"I'M A SOLDIER'S WIFE, I'LL SHARE A SOLDIER'S TOILS"--GIRL
HEROINES--STORMING OF BERGEN-OP-ZOOM--STRANGE
ADVENTURES--BORN ON A BATTLE-FIELD.
I need scarcely tell you that, as soon as he could get a furlough,
nay grandfather hurried off to Dublin.
What a pleasure, and what a change from the terrible toils of battle
and retreat, was the seat by the fireside of Mrs. Stapleton's cottage!
"Ellen," my grandfather said, "looked prettier than ever." Had his
name been William instead of Ian or John, I dare say the following
lines would have been appropriate to their meeting:
"She gazed, she reddened like a rose,
Then pale as any lily;
Then sank into his arms and cried,
'Are ye my ain dear Willie?'"
"O John, John," she told him when they were alone that first evening,
"what a sad and weary time it has been to me, and never, never, did I
expect to see you more! But, John----"
"Yes, dear."
"You shall not leave me again. I shall go with you."
"Child, child, you little know what a terrible thing war is. O, had
you but seen how some of those poor women, the soldiers' wives,
suffered in that awful retreat, dragging on, on, on, day after day,
through slush and mud, in rain and cold, and sleeping by the
camp-fires at night, with scarce even a plaid to cover them, and
never knowing the moment the enemy would attack! Then the weariness,
the cold, the hunger. O, don't think of it, Ellen, agra'."
"But, John, your Ellen has already thought about it."
She stood up as she spoke, and with one loving hand upon his shoulder
and her eyes looking straight into his:
"John, listen to me. English women and Scottish followed their
husbands through all the horrors, and toils, and terrors of that sad
retreat. What a Scotch or English lass can do an Irish lass can do
as well! Besides," she added, with a smile, "the motto of the
British army is 'Advance!' and not 'Retreat!'"
Then, more seriously, but with pretty determination:
"John, mavourneen, I'm a soldier's wife. I'll share a soldier's
toils."
What could grand-dad say or do?
Ellen had her own way, and all was arranged.
* * * * *
I dare say my girl readers will think that last line of asterisks
represents kisses. They may if they choose. But it really is only
my way of dividing periods and paragraphs.
Never, then, during the next six years, in which she followed his
fortunes, did my grandfather repent having taken his wife with him.
But those were indeed stirring days!
Stirring days for Europe, stirring days for Britain from Land's End
to John O' Groats. For our country was being drained of its best and
bravest men to fight the French in far-off foreign lands, or upon the
ocean itself.
Some women are cut out for soldiers' wives, and are heroines noble,
faithful, and true. The times in which they live and the scenes they
see around them in war times make heroines of even girls, or, let us
say, bring to the fore all of the heroic that had hitherto lain
latent in their natures.
Remember, for instance, the story of Joan of Arc, and that of the
Maid of Saragossa. Was she a beautiful lunatic? Some have dared to
say so, just as those who are "stirks" and asses themselves tell you
that genius is akin to madness.
Ah! we need the example of such lunatics, even in Britain, to stir
our blood and clear it. But when the French, under Napoleon himself,
were besieging Saragossa--when, at a certain place, the fire of
mortars, howitzers, and cannon was so terrible that nothing could
stand before it; when, as fast as the sand-bag batteries could be
built, they were scattered to the winds, and the soldiers torn in
pieces; when the citizens at last refused to re-man the guns--this
girl seized a match from a dead artilleryman, sprang over the bodies
of the slain who lay in heaps, and fired a cannon at the foe. She
then leapt upon the gun-carriage and, waving her arms aloft, vowed
she would never leave it till the men resumed their duties. Her
courage fired the soldiers; they answered her with a cheer, and never
were more noble deeds done than those at this terrible siege.
So numerous were my grand-dad's adventures during the Napoleonic wars
that I cannot relate a tithe of them.
Not in all his marches did my grandmother accompany him. But she was
never far away. She was not far off when her gallant husband took
part in that wonderful fight, the storming of Bergen-op-Zoom.
While in a town once by herself, and living not far from the harbour,
when a powder-ship blew up that seemed to shake the city to its very
foundations, the windows in the rooms where she then was were
shattered almost into dust.
Strange to say, a cat belonging to this ship had that very morning
run aloft and found its way to the main truck--that is the highest
point, as a landsman would call it, or tip of the main-topgallant
mast. There this prescient pussy sat, to the astonishment of all,
till, with the ship and all on board, she was blown to pieces.
But about Bergen-op-Zoom. At the time of our extraordinary action
there the whole of Austrian Flanders, except this stronghold, with
Antwerp and three other places, was in the hands of the British and
their allies.
"Bergen-op-Zoom," Alison tells us, "was in every respect the worthy
antagonist of Antwerp, to which it was directly opposite at a
distance of only fifteen miles. On its works the celebrated Cohern
had exhausted all the resources of his art.... And the works were so
extensive that they could only be adequately manned by twelve
thousand men. In addition to this, an immense system of mines and
subterranean works rendered all approach by an enemy hazardous in the
extreme."
There are three gates to the place. The garrison was about five
thousand strong.
It was in the winter of 1814 that, some of the ditches being frozen
over and some of the scarps out of repair, General Lord Proby
determined to take the place by assault, with a little over three
thousand troops that he divided into four columns.
It was a most daring undertaking; and I mention it only to show the
intrepidity and valour of our soldiers of the days of yore.
Bergen-op-Zoom was stormed at every gate, though at one the attack
was a mere feint.
The place was considered impregnable, and, had the guard shown as
much tact as daring courage, the end might have been far different.
The place, wonderful to say, was carried by escalade, or considered
to be carried.
