The Adventures of Harry Revel

by Arthur Quiller-Couch

  CHAPTER XXIII.

  IN CIUDAD RODRIGO.

  Two days later our breaching batteries opened on the town.

  It is not for me to describe this wonderful siege, the operations ofwhich, though witnessing them in part, I did not understand in theleast. I have read more than one book about it since, and could drawyou a map blindfold and tell you where the counter-batteries stood,and where the lunette which Colborne carried, and how far behind itlay the Convent of San Francisco; where the parallels ran, where theFrench brought down a howitzer, and where by a sortie they came nearto cutting up a division. I could trace you the _fausse braye_ andthe main walls, and put my finger on the angle where our guns piercedthe greater breach, and carry it across to the tower where, by thelesser breach, our own storming-party of the Light Division climbedinto the town. During the next five days I saw a many thingsshattered to lay the foundations of a fame which still is proved thesounder the closer men examine it--I mean Lord Wellington's: and inthe end I, Harry Revel, contributed my mite to it in a splinteredankle. I understand now many things which were then a mere confusedhurly-burly: and even now--having arrived at an age when men takestock of themselves and, casting up their accounts with life, crossout their vanities--I am proud to remember that along with the greatCraufurd, Mackinnon, Vandeleur, Colborne our Colonel, and Napier, Itook my unconsidered hurt. To this day you cannot speak the name ofCiudad Rodrigo to me but I hear my own bugle chiming with the restbelow the breaches and swelling the notes of the advance, and myheart swells with it. But I tell you strictly what I saw, and I tellit for this reason only--that the story to which you have beenlistening points through those breaches, and within them has its end.

  To me, watching them day by day from the hillside, they appeared buttrifling gaps in the fortifications. On the 19th I never dreamedthat they were capable of assault; indeed, in the lesser breach tothe left my inexpert eyes could detect no gap at all. What chieflyimpressed me at this time was our enemy's superiority in ammunition.Their guns fired at least thrice to our once.

  Still holding myself strictly to what I saw, I can tell you even lessof the assault itself. I can tell, indeed, how, on the evening ofthe 19th, when we were looking forward to another turn at thetrenches with the Third Division, General Craufurd unexpectedlyparaded us; and how, at a nod from him, Major Napier addressed us."Men of the Light Division," he said, "we assault to-night. I havethe honour to lead the storming party, and I want a hundredvolunteers from each regiment. Those who will go with me, stepforward."

  Instantly the battalions surged forward--the press of the volunteerscarrying us with them as if we would have marched on Ciudad Rodrigowith one united front.

  The Major flung up a hand and turned to General Craufurd. Their eyesmet, and they both broke out laughing.

  This much I saw and heard. And when, at six o'clock, they marched usdown under the lee of San Francisco, I saw Lord Wellington ride up,dismount, give over his horse to an orderly and walk past our columninto the darkness. He was going to give the last directions to MajorNapier and the storming party: but they were drawn up behind an angleof the convent wall; and we, the supporting columns, massed in thedarkness two hundred yards in the rear, neither saw the conferencenor caught more than the high clear tones of Craufurd addressing hismen for the last time.

  Then, after many minutes of silence, suddenly the sky over theconvent wall opened with a glare and shut again, and we heard theFrench guns tearing the night. The attack of the Third Division onour right had begun, and the noise of it was taken up by the 95thriflemen, spread wide in three companies to scour the _fausse braye_between the two breaches, and keep the defenders busy along it.As the sound of the assault spread down to us, interrupted again andagain by the explosion of shells, we were marched forward for two orthree hundred yards and halted, put into motion and halted again.We could see the city now, opening and shutting upon us in fieryflashes; and, in the intervals, jet after jet of fire streamed fromthe rifles on our right.

