Читать книгу Ponce de Leon: The Rise of the Argentine Republic - William Pilling - Страница 16

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Don Carlos Evaña spent the afternoon, evening, and night of the 31st July shut in his own apartments, seeing no one, studying not at all, reading by fits and starts, and knowing nothing of what he read, thinking always. He could not sleep; before dawn he mounted to his azotea, hoping by exercise to weary himself to sleep.

His house stood in the same block as that of Don Gregorio Lopez. As he looked round him he saw a stout figure wrapped up in a thick woollen poncho, standing on the azotea of Don Gregorio's house, he crossed two other houses and went up to him, it was Don Gregorio himself.

"Buenos dias, Carlos," said Don Gregorio; "you are early abroad in spite of the cold."

"Milagro!" replied Evaña; "it is a frequent custom of mine to pass the night in study, and then to breathe the morning air before I go to bed."

"A most abominable custom, my friend," said Don Gregorio. "The night is made dark on purpose that men may sleep, when the sun shines then is the time for all work."

"I find the quiet of night very favourable to study, one is not liable to interruption when all others are asleep."

"That is one of the ideas you have brought with you from the Old World. Like many of your ideas it is out of place in the New."

"My ideas are out of place solely because they are new," replied Evaña; "but the new will be old when their time comes."

"True. Some day you will be as old as I am, Carlos; perhaps, I should say, for if you pass your nights without sleep continuously you will never reach my age. If you ever do, you will know by then that all rapid and violent changes are out of place, not only in the Old World but in the New also."

"Violent changes are at times necessary, Don Gregorio. Without violence change is frequently impossible, and change is one of the conditions of our existence."

"Change is one of the laws of Nature," replied Don Gregorio; "but the changes of Nature proceed gradually. Watch them in the trees; from bud to leaf, from leaf to flower, from flower to fruit, then fall the leaves and the tree rests for the winter. When spring comes again another series of change commences, and from year to year the tree increases in size and beauty."

"Till the day comes," said Evaña, as Don Gregorio paused, "when a storm tears up the old tree by the roots and it gives place to younger trees. Your simile does not hold good, Don Gregorio; even Nature finds violence a necessity at times to remove some obstruction to her invariable law of progress. These fierce storms which at times sweep over our city cause great damage and suffering while they last, but without them neither trees nor men would flourish."

"True, but Nature does not work blindly, she knows what will be the result of the storms she sends upon us. Do you know, Carlos, what will be the result of the storm you would fain raise amongst us?"

"I do. The result will be the birth of a great nation."

"If the nation is to be, it is born already, but it is not yet strong enough to walk alone."

"And therefore requires assistance," said Evaña.

"We shall know before long what sort of assistance we may expect from your friends the English. I was awakened an hour ago by their trampling along the street; they do not treat us very much like friends."

"Some patrol, I suppose."

"No patrol at all, but an expedition."

"A reconnaissance, probably, into the suburbs."

"A reconnoitring party would not take guns with them."

"Guns!" said Evaña, with an involuntary shudder of apprehension; "what direction did they take?"

"Westward. I have no doubt that they have gone to wake up our friends at Perdriel. Marcelino is there, so, as you may imagine, I am very anxious. It is that has brought me so early to the azotea."

Evaña turned away sick at heart. Marcelino was in danger, the English must anticipate resistance, or they would not take guns with them. Evaña knew the daring spirit of his friend; with raw levies of men, the whole brunt of the fighting, if there were any, would be borne by such as he. He had brought this danger upon him, he had not even attempted to warn him of it. Marcelino had reposed such confidence in him that he had told him of all their plans, and had confided in him as though he were one of themselves, though he had openly refused to join them. He had stood forth alone to defend him when treachery was imputed to him; he had taken as an insult to himself a calumny which was a calumny no longer. Evaña shivered, but it was not with cold, as he folded his cloak more closely round him. Two or three turns he took on the azotea, then going back to Don Gregorio, the two paced up and down for some time in silence, side by side. In thoughts and ideas they were wide apart, but one great anxiety was common to both, and though they spoke no more they were well content to be together, the presence of each was to the other as a mute sympathy.

Presently, as the dawning day broke over the city which lay around them, there came to them from afar off the crackling sound of an irregular fire of musketry, which lasted about ten minutes, when there came the louder report of a cannon, then all was still. As minute after minute passed and there was no further sound of fighting, Evaña breathed more freely.

"It is all over now," said he to Don Gregorio.

"So it appears," replied the elder gentleman. "Thank God, there has not been much of it."

"I will go and see what has happened," said Evaña.

