The adjutant general returned in two or three minutes.
"Will you please come this way, Colonel O'Connor," he said, as he
re-entered the room; "the commander-in-chief wishes to speak to
you."
"I am glad to see you back, Colonel O'Connor," Lord Wellington said
cordially, but in his usual quick, short manner; "the last time I
saw you was at Salamende. You did well at Talavera; and better
still afterwards, when the information I received from you was the
only trustworthy news obtained during the campaign, and was simply
invaluable. Sir John Craddock did me no better service than by
recognizing your merits, and speaking so strongly to me in your
favour that I retained you in command of the corps that you had
raised. I shall be glad to know that you are again at their head,
when the campaign reopens; for I know that I can rely implicitly
upon you for information. Of course, your name has been removed
from the list of my staff, since you were taken prisoner; but it
shall appear in orders tomorrow again. I shall be glad if you will
dine with me, this evening."
"I wish I had a few more young officers like that," he said to the
adjutant general, when Terence had bowed and retired. "He is full
of energy, and ready to undertake any wild adventure, and yet he is
as prudent and thoughtful as most men double his age. I like his
face. He has a right to be proud of the position he has won, but
there is not the least nonsense about him, and he evidently has no
idea that he has done anything out of the ordinary course. At first
sight he looks a mere good-tempered lad, but the lower part of his
face is marked by such resolution and firmness that it goes far to
explain why he has succeeded."
There were but four other officers dining with the
commander-in-chief that evening. Lord Wellington asked Terence
several questions as to the route the convoy of prisoners had
followed, the treatment they had received, and the nature of the
roads, and whether the Spanish guerillas were in force. Terence
gave a brief account of the attack that had been made on the French
convoy, and the share that he and his fellow prisoners had taken in
the affair; at which Lord Wellington's usually impassive face
lighted up with a smile.
"That was a somewhat irregular proceeding, Colonel O'Connor."
"I am afraid so, sir; but after their treatment by the Spaniards
when in the hospital at Talavera, our men were so furious against
them that I believe they would have fought them, even had I
endeavoured to hold them back; which, indeed, being a prisoner, I
do not know that I should have had any authority to do."
"And how did you escape from Bayonne?" the general asked.
"Through the good offices of some of the soldiers who had been our
escort, sir. They were on duty as a prison guard and, being
grateful for the help that we had given them in the affair with the
guerillas, they aided me to escape."
"And how did you manage afterwards?"
Terence related very briefly the adventures that he and his
companion had had, before at last reaching Jersey.
On leaving, the adjutant general requested him to call in the
morning before starting to rejoin his regiment, as he expressed his
intention of doing. The talk was a long and friendly one, the
adjutant general asking many questions as to the constitution of
his corps.
"There is one thing I should like very much, sir," Terence said,
after he had finished, "it would be a great assistance to me if I
had an English officer, as adjutant."
"Do you mean one for each battalion, or one for the two?"
"I think that one for both battalions would answer the purpose,
sir. It would certainly be of great assistance to me, and take a
great many details off my hands."
"I certainly think that you do need assistance. Is there any one
you would specially wish to be appointed?"
"I should be very glad to have Lieutenant Ryan, who has been with
me on my late journey. We are old friends, as I was in the Mayo
regiment with him. He speaks Portuguese very fairly. Of course, it
would be useless for me to have an officer who did not do so. I
should certainly prefer him to anyone else."
"That is easily managed," the officer replied. "I will put him in
orders, today, as appointed adjutant to the Minho Portuguese
regiment, with the acting rank of captain. I will send a note to
Lord Beresford, stating the reason for the appointment for, as you
and your officers owe your local rank to him, he may feel that he
ought to have been specially informed of Ryan's appointment;
although your corps is in no way under his orders, but acting with
the British army."
"I am very much obliged to you, indeed, sir. It will be a great
comfort to me to have an adjutant, and it will naturally be much
more pleasant to have one upon whom I know I can depend absolutely.
Indeed, I have been rather in an isolated position, so far. The
majors of the two battalions naturally associate with their own
officers, consequently Colonel Herrara has been my only intimate
friend and, although he is a very good fellow, one longs sometimes
for the companionship of a brother Englishman."
Terence had not told Dick Ryan of his intention to ask for him as
his adjutant. When he joined him at the hotel, he saluted him with:
"Well, Captain Ryan, have you everything ready for the start?"
"I have, General," Dick replied with a grin, "or perhaps I ought to
say Field Marshal."