  Then someone shouted to us to advance at the double, and I ranblowing upon my bugle, for now the calls were sounding all about me.I had no thought of death in all this roar--the crowd seemed to closearound and shut that out--until we came to the edge of thecounterscarp facing the _fausse braye_: and by that time the worst ofthe danger had passed. The _fausse braye_ itself was dark, and thedarker for a blaze of light behind it. Our stormers had carried itand swept the defenders back into the true breach beside the tower.Some stray bullets splashed among us as we toppled down the ditch andmounted the scarp--shots fired from Heaven knows where, but probablyfrom some French retreating along the top of the _fausse braye_.

  While we were mounting the scarp Napier and his men must have carriedthe inner breach. At the top we thronged to squeeze through thenarrow entrance, for all the world like a crowd elbowing its way intoa theatre: and as I pressed into the skirts of the throng it seemedto suck me in and choke me. My small ribs caved inwards as we weredriven through by the weight of men behind. The pressure eased, andan explosion threw a dozen of us to earth between the _fausse braye_and the slope of rubble by which the stormers had climbed.

  I picked myself up--gripped my bugle--and ran for the slope, stillblowing. A man of the 43rd gave me a hand and helped me up, for nowwe were stumbling among corpses. What had become of the stormers?Some we were trampling under foot: the rest had swept on and into thetown.

  "Fifty-second to the left," said my friend as we gained the top ofthe rampart, catching up a cry which now sounded everywhere in thedarkness. "Forty-third to the right--fifty-second to the left!"I turned sharply to the left and ran from him.

  A rush of men overtook me. "This way!" they shouted, swerving asidefrom the line of the ramparts and sliding down the steep inner slopetowards the town. They were mad for loot, but in my ignorance Isupposed them to be obeying orders, and I turned aside and clambereddown after them.

  We crossed a roadway and plunged into a dark and deserted street atthe foot of which shone a solitary lamp. Then I learned what mycomrades were after. The first door they came to they broke downwith their musket-butts. An old man was crouching behind it; and,dragging him out, they tossed him from one to another, jabbing at himwith their bayonets. I ran on, shutting my ears to his screams.

  I was alone now; and, as it seemed, in a forsaken town. Here andthere a light shone beneath a house-door or through the chinks of ashutter. I _felt_ that behind the windows I passed Ciudad Rodrigowas awake and waiting for its punishment. Behind me, along theramparts, the uproar still continued. But the town, here and for themoment, I had to myself: and it was waiting, trembling to know whatmy revenge would be.

  I came next to a small open square; and was crossing it, when in thecorner on my right a door opened softly, showing a lit passagewithin, and a moment later was as softly shut. Scarcely heeding, Iran on; my feet sounding sharply on the frozen cobbles. And withthat a jet of light leapt from under the door-sill across the narrowpavement, almost between my legs: and I pitched headlong, with ashattered foot.

  Doubtless I fainted with the pain: for it could not have been--as itseemed--only a minute later that I opened my eyes to find the squarecrowded and bright with the glare of two burning houses. A herd ofbellowing oxen came charging past the gutter where I lay, pricked onby a score of redcoats yelling in sheer drunkenness as theyflourished their bayonets. Two or three of them wore monks' robesflung over their uniforms, and danced idiotically, holding theirskirts wide. I supposed it had been raining, for a flood ran throughthe gutter and over my broken ankle. In the light of theconflagration it showed pitch black, and by and by I knew it for wineflowing down from a whole cellarful of casks which a score of madmenwere broaching as they dragged them forth from a house on the upperside of the square. A child--he could not have been more than fouryears old--ran screaming by me. From a balcony right overhead asoldier shot at him, missed, and laughed uproariously. Then hereloaded and began firing among the bullocks, now jamme
d and goringone another at the entrance of a narrow alley. And his shots seemedto be a signal for a general salvo of random musketry. I saw a womancross the roadway with a rifleman close behind her; he swung uphis rifle, holding it by the muzzle, and clubbed her between theshoulders with the butt.

  All night these scenes went by me--these and scenes of which I cannotwrite; unrolled in the blaze of the houses which burnt on, as littleregarded as I who lay in my gutter and watched them to the savageunending music of yells, musketry, and the roar of flames.

