"Soft; I did but dream.
O, coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!
The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight,
Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.
What do I fear? Myself? there's none else by."
Richard III.
Sir John Moore and General Paget, with the cavalry, covered the retreat; the former ordered several small bridges to be destroyed to check the enemy's advance; but such was the inefficiency of the engineer force, that in every instance the mines failed. The rain, the wind, and the sleet continued; more soldiers perished by the way, and more stragglers were taken or sabred by the enemy's light horse; then again demoralization and despair pervaded the ranks. So numerous did the stragglers of all corps become, that more than once they found themselves strong enough to face about and check the cavalry of Lallemand and Ribeaupierre. The Guards, Artillery, and Highlanders alone preserved their discipline.
So great was the fatigue endured by the troops, that, on the evening of the 10th, when the 3rd battalion of the Royal Scots entered Betanzos, it mustered, under the colours, nine officers, three sergeants, and three privates; "all the rest had dropped on the roads, and many did not rejoin for three days."
At this place, which is a village at the foot of a hill, where the Mandeo was crossed by a wooden bridge, on which the engineers were hard at work, they were attacked by Ribeaupierre's dragoons, who, however, were repulsed by the 23th Regiment; the bridge was destroyed, and its beams and planks hurled into the swollen stream, which swept them away to the Gulf of Ferrol.
And here a party of straggling invalids, exhausted by fatigue, were closely pressed by the French cavalry; a Sergeant Newman, of the 2nd battalion of the 43rd, who was himself nearly worn out, rallied them with his pike, and gradually collected four hundred men of all regiments. With great presence of mind, he formed those poor fellows into subdivisions, and made them fire and retire by sections, each re-forming in rear of the others, so that he most effectually covered the retreat of the disabled men who covered all that fearful road—conduct so spirited that he was publicly thanked by Generals Fraser and Fane.
The destruction of the bridge more decidedly secured the retreat; but more men perished between Betanzos and Lugo than anywhere else, since that rearward march began. Moore, by his energy, massed the army, now reduced to fourteen thousand infantry, which, on the morning of the llth January, fell back on Corunna, under his immediate and personal superintendence.
"Stanhope," said he to his favourite aide-de-camp, who was almost ever by his side, "we are now within a few miles of Corunna; ride forward with me, as I am all anxiety to see if our fleet is in the bay—Kennedy will accompany us."
Quentin bowed, put spurs to his horse, and quitting Paget's cavalry rearguard together, they rode rapidly along the line of march to the front.
They soon reached the heights of Corunna, and saw the town beneath them about four miles distant; then a sad expression stole over Moore's handsome face, but no exclamation escaped him.
Not a ship was visible in the Bays of Orsan or Betanzos, nor in the harbour of the town; the Roads of Ferrol and all the expanse of water were open and empty!
Fortune was against him and his army, for contrary winds detained the fleet of men-of-war and transports at Vigo, a hundred and twenty miles distant by sea.
The morning was sunny, and Corunna on its fortified peninsula—the Corun, or "tongue of land" of the Celts—was seen distinctly, with all its strong bastions and gothic spires; its almost land-locked harbour, guarded by the castles of San Martino and Santa Cruz, with the flag of King Ferdinand VII. flying on the fort of San Antonio (which crowns a high and insular rock), and on the Pharos of Hercules.
For Sir John Moore there was nothing left now but to prepare to defend the position in front of the town till the fleet should come round. He quartered his army in Corunna and its suburbs; the reserve he posted at El Burgo, on the river Mero, the bridge of which he destroyed.
He also sent an engineer officer with a party of sappers to blow up the bridge of Cambria. Some delay took place in the ignition of the mine, and he despatched Quentin Kennedy to the officer with an angry expostulation.
Mortified by repeated failures elsewhere during the retreat, the officer was anxious to perform this duty effectually. He approached the mine to examine it, and at that moment it exploded!
Quentin felt the earth shake beneath his feet; the arch of the bridge sprung upward like a huge lid; a column of dark earth, stones, and dust, spouted into the air to descend in ruins, bringing with them the mutilated fragments of the poor engineer officer, who was literally blown to pieces; but this was a mere squib when compared with the explosion of two magazines containing four thousand casks of powder, which were blown up on the 13th, to prevent them from falling into the hands of the enemy. On this occasion, says an eye-witness, "there ensued a crash like the bursting forth of a volcano; the earth trembled for miles, the rocks were torn from their bases, and the agitated waters rolled the vessels as in a storm; a vast column of smoke and dust, shooting out fiery sparks from its sides, arose perpendicularly and slowly to a great height, and then a shower of stones and fragments of all kinds bursting out of it with a roaring sound, killed several persons who remained too near the spot. A stillness, only interrupted by the lashing of the waves on the shore, succeeded, and the business of the war went on."