"Not yet, Dicky, not yet; and indeed, possibly I am premature
myself, in addressing you as Captain."
"Rather; I should say I have a good many steps to make, before I
get my company."
"Well, Dick, I can tell you that, when the orders come out today,
you will see your name among them as appointed adjutant to the
Minho Portuguese regiment, with acting rank as captain."
"Hurrah!" Ryan shouted. "You don't say that you have managed it,
old fellow? I am delighted. This is glorious. I am awfully obliged
to you."
"I think, Dick, we will make up our minds not to start until this
evening. You know we had arranged to hire a vehicle, and that I
should get a horse when I joined; but I think now we may as well
buy the horses at once, for of course you will be mounted, too. We
might pay a little more for them, but we should save the expense of
the carriage."
"That would be much better," Dick said. "Let us go and get them, at
once. There must be plenty of horses for sale in a place like this
and, as we are both flush of money, I should think that a couple of
hours would do it."
"I hope it will. As I told them at headquarters that I was going to
start today, I should not like any of them to run across me here
this evening. No doubt the landlord of the hotel can tell us of
some man who keeps the sort of animals we want. The saddlery we
shall have no difficulty about."
Two hours later a couple of serviceable horses had been bought;
with saddles, bridles, holsters, and valises. In the last named
were packed necessaries for the journey, and each provided himself
with a brace of double-barrelled pistols. The rest of their effects
were packed in the trunks they had bought at Jersey, and were
handed over to a Portuguese firm of carriers, to be sent up to the
regiment.
At two o'clock they mounted and rode to Sobral. The next day they
rode to Santarem, and on the following evening to Abrantes. They
here learned that their corps was in camp, with two other
Portuguese regiments, four miles higher up the river. As it was
dark when they arrived at Abrantes, they agreed to sleep there and
go on the next morning; as Terence wished to report himself to
General Hill, to whose division the regiment was attached, until
operations should commence in the spring.
They put up at an inn and, having eaten a meal, walked out into the
town, which was full of British soldiers. They were not long before
they found the cafe that was set apart for the use of officers and,
on entering, Terence at once joined a party of three, belonging to
a regiment with all of whose officers he was acquainted, as they
had been encamped next to the Mayo Fusiliers during the long months
preceding the advance up the valley of the Tagus. Ryan was, of
course, equally known to them; and the three officers rose, with an
exclamation of surprise, as the newcomers walked up to the table.
"Why, O'Connor! How in the world did you get here? How are you,
Ryan? I thought that you were both prisoners."
"So we were," Terence said, "but as you see, we gave them the slip,
and here we are."
They drew up chairs to the little table.
"You may consider yourself lucky in your regiment being on the
river, O'Connor. You will be much better off than Ryan will be, at
Portalegre."
"I am seconded," Ryan said, "and have been appointed O'Connor's
adjutant, with the temporary rank of captain."
"I congratulate you. The chances are you will have a much better
time of it than if you were with your own regiment. I don't mean
now, but when the campaign begins in the spring. O'Connor always
seems to be in the thick of it, while our division may remain here,
while the fighting is going on somewhere else. Besides, he always
manages to dine a good deal better than we do. His fellows, being
Portuguese, are able to get supplies, when the peasants are all
ready to take their oath that they have not so much as a loaf of
bread or a fowl in their village.
"How will you manage to get on with them, Ryan, without speaking
their language? Oh! I remember, you were grinding up Portuguese all
the spring, so I suppose you can get on pretty well, now."
"Yes; O'Connor promised that he would ask for me, as soon as I
could speak the language, so I stuck at it hard; and now, you see,
I have got my reward."
"I can tell you that the troops, here, are a good deal better off
than they are elsewhere. There is a fearful want of land carriage,
but we get our supplies up by boats. That is why the Portuguese
regiments are encamped on the river.
"Well, how did you get away from the French? It is curious that
when I saw O'Grady last--which was a fortnight ago, when he came in
to get a conveyance to take over sundry cases of whisky that had
come up the river, for the use of his mess--he said:
"'I expect that O'Connor and Dick Ryan will turn up here, before
the spring. I am sure they will, if they have got together.'"
"It is too long a story to tell, here," Ryan said. "It is full of
hairbreadth escapes, dangers by sea and land, and ends up with a
naval battle."
The officers laughed.
"Well, will you come to our quarters?" one of them said. "We have
got some decent wine, and some really good cigars which came up
from Lisbon last week, and there are lots of our fellows who will
be glad to see you."
