Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ as my ears caught the challenge of a sentry or the footsteps of some officer in his round, my thoughts were riveted upon them, and a hundred vague fancies as to the future were based upon no stronger foundation than the clink of a firelock or the low-muttered song of a patrol.

      Towards morning I slept; and when day broke my first glance was towards the river-side. But the French were gone, noiselessly, rapidly. Like one man that vast army had departed, and a dense column of dust towards the horizon alone marked the long line of march where the martial legions were retreating.

      My mission was thus ended; and hastily partaking of the humble breakfast my friend Mike provided for me, I once more set out and took the road towards headquarters.

      CHAPTER II

THE SKIRMISH

      For several months after the battle of Talavera my life presented nothing which I feel worth recording. Our good fortune seemed to have deserted us when our hopes were highest; for from the day of that splendid victory we began our retrograde movement upon Portugal. Pressed hard by overwhelming masses of the enemy, we saw the fortresses of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida fall successively into their hands. The Spaniards were defeated wherever they ventured upon a battle; and our own troops, thinned by sickness and desertion, presented but a shadow of that brilliant army which only a few months previous had followed the retiring French beyond the frontiers of Portugal.

      However willing I now am – and who is not – to recognize the genius and foresight of that great man who then held the destinies of the Peninsula within his hands, I confess at the time I speak of I could ill comprehend and still less feel contented with the successive retreats our forces made; and while the words Torres Vedras brought nothing to my mind but the last resting-place before embarkation, the sad fortunes of Corunna were now before me, and it was with a gloomy and desponding spirit I followed the routine of my daily duty.

      During these weary months, if my life was devoid of stirring interest or adventure, it was not profitless. Constantly employed at the outposts, I became thoroughly inured to all the roughing of a soldier’s life, and learned in the best of schools that tacit obedience which alone can form the subordinate or ultimately fit its possessor for command himself.

      Humble and unobtrusive as such a career must ever be, it was not without its occasional rewards. From General Crawfurd I more than once obtained most kind mention in his despatches, and felt that I was not unknown or unnoticed by Sir Arthur Wellesley himself. At that time these testimonies, slight and passing as they were, contributed to the pride and glory of my existence; and even now – shall I confess it? – when some gray hairs are mingling with the brown, and when my old dragoon swagger is taming down into a kind of half-pay shamble, I feel my heart warm at the recollection of them.

      Be it so; I care not who smiles at the avowal. I know of little better worth remembering as we grow old than what pleased us while we were young. With the memory of the kind words once spoken come back the still kinder looks of those who spoke them, and better than all, that early feeling of budding manhood, when there was neither fear nor distrust. Alas! these are the things, and not weak eyes and tottering limbs, which form the burden of old age. Oh, if we could only go on believing, go on trusting, go on hoping to the last, who would shed tears for the bygone feats of his youthful days, when the spirit that evoked them lived young and vivid as before?

      But to my story. While Ciudad Rodrigo still held out against the besieging French, – its battered walls and breached ramparts sadly foretelling the fate inevitably impending, – we were ordered, together with the 16th Light Dragoons, to proceed to Gallegos, to reinforce Crawfurd’s division, then forming a corps of observation upon Massena’s movements.

      The position he occupied was a most commanding one, – the crown of a long mountain ridge, studded with pine-copse and cork-trees, presenting every facility for light-infantry movements; and here and there gently sloping towards the plain, offering a field for cavalry manoeuvres. Beneath, in the vast plain, were encamped the dark legions of France, their heavy siege-artillery planted against the doomed fortress, while clouds of their cavalry caracoled proudly before us, as if in taunting sarcasm at our inactivity.

      Every artifice which his natural cunning could suggest, every taunt a Frenchman’s vocabulary contains, had been used by Massena to induce Sir Arthur Wellesley to come to the assistance of the beleagured fortress: but in vain. In vain he relaxed the energy of the siege, and affected carelessness. In vain he asserted that the English were either afraid or else traitors to their allies. The mind of him he thus assailed was neither accessible to menace nor to sarcasm. Patiently abiding his time, he watched the progress of events, and provided for that future which was to crown his country’s arms with success and himself with undying glory.

      Of a far different mettle was the general formed under whose orders we were now placed. Hot, passionate, and impetuous, relying upon bold and headlong heroism rather than upon cool judgment and well-matured plans, Crawfurd felt in war all the asperity and bitterness of a personal conflict. Ill brooking the insulting tone of the wily Frenchman, he thirsted for any occasion of a battle, and his proud spirit chafed against the colder counsels of his superior.

      On the very morning we joined, the pickets brought in the intelligence that the French patrols were nightly in the habit of visiting the villages at the outposts and committing every species of cruel indignity upon the wretched inhabitants. Fired at this daring insult, our general resolved to cut them off, and formed two ambuscades for the purpose.

      Six squadrons of the 14th were despatched to Villa del Puerco, three of the 16th to Baguetto, while some companies of the 95th, and the caçadores, supported by artillery, were ordered to hold themselves in reserve, for the enemy were in force at no great distance from us.

      The morning was just breaking as an aide-de-camp galloped up with the intelligence that the French had been seen near the Villa del Puerco, a body of infantry and some cavalry having crossed the plain, and disappeared in that direction. While our colonel was forming us, with the intention of getting between them and their main body, the tramp of horses was heard in the wood behind, and in a few moments two officers rode up. The foremost, who was a short, stoutly-built man of about forty, with a bronzed face and eye of piercing black, shouted out as we wheeled into column: —

      “Halt, there! Why, where the devil are you going? That’s your ground!” So saying, and pointing straight towards the village with his hand, he would not listen to our colonel’s explanation that several stone fences and enclosures would interfere with cavalry movements, but added, “Forward, I say! Proceed!”

      Unfortunately, the nature of the ground separated our squadron, as the colonel anticipated; and although we came on at a topping pace, the French had time to form in square upon a hill to await us, and when we charged, they stood firmly, and firing with a low and steady aim, several of our troopers fell. As we wheeled round, we found ourselves exactly in front of their cavalry coming out of Baguilles; so dashing straight at them, we revenged ourselves for our first repulse by capturing twenty-nine prisoners, and wounding several others.

      The French infantry were, however, still unbroken; and Colonel Talbot rode boldly up with five squadrons of the 14th; but the charge, pressed home with all its gallantry, failed also, and the colonel fell mortally wounded, and fourteen of his troopers around him. Twice we rode round the square, seeking for a weak point, but in vain; the gallant Frenchman who commanded, Captain Guache, stood fearlessly amidst his brave followers, and we could hear him, as he called out from time to time, —

      “C’est ça mes enfans! Trés bien fait, mes braves!”

      And at length they made good their retreat, while we returned to the camp, leaving thirty-two troopers and our brave colonel dead upon the field in this disastrous affair.

      The repulse we had met with, so contrary to all our hopes and expectations, made that СКАЧАТЬ