CHAPTER XXVII. I JOIN THE CANTONMENTS OF THE ALLIED ARMY--LIEUTENANT

CROTTY’S INTERVIEW WITH LORD WELLINGTON.

“Sir James. Surely you exaggerate a little?

Papillon. Yes--yes, this interview will sink him.

Young Wilding. True to the letter, upon my honour.”

“Why he will tell you more lies in an hour than all the circulating libraries put together will publish in a year.”--The Liar.

|I had scarcely landed when I received the unwelcome intelligence that General ----------, to whose staff I had been appointed, had been wounded on the retreat from Burgos, and in consequence obliged to resign his command, and return to England invalided. I felt the disappointment severely--but as the corps that I had previously exchanged into was at Valencia, with the Anglo-Sicilian army there collected, much as I should have desired “to follow to the field” the victor of Salamanca, I determined to join my regiment without delay, and “flesh my maiden sword” the ensuing campaign, under the colours of the old and honourable Twenty-seventh. Ignorant of the route by which I could cross the country to the eastern coast of Spain, and anxious to see that gallant army under whose conquering banners I had anticipated a glorious opening to my career in arms, after a three days’ sojourn in Lisbon, I left that city of filth and splendour in company with half a dozen officers _en route_ to join their respective battalions--some, in return from leave--and others, like myself, to smell powder for the first time. A captain of an Irish regiment was of the party. He was a gay, honest-hearted, blundering countryman; and from the graphic sketches D’Arcy gwe me on the road of all attached to the battalion I was about to join, from the junior Ensign of sixteen, to the old stiff-backed Colonel of sixty, I became so familiar with the corps, that I almost fancied at first sight I could have placed my hand on every head, and identified the individual--and, on the evening when we entered the encampment of the regiment, I felt perfectly at home, and entered the rude mess-room as much at ease, as if, after a temporary absence, I was merely returning to join some old acquaintances.

It was a memorable epoch in the military history of Britain, when, early in the second week of February, 1813, I found myself in the cantonments of the fourth division on the banks of the Agueda. Like all sublunary affairs, war has its season of repose; and those mighty masses of armed men, who but a few months before had stood in threatening array in presence of each other, were separated by mutual consent to recover their losses and fatigues, and prepare for renewed exertions. Each had selected that portion of the country best adapted for obtaining supplies and reinforcements. The allied infantry were cantoned generally on the Agueda and Douro--with their cavalry in the valley of the Moudego, and round Moncorbo. One Spanish corps passed the winter in Gallicia, a second in Estremadura, and a third garrisoned Ciudad Rodrigo. Of the French armies, the head quarters of the northern was at Valladolid; the southern at Toledo; and those of the centre, including King Joseph and his guards, were established at Segovia. In military circumstances, the rival armies found themselves, at the end of the preceding autumn, in a position similar to that of men who have fought a battle in which neither have come off conqueror. Both had sustained enormous losses without countervailing advantages; and each required its casualties to be replaced, and its discipline restored. At the opening of the campaign, fortune went as heavily against the enemy, as it did against the allies at the close. From the 18th of July, when the French passed the Douro, until they recrossed it on the 30th, their loss might have been set down at fifteen thousand men, and the allies at about a third of that number. While, from the time when Lord Wellington broke ground before Burgos, until he halted on the banks of the Huebra, in retreat, chiefly from drunkenness and military irregularity, eight thousand of the allies were rendered _hors de combat_.

No wonder therefore that to both armies, winter presented a seasonable period of repose, and that both willingly accepted it. Nearly one third of his army were in hospital, and hence Lord Wellington deemed that rest for it was indispensable. Nor could his opponents avail themselves of this weakness, and continue active operations, for the French supplies were insecure, and their bases of operation disturbed by Partida bands, which were every where swarming on their flanks and in their rear. Indeed each army dreaded that the other would resume hostilities; and when a report prevailed that Soult, who was upon the Upper Tonnes, meditated an invasion of Portugal by the valley of the Tagus, and Wellington had, accordingly, removed the boat bridges at Almarez and Arzobispo, the French, equally afraid that the allies might cross the river, destroyed all means of passage at other points which the English general had overlooked as unnecessary.

