The Spanish Bride

4

A double ration of grog was served out to the men before the attack, but it would not have appeared, to a casual observer, necessary to hearten the troops with rum. All was bustle and high spirits in the camp, old warriors giving a last look to their rifles, and Josh Hetherington enlivening the occasion with a ventriloquial display as popular as it was scandalous. ‘Mankiller’ Palmer was adjuring Tom Crawley, sober for once, to kill a Frenchman for himself: a Peninsular catchword that would never grow stale; while Burke, who had volunteered for more forlorn hopes than anyone else, was alternately boasting of his past exploits, and exchanging good-natured abuse with a friend from the 52nd regiment. The army was not in Lord Wellington’s confidence, nor had his extensive plans for the capture of Badajos been communicated to the men, but in their usual inexplicable fashion they knew all about those plans, just as they had known a full day before most of their officers the date of the attack.

‘Queer, ain’t it?’ remarked Jack Molloy, refilling his glass from Harry’s bottle of wine. ‘Never known ’em wrong yet. I wish I knew where they get their information.’

‘Oh, orderlies and batmen!’ said Kincaid, who had just lounged in as though he had nothing to do and had not that instant returned from a perilous reconnaissance journey with his Colonel almost to the very edge of the glacis above the ditch outside Badajos. “They pick up the news, and pass it on. Hallo, Young Varmint! Where did you spring from?’ Mr William Havelock of the 43rd regiment, who was the gentleman addressed, made room on Harry’s portmanteau for Kincaid to sit down beside him. There was very little space in the tent, and what there was seemed to be full of legs. Kincaid picked his way over three pairs of these, accepted a cigarillo from his host, and lit it at the candle that was stuck into the neck of a bottle on the table.

‘Well, and how is our acting Adjutant?’ inquired Stewart. ‘Dined, Johnny?’ ‘If he hasn’t, he can’t dine here,’ said Harry. ‘He can’t even have any port, because-oh yes, he can! I’ve got a mug somewhere! Stretch out a hand and feel in that case behind you, Young Varmint! A beautiful mug from Lisbon-that’s it.’

‘Port? You haven’t got any port!’ said Kincaid, hope battling with suspicion in his face. ‘Don’t think to fob me off with any Portuguese stuff! I’ve been dining with the Colonel.’ ‘Exalted, aren’t you?’ said Molloy. ‘Don’t waste the port on him, Harry!’ ‘By God, it is port!’ exclaimed Kincaid. ‘Where the devil did you get it, Harry? Old Cameron gave me black strap!’

‘Elvas,’ replied Harry. ‘The Beau himself hasn’t any better.’

‘The Turk!’ said Kincaid, raising the Lisbon mug in a toast to the army’s most famous sutler. ‘I thought you must have got it by wicked plunder.’ ‘He probably did,’ said Molloy. ‘You haven’t got any money, have you, Harry? Not real money?’

No, Harry had no money, but he had borrowed three dollars from the Quartermaster, after the fashion of all hard-pressed officers who had several months’ pay owing to them. But the two skinny fowls which had formed the major part of the dinner had been almost certainly dishonestly come by, since they had been provided by his servant, who was an experienced campaigner.

‘That man of yours will be hanged one of these days,’ prophesied Stewart. ‘What’s the news, and where have you been, Johnny?’

‘No news, except that Leith’s fellows are going to try the river bastion.’ ‘We know that! Talk of forlorn hopes! The men say if the Light Bobs and the Enthusiastics can’t take the town, there are no troops that can. I suppose the hour’s been changed to suit the Pioneers. I thought all the ground in front of the river bastion was mined?’ ‘Captain Stewart will now move a vote of censure on his lordship’s plans,’ said Molloy, looking round for somewhere to throw the butt of his cigar. ‘Unless I can stub this out on Young Varmint’s boot, I shall have to get up and go.’

‘Well, go, then,’ said Havelock. ‘I’ll have you know these boots of mine are the only ones left to me. Besides, there’ll be more room with you gone. Oh, by God, will there, though! Here’s George!’

The officer peeping into the tent was a somewhat stout young man, with a serious face that matched a certain sobriety of outlook. He had entered the army in the expectation of being enabled to assist in the support of his numerous brothers, a prospect that might well have appalled a less earnest man, and did indeed prevent Mr George Simmons from sharing his friends’ lighthearted spirits. He was a little prone to moralize, but he was a good officer, and a faithful friend, and the company assembled in Harry’s tent greeted him with affectionate ribaldry.

‘No, I mustn’t stay,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I just heard you fellows funning, and I thought I would look in on you. I’ve been talking to one of Beresford’s Staff. Would you believe it?-one of Beresford’s ADCs had the abominable bad taste to remark at table just now that he wondered how many of those present would be alive tomorrow! You can imagine what a look the Marshal gave him!’

His shocked countenance made Harry’s guests laugh, but Harry said quickly: ‘Damned young fool! Who was it?’

‘No, it wouldn’t be right to tell you. I daresay he is sorry now. It’s very strange, the inconsiderate things a man’s tongue will betray him into saying.’ ‘Not yours, George, not yours!’ said Kincaid, getting up.

‘Well, I do hope it does not, for such observations as that are bound to produce some gloomy reflections,’ said Simmons.