The Spanish Bride

4

The sight of the retreating column whipped up the division’s spirits; men who, a moment before, had thought themselves unable to move, struggled to their feet again; and when Alten decided to force the march on for seven miles more in an attempt to intercept the retreat, almost the whole of the 1st brigade began to struggle down the steep track on the northern side of the mountain. As many of Skerrett’s men as could still put one foot in front of the other followed, but thirty miles of marching in the rear of the column over heart-breaking ground had taken too big a toll of the brigade’s strength. ‘The men can’t do it, General,’ Harry told Skerrett bluntly.

‘I believe you are right,’ Skerrett said, in an undecided tone.

Harry, who knew he was right, bit his lip to keep back a hot retort. After a few moments, Skerrett seemed to make up his mind, and sent Fane off with a message for Alten. Fane came back presently with orders for the brigade to fall out at the foot of the hill, near a village where they had halted on their march to Lecumberri. For himself and Juana, and Tom Fane, Harry took possession of the same cottage which they had occupied a few days before. It was a neat little building, and when they had last seen it it had stood in well-cultivated fields, with a garden full of vegetables behind it, and a yard teeming with poultry and goats. The passing of the French army had, changed all that. The Indian corn had been seized for forage, the pea-rows stripped in the garden, all the fields trampled down, and the ducks and the hens commandeered. The owner seemed resigned, however. He told Harry that some of his corn had been taken by English Commissaries; but the English gave receipts for what they took, and paid for it, if one had patience; and even if they never paid, he would riot care, since they had driven the villainous French out of the country. He still had a little bacon hidden away: enough eked out with their own rations, to provide a supper for the Smiths, he said.

It was late when Harry joined Juana and Tom Fane in their billet. He found Juana asleep on the floor, with her cloak spread under her, and Tom Fane sitting on a stool, watching her. She looked small, and defenceless, so exhausted that neither the opening of the door, nor Harry’s unhushed voice so much as stirred her eyelids.

When the farmer brought their supper in, Harry woke her. He made her sit up to the table; she still seemed half-asleep, but the smell of the food roused her, and she ate a very good supper. As soon as she had swallowed the last mouthful, she went to sleep again, and never moved until morning. She sat up, then, yawning, and stretching her limbs. ‘Oh, how I have slept!’ she said.

‘Better, querida?’ Harry asked.

‘Oh, I am perfectly well, and so very hungry!’

‘If only we had some more of that bacon we ate for supper!’ said Fane. ‘We ought to have saved some!’

‘You ate bacon for supper?’ exclaimed Juana. ‘Oh, malvado, hombre brutale! Why did you not wake me?”

‘But, Juana, Harry did wake you!’ ‘No! Never! It is not true!’

‘Yes, it is,’ Harry said, laughing at her. ‘You ate a capital supper, too!’ ‘Enrique, it is a lie! I ate nothing, I tell you! Estupido, how could I have eaten supper when I remember nothing of the sort? I was all the time asleep.’

‘My dearest heart, you may have been asleep, but upon my word of honour you sat on that stool, and you ate bacon, and eggs, and drank two cups of coffee!’

‘Yes, you did really,’ Fane assured her.

‘Well, if it is true, I think it is worse than anything!’ she said. ‘Because it does not seem to me that I have had anything to eat since yesterday morning, and it would be very comforting just to remember eating bacon and eggs last night.’