“I will withdraw, sir,” said Terence.
But Wellington detained him. “Since Dom Miguel asked for you, you had
better remain, perhaps.”
“It is the adjutant-general Dom Miguel desires to see, and I am
adjutant-general no longer.”
“Still, the matter may concern you. I have a notion that it may be
concerned with the death of Count Samoval, since I have acquainted the
Council of Regency with the treason practised by the Count. You had
better remain.”
Gloomy and downcast, Sir Terence remained as he was bidden.
The sleek and supple Secretary of State was ushered in. He came forward
quickly, clicked his heels together and bowed to the three men present.
“Sirs, your obedient servant,” he announced himself, with a courtliness
almost out of fashion, speaking in his extraordinarily fluent English.
His sallow countenance was extremely grave. He seemed even a little ill
at ease.
“I am fortunate to find you here, my lord. The matter upon which I
seek your adjutant-general is of considerable gravity--so much that of
himself he might be unable to resolve it. I feared you might already
have departed for the north.”
“Since you suggest that my presence may be of service to you, I am happy
that circumstances should have delayed my departure,” was his lordship’s
courteous answer. “A chair, Dom Miguel.”
Dom Miguel Forjas accepted the proffered chair, whilst Wellington seated
himself at Sir Terence’s desk. Sir Terence himself remained standing
with his shoulders to the overmantel, whence he faced them both as well
as Grant, who, according to his self-effacing habit, remained in the
background by the window.
“I have sought you,” began Dom Miguel, stroking his square chin, “on a
matter concerned with the late Count Samoval, immediately upon hearing
that the court-martial pronounced the acquittal of Captain Tremayne.”
His lordship frowned, and his eagle glance fastened upon the Secretary’s
face.
“I trust, sir, you have not come to question the finding of the
court-martial.”
“Oh, on the contrary--on the contrary!” Dom Miguel was emphatic. “I
represent not only the Council, but the Samoval family as well. Both
realise that it is perhaps fortunate for all concerned that in arresting
Captain Tremayne the military authorities arrested the wrong man, and
both have reason to dread the arrest of the right one.”
He paused, and the frown deepened between Wellington’s brows.
“I am afraid,” he said slowly, “that I do not quite perceive their
concern in this matter.”
“But is it not clear?” cried Dom Miguel.
“If it were I should perceive it,” said his lordship dryly.
“Ah, but let me explain, then. A further investigation of the manner in
which Count Samoval met his death can hardly fail to bring to light
the deplorable practices in which he was engaged; for no doubt Colonel
Grant, here, would consider it his duty in the interests of justice to
place before the court the documents found upon the Count’s dead body.
If I may permit myself an observation,” he continued, looking round at
Colonel Grant, “it is that I do not quite understand how this has not
already happened.”
There was a pause in which Grant looked at Wellington as if for
direction. But his lordship himself assumed the burden of the answer.
“It was not considered expedient in the public interest to do so at
present,” he said. “And the circumstances did not place us under the
necessity of divulging the matter.”
“There, my lord, if you will allow me to say so, you acted with a
delicacy and wisdom which the circumstances may not again permit. Indeed
any further investigation must almost inevitably bring these matters to
light, and the effect of such revelation would be deplorable.”
“Deplorable to whom?” asked his lordship.
“To the Count’s family and to the Council of Regency.”
“I can sympathise with the Count’s family, but not with the Council.”
“Surely, my lord, the Council as a body deserves your sympathy in that
it is in danger of being utterly discredited by the treason of one or
two of its members.”
Wellington manifested impatience. “The Council has been warned time and
again. I am weary of warning, and even of threatening, the Council with
the consequences of resisting my policy. I think that exposure is not
only what it deserves, but the surest means of providing a healthier
government in the future. I am weary of picking my way through the
web of intrigue with which the Council entangles my movements and
my dispositions. Public sympathy has enabled it to hamper me in this
fashion. That sympathy will be lost to it by the disclosures which you
fear.”
