Loe raamatut: «Jack Hinton: The Guardsman», lehekülg 33

CHAPTER L. THE RETREAT FROM BURGOS

Few men have gone through life without passing through certain periods which, although not marked by positive misfortune, were yet so impressed by gloom and despondence that their very retrospect is saddening. Happy it is for us that in after days our memory is but little retentive of these. We remember the shadows that darkened over the landscape, but we forget in great part their cause and their duration, and perhaps even sometimes are disposed to smile at the sources of grief to which long habit of the world and its ways would have made us callous.

I was almost alone in the world – bereft of fortune, separated irrevocably from the woman I loved, and by whom I had reason to think my affection was returned. In that home to which I should have looked for fondness I found only gloom and misfortune – my mother grown insensible to everything save some frivolous narrative of her own health; my father, once high-spirited and freehearted, care-worn, depressed, and broken; my cousin, my early playfellow, half sweetheart and half sister, bestowing her heart and affections on one so unworthy of her. All lost to me – and at a time, too, when the heart is too weak and tender to stand alone, but must cling to something, or it sinks upon the earth, crushed and trodden upon.

I looked back upon my past life, and thought over the happy hours I had spent in the wild west, roaming through its deep valleys and over its heath-clad mountains. I thought of her my companion through many a long summer day by the rocky shore, against which the white waves were ever beating, watching the sea-birds careering full many a fathom deep below us, their shrill cries mixing with the wilder plash of the ever-restless sea – and how we dreamed away those hours, now half in sadness, now in bright hope of long years to come, and found ourselves thus wandering hand in hand, loved and loving; and then I looked out upon the bleak world before me, without an object to win, without a goal to strive at.

‘Come, Jack,’ said my father, laying his hand on my shoulder, and startling me out of my reverie, ‘one piece of good fortune we have had. The duke has given me the command at Chatham; some hint of my altered circumstances, it seems, had reached him, and without my applying, he most kindly sent for me and told me of my appointment. You must join the service companies of the Twenty-seventh by to-morrow; they are under sailing-orders, and no time is to be lost. I told his grace that for all your soft looks and smooth chin there was no lack of spirit in your heart; and you must take an eagle, Jack, if you would keep up my credit.’

Laughingly spoken as these few words were, they somehow struck upon a chord that had long lain silent in my heart, and as suddenly awoke in me the burning desire for distinction, and the ambitious thirst of military glory.

The next evening at sunset the transport weighed anchor and stood out to sea. A slight breeze off shore and an ebb-tide carried us gently away from land; and as night was falling I stood alone, leaning on the bulwarks, and looking fixedly on the faint shadows of the tall chalk-cliffs, my father’s last words, ‘You must take an eagle, Jack!’ still ringing in my ears, and sinking deeply into my heart.

Had my accidents by flood and field been more numerous and remarkable than they were, the recently-told adventures of my friend Charles O’Malley would prevent my giving them to the public. The subaltern of a marching regiment – a crack corps, it is true – I saw merely the ordinary detail of a campaigning life; and although my desire to distinguish myself rose each day higher, the greatest extent of my renown went no further than the admiration of my comrades that one so delicately nurtured and brought up should bear so cheerfully and well the roughings of a soldier’s life; and my sobriquet of ‘Jack Hinton, the Guardsman,’ was earned among the stormy scenes and blood-stained fields of the Peninsula.

My first experiences of military life were indeed but little encouraging. I joined the army in the disastrous retreat from Burgos. What a shock to all my cherished notions of a campaign! How sadly different to my ideas of the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war! I remember well we first came up with the retiring forces on the morning of the 4th of November. The day broke heavily; masses of dark and weighty clouds drifted across the sky. The ground was soaked with rain, and a cold, chilling wind swept across the bleak plain, and moaned dismally in the dark pine-woods. Our party, which consisted of drafts from the Fiftieth, Twenty-seventh, and Seventy-first regiments, were stationed in a few miserable hovels on the side of the highroad from Madrid to Labeyos. By a mistake of the way we had missed a body of troops on the preceding day, and were now halted here in expectation of joining some of the corps retiring on the Portuguese frontier. Soon after daybreak a low rumbling sound, at first supposed to be the noise of distant cannonading, attracted our attention; but some stragglers coming up soon after, informed us that it proceeded from tumbrels and ammunition-waggons of Sir Lowry Cole’s brigade, then on the march. The news was scarcely communicated, when the head of a column appeared topping the hill.

