The possession of a whole dollar made the Smiths feel so wealthy that they at once discussed the most enjoyable ways of laying it out. These included such alternative entertainments as tickets for the theatre, or a dinner in the best part of the town; but no thought of replenishing their meagre wardrobes or their bare larder ever entered either of their heads. Juana did indeed, for conscience’s sake, insist on buying a pair of socks for Harry, but the rest of the money was spent in a way which George Simmons, Harry said, would undoubtedly condemn as frivolous.
They visited George’s young brother, Joseph, who was lying in hospital with a bad attack of fever. He was an engaging youth, who had enlisted as a volunteer, and for whom George was busy getting a commission in his own regiment, so that he could keep him under his eye, and attend to his education. ‘Only I don’t know but what I wouldn’t rather be with Maud,” confided the lad, referring to his other brother, a young gentleman of a very different kidney, who graced the 34th Foot, and was at present in Estremadura, under General Hill. ‘Except that I rather badly need some money,’ he added, ‘and one can depend on old George, though he does jaw a fellow so!’
‘We ought to have saved some of our money to give to poor Joe!’ Juana said remorsefully. But they had not saved any, so it was no use worrying about that. Harry said he thanked God he had never set out to be a model elder brother, because if ever he did as much for Tom as George did for Maud and Joe (and for the apparently unending line of younger brothers and sisters at home), ruin would stare him in the face.
They spent fourteen blissfully happy days in Salamanca, and left the city at the end of that time to join the army, which was marching on Madrid. Harry still had his boils, though they were not quite as painful as they had been, but he was not going to miss the army’s entry into Madrid for any consideration whatsoever. Did Juana feel that she could do some hard riding to catch up with the division? Of course she could! She desired above all things to see Madrid: adelante!
So off they went, dogs, horses, pack-mules, and groom, with not a penny to fly with, but in the best of spirits. The sun scorched them; the dust-laden wind rasped their skins and parched their throats; they had to sell Harry’s watch in Valladolid to provide themselves with ready money; but they overtook the division as it was about to cross the Sierra de Guadarrama, and were welcomed with open arms.
‘Harry, you old ruffian!’
‘Juana, my only love!’
‘Oh, how good it is to be back again!’ Juana cried, running from one to the other of her friends, and embracing them all impartially. ‘Johnny! Jack! Dear Charlie Beckwith! Oh, I am so happy to see you all!’
2
The Smiths had rejoined the division in time to share its first sight of the spires of Madrid, which were seen from the top of the Guadarrama Pass, rising out of the heat-haze far below.
There was a good deal of excitement at this first view of what had come to figure in most men’s minds as the Promised City. The soldiers broke from the ranks to run forward when the cry of: ‘Madrid! Madrid!’ was heard; and if there were those who thought that the plain of New Castile, which seemed to be such a long way below them, looked flat and singularly unattractive, there were many more who, though extremely footsore, felt themselves filled with renewed energy at the dim view of the capital’s spires.
The Light division camped that night in the park of the Escurial, and while the more serious-minded persons went off to look at the palace, others engaged in an impromptu boar-hunt. In the end, they had the best of it, for the palace was discovered to be an unbeautiful edifice, wholly stripped of the pictures and statues which had once adorned it. When the weary columns, plodding across the interminable plain, came within five miles of Madrid, they encountered the vanguard of a host of Madrileños, who were streaming out of the city to welcome them. From then onward, the march became a triumphal procession, and the thirst the soldiers were suffering from was quenched with wine, grapes, lemonade, all of which were pressed upon them by an excited populace, who hailed them as deliverers, and even flung down palms on the causeway for them to tread on. The road was choked with civilians, women as well as men, and no one seemed to have come empty-handed. The grinning soldiers had sweetmeats popped into their mouths by pretty girls, or sprigs of laurel stuck in their shakos; and several persons of consequence had actually hired porters to carry wine-jars out for the refreshment of ‘the troops.
