The Spanish Bride

7

While the family was seated at breakfast next morning, Mr Peters called to inform Juana that quantities of baggage were arriving in Antwerp, and that he would be very happy to look for hers if she would give him a description of it. An hour later, he came back, bringing West, and Matty, the spare horses, and all the baggage except Juana’s mattress, and the precious new dressing-case, which, in the sudden uproar, had been left behind at the village where the Brass Mare had bolted.

As the morning wore on, without any certain news being received from the front, Juana’s anxiety increased so much that she was unable to sit still, but walked about the room looking so distraught that Mrs Craufurd was half-inclined to persuade her to drink a few drops of laudanum to calm her nerves.

But in the afternoon, Colonel Craufurd came in with tidings that a great battle had been fought and won before the village of Waterloo. The French’ army was said to be utterly put to rout, and Napoleon himself flying towards Paris. There was no news of Harry, and after waiting all day for a message, Juana, to the dismay of her hostess, ordered West to have the Brass Mare brought round to the house at daybreak next morning. ‘But, my dear, you cannot venture alone!’ protested Mrs Craufurd. ‘At such an hour, too!” ‘I must rejoin my husband,’ Juana said resolutely. ‘I am accustomed to marching at dawn. Please do not try to dissuade me!’

‘I fear it would be impossible. Dearest child, how shall I say it? I don’t wish to frighten you, but have you considered-they say our casualties have been the heaviest ever known!’ ‘Yes, I have considered,’ Juana replied, quite calmly, but with a constricted throat. ‘If my husband has been killed, I must find his body.’

There was no moving her; she seemed all at once to be older than Mrs Craufurd had thought her; and nothing could have been more assured than the orders she gave for her servant’s following her with the baggage. She was plainly an experienced campaigner, and after trying for a little while to persuade her to await news of her husband in Antwerp, Mrs Craufurd gave it up, and busied herself instead with superintending the drying and cleaning of her soiled habit.

Taking an affectionate and grateful leave of her kind hosts, Juana rode out of Antwerp at three o’clock next morning, accompanied only by West. They reached the village by the canal in time for breakfast, and were fortunate enough to discover the lost dressing-case hidden away in the hayloft. By seven o’clock, they had reached Brussels, and almost the first sight encountered was that of a party of Riflemen, all of them wounded, and making their way through the streets to one of the tent-hospitals which had been hurriedly set up in the town. Juana spurred up to them, and was instantly recognized. They saluted her, but when she asked eagerly if they could tell her what had become of her husband, their replies were rather evasive, and they exchanged glances which at once aroused her suspicion. Finally; one of them said with a roughness which concealed his pity: ‘Missus, it ain’t no manner of use riding to the battlefield! There’s sights there not fit for a female. You go and bide quietly within doors!’

‘Loco! I was at Tarbes!’ she cried, striking her fist against the pummel of her saddle. ‘Tell me, instanteamente, is my husband alive? Is h e well?”

‘You’d best know the truth, missus,’ he said bluntly. ‘Brigade-Major Smith of ours was killed yesterday, quite early on in the day.’

She reeled in the saddle, growing so deathly pale that West put out a hand to catch her arm, fearing that she would faint. She did not, however. She looked at him in a blind fashion that quite unmanned him, and said: ‘We must hurry. We must make haste, for I must find his body.’

‘Missus, missus, don’t ask me to take you there!’ he begged. ‘Master wouldn’t have it so.’ ‘Master is dead,’ she said tonelessly. ‘I shall be dead, too, very soon, but I must see him once again before I kill myself. You need not come with me. I want no one now.’ He saw that it would be useless to try to stop her; he could only hope that on the battlefield she would meet some friend who would have more power to persuade her than he possessed.

They rode in silence, mostly at a gallop. The sights encountered on the chaussée leading through the Forest of Soignies were so terrible that West was not surprised to see Juana’s eyes dilated, with a look of horror bordering on madness in them. The endless procession of wounded soldiers, and horses, of carts with corpses in them, of dead men lying by the road, too shattered to have been able to crawl the weary miles to Brussels, was a nightmarish phantasmagoria comparable to nothing seen in all the years of the campaigning in the Peninsula. The village of Waterloo was full of wounded officers; farther on, at Mont St Jean, a horrible, creeping aroma of corruption set the horses jibbing and squealing, and made West break the long silence to beg his mistress to go no farther.

‘On!’ was all she said, forcing the Brass Mare through the village street. He followed, now seriously alarmed for her sanity, but unable to think of any way of stopping her. In a few minutes, the battlefield was reached, a stretch of rolling country covered with fields of wheat and rye which had been trampled down by countless hooves. A cross-road, a deep, sunken lane, leading to Wavre, marked the line of the Allied front. Where it bisected the chaussee, in the angle between the two roads, Juana saw mound upon mound of dead men, with soldiers near by, digging pits to throw the bodies into.

‘Oh, my God, missus, don’t look, don’t look!’ West begged. ‘Poor devils, they must have been killed in square! Oh, come away!’

She paid no heed to him, but addressed one of the men who were digging. ‘What regiment?’

