THE TRENCHES.
“I have not had time, O’Malley, to think of your application,” said
Crawfurd, “nor is it likely I can for a day or two. Read that.” So saying,
he pushed towards me a note, written, in pencil, which ran thus:--
CIUDAD RODRIGO, December 18.
Dear C.,--Fletcher tells me that the breaches will be practicable
by to-morrow evening, and I think so myself. Come over, then, at
once, for we shall not lose any time.
Yours, W.
“I have some despatches for your regiment, but if you prefer coming along
with me--”
“My dear General, dare I ask for such a favor?”
“Well, come along; only remember that, although my division will be
engaged, I cannot promise you anything to do. So now, get your horses
ready; let’s away.”
It was in the afternoon of the following day that we rode into the large
plain before Ciudad Rodrigo, and in which the allied armies were now
assembled to the number of twelve thousand men. The loud booming of
the siege artillery had been heard by me for some hours before; but
notwithstanding this prelude and my own high-wrought expectations, I
was far from anticipating the magnificent spectacle which burst upon my
astonished view. The air was calm and still; a clear, blue, wintry sky
stretched overhead, but below, the dense blue smoke of the deafening guns
rolled in mighty volumes along the earth, and entirely concealed the lower
part of the fortress; above this the tall towers and battlemented parapets
rose into the thin, transparent sky like fairy palaces. A bright flash of
flame would now and then burst forth from the walls, and a clanging crash
of the brass metal be heard; but the unceasing roll of our artillery nearly
drowned all other sounds, save when a loud cheer would burst from the
trenches, while the clattering fall of masonry, and the crumbling stones
as they rolled down, bespoke the reason of the cry. The utmost activity
prevailed on all sides; troops pressed forward to the reliefs in the
parallels; ammunition wagons moved to the front; general and staff officers
rode furiously about the plain; and all betokened that the hour of attack
was no longer far distant.
While all parties were anxiously awaiting the decision of our chief, the
general order was made known, which, after briefly detailing the necessary
arrangements, concluded with the emphatic words, “Ciudad Rodrigo _must_ be
stormed to-night.” All speculation as to the troops to be engaged in this
daring enterprise was soon at an end; for with his characteristic sense of
duty, Lord Wellington made no invidious selection, but merely commanded
that the attack should be made by whatever divisions might chance to be
that day in the trenches. Upon the Third and Light Divisions, therefore,
this glorious task devolved. The former was to attack the main breach;
to Crawfurd’s Division was assigned the, if possible, more difficult
enterprise of carrying the lesser one; while Pack’s Portuguese Brigade were
to menace the convent of La Caridad by a feint attack, to be converted into
a real one, if circumstances should permit.
The decision, however matured and comprehensive in all its details, was
finally adopted so suddenly that every staff officer upon the ground was
actively engaged during the entire evening in conveying the orders to the
different regiments. As the day drew to a close, the cannonade slackened on
either side, a solitary gun would be heard at intervals, and in the calm
stillness around, its booming thunder re-echoed along the valleys of the
Sierra; but as the moon rose and night set in, these were no longer heard,
and a perfect stillness and tranquillity prevailed around. Even in the
trenches, crowded with armed and anxious soldiers, not a whisper was heard;
and amidst that mighty host which filled the plain, the tramp of a patrol
could be distinctly noted, and the hoarse voice of the French sentry upon
the walls, telling that all was well in Ciudad Rodrigo.
The massive fortress, looming larger as its dark shadow stood out from the
sky, was still as the grave; while in the greater breach a faint light was
seen to twinkle for a moment, and then suddenly to disappear, leaving all
gloomy and dark as before.
Having been sent with orders to the Third Division, of which the
Eighty-eighth formed a part, I took the opportunity of finding out
O’Shaughnessy, who was himself to lead an escalade party in M’Kinnon’s
Brigade. He sprang towards me as I came forward, and grasping my hand with
a more than usual earnestness, called out, “The very man I wanted! Charley,
my boy, do us a service now!”
