Under Wellington\'s Command

G >> G. A. Henty >> Under Wellington\'s Command

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28

He then related the incidents of the fight.

"Well, I congratulate you, gentlemen," the officer said, heartily.
"You have indeed done a good turn to Captain Teniers. To whom have
I the pleasure of speaking?"

"My name is O'Connor," replied Terence. "I have the honour to be on
Sir Arthur Wellesley's staff; and have the rank of captain in our
army, but am a colonel in the Portuguese service. This is
Lieutenant Ryan, of His Majesty's Mayo Fusiliers."

The officer looked a little doubtful, while Terence was speaking.
It was difficult to believe that the young fellow, of one or two
and twenty, at the outside, could be a captain on Lord Wellington's
staff--for Sir Arthur had been raised to the peerage, after the
battle of Talavera--still less that he should be a colonel in the
Portuguese service. However, he bowed gravely, and said:

"My name is Major Chalmers, of the 35th. I am adjutant to the
governor. If it will not be inconvenient, I shall be glad if you
will return with me, and report yourselves to him."

"We are quite ready," Terence said. "We have nothing to do in the
way of packing up, for we have only the clothes we stand in; which
were, indeed, the property of the captain of the lugger, who was
killed in the action."

Telling Captain Teniers that they would be coming down again, when
they had seen the governor, the two friends accompanied the
officer. Very few words were said on the way, for the major
entertained strong doubts whether Terence had not been hoaxing him,
and whether the account he had given of himself was not altogether
fictitious. On arriving at the governor's he left them for a few
minutes in the anteroom; while he went in and gave the account he
had received, from the captain, of the manner in which the lugger
had been captured; and said that the two gentlemen who had played
so important a part in the matter were, as they said, one of them
an officer on the staff of Lord Wellington and a colonel in the
Portuguese army, and the other a subaltern in the Mayo Fusiliers.

"Why do you say, as they said,' major? Have you any doubt about
it?"

"My only reason for doubting is that they are both young fellows of
about twenty, which would accord well enough with the claim of one
of them to be a lieutenant; but that the other should be a captain
on Lord Wellington's staff, and a colonel in the Portuguese
service, is quite incredible."

"It would seem so, certainly, major. However, it is evident that
they have both behaved extraordinarily well in this fight with the
Annette, and I cannot imagine that, whatever story a young fellow
might tell to civilians, he would venture to assume a military
title to which he had no claim, on arrival at a military station.
Will you please ask them to come in? At any rate, their story will
be worth hearing."

"Good day, gentlemen," he went on, as Terence and Ryan entered. "I
have to congratulate you, very heartily, upon the very efficient
manner in which you assisted in the capture of the French privateer
that has, for some time, been doing great damage among the islands.
She has been much more than a match for any of our privateers here
and, although she has been chased several times by the cruisers,
she has always managed to get away.

"And now, may I ask how you happened to be approaching the island,
in a small boat, at the time that the encounter took place?"

"Certainly, sir. We were both prisoners at Bayonne. I myself had
been captured by the French, when endeavouring to cross the
frontier into Portugal with my regiment; while Lieutenant Ryan was
wounded at Talavera, and was in the hospital there when the
Spaniards left the town, and the French marched in."

"What is your regiment, Colonel O'Connor?"

"It is called the Minho regiment, sir, and consists of two
battalions. We have had the honour of being mentioned in general
orders more than once; and were so on the day after the first
attack of Victor upon Donkin's brigade, stationed on the hill
forming the left of the British position at Talavera."

The governor looked at his adjutant who, rising, went to a table on
which were a pile of official gazettes. Picking out one, he handed
it to the governor, who glanced through it.

"Here is the general order of the day," he said, "and assuredly
Lord Wellington speaks, in the very highest terms, of the service
that Colonel O'Connor and the Minho regiment, under his command,
rendered. Certainly very high praise, indeed.

"You will understand, sir, that we are obliged to be cautious here;
and it seemed so strange that so young an officer should have
attained the rank of colonel, that I was curious to know how it
could have occurred."

