THE SUBALTERN
THE SUBALTERN
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE
BY
G.R. GLEIG, M.A.
CHAPLAIN-GENERAL OF HER MAJESTY'S FORCES
LIBRARY EDITION
REVISED AND CORRECTED, WITH A NEW PREFACE
"Hæc olim meminisse
Juvabit."
"Oh memory, fond memory,
When all things fail we turn to thee."
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MDCCCLXXII
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION
OF
'THE SUBALTERN.'
Forty-six years have run their course since the concluding pages of
the following narrative were written--not far short of sixty since the
latest of the events recorded therein were to a living and breathing
generation present realities. A large space this latter in the life of
the individual man--a not inconsiderable one in the existence even of
nations. Of the influence which it has exercised over the destinies
of the four Powers which, at the opening of the interval, were at
deadly strife one with another, this is scarcely the occasion on
which to speak. The general results are indeed before us, not to be
misapprehended; but the multiplicity of causes which combined to bring
them about, the most painstaking and well-instructed of chroniclers
would find it difficult to put in order within the limits of a volume,
much more of a preface. France, which in 1813 bled at every pore in
the vain attempt to sustain the First Empire, has since accepted and
driven away again, one after another, the Restoration, the Orleanist
rule, the Republic, and the Second Empire; and now, humiliated and
maimed, is striving, under a second republic, to recruit her energies
for whatever the future may present to her. From Spain, the Bourbons,
whom the arms of England replaced upon the throne, are to all human
appearance permanently expelled, after a long succession of plots and
civil wars, which the selfish policy of the last king of the race had
bequeathed to his country as a parting legacy. Portugal, likewise,
though less severely tried than her neighbours, has had her troubles
too, in the internecine contests of brother against brother, and uncle
against niece. And if at length she may have found a way of escape
from anarchy, she owes it mainly to the good sense of the two last of
her sovereigns, themselves the offshoots of a family remarkable for
its prudence, and more fortunate than any other royal house in Europe
in giving to constitutional monarchies their existing dynasties. As
to England, what shall we say of her? No foot of foreign enemy has
polluted her soil, no secret conspiracy nor open revolt has set her
people in array one against another. Yet the constitution which was
settled for her two centuries ago, and which, in 1813, her wisest
sons held to be perfect, has been left far behind. The doors of her
Parliament are open now to men of all religious opinions and of none.
She has determined the point, for the first time in her history, that
there is no necessary connection between Church and State; and recent
legislation seems to declare that the honour and interests of a great
country are safer in the keeping of the uneducated and impulsive, than
of the cultivated and reflecting classes. All this is true; yet let us
be thankful that, in an age of revolutions, our own downward progress
has not been more rapid. We have still a throne, which is assumed to be
hereditary, and to which loyalty is professed. We have still in England
and in Scotland established churches. We have a House of Lords also,
which the wise among us reverence and look up to; and laws which, when
rightly administered, are equal to any strain that can be put upon
them. How long these, or any other of the institutions which we owe to
"the wisdom of our ancestors," are likely to endure, is a question more
easily asked than answered. This much, however, is at least probable,
that if they go to the wall, they will go gradually, and that the
generations which inherit the change will learn to adapt themselves
to it, and to make the most of it. The greatest attainable amount of
happiness to the greatest possible number of persons--that is, or
ought to be, the end of all governments; and the government which most
effectually achieves that end will be the best government, call it by
what name you may.
The particular tract of country wherein the scene of the following
narrative is laid has undergone fewer changes, whether physical or
social, than might perhaps have been anticipated in the course of
six long and very busy decades. All the great natural features of
the district,--the hill, the vale, the river, the mountain, and the
sea,--remain, of course, precisely what they were. The Gironde, as the
confluence of the Garonne and the Dordogne is called, still rolls its
waters, after passing through Bourdeaux, in a turbid volume towards
the Bay of Biscay. The Landes, succeeding to the rich culture of vine,
corn-field, and orchard, receive you now, as they did of old, into a
melancholy expanse of dark forests and sandy plains. Along either bank,
at the mouth of the Adour, two scrubby pine-woods take you into their
shelter; while in the far distance beyond, the bold outline of the
Pyrenees towers up into the horizon. Nor on the whole can it be said
that man has done much to modify in any perceptible degree the general
character either of places or of persons. Towns may grow larger and
more populous from year to year; villages have a tendency to stretch
themselves out;--and one in particular, which in 1813 was little
better than a seaside hamlet, has expanded into a gay and luxurious
watering-place. But the bulk of the people seem to be exactly what they
were sixty years ago--frugal, hard-working, honest, not over-cleanly
perhaps in their domestic habits, and, though far from melancholy, a
graver race than the peasants of France are usually believed to be.
In fact, considering the tendency of railway communication to break
down, wherever it is established, local customs altogether, the matter
to be wondered at is, that we should find so much of their primitive
simplicity still surviving among these Gascons; for the rail it is
which has wrought most surely whatever innovation is perceptible among
them. The rail has put the old _chaussée_ out of date, and brought
the Spanish frontier within eighteen hours of Paris, and to him who
shall use his opportunities aright, within thirty hours of London.
Hence that which used to be regarded as an out-of-the-way corner of
Europe, worth notice only because it witnessed the closing operations
of the Peninsular War, is visited now by strangers from all parts of
the world--some hurrying by without a pause, intent on business or
pleasure elsewhere; others finding in the district itself a temporary
home, which the climate, especially in winter and spring, renders as
salubrious as the magnificent scenery in which it abounds makes it
agreeable. The Gascons cannot, of course, fail more or less to be
acted upon by this tide of immigration. As yet, however, it seems but
slightly to have affected their characters and manners, which, in all
essential points, continue to be what they were when the great Duke led
his victorious columns through the passes of their mountains, not to
plunder or harass, but to deliver their fathers from the outrages which
they suffered at the hands of their own countrymen in arms.
The railroad from Bourdeaux to the frontier runs parallel, or nearly
so, with the old _chaussée_, as far as Labenne, a little village with a
station, about eight miles from Bayonne. There the two lines separate.