As they came nearer, we remarked that the men did not keep their ranks, but strayed across the road from side to side; some carried their muskets by the sling, others on the shoulder; some leaned on their companions, as though faint and sick; and many there were whose savage looks and bloated features denoted drunkenness. The uniforms were torn and ragged; several of the men had no shoes, and some even had lost their caps and shakos, and wore handkerchiefs bound round their heads. Among these the officers were almost undistinguishable; fatigue, hardship, and privation had levelled them with the men, and discipline scarcely remained in that disorganised mass. On they came, their eyes bent only on the long vista of road that lay before them. Some, silent and sad, trudged on side by side; others, maddened by drink or wild with the excitement of fever, uttered frightful and horrible ravings. Some flourished their bayonets, and threatened all within their reach; and denunciations of their officers and open avowals of desertion were heard on every side as they went. The bugle sounded a halt as the column reached the little hamlet where we were stationed; and in a few seconds the road and the fields at either side were covered with the figures of the men, who threw themselves down on the spot where they stood, in every posture that weariness and exhaustion could suggest.

All the information we could collect was that this force formed part of the rear-guard of the army; that the French under Marshal Soult were hotly in pursuit, having already driven in the cavalry outposts, and more than once throwing their skirmishers amongst our fellows. In a few minutes the bugle again sounded to resume the march; and however little disposed to yield to the dictates of discipline, yet old habit, stronger than even lawless insubordination, prevailed; the men rose, and falling in with some semblance of order, continued their way. Nothing struck me more in that motley mass of ragged uniform and patched clothing than the ferocious, almost savage, expression of the soldiers as they marched past our better equipped and better disciplined party. Their dark scowl betokened deadly hate; and I could see the young men of our detachment quail beneath the insulting ruffianism of their gaze. Every now and then some one or other would throw down his pack or knapsack to the ground, and with an oath asseverate his resolve to carry it no longer. Some even declared they would abandon their muskets; and more than one sat down by the wayside, preferring death or imprisonment from the enemy to the horrors and severities of that dreadful march.

The Highland regiments and the Guards alone preserved their former discipline; the latter, indeed, had only lately joined the army, having landed at Corunna a few weeks previously, and were perfect in every species of equipment. Joining myself to a group of their officers, I followed in the march, and was enabled to learn some tidings of my friend O’Grady, who, I was glad to hear, was only a few miles in advance of us, with his regiment.

Towards three o’clock we entered a dark pine-wood, through which the route continued for several miles. Here the march became extremely difficult, from the deep clayey soil, the worn and cut-up road, and more than all the torrents of rain that swept along the narrow gorge, and threw a darkness almost like night over everything. We plodded on gloomily and scarcely speaking, when suddenly the galloping of horses was heard in the rear, and we were joined by Sir Edward Paget, who, with a single aide-de-camp, rode up to our division. After a few hurried questions to the officer in command, he wheeled his horse round, and rode back towards the next column, which, from some accidental delay, was yet two miles in the rear. The sound of the horse’s hoofs was still ringing along the causeway, when a loud shout, followed by the sharp reports of pistol-firing, mingled with the voice. In an instant all was as still as before, and save the crashing of the pine-branches and the beating rain, no other sound was heard.

Our conjectures as to the cause of the firing were just making, when an orderly dragoon, bareheaded and wounded, came up at the top of his horse’s speed. The few hurried words he spoke in a half-whisper to our commanding officer were soon reported through the lines. Sir Edward Paget, our second in command, had been taken prisoner, carried away by a party of French cavalry, who were daring enough to dash in between the columns, which in no other retreat had they ventured to approach. The temerity of our enemy, added to our own dispirited and defenceless condition, was the only thing wanting to complete our gloom and depression, and the march was now resumed in the dogged sullenness of despair.

