With Moore at Corunna by G. A. Henty (ebooks children's books free txt) 📖

and Saunders carried up on stretchers and put into a room together. If they can bear the moving it will be all in their favour, for it will be cooler there than in this oven of a place. I hear the church has been requisitioned, and that the worst cases among our men will be taken there."

In comparison with the loss of the French that of the British had been very small. From their position on commanding heights they had suffered but little from the fire of the French artillery, and the casualties were almost confined to Fane's brigade, the 43d Regiment, Anstruther's, and the two regiments of Ferguson's brigade that had been attacked by Brennier, and before nightfall the whole of the wounded had been brought in and attended to, the hospitals arranged, and the men far more comfortably bestowed than in the temporary quarters taken up during the heat of the conflict. As there was no prospect of an immediate movement, the soldier servants of the wounded officers had been excused from military duty and told off to attend to them, and when Terence went down in the evening he found his father, O'Grady, and Saunders--the latter a young lieutenant--comfortably lodged in a large room in which three hospital beds had been placed. O'Grady had quite recovered his usual good spirits.

"Don't draw such along face, Terence," he said, as the lad entered; "we are all going on well. Your father has been bandaged all over the chest and body, and is able to breathe more comfortably; as for me, except that I feel as if somebody were twisting a red-hot needle about in my arm, I am as right as possible, and Saunders is doing first-rate. The doctors thought at first that he had got a ball through his body; after they got him here they had time to examine him carefully, and they find that it has just run along the ribs and gone out behind, and that he will soon be about again. If it wasn't that the doctors say I must drink nothing but water with lemon-juice squeezed into it, I would have nothing to complain of. We have got our servants. Hoolan came in blubbering like a calf, the omadhoun, and I had to threaten to send him back to the regiment before he would be sensible. He has sworn off spirits until I am well enough to take to them, which is a comfort, for I am sorry to say he is one of those men who never know when they have had enough."

"Like master, like man, O'Grady."

"Terence, when I get well you will repint of your impudence to your supayrior officer, when he is not able to defend himself."

Terence went across to his father's bed.

"Do you really feel easier, father?"

"A great deal, lad. I was so bruised that every breath I took hurt me; since I have been tightly bandaged I am better, ever so much. Daly says that in a few days I shall be all right again as to that, but that the other business will keep me on my back for a long time. He has examined my wound again, and says he won't touch it for a few days; but I can see that he is rather afraid that the bone has been grazed if not splintered. You have not heard what is going to be done, have you?"

"No, father; the talk is that no move will be made anyhow until Sir John Moore lands with his troops; after that I suppose we shall go forward."

"It is a pity we did not push forward to-day, lad, if, as I hear, half the force were never engaged at all. Junot would not have carried off a gun if our fellows had been launched against them while they were in disorder. As it is, I hear they have marched away over that ridge in as good order as they came, and so we shall have all the work of thrashing them to do over again."

"They say that is what Sir Arthur wanted to do, father, but Burrard overruled him."

"Did any man ever hear of such nonsense as a general who knows nothing at all about the matter coming and taking over the command from a general who has just won a battle, and who has all the ins and outs of the matter at his finger-ends!"

"Now, my dear O'Connor," O'Grady broke in, "you know what Daly said, the quieter you lie and the less you talk the better. He did not say so to meself; in the first place, because he knew it would be of no use, and in the second, because there is no raison on earth why, because a man has lost a bit of his arm, his tongue should not wag. And what does the colonel say, Terence; is he not delighted with the regiment?"

"He is that, and he has a right to be," Terence said. "The way they went at the French, and tumbled them over the crest and down the hill was splendid. The tears rolled down his cheeks when he heard that the major and the others were killed, but he said that a man could not die more gloriously. He shook hands with all the officers after it was over, and sent a party down to the town to buy and bring up some barrels of wine, and served out a good allowance to each man. As soon as the firing ceased I heard him tell O'Driscol that he was proud to have commanded the regiment."

"That is good, Terence; and now, do you think that you could bring me up just a taste of the cratur?"

"The divil a drop, O'Grady; if Daly and O'Flaherty both say that you are not to have it, it is certain that it is bad for you. But I'll tell you what I will do; I have one bottle of whisky left, and I will promise you that it sha'n't be touched till you are well enough to drink it, and if we are marched away, as I suppose we shall be, I will hand it over to O'Flaherty to give you when you are fit to take it. He tells me that he will be left to look after the wounded when we move."