The old road enters Bayonne, as it did long ago, to the left of the
citadel, descending the steep hill on which the fortress stands, and
passing through the suburb of St Esprit, in which, during the sortie
on the 14th April 1814, most of the fighting took place. The railway,
on the contrary, sweeps seaward, and, touching the Adour at Boucaut,
runs up-stream by the brink of the river, and so passes through the
lower outworks of the citadel to the station. There the traveller who
desires to rest for an hour or two will alight close to a church in
which General Hay was killed, and round which that desperate struggle
took place of which mention is made in chapter xxiv. of the Subaltern's
story.
The alterations effected in Bayonne since the siege are neither
numerous nor important. The intrenched camp, of which Marshal Soult
made it the key, has indeed disappeared, while the permanent works
are strengthened and enlarged, so as to adapt them, in some degree
at least, to those modifications in the art of attack and defence
which the increased power of artillery and the resources of modern
engineering skill have brought about. The town itself, however, remains
very nearly such as it was. In the Rue de Gouvernment and the adjacent
streets some handsome modern houses have indeed been built, but the
main portion of the city retains nearly all its old landmarks. We have
the same tall houses looking into each other's eyes across the narrow
streets; the same narrow _trottoirs_ beneath the houses, so completely
sheltered from the sun's rays as to produce in him who walks along them
some such sensation as he might experience were he at the bottom of a
well. Now also, as formerly, all these narrow streets converge towards
the cathedral, which stands upon the highest point of a gently-rising
eminence, and forms, so to speak, the centre of a star, whence
multitudinous rays are thrown out. The effect is singular, and, when
looked at from the cathedral tower, is really very striking.
The cathedral itself, which in 1814 had suffered grievously from years
of neglect, has had of late a good deal of attention paid to it.
Indeed it was one of the most praiseworthy characteristics of the era
of the Second Empire, that considerable efforts were made in it, both
by the Government and private persons, to blot out the traces of the
Vandalism which had prevailed under the First Empire and during the
First Republic, especially with regard to churches. Here a capital
sum, producing not less than fifteen hundred a-year of interest, was
bequeathed by a pious individual for the purpose of restoration; and
the will of the testator having been carefully attended to, the edifice
stands forth again in something like its original splendour. The
cathedral of Bayonne is about as large as one of our own cathedrals
of the second order--to which, indeed, in its proportions and general
style of architecture, it bears a close resemblance.
Of the works thrown up by the English during the last siege, not a
vestige remains. The Blue House, as we used to call a chateau standing
in the suburb of St Pierre, and in the garden of which we established
our most formidable mortar-battery, retains no traces of the fire to
which it was then exposed. The shot-holes are all filled up, the walls
are whitewashed, and the avenue by which it is approached has been
replanted. Nobody could tell that our axes cut down trees as umbrageous
as those which now flank the roadway on either side, that their stems
might be converted into platforms, and their tops and stouter branches
into stockades and _abattis_. In one particular, however, commendable
care has been taken to save from obliteration a memorial of the siege.
The graves of the British officers who fell in the sortie are well kept
up, each English consul as he came into office having received the
charge from his predecessor, and all religiously attending to it.
The railway from Bayonne to the frontier passes over the Adour and
the Nive upon a new bridge, higher up the stream than the old stone
bridge. It then runs along the valley in which lie the small lakes
or large ponds referred to in this narrative. These it leaves to the
right, and crossing the _chaussée_, enters a tunnel driven beneath the
ridge on which the mayor's house stands. By-and-by the train rushes
through another valley, sighting the villages of Bidart and Gauthory,
and so on to St Jean de Luz. The station for St Jean de Luz is at a
point just outside the town, where the road to Ascaen branches off.
Leaving it behind, we hurry through a succession of tortuous glens,
and by-and-by, having traversed a deep cutting, we find ourselves at
Handaye, the last town on the French frontier. We are now on the right
of the great Spanish road, which crosses the Bidassoa at the same point
where, in 1813, we found the bridge broken down, and its ruins blocked
by a _tête-de-pont_. Here some delay takes place, national jealousies
having contrived that the gauges on either side of the stream should be
different, and the Customs regulations stringent. The traveller is not,
however, put thereby to very serious inconvenience. If he be disposed
to eat, he will find both at Handaye and at Irun excellent buffets;
if he prefer spending an hour among the outward forms of nature, the
views that meet his gaze on every side will well repay the time lent to
survey them.
Leaving him there, I will ask my reader to return with me to the
point where we last rested, and to visit in my company certain spots
of which he will find mention made in the course of the Subaltern's
narrative; and among these, one in particular will naturally attract
his attention. It was but the other day the favourite summer haunt
of an imperial household: it is still a place much resorted to by
fashionable seekers after health. Sixty years ago it was nothing more
than the quiet village of Biaritz, occupied in perpetuity by fishermen
and lodging-house keepers, and visited in the autumn for sea-bathing
purposes by the wealthier citizens of Bayonne. This latter phase of its
existence is represented by a few old-fashioned houses which stretch
vaguely along the southern ridge towards the church, and thence dip
down again in the direction of the sea, till they reach Porte Vieux.
Even these, however, are rapidly making way for more stately mansions,
though enough of them still remain to present a striking contrast to
the eastern or modern section of the town. This latter, facing the
sea, extends from Porte Vieux well-nigh to the lighthouse. There the
Villa Eugénie comes in, planted at the foot of the lighthouse hill,
and occupying, with its pleasure-grounds and well-kept alleys, a space
which, sixty years ago, was nothing more than a tract of barren sand.
You can reach Biaritz from Bayonne by rail, arriving at the station at
Nigresse; or you may travel from Bayonne by a new road, which, turning
off from the Spanish road at the fifth kilometre, avoids the village
of Anglete, through which the old road ran. This latter, which, after
crowning the heights of the Phare, led over an interesting country,
is now quite deserted. At the point where it joins the great Spanish
road used to stand a post-house, with a vast range of stables and
out-buildings. The post-house, stables, and out-buildings are still
there, but the business has gone from the place, and it is falling
fast into decay. It was along that old road that the Subaltern and his
two friends rode for their lives when chased by French cavalry out of
Biaritz. Neglect has rendered the greater portion of it impassable,
which indeed it would have become throughout, had not the Emperor
caused it to be repaired where it abuts upon Biaritz, and carried it
on a new line round the lake, and through the woods that surround the
mayor's house. This promenade or drive, to which he gave the name of
Bois de Boulogne, is extremely pretty in itself, and commands from
various points glimpses of very interesting scenery. But the point
of most interest to the English traveller is undoubtedly the mayor's
house itself, which, with the grounds about it, the present proprietor,
Monsieur la Bride, has had the good taste to preserve in all their
leading features very much as they were when the four days' battle was
fought.
