as she could put her foot in the stirrup.

He managed to hide his own anxiety from her, but he was at his wits’ end to know what to do. ‘I daren’t leave her here’ he told Kincaid, one of the many who came to inquire after Juana. ‘You know what these people are! They shout viva los Ingleses, but they’re such cursed bigots they’d do nothing to help a true Catholic married to a heretic!’ It was Juana who solved the difficulty. The mere, thought of being separated; from Harry made her forget the pain in her foot, and rouse herself from her state of self-pity. She stopped crying, drank the tea Harry brewed for her, and said in a determined voice. ‘Now I am much better—muy agradable!—and I will tell you what we must do. I do not stay in this place, which I think is dirty. That is certain. Get me a mule, or a burro, mi Enrique, and put a Spanish saddle for a lady on it. My foot will rest on the footboard, and go I will!’ ‘My poor girl, do you think you could bear it?’ Harry said worriedly. ‘You will be so jolted!’ ‘Eso no es de consecuencia!’

‘I ought to be shot for even thinking of such a thing! Juanita, are you sure you can bear it?’ ‘Yes, yes, I tell you! Only find me a good mule!’

As soon as Juana’s resolve was known, dozens of volunteers presented themselves at the Smiths’ billet with offers of service. The division, luckily, was not to march until late on the following afternoon, and the morning was spent by the officers of the brigade in scouring the town for a well-cushioned saddle, and trying the paces of every available mule, to find a very easy one. Juana sat at the window of her lodging, watching the stream of cavalry, artillery, infantry, and baggage pass through the narrow main street. Kincaid looked in to see how she did, and made her laugh by describing the town to her in the most unflattering terms. The front of every house was supported on pillars, which made them look, said Kincaid, like so many worn-out bachelors on crutches.

By the time the brigade was set in motion, Juana’s mule was ready for her, and it only remained to carry her down, and set her on its back. She stoutly denied feeling any pain, but received a great deal of sympathy from everyone but Harry. One or two tender-hearted officers were quite indignant with him for the bracing tone he took, but Harry, whose heart ached for every wince Juana gave, never let her see how much he pitied her. Her gallant spirit responded to the ruthless demands he made upon it; she was not in the least resentful, but sat up straight in her cushioned lady’s saddle, desperately trying to live up to his expectations.

She bore the march well, following the column with the doctors and the baggage-wagons. When she arrived at the village where the brigade headquarters were established, there was no chance for Harry to lift her down from the mule’s back. Laughing, he found himself elbowed out of the way, while an eager guard of honour turned her dismounting into quite a ceremony. The doctor commanded; cloaks were spread on the ground for her reception; half-a-dozen officers claimed the privilege of lifting her down, and there was such a confused babble of advice and instruction, with sharp adjurations to, ‘Take care, now!’ or to ‘Mind the leg!’ that the villagers gathered round to stare in surprise at such doings. She was riding the mare again before the week was out, very lame, but determined no longer to plod along in the rear, with only the doctor for company. ‘My place is with the column,’ she said, with the sauciest tilt of her chin; and when she joined them again, the soldiers cheered her, and Harry had to rap out the sharpest of commands to prevent her putting the mare through all her paces. Juana was always obedient on the march. She saluted, and said: ‘Yes, sir!’ in such an exact mimicry of Harry’s subalterns that a roar of laughter went up, and Harry shook his fist at her.

As the column wound northward, they left behind them the sterile plains, and entered upon a countryside rich with already yellowing corn, and thick vineyards. There were no dykes or hedges to separate one man’s land from another’s, and the corn stretched in an unbroken shimmering sea as far as the eye could reach.

The chief difficulty to be overcome was the scarcity of wood for firing. There were hardly any trees in the district, and in the end the quartermasters were obliged to pull down empty houses in the villages and to use the timbers for camp-fires.

The army was in touch with King Joseph’s forces, but the infantry had not yet been engaged. Very few men knew why the French continued to fall back, and only Staff-officers had any appreciation of the strategy underlying the march of Lord Wellington’s three columns. The troops knew only that they were being hustled in a wide, north-westerly sweep, with the presumable object of turning King Joseph’s right. That Lord Wellington, weeks before, had made plans to transfer his base from Lisbon to Biscay, abandoning his long, difficult communication-lines with the Portuguese coast, was his lordship’s own secret. No one, least of all the harassed French commanders, connected the presence of a British supply fleet at Corunna with these carefully guarded plans. The ships were accounted for by the necessity of keeping the Spanish army of Galicia supplied with arms and stores. But from his headquarters at Melgar on the 10th June, his lordship sent off a dispatch to an officer in charge of the British depots in Galicia, informing him for the first time of the existence of these ships. ‘I shall be much obliged,’ wrote his lordship, ‘if you will request any officer of the navy who may be at Corunna, when you receive this letter, to take under his convey all the vessels loaded as above mentioned and to proceed with them to Santander. If he should find Santander occupied by the enemy,’ continued his lordship coolly, ‘I beg him to remain off the port till the operations of this army have obliged the enemy to abandon it.’ So his lordship, in spite of looking sometimes extremely anxious, as was natural in a General undertaking an advance of such magnitude, was in a mood of calm confidence. His army was in the best of health; with Murray as QMG every detail of the complicated triple march was exactly arranged; the supplies were keeping well-up with the columns; Clausel was still hunting guerrilleros in Navarre; and King Joseph’s force was known to be hampered by the accompanying train of refugees (all with their carriages and impedimenta), civil administrators, ministers, his Majesty’s private baggage, and a long line of treasure-carts.

The British officers thought that King Joseph and Marshal Jourdan would make a stand on the fine of the Pisuerga river, but again the French fell back, this time on Burgos. King Joseph, very much in the dark as to his adversary’s intentions, compelled by necessity (and the most stringent orders from his autocratic brother and mentor) to retain the great road to France that ran through Burgos and Vittoria, was nervous of the Pisuerga position, and found it, moreover, impossible to obtain food for his army there.

When it was realized in the Allied ranks that Burgos must be their objective, the prospect of having to engage upon a protracted siege damped everyone’s spirits. The Light Bobs had no doubt that they were destined to be employed on this labour. They would take the town, of course: no question about that; but they looked forward to it with gloomy feelings. Everyone hated siege-work; and everyone would rather fight in half-a-dozen open battles than take part in one storm of a fortified city. By all accounts, Burgos would be as hard a nut to crack as Badajos had been, and no one could think of that hellish business without hoping that he would never again be asked to go through such a hideous night. When, on the 12th June, the line of march took an abrupt turn eastwards, and the troops knew themselves to be marching on Burgos, there was less than the usual amount of cheerful talk in the ranks. Pessimists prophesied a month’s trench-work under gun-fire, and when the division bivouacked that night at Hornilla, there was a faint atmosphere of depression over the camp.

But very early next morning the men were startled by the echoes of a terrific explosion. It was so loud that it brought many to their feet and it was followed at intervals of a minute or two by three more. No one knew what had caused them, although the wildest hopes burned in nearly every breast. It was said that Wellington had ridden off with the various divisional commanders to reconnoitre; he was seen returning a few hours later; and the news that Marshal Jourdan had evacuated Burgos, blowing up the Castle, and was in retreat towards the Ebro, spread quickly through the camp.

Shakos were flung up, and the air made loud with hurrahs. Orders to break camp and march towards the Ebro arrived, and were hailed by renewed cheers. Canteens were packed, fires stamped out, tents loaded on to the mules, and the division marched north-eastward in the best of good spirits.