The Spanish Bride

4

The brigade being allowed a breathing-space while it reformed, the men had leisure to notice the heavy roar and crash of artillery ahead of them, on their left flank which they had not previously been aware of. It meant that Graham was in action to the north; and this fact, coupled with the very considerable advance all along the front, seemed to show that the Allied army was closing in on Vittoria. The battle was by no means over, however, for although the French were forced back, they fought with a great deal of stubbornness over every yard of the ground, their sharpshooters taking advantage of every ditch and every shrub. Vandeleur’s brigade was fiercely engaged the whole afternoon, but in a running fight, over ground affording plenty of cover, the Light Bobs were unbeatable, never exposing themselves unnecessarily, nor massing in bodies large enough to provide good marks for the enemy. Where Kempt was, or how he was faring, no one knew, for the land was too undulating to allow of any very comprehensive view being taken of the rest of the field. But as the day wore on, the want of effective cavalry support began to be felt by those who had any time to think of anything but keeping up a steady aim.

The noise of the firing grew ever more deafening, till one had to shout to be heard above the appalling din. Smoke began to lie heavily over the plain; the air was so acrid with it that many men found it impossible to stop coughing. Through it, from a slight hill where he stood beside Ross’s brigade of guns, Harry could see the dark mass of the enemy. Pencils of fire shot through it incessantly; shells screamed overhead, and burst in crash upon crash, sending up showers of mud, and stones, and scattering whole tree-branches, and splinters of rock, and often more horrible debris, over the lines.

‘By God, if ever I saw such an inferno!” Harry exclaimed.

As he spoke, his horse fell under him, like a shot rabbit. He had just time to spring clear, and at once began to look for the wound. He had not been conscious of any missiles falling near enough to hurt the trooper, but in the middle of such a storm of bullets and shells it was possible that it had been hit without his knowledge. But although the horse was apparently dead, not a trace of a wound could he find upon it. He discovered that its heart was beating, and tried the experiment of giving it a kick on the nose. It answered admirably. The trooper gave its head a shake and instantly scrambled to its feet. Harry jumped into the saddle again, and one of Ross’s gunners shouted to him that he had seen the same thing happen before, the wind, from one of the enemy’s cannon-shot having acted on the poor beast like a knock-out blow.

It was dusk when Vandeleur’s brigade passed Vittoria, over a plain at last free from the broad ditches which had made progress difficult. As far as the Light Bobs could judge, the French army was fleeing in a state of rout comparable to the disordered flight from the field of Salamanca. As the brigade passed on, leaving the town on their left, they found their advance checked by an indescribable confusion of abandoned baggage. Acres of ground were covered with every kind of conveyance, from fourgons to elegant private-carriages-these last often containing civilians in a state of the wildest terror. Horses had been dragged out of the shafts and ridden off” into the gathering dusk; chests lay tumbled on the ground with the hasps broken, and art treasures spilling out of them; guns, caissons, artillery-wagons completely blocked the great causeway to Bayonne; and it was impossible to set one foot before the other without treading on a kit-bag, a burst portmanteau, a camp-kettle, a battered shako, or em officer’s dressing-case. Everything seemed to have been abandoned by the French, even the precious treasure-chests from Paris.

As the brigade picked their way through the confusion, still in pursuit of the flying enemy, a swarm of French cavalry suddenly bore down upon them, and all but swept away Tom Cochrane’s company. His men flung themselves down behind a bank and met this onslaught with such an accurate fire that the cavalry was checked, and, by the time Harry had rushed some of his own company up in support, was making off, leaving a number of dead and wounded behind them. Except for some desultory skirmishing, there was no more fighting in that quarter of the field. Some regiments were already plundering the abandoned baggage-train, and since cases of wine and brandy had been found, the night bade fair to be a merry one. Vandeleur received orders to join the 1st brigade with Alten’s headquarters, and sent Harry on to take up the ground. Harry did not seem to be unduly fatigued by his exertions during the day, but he had quite lost his voice, as he generally did after a battle. When he approached the 1st brigade, the first thing he heard was a torrent of heart-broken Spanish lamentations. ‘Oh, Charlie Eeles, el no vendra nunca! el no vendra nunca! Muerto, muerto, muerto!’ ‘But Juana, dearest Juana, only wait a little! There’s no saying he’s dead yet! Depend upon it, it was all a mistake! Pray, pray don’t cry! We’ll find him directly, see if we don’t!’ Harry gave a cracked laugh, and spurred forward to where, dimly, in the twilight, he could see his wife. ‘Hija!’

