Читать книгу Boys of the Light Brigade - George Herbert Ely - Страница 11

Table of Contents

Westphalian Light Horse—Mine Host—Two Menus—Feeding a Commissary—Practice in French—Another Bottle—A Sum in Arithmetic—Inferences—A Cold Prospect

Daylight was just breaking as the riders came to the dreary outskirts of Olmedo, passing by one or two desolate-looking vineyards, untidy brick-fields, gloomy convents, and neglected kitchen-gardens, the walled town itself rising before them on an eminence in the midst of a wide sandy plain.

Jack had already learnt from Juan on the way that, nearly a mile from the town, a small clump of pine-trees grew, the only trees to be seen on all the barren heath. This, Jack thought, would be a convenient spot at which to leave the youth with the mules while he himself went into the town and reconnoitred. Accordingly, he sent Juan into the wood with the animals and sufficient food to last them the day, telling him to wrap his cloak well about him to keep off the cold, and on no account to allow himself to be seen from the road. Then he proceeded alone into the town, the narrow dirty streets of which he found in a great bustle. There appeared to be a horse at the door of every one of the six hundred houses of which the place consisted, and at the side of every horse there was a French trooper, who was either brushing his mount, or fastening its saddle-straps, or feeding it, or watching his comrades engaged in one or other of those operations. In short, three squadrons of French dragoons, which had been quartered on the town, were saddling up in preparation for marching, and the streets resounded with the clank of metal, the pawing of horses' hoofs, and the cries of the soldiers.

Jack made his way to the first inn, where he found the landlord endeavouring to reconcile his Castilian dignity with the obsequiousness demanded by the troopers he was serving. Ordering some chocolate, Jack sat down quietly on a bench, prepared to pick up any scraps of information he could gather from the half-dozen troopers who were loudly conversing over their drink. But a few moments later a sergeant entered, in a rage at finding the men away from their horses. They left in a body, and Jack seized the occasion to make a few discreet enquiries of the aggrieved and perspiring innkeeper. The troopers, he learnt, were the Westphalian light horse, belonging to General Maupetit's brigade, which formed the cavalry division of the fourth army corps under Marshal Lefebvre, Duke of Dantzig. They had arrived in the town on the previous afternoon, and the landlord, like all the inhabitants, was anxious to see the last of them; for the town had been visited by numerous smaller parties of horse during the previous week, and the French always took what they wanted, and were not very scrupulous about paying for it.

While Jack was condoling with the landlord, he heard the bugle ring out the "boot and saddle". A few minutes later the whole force moved out along the main road to the south, leading to Villacastin and Madrid. Jack stood just within the door, watching them defile past, and he could not but admire the excellent condition of the horses and the soldierly smartness of the men.

"I wonder where they are bound for?" he said to himself. He knew, from a careful examination he had already made of his map, that if the cavalry kept to the main road it would bring them, within about thirty miles, in contact with Hope's outposts, with the result that their general, Lefebvre, would not remain much longer in ignorance of the proximity of the British forces.

"I must see what they are after," thought Jack. Hastening to the plantation outside the town, where he had left Juan and the mules, he mounted and rode alone after the dragoons, being careful to maintain a discreet distance between himself and their rear. After riding for some three miles, he observed that they were leaving the main road and bearing to the left. Taking out his map, he found that they were evidently making for Segovia by the shortest cut, and the obvious inference was that they were as yet quite unsuspicious of the proximity of the British army, and had no intention of marching towards the Portuguese frontier. Riding another mile, to make sure that this supposition was correct, Jack then returned to the plantation, scribbled a note to Moore giving this important news, and ordered Juan to set off with it, going round Medina to Carpio, where he would meet his brother, whom he was to instruct to carry the message to Salamanca.

Having thus despatched his second messenger, Jack made his way back to Olmedo, with the intention of obtaining a more substantial meal than he had yet had time for. He sought, this time, the principal inn of the place, and found that with the departure of the dragoons the inhabitants of the town, previously invisible, had now formed little knots at the street corners, and were condoling with one another on the indignities they had suffered at the hands of the enemy. The landlord was at first too much occupied with the gossips at the door of his posada to attend to a stranger, but Jack at last boldly took him by the arm and declared that he must have food of some sort.