Before I could reply, he continued in a lower tone, “A young fellow of
ours, Harry Beauclerc, has been badly wounded in the trenches; but by some
blunder, his injury is reported as a slight one, and although the poor
fellow can scarcely stand, he insists upon going with the stormers.”
“Come here, Major, come here!” cried a voice at a little distance.
“Follow me, O’Malley,” cried O’Shaughnessy, moving in the direction of the
speaker.
By the light of a lantern we could descry two officers kneeling upon the
ground; between them on the grass lay the figure of a third, upon whose
features, as the pale light fell, the hand of death seemed rapidly
stealing. A slight froth, tinged with blood, rested on his lip, and the
florid blood which stained the buff facing of his uniform indicated that
his wound was through the lungs.
“He has fainted,” said one of the officers, in a low tone.
“Are you certain it is fainting?” said the other, in a still lower.
“You see how it is, Charley,” said O’Shaughnessy; “this poor boy must be
carried to the rear. Will you then, like a kind fellow, hasten back to
Colonel Campbell and mention the fact. It will kill Beauclerc should any
doubt rest upon his conduct, if he ever recover this.”
While he spoke, four soldiers of the regiment placed the wounded officer in
a blanket. A long sigh escaped him, and he muttered a few broken words.
“Poor fellow, it’s his mother he’s talking of! He only joined a month
since, and is a mere boy. Come, O’Malley, lose no time. By Jove! it is too
late; there goes the first rocket for the columns to form. In ten minutes
more the stormers must fall in.”
“What’s the matter, Giles?” said he to one of the officers, who had stopped
the soldiers as they were moving off with their burden,--“what is it?”
“I have been cutting the white tape off his arm; for if he sees it on
waking, he’ll remember all about the storming.”
“Quite right--thoughtfully done!” said the other; “but who is to lead his
fellows? He was in the forlorn hope.”
“I’ll do it,” cried I, with eagerness. “Come, O’Shaughnessy, you’ll not
refuse me.”
“Refuse you, boy!” said he, grasping my hand within both of his, “never!
But you must change your coat. The gallant Eighty-eighth will never mistake
their countryman’s voice. But your uniform would be devilish likely to get
you a bayonet through it; so come back with me, and we’ll make you a Ranger
in no time.”
“I can give your friend a cap.”
“And I,” said the other, “a brandy flask, which, after all, is not the
worst part of a storming equipage.”
“I hope,” said O’Shaughnessy, “they may find Maurice in the rear.
Beauclerc’s all safe in his hands.”
“That they’ll not,” said Giles, “you may swear. Quill is this moment in the
trenches, and will not be the last man at the breach.”
“Follow me now, lads,” said O’Shaughnessy, in a low voice. “Our fellows are
at the angle of this trench. Who the deuce can that be, talking so loud?”
“It must be Maurice,” said Giles.
The question was soon decided by the doctor himself, who appeared giving
directions to his hospital-sergeant.
“Yes, Peter, take the tools up to a convenient spot near the breach.
There’s many a snug corner there in the ruins; and although we mayn’t have
as good an operation-room as in old ‘Steevens’s,’ yet we’ll beat them
hollow in cases.”
“Listen to the fellow,” said Giles, with a shudder. “The thought of his
confounded thumbscrews and tourniquets is worse to me than a French
howitzer.”
“The devil a kinder-hearted fellow than Maurice,” said O’Shaughnessy, “for
all that; and if his heart was to be known this moment, he’d rather handle
a sword than a saw.”
“True for you, Dennis,” said Quill, overhearing him, “but we are both
useful in our way, as the hangman said to Lord Clare.”
“But should you not be in the rear, Maurice?” said I.
“You are right, O’Malley,” said he, in a whisper; “but, you see, I owe the
Cork Insurance Company a spite for making me pay a gout premium, and that’s
the reason I’m here. I warned them at the time that their stinginess would
come to no good.”
