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

an infantry uniform that you are wearing? and ain't there hundreds of infantry officers here? It was good fun at Athlone, but I don't think that many of them believed there was any real danger. It would be altogether different here; they are scared enough as it is, though they walk about with their cloaks wrapped round them and pretend to be mighty confident."

"Let us come and talk it over outside, Dick. It did not much matter before if it had been discovered we had a hand in it. Of course the colonel would have given us a wigging, but at heart he would have been as pleased at the joke as any of us. But it is a different affair here."

Going out, they continued their talk and arranged their plans. Late the following night two English officers rushed suddenly into a drinking-shop close to the gate through which the road to Valladolid passed.

"The French! the French!" one exclaimed. "Run for your lives and give the alarm!"

The men all leapt to their feet, rushed out tumultuously, and scattered through the streets, shouting at the top of their voices: "The French are coming! the French are coming! Get up, or you will all be murdered in your beds!"

The alarm spread like wildfire, and Terence and Ryan made their way back, by the shortest line, to the room where most of the officers were still sitting, smoking and chatting.

"Any news, O'Connor?" the colonel asked.

"Nothing that I have heard of, Colonel. I thought I would drop in for a cigar before turning in."

A few minutes later Tim Hoolan entered.

"There is a shindy in the town, your honour," he said to the colonel. "Meself does not know what it is about; but they are hallooing and bawling fit to kill themselves."

One of the officers went to the window and threw it up.

"Hoolan is right, Colonel; there is something the matter. There--" he broke off as a church bell pealed out with loud and rapid strokes.

"That is the alarm, sure enough!" the colonel exclaimed. "Be off at once, gentlemen, and get the men up and under arms."

"I must be off to the general's quarters!" Terence exclaimed, hastily putting on his greatcoat again.

"The divil fly away with them," O'Grady grumbled, as he hastily finished the glass before him; "sorrow a bit of peace can I get at all, at all, in this bastely country."

Terence hurried away to his quarters. A score of church bells were now pealing out the alarm. From every house men and women rushed out panic-stricken, and eagerly questioned each other. All sorts of wild reports were circulated.

"The British outposts have been driven in; the Valladolid gate has been captured; Napoleon himself, with his whole army, is pouring into the town."

The shrieks of frightened women added to the din, above which the British bugles calling the troops to arms could be heard in various quarters of the city.

"Oh, here you are, Mr. O'Connor!" General Fane exclaimed, as he hurried in. "Mr. Trevor has just started for the convent; he may be intercepted, and therefore do you carry the same message; the brigade is to get under arms at once, and to remain in readiness for action until I arrive. From what I can gather from these frightened fools, the French have already entered the town. If the convent is attacked, it is to be defended until the last. I am going to head-quarters for orders."

A good deal alarmed at the consequences of the tumult that he and Dick Ryan had excited, Terence made his way through the streets at a run; his progress, however, was impeded by the crowd, many of whom seized him as he passed and implored him to tell them the news. He observed that not a weapon was to be seen among the crowd; evidently resistance was absolutely unthought of. Trevor had reached the convent before him. The four regiments had already gathered there under arms.

"Have you any orders, Mr. O'Connor?" Colonel Corcoran asked, eagerly, for the Mayo Fusiliers happened to be formed up next the gate of the convent.

"No, sir; only to repeat those brought by Mr. Trevor, as the general thought that he might be intercepted on the way. The troops are to remain here in readiness until he arrives. If attacked, they are to hold the convent until the last."

"Have you seen any signs of the French?"

"None, whatever, Colonel."

"Did you hear any firing?"

"No, sir; but there was such an uproar--what with the church bells, everyone shouting, and the women screaming--that I don't suppose I should have heard it unless it had been quite close."

"We thought we heard musketry," the colonel replied, "but it might have been only fancy. There is such a hullabaloo in the city that we might not have heard the fire of small-arms, but I think that we must have heard artillery."

In ten minutes Fane with his staff galloped in. "The brigade will march down towards the Valladolid gate," he said. "If you encounter any enemies, Colonel Corcoran you will at once occupy the houses on both sides of the street and open fire upon them from the windows and roofs; the other regiments will charge them. At present," he went on, as the colonel gave the order for the regiment to march, "we can obtain no information as to the cause of this uproar. An officer rode in, just as I was starting, from Anstruther's force, encamped outside the walls, asking for orders, and reporting that his outposts have seen no signs of the enemy. I believe it is a false alarm after all, and we are marching rather to reassure the populace than with any idea of meeting the enemy."

The troops marched rapidly through the streets, making their way without ceremony through the terrified crowd. They had gone but a short distance when the bells of the churches one by one ceased their clamour, and a hush succeeded the din that had before prevailed. When the head of the column reached the gate, they saw Sir John Moore and his staff sitting there on horseback. Fane rode up to him for orders.

