Part 16

Jack led the way to the weak spot in the wall, and directing the men to work as quietly as possible, began to remove the loose stones. As he did so the surrounding blocks came away without difficulty, and in the course of a couple of minutes a hole some two yards wide and about a yard and a half high, extending half-way through the wall, was made just above the bank. In the meanwhile Wilkes had led another assault up the bank, and sounds of fierce fighting still farther to the left proved that a renewed effort was being made to carry the barricade. A glance to his left showed Jack that the other companies were busily engaged with a large body of Lahoussaye's horse, who had taken advantage of some open ground to remount and threaten the regiment's flank.

Seizing a rifle dropped by one of his men, Jack ordered Bates and Plunket to make a simultaneous attack with him on the spot where they had broken half through the wall. Running up the bank, they put their shoulders to the tottering masonry. The wall shook, then cracked, and falling, fortunately for Jack and his men, inwards, left a gap a couple of yards wide. There was a cloud of dust, through which Jack, followed by Bates and Plunket, dashed with a rousing cheer. The three men were at once surrounded by twice their number of dragoons; but with their rifles they kept the Frenchmen at bay, while Wilkes and the others, profiting by the temporary diversion, scaled the wall. "Come on, my boys!" shouted Wilkes. "What I"--crack on a Frenchman's head--"want to know"--a second crack, and the big fellow burst through the French troopers, followed by several men of Jack's company. Thus reinforced, Jack led a vigorous charge; nothing could withstand it. The French troopers broke, and made a dash for their horses, tethered in the rear of the ruined farm, but in their flight they impeded one another's movements, and only a few got away.

Meanwhile Smith, who in O'Hare's temporary absence was in command of the company, formed up his men on the far side of the farm, and continued the forward movement that had been for the moment arrested. Within a few yards of the farm they were overtaken by General Paget, who galloped up and said:

"Well done, Number One Company!" Then, after a careful examination of the ground in front, and of the retreating enemy, he turned to Captain O'Hare, who had recovered from his blow and came up eagerly. "I think, sir, we hold them safe in this quarter. I shall be glad if you can spare me one of your officers. I have a message for the commander-in-chief."

O'Hare, who, chafing at being knocked over, had remarked Jack's share in carrying the farm wall, beckoned him forward.

"Take one of the Frenchmen's horses yonder," continued General Paget, when Jack came up and saluted, "and tell the commander-in-chief that the enemy on this side are in full retreat. We shall continue to push them through the valley, and ought shortly to threaten their great battery."

He pointed, as he spoke, to the rugged slopes, now covered with a thick pall of smoke, on which Soult had massed his heaviest guns. A continuous dull roar came from the battery, from which the French gunners were pouring shot after shot at the British infantry.

With a parting hint to Jack that the commander-in-chief would probably be found with Baird's division, General Paget wheeled his horse round and returned down the slope. In a few seconds Jack was in the saddle, jumping walls and ditches, and floundering through ravines towards the village of Elvina. The retreating French infantry, broken but not yet dispersed, barred his direct progress. He ploughed across the valley, finding terrible evidence of the bitterness of the struggle in the scores of dead and wounded dotting the fields from which the tide of battle had now ebbed, and spurred his horse to a hand-gallop up the gentle acclivity beyond. When he reached the crest, the whole battle was spread like a panorama before him.

Far to the left General Hope's division was slowly pushing the French back through the village of Palavea, from which they had driven the British outposts at the beginning of the battle. In the centre a severe struggle was being waged for the possession of Elvina, where Bentinck's brigade, after hurling back the frontal attack and driving the enemy up the opposite slopes, was now with difficulty holding its own doggedly against superior numbers. On the right the French flanking columns were being driven steadily through the valley by Paget's division, and Franceschi's dragoons were already retiring behind the great battery, where eleven guns at almost point-blank range were now tearing huge gaps in Bentinck's slender columns.