“I say, Captain O’Malley,” said Giles, “I find I can’t be as good as my
word with you; my servant has moved to the rear with all my traps.”
“What is to be done?” said I.
“Is it shaving utensils you want?” said Maurice. “Would a scalpel serve
your turn?”
“No, Doctor, I’m going to take a turn of duty with your fellows to-night.”
“In the breach, with the stormers?”
“With the forlorn hope,” said O’Shaughnessy. “Beauclerc is so badly wounded
that we’ve sent him back; and Charley, like a good fellow, has taken his
place.”
“Martin told me,” said Maurice, “that Beauclerc was only stunned; but,
upon my conscience, the hospital-mates, now-a-days, are no better than the
watchmakers; they can’t tell what’s wrong with the instrument till they
pick it to pieces. Whiz! there goes a blue light.”
“Move on, move on,” whispered O’Shaughnessy; “they’re telling off the
stormers. That rocket is the order to fall in.”
“But what am I to do for a coat?”
“Take mine, my boy,” said Maurice, throwing off an upper garment of coarse
gray frieze as he spoke.
“There’s a neat bit of uniform,” continued he, turning himself round for
our admiration; “don’t I look mighty like the pictures of George the First
at the battle of Dettingen!”
A burst of approving laughter was our only answer to this speech, while
Maurice proceeded to denude himself of his most extraordinary garment.
“What, in the name of Heaven, is it?” said I.
“Don’t despise it, Charley; it knows the smell of gunpowder as well as any
bit of scarlet in the service;” while he added, in a whisper, “it’s the
ould Roscommon Yeomanry. My uncle commanded them in the year ‘42, and this
was his coat. I don’t mean to say that it was new then; for you see it’s a
kind of heirloom in the Quill family, and it’s not every one I’d be giving
it to.”
“A thousand thanks, Maurice,” said I, as I buttoned it on, amidst an
ill-suppressed titter of laughter.
“It fits you like a sentry-box,” said Maurice, as he surveyed me with a
lantern. “The skirts separate behind in the most picturesque manner; and
when you button the collar, it will keep your head up so high that the
devil a bit you’ll see except the blessed moon. It’s a thousand pities you
haven’t the three-cocked hat with the feather trimming. If you wouldn’t
frighten the French, my name’s not Maurice. Turn about here till I admire
you. If you only saw yourself in a glass, you’d never join the dragoons
again. And look now, don’t be exposing yourself, for I wouldn’t have those
blue facings destroyed for a week’s pay.”
“Ah, then, it’s yourself is the darling, Doctor, dear!” said a voice behind
me. I turned round; it was Mickey Free, who was standing with a most
profound admiration of Maurice beaming in every feature of his face. “It’s
yourself has a joke for every hour o’ the day.”
“Get to the rear, Mike, get to the rear with the cattle; this is no place
for you or them.”
“Good-night, Mickey,” said Maurice.
“Good-night, your honor,” muttered Mike to himself; “may I never die till
you set a leg for me.”
“Are you dressed for the ball?” said Maurice, fastening the white tape upon
my arm. “There now, my boy, move on, for I think I hear Picton’s voice; not
that it signifies now, for he’s always in a heavenly temper when any one’s
going to be killed. I’m sure he’d behave like an angel, if he only knew the
ground was mined under his feet.”
“Charley, Charley!” called out O’Shaughnessy, in a suppressed voice, “come
up quickly!”
“No. 24, John Forbes--here! Edward Gillespie--here!”
“Who leads this party, Major O’Shaughnessy?”
“Mr. Beauclerc, sir,” replied O’Shaughnessy, pushing me forward by the arm
while he spoke.
“Keep your people together, sir; spare the powder, and trust to your cold
iron.” He grasped my hand within his iron grip, and rode on.
“Who was it, Dennis?” said I.
“Don’t you know him, Charley? That was Picton.”