Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2

CHAPTER XXXVI

While such were the scenes passing around me, of my own part in them, I absolutely knew nothing; for until the moment that the glancing bayonets of the light division came rushing on the foe, and the loud, long cheer of victory burst above us, I felt like one in a trance. Then I leaned against an angle of the rampart, overpowered and exhausted; a bayonet wound, which some soldier of our own ranks had given me when mounting the breach, pained me somewhat; my uniform was actually torn to rags; my head bare; of my sword, the hilt and four inches of the blade alone remained, while my left hand firmly grasped the rammer of a cannon, but why or wherefore I could not even guess. As thus I stood, the unceasing tide of soldiery pressed on; fresh divisions came pouring in, eager for plunder, and thirsting for the spoil. The dead and the dying were alike trampled beneath the feet of that remorseless mass, who, actuated by vengeance and by rapine, sprang fiercely up the breach.

Weak and exhausted, faint from my wound, and overcome by my exertions, I sank among the crumbling ruin. The loud shouts which rose from the town, mingled with cries and screams, told the work of pillage was begun; while still a dropping musketry could be heard on the distant rampart, where even yet the French made resistance. At last even this was hushed, but to it succeeded the far more horrifying sounds of rapine and of murder; the forked flames of burning houses rose here and there amidst the black darkness of the night; and through the crackling of the timbers, and the falling crash of roofs, the heart-rending shriek of women rent the very air. Officers pressed forward, but in vain were their efforts to restrain their men; the savage cruelty of the moment knew no bounds of restraint. More than one gallant fellow perished in his fruitless endeavor to enforce obedience; and the most awful denunciations were now uttered against those before whom, at any other time, they dared not mutter.

Thus passed the long night, far more terrible to me than all the dangers of the storm itself, with all its death and destruction dealing around it. I know not if I slept: if so, the horrors on every side were pictured in my dreams; and when the gray dawn was breaking, the cries from the doomed city were still ringing in my ears. Close around me the scene was still and silent; the wounded had been removed during the night, but the thickly-packed dead lay side by side where they fell. It was a fearful sight to see them as, blood-stained and naked (for already the camp-followers had stripped the bodies), they covered the entire breach. From the rampart to the ditch, the ranks lay where they had stood in life. A faint phosphoric flame flickered above their ghastly corpses, making even death still more horrible. I was gazing steadfastly, with all that stupid intensity which imperfect senses and exhausted faculties possess, when the sound of voices near aroused me.

“Bring him along, – this way, Bob. Over the breach with the scoundrel, into the fosse.”

“He shall die no soldier’s death, by Heaven!” cried another and a deeper voice, “if I lay his skull open with my axe.”

“Oh, mercy, mercy! as you hope for – ”

“Traitor! don’t dare to mutter here!” As the last words were spoken, four infantry soldiers, reeling from drunkenness, dragged forward a pale and haggard wretch, whose limbs trailed behind him like those of palsy, his uniform was that of a French chasseur, but his voice bespoke him English.

“Kneel down there, and die like a man! You were one once!”

“Not so, Bill, never. Fix bayonets, boys! That’s right! Now take the word from me.”

“Oh, forgive me! for the love of Heaven, forgive me!” screamed the voice of the victim; but his last accents ended in a death-cry, for as he spoke, the bayonets flashed for an instant in the air, and the next were plunged into his body. Twice I had essayed to speak, but my voice, hoarse from shouting, came not; and I could but look upon this terrible murder with staring eyes and burning brain. At last speech came, as if wrested by the very excess of my agony, and I muttered aloud, “O God!” The words were not well-spoken, when the muskets were brought to the shoulders, and reeking with the blood of the murdered man, their savage faces scowled at me as I lay.

A short and heart-felt prayer burst from my lips, and I was still. The leader of the party called out, “Be steady, and together. One, two! Ground arms, boys! Ground arms!” roared he, in a voice of thunder; “it’s the captain himself!” Down went the muskets with a crash; while, springing towards me, the fellows caught me in their arms, and with one jerk mounted me upon their shoulders, the cheer that accompanied the sudden movement seeming like the yell of maniacs. “Ha, ha, ha! we have him now!” sang their wild voices, as, with blood-stained hands and infuriated features, they bore me down the rampart. My sensations of disgust and repugnance to the party seemed at once to have evidenced themselves, for the corporal, turning abruptly round, called out, —

“Don’t pity him, Captain; the scoundrel was a deserter; he escaped from the picket two nights ago, and gave information of all our plans to the enemy.”