They accordingly adjourned to a large building where the officers
of the regiment were quartered and, in the apartment that had been
turned into a mess room, they found a dozen officers, all of whom
were known both to Terence and Ryan. After many questions were
asked and answered on both sides, Ryan was requested to tell the
story of their adventures after being taken prisoners. He told it
in an exaggerated style that elicited roars of laughter, making the
most of what he called The Battle of the Shirt Sleeves with the
guerillas; exaggerating the dangers of his escape, and the horrors
of their imprisonment, for a week, among the sails and nets.
"O'Connor," he said, "has hardly got back his sense of smell yet.
The stink of tar, mixed with fishy odours, will be vivid in my
remembrance for the rest of my life."
When he had at last finished, one of them said:
"And now, how much of all this is true, Ryan?"
"Every fact is just as I have told it," he replied gravely. "You
may think that I have exaggerated, for did an Irishman ever tell a
story, without exaggeration? But I give you my honour that never
did one keep nearer to the truth than I have done. I don't say that
the fisherman's wife took quite such a strong fancy to me as I have
stated, although she can hardly have been insensible to my personal
advantages; but really, otherwise, I don't know that I have
diverged far from the narrow path of truth. I tell you, those two
days that we were running before that gale was a thing I never wish
to go through again."
"And you really tied up the Maire of Granville, Ryan?"
"We did so," Dicky said, "and a miserable object the poor little
fat man looked, as he sat in his chair trussed up like a fowl."
"And now, about the sea fight, Ryan?"
"Every word was as it happened. O'Connor and I turned gunners, and
very decent shots we made, too; and a proof of it was that, if we
would have taken it, I believe the captain of the schooner would
have given us half the booty found in the lugger's hold; but we
were modest and self denying, and contented ourselves with a third,
each, of the cash found in the captain's cabin; which we could not
have refused if we wanted to, the captain made such a point of it.
It came to nearly three hundred pounds apiece; and mighty useful it
was, for we had, of course, to get new uniforms and rigs out, and
horses and saddlery at Lisbon. I don't know what I should have done
without it, for my family's finances would not have stood my
drawing upon them; and another mortgage would have ruined them,
entirely."
"Well, certainly, that is a substantial proof of the truth of that
incident in your story; but I think that, rather than have passed
forty-eight hours in that storm, I would have stopped at Bayonne
and taken my chance of exchange."
"Then I am afraid, Forester, that you are deficient in martial
ardour," Terence said gravely. "Our desire to be back fighting the
French was so great that no dangers would have appalled us."
There was a general laugh.
"Well, at any rate, you managed uncommonly well, Ryan, whether it
was martial ardour that animated you or not; and O'Grady was not
far wrong when he said that you and O'Connor would creep out
through a mouse's hole, if there was no other way of doing it."
"Now, what has been doing since we have been away?" Terence asked.
"Well, to begin with, all Andalusia has been captured by Soult.
Suchet has occupied Valencia. Lerida was captured by him, after a
scandalously weak resistance; for there were over nine thousand
troops there, and the place surrendered after only 1000 had fallen.
Gerona, on the other hand, was only captured by Augereau after a
resistance as gallant as that of Saragossa.
"That is the extraordinary thing about these Spaniards. Sometimes
they show themselves cowardly beyond expression, at others they
fight like heroes. Just at present, even the Juntas do not pretend
that they have an army capable of driving the French out of the
Pyrenees; which is a comfort, for we shall have to rely upon
ourselves and not be humbugged by the Spaniards, the worthlessness
of whose promises, Lord Wellington has ascertained, by bitter
experience. The Portuguese government is as troublesome and as
truthless as that of Spain, but Wellington is able to hold his own
with them; and there is little doubt that the regular regiments
will fight, and be really of valuable assistance to us; but these
have been raised in spite of the constant opposition of the Junta
at Lisbon.
"There is no doubt that the next campaign will be a hot one for,
now that Spain has been as completely subdued as such vainglorious,
excitable people can be subdued, the French marshals are free to
join against us; and it is hard to see how, with but 30,000 men, we
are going to defend Portugal against ten times that number of
French. Still, I suppose we shall do it, somehow. The French have a
large army on the other side of the Aqueda, and there is no doubt
they will besiege Ciudad Rodrigo, as soon as winter is over. I
doubt whether we shall be strong enough to march to its relief, and
I fancy that in that direction the Coa will be about our limit. At
any rate, it is likely to be a stirring campaign.