"I could not trust him, Terence; I would hand over a bag of gold uncounted to him, but as for whisky, the temptation would be too great for an Irishman to resist. Look here, you put it into a wooden box and nail it up securely, and write on it 'O'Grady's arm,' and hand it over to him solemnly, and tell him that I have a fancy for burying the contents myself, which will be true enough, though it is me throat I mean to bury it in."

Knowing that it was best they should be left in quiet, Terence soon left them and returned to the regiment.

"Well, Dick, what did you think of a battle?" he asked his chum.

"I don't quite know what I did think. It does not seem to me that I thought much about it at all, what with the noise of the firing and the shouting of the men, and the whistle overhead of the French round shot, and the men cheering, the French shouting and the excitement, there was no time for thinking at all. From the time the skirmishers came running up the hill to the time when we rolled the French down it, I seem to have been in a dream. It's lucky that I had no words of command to give, for I am sure I should not have given them. I don't think I was frightened at all; somehow I did not seem to think of the danger. It was just a horrible confusion."

"I felt very much like that, too. It was not a bit like what it was when we took that brig; I felt cool enough when we jumped on to her deck. But then there was no noise to speak of, while the row this morning was tremendous. I tried to cheer when the men did, but I could not hear my own voice, and I don't know whether I made any sound or not."

A delay of some weeks took place after the battle of Vimiera. The Mayo Fusiliers were not among the troops who entered Lisbon in order to overawe the populace and prevent attacks both upon French soldiers and officers, and Portuguese suspected of leaning towards the French cause. Throughout the country everything was in confusion. A strong party, at whose head were the Bishop of Oporto and Friere, denounced the convention with the French--against whom they themselves had done nothing--as gross treachery on the part of the English to Portugal. They endeavoured in every way to excite the feelings of the population, both in the country and the capital, against the British; but in this they failed altogether, for the people were too thankful to get rid of the oppression and exactions of the invaders to feel aught but satisfaction at their being compelled to leave the country.

The Junta at Oporto, at whose head was the bishop, desired to grasp the entire power throughout the country, and were furious at being thwarted in their endeavours to prevent a central Junta being established at Lisbon. Throughout Spain also chaos reigned. Each provincial Junta refused co-operation with others, and instead of concerting measures for resistance against the great force that Napoleon was assembling on the frontier, thought only of satisfying the ambitions and greed of its members. The generals disregarded alike the orders from the central Junta at Madrid and those of the provincial Juntas, quarrelled among themselves to a point that sometimes approached open hostility, and each acted only for his private ends. Arms had been sent in vast numbers from England; yet, while the money so lavishly bestowed by British agents went into the pockets of individuals, the arms were retained by the Juntas of Seville, Cadiz, and the maritime ports, and the armies of Spain were left almost unarmed.

The term army is indeed absurd, as applied to the gatherings of peasants without, an idea of discipline, with scarcely any instruction in drill, and in the majority of, cases, as the result proved, altogether deficient in courage; and yet, while neglecting all military precautions and ready to crumble to pieces at the first approach of the French, the arrogance and insolence of the authorities, civil and military alike, were absolutely unbounded. They disregarded wholly the advice of the British officers and agents, and treated the men who alone could save them from the consequences of their folly with open contempt.

After a fortnight's halt at Vimiera the Mayo Fusiliers were marched, with four other regiments, to Torres Vedras, where they took up their quarters. In the middle of October O'Grady and Saunders rejoined, and Terence obtained a few days' leave to visit his father.

The latter's progress had been slow; the wound was unhealed, pieces of bone working their way out, and the doctors had decided that he must be invalided home, as it was desirable to clear out the hospitals altogether before the army marched into Spain.

"They think the change of air will do me good," Major O'Connor said to Terence, as they were chatting together after the latter arrived, "and I think so myself. It is evident that I cannot take part in the next campaign, but I hope to rejoin again in the spring. Of course it is hard, but I must not grumble; if the bullet had been half an inch more to the right it would have smashed the bone altogether, then I should have had small chance indeed, for taking off the leg at the hip is an operation that not one man in twenty survives. O'Flaherty says he thinks that all the bits of bone have worked out now, and that I may not be permanently lame; but if it is to be so, lad, it is of no use kicking against fate. I have got my majority, and if permanently disabled by my wounds, can retire on a pension on which I can live comfortably.

"So I hear that Sir John Moore is going to march into Spain. By the way, you have got some cousins in Oporto or the neighbourhood, though I don't suppose you are likely to run against them."

"I never heard you say anything about them before, father."

"No; I don't think that I ever did mention it. A first cousin of mine went over, just about the time that I was married, to Oporto, and established himself there as a wine merchant. He had been out there before for a firm in Dublin, and when Clancy's father died, and he came into