by Thomas Hardy
BERESFORD now becomes aware of this project on his flank, and sends
orders to throw back his right to face the attack. The order is not
obeyed. Almost at the same moment the French rush is made, the
Spanish and Portuguese allies of the English are beaten beck, and
the hill is won. But two English divisions bear from the centre of
their front, and plod desperately up the hill to retake it.
SPIRIT SINISTER
Now he among us who may wish to be
A skilled practitioner in slaughtery,
Should watch this hour's fruition yonder there,
And he will know, if knowing ever were,
How mortals may be freed their fleshly cells,
And quaint red doors set ope in sweating fells,
By methods swift and slow and foul and fair!
The English, who have plunged up the hill, are caught in a heavy
mist, that hides from them an advance in their rear of the lancers
and hussars of the enemy. The lines of the Buffs, the Sixty-sixth,
and those of the Forty-eighth, who were with them, in a chaos of
smoke, steel, sweat, curses, and blood, are beheld melting down
like wax from an erect position to confused heaps. Their forms
lie rigid, or twitch and turn, as they are trampled over by the
hoofs of the enemy's horse. Those that have not fallen are taken.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
It works as you, uncanny Phantom, wist!...
Whose is that towering form
That tears across the mist
To where the shocks are sorest?—his with arm
Outstretched, and grimy face, and bloodshot eye,
Like one who, having done his deeds, will die?
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
He is one Beresford, who heads the fight
For England here to-day.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
He calls the sight
Despite itself!—parries yon lancer's thrust,
And with his own sword renders dust to dust!
The ghastly climax of the strife is reached; the combatants are
seen to be firing grape and canister at speaking distance, and
discharging musketry in each other's faces when so close that
their complexions may be recognized. Hot corpses, their mouths
blackened by cartridge-biting, and surrounded by cast-away
knapsacks, firelocks, hats, stocks, flint-boxes, and priming
horns, together with red and blue rags of clothing, gaiters,
epaulettes, limbs and viscera accumulate on the slopes, increasing
from twos and threes to half-dozens, and from half-dozens to heaps,
which steam with their own warmth as the spring rain falls gently
upon them.
The critical instant has come, and the English break. But a
comparatively fresh division, with fusileers, is brought into the
turmoil by HARDINGE and COLE, and these make one last strain to
save the day, and their names and lives. The fusileers mount the
incline, and issuing from the smoke and mist startle the enemy by
their arrival on a spot deemed won.
SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES [aerial music]
They come, beset by riddling hail;
They sway like sedges is a gale;
The fail, and win, and win, and fail. Albuera!
SEMICHORUS II
They gain the ground there, yard by yard,
Their brows and hair and lashes charred,
Their blackened teeth set firm and hard.
SEMICHORUS I
Their mad assailants rave and reel,
And face, as men who scorn to feel,
The close-lined, three-edged prongs of steel.
SEMICHORUS II
Till faintness follows closing-in,
When, faltering headlong down, they spin
Like leaves. But those pay well who win Albuera.
SEMICHORUS I
Out of six thousand souls that sware
To hold the mount, or pass elsewhere,
But eighteen hundred muster there.
SEMICHORUS II
Pale Colonels, Captains, ranksmen lie,
Facing the earth or facing sky;—
They strove to live, they stretch to die.
SEMICHORUS I
Friends, foemen, mingle; heap and heap.—
Hide their hacked bones, Earth!—deep, deep, deep,
Where harmless worms caress and creep.
CHORUS
Hide their hacked bones, Earth!—deep, deep, deep,
Where harmless worms caress and creep.—
What man can grieve? what woman weep?
Better than waking is to sleep! Albuera!
The night comes on, and darkness covers the battle-field.
SCENE V
WINDSOR CASTLE. A ROOM IN THE KING'S APARTMENT
[The walls of the room are padded, and also the articles of
furniture, the stuffing being overlaid with satin and velvet, on
which are worked in gold thread monograms and crowns. The windows
are guarded, and the floor covered with thick cork, carpeted. The
time is shortly after the last scene.
The KING is seated by a window, and two of Dr. WILLIS'S attendants
are in the room. His MAJESTY is now seventy-two; his sight is
very defective, but he does not look ill. He appears to be lost
in melancholy thought, and talks to himself reproachfully, hurried
manner on occasion being the only irregular symptom that he
betrays.]
KING
In my lifetime I did not look after her enough—enough—enough!
And now she is lost to me, and I shall never see her more. Had I
but known, had I but thought of it! Gentlemen, when did I lose the
Princess Amelia?
FIRST ATTENDANT
The second of last November, your Majesty.
KING
And what is it now?
FIRST ATTENDANT
Now, sir, it is the beginning of June.
