"That's understood. My word, though, it is hard to believe!"
"You had best believe it, anyway," said I; and with a sort of
shamefaced swagger he lurched out of the shop.
Well, I did not like it. I walked to the door and watched him down the
street. Though it wanted an hour of sunset I determined to put up my
shutters and take a stroll by the river. I had done the most necessary
part of my work in Sabugal; to-morrow I would make my way back to
Bellomonte, but in case of hindrance it might be as well to know how
the river bank was guarded. At this point a really happy inspiration
seized me. There were many pools in the marsh land by the river--pools
left by the recent floods. Possibly by hunting among these and
stirring up the mud I might replenish my stock of leeches. I had the
vaguest notion how leeches were gathered, but the pursuit would at the
worst give me an excuse for dawdling and spying out the land.
I closed the shop at once, hunted out a tin box, and with this and my
bottle (to serve as evidence, if necessary, of my good faith) made my
way down to the river side north of the town. The bank here was well
guarded by patrols, between whom a number of peaceful citizens sat
a-fishing. Seen thus in line and with their backs turned to me they
bore a ludicrous resemblance to a row of spectators at a play; and
gazing beyond them, though dazzled for a moment by the full level rays
of the sun, I presently became aware of a spectacle worth looking at.
On the road across the river a squadron of lancers was moving
northward.
"Hallo!" thought I, "here's a reconnaissance of some importance." But
deciding that any show of inquisitiveness would be out of place under
the eyes of the patrols, I kept my course parallel with the river's,
at perhaps 300 yards distance from it. This brought me to the first
pool, and there I had no sooner deposited my bottle and tin box on the
brink than beyond the screen of the town wall came pushing the head of
a column of infantry.
Decidedly here was something to think over. The column unwound itself
in clouds of yellow dust--a whole brigade; then an interval, then
another dusty column--two brigades! Could Marmont be planning against
Trant the very _coup_ which Trant had planned against him? Twenty
miles--it could be done before daybreak; and the infantry (I had seen
at the first glance) were marching light.
I do not know to this day if any leeches inhabit the pools outside
Sabugal. It is very certain that I discovered none. About a quarter
of a mile ahead of me and about the same distance back from the river
there stood a ruinous house which had been fired, but whether recently
or by the French I could not tell; once no doubt the country villa
of some well-to-do townsman, but now roofless, and showing smears of
black where the flames had licked its white outer walls. Towards this
I steered my way cautiously, that behind the shelter of an outbuilding
I might study the receding brigades at my leisure.
The form of the building was roughly a hollow square enclosing a
fair-sized patio, the entrance of which I had to cross to gain the
rearward premises and slip out of sight of the patrols. The gate of
this entrance had been torn off its hinges and now lay jammed aslant
across the passage; beyond it the patio lay heaped with bricks and
rubble, tiles, and charred beams. I paused for a moment and craned in
for a better look at the _débris_.
And then the sound of voices arrested me--a moment too late. I was
face to face with two French officers, one with a horse beside him.
They saw me, and on the instant ceased talking and stared; but without
changing their attitudes, which were clearly those of two disputants.
They stood perhaps four paces apart. Both were young men, and the
one whose attitude most suggested menace I recognised as a young
lieutenant of a line regiment (the 102nd) whom I had shaved that
morning. The other wore the uniform of a staff officer, and at the
first glance I read a touch of superciliousness in his indignant face.
His left hand held his horse's bridle, his other he still kept tightly
clenched while he stared at me.
"What the devil do _you_ want here?" demanded the lieutenant roughly
in bad Portuguese. "But, hallo!" he added, recognising me, and turned
a curious glance on the other.
"Who is it?" the staff officer asked.
"It's a barber; and I believe something of a surgeon. That's so, eh?"
He appealed to me.
"In a small way," I answered apologetically.
The lieutenant turned again to his companion. "He might do for us; the
sooner the better, unless--"
"Unless," interrupted the staff officer with cold politeness, "you
prefer the apology you owe me."
The lieutenant swung round again with a brusque laugh. "Look here,
have you your instruments about you?"
For answer I held up my bottle with the one absurd leech dormant at
the bottom. He laughed again just as harshly.
"That is about the last thing to suit our purpose. Listen"--he glanced
out through the passage--"the gates won't be shut for an hour yet. It
will take you perhaps twenty minutes to fetch what is necessary. You
understand? Return here, and don't keep us waiting. Afterwards, should
the gates be shut, one of us will see you back to the town."