Day followed day, and all the miseries of our state but increased with time, till on the morning of the 17th the town of Ciudad Rodrigo came in view, and the rumour spread that stores of all kinds would be served out to the famished troops.

By insubordination and intemperance we had lost seven thousand men since the day the retreat from Burgos began, and although neither harassed by night marches nor excessive journeys, losing neither guns, ammunition, nor standards, yet was the memorable document addressed by Wellington to the officers commanding divisions but too justly merited, concluding in these words: —

‘The discipline of every army, after a long and active campaign, becomes in some degree relaxed; but I am concerned to observe that the army under my command has fallen off in this respect to a greater degree than any army with which I have ever been, or of which I have ever read.’

CHAPTER LI. A MISHAP

If I began my career as a soldier at one of the gloomiest periods of our Peninsular struggle, I certainly was soon destined to witness one of the most brilliant achievements of our arms in the opening of the campaign of 1813.

On the 22nd of May the march began – that forward movement, for the hour of whose coming many a heart had throbbed, and many a bosom beat high. From Ciudad Rodrigo to the frontier our way led through the scenes of former glory; and if the veterans of the army exulted at once again beholding the battlefields where victory had crowned their arms, the new soldiers glowed with ambition to emulate their fame. As for myself, short as the period had been since I quitted England, I felt that my character had undergone a very great change; the wandering fancies of the boy had sobered down into the more fixed, determined passions of the man. The more I thought of the inglorious indolence of my former life, the stronger was now my desire to deserve a higher reputation than that of a mere lounger about a court, the military accompaniment of a pageant. Happily for me, I knew not at the time how few opportunities for distinction are afforded by the humble position of a subaltern; how seldom occasions arise where, amid the mass around him, his name can win praise or honour. I knew not this; and my reverie by day, my dream by night, presented but one image – that of some bold, successful deed, by which I should be honourably known and proudly mentioned, or my death be that of a brave soldier in the field of glory.

It may be remembered by my reader that in the celebrated march by which Wellington opened that campaign whose result was the expulsion of the French armies from the Peninsula, the British left, under the command of Graham, was always in advance of the main body. Their route traversed the wild and dreary passes of the Tras-os-Montes, a vast expanse of country, with scarcely a road to be met with, and but few inhabitants; the solitary glens and gloomy valleys, whose echoes had waked to no other sounds save those of the wild heron or the eagle, were now to resound with the thundering roll of artillery waggons, the clanking crash of cavalry columns, or the monotonous din of the infantry battalions, as from sunrise to sunset they poured along – now scaling the rugged height of some bold mountain, now disappearing among the wooded depths of some dark ravine.

Owing to a temporary appointment on the staff, I was continually passing and repassing between this portion of the army and the force under the immediate command of Lord Wellington. Starting at daybreak, I have set off alone through these wild untravelled tracts, where mountains rose in solemn grandeur, their dark sides wooded with the gloomy cork-tree, or rent by some hissing torrent whose splash was the only sound that broke the universal silence – now dashing on with speed across the grassy plain, now toiling along on foot, the bridle on my arm – I have seen the sun go down and never heard a human voice, nor seen the footsteps of a fellow-man; and yet what charms had those lonely hours for me, and what a crowd of blissful thoughts and happy images they yet bring back to me! The dark glen, the frowning precipice, the clear rivulet gurgling on amid the mossy stones, the long and tangled weeds that hung in festoons down some rocky cliff, through whose fissured sides the water fell in heavy drops into a little basin at its foot – all spoke to me of the happiest hours of my life, when, loved and loving, I wandered on the livelong day. How often, as the day was falling, have I sat down to rest beneath some tall beech, gazing on the glorious expanse of mountain and valley, hill and plain, and winding river – all beneath me; and how, as I looked, have my thoughts wandered away from those to many a far-off mile; and then what doubts and hopes would crowd upon met Was I forgotten? Had time and distance wiped away all memory of me? Was I as one she had never seen, or was she still to me as when we parted? In such moments as these how often have I recurred to our last meeting at the holy well – and still, I own it, some vague feeling of superstition has spoken hope to my heart, when reason alone had bid me despair.