Jack had halted for a moment to get his bearings; he was beginning to make his way down the slope towards Elvina when he caught sight of three officers on his left, galloping towards him on the crest of the hill. In the leading horseman, mounted on a cream-coloured charger with black tail and mane, he instantly recognized Sir John Moore; the others were officers of the staff. Jack had eyes only for the general as the well-known figure swept up at headlong speed to within a few yards of the spot where he had halted, then suddenly drew rein, throwing the gallant charger upon its haunches, with quivering nostrils and heaving flanks. Jack never forgot the picture of horse and rider at this moment: the charger snorting with excitement, its eyes dilated, its ears cocked forward, its hoofs ploughing deep furrows in the soft earth; the rider, with eyes fixed searchingly upon the enemy, seeming to keep his seat without conscious effort, his whole being concentrated in the lightning glance with which he took in every detail of the fight.

He was about to move away when Jack trotted up, saluted, and delivered his message. Sir John seemed too much preoccupied to notice who his informant was. After an instant's reflection he said: "Follow me, sir; I shall probably have a message for General Paget in the course of a few minutes." Then, setting spurs to his horse, he galloped down the hill towards Elvina.

As they approached the village the 50th Regiment, commanded by Major Charles Napier, was making a desperate effort to retake the place. They drove the enemy at the point of the bayonet through the village street and beyond some stone walls on the outskirts; but there the French rallied, and, being reinforced from the slopes above, again advanced, capturing Major Napier, who was desperately wounded, and pressing hard upon the 50th regiment and the Black Watch, both of which were running short of ammunition. The 42nd, mistaking an order, began to retire. Then the commander-in-chief rode up, and addressing them said: "Men of the 42nd, you have still your bayonets. Remember Egypt! Remember Scotland! Come on, my gallant countrymen!"

With a cheer the Black Watch returned to the attack. Moore followed the brilliant charge with kindling eyes. "Splendid fellows!" he exclaimed. He was just turning to give Jack the promised message when a cannon-shot from the battery above struck him to the ground. For one brief moment it might almost have been thought that the hurt was a trivial one, for the general, raising himself upon his right arm, continued to gaze eagerly and with a look of noble pride upon the struggle beneath. It was not until the success of his troops was assured that he sank back and allowed himself to be removed from the field. Four soldiers carried him tenderly in a blanket to the rear. No doctor was needed to tell the grief-stricken bearers that the wound was mortal. The injured man knew that there was no hope. They would have removed his sword; its hilt was pressing against the wound. "It is as well as it is," he said. "I had rather it should go out of the field with me." As they carried him towards Corunna he more than once bade them turn to learn how the fight was going. They bore him to a house in the town; as he lay dying his mind was filled with his country and the commanders who had served him and England so well during the bitter days of the retreat. "I hope the people of England will be satisfied. I hope my country will do me justice." He spoke of Paget, asking to be remembered to him. "General Paget, I mean; he is a fine fellow." He left messages for all his friends, and in the midst of his agony mentioned for promotion several officers whose gallantry in the field he had noticed. He bore his dreadful sufferings without a murmur. Only when he dictated a last message to his aged mother did he show signs of breaking down. And thus, nobly as he had lived, when night had stilled the sounds of war and the stars blinked over the awful field, the great soldier passed away.

Jack had accompanied the bearers to the little room whither the general was carried, and remained for some time doing such small services as Moore's aides-de-camp required of him. When it was seen beyond all doubt that death was very near, he was sent back to the battle-field with the sad news. During his absence the fight had been raging with undiminished fury. The enemy were retiring; the British were pressing forward on all sides; and but for the lamentable event that had just occurred it is possible that Soult's army would have been utterly destroyed, for his ammunition was failing, and behind him his retreat was barred by an impetuous torrent, spanned by only one narrow bridge. It was not to be. Sir David Baird, who would naturally have succeeded to Moore's command, had himself been wounded. Sir John Hope, to whom the command now fell, ordered the advance to be checked as the shades of evening were falling. His decision was doubtless wise. He was not in a position to follow up a successful action, for the cavalry and guns were all on board ship. The advantage already gained secured the immediate object for which the battle had been fought--the safe embarkation of the army.

