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A STORY OF A BATTLE

I

It was close upon Midsummer Day, but it was not midsummer weather. A mist rose from moist fields, and hung over the whole countryside as if it were November; the June of 1815 was wet and chill, as June so often is. And as the mist hung over the land, so a certain sense of doubt and anxiety hung over the hearts of man and beast and bird. War was in the air as well as mist; and everything wanted warmth and peace to help it to carry out its appointed work; to cheer it with a feeling of the fragrance of life.

The moisture and the chilliness did not prevent the Skylark from taking a flight now and then into the air, and singing to his wife as she sat on the nest below; indeed, he rose sometimes so high that she could hardly hear his voice, and then the anxious feeling got the better of her. When he came down she would tell him of it, and remind him how dear to her that music was. “Come with me this once,” he said at last in reply. “Come, and leave the eggs for a little while. Above the mist the sun is shining, and the real world is up there to-day. You can dry yourself up there in the warmth, and you can fancy how bad it is for all the creatures that have no wings to fly with. And there are such numbers of them about to-day – such long lines of men and horses! Come and feel the sun and see the sights.”

He rose again into the air and began to sing; and she, getting wearily off the nest, followed him upwards. They passed through the mist and out into the glorious sunshine; and as they hung on the air with fluttering wings and tails bent downwards, singing and still gently rising, the sun at last conquered the fog to the right of them, and they saw the great high road covered with a long column of horsemen, whose arms and trappings flashed with the sudden light. They were moving southward at a trot as quick as cavalry can keep up when riding in a body together; and behind them at a short interval came cannon and waggons rumbling slowly along, the drivers’ whips cracking constantly as if there were great need of hurry. Then came a column of infantry marching at a quickstep without music, all intent on business, none falling out of the ranks; they wore coats of bright scarlet, which set off young and sturdy frames. And then, just as an officer, with dripping plume and cloak hanging loosely about him, turned his horse into the wet fields and galloped heavily past the infantry in the road, the mist closed over them again, and the Larks could see nothing more.

But along the line of the road, to north as well as south, they could hear the rumbling of wheels and the heavy tramp of men marching, deadened as all these sounds were by the mud of the road and by the dense air. Nay, far away to the southward there were other sounds in the air – sounds deep and strange, as if a storm were beginning there.

“But there is no storm about,” said the Skylark’s wife; “I should have felt it long ago. What is it, dear? what can it be? Something is wrong; and I feel as if trouble were coming, with all these creatures about. Look there!” she said, as they descended again to the ground at a little distance, as usual, from the nest; “look there, and tell me if something is not going to happen!”

A little way off, dimly looming through the mist, was a large cart or waggon moving slowly along a field-track. Leading the horses was the farmer, and sitting in the cart was the farmer’s wife, trouble written in her face; on her lap was a tiny child, another sat on the edge of the cart, and a third was astride on one of the big horses, holding on by his huge collar, and digging his young heels into the brawny shoulders below him. All of these the Skylarks knew well; they came from the farm down in the hollow, and they must be leaving their old home, for there was crockery, and a big clock, and a picture or two, and other household goods, all packed in roughly and hurriedly, as if the family had been suddenly turned out into the world. The farmer looked over his shoulder and said a cheering word to his wife, and the Skylark did the same by his.

“Don’t get frightened,” he said, “or you won’t be able to sit close. And sitting close is the whole secret, dear, the whole secret of nesting. I’m sorry I took you up there, but I meant well. Promise me to sit close; if any creature comes along, don’t you stir – it is the whole secret. They won’t find you on the eggs, if you only sit close; and think how hard it is to get back again without being seen when once you’re off the nest! There’s nothing to alarm you in what we saw. See, here we are at the nest, and how far it is from the big road, and how snugly hidden! Promise me, then, to sit close, and in a day or two we shall begin to hatch.”

She promised, and nestled once more on the eggs. It was true, as he had said, that the nest was some way from the road; it was in fact about halfway between two high roads, which separated as they emerged from a great forest to the northwards, and then ran at a wide angle down a gentle slope of corn-land and meadow. In the hollow near to the western road lay the farmhouse, whose owners had been seen departing by the Skylarks, standing in a little enclosure of yard and orchard; near the other road, but higher up the slope, was another homestead. On the edge of the slope, connecting the two main roads, ran a little cart-track, seldom used; just such a deeply-rutted track as you may see on the slope of a south-country down, cutting rather deeply into the ground in some places, so that a man walking up to it along the grass slope might take an easy jump from the edge into the ruts, and need a vigorous step or two to mount on the other side. Just under this edge of the grass-field, and close to the track, the Larks had placed their nest; for the grass of the field, cropped close by sheep, offered them little cover; and they did not mind the cart or waggon that once in two or three days rolled lazily by their home, driven by a drowsy countryman in a short blue frock.