I bowed without a word and hurried back across the water meadow. Along
the river bank between the patrols the anglers still sat in their
patient row. And on the road to the north-west the tail of the second
brigade was winding slowly out of sight.
Once past the gate and through the streets, I walked more briskly,
paused at my shop door to fit the key in the lock, and was astonished
when the door fell open at the push of my hand.
Then in an instant I understood. The shop had been ransacked--by
that treacherous scoundrel Michu, of course. Bottles, herbs, shaving
apparatus all was topsy-turvy. Drawers stood half-open; the floor was
in a litter.
I had two consolations: the first that there were no incriminating
papers in the, house; the second that Michu had clearly paid me a
private visit before carrying his tale to headquarters. Otherwise the
door would have been sealed and the house under guard. I reflected
that the idiot would catch it hot for this unauthorised piece of work.
Stay! he might still be in the house rummaging the upper rooms. I
crept upstairs.
No, he was gone. He had left my case of instruments, too, after
breaking the lock and scattering them about the floor. I gathered them
together in haste, descended again, snatched up a roll of lint, and
pausing only at the door for a glance up and down the street, made my
escape post haste for the water meadow.
In the patio I found the two disputants standing much as I had left
them, the staff officer gently and methodically smoothing his horse's
crupper, the lieutenant with a watch in his hand.
"Good," said he, closing it with a snap, "seventeen minutes only. By
the way, do you happen to understand French?"
"A very little," said I.
"Because, as you alone are the witness of this our little difference,
it will be in order if I explain that I insulted this gentleman."
"Somewhat grossly," put in the staff officer.
"Somewhat grossly, in return for an insult put upon me--somewhat
grossly--in the presence of my company, two days ago, in the camp
above Penamacor, when I took the liberty to resent a message conveyed
by him to my colonel--as he alleges upon the authority of the marshal,
the Duke of Ragusa."
"An assertion," commented the staff officer, "which I am able to prove
on the marshal's return and with his permission, provided always that
the request be decently made."
They had been speaking in French and meanwhile removing their tunics.
The staff officer had even drawn off his riding boots. "Do you
understand?" asked the lieutenant.
"A little," said I; "enough to serve the occasion."
"Excellent barber-surgeon! Would that all your nation were no more
inquisitive!" He turned to the staff officer. "Ready? On guard, then,
monsieur!"
The combat was really not worth describing. The young staff officer
had indeed as much training as his opponent (and that was little), but
no wrist at all. He had scarcely engaged before he attempted a blind
cut over the scalp. The lieutenant, parrying clumsily, but just
in time, forced blade and arm upward until the two pointed almost
vertically to heaven, and their forearms almost rubbed as the pair
stood close and chest to chest. For an instant the staff officer's
sword was actually driven back behind his head; and then with a
rearward spring the lieutenant disengaged and brought his edge clean
down on his adversary's left shoulder and breast, narrowly missing
his ear. The cut itself, delivered almost in the recoil, had no great
weight behind it, but the blood spurted at once, and the wounded man,
stepping back for a fresh guard, swayed foolishly for a moment and
then toppled into my arms.
"Is it serious?" asked the lieutenant, wiping his sword and looking,
it seemed to me, more than a little scared.
"Wait a moment," said I, and eased the body to the ground. "Yes, it
looks nasty. And keep back, if you please; he has fainted."
Being off my guard I said it in very good French, which in his
agitation he luckily failed to remark.
"I had best fetch help," said he.
"Assuredly."
"I'll run for one of the patrols; we'll carry him back to the town."
But this would not suit me at all. "No," I objected, "you must fetch
one of your surgeons. Meanwhile I will try to stop the bleeding; but I
certainly won't answer for it if you attempt to move him at once."
I showed him the wound as he hurried into his tunic. It was a long and
ugly gash, but (as I had guessed) neither deep nor dangerous. It ran
from the point of the collar-bone aslant across the chest, and had the
lieutenant put a little more drag into the stroke it must infallibly
have snicked open the artery inside the upper arm. As it was, my
immediate business lay in frightening him off before the bleeding
slackened, and my heart gave a leap when he turned and ran out of the
patio, buttoning his tunic as he went.