When Jack, sad at heart, regained his regiment, below the great French battery, he brought no message from the commander-in-chief. What the message would have been he could only guess. But he felt that had Moore lived, the 95th would have had stern work to do upon the rugged hills above. Sadly the army retired into its lines at Corunna; and as the last shot from the French guns boomed across the valley, and the watch-fires of the British pickets broke into flame on the heights, the body of the noble Moore was laid to rest in the citadel, simply, peacefully, without pomp, amid a reverent silence.

*CHAPTER XVII*

*In the Guadalquivir*

In the Dumps--Messages--A Fellow Passenger--A Match--Marcamiento--The Despatch Disappears--A Quick Recovery--Pepito Expostulates--Perez Plunges--Returned with Thanks--Mr. Frere--An Opportunity--A Volunteer--Pepito's Present--Before the Gale

The sadness which overshadowed the whole army was partly alleviated by the bustle of embarkation. The battle had been won; the object of the great retreat had been achieved. There was nothing to be gained by postponing the return of the victorious but battered army to England. Delay would have enabled reinforcements to reach Soult, which might place him in a position to renew his attack with better hope of success; while the state of the British army was such that it was impossible to follow up their success by a pursuit of the French. Sir John Hope, therefore, upon whom the command had fallen through Moore's death, gave orders that the embarkation of the troops should be hastened, and within twenty-four hours the men were aboard the transports, ready to set sail for home.

Jack was resting in the afternoon with the officers of his company. Illness and fatigue had worn them all to shadows. Pomeroy was wounded, Smith was so haggard as to be hardly recognizable, while Shirley's spirits had forsaken him, and his chums were too much depressed even to object to the melancholy dirges which he quoted, on the homoeopathic principle, for his own solace. Jack alone retained something of his old cheerfulness, and he was doing his best to hearten his companions, before their turn came to embark, when a messenger entered, saying that Sir John Hope desired to see Mr. Lumsden at once. He hurried off, and returned half an hour later with even greater cheerfulness in his eyes and gait.

"What do you think, you fellows?" he cried. "I am not going to sail with you after all!"

"Thank heaven!" said Pomeroy, with his head bandaged.

Jack smiled at his old chum's petulance.

"I'm not so thankful, Pommy," he said. "But for one thing I'd much rather go home with you. As it is--"

"Well, what's your one thing?" said Smith, as he paused.

"I'll tell you some day. I don't want to leave Spain just now, that's all."

"What are you going to do, then?" asked Pomeroy.

"Hope is sending me with a despatch to Seville, to Mr. Frere, our minister there. I'm to put myself at his orders. The general thinks that people at home will be so mad at this retreat that they'll howl for leaving Spain to its fate; so it's very probable that I shall not be long behind you. And you'll be as fit as fiddles when I see you again."

"My own mother wouldn't know me now," said Smith. "You always have had all the luck. Ten chances to one you'll be promoted again, while we, what with our wretched condition and that awful Bay of Biscay, shall either be thrown to the fishes on the way home or drop into our graves as soon as we get there."

"'Call for the robin redbreast and the wren,'" quoted Shirley dolefully.

"Now, Shirley, cheer up!" said Jack. "Don't give all the fellows the blues."

"Faith, no," said the voice of Captain O'Hare, who had heard the last words as he entered. "I'm so weak myself I could hardly kill a fly, but I'm captain o' this company, and I won't have my men driven into the dumps. There's that Wilkes, now. I left him outside, smoking some unmentionable stuff with his mates, singing 'Down among the dead men', in a voice that would scare an undertaker. 'Faith,' says I, 'it's delighted ye ought to be, seeing ye're a sergeant before your time.' 'Sir,' says he, 'I'm only promoted cos poor Sergeant Jones is down among the dead men, and what I want to know is, whether it ain't my dooty to have the nat'ral feelings of a man and a brother.' But what's this I hear, Lumsden?--we leave you behind, eh?"

"Yes, though I hope you'll soon be out again. Surely our government won't throw up the sponge!"