"I am by no means surprised that it should seem strange, to you,
that I should hold the rank I claim. I was, like my friend
Lieutenant Ryan, in the Mayo Fusiliers; when I had the good fortune
to be mentioned, in despatches, in connection with an affair in
which the transport that took us out to Portugal was engaged with
two French privateers. In consequence of the mention, General Fane
appointed me one of his aides-de-camp; and I acted in that capacity
during the campaign that ended at Corunna. I was left on the field,
insensible, on the night after that battle.

"When I came to myself, the army was embarking; so I made my way
through Galicia into Portugal and, on reaching Lisbon, was
appointed by Sir John Craddock to his staff; and was sent by him on
a mission to the northern frontier of Portugal.

"On the way I took the command of a body of freshly-raised
Portuguese levies, who were without an officer or leader of any
kind. With the aid of a small escort with me, I formed them into a
reliable regiment, and had the good fortune to do some service with
them. I was therefore confirmed in my command, and was given
Portuguese rank. Sir Arthur Wellesley, on succeeding Sir John
Craddock in the supreme command, still kept my name on the
headquarter staff, thereby adding greatly to my authority; and
continued me in the independent command of my regiment.

"After Talavera we were despatched to aid the Spaniards in holding
the pass of Banos but, before we arrived there, Soult had crossed
the pass and, being cut off by his force from rejoining the army, I
determined to cross the mountains into Portugal. In so doing we
came upon a French division, on its march to Plasencia, and the
company of my regiment with which I was were cut off, and taken
prisoners."

"Forgive me for having doubted you, Colonel O'Connor. I should, of
course, have remembered your name. In his report of his operations,
before and subsequent to the battle of Talavera, Lord Wellington
mentions, more than once, that his left during his advance was
covered by the partisan corps of Wilson and O'Connor; and mentions,
too, that it was by messengers from Colonel O'Connor that he first
learned how formidable a force was in his rear, and was therefore
able to cross the Tagus and escape from his perilous position. Of
course, it never entered my mind that the officer who had rendered
such valuable service was so young a man.

"There is only one mystery left. How was it, when you and Mr. Ryan
escaped from Bayonne, that you are found in a boat in the Bay of
Saint Malo?"

"It does seem rather a roundabout way of rejoining," Terence said,
with a smile. "We escaped in a boat and made along the north coast
of Spain but, when off Santander, were blown out to sea in a gale,
and were picked up by a French privateer. We were supposed to be
two Spanish fishermen and, as the privateer was short of boats,
they took ours and enrolled us among their crew. They were on their
way to Brest, and we took an opportunity to desert, and made our
way on foot until we reached the mouth of the river Sienne; and
made off in a boat, last night. This morning we saw the privateer
in chase of us, and should certainly have been recaptured had not
the Cerf come up and engaged her. While the fight was going on we
had gone on board the schooner, unperceived by either party, and
took what seemed to us the best way of aiding our friends; who were
getting somewhat the worst of it, the crew of the lugger being very
much stronger than the crew of the schooner."

"Well, I hope that you will both, at once, take up your quarters
with me as long as you stay here; and I shall then have an
opportunity of hearing of your adventures more in detail."

"Thank you very much, sir. We shall be very happy to accept your
kind invitation; but I hope we shall not trespass upon your
hospitality long, for we are anxious to be off, as soon as
possible, so as to rejoin without loss of time. I am particularly
so for, although it will be two or three months before there is any
movement of the troops, I am afraid of finding someone else
appointed to the command of my regiment; and I have been so long
with it, now, that I should be sorry indeed to be put to any other
work."

"That I can quite understand. Well, there is no regular
communication from here, but there is not a week passes without
some craft or other sailing from here to Weymouth."

"We would rather, if possible, be put on board some ship on her way
to Portugal," Terence said. "If we landed in England, we should
have to report ourselves, and might be sent to a depot, and be
months before we got out there again. I spoke to the captain of the
Cerf about it, this morning; and he was good enough to promise
that, as soon as he had repaired damages, he would run out into the
Bay, and put us on board the first ship he overhauled bound for the
Peninsula."

"That would be an excellent plan, from your point of view," the
governor said. "Teniers is one of the best sailors on the island,
and has several times carried despatches for me to Weymouth. You
could not be in better hands."

Four days later the schooner was ready to sail again.