‘Oh, by God!’ laughed Harry, catching a rose tossed to him. ‘We shall take the whole division into Madrid as drunk as wheelbarrows!’
‘It’s all very well, you fellows, but it’s very embarrassing, upon my word it is!’ said George Simmons, mopping his heated face. ’Two of those girls pretty nearly pulled me out of the saddle just now!’
“They wanted to kiss you!’ Harry told him.
‘Well, I know that, but it’s not seemly. Besides, one doesn’t want to be kissed by such forward hussies!’
‘Who doesn’t?’ demanded Beckwith. ‘Where are they? Why doesn’t someone pull me out of my saddle?’
‘Charlie, now do be serious! Really, I am astonished! I thought Spanish ladies were so strictly reared, but just look at them! For they are ladies, quite a number of them. You can tell by their mantillas.’
The scene outside the mud walls of the city was as nothing, however, to the welcome which was being prepared for the troops within them. Lord Wellington rode in at the head of the army, and several of the regimental bands, catching the spirit of the populace, struck up See the Conquering Hero Comes. Compared with the wild enthusiasm of the Madrileños, the entry into Salamanca two months before was a colourless affair. Not Talavera, not Bussaco, had been victories in any way approaching the magnitude of Salamanca. Never before had the French had to evacuate the capital, but this time not only had Marmont’s force suffered a crushing defeat, but King Joseph had had to withdraw from Madrid in a belated attempt to bring reinforcements to his lieutenant, leaving only a garrison in the fort of the Retiro. The Madrileños, therefore, greeted Lord Wellington as their liberator, and a very awkward time he had of it, forcing his slow way through the decorated streets to his headquarters. Shawls, veils, and flowers were strewn on the cobbles for his horse to tread on; rose-petals showered down on him from every balcony; women clung to his stirrups, and actually kissed his knees; and on more than one occasion he was nearly unseated. Behind him his devoted troops marched in, dusty, shabby some of them, and all of them footsore, but every one on the broad grin, and a great many of them with laughing beauties already attached to them. ‘As good as ever went endways!’ That was the opinion the British soldiers held of Spanish women.
The army was quartered in and around Madrid, the Light division being placed at Getafe, a small town situated a few miles south of the city, on a rather dreary plateau. The Smiths found a comfortable billet there, but they, like everyone else, spent all their leisure hours in Madrid. Harry had managed to get some of the pay which was owing to him, and nothing would do for him but to deck Juana in the finest raiment his purse could afford. Strolling with her on his arm along the Prado, in the cool of the evening, he declared that not one of the fair Castilians Madrid had to show could compare with his little Estremenha. As for Juana, she was so much enchanted by Madrid that it remained for ever in her mind the touchstone by which she judged all other cities.
It was a strange place, abominably placed in the dullest kind of country, quite bleak and treeless, menaced by the grand chain of the Guadarrama mountains, which in winter rained down storms from their snowy summits, and in summer cut off from the plain the cooling north-west winds. In all Spain, no greater heat was to be found than that shimmering day-long over the capital. A mean little river watered Madrid; mud walls surrounded it, with, beyond them, fields of tilth stretching away in unbroken monotony to the foot of the sierra. Inside the walls, wealth and poverty lived side by side in startling contrast. Nowhere could be found such broad, clean streets of fine houses, but behind them lurked twisted alleys lined with filthy hovels. Beggars were scarcely ever seen, but in the poorer parts of the town people died like flies of starvation, and night after night emaciated corpses were thrown out of the houses, to be collected and carted away in the morning on hand-barrows. It did not take the army long to discover this shocking state of affairs. The 3rd division started soup-kitchens, and the other divisions quickly followed the example. Pay was months in arrear; no new clothing could be got to replace worn, patched uniforms; officers sold their watches, their silver spoons, and sometimes even their horses; the men lived on their rations; but everyone somehow or other managed to contribute towards alleviating the distress of the city.