It was the veriest croak, but she heard it, and came running up to him, stumbling over the tail of her riding-dress, which she had let fall in her start of joy. ‘Enrique, mi Enrique! Oh, thank God you are not killed, only badly wounded!’

‘Thank God, I’m neither!’ said Harry hoarsely. ‘But you, you little varmint! What the deuce are you doing here, in all this commotion?’

‘I followed the 1st brigade, with West. I did not know our brigade was not with them! And when they told me that you were dead, for one of your men saw you fall! Oh, why do you lie to me? You must be wounded!’

Nothing would convince her that he was, in fact, untouched by so much as a splinter, and since he had neither voice nor time enough to spare for argument, he consigned her to Eeles’s care, and rode off to find quarters for his General.

The brigade bivouacked in-the stubble-fields beyond Vittoria, and the only habitation to be obtained for Vandeleur and his Staff was a large barn. Quartermaster Surtees reported that although he had located the division’s commissariat-train, it was impossible to bring it beyond Vittoria, since the congestion on the roads was holding everything at a standstill. This was not such a serious business as it might have been, as anyone who chose to give himself the trouble of going for a stroll amongst the French baggage could be sure of returning with a ham, or some sausages, and a couple of bottles of excellent wine. It was unnecessary to post pickets, as the cavalry was already far in advance, pursuing the routed French into the darkness, so Harry was able to join his wife and General in time to share a supper of ham, Swiss cheese, and burgundy.

He brought in the news that one of the French General’s wives, Mme de Gazan, had been found by Mr Larpent, stranded in a carriage from which the horses had been stolen, and loudly bewailing the loss of her little boy. Larpent had escorted her to Vittoria, of course, and as soon as she found that she was to consider herself Lord Wellington’s honoured guest, her spirits revived, and she seemed to be in a fair way to forgetting the loss of her child. ‘What’s she like? Pretty?’ inquired Vandeleur’s ADC.

‘I don’t know, I didn’t see her. Johnny Kincaid’s in luck again: his fellows found a whole case of wine in some old gentleman’s private carriage. I left Johnny drinking the old man’s health. I’ve never seen anything like the mess all over the roads and the fields! They say the whole of Joseph’s private loot is lying about to be picked up by our plunderers. I myself saw a couple of fellows stuffing their pockets with doubloons.’

‘Not ours?’ Vandeleur said quickly.

Harry shook his head, and refrained from telling his General that one of these pilferers had been an officer.

It was growing dark, and as no one’s baggage had come up there was no means of lighting the barn. The batmen had found some forage for the horses, and had procured a tin kettle, which was boiled over a fire kindled at one end of the barn. Supper was eaten by the flickering firelight, and everyone was so tired that as soon as the last mouthful had been swallowed, they all lay down amongst the horses, wrapped in their cloaks, and slept as soundly as if they lay on the best feather-mattresses. Juana was entirely unembarrassed by a situation which would have made any English lady faint with horror. Having had no other experience of life outside convent walls than that which she had gained at Harry’s side, she saw nothing put of the way in sharing sleeping-quarters with half-a-dozen horses, and several Staff-officers. If she had thought about it at all, she would have supposed that every married lady who followed the drum did the same. It would not, of course, be approved by of her own countrymen, but if one was married to an Englishman one’s whole way of life was naturally peculiar. She was young enough to think it very good fun to comb out her tangled curls with the General’s pocket-comb, to wash the dust from her face and hands in a tin pannikin, and to dry them on the ADC’s handkerchief, which happened to be the only clean one to be found amongst the company.

By daybreak, the baggage, thanks to Surtees’s indefatigable exertions, had arrived, and, the various canteens having been unloaded from the mules’ backs, everyone, including Vandeleur, who tried to toast slices of bread on the end of his sword at a smoky fire, set about preparing breakfast. But hardly had the kettle begun to boil than orders came for the divisions to fall in. Everything had to be packed in a hurry, and the horses saddled-up, and led out of the barn. The General had already mounted, and Harry was shouting to Juana to make haste, when she suddenly stopped in the doorway of the barn, and said: ‘Listen! I am sure I hear someone moaning, like a wounded man!’

‘Nonsense, come along!’

‘But I do hear it!’ she insisted.