"Food! All very well for a stranger to ask for food," he replied bitterly, "but these cursed Frenchmen have stripped us bare, and are verily capable of eating our children."

"Come, landlord," said Jack, "I heard an old cock crowing lustily as I came up the street. At least you have an egg or two. I don't love the French any more than you; and I'll pay, which is more than they do, by all accounts."

"Well, Señor, perhaps I can find you an egg, but you must wait till I can send for it and borrow a frying-pan, for a Frenchman knocked a hole in mine last night."

Jack sat down on a bench within the bar-room, and listened to the conversation, or rather the declamation, of the men at the door. While he sat there waiting with scant patience, for he was very hungry, the sound of horses' hoofs was heard approaching, mingled with the clank of steel. The knot at the door melted away as by magic, and a few moments later a small party of horsemen clattered into the courtyard, and loud voices were heard calling to the inn servants. In a minute or two a portly French officer clanked into the room, now empty save for Jack. He was clad in a uniform of some brilliance, with a heavy shako and an embroidered white cloak, and the stone floor resounded to the tread of his heavy spurred riding-boots. Giving a casual glance at Jack, who was staying his hunger with a crust of dry bread until the egg should appear, the officer strode up to the low counter, smote it heavily with his riding-whip, and bellowed for the landlord, in execrable Spanish, freely interlarded with French expletives.

"Ohé, landlord!" he shouted. "Palsambleu! Where has the hog hidden himself? Ohé! Come out of your pig-stye, canaille that you are, and bring me some food."

He continued shouting and belabouring the counter, setting the crockery rattling on the big dresser behind.

"Nice manners!" said Jack to himself, closely watching the new-comer. "I wonder who he is!"

At this moment the landlord entered with a fried egg, which he brought to Jack without giving more than one sullen glance to the boisterous officer. This neglect wounded the gentleman's dignity; he strode across the room and, lifting his whip, spluttered:

"Insolent dog! Don't you hear? I order you to bring me food, and, palsambleu! you had better hurry. What do you mean by keeping an officer of the emperor waiting while you serve a beggarly tradesman?"

"In a moment, Señor," said the landlord, setting the dish before Jack.

"Would the noble marquis like my egg?" said Jack meekly in bad French.

"Egg!" The officer snorted his contempt for such frugal fare. "Look you, landlord, I want soup to begin with, and then a mayonnaise—sweet olive-oil, mind you—and a capon well basted to follow, and—"

"Señor, Señor," interrupted the landlord, "I've not any such things on the premises. Your dragoons have eaten me up already. I can give you an omelet—"

"An omelet! Morbleu, landlord! If you don't hurry with something more substantial than an omelet I'll slice your fat cheeks into collops."

A Question of Supply

He glared at the Spaniard and laid his hand on his sword; and the landlord, giving up all attempt to preserve his dignity further, scuttled through the door leading to his kitchen.

"Holà!" cried the officer, calling him back; "before you go give me a stoup of wine; none of your tarred vinegar of Toro, pardi, but good wine of Valdepenas, something with a tang. Ventrebleu! it's a poor thing if an officer of the emperor, who has to feed an army, can't get good food for himself."

("Ah!" thought Jack, "we have a commissary here. He ought to be worth something.")

The trembling landlord set a goat-skin and a cup before the blusterous commissary, and hurried off to ransack his larder for something wherewith to appease his Gargantuan appetite.

After two or three draughts of wine the big man appeared to be somewhat mollified. He threw more than one glance at Jack, as he strode up and down the room, objurgating the landlord's sluggishness. To Jack's amusement and surprise, the Spaniard returned in a very few minutes, bearing a steaming tureen of soup.

"Would the Señor like his meal served in a private room?" he asked. "There is only my own sitting-room, with no fire at present, but if his excellency pleases a fire shall be lit, and—"

"Tenez, tenez!" said the officer; "let me fill my stomach, in the public room here by the fire. I may want the private room by and by," he added pompously; "but meanwhile I have no objection to your guest being present."