"This will be my last voyage in her," the captain said. "I have had
an offer for her, and shall sell her as soon as I come back again,
as I shall take the command of the Annette. I ought to do well in
her, for her rig and build are so evidently French that I shall be
able to creep up close to any French vessel making along the coast,
or returning from abroad, without being suspected of being an
enemy. Of course, I shall have to carry a much stronger crew than
at present; and I hope to clip the wings of some of these French
privateers, before long."

They had, on the day of their landing, ordered new uniforms, and
had purchased a stock of underclothing. They were fortunate in
being able to pick up swords and belts, and all were now ready for
them and, on the fifth day after landing, they said goodbye to the
governor, and sailed on board the Cerf.

When twenty-four hours out the vessel lay to, being now on the
track of ships bound south. On the following day they overhauled
six vessels and, as the last of these was bound with military
stores for Lisbon, Terence and Ryan were transferred to her. With a
hearty adieu to the skipper, they took their places in the boat and
were rowed to the vessel; being greeted, on their departure, by a
loud and hearty cheer from the crew of the privateer. There were no
passengers on board the store ship, and they had an uneventful
voyage, until she dropped anchor in the Tagus.

After paying the captain the small sum he charged for their
passage, they landed. They first went to a hotel and put up. On
sallying out, Ryan had no difficulty in learning that the Mayo
Fusiliers were at Portalegre.

Terence took his way to headquarters. The first person he met, on
entering, was his old acquaintance Captain Nelson, now wearing the
equipments of a major. The latter looked at him inquiringly, and
then exclaimed:

"Why, it is O'Connor! Why, I thought you were a prisoner! I am
delighted to see you. Where have you sprung from?"

"I escaped from Bayonne and, after sundry adventures, landed an
hour ago. In the first place, what has been done with my regiment?"

"It is with Hill's division, which is at Abrantes and Portalegre."

"Who is in command?"

"Your friend Herrara. No British officer has been appointed in your
place. There was some talk of handing it over to Trant in the
spring but, as nothing can be done before that, no one has yet been
nominated."

"I am glad, indeed, to hear it. I have been fidgeting about it,
ever since I went away."

"Well, I will take you in to the adjutant general, at once. I heard
him speak, more than once, of the services you rendered by sending
news that Soult and Ney were both in the valley, and so enabling
Lord Wellington to get safely across the Tagus. He said it was an
invaluable service. Of course Herrara reported your capture, and
that you had sacrificed yourself, and one of the companies, to
secure the safety of the rest. Now, come in."

[Illustration: 'This is Colonel O'Connor, sir.']

"This is Colonel O'Connor, sir," Major Nelson said, as he entered
the adjutant general's room. "I could not resist the pleasure of
bringing him in to you. He has just escaped from Bayonne, and
landed an hour ago."

"I am glad to see you, indeed," the adjutant general said, rising
and shaking Terence warmly by the hand. "The last time we met was
on the day when Victor attacked us, in the afternoon, after sending
the Spaniards flying. You rendered us good service that evening,
and still greater by acquainting the commander-in-chief of the
large force that had gathered in his rear--a force at least three
times as strong as we had reckoned on. A day later, and we should
have been overwhelmed. As it was, we had just time to cross the
Tagus before they were ready to fall upon us.

"I am sure Lord Wellington will be gratified, indeed, to hear that
you are back again. I suppose you will like to return to your
command of the Minho regiment?"

"I should prefer that to anything else," Terence said, "though, of
course, I am ready to undertake any other duty that you might
intrust to me."

"No, I think it would be for the good of the service that you
should remain as you are. The difficulty of obtaining anything like
accurate information, of the strength and position of the enemy, is
one of the greatest we have to contend with; and indeed, were it
not for Trant's command and yours, we should be almost in the dark.

"Please sit down for a minute. I will inform Lord Wellington of
your return."

Chapter 9: Rejoining.

The adjutant general returned in two or three minutes.

"Will you please come this way, Colonel O'Connor," he said, as he
re-entered the room; "the commander-in-chief wishes to speak to
you."