Next day the weather was worse, though the fog had cleared away; and in the afternoon it began to rain. Long before sunset the Larks began to hear once more the rumbling of waggons and the trampling of horses; they seemed to be all coming back again, for the noise grew louder and louder. Each time the cock bird returned from a flight, or brought food to his wife, he looked, in spite of himself, a little graver. But she sat close, only starting once or twice from the nest when the distant crack of a gun was heard.

“Sit close, sit close,” said her consort, “and remember that the way to get shot is to leave the nest. We are perfectly safe here, and I will be hiding in the bank at hand, if any danger should threaten.”

As he spoke, men passed along the track; then more, and others on the grass on each side of it. Then that dread rumbling grew nearer, and a medley of sounds, the cracking of whips, the clanging of metal, the hoarse voices of tired men, began to grow around them on every side. Once or twice, as it began to grow dusk, men tried to kindle a fire in the drizzle, and by the fitful light groups of men could be seen, standing, crouching, eating, each with his musket in his hand, as if he might have to use it at any moment. Officers walked quickly round giving directions, and now and then half-a-dozen horsemen, one on a bay horse always a little in advance, might be seen moving about and surveying the scene. Then more men passed by, and ever more, along the slope; more horses, guns, and waggons moved along the track. A deep slow murmur seemed to rise in the air, half stifled by the pouring rain, and broken now and then by some loud oath near at hand, as a stalwart soldier slipped and fell on the soppy ground. Then, as lights began to flash out on the opposite rise to the southward, a noise of satisfaction seemed to run along the ground – not a cheer, nor yet a laugh, but something inarticulate that did duty for both with wet and weary men. In time all became quiet, but for the occasional voice of a sentinel; and now and then a cloaked form would rise from the ground and try to make a smouldering fire burn up.

All this time the Skylark’s wife had been sitting close; men and horses were all around, but the nest was safe, being just under the lip of the bank. Her husband had crept into a hole close by her, and was presently fast asleep, with his head under his wing. They had already got used to the din and the sounds, and they could not abandon the nest. There they slept, for the present in peace, though war was in the air, and seventy thousand men lay, trying to sleep, around them.

II

On that first day, when the sun had broken through the mist and shone upon the army hastening southwards, an English lad, in the ranks of an infantry regiment, had heard the singing of the Larks high above them. He was a common village lad, a “Bill” with no more poetry or heroism in him than any other English Bill; snapped up at Northstow Fair by a recruiting serjeant, who was caught by his sturdy limbs and healthy looks; put through the mill of army discipline, and turned out ready to go anywhere and do anything at command – not so much because it was his duty, as because it was the lot that life had brought him. He was hardly well past what we now call schoolboy years, and he went to fight the French as he used to go to the parson’s school, without asking why he was to go. He might perhaps have told you, if you had asked him the question, that trudging along that miry road, heavily laden, and wet with the drippings of the forest they had just passed through, was not much livelier than trying to form pothooks under the parson’s vigilant eye.

When they emerged from the forest into the open, and began to descend the gentle slope into the hollow by the farmhouse, the sun broke out, as we have seen, and Bill, like the rest, began to look about him and shake himself. Looking up at the bit of blue sky, he saw two tiny specks against it, and now for the first time the Lark’s song caught his ear.

At any other moment it would have caught his ear only, and left his mind untouched. But it came with the sun, and opened some secret spring under that red coat, without the wearer knowing it. Bill’s sturdy legs tramped on as before, but his thoughts had suddenly taken flight. There was nothing else to think of, and for a minute or two he was away in English midlands, making his way in heavy boots and gaiters to the fields at daybreak, with the dew glistening on the turnip-leaves, and the Larks singing overhead. In those early morning trudges, before work drove all else from his mind, he used to think of a certain Polly, the blooming daughter of the blacksmith; so he thought of Polly now. Her vision stayed awhile, and then gave way to his mother and the rest of them in that little thatched cottage shrinking away from the road by the horsepond; and then the Rectory came in sight just beyond, and the old parson’s black gaiters and knotted stick. Bill, the parson’s schoolboy, bringing home one day a lark’s nest entire with four eggs, had come upon the parson by the gate, and shrunk from the look of that stick.

Bill had put the nest behind him, but it was too late; and he was straightway turned back the way he came, and told to replace the nest where he found it.

“And mind you do it gently, Bill,” said the old parson, “or the Lord won’t love you any more!”