  In the height of it my ear caught the regular footfall of troops, anda squad of infantry came swinging round the corner. I supposed it tobe a patrol sent to clear the streets and restore order. A small manin civilian dress--a Portuguese, by his look--walked gingerly besidethe sergeant in charge, chatting and gesticulating. And, almost inthe same instant, I perceived that the men wore the uniform of theNorth Wilts and that the sergeant he held in converse was GeorgeLeicester.

  By the light of the flames he recognised me, shook off his guide andstepped forward.

  "Hurt?" he asked. "Here, step out, a couple of you, and take hold ofthis youngster. He's a friend of mine, and I've something to showhim: something that will amuse him, or I'm mistaken."

  They hoisted me, not meaning to be rough, but hurting me cruellynevertheless: and two of them made a "chair" with crossed hands; butthey left my wounded foot dangling, and I swooned again with pain.

  When I came to, we were in a street--dark but for their lanterns--between a row of houses and a blank wall, and against this wall theywere laying me. The houses opposite were superior to any I had yetseen in Ciudad Rodrigo and had iron balconies before theirfirst-floor windows, broad and deep and overhanging the house-doors.

  On one of these doors Leicester was hammering with his side-arm, thePortuguese standing by on the step below. No one answering, hecalled to two of his men, who advanced and, setting the muzzles oftheir muskets close against the keyhole, blew the door in. Leicestersnatched a lantern and sprang inside, the two men after him.The Portuguese waited. The rest of the soldiers waited too,grounding arms--some in the roadway, others by the wall at the footof which they had laid me.

  A minute passed--two minutes--and then with a crash a man sprangthrough one of the first-floor windows, flung a leg over the balconyrail, and hung a moment in air between the ledge and the street.The window through which he had broken was flung up and Leicestercame running after, grabbing at him vainly as he swung clear.

  There were two figures now on the balcony. A woman had run afterLeicester. She leaned for a moment with both hands on the balconyrail, and turned as if to run back. Leicester caught her around thewaist and held her so while she screamed--shrilly, again and again.

  The man dangled for a moment, dropped with a horrible thud, andanswered with one scream only--but it was worse even than hers tohear. Then the soldiers ran forward and flung themselves upon him.

  "Hold the lantern higher, you fools!" shouted Leicester, strainingthe woman to him, as she struggled and fought to get away."Over there, by the wall--I want to see his face! Steady now, mybeauty!"

  The woman sank in his arms as if fainting, and her screams ceased.There was a stool on the balcony and he seated himself upon it,easing her down and seating her on his knee. This brought his evilface level with the balcony rail; and the lanterns, held high, flaredup at it.

  "Out of the way, youngster!" one of the soldiers commanded grimly."That wall's wanted."

  He dragged me aside as they pulled Whitmore across the roadway.I think his leg had been broken by the fall. It trailed as theycarried him, and when they set him against the wall it doubled underhim and he fell in a heap.

  "Turn up his face, anyway," commanded Leicester from the balcony."I want to see it! And when you've done, you can leave me with thisbeauty. Hey, my lass? The show's waiting. Sit up and have a lookat him!"

  I saw Whitmore's face as they turned it up, and the sight of it mademe cover my eyes. I heard the men step out into the roadway, and setback their triggers. Crouching against the wall, I heard the volley.

  As the echoes of it beat from side to side of the narrow street Ilooked again--not towards the wall--but upwards at the balcony, underwhich the men waved their lanterns as they dispersed, leaving thecorpse where it lay. To my surprise Leicester had released thewoman. She was stealing back through the open window and I caughtbut a glimpse of her black head-veil in the wavering lights.But Leicester still leaned forward with his chin on the balcony rail,and grinned upon the street and the wall opposite.

  I dragged myself from the spot. How long it took me I do not know;for I crawled on my belly, and there were pauses in my progress ofwhich I remember nothing. But I remember that at some point in itthere dawned upon me the certainty that this was the very street downwhich I had struck on my way from the ramparts. If not the samestreet, it must have been one close beside and running parallel withit: for at daybreak, with no other guidance than this certainty, Ifound myself back at the breach, nursing my foot and staring stupidlydownward at the bodies on the slope.