"The absurdity of the thing is, that we have an army in Sicily
which might as well be at Jericho, for any use it is. If it joined
us here, it would make all the difference in the world; though
certainly till the campaign opens it would have to be quartered at
Lisbon, for it is as much as the wretched transport can do to feed
us. Now the truth is, Portugal is a miserably poor country at the
best of times, and does not produce enough for the wants of the
people. Of course, it has been terribly impoverished by the war.
The fields in most places have been untilled and, in fact, the
greater portion of the population, as well as our army, has to be
fed from England.
"Altogether, Wellington must have enough worry to drive an ordinary
man out of his mind. I never heard of such difficulties as those he
has to meet. We come to help a people who won't help themselves, to
fight for people who not only won't fight for themselves, but want
to dictate how we shall fight. Instead of being fed by the country,
we have to feed it; and the whole object of the Juntas, both in
Spain and Portugal, seems to be to throw every difficulty in our
way, and to thwart us at every turn. The first step towards success
would be to hang every member, of every Junta, in every place we
occupy."
A general chorus of "Hear, hear!" showed how deeply was the feeling
excited by the conduct of the Portuguese and Spanish authorities.
After chatting until a late hour, Terence and his companion
returned to their inn. The next morning, Terence reported himself
to General Hill.
"I am glad to see you again, Colonel O'Connor," the general said.
"The last time we met was when the surgeons were dressing my
wounds, on the heights near Talavera. That was a hot business, for
a time."
"Yes, sir; and I have to thank you, very much, for the very kind
report you sent in as to the conduct of my regiment."
"They deserved it," the general said. "If they had not come up at
the time they did, we should have had hard work to retake that
hill.
"Your regiment has been behaving very well, since they have been
here. They, like the other Portuguese regiments, have often been on
short rations, and their pay is very much in arrear, but there has
been no grumbling. I know Herrara will be extremely glad to have
you back again in command. He has said as much, several times, when
he has been in here. He is a good man, but not strong enough for
his position; and I can see that he feels that, himself, and is
conscious that he is not equal to the responsibility. I intended to
recommend that a British officer should be placed in command of the
regiment, before the campaign opens in the spring. Your two majors
do their best, but they have scarcely sufficient weight; for their
men know that they were but troopers when the regiment was first
raised."
"I shall be glad to be back again, sir; and I am pleased to say
that I have been given an adjutant--Lieutenant Ryan, of the Mayo
Fusiliers. He has the acting rank of captain. He is an old friend
of mine, and is a good officer. He has just effected an escape from
Bayonne with me."
"Yes, that will be of great assistance to you," the general said.
"With two battalions to command, you must want a right-hand man
very much. I shall be glad if your regiment remains in my division,
when the campaign reopens; but I suppose that, as before, you will
be sent ahead. At present, it is only attached to my command for
convenience of rationing and pay. I have inspected it twice, and it
is by far the finest of the Portuguese regiments here. But I can
see a certain deterioration, and I am sure that they want you back
badly. Still, it is not your loss only that is telling on them. No
soldiers like to go without their pay. Lord Wellington himself is
always kept short of funds. The Portuguese Ministry declare that
they have none. Of course that is all a lie but, true or false, it
is certain that all the Portuguese regiments are greatly in arrears
of pay, ill-provided with clothes, and indeed would be starved,
were it not that they are fed by our commissariat."
After his interview with the general, Terence went back to the inn
and, five minutes later, started with Ryan to join the regiment.
The two battalions were engaged in drill when they rode up, but as
the men recognized Terence there was a sudden movement, then a
tremendous cheer and, breaking their ranks, they ran towards him,
waving their shakos and shouting loudly; while Herrara, Bull, and
Macwitty galloped up to shake him by the hand.
"This is not a very military proceeding," Terence laughed, "but I
cannot help being gratified."
He held up his hands for silence.
"Form the men into a hollow square," he said to the majors.
In a very short time the order was carried out, and then Terence
addressed them.
"My men," he said, "I am deeply gratified by your hearty reception,
and I can assure you that I am quite as glad to be back in the
regiment as the regiment can be to have me with it again. While I
was a prisoner, one of the things that troubled me most was that,
when I returned, I might find that someone else had been appointed
your commander; and I was glad indeed when, upon landing at Lisbon,
I heard that this had not been the case, and that I could resume my
command of a body of men of whom I am proud; and at no time more
proud than when you beat off the attacks of a whole brigade of
French cavalry, and made good your escape to the mountains. I
regret that some of your comrades failed to do this, but the manner
in which they did their duty, and sacrificed themselves to cover
your retreat, was worthy of all praise, and reflects the highest
credit upon the regiment.