Such was the military position of the allies in the field--one that, abroad, rendered the question of ulterior success an uncertainty; while at home, the failure before Burgos renewed loud expressions of discontent, which the brilliant opening of the late campaign had partially subdued. England was divided into two great sections; one party advocating the necessity of continuing the Spanish war, and another decrying it as a ruinous experiment. What Salamanca had effected in establishing the policy of maintaining the struggle on the Peninsula, the retreat to the Agueda had undone; and the balance of public opinion respecting the expediency of abandoning the contest in Spain was restored. “The ministerial party had expected far too much, and consequently their disappointment was proportionate: the opposition had raised the wolf-cry until the country had ceased to dread it; and they caught desperately at what proved a last pretext, to reiterate their denunciations, and abuse him who conducted, and those who planned the war. Ministers were denounced for continuing the contest, and for starving it--Lord Wellington both for inactivity and for rashness--for doing too little and too much” *--for wasting time at Madrid, and for attempting a siege with means so inadequate, that nothing but an enormous expenditure of blood could possibly obtain success.

* Maxwell’s Life of Wellington,

But to the clamour of party and the calumny of faction, he, since happily surnamed “The Iron Duke,” turned an indifferent ear; and the same proud feeling that on the heights of Guinaldo had sustained him, when a less assured courage might have faltered, enabled him now to regard the malice of political opponents with contempt; and, perfectly undisturbed, to direct the energies of a master-mind to the completion of those great means by which alone a great end could be accomplished. Profiting by past experience, the internal economy of the army underwent a sweeping reformation. Abuses were sought for, detected, and removed--every hospital was cleared of men who feigned illness to evade duty--and from every depot idlers were driven back to the columns they had abandoned. Supplies came liberally from England, proving the illimitable resources of the island-home of freedom; and the great captain of the age was thus enabled to organize the most splendid force that ever took the field--one, so perfect in every arm, as to warrant its constructor, years afterwards, when the greater number of those gallant spirits who had composed it were sleeping in the grave, to make the proud and proven boast--that “with that army which had crossed the Pyrenees, he could do any thing and go any where.” No wonder that brilliant era of his life is still readied in cherished remembrance by the old Peninsular; and as, deed after deed, he details the conquering career of that matchless host, with which he crossed the Agueda to halt only on the banks of the Garonne, he may raise his head with military pride, and exclaim, “Pars fui!”

Of two hundred thousand men under the direct command of Lord Wellington, the Anglo-Portuguese, amounting nearly to seventy-five thousand bayonets and sabres, were the flower. From the first moment of the Peninsular contest, the British infantry had established its superiority; and now the cwalry and artillery were superb. Every thing required for field service had been skilfully provided. A fine pontoon train accompanied the army, and ambulances were provided for the accommodation of the sick and wounded. Other means to increase his comforts were also afforded to the soldier; and, for the first time, tents were supplied for shelter in the field, while the cumbrous camp-kettle was replaced with others of smaller size, and lighter material, as better adapted for all the purposes of campaigning.

During the suspension of active operations on both sides, and while the French and Allied armies were quiet in their respective cantonments, that restless enemy, the Partida bands, were busily employed. Longa, in the vicinity of Burgos, was actively engaged in harassing the marauding parties of the enemy, interrupting their communications, and surprising their detached posts; while Hina, in Arragon and Navarre, carried on a desultory warfare with equal success. Another less celebrated but not less active leader was “the Friar,” (El Frayle,) who, with a numerous band admirably organized, kept Valencia in confusion. Indeed, the Guerillas had now become as formidable in numbers as they had ever been audacious in their mode of warfare. No longer confining their operations to the cutting off of foraging parties and the interception of convoys, they fell upon strong detachments, and almost invariably with success; until at last no courier could pass the roads, nor even a battalion of seven hundred men move from one garrison to another, without the protection of an escort. Such was the military attitude of Spain when I joined the fourth division.