  Across the foot of it a young officer was picking his way slowly inthe dawn. A sergeant followed him with a notebook and pencil, andtwo men with lanterns. They were numbering the corpses, halting nowand again to turn one over and hold a light to his face, then to hisbadge. Half-way down, between them and me, a stink-pot yetsmouldered, and the morning air carried a horrible smell of singedflesh.

  As the dawn widened, one of the men opened his lantern and blewout the candle within it. The young officer--it was ArchibaldPlinlimmon--paused in his search and scanned the sky and the rampartsabove. I sent down a feeble hail.

  He heard. His eyes searched along the heaped ruins of gabions,fascines, and dead bodies; and, recognising me, he came slowly up theslope.

  "Hallo!" said he. "Not badly hurt, I hope? I thought we'd clearedall the wounded. Where on earth have you come from?"

  "From the town, sir."

  "We'll take you back to it, then. They've rigged up a couple ofhospitals, and it's nearer than camp. Besides, I doubt if there's anambulance left to take you." He knelt and examined my foot."Hi, there!" he called down. "You--O'Leary--come and help me withthis boy! Hurt badly, does it? Never mind--we'll get you tohospital in ten minutes. But what on earth brought you crawling backhere?"

  "Mr. Archibald!" I gasped, "I saw _him_!"

  "Him?"

  "Whitmore!"

  He stared at me. "You're off your head a bit, boy. You'll be allright when we get you to hospital."

  "But I saw him, sir! They shot him--against the wall. He was adeserter, and they hunted him out."

  "Well, and what is that to me, if they did?" He turned his faceaway. "Isabel, my wife, is dead," he said slowly.

  "Dead?"

  "She is dead--and the child."

  He bowed his face, while I gazed at him incredulous, sick at heart.

  "If what you say is true," he said, lifting his eyes till, weary anddesperate, they met mine, "she has been avenged to-night."

  "You shall see," I promised; and as the two soldiers picked me up andlaid me along a plank, I made signs that they were to carry me as Idirected. He nodded, and fell into pace beside my litter.

  The body of Whitmore lay along the foot of the wall where it hadfallen. But when we drew near, it was not at the body that I stared,putting out a hand and gripping Archibald Plinlimmon's arm.

  On the balcony opposite, George Leicester still leaned forward andgrinned down into the street.

  He did not move or glance aside even when Archibald commanded the mento set me down; nor when he passed in at the open door and we waited;nor again when he stepped out on the balcony and called him by name.The corpse stared down still. For it was a corpse, with a woman'sbodkin-dagger driven tight home between the shoulder-blades.

  And so, by an unknown sister's hand, Isabel's wrongs had earthlyvengeance.

  CHAPTER XXIV.

  I EXCH
ANGE THE LAUREL FOR THE OLIVE.

  Thus, in hospital in Ciudad Rodrigo, ended my first campaign; andhere in a few words may end my story. The surgeons, having theirhands full, and detecting no opportunities of credit in a smallbugler with a splintered ankle, sent me down to Belem, splinters andsplints and all, to recover: and at Belem hospital, just as thesurgeons were beginning to congratulate themselves that, althoughnever likely to be fit again for active service, I might in time makea fairly active hospital orderly, the splinters began to work throughthe flesh; and for two months I lay on my back in bed and sufferedmore pain than has been packed into the rest of my life.

  The curious part of it was that, having extracted the final splinter,they promptly invalided me home. From the day I limped on board the_Cumberland_ transport in the Tagus, leaning on two crutches, I beganto mend: and within twelve months--as may hereafter be recounted--Iwas back again, hale and hearty, marching with no perceptible limp,on the soil of Spain.

  But I must not, after all, conclude in this summary fashion.And why? Because scarcely had I set foot in the _Cumberland_ when avoice from somewhere amidships exclaimed:

  "My blessed Parliament!"

  I looked up and found myself face to face with--Ben Jope!