KING
Ah, June, I remember!... The June flowers are not for me. I
shall never see them; nor will she. So fond of them as she was.
... Even if I were living I would never go where there are flowers
any more! No: I would go to the bleak, barren places that she never
would walk in, and never knew, so that nothing might remind me of
her, and make my heart ache more than I can bear!... Why, the
beginning of June?—that's when they are coming to examine me! [He
grows excited.]
FIRST ATTENDANT [to second attendant, aside]
Dr. Reynolds ought not have reminded him of their visit. It only
disquiets him and makes him less fit to see them.
KING
How long have I been confined here?
FIRST ATTENDANT
Since November, sir; for your health's sake entirely, as your Majesty
knows.
KING
What, what? So long? Ah, yes. I must bear it. This is the fourth
great black gulf in my poor life, is it not? The fourth.
[A signal from the door. The second attendant opens it and whispers.
Enter softly SIR HENRY HALFORD, DR. WILLIAM HEBERDEN, DR. ROBERT
WILLIS, DR. MATTHEW BAILLIE, the KING'S APOTHECARY, and one or two
other gentlemen.]
KING [straining his eye to discern them]
What! Are they come? What will they do to me? How dare they! I
am Elector of Hanover! [Finding Dr. Willis is among them he shrieks.]
O, they are going to bleed me—yes, to bleed me! [Piteously.] My
friends, don't bleed me—pray don't! It makes me so
weak to take my
blood. And the leeches do, too, when you put so many. You will not
be so unkind, I am sure!
WILLIS [to Baillie]
It is extraordinary what a vast aversion he has to bleeding—that
most salutary remedy, fearlessly practised. He submits to leeches
as yet but I won't say that he will for long without being strait-
jacketed.
KING [catching some of the words]
You will strait-jacket me? O no, no!
WILLIS
Leeches are not effective, really. Dr. Home, when I mentioned it to
him yesterday, said he would bleed him till he fainted if he had
charge of him!
KING
O will you do it, sir, against my will,
And put me, once your king, in needless pain?
I do assure you truly, my good friends,
That I have done no harm! In sunnier years
Ere I was throneless, withered to a shade,
Deprived of my divine authority—
When I was hale, and ruled the English land—
I ever did my utmost to promote
The welfare of my people, body and soul!
Right many a morn and night I have prayed and mused
How I could bring them to a better way.
So much of me you surely know, my friends,
And will not hurt me in my weakness here! [He trembles.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
The tears that lie about this plightful scene
Of heavy travail in a suffering soul,
Mocked with the forms and feints of royalty
While scarified by briery Circumstance,
Might drive Compassion past her patiency
To hold that some mean, monstrous ironist
Had built this mistimed fabric of the Spheres
To watch the throbbings of its captive lives,
[The which may Truth forfend], and not thy said
Unmaliced, unimpassioned, nescient Will!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Mild one, be not touched with human fate.
Such is the Drama: such the Mortal state:
No sigh of thine can null the Plan Predestinate!
HALFORD
We have come to do your Majesty no harm.
Here's Dr. Heberden, whom I am sure you like,
And this is Dr. Baillie. We arrive
But to inquire and gather how you are,
Thereon to let the Privy Council know,
And give assurances for you people's good.
[A brass band is heard playing in the distant part of Windsor.]
KING
Ah—what does that band play for here to-day?
She has been dead and I so short a time!...
Her little hands are hardly cold as yet;
But they can show such cruel indecency
As to let trumpets play!
HALFORD
They guess not, sir,
That you can hear them, or their chords would cease.
Their boisterous music fetches back to me
That, of our errands to your Majesty,
One was congratulation most sincere
Upon this glorious victory you have won.
The news is just in port; the band booms out
To celebrate it, and to honour you.
KING
A victory? I? Pray where?
HALFORD
Indeed so, sir:
Hard by Albuera—far in harried Spain—
Yes, sir; you have achieved a victory
Of dash unmatched and feats unparalleled!
KING
He says I have won a battle? But I thought
I was a poor afflicted captive here,
In darkness lingering out my lonely days,
Beset with terror of these myrmidons
That suck my blood like vampires! Ay, ay, ay!—
No aims left to me but to quicken death
To quicklier please my son!—And yet he says
That I have won a battle! O God, curse, damn!
When will the speech of the world accord with truth,
And men's tongues roll sincerely!
GENTLEMAN [aside]
Faith, 'twould seem
As if the madman were the sanest here!
[The KING'S face has flushed, and he becomes violent. The
attendants rush forward to him.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Something within me aches to pray
To some Great Heart, to take away
This evil day, this evil day!