"Bedad, not if they ask my advice. No Englishman, let alone an Irishman, ever turned his back for good on a Frenchman yet; and as the war secretary's an Irishman, why, I prophesy we'll be wid ye in six months, my boy."

"Oh! but I'll be home long before then. There's one thing I'd like to stay in Spain for, but I see little chance of doing anything in it till the war's over, and then it'll be too late, so no doubt Mr. Frere will send me home at once."

"Ah! And your one thing?"

"A precious secret," interposed Pomeroy. "Lumsden's a mystery-man ever since he picked up that brat Pepito, who's the owner of the evil eye if ever gipsy was. Some cock-and-bull story of a hidden treasure, or a beautiful heiress, or something of that kind, if the truth was known; but Jack's as mum as a mile-stone."

A bugle sounded outside the house.

"That's our call, my boys," said the captain. "Come now, out and get the men into order, and march 'em off with as much decency as their rags admit. God bless ye, my boy! please the powers we'll have you back in the mess yet."

"'Fare thee well, but not for ever!'" said Shirley, giving Jack a hearty grip.

"Good luck, old chap!" added Smith. "Give my love to the heiress Pepito finds for you, and if you should happen to come across the Grampus, take my advice--don't gamble."

Pomeroy shook hands silently.

"You'll give my love to the old people, Pommy?" said Jack. "I haven't had time to write to them since we left Salamanca. You can give them all the news."

Then they went among the men. Sergeant Wilkes looked astonished as he filed past and saw that Jack was not among his company, and Jack felt sure that he "wanted to know" more emphatically than ever, especially when, on turning suddenly, he found that Pepito was making farewell grimaces at all his friends in the regiment.

"Now, Pepito," said Jack sternly, "if you're to come with me, you must learn to behave yourself. Cut away and get my things ready; our ship leaves at nine to-night."

Jack's departure, however, had to be deferred until the following morning, the wind being unfavourable. Early on the 18th of January, then, he went on board a bergantin of some 300 tons, carrying his despatch for Mr. Frere in a waterproof bag, and followed by Pepito bearing the few articles he had been able to save out of his well-stocked kit of a few months before. Sir John Hope, when taking leave of him, had asked him to put in, if possible, at Vigo, and report to General Craufurd, if he were still there, the recent happenings at Corunna.

His errand fortunately fitted in with the instructions of the master of the brig. Jack had to spend the night at Vigo, where he learned that Craufurd had embarked his brigade some days before, and had already sailed for home. Next morning he was standing on deck, watching the last bales of a miscellaneous cargo as they were lowered into the hold, when, looking along the quay, he saw hurrying towards him two figures which he recognized with no little astonishment. The one was a tall Spaniard in military uniform; the other, still taller, was covered with a ragged brown cloak, and staggered along under the weight of a large valise. Perceiving Jack's eyes fixed on him, the foremost figure waved his hand with easy condescension, and smiled, and when he was still several yards away, began to speak:

"Ah, amigo mio, you look surprised! As for me, I am both surprised and delighted. I had not hoped for the pleasure of an old comrade's company on this voyage. We will talk over old times, Jackino, and help each other to face the perils of the sea."

"You anticipate a storm, then?" said Jack, with a meaning look.

"Not anticipate, my friend; but one must be prepared. And there is one peril that, storm or no storm, every traveller has to endure."

"That is?"

"Mareamiento, amigo mio! The motion of a ship produces an unpleasant perturbation of the internal organs, resulting in--"

Jack laughed.

"That's your peril! Well, it's one that everyone has to face for himself. If I were you, when you feel the perturbation beginning, I should lie on my back."

"But then I should have to turn over," said Miguel seriously. "However, you do not ask why I am prepared to endure this disagreeable accident of travel; you show no curiosity, my dear friend."

"About other people's business--no. But I see that your man appears none the worse for the punishment which, no doubt, the Marquis of La Romana awarded him for his outrage at Astorga--you remember?--the occasion when you were so much shocked at the man's heartless treachery."

