The Spanish Bride

5

Kincaid, who had been sent on picket the previous evening, and was still unrelieved, had found himself, at an early hour, in a position of some discomfort. When the cannonade began, a quantity of round-shot peppered the ground over which his picket was posted. He remarked coolly that the Frogs seemed to have chosen the picket as their pitching-place, and cast an experienced eye around him to discover the nearest cover. A broad ditch, about a hundred yards distant, offered the only obstacle to an enemy advance. He noted its position in case of a future need, and turned to find his Sergeant at his elbow. A splutter of dust, kicked up a charge of shot falling quite close to them, freely bespattered them both. ‘Don’t seem to be firing blanks, do they, Sergeant?’ said Kincaid.

The Sergeant grinned. ‘No, sir. What will we do, sir?’

‘Oh, just watch the plain!’ Kincaid replied. ‘Seems to be a little trouble going on behind that; hill.’

The Sergeant, who thought, from the confused uproar, that there must be a good deal of trouble going on, grinned more broadly, but said: ‘Yes, sir. As you say, sir!’ The picket remained in position, keeping a look-out over the plain. The rising ground to the left hid the operations of the cavalry from sight, but in a short while such a violent commotion arose from behind the hill that Kincaid lost no time in removing his picket to a position, behind the ditch he had previously noted. He had barely executed this movement when (as he afterwards described it) Lord Wellington with his Staff, and a cloud of French and English dragoons and horse-artillery intermixed, came over the hill at full cry, over the very ground he had that instant quitted.

A picket of the 43rd regiment having formed on his right, Kincaid was forced, for fear of shooting them instead of the enemy, to remain inactive. He was so astonished, he said, by the spectacle of Lord Wellington and Marshal Beresford hacking their way through the mêlée with their drawn swords, that he doubted whether he could have collected his wits sufficiently to give the order to fire.

‘And how they came there, I know no more than my old mare!’ Kincaid told Harry, much later. ‘Old Hookey, and Beresford, and the two guns, and all the beautiful Staff, took refuge behind my picket. Old Hookey didn’t look more than half-pleased, I can tell you. But it was a pleasure to hear Alten swearing. I wish I understood German.’

‘I don’t wonder the Peer wasn’t pleased!’ said Harry.

‘He was bringing up two cavalry brigades to reinforce us, and rode ahead of them to the left of our skirmishing line, where the 11th and 12th Light dragoons were supporting Ross’s guns. Just as he arrived, a French squadron broke in from the flank, straight for the guns. The 12th couldn’t stand against them, and began to retire. From what I heard, some fellows on Beresford’s Staff tried to stop ’em, shouting out: “Threes about!” That’s where the trouble started, because the 11th, who were coming up in support, heard it, and thought the order was meant for them. So they went about, and down came the French, right on top of all the headquarters Staff! Luckily the 11th soon saw that there must have been a mistake, and faced about, and drove the French off.’

‘My God, to think I missed seeing all that!’ said Kincaid, with heartfelt regret. ‘Damn it, you can’t have everything!’ objected Eeles.

‘You saw old Douro laying about him, which is more than we did!’ ‘All very well!’ said Harry. ‘But a pretty mess we should be in now if he had been killed!’ ‘I suppose you think we’ve had a nice sort of a day, with that long-nosed beggar hounding us on one of his cursed forced marches?’ said Eeles, with awful sarcasm. ‘I’ve got a blister on my heel the size of a crown.’

‘The French are in a worse case than we are.’

‘Well, isn’t that a comfort!’ said Eeles. ‘I hope I die before morning, that’s all.’ The two divisions had indeed passed a trying day. Lord Wellington, having brought reinforcements of cavalry to them in person, had immediately taken over from Cotton the direction of the retreat, and had lost no time in setting the divisions in motion. They had marched in two columns, with the Guarena river as their immediate, and Salamanca as their ultimate, goal. Covered by cavalry, they retired in two columns, and had not covered any appreciable distance before they sighted two French columns, marching in the same direction, for presumably the same goals. For eight miles the rival forces paralleled each other, engaging for the entire distance in a desultory dog-fight, as wearing to men’s nerves as any pitched battle. The undulating country lying between the Trabancos and the Guarena was rich with vast fields of ripening corn, intersected by dry water-courses. The corn was yellowing fast, and presented the appearance of a shimmering golden sea. A shot from one of the French guns set a field alight, and the fire spread with hungry rapidity. The roar and crackle of the flames, the cloud of heavy black smoke that rose to hang lazily on the air drew a bitter exclamation from a sweating Rifleman. ‘Jesus! Ain’t it hot enough without them bleeding Frogs lighting camp-fires?’