‘Better take a look round,’ grunted Vandeleur.

Harry went back into the barn, and glanced about him rather impatiently. He discovered that there was a hay-loft over half the barn, which, in the dusk of the previous evening, no one had noticed. As he looked round for the ladder, a stifled groan sounded unmistakably. There did not seem to be a ladder, or else it had been hauled up, but with a little help from Vandeleur’s ADC Harry managed to scramble into the loft.

The most unexpected sight met his eyes. Upwards of twenty French officers, all badly wounded, and one poor devil dying fast, as Harry saw at a glance, lay huddled there on the heaped hay. A woman was bending over the dying man; when Harry hoisted himself into the loft, she looked up, putting back the hair from her brow with a shaking hand. Her expression was distraught; as she stared at Harry, a little pug-dog ran out from the shelter of her skirts, and began barking at him. Nobody spoke; several of the officers were lying in a state of semi-coma; and one, who was sitting up with his back against the wall, seemed hardly to be aware of Harry’s arrival. The woman crouched over the dying man, as though trying to shield his body with her own. Harry stepped forward, addressing her in French. She answered in Spanish, and very disjointedly. He noticed that some of the men lying all round in the hay were watching him with wary, suspicious eyes, and spoke to them, assuring them of every attention. The lady, who seemed to be growing gradually less afraid of him, begged him to do something for her lover. Harry knelt down beside the man, but his face was livid, and his eyes beginning to glaze. ‘I am sorry,’ Harry said awkwardly.

She gave a moan of despair, and cast herself upon the dying man, passionately kissing his lips. The dog, which had been sniffing at Harry’s boots, began to jump up at him, all the little bells on its collar tinkling merrily.

Harry got up, and, seeing the ladder lying near the edge of the loft, lowered it into the barn, calling to Juana to come up.

‘Tell the General, Bob!’ Harry said. ‘We’ll need a guard to take ’em in charge, but they’re all of them wounded, and we ought to do something for them. Send a couple of fellows up to me, and West too!’

Juana, handed up the ladder, was dreadfully shocked by the sight of the wounded men, and the thought that they had lain there all night, stifling their groans for fear of the English officers beneath them. She ran at once to the Spanish lady, tears of sympathy springing to her eyes. The officer was dead, and for a little while it was impossible to coax the lady away from his body. She sobbed out that he had been so thirsty, and she had had no water to give him, which made Juana cry in great distress: ‘Oh, señora, if we had but known! Alas, alas!’ The General having sent in a couple of orderlies, Harry was having the wounded men lifted down into the barn. They seemed at first very much alarmed, as though they dreaded their fates at the hands of their enemies, but when they had been given water and brandy to drink, they began to be better, and were able to reply with tolerable composure to Harry’s assurances of kind treatment. They were all of them quite young men, hardly more than boys, and the dreadful defeat of the previous day, followed by a night spent in pain and thirst, had distorted their imaginations. The breakfast, which had been stowed away in the canteens, was quickly unpacked again, and given to as many of the prisoners as were in a fit state to eat it; and the Spanish lady, seeing Juana bathing and binding an ugly wound on one officer’s leg, roused herself from her grief, and tottered over to help her. It was impossible for Harry to linger, but by the time the guard had arrived, the worst wounds had been roughly attended to, and several of the officers were sitting up, eating slabs of ham and bread, and feeling very much better. They were all of them embarrassingly grateful, particularly the lady, who caught up her little pug, and put her into Juana’s arms, begging her to accept her in return for her kindness.

Juana was charmed with the dog, a pretty little creature with a coat like satin, and the most engaging tricks, but she hesitated to take her.

‘No, no, I beg of you!’ the lady insisted. ‘She is very good, very intelligent. I wish you to take her! If you would give me pleasure, do not refuse!’

‘Oh, Enrique, may I?’ Juana said, turning a pair of starry eyes towards him. Did it occur to Brigade-Major Smith that a lap-dog would scarcely be a welcome addition to his baggage? Not for a moment! Of course Juana might take the little thing, and a dozen more like her, if she chose!

‘Now what in thunder have you got hold of here?’ demanded the General, when he saw the pug-dog precariously mounted on Juana’s saddle-bow.

Juana let the reins drop to hold up her pet for inspection. ‘Oh, dear General Vandeleur, my perrilla! Look, is she not a darling dog? I am going to call her Vittoria! My little Vitty, are you not, mi querida?’