‘Order the assembly to sound?’ gasped Harry. ‘What, now, sir?’
“That’s what I said, isn’t it? Just heard from Alten. Whole division’s got to countermarch on Alcala.’ He waved a hand in a lordly fashion. ‘Sound the assembly!’ ‘But, good God, sir, we can’t march now The men are all top-heavy!’ expostulated Harry. ‘Drunken sots!’ said Vandeleur, with a magnificent disregard for his own condition. Harry glanced at the ADC, but that gentleman was smiling vacantly at nothing in particular, so that it was plain there was no help to be got from him. Harry turned his attention to Vandeleur again, saying persuasively: ‘Listen, Generaclass="underline" it’s as black as pitch outside, and the brigade’s in no case to march. Wait a few hours, till the men have had a chance to get sober!’
‘Damme, sir, do I command the brigade, or do you?’ demanded Vandeleur, crashing a fist on to the table, and making all the empty bottles jump.
‘You do, more’s the pity!’ retorted Harry, no respecter of persons.
‘I’ll tell you what!’ declared Vandeleur. ‘You’re an impudent young dog, sir! That’s what you are! Good mind to have you broke. Go and order the assembly!’
‘You’ll regret it if I do. Now, sir, only be reasonable! The brigade won’t get back to Alcala any the sooner for reeling off now as drunk as wheelbarrows! Give me till a couple of hours before dawn, and I’ll engage to have ’em all in fit marching-order!’
But the good General had imbibed enough of the wine of Arganda to make him obstinate. He would listen to no argument, so there was nothing for Harry to do but to go off to order the assembly to sound. The trumpets blared through the town, and out of every house men came tumbling, buckling on sword-belts, hooking jackets together, falling down steps, and into gutters, and rollicking up to the alarm posts in varying stages of inebriety. Such a noise of good-humoured riot was never before heard in Arganda; and staid citizens, who had gone to bed hours before, hung out of their windows in their nightcaps to see what was happening; while those officers who were capable of any sustained effort tried to get the division into some sort of soldierly shape.
‘If any one thing is more particularly damned than another, it’s a march of this kind!’ said Kincaid, in a rage. ‘What’s it for? Whose orders?’
‘Comes of having Hill in command. Old Hookey would never have played us such a trick,’ said Eeles. ‘Damn his eyes, I’ve got the worst jag I’ve had in months!’
‘Come on, boys!’ Private Hetherington sang out from the ranks, his shako over one eye. ‘Who’s for going rabbit-hunting with a dead ferret?’
‘Blur-an’-ouns, what did we come ’ere for if we was to turn cat-in-pan before we’ve ’ad time to play off our dust?’
‘Making panadas for the devil, that’s what we’re doing! ’Oo sent us ’ere?’ ‘Sure, an’ who would ut be but Fanner Hill, an’ he as wise as Waltham’s calf that ran nine miles to suck a bull?’
Cursing, stumbling over the cobbles, the division moved off into the darkness. The roads were rough, the way little known, and long before Alcala was reached Vandeleur was repenting of his obstinacy. ‘Where the devil are we?’ he asked testily, when a halt was called to discover which of two roads led to Alcala.
‘Lord, I don’t know, sir!” said Harry cheerfully. ‘Where are those guides of yours?’
‘Plundering the baggage-train for anything I know. Shall I give the order to bivouac, sir?’ ‘Damn it, no, we’ll push on! I wish I hadn’t started this march, but I did, and we’ll finish it. Get on, Harry, get on! Find those fellows of yours, and tell ’em I’ll have the hide off their backs if they don’t discover the right road!’
‘I’ve sent out a scouting-party, sir.’
Vandeleur grunted. ‘Very well. The devil’s in it I was a little bosky tonight. But the trouble with you, Harry, is that you think you command the brigade!’
Harry grinned. ‘I got in the way of it with General Drummond, sir. “Have you any orders for the pickets, sir?” I asked him, the first day I met him. “Pray, Mr Smith, are you my Brigade-Major?” says he. “I believe so sir.”-“Then, let me tell you,” says he, “it’s your duty to post the pickets, and mine to have a damned good dinner for you every day!” so that’s how we went on: he cooked the dinner, and I commanded the brigade.’
5
The leading column of the division reached Alcala at dawn, and the men bivouacked in the streets. An air of unrest brooded over the town; no one at Alton’s headquarters seemed to have any precise information, but the sudden countermarch from Arganda so plainly pointed to a retreat, that Harry, in despair of getting any money from the war-chest, sold the Irish horse which he had bought before Badajos from his General. He got a fine big Andalusian in exchange for Paddy, and three Spanish doubloons as well, which he handed over in triumph to Juana.
The 30th October saw the division bivouacking in a suburb of Madrid, by the Segovia Gate. There was by this time no question of any part of the army’s remaining in the capital. Nothing was talked of but a long retreat to the frontier. Wellington had failed in four costly attempts on Burgos, and Staff-officers from his headquarters reported that there was a great deal of sickness amongst his men. He was withdrawing across the Douro, and had sent orders to Hill to evacuate Madrid, and to retreat, not by way of the valley of the Tagus, but across the Guadarrama Pass to Areveto.
No sooner had the news of the impending retreat broken upon the unfortunate Madrileños than scenes of the most painful distress harrowed the feelings of men already bitterly disappointed at this end of their brilliant campaign. A moan of despair went up from the town; the soldiers were implored not to leave Madrid to the mercy of the French; weeping women clung round the knees of embarrassed officers; and when it was realized that no entreaties could avail against the positive orders of the Commander-in-chief, the feelings of the mob veered suddenly, and the British became, overnight, objects of Spanish hatred. There were one or two ugly incidents, and some rioting; and the baggage-train of the army was swollen with refugees who preferred to undertake the ardours of marching with the army than to remain in Madrid to be punished by the French for the welcome they had extended to Lord Wellington.
The division remained outside Madrid for a few hours only, but. for long enough to allow Juana to discover an irreparable loss. She had lost the three Spanish doubloons. Such a scene as Harry entered upon when he had joined Juana at the bivouac! His wife was in tears, Jenny Bates was storming at Joe Kitchen, and Joe was stubbornly defending himself against a charge of gross carelessness.
‘Jupiter! What’s all this?’ Harry had demanded.
Three people had told him, but he only attended to one of them. ‘Oh, mi Enrique, our money has gone!’
‘Good God, is that all?’ said Harry. ‘I thought you had broken your leg at least!’ He drove Jenny and Joe Kitchen away, but he could not console his vivacious wife, who, from having been in the gayest spirits, was plunged in the deepest misery. ‘I put them in your portmanteau, between your shirts! Oh, what a fool I was! I thought they would be so safe! Oh, do not speak to me! I am so ashamed!’