The 4th division, forming the column nearest to the French line of march, suffered most from the intermittent artillery-fire, and it was not long before the men, fretted by the casualties in their column, began to hope that the rival commanders would decide to call a halt to the march, and form battle-fronts. It was thought that the cavalry were having the best of it; and one Light division man, watching a slight skirmish, loudly expressed his desire to be exchanged into a cavalry regiment. He complained of blisters on his feet, but a prosaically-minded friend replied scornfully: ‘Yus, and if you was on ’orseback you’d ’ave boils on your arse, so for Christ’s sake shut your blurry bone-box!’

At the end of the long day’s march, when the columns, reinforced since Torrecilla de la Orden by the 5th division, drew near to the Guarena river, the pace of both armies quickened. The firing almost ceased as the dog-weary troops strove to be the first to reach the river. The Light division began to gain on the French column, and even the candidate for a cavalry regiment forgot his grievances in a determination to gain the rising ground beyond the river before the enemy could occupy it. ‘By Gob, we’ll do it!’ he said, rather breathless, but happy for the first time that day. ‘Regular Talavera march, this ’ere!’ ‘Christ, I’m dry!’ croaked a recruit, passing the tip of a swelling tongue between his cracked lips.

But although every man amongst them was parched with thirst, the Light division did not halt by the river, but drank as they marched through the shallow ford, scooping up the tepid, muddied water in their hands or their shakos. Some of the recruits were inclined to grumble at the inhumanity of officers who would not permit them a few minutes’ respite, but they got no sympathy from the veterans. ‘You stop here swilling your guts, and you’ll be put to bed with a shovel!’ said a Rifleman grimly.

The truth of this pronouncement was demonstrated a little later, when the 5th division, reaching the stream, halted there. The French guns, hurried into position on the hills above, at once opened fire, providing the Johnny Raws, said Tom Crawley, watching the flurry and carnage in the river, with an excellent object lesson. ‘That’ll learn the Pioneers,’ he remarked dispassionately. ‘If you start in to take liberties with them Frogs, my lad, you’ll find yourself in a peck of trouble, and don’t you forget it!’

Lord Wellington was not allowed to occupy his ground quite without opposition, but after a somewhat costly attempt to dislodge him, Marmont called in his skirmishing parties, and allowed his exhausted troops, who had covered a distance of eighty miles in two days, to bivouac for the night. ‘And if anyone can tell me what the devil all this manoeuvring has been about, I shall be grateful!’ said Eeles.

‘Marmont’s too clever by half,’ said Charles Beckwith, who was feeding a camp-fire with bundles of stubble. ‘He gained a day’s march on us when he crossed the Douro, too, not to mention turning our whole position. He could have got to Salamanca, if he hadn’t been so anxious to show us how prettily he can manoeuvre.’

‘Damn his eyes!’ said Eeles, tenderly inspecting his afflicted heel. ‘Well, he’s gained nothing by it but the devil of a lot of casualties,’ said Beckwith. ‘Yes, he has,’ said Harry, grinning. ‘He’s gained George’s canteen!’

Beckwith looked up. ‘Oh no, has he really? Careless fellow, George! Always dropping your things about!’

‘It’s all very well for you to start funning,’ said Simmons, receiving this baseless accusation with his usual good-humour. ‘It’s no joke for me, though, for I’ve lost my mule as well. A fine young mule, too. He got a kick from a stallion on the march, and my fellow had to cut him loose. Broken thigh-bone. The worst is, I had a variety of comforts packed up with my canteen, which I shan’t easily be able to replace. It’s a sad grievance, I can tell you.’ ‘Never mind, George, you shall have supper with us,’ Harry said. ‘We’ve got a chicken.’ Eeles, who had been smearing tallow on his heel, rolled over on to his elbow, and called out: ‘Juana! Oh, Juana! Mrs Smith! Queridissima amiga! Will you invite me to supper with you?’ Juana came out of Harry’s tent, and walked over to the fire. ‘Que fastidio! No, because there will not be enough food.’

‘Where did you manage to pick up a fowl, Juana? Beckwith asked, folding his greatcoat to make a seat for her.

‘Joe Kitchen stole it,’ she replied.

Harry laughed, holding her in the crook of his arm. ‘I’ll swear you told him to!’ ‘Well, I thought we should need it,’ she explained, leaning gratefully against his shoulder. ‘Tired, hija?’ he said.

‘Muy causada,’ she admitted, sleepily smiling. ‘When must we march again?’ ‘That’s easily answered,’ said Eeles. ‘At dawn, just when you’re dropping into your second sleep.’

‘Señor Kincaid,’ remarked Juana inconsequently, ‘says that dawn is when one can see a grey horse a mile away.’

‘Well, let’s hope to God there isn’t any cavalry in our front,’ said Eeles.