“My lord, I must confess that there is much reason in what you say.” He
was smoothly conciliatory. “I understand your exasperation. But may I
be permitted to assure you that it is not the Council as a body that has
withstood you, but certain self-seeking members, one or two friends of
Principal Souza, in whose interests the unfortunate and misguided Count
Samoval was acting. Your lordship will perceive that the moment is
not one in which to stir up public indignation against the Portuguese
Government. Once the passions of the mob are inflamed, who can say to
what lengths they may not go, who can say what disastrous consequences
may not follow? It is desirable to apply the cautery, but not to burn up
the whole body.”
Lord Wellington considered a moment, fingering an ivory paper-knife. He
was partly convinced.
“When I last suggested the cautery, to use your own very apt figure, the
Council did not keep faith with me.”
“My lord!”
“It did not, sir. It removed Antonio de Souza, but it did not take the
trouble to go further and remove his friends at the same time. They
remained to carry on his subversive treacherous intrigues. What
guarantees have I that the Council will behave better on this occasion?”
“You have our solemn assurances, my lord, that all those members
suspected of complicity in this business or of attachment to the Souza
faction, shall be compelled to resign, and you may depend upon the
reconstituted Council loyally to support your measures.”
“You give me assurances, sir, and I ask for guarantees.”
“Your lordship is in possession of the documents found upon Count
Samoval. The Council knows this, and this knowledge will compel it to
guard against further intrigues on the part of any of its members which
might naturally exasperate you into publishing those documents. Is not
that some guarantee?”
His lordship considered, and nodded slowly. “I admit that it is. Yet
I do not see how this publicity is to be avoided in the course of the
further investigations into the manner in which Count Samoval came by
his death.”
“My lord, that is the pivot of the whole matter. All further
investigation must be suspended.”
Sir Terence trembled, and his eyes turned in eager anxiety upon the
inscrutable, stern face of Lord Wellington.
“Must!” cried his lordship sharply.
“What else, my lord, in all our interests?” exclaimed the Secretary, and
he rose in his agitation.
“And what of British justice, sir?” demanded his lordship in a
forbidding tone.
“British justice has reason to consider itself satisfied. British
justice may assume that Count Samoval met his death in the pursuit
of his treachery. He was a spy caught in the act, and there and then
destroyed--a very proper fate. Had he been taken, British justice would
have demanded no less. It has been anticipated. Cannot British justice,
for the sake of British interests as well as Portuguese interests, be
content to leave the matter there?”
“An argument of expediency, eh?” said Wellington. “Why not, my lord!
Does not expediency govern politicians?”
“I am not a politician.”
“But a wise soldier, my lord, does not lose sight of the political
consequences of his acts.” And he sat down again.
“Your Excellency may be right,” said his lordship. “Let us be quite
clear, then. You suggest, speaking in the name of the Council of
Regency, that I should suppress all further investigations into the
manner in which Count Samoval met his death, so as to save his family
the shame and the Council of Regency the discredit which must overtake
one and the other if the facts are disclosed--as disclosed they would be
that Samoval was a traitor and a spy in the pay of the French. That
is what you ask me to do. In return your Council undertakes that there
shall be no further opposition to my plans for the military defence of
Portugal, and that all my measures however harsh and however heavily
they may weigh upon the landowners, shall be punctually and faithfully
carried out. That is your Excellency’s proposal, is it not?”
“Not so much my proposal, my lord, as my most earnest intercession. We
desire to spare the innocent the consequences of the sins of a man who
is dead, and well dead.” He turned to O’Moy, standing there tense and
anxious. It was not for Dom Miguel to know that it was the adjutant’s
fate that was being decided. “Sir Terence,” he cried, “you have been
here for a year, and all matters connected with the Council have
been treated through you. You cannot fail to see the wisdom of my
recommendation.”
His lordship’s eyes flashed round upon O’Moy. “Ah yes!” he said. “What
is your feeling in this matter, ‘O’Moy?” he inquired, his tone and
manner void of all expression.
Sir Terence faltered; then stiffened. “I--The matter is one that only
your lordship can decide. I have no wish to influence your decision.”
