'Yessir,' said Dodd.
'M'm,' said the lieutenant, and then, slowly making up his mind. 'They're only two miles away, on the upper road. Sergeant Casey!'
'Yes, sir.'
'Take this man up to the Ninety Fifth. Report to Colonel Beckwith.' The sergeant walked his horse forward, and Dodd stood at his side. The lieutenant snapped an order to the rest of the patrol, and he and his men went jingling forward along the main road, leaving Dodd and his escort to take the by-lane up to the other wing of the advance guard.
The sergeant sat back in his saddle well contented, and allowed his horse to amble quietly up the lane, while Dodd strode along beside him. They exchanged no conversation, for the sergeant was more convinced than his officer had been that Dodd was a deserter, while Dodd's heart was far too full for words. The sun was breaking through the clouds, and it bore a genial warmth, the certain promise of the coming Spring. Away to their left a long column of troops was forming up again after a rest; it was the First Division, for the leading brigade were the Guards in their bearskins and scarlet. Dodd saw the drum-major's silver staff raised, he saw the drummers poise their sticks up by their mouths. and he heard the crash of the drums as the sticks fell, 'Br-rr-rrm. Br-rr-rm' went the drums.
Then faintly over the ravaged fields came the squealing of the fifes
Some talk of Alexander,
And some of Hercules,
Of Hector and Lysander,
as the river of scarlet and black and gold came flooding down the lane. Farther off more troops were in movement; a kilted regiment headed a column marching over a low rise of ground. The sun gleamed on the musket barrels, and the plumes fluttered as the long line of kilts swayed in unison. Dodd breathed in the sunshine with open mouth as he looked about him; he was well content. They found the Ninety Fifth on the upper road, just as the lieutenant had said. They were drawn up on the roadside waiting for the word to move, because for once in a way the foremost skirmishing line had been entrusted to the Fifty Second and the Portuguese. Sergeant Casey brought his man up to where Colonel Beckwith with his adjutant and other officers stood at the side of the column, with their horses held by orderlies.
'What's this? What's this?' demanded the colonel. Beckwith, the beloved colonel of the Ninety Fifth, was popularly known as 'Old What's this?' because that was how he prefaced every conversation.
The sergeant told him as much as he knew.
'Very good, sergeant, that'll do,' said Beckwith, and the sergeant saluted and wheeled his horse and trotted back, while Beckwith watched him go. If there was any dirty linen to wash, the Ninety Fifth would not do it in front of strangers.
'Well, who the devil are you?' demanded Beckwith, at last.
'Dodd, sir. Rifleman. Mr. Fotheringham's company.'
'Captain Fotheringham's company,' corrected Beckwith absentmindedly. Apparently there had been some promotion this winter.
The colonel ran his eye up and down Dodd's remarkable uniform. Just as the lieutenant had done, he was taking note of the fact that the man seemed to have done his best to keep his equipment together.
'Dodd,' said Colonel Beckwith to himself. He was one of those officers who know the name and record of every man in the ranks. 'Let me see. Why, yes, Matthew Dodd. I remember you. You enlisted at Shorncliffe. But you look more like Robinson Crusoe now.'
There was a little splutter of mirth at that from the adjutant and the other officers in the background, for the comparison was extraordinarily apt, save in Dodd's eyes, for he had never heard of Robinson Crusoe.
'What happened to you?' asked the colonel. He tried to speak sternly, because the man might be a deserter, as the sergeant had tried to hint, although men did not desert from the Ninety Fifth.
'I was cut off, sir, when we were retreating to the Lines,' said Dodd, still finding it hard to speak. 'Been out here trying to rejoin ever since.' 'Out here?' repeated the colonel, looking round at the desolation all about them. That desolation was in itself a sufficient excuse for the state of the man's uniform. And the man looked at him honestly, and despite himself the colonel could never help softening to the pleasant Sussex burr whenever he heard it.
'Is there anyone who can answer for you?' asked the colonel.
'Dunno, sir. Perhaps Mr.- Captain Fotheringham- sir'
'I can remember when you were reported missing, now you remind me,' said the colonel musingly. 'Matthew Dodd. Nothing on your sheet. Five years enlisted. Vimiero. Corunna. Flushing. Talavera. Busaco.'
The glorious names fell one by one from the colonel's lips, but the colonel was being matter-of-fact: he did not realize what a marvellous opportunity this was to sentimentalize.
'Yes, sir,' said Rifleman Dodd.
'We can't have you back in that state,' said the colonel.