"Do, Carlos, and bring me word as soon as you return."

Evaña descended at once to his own house, and going to an inner patio where his horse was tied under a shed, he saddled him himself, led him out into the street, mounted, and rode off. As he passed along he saw many men looking out from the doors of their houses, stopping the market-people or the milkmen as they trotted in on their mules and raw-boned horses, and questioning them. He drew rein once or twice and listened to what was said, but the information he thus gleaned amounted to nothing at all, so pressing his horse to a sharp canter he went on more rapidly, had passed the suburbs and was among the quintas, when again he heard the sound of musketry. This time it was no longer the irregular dropping fire of skirmishers, it was the regular file firing of trained infantry hotly engaged, and presently mingled with it came the thunder of artillery.

Evaña drove his spurs into his horse's flanks and galloped on at full speed, but ere he reached the scene of action the firing had ceased, and light clouds of grey smoke drifting away were all that he could see of the recent conflict. Passing a hollow without slacking speed, he was soon on the open ground, and Perdriel lay before him.

Pickets of grey-coated infantry were marching away from him, while beyond the plain was dotted with flying horsemen. Now and then one of these pickets would halt, there was a shimmer of glistening steel as their muskets fell to the "present," there was a flash of fire and a light cloud of smoke, then on marched the infantry as before. Further and further away galloped the horsemen, and Evaña saw that the rout of his own countrymen was complete.

He knew that it would be so, he had said that their victory would be a misfortune, but the sight was not pleasant to him. He felt that he would rather himself have been one of those panic-stricken horsemen, flying for their lives after hazarding them for their country, than be as he now was, a passive spectator of the scene.

He galloped on till he reached the spot where he saw for the first time the immediate result of the "pastime of kings." Around him on the frosted grass lay some threescore of his own countrymen, dead or dying. Some lay peacefully stretched out on their backs or faces as though they were asleep; some with their limbs doubled up beneath them, and their bodies twisted into strange contortions; some lay crushed under their dead horses. Some few there were who were sitting up, striving in a helpless manner to stanch the blood from some deep wound which was draining their life away. Forcing his frightened horse to carry him into the midst of this scene of horror, Evaña, his heart wildly beating with a terror hitherto unknown to him, gazed eagerly around looking for something which he felt he could willingly give up his own life not to find, the body of his friend Marcelino. His search was unsuccessful, the bodies lying round him were all those of swarthy, long-haired, coarsely-dressed paisanos. Turning rein, and heeding nothing the cries of the wounded who called wildly upon him for assistance and for water, he again drove his spurs into his horse's flank and galloped to the quinta, which he saw was occupied by British troops.

Two hours before dawn that morning was a mustering of men in the Plaza Mayor, no drums beat to arms, no trumpets sounded; silently the men took their places in the ranks, each man with his firelock on his shoulder, and his cartridge-box strapped on outside his grey overcoat, but without knapsack. They were in light marching order, and had been told off the night before for some special service which required secrecy and speed. There were about 500 of them, and they had two guns with them.

When all was ready the officer in command, who was mounted on a small horse, gave the word to march, and away they went at a quick step along the quiet, darksome streets out westward. Light sleepers were awakened from their dreams by the heavy tramp of armed men, and the rumbling of the wheels of cannon. Windows were opened, and men half asleep gazed forth from between the "rejas" on the long lines of grey-coated figures, who went swiftly by in the darkness, their eyes dwelling more especially with a sort of dreamy fascination upon the sloped barrels of the muskets, and on the polished bayonets which glinted in the clear rays of the stars.

After marching about a mile and a half the detachment emerged from the main city into the suburbs, where the streets were no longer continuous lines of houses, but were bordered by gardens and orchards, then the street itself merged into a broad track, along which here and there, on either hand, stood detached buildings, some of them large, square, solidly-built houses, with flat, battlemented roofs, and with reja-protected windows; but more of them were mere huts of mud and wattle, with thatched roofs and no windows, save perhaps a square hole in the wall closed at night-time by a wooden shutter. When there were no houses there the road was bordered by a shallow ditch, on the inside of which, on the top of the mound formed by the earth which had been thrown out of the ditch, was planted an irregular fence of aloes, whose broad, sharp-pointed leaves presented a formidable obstacle in the way of any intruder. These fences enclosed the gardens of the men who furnished the Plaza de Los Perdices with its daily supply of fruit and vegetables, these thatched houses were their dwellings. Some of them were already stirring as the troops passed, and were busy fixing panniers of raw hide upon the backs of long-eared mules, or filling these panniers with such produce as their gardens could produce at that season. The unwonted appearance of troops marching on the road caused them no surprise; they were men who were not in the habit of being astonished at anything. They paused for a moment in their work to look after the troops, observing one to another:

"The English! What do they, that they get up so early?"