“I see. Ha! And you, Grant? No doubt you agree with Dom Miguel?”
“Most emphatically--upon every count, sir,” replied the intelligence
officer without hesitation. “I think Dom Miguel offers an excellent
bargain. And, as he says, we hold a guarantee of its fulfilment.”
“The bargain might be improved,” said Wellington slowly.
“If your lordship will tell me how, the Council, I am sure, will be
ready to do all that lies in its power to satisfy you.”
Wellington shifted his chair round a little, and crossed his legs. He
brought his finger-tips together, and over the top of them his eyes
considered the Secretary of State.
“Your Excellency has spoken of expediency--political expediency.
Sometimes political expediency can overreach itself and perpetrate the
most grave injustices. Individuals at times are unnecessarily called
upon to suffer in the interests of a cause. Your Excellency will
remember a certain affair at Tavora some two months ago--the invasion of
a convent by a British officer with rather disastrous consequences and
the loss of some lives.”
“I remember it perfectly, my lord. I had the honour of entertaining Sir
Terence upon that subject on the occasion of my last visit here.”
“Quite so,” said his lordship. “And on the grounds of political
expediency you made a bargain then with Sir Terence, I understand, a
bargain which entailed the perpetration of an injustice.”
“I am not aware of it, my lord.”
“Then let me refresh your Excellency’s memory upon the facts. To appease
the Council of Regency, or rather to enable me to have my way with
the Council and remove the Principal Souza, you stipulated for the
assurance--so that you might lay it before your Council--that the
offending officer should be shot when taken.”
“I could not help myself in the matter, and--”
“A moment, sir. That is not the way of British justice, and Sir Terence
was wrong to have permitted himself to consent; though I profoundly
appreciate the loyalty to me, the earnest desire to assist me, which led
him into an act the cost of which to himself your Excellency can hardly
appreciate. But the wrong lay in that by virtue of this bargain a
British officer was prejudged. He was to be made a scapegoat. He was
to be sent to his death when taken, as a peace-offering to the people,
demanded by the Council of Regency.
“Since all this happened I have had the facts of the case placed before
me. I will go so far as to tell you, sir, that the officer in question
has been in my hands for the past hour, that I have closely questioned
him, and that I am satisfied that whilst he has been guilty of conduct
which might compel me to deprive him of his Majesty’s commission and
dismiss him from the army, yet that conduct is not such as to merit
death. He has chiefly sinned in folly and want of judgment. I reprove
it in the sternest terms, and I deplore the consequences it had. But for
those consequences the nuns of Tavora are almost as much to blame as he
is himself. His invasion of their convent was a pure error, committed
in the belief that it was a monastery and as a result of the porter’s
foolish conduct.
“Now, Sir Terence’s word, given in response to your absolute demands,
has committed us to an unjust course, which I have no intention of
following. I will stipulate, sir, that your Council, in addition to the
matters undertaken, shall relieve us of all obligation in this matter,
leaving it to our discretion to punish Mr. Butler in such manner as we
may consider condign. In return, your Excellency, I will undertake that
there shall be no further investigation into the manner in which Count
Samoval came by his death, and consequently, no disclosures of the
shameful trade in which he was engaged. If your Excellency will give
yourself the trouble of taking the sense of your Council upon this, we
may then reach a settlement.”
The grave anxiety of Dom Miguel’s countenance was instantly dispelled.
In his relief he permitted himself a smile.
“My lord, there is not the need to take the sense of the Council.
The Council has given me carte blanche to obtain your consent to a
suppression of the Samoval affair. And without hesitation I accept
the further condition that you make. Sir Terence may consider himself
relieved of his parole in the matter of Lieutenant Butler.”
“Then we may look upon the matter as concluded.”
“As happily concluded, my lord.” Dom Miguel rose to make his valedictory
oration. “It remains for me only to thank your lordship in the name
of the Council for the courtesy and consideration with which you have
received my proposal and granted our petition. Acquainted as I am with
the crystalline course of British justice, knowing as I do how it seeks
ever to act in the full light of day, I am profoundly sensible of the
cost to your lordship of the concession you make to the feelings of the
Samoval family and the Portuguese Government, and I can assure you that
they will be accordingly grateful.”