"It is, as I fancied, wholly a false alarm," the general said. "How it could have started I have no idea. I have had another report from Anstruther; all is quiet at the outposts, and there is no sign whatever of the enemy. There is nothing to do but to march the troops back to barracks. However, I am not sorry, for possibly the scare may wake the authorities up to the necessity of taking some steps for the protection of the town."

Terence rode back with General Fane to his quarters.

"I cannot make out," Trevor said, as they went, "how the scare can have begun; everything was quiet enough. I was just thinking of turning in when we heard a shouting in the streets. In three minutes the whole town seemed to have gone mad, and I made sure that the French must be upon us; but I could not make out how they could have done so without our outposts giving the alarm. Where were you when it began?"

"I was in the mess-room of the Mayos, when one of the servants ran in to say that there was a row. Directly afterwards the alarm-bells began to ring, the colonel at once gave orders for the regiment to be got under arms, and I ran back to the general for orders; and I must have passed you somewhere on the road. Did you ever see such cowards as these Spaniards? Though there are arms enough in the town for every man to bear a musket--and certainly the greater portion of them have weapons of some sort or other--I did not see a man with arms of any kind in his hand."

"I noticed the same thing," Trevor said. "It is disgusting. It was evident that the sole thought that possessed them was as to their own wretched lives. I have no doubt that, if they could have had their will, they would have disarmed all our troops, in order that no resistance whatever should be offered. And yet only yesterday the fellows were all bragging about their patriotism, and the bravery that would be shown should the French make their appearance. It makes one sick to be fighting for such people."

The following afternoon Terence went up to the convent.

"Well, O'Connor, have you heard how it all began?" the colonel asked, as he went into the mess-room.

"No one seems to know at all, Colonel. The authorities are making inquiries, but, as far as I have heard, nothing has taken place to account for it."

"It reminds me," the colonel said, shutting one eye and looking fixedly at Terence, "of a certain affair that took place at Athlone."

"I was thinking the same myself," Terence replied, quietly, "only the scare was a good deal greater here than it was there; besides, a good many of the townspeople in Athlone did turn out with guns in their hands, whereas here, I believe every man in the town hid his gun in his bed before running out."

"I always suspected you of having a hand in that matter, Terence."

"Did you, Colonel?" Terence said, in a tone of surprise. "Well, as, fortunately, I was sitting here when this row began, you cannot suspect me this time."

"I don't know; you and Ryan came in together, which was suspicious in itself, and it was not two minutes after you had come in that the rumpus began. Just give me a wink, lad, if you had a finger in the matter. You know you are safe with me; besides, ain't you a staff-officer now, and outside my jurisdiction altogether?"

"Well, Colonel, a wink does not cost anything," Terence said, "so here is to ye."

He exchanged a wink with the colonel, who burst into a fit of laughter so loud that he startled all the other officers, who at once came up to hear the joke.

"It is just a little story that Terence has been telling me," the colonel said, when he had recovered his breath, "about the scare last night, and how a young woman, with next to nothing on her, threw her arms round his neck and begged him to save her. The poor young fellow blushed up to his eyelids with the shame of it in the public streets!"

CHAPTER IX THE RETREAT

O'Grady asked no questions, but presently whispered to Terence: "Faith, ye did it well, me boy."

"Did what well, O'Grady?"

"You need not tell me about it, Terence. I was expecting it. Didn't I spake to ye the day before about it, and didn't I feel sure that something would come of it? When that row began last night, I looked at you hard and saw you wink at that young spalpeen, Dicky Ryan; and sure all the time that we were standing there, formed up, I well-nigh burst the buttons off me coatee in holding in me laughter, when everyone else was full of excitement.

"'Are you ill, O'Grady?' the colonel said, for I had to sit meself down on some steps and rock meself to and fro to aise meself. 'Is it sick ye are?' 'A sudden pain has saised me, Colonel,' says I, 'but I will be all right in a minute.' 'Take a dram out of me flask,' says he; something must have gone wrong wid ye.' I took a drink--"

"That I may be sure you did," Terence interrupted.

"--And thin told him that I felt better; but as we marched down through the crowd and saw the fright of the men, and the women screaming in their night-gowns at the windows, faith, I well-nigh choked."

"Have you spoken to Ryan about this absurd suspicion, O'Grady?"

"I spoke to him, but I might as well have spoke to a brick wall. Divil a thing could I get out of him. How did you manage it at all, lad?"

"How could I manage it?" Terence said, indignantly. "No, no, O'Grady; I know you did make some remark about that scare at Athlone, and said it would be fun to have one here. I was a little shocked at hearing such a thing from, as you often say, a superior officer, and it certainly appears to me that it was you who first broached the idea. So I have much more right to feel a suspicion that you had a hand in the carrying of it out than for you to suspect me."

"Well, Terence," O'Grady said, in an insinuating way, "I won't ask you any questions now, and maybe some day when you have marched away from this place, you will tell me the ins and outs of the business."

"Maybe, O'Grady, and perhaps you will also confess to me how you managed to bring the scare about."

"Go along wid you,