The landscape, as seen from the top of the house, is magnificent. From
it the traveller commands now, as Sir John Hope did sixty years ago, a
full view of the entire battle-field, including Arcanques and Ustaritz,
with all the country eastward as far as the Cambo Hills, and southwards
to the Ebrun Mountains and the Spanish Pyrenees. The more minute
features of the scene of action are likewise taken in. The hollow road
in which the French formed for their last rush at the house, remains
as it was on the 11th of December 1813. Between it and the house lies
the triangular field, just outside the wood, where the carnage was
fiercest, and of which the proprietor says, that, well manured by the
dead, it still produces such crops as to command thrice the amount
of rent that is given for any other similar extent of ground in the
district. Beyond it, over the hill, and sloping towards Bayonne,
extends the scraggy copse or belt of wood through which the fighting
was close and desperate; and just below the railway lies the lake
into which many of the French, horse and man, were driven. They were
driven not without great promptitude of action on our part; for there
the French cavalry fell upon us with such rapidity and determination,
that, being scattered in loose order, we had just time, favoured by
the swampy nature of the ground, to throw ourselves into circles and
receive them. All these objects Monsieur la Bride points out with
unwearied politeness to the English who visit him, not forgetting the
graves of British officers whom their comrades buried in his garden,
and of which he generously and religiously keeps the outlines sacred.
Leaving the mayor's house, and returning to the great road, we enter
upon the common or broken plain where, on the 10th December 1813, the
other corps of the left column of the army came up in support of the
hard-pressed and hard-fighting fifth division. It was a wild bleak
spot in winter, sixty years ago; it is little changed now. The redoubt
which we threw up, and named after one of the mayor's daughters, has
indeed disappeared; but the belt of wood round which the squadrons
of the 12th and 16th Light Dragoons made their charge keeps its place
exactly as it did then; and the hollow in which the brigade to which
the Subaltern was attached bivouacked that night lacks only the embers
of their watch-fires to make it precisely what it was when they left
it. The same may be said of Bidart and Gauthory, two villages which
we reach in succession--the former lying at the farther base of
the eminence or plateau where the operations just referred to took
place--the latter scattered on either side of the highway, some two or
three miles nearer to St Jean de Luz. In both, the clusters of houses,
which afforded winter quarters to the 85th Light Infantry, appear as if
they had been evacuated but yesterday.
In St Jean de Luz few changes have been effected. The one great
novelty is a sort of breakwater or _digue_ which Napoleon III. began
to construct, with a view to develop the capacities of the port as
a harbour of refuge and an _entrepôt_ of commerce. But the work is
incomplete, and is not likely to be carried further till a more stable
government than the present be set up in France. As to the bridge
over the Nivelle, it is exactly in the state in which we left it; the
piers of the arches which the French blew up stand where they did,
as well as the beams and planks with which we replaced the broken
roadway. It is pointed out to all who are curious in such matters as
the Wellington Bridge. In other respects the town retains all its
original characteristics. The quays, the churches, the hôtel de ville,
the very shops themselves, the house which was Lord Wellington's
headquarters, are precisely what they were; while, as if to preserve
unbroken the associations of the past, the railway station itself has
been constructed outside the town, and is not in any conspicuous manner
connected with it.
Our next point of interest is Urogne. There it lies as it lay sixty
years ago, in the low ground, overlooked by the heights which Soult
had fortified, and which, he flattered himself, would stop our
further progress. There, too, before descending the hillside on the
right of the old carriage-road, stands the chateau, in the library
of which we found, on the 11th of November 1813, a captured English
mail. It seems to be, as far as outward appearances can be trusted,
precisely what it was on that day when I carried off from it two bits
of plunder--a Spanish grammar, which I still retain, and a small and
prettily-enamelled pair of bellows. Alas! this latter, of which the
value could not be overrated in bivouac, has long ago disappeared.
_Sic transit gloria mundi._ Gone, too, is the three-gun battery, the
fire from which swept the main street of the town, and struck against
the old church wall without passing through it. My blessing be upon
that sacred pile! It gave me shelter in the night between the 10th and
the 11th, and some hundreds of brave men besides, all of them wearied
with long hours of watching and battle. They had not failed before
lying down to cover with the consecrated earth of the churchyard such
of their comrades as had fallen. Where now are they themselves?
"Their swords are rust,
Their bodies are dust,
Their souls are with the Lord, we trust."
The little town or village of Urogne has lost all traces of the
struggle which went on, first to carry, and afterwards to keep it. Its
four straight streets, its "place" or square, the central point of
which is the church just referred to, are all as if the sound of war
had never been heard among them. So appear to be the hedgerows and deep
shady lanes that give to the surrounding district an aspect singularly
English. As we approach the frontier, however, and in a still more
remarkable degree after we pass it, a great change becomes perceptible.
If we put our trust in outward appearances, Handaye, on the Trench
side of the Bidassoa, might have been the scene of a battle last year
or last month. Almost every house in the town, with the exception of
a few recently constructed, are more or less in ruins. It seems never
to have recovered the first shock of the invasion on the 8th October
1813. All the inhabitants fled that day, leaving their dwellings to
their fate, and few ever returned to reclaim and restore them. In
like manner Fontarabia, of which the view from Handaye is very fine,
is still as it was sixty years ago--a ruinous city. The town stands
within a circle of stone walls, the church being especially perceptible
over them; but the walls still exhibit their ancient breaches, never
in all human probability to be repaired. So likewise, as you pursue
your journey, leaving the heights of San Marcial on your left hand,
and bearing down towards Irun, the spectacle which meets your gaze is
that of a country not long delivered from the miseries of war. The
narrow glen through which the river runs waves indeed with Indian
corn, as it did sixty years ago; and the slopes of the hills on the
French side, below the bridge, are covered with vines, which, as in
Lombardy, festoon themselves over tall poles, or from the boughs of
poplars. But the houses, wherever you encounter them--the chateau
equally with the cottage and farmhouse--seem to be in a state of
dilapidation. To be sure, this district bore the brunt of the Carlist
rising five-and-thirty years ago; yet the practised eye can detect here
and there relics of the great Duke's army, especially in the mounds
which mark the spots where, before advancing into France, he took the
precaution to block the gorges of passes with a succession of redoubts.