“That is very gracefully said, Dom Miguel,” replied his lordship, rising
also.
The Secretary placed a hand upon his heart, bowing. “It is but the poor
expression of what I think and feel.” And so he took his leave of them,
escorted by Colonel Grant, who discreetly volunteered for the office.
Left alone with Wellington, Sir Terence heaved a great sigh of supreme
relief.
“In my wife’s name, sir, I should like to thank you. But she shall thank
you herself for what you have done for me.”
“What I have done for you, O’Moy?” Wellington’s slight figure stiffened
perceptibly, his face and glance were cold and haughty. “You mistake,
I think, or else you did not hear. What I have done, I have done solely
upon grounds of political expediency. I had no choice in the matter, and
it was not to favour you, or out of disregard for my duty, as you seem
to imagine, that I acted as I did.”
O’Moy bowed his head, crushed under that rebuff. He clasped and
unclasped his hands a moment in his desperate anguish.
“I understand,” he muttered in a broken voice, “I--I beg your pardon,
sir.”
And then Wellington’s slender, firm fingers took him by the arm.
“But I am glad, O’Moy, that I had no choice,” he added more gently. “As
a man, I suppose I may be glad that my duty as Commander-in-Chief placed
me under the necessity of acting as I have done.”
Sir Terence clutched the hand in both his own and wrung it fiercely,
obeying an overmastering impulse.
“Thank you,” he cried. “Thank you for that!”
“Tush!” said Wellington, and then abruptly: “What are you going to do,
O’Moy?” he asked.
“Do?” said O’Moy, and his blue eyes looked pleadingly down into the
sternly handsome face of his chief, “I am in your hands, sir.”
“Your resignation is, and there it must remain, O’Moy. You understand?”
“Of course, sir. Naturally you could not after this--” He shrugged and
broke off. “But must I go home?” he pleaded.
“What else? And, by God, sir, you should be thankful, I think.”
“Very well,” was the dull answer, and then he flared out. “Faith, it’s
your own fault for giving me a job of this kind. You knew me. You know
that I am just a blunt, simple soldier--that my place is at the head of
a regiment, not at the head of an administration. You should have known
that by putting me out of my proper element I was bound to get into
trouble sooner or later.”
“Perhaps I do,” said Wellington. “But what am I to do with you now?” He
shrugged, and strode towards the window. “You had better go home, O’Moy.
Your health has suffered out here, and you are not equal to the heat of
summer that is now increasing. That is the reason of this resignation.
You understand?”
“I shall be shamed for ever,” said O’Moy. “To go home when the army is
about to take the field!”
But Wellington did not hear him, or did not seem to hear him. He had
reached the window and his eye was caught by something that he saw in
the courtyard.
“What the devil’s this now?” he rapped out. “That is one of Sir Robert
Craufurd’s aides.”
He turned and went quickly to the door. He opened it as rapid steps
approached along the passage, accompanied by the jingle of spurs and
the clatter of sabretache and trailing sabre. Colonel Grant appeared,
followed by a young officer of Light Dragoons who was powdered from
head to foot with dust. The youth--he was little more--lurched forward
wearily, yet at sight of Wellington he braced himself to attention and
saluted.
“You appear to have ridden hard, sir,” the Commander greeted him.
“From Almeida in forty-seven hours, my lord,” was the answer. “With
these from Sir Robert.” And he proffered a sealed letter.
“What is your name?” Wellington inquired, as he took the package.
“Hamilton, my lord,” was the answer; “Hamilton of the Sixteenth,
aide-de-camp to Sir Robert Craufurd.”
Wellington nodded. “That was great horsemanship, Mr. Hamilton,” he
commended him; and a faint tinge in the lad’s haggard cheeks responded
to that rare praise.
“The urgency was great, my lord,” replied Mr. Hamilton.
“The French columns are in movement. Ney and Junot advanced to the
investment of Ciudad Rodrigo on the first of the month.”