'You'll have to go back to the advanced depot.'
The great wave of relief in Dodd's soul was instantly flattened by the realization that he could not rejoin at once.
'Oh, sir,' said Dodd. It took more courage to protest to the colonel than it did to burn the Frenchmen's bridge.
'Can't I- can't-?'
'You mean you want to fall in now?' asked the colonel.
'Yes, sir. Please, sir.'
'Oh, well, I suppose you can. Report to the quartermaster this evening and tell him I said you were to have another pair of shoes and a coat and trousers to hide your nakedness.
And for God's sake have that hair and beard off by tomorrow morning.'
'Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.'
Dodd was about to salute when the colonel checked him.
'What happened to you all this time?' he asked curiously.
'How did you live? What did you get up to?'
'Dunno, sir. I managed somehow, sir.'
'I suppose you did,' said Beckwith thoughtfully. He realized he would never know any details. There might even be an epic somewhere at the back of all this, but he would never be able to induce these dumb Sussex men to tell it. 'Very well, you can fall in. Join your old company for the present.' The epic would have to wait long before it would be written. It would only be pieced together with much difficulty, from hints in diaries here and there- diaries of French officers and English riflemen. Dodd would never tell it in its entirety. Sometimes little bits of it would come out over the camp fire, on a long evening when the brandy ration had been larger than usual or someone had looted a quart or two of the wine of the country, and would be noted by some of the many diarists to be found in the ranks of the Rifle Brigade. Many years later, when Dodd was a rheumaticky old pensioner, mumbling in approaching senility in the chimney comer, he would tell bits of the tale to the doctor and the Squire's young son, but he never learned to tell a story straight, and the tale of how he altered history- as he thought- was always so broken up among reminiscences of Waterloo and the storming of Badajoz that it was hard to disentangle. Not that it mattered. Not even trifles depended on it, for in those days there were no medals or crosses for the men in the ranks. There was only honour and duty, and it was hard for a later generation to realize that these abstractions had meant anything to the querulous, bald-headed old boozer who had once been Rifleman Dodd.
Chapter XXII
DODD'S mates greeted him with laughter when they recognized him; he joined his section bashfully enough, at Captain Fotheringham's orders. Rifleman Barret, the company wit, promptly labelled him 'the King of the Cannibal Islands,' a nickname which was much approved. They could afford to jest; they had just spent a winter in comfortable cantonments, and every man was well-fed and properly clad, in startling contrast with the barefooted, naked multitude of living skeletons which Dodd had been harassing. And they were in high spirits too. The Army knew, even if England yet did not, that the tide of the war had turned. All the unembarrassed might of the French Empire had fallen before them, and not merely the French army but the French system- the new terrible style of making war which had overrun Europe for nineteen years- had failed.
When the bugle
s blew and the men fell in to resume the advance they did so lightheartedly. They were marching forward, and the French were falling back before them in ruin. They could guess at the triumphs yet to come, even though the great names of Salamanca and Vittoria were still hidden in the future. There was exhilaration in the ranks, and jests flew backwards and forwards as they marched. As for Dodd, he might as well have been in heaven. He was back in the regiment, in the old atmosphere of comradeship and good-fellowship. Up at the head of the line the bugle band was blowing away lustily with half the buglers, as ever, blowing horribly flat. The very dust of the road and the smell of the sweating ranks were like the scent of paradise. The tread of marching feet and the click of accoutrements were like the harps and cymbals. He tramped along with them in a dreamy ecstasy.
At the allotted camping ground the Portuguese guard turned out and presented arms; they were saluting the Ninety Fifth; there was no thought of saluting the man who had just returned from an adventure calling for as much courage and resolution and initiative as any that the regimental history could boast. Dodd would have scoffed at any such idea. He was looking forward to his bread ration; he was hungry for bread. And there would be salt too; it was weeks since he had tasted salt- there had been none with which to savour the stinking mule meat of his recent meals. And there would be a go of brandy, too, with any luck. As he sat and munched, warming himself deliciously at the fire, his eye caught sight of a twinkling point of light far away on a hill-top, beyond the lines of the English fires. He did not think twice about it; it might be the fire of a French outpost or of a party of irregulars.
Actually, it had been lighted by irregulars; in it they were burning Sergeant Godinot to death. Dodd did not know. He did not know there had ever been such a man as Sergeant Godinot. What he did know was that he had borrowed an extra lot of salt from Eccles. He dipped his bread in it luxuriously, and munched and munched and munched.
The End
Death to the French (aka Rifleman Dodd) Page 18