  "And you've grown!" he added, as we shook hands.

  "But Ben, I thought you were married and settled?"

  He turned his eyes away uneasily.

  "Whoever said so told you a thundering lie."

  "Nobody told me," said I; "but when you left me, I understood--"

  "My lad," he interrupted hoarsely, "I couldn't do it. I wentstraight back, same as you saw me start--now don't say a word tillyou've heard the end o't!--I went straight back, and up to doorwithout once looking back. There was a nice brass knocker to thedoor (I never denied the woman had some good qualities); so I fixedmy eyes hard on it and said to myself, if there's peace to be foundin this world--which was a Bible text that came into my head--theheart that is humble, which is the case with me, may look for ithere. And with that I shut my eyes and let fly at it, though everyknock brought my heart into my mouth. Now guess: who d'ye thinkanswered the door? Why, that ghastly boy of hers! There he stood,all freckles and pimples; and says he, grinning:"

  'Mr. Benjamin Jope Moderately well, I hope.'

  "I couldn't stand it. I turned tail and ran for my life."

  "But was that quite honourable?" I asked.

  "Ain't I tellin' you to wait till I've done? You don't suppose as itended there, do you? No; I passed my word to that sister of mine,and my word I must keep. So I went back to Symonds's--who was thatpleased to see me again you'd have thought I'd been half round theworld--and I ordered up three-pennorth of rum, and pens and ink tothe same amount: and this is what I wrote, and I hope you'll get itby heart before you're in a hurry again to accuse Ben Jope ofdishonourable conduct--'_Respected Madam_,' I wrote, '_this is toenquire if you'll marry me. Better late than never, and please don'ttrouble to reply. I'll call for an answer when I wants it. Yours tocommand, B. Jope. N.B.: We might board the boy out_.' Symonds founda messenger, and I told him on no account to wait for an answer.Now, I hope you call that acting straight?"

  "Well, but what was the answer?" I asked.

  He hung his head. "To tell you the truth, I ha'n't called for ityet. You notice I didn't specify no time; and being inclined for av'yage just then, I tramped it down to Falmouth and shipped aboardthe _Marlborough_, Post Office Packet, for Lisbon."

  "And you've been dodging at sea ever since," said I severely.

  "If you'd only seen that boy!" protested Mr. Jope.

  "I'll call with you and see him as soon as ever we reach Plymouth," Isaid; "but you passed your word, and your word you must keep."

  "You're sure 'twill be safe for you at Plymouth?" he asked, and (as Ithought) a trifle mischievously. "How about that Jew?"

  "Oh, that's all cleared up!"

  He sighed. "Some folks has luck. To be sure, he may be dead," headded, with an attempt at cheerfulness.

  "The Jew?"

  "No, the boy."

  I could hold out no hope of this, and he consoled himself withanticipating the time we would spend together at Symonds's. "For ifyou're invalided home, they'll discharge you on leave as soon as wereach port."

  "Unless they keep me in hospital," said I.

  "Then you'll have to make a cure of it on the voyage."

  "I feel like that, already. But the mischief is I've no home to goto."

  "There's Symonds's."

  "I might give that as an address, to be sure."

  "Damme!" cried Ben, as a bright thought struck him, "why couldn't Iadopt you?"

  "The lady might find that an inducement," said I modestly.

  "I wasn't exactly seeing it in that light," he confessed. "But, witha boy apiece, she and I might start fair. You could punch his head,brother like."

  The _Cumberland_ weighed anchor on the 2nd of May, and dropped itagain under Staddon Heights on the 29th of that month. To mydelight, the garrison surgeon at Plymouth pronounced me fit totravel: my foot only needed rest, he said; and he asked me where myhome lay.

  I had anticipated this, and answered that a letter addressed to meunder care Miss Amelia Plinlimmon, at the Genevan Foundling Hospital,would certainly find me. And so I was granted two months' leave ofabsence to recover from my wound.

  "But you don't mean to tell me," said Mr. Jope as we strolled downUnion Street together, "that you haven't a home or relations in thisworld?"