It took me ten minutes perhaps to dress the wound and tie a rude
bandage; and perhaps another four to pull off coat and shoes and slip
into the staff officer's tunic, pull on his riding boots over my blue
canvas trousers--at a distance scarcely discernible in colour from
his tight-fitting breeches--and buckle on his sword-belt. I had some
difficulty in finding his cap, for he had tossed it carelessly behind
one of the fallen beams, and by this time the light was bad within
the patio. The horse gave me no trouble, being an old campaigner, no
doubt, and used to surprises. I untethered him and led him gently
across the yard, picking my way in a circuit which would take him as
far as possible from his fallen master. But glancing back just before
mounting, to my horror I saw that the wounded man had raised himself
on his right elbow and was staring at me. Our eyes met; what he
thought--whether he suspected the truth or accepted the sight as a
part of his delirium--I shall never know. The next instant he fell
back again and lay inert.
I passed out into the open. The warning gun must have sounded without
my hearing it, for across the meadow the townspeople were retracing
their way to the town gate, which closed at sunset. At any moment now
the patrols might be upon me; so swinging myself into the saddle I set
off at a brisk trot towards the gate.
My chief peril for the moment lay in the chance of meeting the
lieutenant on his way back with the doctor; yet I must run this
risk and ride through the town to the bridge gate, the river being
unfordable for miles to the northward and trending farther and farther
away from Guarda; and Guarda must be reached at all costs, or by
to-morrow Trant's and Wilson's garrisons would have ceased to exist.
My heart fairly sank when on reaching the gate I saw an officer in
talk with the sentry there, and at least a score of men behind him. I
drew aside; he stepped out and called an order to his company, which
at once issued and spread itself in face of the scattered groups of
citizens returning across the meadow.
"Yes, captain," said the sentry, answering the question in my look,"
they are after a spy, it seems, who has been practising here as a
barber. They say even the famous McNeill."
I rode through the gateway and spurred my horse to a trot again,
heading him down a side street to the right. This took me some
distance out of my way, but anything was preferable to the risk of
meeting the lieutenant, and I believed that I had yet some minutes to
spare before the second gunfire.
In this I was mistaken. The gun boomed out just as I came in sight of
the bridge gate, and the lieutenant of the guard appeared clanking out
on the instant to close the heavy doors. I spurred my horse and dashed
down at a canter, hailing loudly:--
"A spy!--a barber fellow; here, hold a minute!"
"Yes, we have had warning half an hour ago. Nobody has passed out
since."
"At the gate below," I panted, "they sighted him; and he made for the
river--tried to swim it. Run out your men and bring them along to
search the bank!"
He began to shout orders. I galloped through the gate and hailed the
sentry at the _tête du pont_. "A spy!" I shouted--"in the river. Keep
your eyes open if he makes the bank!"
The fellow drew aside, and I clattered past him with a dozen soldiers
at my heels fastening their belts and looking to their muskets as they
ran. Once over the bridge I headed to the right again along the left
bank of the river.
"This way! This way! Keep your eyes open!"
I was safe now. In the rapidly falling dusk, still increasing the
distance between us, I led them down past the town and opposite the
astonished patrols on the meadow bank. Even then, when I wheeled to
the left and galloped for the high road, it did not occur to them to
suspect me, nor shall I ever know when first it dawned on them that
they had been fooled. Certainly not a shot was sent after me, and I
settled down for a steady gallop northward, pleasantly assured of
being at least twenty minutes ahead of any effective pursuit.
I was equally well assured of overtaking the brigades, but my
business, of course, was to avoid and get ahead of them. And with this
object, after an hour's brisk going, I struck a hill-track to the left
which, as I remembered (having used it on my journey from Badajoz), at
first ran parallel with the high road for two miles or more and then
cut two considerable loops which the road followed along the valley
bottom.
Recent rains had unloosed the springs on the mountain side and set
them chattering so loudly that I must have reined up at least a score
of times before I detected the tramp of the brigades in the darkness
below me. Of the cavalry, though I rode on listening for at least
another two miles, I could hear no sound. Yet, as I argued, they could
not be far distant; and I pushed forward with heart elate at the
prospect of trumping Marmont's card, for I remembered the staff
officer's words, "on the marshal's return." I knew that Marmont had
been in Sabugal no longer ago than mid-day; and irregular and almost
derogatory as it might be thought for a marshal of France to be
conducting a night surprise against a half-disciplined horde of
militia, I would have wagered my month's pay that this was the fact.