“Ay,” cried another, “and what’s worse, he fired through an embrasure near the breach, for two hours, upon his own regiment. It was there we found him. This way, lads.”

So saying, they turned short from the walls, and dashed down a dark and narrow lane into the town. My struggles to get free were perfectly ineffectual, and to my entreaties they were totally indifferent.

In this way, therefore, we made our entrance into the Plaza, where some hundred soldiers, of different regiments, were bivouacked. A shout of recognition welcomed the fellows as they came; while suddenly a party of Eighty-eighth men, springing from the ground, rushed forward with drawn bayonets, calling out, “Give him up this minute, or, by the Father of Moses, we’ll make short work of ye!”

The order was made by men who seemed well disposed to execute it; and I was accordingly grounded with a shock and a rapidity that savored much more of ready compliance than any respect for my individual comfort. A roar of laughter rang through the motley mass, and every powder-stained face around me seemed convulsed with merriment. As I sat passively upon the ground, looking ruefully about, whether my gestures or my words heightened the absurdity of my appearance, it is hard to say; but certainly the laughter increased at each moment, and the drunken wretches danced round me in ecstasy.

“Where is your major? Major O’Shaughnessy, lads?” said I.

“He’s in the church, with the general, your honor,” said the sergeant of the regiment, upon whom the mention of his officer’s name seemed at once to have a sobering influence. Assisting me to rise (for I was weak as a child), he led me through the dense crowd, who, such is the influence of example, now formed into line, and as well as their state permitted, gave me a military salute as I passed. “Follow me, sir,” said the sergeant; “this little dark street to the left will take us to the private door of the chapel.”

“Wherefore are they there, Sergeant?”

“There’s a general of division mortally wounded.”

“You did not hear his name?”

“No, sir. All I know is, he was one of the storming party at the lesser breach.”

A cold, sickening shudder came over me; I durst not ask farther, but pressed on with anxious steps towards the chapel.

“There, sir, yonder, where you see the light. That’s the door.”

So saying, the sergeant stopped suddenly, and placed his hand to his cap. I saw at once that he was sufficiently aware of his condition not to desire to appear before his officers; so, hurriedly thanking him, I walked forward.

“Halt, there! and give the countersign,” cried a sentinel, who with fixed bayonet stood before the door.

“I am an officer,” said I, endeavoring to pass in.

“Stand bock, stand bock!” said the harsh voice of the Highlander, for such he was.

“Is Major O’Shaughnessy in the church?”

“I dinna ken,” was the short, rough answer.

“Who is the officer so badly wounded?”

“I dinna ken,” repeated he, as gruffly as before; while he added, in a louder key, “Stand bock, I tell ye, man! Dinna ye see the staff coming?”

I turned round hastily, and at the same instant several officers, who apparently from precaution had dismounted at the end of the street, were seen approaching. They came hurriedly forward, but without speaking. He who was in advance of the party wore a short, blue cape over an undress uniform. The rest were in full regimentals. I had scarcely time to throw a passing glance upon him, when the officer I have mentioned as coming first called out in a stern voice, —

“Who are you, sir?”

I started at the sounds; it was not the first time those accents had been heard by me.

“Captain O’Malley, Fourteenth Light Dragoons.”

“What brings you here, sir? Your regiment is at Caya.”

“I have been employed as acting aide-de-camp to General Crawfurd,” said I, hesitatingly.

“Is that your staff uniform?” said he, as with compressed brow and stern look he fixed his eyes upon my coat. Before I had time to reply, or, indeed, before I well knew how to do so, a gruff voice from behind called out, —

“Damn me! if that ain’t the fellow that led the stormers through a broken embrasure! I say, my lord, that’s the yeoman I was telling you of. Is it not so, sir?” continued he, turning towards me.

“Yes, sir. I led a party of the Eighty-eight at the breach.”