“Already!” exclaimed Wellington, and his countenance set.
“The commander, General Herrasti, has sent an urgent appeal to Sir
Robert for assistance.”
“And Sir Robert?” The question came on a sharp note of apprehension,
for his lordship was fully aware that valour was the better part of Sir
Robert Craufurd’s discretion.
“Sir Robert asks for orders in this dispatch, and refuses to stir from
Almeida without instructions from your lordship.”
“Ah!!” It was a sigh of relief. He broke the seal and spread the
dispatch. He read swiftly. “Very well,” was all he said, when he had
reached the end of Sir Robert’s letter. “I shall reply to this in person
and at, once. You will be in need of rest, Mr. Hamilton. You had best
take a day to recuperate, then follow me to Almeida. Sir Terence no
doubt will see to your immediate needs.”
“With pleasure, Mr. Hamilton,” replied Sir Terence mechanically--for
his own concerns weighed upon him at this moment more heavily than the
French advance. He pulled the bell-rope, and into the fatherly hands
of Mullins, who came in response to the summons, the young officer was
delivered.
Lord Wellington took up his hat and riding-crop from Sir Terence’s desk.
“I shall leave for the frontier at once,” he announced. “Sir Robert will
need the encouragement of my presence to keep him within the prudent
bounds I have imposed. And I do not know how long Ciudad Rodrigo may be
able to hold out. At any moment we may have the French upon the
Agueda, and the invasion may begin. As for you, O’Moy, this has changed
everything. The French and the needs of the case have decided. For the
present no change is possible in the administration here in Lisbon. You
hold the threads of your office and the moment is not one in which to
appoint another adjutant to take them over. Such a thing might be fatal
to the success of the British arms. You must withdraw this resignation.”
And he proffered the document.
Sir Terence recoiled. He went deathly white.
“I cannot,” he stammered. “After what has happened, I--”
Lord Wellington’s face became set and stern. His eyes blazed upon the
adjutant.
“O’Moy,” he said, and the concentrated anger of his voice was
terrifying, “if you suggest that any considerations but those of this
campaign have the least weight with me in what I now do, you insult
me. I yield to no man in my sense of duty, and I allow no private
considerations to override it. You are saved from going home in disgrace
by the urgency of the circumstances, as I have told you. By that and by
nothing else. Be thankful, then; and in loyally remaining at your post
efface what is past. You know what is doing at Torres Vedras. The works
have been under your direction from the commencement. See that they are
vigorously pushed forward and that the lines are ready to receive the
army in a month’s time from now if necessary. I depend upon you--the
army and England’s honour depend upon you. I bow to the inevitable and
so shall you.” Then his sternness relaxed. “So much as your commanding
officer. Now as your friend,” and he held out his hand, “I congratulate
you upon your luck. After this morning’s manifestations of it, it should
pass into a proverb. Goodbye, O’Moy. I trust you, remember.”
“And I shall not fail you,” gulped O’Moy, who, strong man that he was,
found himself almost on the verge of tears. He clutched the extended
hand.
“I shall fix my headquarters for the present at Celorico. Communicate
with me there. And now one other matter: the Council of Regency will
no doubt pester you with representations that I should--if time still
remains--advance to the relief of Ciudad Rodrigo. Understand, that is
no part of my plan of campaign. I do not stir across the frontier of
Portugal. Here let the French come and find me, and I shall be ready to
receive them. Let the Portuguese Government have no illusions on that
point, and stimulate the Council into doing all possible to carry out
the destruction of mills and the laying waste of the country in the
valley of the Mondego and wherever else I have required.
“Oh, and by the way, you will find your brother-in-law, Mr. Butler, in
the guard-room yonder, awaiting my orders. Provide him with a uniform
and bid him rejoin his regiment at once. Recommend him to be more
prudent in future if he wishes me to forget his escapade at Tavora. And
in future, O’Moy, trust your wife. Again, good-bye. Come, Grant!--I have
instructions for you too. But you must take them as we ride.”