Then straightway resuming their occupations they thought no more of them.

About a mile the grey-coated soldiers marched through these fenced gardens, which joined on to one another, or were separated only by an occasional roadway, till they came to a new region of "quintas," which were only gardens such as those they had passed, but on a larger scale, divided one from another by wide open spaces of pasture-land. Here they frequently saw horses picketed, or cows lay chewing the cud, and gazing upon them with soft, sleepy eyes. The road was nothing but a broad, beaten track running between these quintas, cut up with deep ruts made by the wheels of heavy carts, but firm under foot, hardened to the hardness of stone by the frosts of winter. At some of these quintas boys were already driving up cows from the pasture towards rows of white posts standing outside the quinta fences, where other cows were tied, and women were busy milking.

In a hollow the troops were halted. At the head of the column had marched the light company of the 71st Highlanders, under the command of its captain, who had two lieutenants with him. As they halted, the commanding officer rode up to the head of the column.

"Gordon," said he, to one of the lieutenants, "you have been here before, and know something of the ground. We are close to Perdriel now, I believe."

"Yes, sir. It is just over the rise lying a little to the left of the road."

"Take twenty men with you and go forward, and see what you can make out."

The young officer touched his Highland bonnet, and then with twenty men, who carried their arms at the trail, marched swiftly away up the slope and disappeared. In about half-an-hour he returned alone.

"I have left my men hidden under the fence of a small quinta," he said. "The enemy are encamped just beyond in the open, to the left of the Quinta de Perdriel."

"Do they cover much ground?"

"They seem to have a great many horses picketed all about, they stretch as far as I could see, but they have not many bivouac fires, and those are close up to the quinta."

"Is the ground all open between here and there?"

"This small quinta where I have left the men is all that is in the way, and it will hide our approach. On both sides of it the ground is quite open."

"Have they no outposts or videttes?"

"None that I could see."

"Then the sooner we are on to them the better. Lead on straight for this small quinta you tell me of."

In low, gruff tones the word "march" passed from front to rear, and again the small column was in motion, winding along like a grey serpent up the slope, over the crisp, frozen grass, where each footprint left a black mark on the glistening surface, bringing on with it in the rear of the column the two guns, like a serpent which carries a double sting in its tail.

The stars had faded away out of the heavens, the eastern sky was tinged with ruddy gold, birds hopped about in the short grass, or flew hither and thither chirping a welcome to the new-born day, for the birds do not sing in Buenos Aires, as this column of armed men, strong in their discipline, blindly obedient to the command of an experienced leader, marched swiftly and stealthily towards their prey.

And what was their prey? A body of men nearly twice their own number, as strong of arm and as stout in heart as they, but men who knew no discipline, and were strangers to the use of arms; men who knew just as much of war as did their leaders, that is to say, just nothing at all, and thus had no confidence or trust in them, but would perchance follow where they led, if they saw no faltering in them, and had no personal antipathy to them.

As the composition of these two bodies of men was distinct, so also were the objects which had brought them together. The British soldier did his duty, and asked no questions; he was ready to shoot, stab, or knock on the head anyone he was told; his life was just as precious to him as that of any other man was to that other, but he had sold his services, and his life, if need be, to his native country for a small modicum of pay and a pension, if he lived long enough to earn it. He had nothing to think of but to do his duty blindly, and it was his habit so to do it; he fought the battles of his native country wherever she liked to send him, and obeyed her implicitly, she being represented to him by whatever officer happened for the moment to be in command of him. To these men who formed this column of 500 soldiers, General Beresford represented the might and majesty of Great Britain; he had told them to go forth and scatter his enemies with fire and steel, and they intended to do it; why these other men were the enemies of Great Britain they never troubled themselves to inquire, they did their duty as they were accustomed to.

The men who were now encamped in and about the Quinta de Perdriel were no trained soldiers gathered together to fight the battles of their country, they were hardy yeomen, men whose lives were mostly spent on horseback and in the open air. A cry had gone forth among them that a band of foreigners had invaded their native country, had taken their chief city, and had chased away their Spanish rulers; men whom they knew had called upon them to assemble and take up arms to drive out these invaders. Such a call had never before been made upon them, but they obeyed it cheerfully, and had come together as though to some festive gathering, their hearts swelling with a strange, unwonted pride. That they had a country which was theirs, and from which it was their duty to drive any foreign invader, was an idea which was quite new to them, their hearts for the first time beat with patriotism.