In a dilapidated farm-house I found my future companions in arms seated at a comfortable dinner, although a stranger looking mess room was never occupied by gentlemen of the sword. It had been the grand apartment of the dwelling of a farm proprietor; the house was generally in ruins, but this wing had been judiciously selected for the _symposia_ of the gallant Twentieth, inasmuch as the roof was nearly weather-fast. The table was a collection of old doors placed upon temporary supporters; and as every member of the body politic furnished his own conveniency of sitting at “the board,” the especial method of accommodation depended on the ability or fancy of the individual. Some, in superior luxury, had deposited their persons on a camp-stool, while others were contented with a block of wood, a basket, or a broken arm chest. The table appointments were not unique, for every person found his own; and nothing was held in common property save the viands and the wine.

But a lighter-hearted community than the gallant Twentieth could not have been discovered. The hardships of the retreat to the Huebra were still in vivid recollection; and now, anticipating similar privations, but attended by more glorious results, the present was their only care; and over the head of the master of the revels the apposite motto “_Carpe diem!_” had been inscribed with a burnt cork. Heralded by my loving countryman, I was introduced in terms of commendation that brought the colour to my cheek. I received, consequently, a warm and soldierly reception; and before I retired to a shake-down offered me for the night in the tent of the junior major, I called every man by an abbreviated name--or, at least, as many of the batch as a memory, slightly obfuscated, could manage to remember.

“Upon my sowl!” observed a short and snub-nosed captain, with an accent redolent of “the far west,” “that’s dacent wine; and the divil that brings it should be encouraged.--Here’s your health, O’Halloran; and in return you’ll call me Philbin, if you plase;--and now that the owld colonel’s gone, may I live to see you senior captain of the regiment, and then I know who’ll command it,--and that’s myself.”

To this delicate and disinterested compliment, I replied in suitable terms.

“And what the devil keeps Peter Crotty?” inquired a second.

Ignorant of the occasion of his absence, I inquired the causes from my quondam friend, and learned that the absent gentleman had gone up to head-quarters with certain regimental returns; and that his reappearance had been eagerly expected, to ascertain what reliance might be placed in the rumoured intelligence that an earlier commencement of field operations might be looked for than the season could be supposed to warrant. Peter Crotty, however, did not appear; an hour passed--the said Peter was cursed and envied according to the mood of the individual; it being universally resolved, that he, Peter, had popped into some hospitable cantonary, and got drunk for the honour of the service.

“Lord! what a congregation of lies Peter will have to get rid of in the morning,” said the captain of grenadiers.

“I beg your pardon--he’ll deliver himself of the cargo in a shorter time--for that’s his cough, for a hundred!” responded a light-bob.

The lieutenant’s ear was correct; for in a few moments the denounced absentee modestly presented himself.

Had our meeting been in Kanischatka, I should have claimed Peter for a countryman at first sight. He was a stout, well-timbered fellow, of soldierly setting-up, and, as far as appearance went, perfectly content with himself, and at peace with all the world. To say that he was drunk, would not be true; to assert him sober, might have raised a controverted question: but leave it to the most charitable, and they would freely admit that Peter Crotty, in Connemara parlance, “had been looking at somebody drinking.”

“Arrrah, astore!” observed Mr. Philbin; “may the divil be your welcome! Here have we been waiting these six hours, expecting a little news--while you, no doubt, have visited every wine-house between our quarters and Frenada. By this book!” and Captain Philbin raised a horn drinking-vessel devoutly to his lips, “I’ve a mind to report you in the morning to Sir Lowry.”

“Never listen to him, Peter,” observed the grenadier; “you must be thirsty after your long ride.--Put that down your neck first, give us some fresh intelligence afterwards, and stick as close to the truth as you can conveniently.” And he presented to the new-comer a nondescript tin vessel, filled to the brim with wine.

Peter Crotty had really been thirsty; for he turned down the cup to the very bottom.

“Arrah--what kept ye, Peter?” inquired the first speaker.

“What kept me?--Why, business, and Lord Wellington.”

“Nonsense!”--

“It’s true. Divil a one of me could get away, good nor bad?”

“Any thing wrong in the returns?” inquired the grenadier.

“Oh, sorra thing; for he gave us the height of applause.”