And thus Sir Terence O’Moy found sanctuary at the altar of his country’s
need. They left him incredulously to marvel at the luck which had so
enlisted circumstances to save him where all had seemed so surely lost
an hour ago.
He sent a servant to fetch Mr. Butler, the prime cause of all this
pother--for all of it can be traced to Mr. Butler’s invasion of the
Tavora nunnery--and with him went to bear the incredible tidings of
their joint absolution to the three who waited so anxiously in the
dining-room.
POSTSCRIPTUM
The particular story which I have set myself to relate, of how Sir
Terence O’Moy was taken in the snare of his own jealousy, may very
properly be concluded here. But the greater story in which it is
enshrined and with which it is interwoven, the story of that other snare
in which my Lord Viscount Wellington took the French, goes on. This
story is the history of the war in the Peninsula. There you may pursue
it to its very end and realise the iron will and inflexibility of
purpose which caused men ultimately to bestow upon him who guided that
campaign the singularly felicitous and fitting sobriquet of the Iron
Duke.
Ciudad Rodrigo’s Spanish garrison capitulated on the 10th of July of
that year 1810, and a wave of indignation such as must have overwhelmed
any but a man of almost superhuman mettle swept up against Lord
Wellington for having stood inactive within the frontiers of Portugal
and never stirred a hand to aid the Spaniards. It was not only from
Spain that bitter invective was hurled upon him; British journalism
poured scorn and rage upon his incompetence, French journalism held his
pusillanimity up to the ridicule of the world. His own officers took
shame in their general, and expressed it. Parliament demanded to know
how long British honour was to be imperilled by such a man. And finally
the Emperor’s great marshal, Massena, gathering his hosts to overwhelm
the kingdom of Portugal, availed himself of all this to appeal to the
Portuguese nation in terms which the facts would seem to corroborate.
He issued his proclamation denouncing the British for the disturbers
and mischief-makers of Europe, warning the Portuguese that they were
the cat’s-paw of a perfidious nation that was concerned solely with
the serving of its own interests and the gratification of its predatory
ambitions, and finally summoning them to receive the French as their
true friends and saviours.
The nation stirred uneasily. So far no good had come to them of their
alliance with the British. Indeed Wellington’s policy of devastation had
seemed to those upon whom it fell more horrible than any French invasion
could have been.
But Wellington held the reins, and his grip never relaxed or slackened.
And here let it be recorded that he was nobly and stoutly served in
Lisbon by Sir Terence O’Moy. Pressure upon the Council resulted in the
measures demanded being carried out. But much time had been lost through
the intrigues of the Souza faction, with the result that those measures,
although prosecuted now more vigorously, never reached the full extent
which Wellington had desired. Treachery, too, stepped in to shorten the
time still further. Almeida, garrisoned by Portuguese and commanded by
Colonel Cox and a British staff, should have held a month. But no sooner
had the French appeared before it, on the 26th August, than a powder
magazine traitorously fired exploded and breached the wall, rendering
the place untenable.
To Wellington this was perhaps the most vexatious of all things in that
vexatious time. He had hoped to detain Massena before Almeida until the
rains should have set in, when the French would have found themselves
struggling through a sodden, water-logged country, through bridgeless
floods and a land bereft of all that could sustain the troops. Still,
what could be done Wellington did, and did it nobly. Fighting a
rearguard action, he fell back upon the grim and naked ridges of Busaco,
where at the end of September he delivered battle and a murderous
detaining wound upon the advancing hosts of France. That done, he
continued the retreat through Coimbra. And now as he went he saw to it
that the devastation was completed along the line of march. What corn
and provisions could not be carried off were burnt or buried, and
the people forced to quit their dwellings and march with the army--a
pathetic, southward exodus of men and women, old and young, flocks of
sheep, and herds of cattle, creaking bullock-carts laden with provender
and household goods, leaving behind them a country bare as the Sahara,
where hunger before long should grip the French army too far committed
now to pause. In advancing and overtaking must lie Massena’s hope.
Eventually in Lisbon he must bring the British to bay, and, breaking
them, open out at last his way into a land of plenty.