CHORUS IRONIC
Ha-ha! That's good. Thou'lt pray to It:—
But where do Its compassions sit?
Yea, where abides the heart of it?
Is it where sky-fires flame and flit,
Or solar craters spew and spit,
Or ultra-stellar night-webs knit?
What is Its shape? Man's counterfeit?
That turns in some far sphere unlit
The Wheel which drives the Infinite?
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Mock on, mock on! Yet I'll go pray
To some Great Heart, who haply may
Charm mortal miseries away!
[The KING'S paroxysm continues. The attendants hold him.]
HALFORD
This is distressing. One can never tell
How he will take things now. I thought Albuera
A subject that would surely solace him.
These paroxysms—have they been bad this week? [To Attendants.]
FIRST ATTENDANT
Sir Henry, no. He has quite often named
The late Princess, as gently as a child
A little bird found starved.
WILLIS [aside to apothecary]
I must increase the opium to-night, and lower him by a double set of
leeches since he won't stand the lancet quietly.
APOTHECARY
You should take twenty ounces, doctor, if a drop—indeed, go on
blooding till he's unconscious. He is too robust by half. And the
watering-pot would do good again—not less than six feet above his
head. See how heated he is.
WILLIS
Curse that town band. It will have to be stopped.
HEBERDEN
The same thing is going on all over England, no doubt, on account of
this victory.
HALFORD
When he is in a more domineering mood he likes such allusions to his
rank as king.... If he could resume his walks on the terrace he
might improve slightly. But it is too soon yet. We must consider
what we shall report to the Council. There is little hope of his
being much better. What do you think, Willis?
WILLIS
None. He is done for this time!
HALFORD
Well, we must soften it down a little, so as not to upset the Queen
too much, poor woman, and distract the Council unnecessarily. Eldon
will go pumping up bucketfuls, and the Archbishops are so easily
shocked that a certain conventional reserve is almost forced upon us.
WILLIS [returning from the King]
He is already better. The paroxysm has nearly passed. Your opinion
will be far more favourable before you leave.
[The KING soon grows calm, and the expression of his face changes
to one of dejection. The attendants leave his side: he bends his
head, and covers his face with his hand, while his lips move as if
in prayer. He then turns to them.]
KING [meekly]
I am most truly sorry, gentlemen,
If I have used language that would seem to show
Discourtesy to you for your good help
In this unhappy malady of mine!
My nerves unstring, my friend; m
y flesh grows weak:
"The good that I do I leave undone,
The evil which I would not, that I do!"
Shame, shame on me!
WILLIS [aside to the others]
Now he will be as low as before he was in the other extreme.
KING
A king should bear him kingly; I of all,
One of so long a line. O shame on me!...
—This battle that you speak of?—Spain, of course?
Ah—Albuera! And many fall—eh? Yes?
HALFORD
Many hot hearts, sir, cold, I grieve to say.
There's Major-General Houghton, Captain Bourke,
And Herbert of the Third, Lieutenant Fox,
And Captains Erck and Montague, and more.
With Majors-General Cole and Stewart wounded,
And Quartermaster-General Wallace too:
A total of three generals, colonels five,
Five majors, fifty captains; and to these
Add ensigns and lieutenants sixscore odd,
Who went out, but returned not. Heavily tithed
Were the attenuate battalions there
Who stood and bearded Death by the hour that day!
KING
O fearful price for victory! Add thereto
All those I lost at Walchere.—A crime
Lay there!... I stood on Chatham's being sent:
It wears on me, till I am unfit to live!
WILLIS [aside to the others]
Don't let him get on that Walcheren business. There will be another
outbreak. Heberden, please ye talk to him. He fancies you most.
HEBERDEN
I'll tell him some of the brilliant feats of the battle. [He goes
and talks to the KING.]
WILLIS [to the rest]
Well, my inside begins to cry cupboard. I had breakfast early. We
have enough particulars now to face the Queen's Council with, I
should say, Sir Henry?
HALFORD
Yes.—I want to get back to town as soon as possible to-day. Mrs
Siddons has a party at her house at Westbourne to-night, and all the
world is going to be there.
BAILLIE
Well, I am not. But I have promised to take some friends to Vauxhall,
as it is a grand gala and fireworks night. Miss Farren is going to
sing "The Canary Bird."—The Regent's fete, by the way, is postponed
till the nineteenth, on account of this relapse. Pretty grumpy he
was at having to do it. All the world will be THERE, sure!
WILLIS
And some from the Shades, too, of the fair, sex.—Well, here comes
Heberden. He has pacified his Majesty nicely. Now we can get away.
[The physicians withdraw softly, and the scene is covered.]
SCENE VI
LONDON. CARLTON HOUSE AND THE STREETS ADJOINING