Читать книгу The Call of the Southern Cross - John Sandes - Страница 4

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There was a thick mist and a light rain was falling when the army moved forward at daybreak. Flynn and Verner, who were in the same company, found themselves climbing up the steep hillside together, and as the sun rose just when they reached the crest they could see the British uniforms trickling over and through the hills all around them, and flowing into the valley in a great and ever-growing torrent that soon became a flood.

As Verner and Flynn scrambled down the stony hillside together, they became aware of a lonely little cottage nestling on the flank of the hill in the midst of a small patch of cultivated ground. It was right between the opposing armies. Coming closer to it they perceived the Spanish peasant, who was the occupier of the place, sitting on a wheelbarrow, smoking, and in a shed alongside the cottage was a girl, milking a cow. As the redcoats came swarming down the hillside, she looked up with a startled gaze, and ran to her father.

The black-bearded Pedro Moreno shouted to Verner, and, Verner, who had picked up a good knowledge of Spanish during his campaigning, rapidly explained to him the danger of remaining at the cottage, as the French artillery might open at any moment, and the peasant and his daughter would be in serious danger.

At this remark Juana approached, wide-eyed, and Verner saw that she was a pretty, dark-eyed girl no more than 16 years of age at most. He smiled at her encouragingly, and told her not to be frightened, whereupon she blushed shyly and clasped her father's hand.

Moreno quickly grasped the military position. He had seen more than one battlefield during the past four years. He spoke rapidly in the rough patois of northern Spain. "The French devils are over there. They have been in this valley for weeks. Carajo! They have dug up and eaten my turnips, they have driven off my sow and her eleven young ones, they have taken my two best bullocks to drag an ammunition waggon, and if I had not sat at my door with my rifle on my knee they would have taken my daughter, Juana, also. But they are strongly posted, senor. It will be hard work to drive them out."

"Lord Wellington will drive them out very quickly when he once begins," said Verner, "meanwhile I strongly advise you to remove with the little Juana to the other side of this range at the back of us. You will be far safer there." The soldier, who was usually so silent and reserved, smiled pleasantly at Moreno's daughter. "Don't you think so, Juana?" he asked, and the girl nodded and showed her pretty white teeth in a pleased smile. She liked this tall Englishman already, and was flattered at the thought that he was so solicitous for her safety.

Moreno scowled as he looked across the Zadora, and shook his fist at the hills on which the French outposts were drawn up. "If His Excellency Lord Wellington could cross the river he might soon drive out those French devils," he remarked. And then he added, suddenly. "It is I, Pedro Moreno, who will guide His Excellency. It is I who will show him where he can cross."

Verner was startled. "Where is the place?" he asked rapidly.

"At the bridge of the Tres Puentes," said Moreno. "I shall guide His Excellency to it myself. You will take me to him now."

"Oh, father, must you leave me?" It was Juana who spoke.

Pedro turned to her swiftly and kissed her on the forehead. "It is necessary for me to go now, my little Juana, but I will be back soon, and if any accident should happen to me, this English soldier will look after you. So, courage, my little girl, and now goodbye. You will look after her, senor, will you not?"

And Verner quietly assented.

By this time the columns were pouring into the valley on the right and on the left, but still the Frenchmen made no sign.

Flynn had gone on and rejoined his company, which was already forming up with the brigade. Verner hurried along with the black-bearded peasant to where he saw the easily recognised figure of Wellington, whom sat on his horse surrounded by his staff, and repeatedly glanced impatiently at the tail ends of the columns that were still defiling into the valley of the Zadora.

General Brisbane, as a member of the Staff of the Army, was one of the group, and it was he who first recognised Verner.

"Now then, Private Verner, what on earth are you doing here? Why are you not with your company?"

Verner saluted punctiliously. "I came across this civilian, sir, who desired to be brought to the Commander in-Chief. He declares that he can guide the troops to a place where the river can be crossed."

"Eh, what's all this?" said Wellington himself, who rode up in time to hear the explanation. "Well, my man, if you do what you say you can do, you shall be well rewarded. Where is the place?"

"The bridge of the Tres Puentes, Excellency," said Moreno, looking Wellington frankly in the face. "The French pigs have left it unguarded. I can guide you to it now."

Wellington made up his mind instantly. The tail-ends of the columns were already through the hills. "Lead on, then, Guide," he cried.

But Moreno stopped for a moment to say a few words to Verner. "And remember senor," he said, "if anything happens to me you have promised to look after my little Juana, for she has no one else but me to look to now."

"I give you my promise," said Verner, and he clasped the peasant's strong hand in his own and pressed it earnestly.