And then, with a slip of my horse on the stony track, my good fortune
suddenly ended, and smash went my basket of eggs while I counted the
chickens. The poor brute with one false step came down heavily on his
near side. Quick as I was in flinging my foot from the stirrup, I was
just a moment too late; I fell without injury to bone, but his weight
pinned me to earth by the boot, and when I extricated myself it was
with a wrenched ankle. I managed to get him to his feet, but he had
either dislocated or so severely wrung his near shoulder that he could
scarcely walk a step. It went to my heart to leave him there on the
mountain side, but it had to be done, for possibly the fate of the
garrison at Guarda depended on it.
I left him, therefore, and limped forward along the track until it
took an abrupt turn around a shoulder of the mountain. Immediately
below me, unless I erred in my bearings, a desolate sheep farm stood
but a short distance above the high road. Towards this I descended,
and finding it with no great difficulty, knocked gently at the back
door. To my surprise the shepherd opened it almost at once. He was
fully dressed in spite of the lateness of the hour, and seemed greatly
perturbed; nor, I can promise you, was he reassured when, after giving
him the signal arranged between Trant and the peasantry, I followed
him into his kitchen and his eyes fell on my French uniform.
But it was my turn to be perturbed when, satisfied with my
explanation, he informed me that a body of cavalry had passed along
the road towards Guarda a good twenty minutes before. It was this had
awakened him. "No infantry?" I asked.
He shook his head positively. He had been on the watch ever since. And
this, while it jumped with my own conviction that the infantry was at
least a mile behind me, gave me new hope. I could not understand this
straggling march, but it was at least reasonable to suppose that
Marmont's horse would wait upon his foot before attempting such a
position as Guarda.
"I must push on," said I, and instructed him where to seek for my
unfortunate charger.
He walked down with me to the road. My ankle pained me cruelly.
"See here," said he, "the señor had best let me go with him. It is but
six miles, and I can recover the horse in the morning."
He was in earnest, and I consented. It was fortunate that I did, or
I might have dropped in the road and been found or trodden on by the
French column behind us.
As it was I broke down after the second mile. The shepherd took me in
his arms like a child and found cover for me below a bank to the left
of the road beside the stream in the valley bottom. I gave him my
instructions and he hurried on.
Lying there in the darkness half an hour later I heard the tramp of
the brigade approaching, and lay and listened while they went by.
I have often, in writing these memoirs, wished I could be inventing
instead of setting down facts. With a little invention only, how I
could have rounded off this adventure! But that is the way with real
events. All my surprising luck ended with the casual stumble of a
horse, and it was not I who saved Guarda, nor even my messenger, but
Marmont's own incredible folly.
When my shepherd reached the foot of the ascent to the fortress he
heard a drum beaten suddenly in the darkness above. This single drum
kept rattling (he told me) for at least a minute before a score of
others took up the alarm. There had been no other warning, not so much
as a single shot fired; and even after the drums began there was no
considerable noise of musketry until the day broke and the shepherd
saw the French cavalry retiring slowly down the hill scarcely 500
yards ahead of the Portuguese militia, now pouring forth from the
gateway. These were at once checked and formed up in front of the
town, the French still retiring slowly, with a few English dragoons
hanging on their heels. A few shots only were exchanged, apparently
without damage. The man assured me that the whole 400 or 500 troopers
passed within a hundred yards of him and so down the slope and out of
his sight.
What had happened was this: Marmont, impatient at the delay of his two
brigades of infantry (which by some bungle in the starting did not
reach the foot of the mountain before daylight), had pushed his
horsemen up the hill and managed to cut off and silence the outposts
without their firing a shot. Encouraged by this he pressed on to the
very gates of the town, and had actually entered the street when the
alarm was sounded--and by whom? By a single drummer whom General
Trant, distrusting the watchfulness of his militia, had posted at his
bedroom door! Trant's servant entering with his coffee at daybreak
brought a report that the French were at the gates; the drummer plied
his sticks like a madman; other drummers all over the town caught up
their sticks and tattooed away without the least notion of what was
happening; the militia ran helter-skelter to their alarm post; and the
French marshal, who might have carried the town at a single rush and
without losing a man, turned tail! Such are the absurdities of war.
But in fancy I sometimes complete the picture and see myself, in
French staff officer's dress, boldly riding up to the head of the
French infantry column and in the name of the, Duke of Ragusa
commanding its general to halt. True, I did not know the
password--which might have been awkward. But a staff officer can
swagger through some small difficulties, as I had already proved twice
that night. But for the stumble of a horse--who knows? The possibility
seems to me scarcely more fantastic than the accident which actually
saved Guarda.