"I have been fortunate enough to make my escape from a French
prison, in company with my friend here, Captain Ryan; who has, at
my request, been appointed by the commander-in-chief to be your
adjutant. I am sorry to hear that there have been difficulties in
the way of rations, and that your pay is in arrears. However, I
know well that you are not serving for the sake of pay, but to
defend your country from invasion by the French; and that whether
you get your pay day by day, or receive it in a lump sum later on,
will make no difference to you; and indeed, in some respects, you
will be better off for the delay for, getting it daily, it is spent
as soon as obtained; whereas, if it comes in a lump sum, it will be
useful to you when you return to your homes, after your work is
done. I am confident that, in this regiment at least, which has
borne itself so well from the day that it was raised, there will be
neither grumbling nor discontent; but that you will suffer any
hardship or privation that may come in your way as trifling
incidents in the great work that you have undertaken: to defend, at
the cost of your lives if need be, your country from the invader.
The regiment is dismissed drill for the day."
Loud cheers at once broke from the men and, falling out, they
proceeded to their tents.
"Well, Terence, there is no doubt about the enthusiasm of your
fellows," Ryan remarked. "As you said, it was hardly military, but
it was better. It was real affection, and I am sure the men would
follow you anywhere."
Ryan shook hands with Herrara, Bull, and Macwitty; all of whom he
knew well, from his frequent visits to Terence in the spring.
"I am very glad that you have come to us, Captain Ryan," Bull said.
"A regiment don't seem like a regiment without an adjutant, and it
will take a lot of work off the colonel's hands. I wish there could
have been one for each battalion."
"How has the regiment been going on, Bull?"
"Nothing much to grumble about, sir; but I must say that it has
been more slack than it was. We have all done our best, but we have
missed you terribly; and the men don't seem to take quite as much
pains with their drill as they used to do, when you were in
command. However, that will be all right now that you have come
back again. I have always found that when the battalion was not
working well, the men have pulled themselves together at once when
I said:
"'This won't do, lads. The colonel will be grievously disappointed,
when he comes back again, if he finds that you have lost your
smartness.'
"It was as much as we could do to hold them in hand, when they saw
you surrounded by the French. They would have rushed back again, to
a man, if we would have let them. I own I felt it hard, myself, to
be marching away and leaving you behind."
In a few minutes, a couple of tents were erected by the side of
that of Herrara and, while these were being got ready for
occupation, Terence and Ryan, with the two majors, entered that of
Herrara; and the latter produced two or three bottles of wine from
his private store, and a box of cigars. So for some time they sat
chatting, Terence giving an outline of the events that had happened
since he had been away from the regiment. He and Ryan had ordered
half a dozen small casks of wine, and two cases of whisky, to be
sent up with their trunks by water; and now asked regarding the
rations of the men.
"They get their bread regularly," Herrara said. "They have put up
some large bakeries at Abrantes and, as the flour is brought up in
boats, there is no difficulty that way. They get their meat pretty
regularly, and their wine always. There is no ground of complaint,
whatever, as to rations here; though, from what I hear, it is very
different at the stations where everything has to be taken up by
waggons or mules.
"The difficulty is with the uniforms. Not one has been served out,
and it is really difficult to get the men to look smart, when many
of them are dressed almost in rags. It is still worse in the matter
of boots. A great many of them were badly cut, when we were in the
mountains; and especially in the rough march we had over the hills,
after you left us. The men themselves would greatly prefer sandals
to boots, being more accustomed to them; and could certainly march
farther in them than in stiff English boots. But of course, it
would be of no use sending in any requisition for them."
"I don't see why they should not wear sandals," Terence said; "at
any rate, until there is an issue of boots. I suppose the men can
make them, themselves."
"In most cases, no doubt, they could. At any rate, those who could,
would make them for the others. Of course they will all have to
wear them of one colour; but as most of the cattle are black, there
would be no difficulty about that. I have no doubt that we could
get any number of hides, at a nominal price, from the commissariat.
At any rate, I will see about it. I suppose they are made a good
deal like Indian moccasins. I noticed that many of the Spanish
troops wore them, but I did not examine them particularly."