“And devilish well you did it, too!” added Picton, for it was he who recognized me. “I saw him, my lord, spring down from the parapet upon a French gunner, and break his sword as he cleft his helmet in two. Yes, yes; I shall not forget in a hurry how you laid about you with the rammer of the gun! By Jove! that’s it he has in his hand!”

While Picton ran thus hurriedly on, Lord Wellington’s calm but stern features never changed their expression. The looks of those around were bent upon me with interest and even admiration; but his evinced nothing of either.

Reverting at once to my absence from my post, he asked me, —

“Did you obtain leave for a particular service, sir?”

“No, my lord. It was simply from an accidental circumstance that – ”

“Then, report yourself at your quarters as under arrest.”

“But, my lord – ” said Picton. Lord Wellington waited not for the explanation, but walked firmly forward, and strode into the church. The staff followed in silence, Picton turning one look of kindness on me as he went, as though to say, “I’ll not forget you.”

“The devil take it,” cried I, as I found myself once more alone, “but I’m unlucky! What would turn out with other men the very basis of their fortune, is ever with me the source of ill-luck.”

It was evident, from Picton’s account, that I had distinguished myself in the breach; and yet nothing was more clear than that my conduct had displeased the commander-in-chief. Picturing him ever to my mind’s eye as the beau idéal of a military leader, by some fatality of fortune I was continually incurring his displeasure, for whose praise I would have risked my life. “And this confounded costume – What, in the name of every absurdity, could have ever persuaded me to put it on. What signifies it, though a man should cover himself with glory, if in the end he is to be laughed at? Well, well, it matters not much, now my soldiering’s over! And yet I could have wished that the last act of my campaigning had brought with it pleasanter recollections.”

As thus I ruminated, the click of the soldier’s musket near aroused me: Picton was passing out. A shade of gloom and depression was visible upon his features, and his lip trembled as he muttered some sentences to himself.

“Ha! Captain – I forget the name. Yes, Captain O’Malley; you are released from arrest. General Crawfurd has spoken very well of you, and Lord Wellington has heard the circumstances of your case.”

“Is it General Crawfurd, then, that is wounded, sir?” said I, eagerly.

Picton paused for a moment, while, with an effort, he controlled his features into their stern and impassive expression, then added hurriedly and almost harshly: —

Yes, sir; badly wounded through the arm and in the lung. He mentioned you to the notice of the commander-in-chief, and your application for leave is granted. In fact, you are to have the distinguished honor of carrying back despatches. There, now; you had better join your brigade.”

“Could I not see my general once more? It may be for the last time.”

“No, sir!” sternly replied Picton. “Lord Wellington believes you under arrest. It is as well he should suppose you obeyed his orders.”

There was a tone of sarcasm in these words that prevented my reply; and muttering my gratitude for his well-timed and kindly interference in my behalf, I bowed deeply and turned away.

“I say, sir!” said Picton, as he returned towards the church, “should anything befall, – that is, if, unfortunately, circumstances should make you in want and desirous of a staff appointment, remember that you are known to General Picton.”

Downcast and depressed by the news of my poor general, I wended my way with slow and uncertain steps towards the rampart. A clear, cold, wintry sky and a sharp, bracing air made my wound, slight as it was, more painful, and I endeavored to reach the reserves, where I knew the hospital-staff had established, for the present, their quarters. I had not gone far when, from a marauding party, I learned that my man Mike was in search of me through the plain. A report of my death had reached him, and the poor fellow was half distracted.

Longing anxiously to allay his fears on my account, which I well knew might lead him into any act of folly or insanity, I pressed forward; besides – shall I confess it? – amidst the manifold thoughts of sorrow and affliction which weighed me down, I could not divest myself of the feeling that so long as I wore my present absurd costume, I could be nothing but an object of laughter and ridicule to all who met me.

I had not long to look for my worthy follower, for I soon beheld him cantering about the plain. A loud shout brought him beside me; and truly the poor fellow’s delight was great and sincere. With a thousand protestations of his satisfaction, and reiterated assurances of what he would not have done to the French prisoners if anything had happened me, we took our way together towards the camp.

CHAPTER XXXVII

I was preparing to visit the town on the following morning, when my attention was attracted by a dialogue which took place beneath my window.