The 27th, mum.’

Her eyes started; she said hoarsely: ‘Ours! one of ours! This was where he stood!’ The man stared at her. ‘Lambert’s brigade, mum. Was you looking for someone?’ ‘Major Smith!’ she managed to utter.

He shook his head. ‘I dunno, mum, I’m sure. The officers has mostly been buried.’ She became aware of graves, many graves, some with rough boards set up, others no more than mounds of freshly-turned sods. Suddenly it became of immense importance to look upon Harry’s face for the last time. She cried out in an anguished voice: ‘No, no, not buried! not buried! I must see him once more! I must, I must!’

Distracted, she began to ride from one grave to another, wildly reading the names scratched upon the rough crosses at their heads. She saw the body of a man lying a little way off, and spurred up to it, convinced it was Harry’s. The distorted face was strange to her; she passed on, searching frantically amongst the dead. Some Flemish peasants were dragging the stripped corpses to the pits, with hooks stuck callously through their heels; in the sunken road, and beyond it, French cuirassiers lay in tangled heaps of men, and breast-plates; a little farther, a sandpit yawned beside the chaussée, opposite a white farmstead whose walls were blackened and riddled by shot. Some green-jackets lay there, stiff and still under the hot sun. Juana began to moan, but softly, repeating over and over again: ‘Dear God, let me find him! Dear God, let me not be mad!’

She was unaware of West, dumbly following her; a wounded Frenchman groaned to her from the ground at her feet. He wanted water; she had none, and shook her head. Suddenly a voice penetrated to her brain. She heard her name called, and looked round in a blank way.

‘Juana, Juana, what are you doing here? My dear, it is not fit for you!’ A man on horseback rode up to her; she saw that it was Charlie Gore, and cried out: ‘Oh, where is he? Where is my Enrique?’

His voice, the one sane thing in a mad world, sounded reassuringly in her ears. ‘Why, near Bavay by this time, as well as ever he was in his life! Not wounded even, nor either of his brothers!’

‘Oh, dear Charlie Gore, why do you deceive me?’ she said in bitter reproach. ‘The soldiers told me Brigade-Major Smith was killed!’

‘Dearest Juana, believe me!’ Gore said, trying to take her hand. ‘It was poor Charlie Smyth who was killed-Pack’s Brigade-Major. I swear to you on my honour I left Harry riding Lochinvar, in perfect health, but very anxious about you!’

Her strained eyes searched his face. She said: ‘Oh, if I could believe you, Charlie, my heart must burst!’

‘Why should you doubt me?’ he said quietly. ‘You know I would not lie to you, and upon such a subject!’

She broke into a storm of weeping, bowed over the Brass Mare’s withers, and so shaken by sobs of sheer relief that West was afraid that the shock of hearing that Harry was safe had really turned her brain. But presently she managed to stop crying, and to straighten herself. Charlie Gore wiped her tears away with his handkerchief, murmuring a few soothing phrases.

‘I prayed to God for help, and He sent you, like a guardian angel!’ she said huskily. ‘How foolish you must think me, to cry so! Indeed, I am sorry, for crying women are the devil!’ He laughed to hear such an expression on her lips. ‘Ah, you had that from Harry, I know! But listen, amiga, I am on my way to Mons: can you muster strength to ride with me there?’ ‘Strength!’ she exclaimed. ‘Yes, for anything now!’

He was anxious to get her away from the battlefield, and urged her to push on at once. She was very willing, and they rode together down the chaussee, past the sand-pit, and the riddled farmhouse. He told her, when she asked, that it was called La Haye Sainte, and had been held by four hundred soldiers of the King’s German Legion. “They cut their way out at the end, forty left out of all their number! They had no ammunition. The French took the place towards the end of the day.’

‘And that other place? An officer of Hussars told me of a chateau that was burning, and could not be held.’

‘He was wrong,’ replied Gore. ‘You mean Hougoumont. Can you see that blackened ruin over to your right? That is it. The Guards held it to the very end.’

She looked timidly up into his face. ‘Was it as bad as Badajos, Charlie, this battle?’ He shuddered. ‘Juana, none of us has ever known a worse, not even those who were at Albuera! It was a horrible business! a slogging match! There was no manoeuvring, scarcely any Light troop work. We stood there to be pounded for eight solid hours, till those damned Prussians came up! At the end, the smoke was so dense where my brigade was placed that we could only see where the French were by the flashes of their pieces. Man after man went down; we were shot to pieces at Quatre-Bras: we could do nothing here but hold the line. But we did hold it! by God, how we held it, even though the Belgians in our front broke through, and ran for their lives! Picton extended my brigade and Pack’s in line two deep to fill the gap: a mass of infantry was advancing upon us. Picton fell, but we stood fast, till the cavalry came up from our rear, and smashed the French columns. Oh, I never saw anything to equal that charge!’

‘Is Picton dead?’ Juana demanded.

‘Oh, yes! He was killed as he gave the word to charge. At the last there was hardly a senior officer left standing on the field.’

‘Not the Duke!’