Their leaders were mostly young men, to whom patriotism was not altogether a novelty, they were eager and enthusiastic, and waited longingly for the day when they might display their devotion to their country by feats of arms, and might seal it, if necessary, with their blood.

Neither of these two opposing forces represented a perfect army; the distinguishing qualities of both in combination have characterised all the armies of all nations, who have at any time in the history of the world earned for themselves immortal fame by their prowess both in victory and defeat.

As the column emerged from the hollow upon the level plain they heard a confused murmur of voices which came to them from a distance through the clear morning air, the patriot levies were already astir. As they drew near the quinta, under whose fence Lieutenant Gordon had left his men, they heard a shout and saw some of the Highlanders rush out from their concealment. The approach of the column had been perceived by a small party which had passed the night at this quinta, the horses of which were picketed inside the fence. Several men had mounted hurriedly and were now trying to make their escape. The Highlanders ran to the tranquera on the south side the quinta, and stopped their exit by that passage, making prisoners of two who tried to burst through; but there was another exit in the western fence where the hedge had been broken down by stray cattle, by which others made good their escape, and galloped off to the main camp.

The column immediately deployed and advanced in line, with one company and the two guns in reserve. The Highland light company on the right had orders to advance upon and occupy the further quinta itself, the main body keeping more to the left, where the blue smoke curling up in long spirals from the watch-fires gave token of an encampment.

The Quinta de Perdriel was a large enclosure, one half of which was planted with trees. The buildings consisted of a large, flat-roofed house, stretching round two sides of a patio. Another side of this patio was shut in by a low wall with an iron gateway in the centre, which ran in a line with the fence, and the remaining side was occupied by a confused group of ranchos which stretched back some fifty yards into the quinta. The shape of the enclosure was an oblong, the fence was the usual shallow ditch backed by an aloe hedge, along which arose here and there the tall stems on which it is said that the aloe carries a flower once only in every hundred years. The hedge was in many places eight feet high and quite impenetrable, but there were numerous gaps through which a man might easily force his way if he could scramble up the bank and did not mind a few scratches. The quinta house and out-buildings stood on the southern face of the enclosure; the attacking column approached it from the south-east, and the encampment lay beyond, outside the western fence.

A horseman rode at full gallop into the patio of the quinta, other horsemen rushed madly about the encampment; all shouted the same warning cry:

"Los Ingleses! Los Ingleses!!"

In an instant all was confusion, men sprang to the backs of their horses without stopping to saddle, and galloped off to drive up the horses which were feeding in troops all over the plain; others seized their arms and collected in groups, not knowing what to do, and having no one to tell them. The leaders ran together in the large patio of the quinta, shouting contradictory orders which no one obeyed. The doors and windows of the flat-roofed house were closed, and the iron entrance-gate was shut. Women crowded into the ranchos, shrieking and dragging their children with them. Among all this confusion one man alone preserved his coolness and presence of mind, Marcelino Ponce de Leon, who at the first shout of alarm mounted to the azotea and made a rapid inspection of the approaching enemy; then descending again to the patio—

"Don Juan Martin," said he, addressing one of the chief leaders, "run you outside and mount all the men you can collect together, while we keep them out of the quinta."

Don Juan Martin Puyrredon mounted his horse, which stood at hand ready saddled for him, and causing the iron gate to be opened galloped off at once; and collecting the groups of armed men, who waited in the open, not knowing what to do, told them to take up their saddles and retreat with him behind the quinta, where by this time a good number of horses had been driven together.

"Now those who have muskets up to the azotea," said Marcelino, as Puyrredon galloped off.

"I will defend the gate," shouted one excited young man, drawing his sword, and giving it a wild flourish in the air, "who will help me?"

In a moment he was surrounded by volunteers. Then Marcelino, calling on a number of others by name to follow him, ran off through the trees which surrounded the house towards the eastern fence of the quinta. He was only just in time, the Highlanders were already on the other side, but had halted while search was made for some way of passing through it. A random volley of pistol and carbine shots was the first notice they had of a foe more formidable than thorny aloes.

The captain in command gave the word "Forward!" and Lieutenant Gordon shouting, "Come on, 71st, follow me!" ran quickly over the intervening ground, and picking out the lowest place he could see in the hedge before him jumped clean over the ditch and into the hedge, whence he slipped and fell on his knees inside. In an instant he was on his feet again, and with two or three dexterous cuts with his claymore cleared a way for his men to follow him through the fence; the next moment a blow on the head stretched him on the ground, but ere it could be repeated the Highlanders came springing in through the gap and entrance was won.