“I say, my good friend,” cried a mounted orderly to Mike, who was busily employed in brushing a jacket, – “I say, are you Captain O’Malley’s man?”

“The least taste in life o’ that same,” replied he, with a half-jocular expression.

“Well, then,” said the other, “take up these letters to your master. Be alive, my fine fellow, for they are despatches, and I must have a written return for them.”

“Won’t ye get off and take a drop of somethin’ refreshing; the air is cowld this morning.”

“I can’t stay, my good friend, but thank you all the same; so be alive, will you?”

“Arrah, there’s no hurry in life. Sure, it’s an invitation to dinner to Lord Wellington or a tea-party at Sir Denny’s; sure, my master’s bothered with them every day o’ th’ week: that’s the misfortune of being an agreeable creature; and I’d be led into dissipation myself, if I wasn’t rear’d prudent.”

“Well, come along, take these letters, for I must be off; my time is short.”

“That’s more nor your nose is, honey,” said Mike, evidently piqued at the little effect his advances had produced upon the Englishman. “Give them here,” continued he, while he turned the various papers in every direction, affecting to read their addresses.

“There’s nothing for me here, I see. Did none of the generals ask after me?”

“You are a queer one!” said the dragoon, not a little puzzled what to make of him.

Mike meanwhile thrust the papers carelessly into his pocket, and strode into the house, whistling a quick-step as he went, with the air of a man perfectly devoid of care or occupation. The next moment, however, he appeared at my door, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand, and apparently breathless with haste.

“Despatches, Mister Charles, despatches from Lord Wellington. The orderly is waiting below for a return.”

“Tell him he shall have it in one moment,” replied I. “And now bring me a light.”

Before I had broken the seal of the envelope, Mike was once more at the porch.

“My master is writing a few lines to say he’ll do it. Don’t be talking of it,” added he, dropping his voice, “but they want him to take another fortress.”

What turn the dialogue subsequently took, I cannot say, for I was entirely occupied by a letter which accompanied the despatches. It ran as follows: —

QUARTER-GENERAL,

CIUDAD RODRIGO, Jan. 20, 1812.

Dear Sir, – The commander-in-chief has been kind enough to accord you the leave of absence you applied for, and takes the opportunity of your return to England to send you the accompanying letters for his Royal Highness the Duke of York. To his approval of your conduct in the assault last night you owe this distinguished mark of Lord Wellington’s favor, which, I hope, will be duly appreciated by you, and serve to increase your zeal for that service in which you have already distinguished yourself.

Believe me that I am most happy in being made the medium of this communication, and have the honor to be,

Very truly yours,

I read and re-read this note again and again. Every line was conned over by me, and every phrase weighed and balanced in my mind. Nothing could be more gratifying, nothing more satisfactory to my feelings; and I would not have exchanged its possession for the brevet of a lieutenant-colonel.

“Halloo, Orderly!” cried I, from the window, as I hurriedly sealed my few words of acknowledgment, “take this note back to General Picton, and here’s a guinea for yourself.” So saying, I pitched into his ready hand one of the very few which remained to me in the world. “This is, indeed, good news!” said I, to myself. “This is, indeed, a moment of unmixed happiness!”

As I closed the window, I could hear Mike pronouncing a glowing eulogium upon my liberality, from which he could not, however, help in some degree detracting, as he added:

“But the devil thank him, after all! Sure, it’s himself has the illigant fortune and the fine place of it!”

Scarcely were the last sounds of the retiring horseman dying away in the distance, when Mike’s meditations took another form, and he muttered between his teeth, “Oh, holy Agatha! a guinea, a raal gold guinea to a thief of a dragoon that come with the letter, and here am I wearing a picture of the holy family for a back to my waistcoat, all out of economy; and sure, God knows, but may be they’ll take their dealing trick out of me in purgatory for this hereafter; and faith, it’s a beautiful pair of breeches I’d have had, if I wasn’t ashamed to put the twelve apostles on my legs.”

While Mike ran on at this rate, my eyes fell upon a few lines of postscript in Picton’s letter, which I had not previously noticed.

“The official despatches of the storming are, of course, intrusted to senior officers, but I need scarcely remind you that it will be a polite and proper attention to his Royal Highness to present your letters with as little delay as possible. Not a moment is to be lost on your landing in England.”