He glanced at Jack, who at once said, in his politest tones:

"I shall be happy to retire if I am in the noble marquis's way. Personal convenience must, of course, give way to the public service, and anyone can see that the noble marquis is a very high functionary."

The deferential tone and the barefaced flattery conciliated the big man. Puffing himself out he said:

"Not marquis yet, young man, not yet, though it may come—yes, it may come in time. Lefebvre is Duke of Dantzig: he rose from the ranks, and there's no reason in the world why I, Gustave Taberne, shouldn't be a marquis before long. Personal business, you say? Well, my business is wholly personal at present, since it consists in lining my not inconsiderable person, hein! But I don't regard your company as an intrusion, monsieur; far from it; I welcome you heartily."

Jack bowed his acknowledgments. Meanwhile the officer had begun to gulp his soup with no little noise, gobbling like a turkey-cock, as Jack described him afterwards. As his meal progressed he unbent still further.

"You are almost the first of your cursed countrymen I've met who can speak tolerable French," he said. "Where did you learn it, young man?"

"I picked up a little in Barcelona, your excellency," replied Jack, "but not till now have I had the opportunity of improving myself by conversation with an officer used to high society."

"Ah! you know a galant homme when you see him. You have some sense, young man. Yes, I'm commissary-general to the Duke of Dantzig's forces, and, parbleu! in the emperor's service I spare no one, neither myself nor others. Ohé, landlord, bring the next course."

The landlord brought in a number of dishes.

"Señor likes the puchero?" he said.

"Puchero, you call it? Well, if this is puchero, I do like it. Now, par le sambleu, you wanted to put me off with an omelet! He! he!"

He lay back in his chair and roared. Jack himself was not a little amused, for he saw on the table a quarter of veal, a neck of mutton, a chicken, the end of a sausage called chorizo, slices of bacon and ham, a jug of sauce made of tomatos and saffron and strong spices, a dish of cabbage soaking in oil, and a platter filled with a vegetable rather like haricot beans, called garbanzo. All these the landlord mixed in one big vessel so as to make a mayonnaise, which Jack hoped did not taste as strong as it smelt. The commissary fell to with avidity, but he was evidently fond of hearing his own voice, and his tongue being loosened by the unexpected good cheer, and by Jack's respectful admiration, he condescended to converse between the mouthfuls.

"Pity your countrymen are not all as civil and sensible as yourself," he said. "If they'd only put a good face on it, and pay willing obedience to King Joseph—though, to tell the truth, he's only a proxy for the emperor,—they'd live a quieter life and make the duties of the commissary less of a torture. I tell you, young man—moi qui vous parle—there isn't a more harassed man in the army than the commissary-general. Hang me if he is not every way as important as the commander-in-chief!"

Jack looked at him sympathetically.

"A general gets all the credit of a victory, but, parbleu! 'tis the commissary that deserves it. Who won the battle of Austerlitz three years ago? Folks say it was the emperor, but between you and me, mon ami, it was I myself, Gustave Taberne. Soult, Masséna, Lannes, the emperor himself—all very well, but could the men fight if they weren't well fed?—tell me that. And I feed the army. Skill, that is good; courage, that is better; devotion, that is excellent; but a good meal has won more victories than the cleverest tactics."

"The world knows nothing of its greatest men," said Jack.

The commissary gleamed approval, but at this point the conversation was interrupted by the entrance of a corporal.

"Well, Antoine," said the officer, "where is the alcalde?"

"He cannot be found, mon colonel," replied the man.

"Cannot be found! Cannot! Who dares use such words to the emperor's commissary-general? The alcalde must be found, or, parbleu! I'll burn every house and pig-stye in the place. Let him be here in half an hour—not a moment sooner, for I must finish my dejeuner; not a moment later, for he will fare ill if he keeps me waiting. Away with you, Antoine."

The corporal vanished.

"Ohé, landlord!" shouted the commissary. "Another bottle of wine. No, don't take out the stopper. Set it on the table there in front of me."