“Did the aide-de-camp tell you so?” asked a listener.

“What aide-de-camp?--Don’t I tell ye it was himself?” observed Lieutenant Crotty.

“Himself? Arrah--the divil an eye ye laid upon him, unless ye happened to see him lighting off his horse,” observed Captain Philbin.

Peter Crotty answered this remark by a look of silent contempt.

“He’s in for it,” whispered my next neighbour, softly. “I’ll back him for a regular rigmarole of lies against any man in the Peninsula. But we must humour him.----“Well, Peter, and was his lordship commonly civil?”

“A pleasanter-spoken man I never was in company with,” was the reply.

“And he did seem pleased with our morning-state?--The aide-decamp told you that?”

“Not at all; it was his lordship. ‘Crotty,’ says he--”

“Oh!” whispered my friend the major, “that’s conclusive.--All’s right when Peter uses the present personal.”

“Ay! ‘Crotty,’ says he,”--observed another, “But you have had a long ride; so before you begin a longer story, take the cobwebs from your throat.”

Again the tin cup was replenished--once more Peter Crotty refreshed himself; and then to a very attentive auditory he commenced the detail of a recent interview with the “great captain.”

“Well, you see, I only got the returns from the orderly room at twelve; and as I had ten miles to ride, off the mule and myself jogged immediately. Nothing particular occurred on the road, barrin’ I met Soames and Hamilton, and--

“Oh, d--n Soames and Hamilton!” exclaimed two or three voices together.

“Well, we had a drop of wine, and on I pushed without delay,--except half an hour with the Eighty-eighth; and we had a sort of a lunch of an over-driven bullock, the rump-steak,--by-the-by, it was cut off the fore-part of the shoulder, and as hard as the divil’s horn.--We had a throw of rum-and-water afterwards--”

“For _one_, read _three_,” observed another of the audience.

“Well, I reached Frenada--rode up to the door--gave my mule to an orderly--stept into the ante-room, and handed in the returns--”

“And, as the evening was wet, I suppose they allowed you to sit down,” said Captain Philbin.

Lieutenant Crotty turned a wrathful look upon the speaker, and then continued his narrative.

“The door was open, and every word that passed within I heard plainly.”

“‘Arrah! what’s that?’ said his lordship.

“‘The morning-strength of the Twentieth, my lord,’ replied the aide-de-camp.

“‘Divil welcome the bearer!’ says the general. ‘Isn’t it cruel hard, that a man can’t have a little pace and quiet, without this eternal botheration? Tell the fellow to come to the door; and ask him who he is.’ “Be gogstay! I made bold to answer, ‘It’s me, Lieutenant Crotty--plase your lordship.’”

“‘Crotty!--Crotty!’ says he; ‘Is it Peter Crotty, of the Twentieth?’”

“‘The same, my lord,’ says I.

“‘Arrah, then,’ replies the general, ‘I wouldn’t for a thirty-shillin note ye had gone home, without my seeing ye. Peter, step in and be off’, and shut the doer after ye,’ says he to the aide-de-camp; ‘I’m not at home, if any one inquires this evening. And now, Grotty dear, draw a camp-stool, and bring your heels to an anchor.--Ned, says he, for they called one another by their names; ‘hand Mr. Crotty a glass. And now, Peter, raise y’er elbow a trifle, and fill fair. Is there any news astir:’

“‘Nothing,’ says I, ‘unless your lordship has it.’

“‘Had ye anything to ate on the road?’ says he. ‘We could get ye a broiled bone in half a jiffy.’

‘Too much trouble,’ says I, ‘my lord; I took a bit with the Eighty-eighth, as I was coming along.’

“‘Oh! bad luck to the same lads, Sir Thomas Picton,’ says he.

“‘They’re makin’ an ould man of me, the thieves! The divil himself--Christ pardon us! wouldn’t keep them tolerably reg’lar.’

“He didn’t say ‘Christ pardon us!’ Peter.”

“He did,” returned the narrator. “Do you think that he stopped to pick and choose his words in the company of friends?”