"I am glad to see you back, Colonel O'Connor," Lord Wellington said
cordially, but in his usual quick, short manner; "the last time I
saw you was at Salamende. You did well at Talavera; and better
still afterwards, when the information I received from you was the
only trustworthy news obtained during the campaign, and was simply
invaluable. Sir John Craddock did me no better service than by
recognizing your merits, and speaking so strongly to me in your
favour that I retained you in command of the corps that you had
raised. I shall be glad to know that you are again at their head,
when the campaign reopens; for I know that I can rely implicitly
upon you for information. Of course, your name has been removed
from the list of my staff, since you were taken prisoner; but it
shall appear in orders tomorrow again. I shall be glad if you will
dine with me, this evening."

"I wish I had a few more young officers like that," he said to the
adjutant general, when Terence had bowed and retired. "He is full
of energy, and ready to undertake any wild adventure, and yet he is
as prudent and thoughtful as most men double his age. I like his
face. He has a right to be proud of the position he has won, but
there is not the least nonsense about him, and he evidently has no
idea that he has done anything out of the ordinary course. At first
sight he looks a mere good-tempered lad, but the lower part of his
face is marked by such resolution and firmness that it goes far to
explain why he has succeeded."

There were but four other officers dining with the
commander-in-chief that evening. Lord Wellington asked Terence
several questions as to the route the convoy of prisoners had
followed, the treatment they had received, and the nature of the
roads, and whether the Spanish guerillas were in force. Terence
gave a brief account of the attack that had been made on the French
convoy, and the share that he and his fellow prisoners had taken in
the affair; at which Lord Wellington's usually impassive face
lighted up with a smile.

"That was a somewhat irregular proceeding, Colonel O'Connor."

"I am afraid so, sir; but after their treatment by the Spaniards
when in the hospital at Talavera, our men were so furious against
them that I believe they would have fought them, even had I
endeavoured to hold them back; which, indeed, being a prisoner, I
do not know that I should have had any authority to do."

"And how did you escape from Bayonne?" the general asked.

"Through the good offices of some of the soldiers who had been our
escort, sir. They were on duty as a prison guard and, being
grateful for the help that we had given them in the affair with the
guerillas, they aided me to escape."

"And how did you manage afterwards?"

Terence related very briefly the adventures that he and his
companion had had, before at last reaching Jersey.

On leaving, the adjutant general requested him to call in, the
morning before starting to rejoin his regiment, as he expressed his
intention of doing. The talk was a long and friendly one, the
adjutant general asking many questions as to the constitution of
his corps.

"There is one thing I should like very much, sir," Terence said,
after he had finished, "it would be a great assistance to me if I
had an English officer, as adjutant."

"Do you mean one for each battalion, or one for the two?"

"I think that one for both battalions would answer the purpose,
sir. It would certainly be of great assistance to me, and take a
great many details off my hands."

"I certainly think that you do need assistance. Is there any one
you would specially wish to be appointed?"

"I should be very glad to have Lieutenant Ryan, who has been with
me on my late journey. We are old friends, as I was in the Mayo
regiment with him. He speaks Portuguese very fairly. Of course, it
would be useless for me to have an officer who did not do so. I
should certainly prefer him to anyone else."

"That is easily managed," the officer replied. "I will put him in
orders, today, as appointed adjutant to the Minho Portuguese
regiment, with the acting rank of captain. I will send a note to
Lord Beresford, stating the reason for the appointment for, as you
and your officers owe your local rank to him, he may feel that he
ought to have been specially informed of Ryan's appointment;
although your corps is in no way under his orders, but acting with
the British army."

"I am very much obliged to you, indeed, sir. It will be a great
comfort to me to have an adjutant, and it will naturally be much
more pleasant to have one upon whom I know I can depend absolutely.
Indeed, I have been rather in an isolated position, so far. The
majors of the two battalions naturally associate with their own
officers, consequently Colonel Herrara has been my only intimate
friend and, although he is a very good fellow, one longs sometimes
for the companionship of a brother Englishman."

Terence had not told Dick Ryan of his intention to ask for him as
his adjutant. When he joined him at the hotel, he saluted him with:

"Well, Captain Ryan, have you everything ready for the start?"

"I have, General," Dick replied with a grin, "or perhaps I ought to
say Field Marshal."

"Not yet, Dicky, not yet; and indeed, possibly I am premature
myself, in addressing you as Captain."

"Rather; I should say I have a good many steps to make, before I
get my company."