Wellington selected Kempt's brigade of the Light Division to open the ball. A bugle blew, and the brigade was quickly on the march, led by this brave Spanish peasant, who guided them by a circuitous path through rough and rocky country to the bridge of the Tres Puentes, a narrow wooden structure that had been entirely overlooked by the French general, Marshal Jourdan. In fact, Jourdan was harassed so perpetually by King Joseph's constant interference that he forgot many other things on that ill-fated day as well as the bridge of the Tres Puentes.

As Kempt's brigade dashed across the bridge, followed by Picton's first brigade, in which Verner and Flynn ran side by side, the French at last realised that the bridge of the Tres Puentes had been left unguarded, and they opened fire from their battery on the rising ground that commanded the bridge.

As the Spanish peasant stood with outstretched arm pointing out the path to a couple of officers a round shot from the battery struck him, and hurled him to the ground. He was lying there in a pool of his own blood, while his life ebbed away, when Picton's brigade reached the bridge head and Verner saw him.

Holding his water bottle to the lips of the dying man, Verner caught his last words. "Senor, it is for your country as well as my own that I die. Remember your promise. Take care of my little Juana."

Pedro Moreno, a peasant with a hero's soul, fell back dead, and Verner rushed forward to rejoin his battalion, which was supporting the 15th Hussars, who had crossed the bridge of the Tres Puentes and were now preparing to charge the French batteries.

It was Picton's sudden rush with his troops across the bridge and right up to the village of Arinez that first shook the French defence. Brisbane and his brigade were in the hottest of the fighting, and they pressed forward indomitably, driving the French back to the second range of heights in front of the village of Gomecha.

But the second position soon became as untenable as the first, for the centre attack was directed by Wellington himself with four divisions of infantry, together with his artillery and cavalry, and D'Urban's Portuguese horsemen. The whole weight of this force was hurled upon the shaken French defence, which was steadily pushed backwards, and the battle resolved itself into a running fight and cannonade for six miles towards the city of Vittoria.

It was 6 o'clock in the evening when the French were driven from the last defensible height and the British troops, "faint, yet pursuing," could see the terrified multitude of the non-combatants, a confused mass, including numbers of women and children, carriages and vehicles of all sorts, and transport animals, all gathered in the plain behind the city.

What a rout!

Never was there seen anything like it in the whole five years of the war. The streets of the city were so densely blocked with fugitives and carriages that the pursuing cavalry could not force their way through the mass in time to cut off King Joseph, who jumped from his travelling carriage and escaped on horseback, when the British riders were yelling "View holloa," as they hunted him on the line of retreat to Salvatierra.

Nothing saved King Joseph but the fact that the horses of the British cavalry could not raise a gallop at the close of that tremendous day.

The French King saved his skin, but he lost everything else, for, though his army escaped with a loss of 6,000 men on the field of battle, he had to throw away all his artillery, transport and stores, and even the priceless pictures and art treasures that he was carrying away with him from the Royal Palace at Madrid.

Late in the evening, when the troops were still cheering in the exaltation of the great victory, Henry Verner made his way back slowly over the eight miles of country that he had traversed in the fury of the fight. Here and there—especially on the crests of the hills, where there had been hand-to-hand fighting—the dead men, both French and English, lay thickly, and Verner could see the ghouls of the battlefield, Portuguese muleteers and camp followers, flitting hither and thither, as they bent over the corpses robbing them.

The moon was riding high in the heavens as Verner reached the bridge of the Tres Puentes. He had brought a spade with him. He intended to bury the brave Spanish peasant where he had fallen.

And then the thought struck Verner that it would be necessary for him to go still further—up to the flank of the hillside on which Moreno's little cottage stood in its patch of cultivated ground, so that he might break the news to that brave peasant's daughter, and at the same time find out from her where her dead father's relatives could be found, so that he might hand her over to them. He felt a thrill of pity for Juana. The task in front of him was a painful one.

He descended the last ridge, picking his way among the silent dead, and, spade in hand, strode down the slope towards the bank of the Zadora, where Moreno fell.

Yes, that was the spot. He remembered it well. The guide had just crossed the wooden bridge to the French side of the river, when the round shot from the battery on the hillside struck him. Verner could see the spot, for the moon was nearly full. He could see the long, narrow bridge of the Tres Puentes, and the dark waters of the Zadora River, silvered by the moonlight. As he reached the same spot early that morning the roar of the artillery was deafening. His ears were filled by the crash of the musket volleys and the yells of the charging troops. But all was silent now. The stillness was awe-inspiring where the dead men lay with their faces turned towards the sky.

And then, as he drew near to the spot where Moreno fell, a low sound broke the silence—the sound of a child sobbing.

Verner hurried forward to the place where he had left the dead guide, whose devotion had enabled the great Commander-in-Chief to throw that first handful of troops across the river and thus make the first step forward of the triumph at Vittoria.