Passages is as quiet and beautiful now as it ever was. Along the south
side of the land-locked bay the railroad winds, from above which,
and indeed on every hand, cork woods look down upon a harbour little
frequented, yet capable of affording shelter to no inconsiderable navy.
Passages seems to be not only unchanged but unchangeable. It is not so
with St Sebastian. There all things are new. The fortifications have
disappeared; and where bastion and curtain once stood, long boulevards
are drawn out. The town has been rebuilt with great regularity; and
along the banks of the Urumea, where our storming-parties crossed, the
process of construction is still going on. St Sebastian, in fact, has
ceased to be one of the keys of Spain towards France. The citadel alone
remains to tell that such it once was. The town is now a fashionable
watering-place, with its promenades running seaward, and its umbrageous
walks commanding one of the finest views in the world, both inland and
over the broad Atlantic.
Such is the general aspect of a tract of country which, peaceful,
almost somnolent, as it has become, is, and must be to the end,
associated in the memory of the writer of these pages with scenes of
great enjoyment, though they be of warfare. For the aged live most
fondly upon the past, as the young do upon the future, till both alike
lose themselves in that vast present, which, for aught he knows to the
contrary, may be as near to the latter as to the former.
* * * * *
And now a word or two respecting the volume which is again submitted
for public consideration, after passing through many editions, and
reaching to the forty-sixth year of its separate existence. Whence it
came to pass that it was written at all, from what materials it was
compiled, and how it made its way into popular favour, are points which
naturally keep their hold upon the memory of the author, and may not,
perhaps, be without some interest to his readers.
Though a mere boy, barely seventeen years of age, when I embarked
for the seat of war in the summer of 1813, I was so fortunate as to
have formed a close friendship with a man of more matured years and
experience than myself--Charles Grey, the younger of Morwick, in
Northumberland, the captain of the company to which I was attached,
and as good a soldier, in the best sense of that term, as the British
army has ever produced. To him I was indebted for many useful customs;
and, among others, for the habit of noting down, at the close of every
day, brief notices of the most memorable of the events that might have
distinguished it while passing. A small blank-paper volume--a little
memorandum-book--with a pencil attached, was his constant companion
and mine; and regularly as the night closed in we drew them from
our bosoms, and, often by the light of our bivouac fire, registered
in a couple of lines the materials of much thought in after-years.
The characters thus loosely sketched, we filled in with ink on the
first convenient opportunity; and so contrived, amid the bustle and
excitement of a campaign, each to keep his journal with a degree of
accuracy which cannot always be predicated of the diaries of men
better furnished with all the appliances of authorship.
I can hardly tell how it happened that these records of a young
soldier's life during the progress of the war, both in the Peninsula
and America, were not lost. No care whatever was taken of them by me
after my return home; indeed I gave them, unless my memory be at fault,
to my sister, and for some years never thought of inquiring whether
they were in existence. But an occasional paper or two contributed
to 'Blackwood's Magazine,' descriptive of detached adventures in the
Peninsula, having been well received, it was suggested to me--I think
by the late Mr Blackwood himself--that a personal narrative of my
military service, in a connected form, would be popular. I took up
the idea, and worked it out with all my heart; for it would be sheer
affectation to deny even now, when time has wrought its accustomed
changes on me, and a long dedication of my best energies to different
pursuits has greatly modified my tastes, that the years which were
spent amid the toils and dangers of active warfare, are those on which
I continue to look back as the happiest in my life. And if this be the
case now, it is hardly necessary to acknowledge, that the feeling was
stronger in the year 1825, when the first page of 'The Subaltern' was
written. Nor must the moralist blame me for this, without inquiring
further. They who write and speak of war as of a succession of horrors,
and nothing else, know not what they are describing. Under the
admirable discipline of the great Duke of Wellington, a British camp
was a community better regulated by far than any town or city in the
world where one-half the amount of human beings congregate. There was
little crime, no violence--I had well-nigh said, no vice anywhere. By
stragglers from the rear, offences might be committed; and the absence,
from the hospitals, of religious instruction and comfort, was sorely
felt. But the Duke of Wellington was not to blame for that; indeed, his
public despatches prove that he made many, though fruitless efforts,
to remedy the evil. On the other hand, the lives and properties of
the peaceable inhabitants were as secure, wherever his influence
extended, as if their country had been under the management of the
most efficient civil government; and if, during the progress of active
operations, houses and gardens suffered, the loss thereby sustained
was made good to the owners by bills upon the English treasury. Hence,
though it may be very shocking to witness the death, by violence, of
our fellow-creatures, and sadder still, when the fray is over, to
contemplate the wrecks which war has left behind, the day of battle,
be it remembered, is not of constant recurrence; while the intervals
that came between one and the other of these crowning operations of the
campaign were, wherever the Duke of Wellington commanded, fruitful in
enjoyment. We had the full spring-time of youth about us then. We, the
Duke's devoted followers, had neither care for the past nor anxiety in
regard to the future. Our constitutions, hardened by much exposure to
the open air, kept us above the reach of sickness, or else failed us
quite. And as I, for one, never knew what sickness was, except when
wounds--and these not very severe--induced it, my memory does not bring
back, at this moment, one hour, or half-hour, of all that were spent in
Spain and the south of France, of which I would erase the record, were
it granted me so to do, or scruple to live it over again. There are
darker griefs in civil life than warfare such as that of which I now
speak occasions. For, even in reference to the highest of all concerns,
I am not sure whether, to a well-constituted mind, the tented field be
not as apt a school of piety and true devotion as the crowded capital,
or even the quiet village.
Of the manner in which the work was begun and carried on, it is hardly
worth while to make mention. It appeared originally as a series of
papers in 'Blackwood's Magazine,' and obtained, perhaps, as large a
share of public favour as was ever bestowed upon a narrative of the
kind. For this, both I and my publisher were grateful; and the latter
having proposed to me to collect the papers and bring them out as a
separate volume, I readily acted on his suggestion. And now it was
that the measure of my pride as an author was filled up, on hearing,
from more than one quarter, that the little book had attracted the
attention, and received the approval, of the Duke of Wellington. I
was recommended also to solicit his Grace's permission to dedicate
the volume to him, and I did so. The following is the Duke's reply,
addressed, be it remembered, to one who had not at that time the honour
of being even by appearance known to him, and with whom he had never
exchanged a word. They who saw the Duke only from afar spoke of him
as cold and heartless. There is evidence, as it seems to me, in this
letter, of a temperament the very opposite of cold and heartless.