The commissary gloated at the rotund wine-skin, but made no sign of opening it. Catching an enquiring glance from Jack, he said loftily:

"I drink no more till my work is done, young man. If I drank more now, I should get drunk; and if I got drunk the emperor would call me a pig, and I should deserve it. Duty first, young man, always remember that."

"It astonishes me," said Jack, "—forgive my ignorance, Colonel,—how you officers can make the calculations necessary for feeding an immense army. In our little villages, for instance, if we keep the festival of a saint or a guild, when there are only some hundreds of mouths to feed, we either run short or have so much left that bushels of good stuff have to be thrown to the pigs."

Jack spoke from recollections of the autumn bean-feast in his little Surrey village at home. The commissary rose to the bait, and spoke, always with a thirsty eye fixed on the wine-skin.

"Oh! as to that," he said, "we do everything by system. Nothing is easier when you have a system. We allow a pound of biscuit a day to each man, and half a pound of meat, and as much wine as is good for him and can be got. For myself, as you see, I can drink a gallon without staggering, and hold a fresh bottle always at arm's-length without touching it."

"Matchless strength of will!" exclaimed Jack. "But even so, the responsibility of obtaining just the right quantity for so many thousands of men would make a weaker man quaver. The biscuit, for instance—what a huge quantity you must consume!"

"Huge indeed!" said the commissary. "Why, in Valladolid, where I have come from, we use nine tons a day." (Jack made a rapid mental calculation: one pound of biscuit to each man; nine tons a day. "So there are about twenty thousand men in Valladolid!" he concluded.) "And in the present temper of your confounded countrymen," continued the commissary, "such a man as I is not to be envied. I have had great difficulty in procuring supplies in some places. Like your landlord here, they offer an egg, and we have to curse them before they bring out the chicken. But we stand no nonsense, I can tell you. Your alcaldes have bad memories, but 'tis amazing how refreshing is a yard or two of hempen rope or the touch of a cold pistol-barrel. We had trouble in Valladolid, and 'tis rumoured we are to have trouble in Segovia; but let 'em beware, let 'em beware."

"Ah! I'm afraid our poor people have small chance against the hosts of your emperor—the finest soldier the world has seen since Alexander the Great."

"You say true, monsieur; you are a sensible fellow—for a Spaniard. The Little Corporal is indeed a new Alexander, destined to conquer the whole world, and, parbleu! those upstart meddling shopkeepers of English into the bargain. Why, the emperor is at this moment marching south, and my bag here is stuffed with bulletins of his victories."

He pulled out a handful of papers, and spread them on the table. At this moment the corporal re-entered, followed by the trembling alcalde of the village, whose bemired dress showed that he had been hiding in no very sanitary spot.

"Ohé, Don Long-chops," said the commissary, "you thought to escape me, did you? Now you and I will have a reckoning."

As the alcalde was brought round the table until he faced the commissary, Jack rose.

"I will bid you good-day, monsieur," he said politely. "I have a long way to go, and be sure that in whatever village I pass through I shall warn them that so capable an officer is not to be trifled with."

"That is sound sense, pardi," said the commissary. "You will do well to prepare them for my coming, and, look you, if we meet again, you and I will drink as much Valdepenas as our skins will hold—provided my duty is done. Au revoir!"

Jack bowed and took his leave. The information he had obtained from the self-sufficient commissary was clearly of the highest importance. There were twenty thousand men in Valladolid: they were about to march for Segovia; and the emperor himself was coming southward at the head of an army. It was evident that the French were as yet in ignorance of the proximity of Moore's army. They were probably intending a blow at Madrid; and Jack saw in a flash that this might have a direct bearing on the movements contemplated by Sir John.

"Why shouldn't we march eastward and cut their communications?" he thought.

The question was, how was this information to be conveyed to head-quarters? At the earliest Juan could not be back before dark, even if he met his brother the instant he arrived at Carpio.

"There's nothing for it but to go myself," said Jack to himself, "and that's a pity. I should have liked to get a little more out of my budding marquis when he is in one of his expansive moods. Well, I've a cold ride before me."