To disobey the parson would have been for Bill a sheer impossibility, though easy enough for other lads. For him the old parson had been in the place of a father ever since he lost his own; and at home, in school, in church, or in the village, he often saw the old man many times a day. Not that he exactly loved him – or at least he was not aware of it; he had more than once tasted of the big stick, and oftener deserved it. But in Bill there was a feeling for constituted authority, which centred itself in those black gaiters and in that bent form with the grey hair; and it was strengthened by a dim sense of gratitude and respect; so he turned back without a word, and put back the nest with all the care he could.

When he came in sight once more, the parson was still at his gate, looking down the road for him from under the wide brim of his old hat.

“Have you done it, Bill?” he said, and without waiting for an answer, “will they thrive yet, do ye think?”

“I see the old ’uns about, sir,” says Bill “There’s a chance as they may take to ’un again, if the eggs be’ant to’ cold ’owever.”

“Then the Lord’ll love you, Bill,” said the old man, quite simply, and turned away up his garden. And Bill went home too; he told no one the story, but the parson’s last words got a better hold of him than all the sermons he had ever heard him preach.

And so it came about that, years afterwards, as he trudged along that Belgian highroad, besides Polly and his mother and the cottage, he saw the Rectory and the old parson, standing at the gate – waiting for the postman, perhaps with news from the seat of war. “I never wrote to ’un,” thought Bill, “as I said I would, to let ’un see a bit of my scrawlen – ”

But a nudge of the elbow from the next man drove all these visions away.

“D’ye hear that, youngster?” said this neighbour, an old Peninsular veteran, once a serjeant, and now degraded to the ranks for drunkenness; “d’ye hear that noise in front? That’s a battle, that is, and we’ll be too late for it, unless Bony fights hard, drat him!”

The pace was quickened, and for several miles they went on in silence, the sound of battle gradually getting louder. At last it began to die away; and soon an aide-de-camp came galloping up and spoke to their colonel, who halted his men in a field by the roadside. Then tumbrils full of wounded men began to roll slowly along the road, at which Bill looked at first with rather a wistful gaze. At last night set in, and they bivouacked on the field as they were.

Early next morning troops began to file past them – infantry, artillery, and baggage; the cavalry, so Bill was told by his neighbour in the ranks, was in the rear keeping off the enemy. Bony was coming after them, sure enough, he said, and the Duke must draw back and get all his troops together, and get the Prussians too, before he could smash that old sinner.

At last their turn came to file into the road, and retrace their steps of yesterday. It was now raining, and already wet and cold, and Bill simply plodded on like a machine, till a slight descent, and the sight of the farmhouse, and of the dark forest looming in front of them, told him that he was again on the ground where the sun had shone and the Lark sung. And his trials for that day were nearly at end, for no sooner had they mounted the slope on the further side, than they were ordered to the right, and turning into the fields by the little cross-track, were halted between the two roads, and lay down as they were, tired out.

III

Dawn was beginning at three o’clock on Sunday the 18th of June, and the Lark was already astir. In the night an egg had been hatched, and great was the joy of both parents. All was quiet just around the nest; at a little distance a sentinel was pacing up and down, but no one else was moving. The wife, at a call from her mate, left the nest, and rose with him through the drizzling rain.

“Higher, higher,” cried the cock bird, “let us try for the blue sky again, and look for the sunrise as we sing!” And higher they went, and higher, but found no blue that day; and when the sun rose behind the clouds, it rose with an angry yellow light, that gave no cheer to man or beast. And what a sight it showed below them! All along the ridge for a mile and a half lay prostrate forms, huddled together for warmth; picketed horses stood asleep with drooping heads; cannon and waggons covered the ground towards the forest. And all that host lay silent, as if dead. And over there, on the opposite height, lay another vast and dark crowd of human beings. What would happen when they all woke up?

The Larks spent some time, as was their wont, bathing themselves in the fresher air above, and then descended slowly to find insects for the new-born little one. Slowly – for a weight lay on the hearts of both; there was peril, they knew, though neither of them would own it. As they approached the earth, they saw a figure kneeling against the bank, and prying into the ground just where lay the home of all their fond desire. Each uttered at the same moment a piteous cry, and the figure, looking up, rose quickly from his knees and watched them. Then he went slowly away, and lay down among a group of cloaked human forms.

It was Bill, just released from sentinel duty. As he paced to and fro, he had seen the Larks rise, and, relieved by a comrade in a few minutes, he searched at once for the nest. Bill was not likely to miss it; he knew the ways of larks, and searched at a little distance right and left from the spot he had seen them leave. There was the nest – three brown eggs and a young one; it brought back once more the Rectory gate, and the old parson, and those few words of his. “I wish as I’d sent ’un a letter,” he said to himself, as he heard the Larks’ cry, and rose from his knees. That was all he said or thought; but Bill went quietly back to his wet resting-place, and slept with a clear conscience, and dreamed of pothooks and Polly.