It was at the close of a sultry day – the first of June; I shall not readily forget it – that, overcome by fatigue, I threw myself down beneath the shelter of a grove of acacias, and, tethering my horse with his bridle, fell into one of my accustomed reveries. The heat of the day, the drowsy hum of the summer insects, the very monotonous champ of my horse, feeding beside me – all conspired to make me sleepy, and I fell into a heavy slumber. My dreams, like my last-waking thoughts, were of home; but, strangely enough, the scenes through which I had been travelling, the officers with whom I was intimate, the wild guerilla chiefs who from time to time crossed my path or shared my bivouac, were mixed up with objects and persons many a mile away, making that odd and incongruous collection which we so often experience in sleep. A kind of low, unbroken sound, like the tramp of cavalry over grass, awoke me; but still, such was my drowsiness that I was again about to relapse into sleep, when the sound of a manly voice, singing at the foot of the rock beneath me, fully aroused me. I started up, and, peeping cautiously over the head of the cliff, beheld to my surprise and terror a party of French soldiers stretched upon the greensward around a fire. It was the first time I had ever seen the imperial troops, and notwithstanding the danger of my position, I felt a most unaccountable longing to creep nearer and watch their proceedings. The sounds I had heard at first became at this moment more audible; and on looking down the glen I perceived a party of about twenty dragoons cantering up the valley. They were dressed in the uniform of the Chasseur Légers, and in their light-blue jackets and silvered helmets had a most striking and picturesque effect.

My astonishment at their appearance was not diminished by the figure who rode gaily along at their head. She was a young and pretty-looking girl, dressed in a blue frock and jean trousers; a light foraging-cap, with the number of the regiment worked in silver on the front, and a small canteen suspended from one shoulder by a black belt completed her equipment. Her hair, of a glossy black, was braided richly at either side of her face, and a couple of bows of light blue attested a degree of coquetry the rest of her costume gave no evidence of. She rode en cavalier; and the easy attitude in which she sat, and her steady hand on the bridle, denoted that the regimental riding-school had contributed to her accomplishments. I had heard before of the Vivandières of the French army, but was in nowise prepared for the really pretty figure and costume I now beheld.

As the riding-party approached, the others sprang to their feet, and drawing up in line performed a mock salute, which the young lady returned with perfect gravity; and then, carelessly throwing her bridle to the one nearest, she dismounted. In a few moments the horses were picketed; the packs were scattered about the grass; cooking utensils, provisions, and wine were distributed; and, amid a perfect din of merry voices and laughter, the preparations for dinner were commenced. Mademoiselle’s part, on the whole, amused me not a little. Not engaging in any of the various occupations about her, she seated herself on a pile of cavalry cloaks at a little distance from the rest, and taking out a much-worn and well-thumbed-looking volume from the pocket of her coat, she began to read to herself with the most perfect unconcern of all that was going on about her. Meanwhile the operations of the cuisine were conducted with a despatch and dexterity that only French soldiers ever attain to; and, shall I confess it, the rich odour that steamed upwards from the well-seasoned potage, the savoury smell of the roast kid, albeit partaking of onions, and the brown breasts of certain poulets made me wish heartily that for half an hour or so I could have changed my allegiance, converted myself into a soldat de la garde, and led Mademoiselle in to dinner.

At length the party beneath had arranged their meal upon the grass; and the corporal, with an air of no inconsiderable pretension, took Mademoiselle’s hand to conduct her to the place of honour at the head of the feast – calling out as he did, ‘Place, Messieurs, place pour Madame la Duchesse de – de – ’

‘N’importe quoi,’ said another; ‘the Emperor has many a battle to win yet, and many a kingdom and a duchy to give away. As for myself, I count upon the bâton of a marshal before the campaign closes.’

‘Have done, I beg you, with such folly, and help me to some of that salmi,’ said the lady, with a much more practical look about her than her expression a few moments before denoted.