"They are very easily made," Herrara said. "You put your foot on a
piece of hide of the right size. It is drawn right up over the
foot, and laced. Another thickness of hide is sewn at the bottom,
to form the sole, and there it is. Of course, for work in the hills
it might be well to use a double thickness of hide for the sole.
The upper part is made of the thinnest portion of the hide and, if
grease is rubbed well inside, so as to soften the leather as much
as possible, it makes the most comfortable footgear possible."
"Well, we will try it, anyhow," Terence said. "It mayn't look so
soldierly but, at any rate, it would look as well as boots with the
toes out; and if any general inspects us, and objects to them, we
can say that we shall be perfectly ready to give them up, as soon
as boots are issued to us. But by using all black hides, I really
do not think that it will look bad; and there would certainly be
the advantage that, for a night attack, the tread would be much
more noiseless than that of a heavy boot.
"I really like the idea, very much. The best plan will be to pick
out two or three score of men who are shoemakers by trade, and pay
them a trifle for the making of each pair. In that way we could get
much greater uniformity than were each man to make his own.
"As to the clothes, I don't see that anything can be done about it,
beyond getting a supply of needles and thread, and seeing that
every hole is mended as well as possible. I daresay new uniforms
will be served out, before the spring. It does not matter much in
camp, and I suppose we are no worse than the other Portuguese
regiments."
The next week was spent in steady drill and, by the end of that
time, the exercises were all done as smartly as before. Terence had
already tried the experiment of sandals. The commissariat at
Abrantes were glad enough to supply hides, at a nominal price. He
began by taking a dozen. These were first handed to a number of men
relieved from other duties who, after scraping the under side,
rubbed them with fat, and kneaded them until they were perfectly
soft and pliable. The shoemakers then took them in hand and, after
a few samples of various shapes were tried, one was fixed upon, in
which the sandal was bound to the foot by straps of the same
material, with a double thickness of sole. Terence tried these
himself, and found them extremely comfortable for walking; and gave
orders that one company should be entirely provided with them. As
to appearance, they were vastly superior to the cracked and bulged
boots the men were wearing.
After a week of sharp drill Terence was satisfied, and proposed to
Ryan that they should now ride over to Portalegre, and pay a visit
to their friends of the Fusiliers and, accordingly, the next day
they went over. They were most heartily received.
"Sure, Terence, I knew well enough that you and Dicky Ryan would be
back here, before long. And so you have taken him from us! Well, it
is a relief to the regiment; and I only hope that now he is an
adjutant he will learn manners, and behave with a little more
discretion than he has ever shown before. How you could have
saddled yourself with such a hare-brained lad is more than I can
imagine."
"That is all very well, O'Grady," Ryan laughed, "but it is a
question of the pot calling the kettle black; only in this case the
pot is a good deal blacker than the kettle. There may be some
excuse for a subaltern like me, but none for a war-scarred veteran
like yourself."
"Dick will do very well, O'Grady," Terence said. "I can tell you he
sits in his tent, and does his office work, as steadily as if he
had been at it all his life; and if you had seen him drilling a
battalion, you would be delighted. It is just jealousy that makes
you run him down, O'Grady--you were too lazy to learn Portuguese,
yourself."
"Is it lazy you say that I am, Terence? There is no more active
officer in the regiment, and you know it. As for the heathen
language, it is not fit for an honest tongue. They ought to have
sent over a supply of grammars and dictionaries, and taught the
whole nation to speak English.
"When did you get back?"
"A week ago; but we have been too busy drilling the regiment to
come over, before.
"How are you getting on here, Colonel?"
"We are not getting on at all, O'Connor. It is worse than
stationary we are. They ought to put on double the number of carts
they allow us. Half the time we are on short rations; except wine
which, thank Heaven, the commissariat can buy in the country. It is
evil times that we have fallen upon, and how we shall do, when the
snow begins to fall heavily, is more than I can tell you."
"At any rate, Colonel, from what I hear you are a good deal better
off than the division at Guarda, for you are but a day's march from
the river."
"The carts take two days over it," the colonel said, "and then
bring next to nothing; for the poor bastes that draw them are half
starved, and it is as much as they can do to crawl along. They
might just as well keep the whole division at Abrantes, instead of
sticking half of them out here, just as if the French were going to
attack us now.
"There is the luncheon bugle. After we have done, you may tell us
how you and Ryan got out of the hands of the French, for I suppose
you were not exchanged."