"I remember well, dear friend. Perez was the victim of a sudden temptation, poor fellow. You see, he has only one eye. He is not all there. Oh, he was punished! He was made to take off his uniform--it had gold lace, you remember?--and to dress as a servant, and that, to a man of Perez' illustrious connections and personal pride, was a great, an overpowering humiliation. He felt the disgrace so keenly that he assured me he could not live unless I took him back into my service. What could I do? I could not be responsible for the miserable wretch's self-destruction. I did what every man of heart would have done, and-- But we are moving, my friend; the ship is oscillating like a child's cradle; the wind catches the sails. Yes, the voyage has begun. I think I will--ah!--descend."

As Miguel, leaning on the arm of his follower, disappeared down the companion-way, Jack noticed a large rent in the man's cloak, into which another material, by no means a good match, had been clumsily darned. He started, and drew out of his pocket a jagged remnant of cloth, the sole memento of his narrow escape at Cacabellos. In general appearance it closely resembled the material worn by the Spaniard; but as both were brown, and Spanish cloaks were usually of this colour, it would not be easy, without close examination, to establish their identity.

"It may be merely a coincidence," thought Jack, "but it's queer, anyway. I have no doubt he owes me a grudge; I hit him rather hard. And Miguel, who doesn't love me either, would not be above reminding him of it."

With a careless resolve to be on his guard, Jack dismissed the matter for the moment. For two days he saw nothing more of Miguel. The wind was fresh, and while Jack revelled in the rapid progress, and felt himself braced by the keen salt air, Miguel, his man, and Pepito all passed through various stages of misery and despair. Pepito was the first to recover, and from him Jack learnt that Miguel had intended to attempt the journey southwards overland, but that, having accidentally caught sight of Jack in Vigo, he had made enquiries, and determined to risk the sea-passage in his company. This information Pepito had picked up from one of the seamen, who had been accosted and questioned by Perez before they left the harbour.

"Two villains, Senor!" said Pepito, as he concluded his story. "They do not love the Senor," he added, significantly fingering the small knife that protruded from his sash. The action, like the weapon itself, was two-edged. It was a warning to Jack and a menace to the two Spaniards, who had just crawled for the first time from below, and, unwashed and unshorn, presented anything but a formidable appearance. Nevertheless, whenever he moved, Jack felt that Perez was watching him. He never succeeded in catching him in the act; he felt rather than saw the glare of the man's forlorn eye.

Miguel volunteered the information that he was carrying despatches from La Romana to the Supreme Junta at Seville, and asked Jack what errand had brought him southwards. Jack, however, evaded the question, enquiring into the present circumstances of La Romana's rabble, and its prospects of escaping destruction. The Spaniard was evidently annoyed at Jack's want of communicativeness. He gave the shortest answers to his questions, and then, with a malicious gleam in his eyes, turned the conversation into another channel.

"And when my errand at Seville is accomplished," he said in his blandest tones, "I shall make my best speed to Saragossa, where I shall find my pearl, my rose, querida mia, the lovely Juanita. Pity, Jackino, I cannot invite you to my wedding. It would give you so much pleasure to see the two friends of your childhood united in the holy bonds of wedlock; and when--"

But Jack had moved away; he walked forward and watched the prow cutting its white furrow, thinking of the old days when Juanita and he had both detested Miguel Priego, and wondering how the girl could have been persuaded to plight her troth to such a man.

The skipper told him that he hoped to make the mouth of the Guadalquivir on the evening of the fourth day after leaving Vigo. He proposed to anchor there for the night, and sail up to Seville next day. Jack was so eager to reach his destination and deliver his despatch that he half-resolved to have himself put ashore at San Lucar, and finish the journey overland. With this intention, when one evening the lights of San Lucar were sighted, he went to his cabin for his despatch-bag, telling Pepito to carry his few belongings on deck. Lifting the bag, he was struck by the appearance of fine scratches on the hasp of the lock. He held it close to the flame of his lamp to examine it more thoroughly, and found in a moment that the lock had been forced and the despatch abstracted.