The feast now progressed with all the clatter which little ceremony, hearty appetites, and good-fellowship produce. The wine went round freely, and the qui propos, if I might judge from their mirth, were not wanting; for I could but catch here and there a stray word or so of the conversation.

All this time my own position was far from agreeable. Independent of the fact of being a spectator of a good dinner and a jolly party while famishing with hunger and thirst, my chance of escape depended either on the party moving forward, or being so insensible from the effects of their carouse that I might steal away unobserved. While I balanced with myself which of these alternatives was more likely, an accident decided the question. My horse, who up to this moment was grazing close beside me, hearing one of the troop-horses neigh in the valley beneath, pricked up his ears, plunged upwards, broke the bridle with which I had fastened him, and cantered gaily down into the midst of the picketed animals. In an instant every man sprang to his legs; some rushed to their holsters and drew forth their pistols; others caught up their sabres from the grass; and the young lady herself tightened her girth and sprang into her saddle with the alacrity of one accustomed to moments of danger. All was silence now for a couple of minutes, except the slight noise of the troopers engaged in bridling their horses and fixing on their packs, when a loud voice called out, ‘Voilà!; and the same instant every eye in the party was directed to my shako, which hung on a branch of a tree above me, and which up to this moment I had forgotten. Before I could determine on any line of escape, three of the number had rushed up the rock, and with drawn sabres commanded me to surrender myself their prisoner. There was no choice; I flung down my sword with an air of sulky resignation, and complied. My despatches, of which they soon rifled me, sufficiently explained the cause of my journey, and allayed any apprehensions they might have felt as to a surprise party. A few brief questions were all they put to me; and then, conducting me down the cliff to the scene of their bivouac, they proceeded to examine my holsters and the flaps of my saddle for any papers which I might have concealed in these places.

‘Eh, bien! mon colonel,’ said the leader of the party, as he drew himself up before me, and carried his hand to his cap in a salute as respectful and orderly as though I were his officer, ‘what say you to a little supper ere we move forward?’

‘There’s the bill of fare.’ said another, laughing, as he pointed to the remnant of roast fowls and stewed kid that covered the grass.

I was too young a soldier to comport myself at the moment with that philosophic resignation to circumstances which the changeful fortunes of war so forcibly instil, and I merely answered by a brief refusal, while half unconsciously I threw my eyes around to see if no chance of escape presented itself.

‘No, no,’ cried the corporal, who at once read my look and its meaning; ‘don’t try that, or you reduce me to the extremity of trying this,’ patting, as he spoke, the butt of his carbine with an air of easy determination there was no mistaking.

‘Let me rather recommend Monsieur le Capitaine to try this,’ said the Vivandière, who, unperceived by me, was all this while grilling the half of a poulet over the embers.

There was something in the kindness of the act, coupled as it was with an air of graceful courtesy, that touched me; so, smothering all my regretful thoughts at my mishap, I summoned up my best bow and my best French to acknowledge the civility, and the moment after was seated on the grass beside Mademoiselle Annette, discussing my supper with the appetite of a man whose sorrows were far inferior to his hunger.

As the moon rose, the party, who evidently had been waiting for some others they expected, made preparations for continuing their journey, the first of which consisted in changing the corporal’s pack and equipments to the back of my English thoroughbred, his own meagre and raw-boned quadruped being destined for me. Up to this instant the thought of escape had never left my mind. I knew I could calculate on the speed of my horse; I had had some trials of his endurance, and the only thing was to obtain such a start as might carry me out of bullet range at once, and all was safe. Now this last hope deserted me, as I beheld the miserable hack to which I was condemned; and yet, poignant as this feeling was – shall I confess it? – it was inferior in its pain to the sensation I experienced as I saw the rude French soldier, with clumsy jack-boots and heavy hand, curvetting about upon my mettlesome charger, and exhibiting his paces for the amusement of his companions.

The order was now given to mount, and I took my place in the middle file – the dragoons on either side of me having unslung their carbines, and given me laughingly to understand that I was to be made a riddle of if I attempted an escape.

