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

free a small force under General Anstruther, and some fast-sailing craft were at once despatched to find his command, and order it to sail at once to the Mondego. Without further delay, however, the landing of the troops began on the 1st of August, and the 9,000 men, their guns and stores, were ashore by the 5th.

On that day Spencer fortunately arrived with 3,300 men. He had not received Sir Arthur's orders, but the moment that Dupont surrendered he had sailed for the Tagus, and had learned from Sir C. Cotton, who commanded the fleet at the entrance to the river, where Sir Arthur was, and at once sailed to join him. While the troops were disembarking Sir Arthur had gone over to the Portuguese head-quarters, two miles distant, to confer with Bernardin Friere, the Portuguese commander-in-chief. The visit was a disappointing one. He found that the Portuguese troops were almost unarmed, and that their commander was full of inflated ideas. He proposed that the forces should unite, that they should relinquish the coast, and march into the interior and commence an offensive campaign, and was lavish in his promises to provide ample stores of provisions. The English general saw, however, that no effectual assistance could be hoped for from the Portuguese troops, and as little from the promises of their commander. He gave Friere 5,000 muskets for his troops, but absolutely declined to adopt the proposed plan, his own intention being to keep near the coast, where he could receive his supplies from the ships and be joined by reinforcements.

As soon as they had landed the Mayo regiment was marched to a village two miles inland, and, with two others of the same brigade, encamped near it. All idea of keeping up a regimental officers' mess had been abandoned, and as soon as the tents were pitched and the troops had settled down in them, O'Grady said to Terence:

"We will go into the village and see if we can find a suitable place for taking our meals. It may be that in time our fellows will learn how to cook for us, but, by jabers! we will live dacent as long as we can. My servant, Tim Hoolan, has gone on ahead to look for such a place, and he is the boy to find one if there is one anyhow to be got. As our companies are number 1 and 2, it is reasonable that we should stick together, and though O'Driscol's a quare stick, with all sorts of ridiculous notions, he is a good fellow at heart, and I will put up with him for the sake of having you with me."

As they entered the village the servant came up. "I have managed it, Captain; we have got hold of the best quarters in the village; it is a room over the only shebeen here. The ould scoundrel of a landlord wanted to keep it as a general room, but I brought the Church to bear on him, and I managed it finally."

"How did you work it, Tim?"

"Sure, your honour, I went to the praste, and by good luck his house is in front of the church. I went into the church, and I crossed myself before the altar and said a prayer or two. As I did so who should come out of the vestry but the father himself. He waited until I had done and then came up to me, and to my surprise said in good Irish:

"'So it's a Catholic you are, my man?'

"'That am I, your riverence,' said I, 'and most all of the rigiment are; sure, we were raised in the ould country, and belong, most of us, to County Mayo, and glad we were to come out here to fight for those of the true religion against these Frenchmen, who they say have no religion at all, at all. And how is it you spake the language, your riverence, if I may be so bold as to ask?'"

"Then he told me that he had been at college at Lisbon, where the sons of many Catholic Irish gentlemen were sent to be educated, and that he had learned it from them.

"'And how is it that you are not with your regiment, my man?'

"'I am here to hire rooms for the officers, your riverence, just a place where they can ate a dacent meal in peace and quietness. I have been to the inn, but I cannot for the life of me make the landlord understand. He has got a room that would be just suitable, so I thought I would come to your riverence to explain to you that the rigiment are not heretics, but true sons of the Church. I thought that, being a learned man, I might make shift to make you understand, and that you would maybe go wid me and explain the matter to him.'

"'That will I,' says he; and he wint and jabbered away with the innkeeper, and at last turned to me and said: 'He will let you have a room, seeing that it is for the service of good Catholics and not heretics.'"

"But, you rascal, you know that we are not Catholics."

"Sure, your honour, didn't I say that most all the rigiment were Catholics; I did not say all of them."

"I must go and explain the matter to him, Hoolan. If he calls upon us, as like he may do, he would find out at once that you have desaved him."

"Sure, your honour, if you think that it is necessary, of course it must be done; but would it not be as well to go to the shebeen first and to take possession of the room, and to get comfortably settled down in it before ye gives me away?"

"I think it might be worth while, Tim," O'Grady said, gravely. "What do you say, Terence?"

"I think the matter will keep for a few hours," Terence said, laughing, "and when we are once settled there it will be very hard to turn us out."

The room was found to be larger than they had expected, and O'Grady proposed that they should admit the whole officers of their wing to share it with them, to which Terence at once agreed heartily. "I think that with a little squeezing the place would hold the officers of the five companies, and the major and O'Flaherty. The more of us there are, the merrier, and the less fear of our being turned out."