  "Neither one nor the other," said I; "but I have picked up a fewfriends."

  As he drew westward I noticed that he sensibly retarded his pace: buthe had forsworn visiting Symonds's until, as he put it, we knew theworst; and I marched him relentlessly up to the door of doom with itsimmaculate brass knocker. And when, facing it, he shut his eyes, Iput out a hand and knocked for him.

  But it was I who shrank back when the door opened: for the person whoopened it was--Mr. George!--in pigtail and wooden leg unchanged, butin demeanour (so far as agitation allowed me to remark it) moresaturnine than ever.

  "Do the Widow Babbage live here?" stammered Mr. Jope.

  "She do not," answered Mr. George slowly, and added, "worse luck!"

  "Is--is she dead?"

  "No, she ain't," answered Mr. George, and pulled himself up.

  "Then what's the matter with her?"

  "There ain't nothing the matter with _her_, as I know by," answeredMr. George once more, in a non-committal tone. "But I'm her'usband."

  "You--Mr. George?" I gasped.

  Thereupon he recognised me, and his eyes grew round, yet expressed noimmoderate surprise.

  "A nice dance _you've_ led everybody!" he said slowly: "but I wasnever hopeful about you, I'm thankful to say."

  "Where is Miss Plinlimmon living?" I asked. "Has she left theHospital too?"

  "She didn't leave it," he answered. "It left her. The Hospital'sscat."

  "Eh?"

  "Bust--sold up--come to an end. Scougall's retired on thedonations. He feathered _his_ nest. And Miss Plinlimmon's gone downinto Cornwall to live with a Major Brooks--a kind of relation ofhers, so far as I can make out. They tell me she've come intomoney."

  I had a question on my lips, but Mr. Jope interrupted.

  "I haven't the pleasure of your acquaintance, sir," he beganpolitely, addressing Mr. George, "and by the look of 'ee, you mustdate from before my time. But speakin' as one man to another, how doyou get along with that boy?"

  The door was slammed in our faces.

  Mr. Jope and I regarded one another. "Ben," said I, "it's urgent, orI wouldn't leave you. I must start at once for Minden Cottage."

  His face fell. "And I was planning a little kick-up at Symonds's,"he said ruefully; "a fiddle or two--to celebrate the occasion;nothing out o' the way. The first time you dropped on us, if youremember, we was not quite ourselves, owing to poor dear Bill: andI'd ha' liked you to form a cheerfuller idea of the place.
But if'tis duty, my lad, England expec's and I'm not gainsaying. Duty, isit?"

  "Duty it is," said I. "You walked up to yours nobly, and I must walkon to mine."

  So we shook hands, and I turned my face westward for the ferry.

  I had over-calculated my strength, and limped sorely the last mile ortwo before reaching Minden Cottage. Miss Plinlimmon opened the doorto me, and I forgot my pain for an instant and ran into her arms.But behind her lay an empty house.

  "The Major is in the garden," she said. "You will find him greatlychanged, I expect. Even since my coming I have noticed thealteration."

  I walked through to the summer-house. The Major was fingering hisVirgil, but laid it down and shook hands gravely. I had much to tellhim, and he seemed to listen; but I do not think that he heard.

  Miss Plinlimmon--dear soul, unknowingly--had prepared for me the veryroom to which Isabel had led me on the night of my first arrival, andin which she had knelt beside me. Miss Plinlimmon had scarcely knownIsabel, and I found her cheerfulness almost distressing when she cameto wish me good night.

  "And I have composed a stanza upon you," she whispered, "if you carefor such things any longer. But you must understand that it hasbeen, so to speak, improvised, and--what with the supper and onething and another--I have had no time to polish it."

  I said sleepily that, unpolished though it were, I wished to hear itthus; and here it is:

  "Wounded hero, you were shattered In the ankle--do not start! Much, much more it would have mattered In the immediate neighbourhood of the heart. The bullet sped comparatively wide; And you survive, to be Old England's pride."