The long months of captivity that followed have, somehow, I cannot at all explain why, left no such deep impression on my mind as the simple events of that night. I remember it still like a thing of yesterday. We travelled along the crest of a mountain, the valley lying in deep, dark shadow beneath; the moon shone brightly out upon the grey granite rocks beside us; our pace was sometimes pushed to a fast trot, and then relaxed to a walk, the better, as it appeared to me, to indulge the conversational tastes of my escort than for any other reason. Their spirits never flagged for a moment; some jest or story was ever going forward – some anecdote of the campaign, or some love adventure, of which the narrator was the hero, commented on by all in turn with a degree of sharp wit and ready repartee that greatly surprised me. In all these narratives Mademoiselle played a prominent part, being invariably referred to for any explanation which the difficulties of female character seemed to require, her opinion on such points being always regarded as conclusive. At times, too, they would break forth into some rude hussar song, some regular specimen of camp lyric poetry, each verse being sung by a different individual, and chorussed by the whole party in common. I have said that these trifling details have left a deep impression behind them. Stranger still, one of those wild strains haunts my memory yet; and strikingly illustrative as it is, not only of those songs in general but of that peculiar mixture of levity and pathos, of reckless heartlessness and deep feeling so eminently French, I cannot help giving it to my reader. It represents the last love-letter of a soldier to his mistress, and runs thus: —

LE DERNIER ADIEU DU SOLDAT

I

 
‘Rose, l’intention d’la présente
Est de t’ informer d’ma santé.
L’armée française est triomphante,
Et moi j’ai l’bras gauche emporté.
Nous avons eu d’grands avantages;
La mitraille m’a brisé les os,
Nous avons pris arm’s et baggages;
Pour ma part j’ai deux bals dans l’dos.
 

II

 
‘J’ suis à l’hôpital d’où je pense
Partir bientôt pour chez les morts.
J’ t’envois dix francs qu’ celui qui me panse
M’a donnés pour avoir mon corps.
Je me suis dit puisq’il faut que je file,
Et que ma Rose perd son épouseur,
Ça fait que je mourrai plus tranquille
D’savoir que j’lui laiss’ ma valeur.
 

III

 
‘Lorsque j’ai quitté ma vieil l’mère,
Elle s’expirait sensiblement;
A rarrivée d’ma lettre j’espère
Qu’ell’ sera morte entièrement;
Car si la pauvre femme est guérite
Elle est si bonne qu’elle est dans le cas
De s’ faire mourir de mort subite
A la nouvelle de mon trépas.
 

IV

 
‘Je te recommand’ bien, ma p’tit’ Rose,
Mon bon chien; ne l’abandonn’ pas;
Surtout ne lui dis pas la chose
Qui fait qu’il ne me reverra pas —
Lui qu’ je suis sûr se fait une fête
De me voir rev’nir caporal;
Il va pleurer comme une bête,
En apprenant mon sort fatal.
 

V

 
‘Quoiqu’ ça c’est quelqu’ chose qui m’enrage
D‘être fait mourir loin du pays —
Au moins quand on meurt au village,
On peut dire bonsoir aux amis,
On a sa place derrière l‘église
On a son nom sur un’ croix de bois,
Et puis on espèr’ qu’ la payse
Viendra pour prière quelque fois.
 

VI

 
‘Adieu, Rose I adieu! du courage!
A nous r’voir il n’ faut plus songer;
Car au régiment où je m’engage
On ne vous accorde pas de congé.
Via tout qui tourne =! j’ n’y vois goutte!
Ah, c’est fini! j’ sens que j’ m’en vas;
J’ viens de recevoir ma feuill’ de route;
Adieu t Rose, adieu! n’ m’oubli’ pas.’
 

Fatigue and weariness, that seemed never to weigh upon my companions, more than once pressed heavily on me. As I awoke from a short and fitful slumber the same song continued; for having begun it, somehow it appeared to possess such a charm for them they could not cease singing, and the

 
‘Adieu! Rose, adieu! n’ m’oubli’ pas,’
 

kept ringing through my ears till daybreak.