‘No, he came through untouched. By jove, it was as well he did so! We could not have done the thing without him. You know his way! Wherever the line was weakest, there he was, cool as if upon a field-day. While we could see his hooknose amongst us, there could be no thought of retreating! Ney tried everything: artillery, infantry, cavalry! I was talking to a fellow in Halkett’s brigade: he told me that on the other side of the. chaussée they were formed in squares for over an hour, while the French cavalry rode round and round, trying to break through! Then, just before eight o’clock, they attacked all along our front. The Middle Guard was sent against our right, in five huge columns. We could see nothing from where we stood, but they say Maitland’s Guards threw the leading column back first. And then Colborne right-shouldered the 52nd forward, and swept clean across the plain, driving the French before him like so many sheep! It was after that that we heard the cheering swelling along the front from our right, and knew that old Douro had given the signal for a general advance at last.’

‘And Napoleon is rompéd, really rompéd?’ she cried.

‘Oh, there were only three French squares still standing when Blücher took up the pursuit! There never was such a rout: Salamanca was nothing to it! But oh, Juanita, the losses we have suffered! our dearest friends! It doesn’t bear thinking of!’

‘Tell me!’ she said, in a low voice. ‘I must know. You said that Tom and Charles were safe?’ ‘Oh yes! And Kincaid hasn’t a scratch on him either. But poor Charlie Eeles, and Smyth, young Lister, Elliot Johnston-do you remember Johnston, who shared that chateau at Toulouse with you, and Harry, and Jack Molloy?’

‘Yes, yes, indeed! Not dead?’ she cried.

‘Killed instantly. Eeles too. I had been searching for his grave when I came upon you just now.’

Her tears fell fast. ‘He came to see us in Ghent, with Johnny! Johnny was teasing him, and he laughed, and was so gay! Oh, Charlie, who else? Let me know quickly!’ ‘I can’t tell for certain yet. I’ve just seen Beckwith, and poor George. Beckwith has had his leg off, and George is so bad I don’t know whether he will live. He has been shot through the liver, and is in the greatest agony. Barnard was wounded, and carried off; then Cameron. The command of the battalion fell upon Jonathan Leach, but I know he was carried off, for I saw him. Jack Molloy was hit, but not badly, I think. I don’t know what their losses were in the 2nd and 3rd battalions, though I heard someone say John Ross had had to leave the field. Juana, do you recall how we used to say after our Peninsular battles: “Well, who’s been killed?” This time, we said: “Who’s alive?” It-do you know, after the hell we had gone through, it did not seem possible that anyone could still be alive, and unhurt?’ She could not speak. They rode on in silence for some time, and when next Gore opened his lips, it was to ask her, in a more cheerful tone, what had become of her during the battle. They did not reach Mons until midnight. Juana had been in the saddle ever since three o’clock, and had ridden a distance from point to point of sixty miles. She was so exhausted that she fell asleep over the supper she ate in the bivouac. She did not so much as stir when Gore wrapped a blanket round her, but lay as though dead, until the daylight woke her. As soon as she had eaten a hurried breakfast, she was in the saddle again. It was not far to Bavay from Mons; she and West reached it a few hours later. She saw Sir John Lambert almost at once. He exclaimed at her, horrified to think of her having conic all the way from Ghent, attended only by her groom. She said only one word: ‘Enrique?’ ‘Yes, yes, my dear, he’s here, safe enough!’ Lambert said. I’ll take you to him at once.’ She tried to smile. ‘I know he is well. I know he is, for Charlie Gore told me so, upon his honour, but still I cannot believe in my heart that I shall find him. Isn’t-isn’t it silly?’ He patted her hand. ‘Poor little soul! There, never fear! Whom do you suppose that is, standing over there with his back to us?’

She looked eagerly to where he pointed. He called out: ‘Hi, Smith! See what I have here for you!’

Harry turned, as Juana slid down from the Brass Mare’s back. ‘Juana!’ he exclaimed, and hurried to meet her.

She fell into his outstretched arms, the wild flurry of her heart almost suffocating her. She could not speak; she could only cling to him as though she would never let him go again. He held her tightly in his arms, his cheek against her hair. ‘Oh, my soul! my treasure!’ She found enough voice to say: ‘You are safe! Never part from me again! Never, mi Enrique, never! Oh, promise me!’

‘Never again!’ he said. ‘No matter what comes to us! How could I bear to send you from me again? We’ll stay together from now till we the of ripe old age, my little varmint, my little love!’

‘It is a promise?’ she said urgently.

‘It is a promise,’ he answered. He took her face between his hands. They were shaking a little, as once before, in his tent outside the walls of Badajos. ‘When I was first troubled with you,’ he said, with a twisted smile, ‘we had so many actions to live through! My poor darling, you suffered so much anxiety, and you have been so good all through! Well, it’s over now: do you understand? We’ve rompéd Boney at last, and there’s nothing for you to be afraid of any more. Now smile at me, faithful, loving, bad-tempered little devil that you are! Or box my ears if you will! Only don’t look at me with those scared eyes!’

‘Kiss me!’ Juana commanded. ‘Espadachin! Mi tirano odioso!’