“Well, go on Peter.” *

“All this time, Sir Thomas, and General Paekenham, never said a word; but, like a priest after confessions, they lathered away at the drinking.” _ _

“‘Did you hear lately from y’er family:’ says his lordship to me.

“‘Arrah! the devil a scrape I had from Ireland these nine months,’ says I.

“‘I see what y’er lookin’ at,’ says he, as he caught me throwin’ a sheep’s eye over at a card-table in the corner--‘are you for a rubber, Peter, to help us to put in the evening?’

“‘Feaks! my lord,’ says I, ‘I’d be afeard, as I’m rather out of practice.’

“‘Make it five an’ ten,’ says he; ‘y’er the divil at that, no doubt, as the boy said his mother was at the praying. Come, Ned,’ says he, ‘down with y’er dust, and we’ll cut for who’ll have Peter Grotty; and by my soul, up comes a red knave. ‘By the powers of pewter, Peter, ye’er my own!’ says my lord.

“‘Oh, then, y’er welcome to him, if he was better,’ says Sir Thomas. And he seemed cross at losing me.

“Well--my Lord desired Ned Packenham to make us a tumbler each--and down we sit;--myself as stiff as a new-made quartermaster, although, if God’s truth was told, I hadn’t a skurrick in my pocket to mark the game with.

“‘Here’s luck!’ says his lordship, finishin’ his tumbler at a pull. I forgot to mention, that Sir Thomas stuck to the sherry, and Ned Packenham helped himself to a sketch of brandy in the bottom of a glass, and took it nate, without water.

“Well, I cuts a black deuce, so the dale was mine; and up turns the ace of hearts afterwards. His lordship winked his left eye when he saw it. ‘Be the powers,’ says his lordship, ‘your mother must have been in’ the yeomen, or she’d never have had such a son! Many a Sunday ye play’d cards upon a tombstone instead of goin’ to mass; God forgive ye for the same, Peter!”’

“Colonel Burn wants Lieutenant Crotty immediately,” said a mess waiter from the door.

“Oh, holy Mary!--I forgot to report myself!--and, may be, I won’t catch it from the ould lad?” exclaimed the partner of Lord Wellington, as he sprang from the barrel he was seated on, and hounded after the messenger in desperate alarm, while a roar of laughter accompanied his hurried exit. A _dock an durris_, for we were all Scotch and Irish intermixed, passed from hand to hand, for the departure of Lieutenant Crotty appeared to be the signal for a general dispersion; and I accompanied the hospitable friend who had offered me a sleeping corner in his tent.

Presently, the cantonments became quiet, and light after light disappeared. Within musket range, five thousand men were sleeping, and yet not a sound was heard but the measured step of “the relief” as it went its rounds, or the loud challenge of the sentry, answered by a whispered countersign. To me, this seemed the opening of a new epoch in my life. I now felt myself a soldier. The camp was to be my future home; and, stretched around me, lay the victors of many a field, with whom, side by side, I was to view, for the first time, the flash of “red artillery.” My couch was fern, my pillow a bullock trunk; and, wrapped in my cloak, I sought the balmy visit of the drowsy god, but sought it vainly. A feverish excitement had banished sleep, and I could not but envy the profoundness of my companion’s repose, whose heavy breathing, a minute after the brief petition of “God bless us!” had passed his lips, told how sound were his slumbers. I dosed at last--dreamed of siege and battle-field, while gentler thoughts floated at times among these martial visions, and love and war were singularly blended. Day dawned, a bugle sounded, the drums beat the _réveillée_, and instantly the camp, hitherto so silent, was all life and bustle, like an alarmed bee-hive, as the startled soldiery issued from tent and hovel. In a few minutes each regiment formed on its respective parade; and the fourth division was reported under arms, as a horseman, attended by an orderly dragoon, galloped along the front of the cantonment. On reaching the flank of the line, he reined up his horse and rode slowly past, directing an eagle glance at every regiment that composed the division. The drums rolled, arms were presented, and I had no difficulty in recognising in the plainly-dressed stranger, one who had already divided the attention of the world with the great Napoleon--the victor of Assaye--the hero of Salamanca--Lord Wellington!