Thus thought Massena, knowing nothing of the lines of Torres Vedras; and
thus, too, thought the British Government at home, itself declaring that
Wellington was ruining the country to no purpose, since in the end the
British must be driven out with terrible loss and infamy that must make
their name an opprobrium in the world.
But Wellington went his relentless way, and at the end of the first
week of October brought his army and the multitude of refugees safely
within the amazing lines. The French, pressing hard upon their heels and
confident that the end was near, were brought up sharply before those
stupendous, unsuspected, impregnable fortifications.
After spending best part of a month in vain reconnoitering, Massena took
up his quarters at Santarem, and thence the country was scoured for
what scraps of victuals had been left to relieve the dire straits of the
famished host of France. How the great marshal contrived to hold out so
long in Santarem against the onslaught of famine and concomitant disease
remains something of a mystery. An appeal to the Emperor for succour
eventually brought Drouet with provisions, but these were no more than
would keep his men alive on a retreat into Spain, and that retreat
he commenced early in the following March, by when no less than ten
thousand of his army had fallen sick.
Instantly Wellington was up and after him. The French retreat became a
flight. They threw away baggage and ammunition that they might travel
the lighter. Thus they fled towards Spain, harassed by the British
cavalry and scarcely less by the resentful peasantry of Portugal, their
line of march defined by an unbroken trail of carcasses, until the
tattered remnants of that once splendid army found shelter across the
Coira. Beyond this Wellington could not continue the pursuit for lack
of means to cross the swollen river and also because provisions were
running short.
But there for the moment he might rest content, his immediate object
achieved and his stern strategy supremely vindicated.
On the heights above the yellow, turgid flood rode Wellington
with a glittering staff that included O’Moy and Murray, the
quartermaster-general. Through his telescope he surveyed with silent
satisfaction the straggling columns of the French that were being
absorbed by the evening mists from the sodden ground.
O’Moy, at his side, looked on without satisfaction. To him the close of
this phase of the campaign which had justified his remaining in office
meant the reopening of that painful matter that had been left in
suspense by circumstances since that June day of last year at Monsanto.
The resignation then refused from motives of expediency must again be
tendered and must now be accepted.
Abruptly upon the general stillness came a sharply humming sound. Within
a yard of the spot where Wellington sat his horse a handful of soil
heaved itself up and fell in a tiny scattered shower. Immediately
elsewhere in a dozen places was the phenomenon repeated. There was
too much glitter about the staff uniforms and vindictive French
sharpshooters were finding them an attractive mark.
“They are firing on us, sir!” cried O’Moy on a note of sharp alarm.
“So I perceive,” Lord Wellington answered calmly, and leisurely he
closed his glass, so leisurely that O’Moy, in impatient fear of his
chief, spurred forward and placed himself as a screen between him and
the line of fire.
Lord Wellington looked at him with a faint smile. He was about to speak
when O’Moy pitched forward and rolled headlong from the saddle.
They picked him up unconscious but alive, and for once Lord Wellington
was seen to blench as he flung down from his horse to inquire the nature
of O’Moy’s hurt. It was not fatal, but, as it afterwards proved, it was
grave enough. He had been shot through the body, the right lung had been
grazed and one of his ribs broken.
Two days later, after the bullet had been extracted, Lord Wellington
went to visit him in the house where he was quartered. Bending over him
and speaking quietly, his lordship said that which brought a moisture to
the eyes of Sir Terence and a smile to his pale lips. What actually were
his lordship’s words may be gathered from the answer he received.
“Ye’re entirely wrong, then, and it’s mighty glad I am. For now I need
no longer hand you my resignation. I can be invalided home.”
So he was; and thus it happens that not until now--when this chronicle
makes the matter public--does the knowledge of Sir Terence’s single but
grievous departure from the path of honour go beyond the few who were
immediately concerned with it. They kept faith with him because they
loved him; and because they had understood all that went to the making
of his sin, they condoned it.
If I have done my duty as a faithful chronicler, you who read,
understanding too, will take satisfaction in that it was so.