When he woke nearly every one was astir: all looking draggled, cold, and dogged. Breakfast was a poor meal, but it freshened up Bill, and after it he found time to go and spy again at the nesting-place. The hen was sitting close, and he would not disturb her. The cock was singing above; presently he came down and crept through the grass towards her. But Bill saw no more then, for the bugles began to call, and all that great host fell gradually into battle array.

Bill’s regiment was stationed some little way behind the cart-track, and was held ready to form square at a moment’s notice. Hours passed, and then a hurried meal was served out; the battle was long in beginning. Every now and then Bill could hear the Lark’s song overhead, and he listened to it now, and thought of the nest as he listened. He could not see it, for a battery of artillery was planted between him and the track; but he kept on wondering what would happen to it, and it helped him to pass the weary hours of waiting.

At last, just at the time when the bells of the village church were beginning to ring at home – when village lads were gathering about the church door, and the old clerk was looking up the hymns, and getting the music out on the desks for the two fiddles and the bassoon – a flash and a puff of white smoke were seen on the opposite height, then another and another, and every man knew that the battle had begun.

And then the time began to go faster. Bill watched the artillerymen in front of him, and the smoke in the enemy’s lines, when he was not occupied with something else under his serjeant’s quick eye. Something was doing down there at the farmhouse; he could hear it, but could not see. Away on the left, too, he could see cavalry moving, and once saw the plumes of the Scots Greys on the enemy’s side of the valley, and then saw them galloping back again, followed by squadrons of French horse. Then an order was given to form square; cannon-balls began to whistle round, and as the square was formed, some men fell. Then a long pause. Suddenly the artillerymen came running back into the square, and Bill, in the front of the square, could see the further edge of the cart-track in front of him lined with splendid horsemen, who dropped into it and rose again on the other side, charging furiously at the square. Not a word was said, or a gun fired, till they were quite close; then the word was given, the front ranks of the square fired, and half the horsemen seemed to fall at once. Others rode round it, and met the same fate from the other sides. Then back went all the rest as best they could, with another volley after them, and Bill had seen his first fight.

Again and again this wave of cavalry came dashing against them, and each time it broke and drew back again. So the day wore on, and the battle raged all round. Ranks grew thinner and men grew tired of carrying the dead and dying out of their midst. Bill’s square was never broken, but the men were worn out, the colonel and most of the officers were killed or wounded, and still the battle went on.

At last, when the sun was getting low, the regiment was suddenly ordered forward. Glad to move their stiffened limbs at last, the men deployed as if on parade-ground, and dashed forward in line at the double. Bill saw that he would cross the cart-track close by the Lark’s nest; in all that din and fever of battle, he still thought of it, and wondered what its fate had been. Another minute and they were crossing the track, and as they leapt up the other side, he saw a bird fly out from under the feet of a soldier next but one to himself. The next moment he felt a sudden sharp blow, and fell insensible.

When he came to himself he could see the redcoats pouring down the slope in front of him; every one was going forward, and the enemy’s cannonade had ceased. A wounded soldier close by him groaned and turned heavily on his side. Bill tried to pull himself together to walk, but his right leg was useless, and he could only crawl. He crawled to the edge of the bank and found himself close to the nest; he put his hand in and found two warm eggs and two nestlings. Then he slipped down the bank and fainted at the bottom.

A fortnight afterwards, the old parson came down to his garden-gate with a letter in his hand, and stepped across to the thatched cottage. Bill’s mother met him at the door with a curtsey and a pale face.

“It’s his own writing,” said the parson, “so don’t be frightened. Shall I read it you?” And he opened and read the letter; here is a faithful copy of it —

“Brussles Ospitle, June 22.

“Dear Mother, – We ave won a glorous Victry, and old Bony and all of em they run away at last. I see em a runnin just as I got nocked over my dear mother I did for some on em but don’t know how many twas, them cavalry chaps mostly twas as I nocked over I be rather smartish badly hit dear mother the Doctor ave took off my rite Leg but I feels as if twur thur still it do hurt so tell passon I found a Lark’s nestie as I didn’t never take none of the eggs on twur a marvelous wunder as they warn’t scruncht with them Frenchies a gallopin over the place and our fellows wen they sent em a runnin tell passon as the Lord do love me I partly thinks I carn’t rite no more dear mother but I’m a comin ome soon as I’m better so no more now from y^r affexnit son

“Bill.”

The letter was read a hundred times, and laid carefully away when all the village had seen it. But the lad never came home; he lies in the cemetery at Brussels. The Larks brought up their young, and sang even while the dead were being buried; then they left the terrible field of Waterloo, and never dared return to it.