“Mike!” cried I, “how look the cattle for a journey?”

“The chestnut is a little low in flesh, but in great wind, your honor; and the black horse is jumping like a filly.”

“And Badger?” said I.

“Howld him, if you can, that’s all; but it’s murthering work this, carrying despatches day after day.”

“This time, however, Mike, we must not grumble.”

“May be it isn’t far?”

“Why, as to that, I shall not promise much. I’m bound for England, Mickey.”

“For England!”

“Yes, Mike, and for Ireland.”

“For Ireland! whoop!” shouted he, as he shied his cap into one corner of the room, the jacket he was brushing into the other, and began dancing round the table with no bad imitation of an Indian war dance.

“Oh, blessed hour! Isn’t it beautiful to think of the illuminations and dinners and speeches and shaking of hands, huzzaing, and hip-hipping. May be there won’t be pictures of us in all the shops, – Mister Charles and his man Mister Free. May be they won’t make plays out of us; myself dressed in the gray coat with the red cuffs, the cords, the tops, and the Caroline hat a little cocked, with a phiz in the side of it.” Here he made a sign with his expanded fingers to represent a cockade, which he designated by this word. “I think I see myself dining with the corporation, and the Lord Major of Dublin getting up to propose the health of the hero of El Bodon, Mr. Free; and three times three, hurra! hurra! hurra! Musha, but it’s dry I am gettin’ with the thoughts of the punch and the poteen negus.”

“If you go on at this rate, we’re not likely to be soon at our journey’s end. So be alive now; pack up my kit; I shall start by twelve o’clock.”

With one spring Mike cleared the stairs, and overthrowing everything and everybody in his way, hurried towards the stable, chanting at the top of his voice the very poetical strain he had indulged me with a few minutes before.

My preparations were rapidly made; a few hurried lines of leave-taking to the good fellows I had lived so much with and felt so strongly attached to, with a firm assurance that I should join them again ere long, was all that my time permitted. To Power I wrote more at length, detailing the circumstances which my own letters informed me of, and also those which invited me to return home. This done, I lost not another moment, but set out upon my journey.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

After an hour’s sharp riding we reached the Aguada, where the river was yet fordable; crossing this, we mounted the Sierra by a narrow and winding pass which leads through the mountains towards Almeida. Here I turned once more to cast a last and farewell look at the scene of our late encounter. It was but a few hours that I had stood almost on the same spot, and yet how altered was all around. The wide plain, then bustling with all the life and animation of a large army, was now nearly deserted, – some dismounted guns, some broken-up, dismantled batteries, around which a few sentinels seemed to loiter rather than to keep guard; a strong detachment of infantry could be seen wending their way towards the fortress, and a confused mass of camp-followers, sutlers, and peasants following their steps for protection against the pillagers and the still ruder assaults of their own Guerillas. The fortress, too, was changed indeed. Those mighty walls before whose steep sides the bravest fell back baffled and beaten, were now a mass of ruin and decay; the muleteer could be seen driving his mule along through the rugged ascent of that breach to win whose top the best blood of Albion’s chivalry was shed; and the peasant child looked timidly from those dark enclosures in the deep fosse below, where perished hundreds of our best and bravest. The air was calm, clear, and unclouded; no smoke obscured the transparent atmosphere; the cannon had ceased; and the voices that rang so late in accents of triumphant victory were stilled in death. Everything, indeed, had undergone a mighty change; but nothing brought the altered fortunes of the scene so vividly to my mind as when I remembered that when last I had seen those walls, the dark shako of the French grenadiers peered above their battlements, and now the gay tartan of the Highlanders fluttered above them, and the red flag of England waved boldly in the breeze.

Up to that moment my sensations were those of unmixed pleasure. The thought of my home, my friends, my country, the feeling that I was returning with the bronze of the battle upon my cheek, and the voice of praise still ringing in my heart, – these were proud thoughts, and my bosom heaved short and quickly as I revolved them; but as I turned my gaze for the last time towards the gallant army I was leaving, a pang of sorrow, of self-reproach, shot through me, and I could not help feeling how far less worthily was I acting in yielding to the impulse of my wishes, than had I remained to share the fortunes of the campaign.