"London, _9th Nov. 1826_.
"DEAR SIR,--I have this day received your letter of the 7th inst.,
and I beg to assure you that you have been correctly informed that I
had read your work with the greatest interest, and that I admired the
simplicity and truth with which you had related the various events
which you had witnessed, the scenes in which you had been an actor,
and the circumstances of the life which you had led as an officer of
the 85th Regiment in the army in the Peninsula and south of France.
"I should be happy of the opportunity of testifying my sense of the
merits of your work by consenting to the dedication to me of the
Second Edition, only that I have long been under the necessity of
declining to give a formal consent to receive the dedication of any
work.
"I conceive that by such consent I give a sort of tacit guarantee
of the contents of the work so dedicated. I know that I should be
considered to have placed myself in that situation by some who might
not perhaps approve of those sentiments. From what I have above
stated, you will see that I could have no objection to stand in
the situation described in relation to your work; and I must admit
that it would be better to draw a distinction between good and
meritorious works and others, and to give my sanction, so far as to
consent to receive the compliment of their dedication gives that
sanction, to the first and not to the last. But then there comes
another difficulty. Before I give such sanction I must peruse the
work proposed to be dedicated to me; and I must confess that I have
neither time nor inclination to wade through the hundreds, I might
almost say thousands, of volumes offered to my protection, in order to
see whether their contents are such as that I can venture to become
a species of guarantee for their truth, their fitness, &c. &c. I
have therefore taken the idlest and the shortest way of getting out
of this difficulty, by declining to give a formal consent to receive
the dedication of any work. This mode of proceeding frequently gives
me great pain, but in no instance has it given more than on this
occasion, as you will perceive by the trouble which I give you to
peruse and myself to write, these reasons for declining to give a
formal consent to accept the compliment which you have been so kind as
to propose to me.
"If, however, you should think proper to dedicate your Second Edition
to me, you are at perfect liberty to do so; and you cannot express in
too strong terms my approbation and admiration of your interesting
work.--I have the honour to be, dear Sir, yours most faithfully,
Wellington."
"I was informed when I landed at Dover in April of the change of your
line of life and circumstances by one of your former brother officers."
I need scarcely say that of the indirect sanction thus afforded I
gladly availed myself; and it is a melancholy satisfaction to be
able to add, that the acquaintance thus begun ripened, on the Duke's
part, into kind and generous feelings towards myself--on mine, into
sentiments of reverence and attachment, which have long survived their
illustrious object, and will end only when I follow him to "the land
where all things are forgotten."
The Dedication took this shape:--
TO HIS GRACE,
ARTHUR, DUKE OF WELLINGTON.
My Lord Duke,--I trust that I shall not be deemed guilty of an act of
unpardonable presumption, if I venture to dedicate to your Grace a
little volume, of the merits of which you have been pleased to speak in
terms far more flattering than they deserve.
The Subaltern's story is a plain relation of so much of a soldier's
active career as was passed in the army under your Grace's command. The
narrator's rank and position were not such as to afford him an insight
into the plans of those campaigns in which it was his fortune to take
an humble part; neither has he made any attempt to describe events to
which he was not an eyewitness, or to offer opinions upon subjects
concerning which he neither is nor was a competent judge. But it is
a matter of high gratification to him to be aware, that his sketches
have received the sanction of your Grace's approval; and that you have
pronounced them to be correct pictures of the scenes which they seek to
represent.
It is scarcely necessary to add, that the space of time spent where
your Grace won glory for yourself, and incalculable benefits for the
whole of Europe, was the happiest in his life; and that it adds not a
little to the satisfaction arising from a glance back into the stirring
scenes which marked it, that he is enabled, thus publicly, to subscribe
himself, with sincere admiration and respect,--My Lord Duke, your
Grace's most obedient servant, and follower in a few bloody fields,
THE SUBALTERN.
_March 1845._
"The Subaltern" has run a long course, and kept its ground in a manner
which I could not have anticipated. It was one of the first works of
the kind which appeared, and to this circumstance, perhaps, may in some
measure be attributed the general approbation with which all classes of
readers received it. But I am not the less forward, on that account, to
express my sense of the obligation under which the public laid me; for
I am largely its debtor in reference not to this volume alone but to
others.
I have used no freedoms with the present edition, further than to
correct here and there a little inaccuracy of language, and to do more
justice than my ignorance of the facts enabled me on other occasions
to do, to a gallant officer, long ago deceased, whom I numbered among
my personal friends. Sir William Herries, then Captain Herries, was
on the Adjutant-General's staff of the left column of the British
army, and attached, as such, to the family of Lieutenant-General Sir
John Hope. He was close to that noble soldier when, during the sortie
from Bayonne, the latter was wounded, and his horse shot under him;
and though repeatedly urged by the wounded man to leave him, Captain
Herries refused to do so. Indeed he dismounted, and was endeavouring
to extricate the General from the dead horse under which he lay, when a
body of French troops advanced along the lane, and fired a volley. From
the effect of that discharge Captain Herries never recovered. He, too,
was severely wounded, and carried into Bayonne, where, the next day, it
was found necessary to amputate his leg.
My friend Captain Grey, as in another publication I have stated at
length, was killed at New Orleans, during the night action that
occurred soon after the landing of the advanced-guard of the British
army. My dog long survived her active services in the field; and
continued to the last the faithful and sagacious companion that I had
ever found her. She was well advanced in years, but still able to
attend her master in his quiet walks through his quiet parish, when an
adder bit her, and she died. She was buried in the middle of the little
lawn, on which the windows of the drawing-room in the vicarage at Ash
next Sandwich look out; and an acacia-tree, planted at her head, marks
the spot where she lies.
So much for the circumstances which led to the first publication of
the following pages, and to the issues of the experiment which was
then tried; and should it seem to the reader that, in detailing them,
too much of the humour of the gossip has been indulged, he and I shall
enter into no controversy; for I am content to acknowledge the fault,
and to pray him to pardon it.
G.R. GLEIG.
LONDON, 1872.