"Well, Dick, I can tell you that, when the orders come out today,
you will see your name among them as appointed adjutant to the
Minho Portuguese regiment, with acting rank as captain."

"Hurrah!" Ryan shouted. "You don't say that you have managed it,
old fellow? I am delighted. This is glorious. I am awfully obliged
to you."

"I think, Dick, we will make up our minds not to start until this
evening. You know we had arranged to hire a vehicle, and that I
should get a horse when I joined; but I think now we may as well
buy the horses at once, for of course you will be mounted, too. We
might pay a little more for them, but we should save the expense of
the carriage."

"That would be much better," Dick said. "Let us go and get them, at
once. There must be plenty of horses for sale in a place like this
and, as we are both flush of money, I should think that a couple of
hours would do it."

"I hope it will. As I told them at headquarters that I was going to
start today, I should not like any of them to run across me here
this evening. No doubt the landlord of the hotel can tell us of
some man who keeps the sort of animals we want. The saddlery we
shall have no difficulty about."

Two hours later a couple of serviceable horses had been bought;
with saddles, bridles, holsters, and valises. In the last named
were packed necessaries for the journey, and each provided himself
with a brace of double-barrelled pistols. The rest of their effects
were packed in the trunks they had bought at Jersey, and were
handed over to a Portuguese firm of carriers, to be sent up to the
regiment.

At two o'clock they mounted and rode to Sobral. The next day they
rode to Santarem, and on the following evening to Abrantes. They
here learned that their corps was in camp, with two other
Portuguese regiments, four miles higher up the river. As it was
dark when they arrived at Abrantes, they agreed to sleep there and
go on the next morning; as Terence wished to report himself to
General Hill, to whose division the regiment was attached, until
operations should commence in the spring.

They put up at an inn and, having eaten a meal, walked out into the
town, which was full of British soldiers. They were not long before
they found the cafe that was set apart for the use of officers and,
on entering, Terence at once joined a party of three, belonging to
a regiment with all of whose officers he was acquainted, as they
had been encamped next to the Mayo Fusiliers during the long months
preceding the advance up the valley of the Tagus. Ryan was, of
course, equally known to them; and the three officers rose, with an
exclamation of surprise, as the newcomers walked up to the table.

"Why, O'Connor! How in the world did you get here? How are you,
Ryan? I thought that you were both prisoners."

"So we were," Terence said, "but as you see, we gave them the slip,
and here we are."

They drew up chairs to the little table.

"You may consider yourself lucky in your regiment being on the
river, O'Connor. You will be much better off than Ryan will be, at
Portalegre."

"I am seconded," Ryan said, "and have been appointed O'Connor's
adjutant, with the temporary rank of captain."

"I congratulate you. The chances are you will have a much better
time of it than if you were with your own regiment. I don't mean
now, but when the campaign begins in the spring. O'Connor always
seems to be in the thick of it, while our division may remain here,
while the fighting is going on somewhere else. Besides, he always
manages to dine a good deal better than we do. His fellows, being
Portuguese, are able to get supplies, when the peasants are all
ready to take their oath that they have not so much as a loaf of
bread or a fowl in their village.

"How will you manage to get on with them, Ryan, without speaking
their language? Oh! I remember, you were grinding up Portuguese all
the spring, so I suppose you can get on pretty well, now."

"Yes; O'Connor promised that he would ask for me, as soon as I
could speak the language, so I stuck at it hard; and now, you see,
I have got my reward."

"I can tell you that the troops, here, are a good deal better off
than they are elsewhere. There is a fearful want of land carriage,
but we get our supplies up by boats. That is why the Portuguese
regiments are encamped on the river.

"Well, how did you get away from the French? It is curious that
when I saw O'Grady last--which was a fortnight ago, when he came in
to get a conveyance to take over sundry cases of whisky that had
come up the river, for the use of his mess--he said:

"'I expect that O'Connor and Dick Ryan will turn up here, before
the spring. I am sure they will, if they have got together.'"

"It is too long a story to tell, here," Ryan said. "It is full of
hairbreadth escapes, dangers by sea and land, and ends up with a
naval battle."

The officers laughed.

"Well, will you come to our quarters?" one of them said. "We have
got some decent wine, and some really good cigars which came up
from Lisbon last week, and there are lots of our fellows who will
be glad to see you."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28