Even the force that had made the false attack retired to their
cantonments, and a brigade of Germans, that had advanced on hearing
the firing, returned.
The French troops retired to the centre of the town, making sure that
they would be made prisoners at break of day.
But, before then, the British soldiers, considering themselves
victorious, broke into the gin-shops and drank to excess. There was
even a ball got up among the sergeants, and they were still dancing
when, at break of day, they were called to arms.
Then the fight was, indeed, a furious one. Our forces were divided,
and one portion was all but annihilated. My grandfather fought on
the summit of the Antwerp bastions, and long and bloody was the
contest, as may be understood from the fact that we lost in killed
and wounded nearly one thousand men.
[Illustration: The contest on the summit of the Antwerp bastions was
long and bloody.]
The rest of our troops were taken prisoners.
My grand-dad, with several hundred men, were marched into a church,
and there confined for, I believe, over four-and-twenty hours without
food or water.
Then, it is said by historians, they were exchanged. But the
soldiers themselves believed that no exchange would have been made
had the French been able to feed their prisoners.
My grand-dad's uniform was so soiled with blood and mud, that on
being freed he stripped off his outer garments and washed them at a
pump.
As his name was entered on the list of the dead, my grandmother's
grief may be better imagined than described. Major Drake himself
came to break the news to her.
She seemed to know by his face what he had come for.
"O, John, John!" she cried, in an agony of grief. "He is dead! He
is dead!"
Major Drake could only shake his head in sad confirmation.
But that evening John himself turned up, and her grief was changed to
joy.
This puts one in mind of the lines in the old stage doggerel song,
"Jack Robertson ":
"O, someone to me said,
In a paper he had read,
That Jack Robertson was dead.
'I was never dead at all,'
Cried Jack Robertson!"
* * * * * *
My grand-dad fought side by side with the Russians against the
French. And with the Austrians, too.
Once, when crossing the ice on the Danube, the ice gave way, and many
women and children were drowned before their husbands' eyes. This
waggon was supposed to have on board not only my grandmother, but her
child Robert. It was her turn to be reported dead. Luckily,
however, she had been changed into another conveyance that got safely
over.
This Robert Robertson was, of course, my baby uncle. If ever anyone
was a soldier born, it was he. For, after an engagement that our
fellows had gallantly won, they encamped on the very ground on which
they fought. That night he made his first appearance on the stage of
life.
Born on a battle-field, he died on a battle-field--died, sword in
hand, fighting by a gun in India.
Strange indeed were the adventures of the wives who elected to follow
their husbands to the seat of war in those days.
I have one more to tell of my grandmother, who was undoubtedly one of
the most courageous girls that ever went upon the war-path.
It was after an action--a skirmish my bold grand-dad called it--with
the French, which had been fought on a braeside sparsely covered with
bush. If skirmish it was, it was a long and bloody one, but we had
succeeded in beating the foe from the field, and retired some
distance to bivouac for the night.
Grand-dad did not return with his company. The wounded were brought
in, the dead left on the brae to be buried next morning, in which sad
ceremony the French, under flag of truce, would also take part.
The Irish are, or were in those days, somewhat superstitious, and
dreamers of dreams.
Anyhow, my dear, brave young granny had cried herself to sleep by the
camp-fire. It was about midnight when, she assured me herself, she
heard her name called distinctly enough three times.
"Ellen, mavourneen! Ellen! Ellen!"
The voice was that of her husband.
It was but a dream, perhaps, but she sprang from her pallet, and
passing the sentries, who tried to dissuade her, went straight to the
battle-field to look for her husband.
"Take this with you, anyhow," said one young sentry, handing her a
pistol.
This she placed in the belt she wore, and, muffling her head and
shoulders in a little Highland plaid, set out upon her ghastly
mission.
Dead, dead, all seemed dead here under the moonlight, which made
their faces uncanny to look at.
"O," she said to herself, "if I can but find him, I'll lie down and
die by his side."
Dead? Yes, but not all, for yonder from behind a bush appears the
figure of a woman.
Some poor creature, perhaps, come like herself--to search for a
husband among the slain.
But O, horror! she sees this fiend in woman's shape swirl something
quickly round her head, and then she hears a groan, as the harpy
bends down to rifle the pockets of a man she has murdered.
The sight makes my grandmother almost sick, and a terrible fear gets
hold of her heart, and for a moment she feels ready to faint.
She quickly hides behind a bush.
She sees the harpy finish off another poor fellow in whom some spark
of life remained.
"Ellen! Ellen!"
It is--it is her husband's voice, coming from near the bush behind
which she hides.
But the harpy has heard it too.
"Coming, John! coming, mavourneen!"
She rushes out now from the place of concealment, just as the
she-fiend approaches from the other side, and both meet almost at the
spot where my grandfather lies, so terribly wounded that he had been
left for dead.
There is no more fear in the heart of that soldier's wife now. She
stands face to face with the murderess--a peasant woman belonging to
the district.
"You would kill my husband as you killed the others?"
The pistol rings out clearly on the still air. They hear it even in
camp, and soldiers are despatched to the battle-field to find out the
cause.
They find my grandmother kneeling by the side of her husband.
And just a little way off lies the murderess--dead.
In her pocket were found both silver and gold, and many watches and
rings.
The weapon she had been using to complete her awful work was a
strange one--a cannon-ball in a stocking.
My grandfather's wound was not so dangerous as first anticipated,
and, with careful nursing, and the kind attention of stalwart Dr.
McLeod, in a month's time he was able once more to take the field.
The dream my grandmother dreamt is the strangest part of this story;
but is it not true that
"There are more things in heaven and earth
Than we dream of in our philosophy"?