The sobbing continued, soft and low, and as he drew near to the spot, the soldier saw the girl plainly. It was Juana.

She was sitting on the ground holding the dead man's head in her lap. Over his body she had drawn a heavy military cloak that some infantryman had thrown away to lighten his burden in the charge. She was keeping vigil over her dead.

"So you found him, Juana," said Verner, leaning on his spade as he looked down upon the Spanish girl. "How did you know that he was dead?"

"He did not come home to me, senor," said the girl, simply. She had recognised Verner at once. "So I came to look for him."

"And what are you going to do now?" asked Verner.

"I do not know, senor," said the girl, through her tears. "My father always took care of me since my mother died. And now he is dead also. I have no other relative. But I shall pray to the good God, and He will send someone to take care of me."

Verner was troubled in his heart. Juana was so young, go lonely, and so helpless, that it was absolutely necessary that someone should look after her—and someone of her own sex if possible. The only woman with whom Verner had any real acquaintance was Mrs. Biddy Flynn. He made up his mind to ask Mrs. Flynn to take the Spanish orphan girl under her experienced wing.

He looked down at the dead man and then at the white face and large, dark eyes of Juana, who had ceased to weep. He tapped the handle of his spade significantly.

Juana rose to her feet. "It is to bury my father," she said, quietly. "Thank you, senor; it is good of you." There were no more tears now. Indeed, the girl displayed a firmness and resolution that showed her to be a worthy daughter of her brave father.

So Verner dug a deep grave on the battlefield close to the Bridge of the Tres Puentes, and there he and Juana buried the heroic guide on the spot where he fell, and Juana knelt by the grave and said a prayer for the repose of her father's soul, while Verner stood bareheaded beside her. It was past midnight when the girl rose from her knees and placed her hand in Verner's. "Senor," she said, "I prayed to the good God to send someone to help me. He has sent you."

Day was breaking, and Mrs. Flynn, who had made the best of her way on her burro in the wake of the army, and had speedily discovered the bivouac of Terence's battalion, was just busying herself in boiling a kettle at the camp fire for a much-needed cup of 'tay' when she became aware of a stranger in the lines of the battalion.

Looking up from her kettle, she saw Private Verner leading a raw-boned commissariat mule, that carried instead of a saddle a sack partly filled with hay. And on the sack sat the prettiest girl that Mrs. Flynn had seen since she left Connemara, a girl with large, dark, tired eyes that turned instinctively towards Verner's tall, soldierly figure.

"Shure, where did ye get her at all, at all?" asked Mrs. Flynn, who was thoroughly mystified.

"Her father is dead," said Verner. "He was killed while acting as guide to the troops. I promised him before he died that I would look after Juana. I want you to help me, Mrs. Flynn."

"Shure an' I will do ut with a heart and a half," responded Mrs. Flynn, briskly. "Yo can lave her to me, Verner. Faith, I can see that what the poor lamb do be needin' is slope an' food. 'Tis meself that'll be after takin' care of her this minnit."

So Mrs. Flynn, from Connemara, opened her arms and her heart to darkeyed Juana from the Spanish mountains, and the tired girl slipped in with a sigh of contentment. Whereupon Private Verner went off to the tent of the brigadier-general to report himself and to explain the reason of his absence.

Instead of the reprimand that he expected, he received a few words of warm commendation from General Brisbane, who was aware of the death of the brave guide, and expressed satisfaction at the news that Verner had buried the body.

"There's another small matter that I have to report, sir," said Verner, looking the general straight in the face.

"Well, Verner, out with it, man."

"I have brought Moreno's daughter, into the lines, sir, and have left her in the care of Mrs. Flynn, the wife of your batman."

"The deuce you have, Verner!" ejaculated the brigadier, with some perplexity. "But was that quite necessary?"

"In my opinion, sir," said the soldier, "it was imperatively necessary. I gave her father my word of honour that if he died in the service of Lord Wellington and the British Army I would be personally responsible for seeing that his daughter was cared for."

General Brisbane was a religious man, a conscientious man, and a thoroughly honourable man, who was never in his life known to go back upon his plighted word. "In those circumstances, Verner," he said, "you did the right thing. I shall mention the matter to Lord Wellington myself, and in all probability some suitable provision will be made for the young woman in view of the great service rendered by her father."

Verner made no reply to that, except to salute the general. "Is that all, sir, for the present?" he asked.

"Yes, that is all for the present," said Brisbane, "but you look absolutely tired out, Verner. Go and have a few hours' sleep. I'll send Flynn for you when I want you."

So Private Verner, that silent and reserved man, whose past was an insoluble mystery to his comrades, went away to his own quarters in the great encampment and lay down and slept.

And when he slept he dreamed of dark-eyed Juana.