THE SUBALTERN.
CHAPTER I.
It was on a fine morning in May 1813 that the 85th Regiment of Light
Infantry, in which I held a lieutenant's commission, began to muster on
the parade-ground at Hythe. The order to prepare for immediate service
in the Peninsula had reached us two days previously; and on the morning
to which I allude, we were to commence our march for that purpose.
The point of embarkation was Dover, a port only twelve miles distant
from our cantonments, where a couple of transports, with a gun-brig as
convoy, were waiting to receive us.
The short space of time which intervened between the arrival of the
route and the eventful day which saw its directions carried into
effect, was spent by myself and my brother officers in making the best
preparations which circumstances would permit for a campaign. Sundry
little pieces of furniture, by the help of which we had contrived to
render our barrack-rooms somewhat habitable, were sold for one-tenth of
their value; a selection was made from our respective wardrobes of such
articles of apparel as, being in a state of tolerable preservation,
promised to continue for some time serviceable; canteens were hastily
fitted up, and stored with tea, sugar, and other luxuries; cloaks were
purchased by those who possessed them not, and put in a state of repair
by those who did;--in a word, everything was done which men similarly
circumstanced are apt to do, not forgetting the payment of debts or
the inditing of farewell letters in due form to absent friends and
relatives. Perhaps the reader may be curious to know with what stock
of necessaries the generality of British officers were wont, in the
stirring times of the old war, to be content. I will tell him how much
I myself packed up in two small portmanteaus, so formed as to be an
equal balance to each other when slung across the back of a mule; and
as my kit was not remarkable either for its bulk or its tenuity, he
will not greatly err if he accept it as a sort of criterion by which to
judge of those of my comrades.
In one of these portmanteaus, then, I deposited a regimental jacket,
with all its appendages of wings, lace, &c.; two pairs of grey
trousers; sundry waistcoats, white, coloured, and flannel; a few
changes of flannel drawers; half-a-dozen pairs of worsted stockings,
and as many of cotton. In the other were six shirts, two or three
cravats, a dressing-case competently filled, one undress pelisse,
three pairs of boots, two pairs of shoes, with pocket-handkerchiefs,
&c. &c., in proportion. Thus, though not encumbered by any useless
quantity of apparel, I carried with me quite enough to load a mule,
and to insure myself against the danger of falling short for at least
a couple of years to come; and after providing these and all other
necessary articles, I retained five-and-twenty pounds in my pocket.
This sum, when converted into bullion, dwindled down, indeed, to £17,
18s.; for in those days we purchased dollars at the rate of 6s. apiece,
and doubloons at five pounds; but even £17, 18s. was no bad reserve for
a subaltern officer in a marching regiment, though it happened to be a
crack one.
I was a great deal too busy, both in body and mind, to devote to
sleep many of the hours of the night which preceded the day of our
intended departure. My bodily labours, indeed, which consisted chiefly
in packing my baggage, and bidding adieu to the few civilians with
whom I had formed an acquaintance, came to a close two hours before
midnight; but the body was no sooner at rest than the mind began to
bestir itself. "So," said I, "to-morrow I commence my military career
in earnest." Well, and had not this been my strong desire from the
first moment that I saw my name in the 'Gazette'? Had it not been the
most prominent petition in my daily prayers, for nearly twelve months
past, not to be kept idling away my youth in the country towns of
England, but to be sent, as speedily as possible, where I might have an
opportunity of acquiring a practical knowledge of the profession which
I had embraced? The case is even so. And without meaning to proclaim
myself a fire-eater, I will venture to say, that no individual in the
corps experienced greater satisfaction than I at the prospect before
him. But there were other thoughts which obtruded themselves upon me
that night, and they savoured a good deal of the melancholy.
I thought of home--of my father, my mother, and my sisters; I thought
of the glorious mountains and fertile plains of my native country, and
could not help asking myself the question, whether it was probable that
I should ever behold them again. The chances were that I should not;
and as my home had always been to me a scene of the purest and most
perfect happiness--as I loved my relatives tenderly, and knew that I
was tenderly beloved by them in return--it was impossible for me not
to experience a pang of extreme bitterness at the idea that, in all
human probability, I should see their faces no more.
On the other hand, curiosity, if I may call it by so feeble a term,
was on full stretch respecting the future. Now at length I was about
to learn what war really was; how hostile armies met, and battles were
decided: and the resolutions which I consequently formed as to my own
proceedings, the eagerness with which I longed for an opportunity to
distinguish myself, and the restlessness of my imagination, which
persisted in drawing the most ridiculous pictures of events which never
were and never could be realised, created altogether such a fever in my
brain as rendered abortive every attempt to sleep. I went to bed at ten
o'clock, for the purpose of securing a good night's rest, and of being
fresh and vigorous in the morning, but eleven, twelve, and one found me
wide awake; nor could I have lain in a state of unconsciousness much
above an hour when the sound of the bugle restored me to my senses.
At the first blast I sprang from my bed, and, drawing aside the curtain
of my window, looked out. The day was just beginning to break; the
parade-ground, into which I gazed, was as yet empty, only two or
three figures, those of the trumpeters, who were puffing away with
all their might, being discernible upon it; and not a sound could be
distinguished except that which their puffing produced. The moon was
shining brightly overhead; not a breath of air was astir; in short, it
was just half-past three o'clock, and the time of parade was four. I
dropped the curtain again, and addressed myself to my toilet.
Having completed this, I waited for the second summons, and then
walked forth. Were I to live a hundred years I shall never forget that
morning. Day had dawned--that is to say, the light of the moon was
overpowered by the increasing brilliancy of the twilight. A thick haze,
however, which rose from the low grounds, rendered objects even more
indistinct and obscure than they had been half an hour previously.
When I opened my door, therefore, though a confused hum of voices, a
clattering of canteens, the tread of footsteps, and occasionally the
clash of arms struck upon my ear, I could discern nothing. This did
not last long. The rising sun gradually dispelled the fog, and, in a
few moments, I beheld companies mustering in all form. Mingling in the
ranks I could likewise distinguish the dress of women; and, as the
noise of assembling gradually subsided into the stillness of order, the
half-suppressed shriek, and the half-stifled sob, became more and more
audible.