"That is so. We had better put the names up on the door. You go down and try and make that black-browed landlord understand that you want some paper and pen and ink."

With some difficulty and much gesticulation Terence succeeded. The names of the officers were written down on a paper and it was then fastened on the door.

"Now, Terence, I will go and fetch the boys; you and Hoolan make the landlord understand that we want food and wine for fifteen or sixteen officers. Of course they won't all be able to get away at once. We must contint ourselves with anything we can get now; afterwards we will send up our rations, and with plenty of good wine and a ham (there are lots of them hanging from the ceiling down below), we shall do pretty well, with what you can forage outside."

Terence left this part of the work to Hoolan, who, by bringing up a number of plates and ranging them on the table, getting down a ham and cutting it into slices, and by pointing to the wine-skins, managed to acquaint the landlord with what was required. In this he was a good deal aided by the man's two nieces, who acted as his assistants, and who were much quicker in catching his meaning than was the landlord himself. Very soon the room below was crowded with officers from other regiments, and Hoolan went up to Terence:

"I think, Mr. O'Connor, that it would be a good job if you were to go down and buy a dozen of them hams. A lot of them have been sold already, and it won't be long before the last has gone, though I reckon that there are three or four dozen of them still there."

"That is a very good idea, Tim. You come down with me and bring them straight up here, and we will drive some nails into those rafters. I expect before nightfall the place will be cleared out of everything that is eatable."

The bargain was speedily concluded. The landlord was now in a better temper. At first he had been very doubtful of the intentions of the new-comers. Now that he saw that they were ready to pay for everything, and that at prices much higher than he could before have obtained, his face shone with good-humour. He and the two girls were already busy drawing wine and selling it to the customers.

"I will get some wood, your honour, and light a fire here, or it is mighty little dinner that you will be getting. The soldiers will soon be dropping in, that is, if they don't keep this place for officers only, for there are two other places where they sell wine in the village. When I came up two officers had a slice of ham each on the points of their swords over the fire."

"That will be a very good plan, Tim; you had better set to work about it at once, and at the same time I will try and get some bread."

By the time that O'Grady returned with seven or eight other officers the fire was blazing. Terence had managed to get a sufficient number of knives and forks; there was, however, no table-cloth in the house. He and Terence were cooking slices of ham on a gridiron over the fire.

"This is first-rate, O'Grady," Major Harrison said; "the place is crowded down below, and we should have fared very badly if you had not managed to get hold of this room."

"If some of the boys will see to the cooking, Major, I will go down with Hoolan and get a barrel of wine and bring it up here; then we shall do first-rate."

"How about the rations, Major?" Terence asked.

"They have just been served out. I sent my man down to draw the rations for the whole wing at once, and told him to bring them up here."

"And I have told mine," Captain O'Driscol said, "to go round the village and buy up two or three dozen chickens, if he can find them, and as many eggs as he can collect. I think that we had better tell off two of the men as cooks. I don't think it is likely that they will be able to get much done that way below. Hoolan and another will do."

"I should think it best to keep Hoolan as forager; he is rather a genius in that capacity. I think he has got round those two girls, whether by his red hair or his insinuating manners I cannot say, but they seem ready to do anything for him, and we shall want lots of things in the way of pots and pans and so on."

"Very well, Terence, then we will leave him free and put two others on."

CHAPTER IV UNDER CANVAS

In a short time O'Grady returned, followed by Hoolan, carrying a small barrel of wine.

"It is good, I hope," the major said, as the barrel was set down in one corner of the room.

"I think that it is the best they have; one of the girls went down with Tim into the cellar and pointed it out to him. I told him to ask her for bueno vino. I don't know whether it was right or not, but I think she understood."

"How much does it hold, O'Grady?"

"I cannot say; five or six gallons, I should think; anyhow, I paid three dollars for it."

"You must put down all the outgoings, O'Grady, and we will square up when we leave here."

"I will put them down, Major. How long do you think we shall stop here?"

"That is more than anyone can say; we have to wait for Anstruther and Spencer. It may be three or four days; it may be a fortnight."

Dick Ryan assisted Terence in the cooking, while Tim went down to get something to drink out of. He returned with three mugs and two horns.

"Divil a thing else is there that can be found, yer honour," he said, as he placed them on the table; "every mortial thing is in use."

"That will do to begin with," the major said; "we will get our own things up this afternoon. We must manage as best we can for this meal; it is better than I expected by a long way."

Tim now relieved the two young officers