There are not many incidents in human life more striking in
themselves, or to him who has to deal with them for the first time more
harrowing, than the departure of a regiment upon foreign service. By
the customs of the army, only six women per company, who are chosen by
lot out of the most highly respected of the whole band, are allowed
to follow their husbands. The casting of lots is usually deferred
till the evening previous to the departure of the corps, probably
with the humane design of leaving to each woman, as long as it can be
left, the enjoyment of that greatest of all earthly blessings, hope.
But the consequence is, that a full sense of her forlorn condition
coming all at once upon the wretched creature who is to be abandoned,
produces, in many instances, a violence of grief, the display of which
it is impossible to witness with any degree of indifference. Many were
the agonising scenes of the kind which it was my fortune this day to
witness; but there was one so peculiarly distressing, so much more
affecting in all respects than the rest, that I am tempted to give a
detailed account of it, even at the risk of being thought a writer of
romance.
About three months previous to the day of embarkation, a batch of
recruits had joined the regiment from Scotland. Among them was a
remarkably fine young Highlander, a native, if I recollect right, of
Balquhidder, called Duncan Stewart. Duncan was, in all respects, a good
soldier; he was clean, sober, orderly, and well-behaved; but he seemed
to be of a singularly melancholy temper; never mixing in the sports and
amusements of his comrades, nor speaking except when he was obliged to
speak. It so happened that the pay-sergeant of Duncan's company was
likewise a Highlander; and Highlanders being of all classes persons the
most national, he soon began to interest himself about the fate of the
young recruit. At first Duncan shrank back even from his advances; but
it is not natural for the human heart, especially in youth, to continue
long indifferent to acts of kindness; so Duncan gradually permitted
honest M'Intyre to insinuate himself into his good graces, and they
became before long bosom friends.
When they had continued for some weeks on a footing of intimacy, Duncan
did not scruple to make his friend, the sergeant, acquainted with the
cause of his dejection. It was this:--
Duncan was the son of a Highland farmer, who, like many of his
countrymen in the same locality, cultivated barley for the purpose of
making whisky; in plain language, was a determined smuggler. Not far
from the abode of Stewart dwelt an exciseman of the name of Young,
who, being extremely active in the discharge of his duty, had, on
various occasions, made seizure of his neighbour's kegs as they were
on their march towards the low country. This was an offence which the
Highlander could not forgive; and there subsisted, in consequence,
between the smuggler and the gauger, a degree of antipathy far
surpassing anything of which it is easy for us to form a conception. It
must, however, be confessed, that the feeling of hatred was all on one
side. Stewart hated Young for presuming to interfere with his calling,
and despised him because he had the misfortune to be born in the
shire of Renfrew; whereas Young was disposed to behave civilly to his
neighbour on every occasion except when whisky-casks happened to come
in the way.
Gauger Young had an only and a very pretty daughter, with whom Duncan,
as a matter of course, fell in love. The maiden returned his love, at
which I am by no means surprised, for a handsomer or more manly-looking
youth one would not desire to see; but alas! old Stewart would not
hear of their union--commanding his son, under penalty of his heaviest
malediction, not to think of her again. The authority of parents
over their children, even after the latter have attained to manhood,
is in Scotland very great; so Duncan would not dispute his father's
will, and, finding all entreaty to alter it useless, he determined to
sacrifice inclination to duty, and to meet his pretty Mary no more.
To this resolution he adhered for several days; but, to use his own
words, "Gang where I would, and do what I liket, I aye saw her before
me. I saw her ance, to tell her what my father had said; indeed we were
baith gey sure how it would be, before I spak to him ava; and, oh! the
look she gae me, M'Intyre; I ne'er forgot it, I never can forget it. It
haunted me like a ghaist night and day."
The consequence of constantly beholding such a vision may easily be
imagined. Duncan forgot his determination and his duty, and found
himself, one evening, he scarce knew how, once more walking with Mary
by the loch-side. This occurred again and again. The meetings were the
more sweet because they were secret; and they ended as such stolen
interviews generally do among persons of their station in life--Duncan
was assured of becoming a father before he was a husband.
This, however, was not to be. Duncan was too tenderly attached to Mary
to suffer disgrace to fall upon her, even though he should incur the
threatened penalty of a father's curse; so he resolved, at all hazards,
to make her his wife. The reader is, no doubt, aware, that marriages
are much more easily contracted in Scotland than on the south side
of the Tweed. An exchange of lines, as it is called--that is to say,
a mutual agreement to live as man and wife, drawn up and signed by a
young man and young woman--constitutes as indissoluble a union in
North Britain as if the marriage ceremony had been read or uttered by
a clergyman; and to this method of uniting their destinies Duncan and
Mary had recourse. They addressed a letter, the one to the other, in
which he acknowledged her to be his wife, and she acknowledged him to
be her husband; and, having made an exchange of the documents, they
became, to all intents and purposes, a married couple.
Having thus gone in direct opposition to his father's will, Duncan was
by no means easy in his own mind. He knew the unforgiving temper of the
man with whom he had to deal; he knew likewise that his disobedience
could not long be kept a secret, and the nearer the period approached
which must compel a disclosure, the more anxious and uncomfortable he
became. At length the time arrived when he must either acknowledge his
marriage or leave Mary to infamy. It was the season of Doune Fair, and
Duncan was intrusted with the care of a flock of sheep which were to
be disposed of at that market. Having bid farewell to his wife, he set
out, still carrying his secret with him, but determined to disclose it,
by letter, as soon as he should reach Doune. His object in acting thus
was, partly to escape the first burst of his father's anger, and partly
with the hope that, having escaped it, he might be received at his
return with forgiveness; but alas! the poor fellow had no opportunity
of ascertaining the success of his scheme.
When he reached Doune, Duncan felt himself far too unhappy to attend to
business. He therefore intrusted the sale of his sheep to a neighbour,
and, sitting down in one of the public-houses, wrote that letter which
had been the subject of his meditations ever since he left Balquhidder.
Having completed this task, Duncan bravely determined to forget his
sorrows for a while; for which purpose he swallowed a dose of whisky,
and entered into conversation with the company about him, among whom
were several soldiers--fine, merry, hearty fellows--who, with their
corporal, were on the look-out for recruits. The leader of the party
was a skilful man in his vocation; he admired the fine proportions of
the youth before him, and determined to enlist him if he could. For
this purpose more whisky was ordered--funny stories were told by him
and his companions--Duncan was plied with dram after dram, till at last
he became completely inebriated, and the shilling was put into his
hand. No time was given him to recover from his surprise; for, long
ere the effects of the liquor had evaporated, Duncan was on his way to
Edinburgh. Here he was instantly embarked with a number of young men
similarly circumstanced; and he actually reached headquarters without
having had an opportunity so much as to inform his relatives of his
fate.
The sequel of Duncan's story is soon told: Having obtained permission
from the commanding officer, he wrote to Scotland for his wife, who
joyfully hastened to join him. Her father did what he could, indeed, to
prevent this step--not from any ill-will towards his daughter, to whom
he had behaved with great kindness in her distress, but because he knew
how uncomfortable was the sort of life which she must lead as the wife
of a private soldier. But Mary resisted every entreaty to remain apart
from Duncan. She had been in a state of utter misery during the many
days in which she was left in ignorance of his fate; and now that she
knew where he was to be found, nothing should hinder her from following
him. Though far advanced in pregnancy, she set out instantly for the
south of England; and, having endured with patience all inconveniences
attendant upon her want of experience as a traveller, she succeeded
in reaching Hythe just one week previously to the embarkation of the
regiment.
This ill-fated couple were hardly brought together when they were once
more doomed to part. Poor Mary's name came up among the roll of those
who should remain behind the regiment; and no language of mine can do
justice to the scene that followed. I was not present when the women
drew their tickets, but I was told by M'Intyre that when Mary unrolled
the slip of paper, and read upon it the fatal words, "To be left," she
looked as if heaven itself were incapable of adding one additional pang
to her misery. Holding it with both hands, at the full stretch of her
arms from her face, she gazed upon it for some minutes without speaking
a word, and then crushing it between her palms, fell senseless into the
arms of a woman who stood near.
That night was spent by Duncan and his wife exactly as it was to be
supposed that it would be spent. They did not so much as lie down; but
the moments sped on in spite of their watchfulness, and at last the
bugle sounded. When I came upon the ground, I saw Duncan standing in
his place. Mary was not near him; the wives of the few soldiers who
were left behind to form a depot having kindly detained her in the
barrack-room. But just before the column began to move, she rushed
forth; and the scream which she uttered, as she flew towards Duncan,
was heard throughout the whole of the ranks.--"Duncan, Duncan!" the
poor thing cried, as she clung wildly round his neck; "Oh Duncan,
Duncan Stewart, ye're no gawn to leave me again, and me sae near being
a mother! Oh Sergeant M'Intyre, dinna tak him awa!--Oh sir, ye'll let
me gang wi' him?" she added, turning to one of the officers who stood
by; "for the love of Heaven, if ye hae ony pity in ye, dinna separate
us!"
Poor Duncan stood all this while in silence, leaning his forehead upon
the muzzle of his firelock, and supporting his wretched wife upon his
arm. He shed no tears--which is more than I can say for myself, or
indeed for almost any private or officer upon the parade--his grief
was evidently beyond them. "Ye may come as far as Dover at least," he
at length said, in a sort of murmur; and the poor creature absolutely
shrieked with delight at the reprieve.
The band now struck up, and the column began to move--the men shouting,
partly to drown the cries of the women, and partly to express their own
willingness to meet the enemy. Mary walked by the side of her husband;
but she looked more like a moving corpse than a living creature. She
was evidently suffering acutely, not only in mind but in body; indeed
we had not proceeded above three miles on our journey before she
was seized with the pains of labour. It would have been the height
of barbarity to have hindered her unfortunate husband, under these
circumstances, from halting to take care of her; so, having received
his promise to join the regiment again before dark, we permitted him to
fall out of the ranks. Fortunately a cottage stood at no great distance
from the roadside, into which he and his friend M'Intyre removed her;
and while there, I have reason to believe, she was received with great
humanity, and treated with kindness; indeed the inhabitants of the
cottage must have been devoid of everything human except the form, had
they treated a young woman so situated otherwise than kindly.
A few hours' march brought the regiment, in high spirits and good
order, into Dover. Every window was thronged, every doorway filled,
in the streets through which we passed; and hearty and cordial were
the expressions of goodwill with which their occupants greeted us. We
answered these salutations with a ringing cheer, and proceeded onwards.
Happily for us, the transports which were to carry us to the seat of
war had been brought alongside the pier. There was no need, therefore,
of boats for the conveyance to their berths either of persons or
baggage; and as the men were fresh and all of them sober, the process
of embarkation went on with perfect regularity and promptitude. The
consequence was that by noon, or a little later, all whom duty did
not detain on board of ship were free to dispose of themselves as
they preferred. Hence, some to lay in sea-stock, others to amuse
themselves,--the great bulk of the officers went on shore, and spent by
groups, at one or other of the hotels, the last evening which not a few
of them were ever destined to spend in England. Among others, I went
ashore as soon as I had attended to the comforts of my division; but
my mind was too full of the image of Mary to permit my entering with
gusto into the various amusements of my friends. I preferred walking
back in the direction of Hythe, with the hope of meeting M'Intyre, and
ascertaining how the poor creature did. I walked, however, for some
time, before any traveller made his appearance. At length, when the
interest which I had felt in the fate of the young couple was beginning
in some degree to moderate, and I was meditating a return to the inn,
I saw two soldiers moving towards me. As they approached, I readily
discovered that they were Duncan and his friend; so I waited for them.
"Duncan Stewart," said I, "how is your wife?" The poor fellow did not
answer, but, touching his cap, passed on. "How is his wife, M'Intyre?"
said I to the sergeant, who stood still. The honest Scotchman burst
into tears; and, as soon as he could command himself, he laconically
answered, "She is at rest, sir." From this I guessed that she was dead;
and, on more minute inquiry, I learned that it was even so; she died
a few minutes after they removed her into the cottage, without having
brought the child into the world. An attempt was made to save the
infant, by performing the Cæsarean operation, but without effect; it
hardly breathed at all.
Though the officer who commanded the depot was sent for, and
volunteered to take the responsibility upon himself if Duncan wished
to remain behind for the purpose of burying his wife, the poor fellow
would not avail himself of the offer. All that he desired was an
assurance from the officer that he would see his dear Mary decently
interred; and, as soon as the promise was given, the young widower
hastened to join his regiment. He scarcely spoke after; and he was one
of the first who fell after the regiment landed in Spain.