All this powder had been sent from England and left there, by the red-tapists of the time, to be destroyed thus, while more than once the armies of Britain and Spain had been before the enemy with their pouches empty!
In Corunna, the jaded British had now breathing time, but the exulting French were still pouring on. Some of Moore's staff suggested that he should send a flag of truce to Soult and negotiate for permission to embark unmolested—a suggestion which his undaunted heart rejected with scorn and anger.
"I rely on my own powers," said he, "for defying the enemy, and extricating with honour my troops from their perilous position."
Food, shelter, and rest restored vigour, and force of habit brought discipline back to the ranks; fresh ammunition was served out, and in many instances the men were supplied with new firelocks in lieu of those rusted and worn by the weather during the retreat; but hearty were the cheers that rung in Corunna when, on the evening of the 14th, the fleet of transports from Vigo were seen bearing slowly into the harbour, under full sail, and coming each in succession to anchor. At the same time, however, an orderly, sent by Sir David Baird, came spurring in hot haste to announce that the French had repaired the bridge of El Burgo, and that their cavalry and artillery were crossing the Mero, a few miles from Corunna.
With the rest of the staff, Quentin passed all that night in his saddle, riding between the town and beach with orders and instructions, for, under cover of the friendly darkness, the whole of the women and children, sick and wounded, dismounted dragoons, all the best horses—the useless were shot on the beach—and fifty-two pieces of cannon were embarked; eleven six-pounders and one field howitzer being only retained for immediate service.
"Hardinge," said Moore, as his staff rode into the upper town, "you will ride over to Sir David Baird; you, Major Colborne, to Lord Paget; and you, Kennedy, to General Leith, to say, that at daybreak, if the French do not move, they are to fall back with their corps for instant embarkation."
And with these welcome orders, the three aides-de-camp separated at full speed.
On this night of anxiety and bustle, the Master of Rohallion remained idly in his billet, a pretty villa, the windows of which faced the little bay of Orsan, with the suburb of the Pescadera extending from its garden on the west towards the mainland.
Paget and some other friends of his, after seeing their sound horses embarked and the useless shot, had supped with him. No one expected any engagement to take place now; they made light of past sorrows, spoke laughingly of the amusements that awaited them at home, and drank deeply.
Any momentary emotion of gratitude felt by Cosmo for the noble manner in which young Kennedy saved his life at Lugo was completely forgotten now, all the recollection of that event being completely merged in a whirlwind of rage at the aide-de-camp for having taunted him to the charge, and for actually daring to lead on the battalion in the face of so many superior officers!
Cosmo had never wearied of descanting on this military enormity, and all night long, as he became inflamed by what he imbibed, he consulted with Paget, Burrard, and others, as to whether he should call Kennedy out or bring him before a court-martial again.
The former mode of proceeding at Alva having failed "to smash him," they were averse to another, and all were of opinion that for the latter course Cosmo had allowed too many days to elapse.
"Trouble your head no more about it," said Paget, while playing with the tassels of his gold sash; "we'll laugh the affair over at Brighton in a few days or so. Soothe your mind, meantime, by the study of these classic frescoes. I wonder who the devil decorated this villa!"
"Cupid and Psyche," said Burrard, who had been adding a few decorations, such as beards and tails, with a burnt cork; "Pyramus and Thisbe; and, by Jove, the story of Leda!"
"Egad! such lively imaginations and odd propensities those pagan fellows had! Au revoir, Crawford; we'll have the générale beaten for the last time on Spanish ground to-morrow, and then hey for the high road to Old England!" added the gay hussar, who, before six months were past, figured in an elopement, a duel, and damages to the tune of twenty thousand pounds—an affair that made more noise in the world of fashion than even the Spanish campaign.
Cosmo was at last alone, and though he mixed a glass of brandy with a goblet of champagne, he felt strange and sad thoughts stealing over him.
He was hot and flushed, and his heart beat tumultuously and anxiously, he knew not why. He threw open the sash of one of the lofty windows, which were divided in lattice-fashion from the ceiling to the floor, and looked out upon the night.
It was silent, clear, and starry, and not a sound broke the calm stillness, save the chafing of the waves on the rocks that bordered the bay.
The snow had melted, and the garden of the villa being thickly planted with evergreens, looked quite unlike a winter one.
Cosmo's brain, at least his whole nervous system, seemed to have received a shock by that fall from his horse at Lugo. He was restless, feverish, and anxious, without knowing why; for being brave as man could be, he had no fear for the morrow, and really cared very little whether a battle was fought or not.
"What is this that is stealing over me—can it be illness?" he asked of himself.
Thoughts and memories of home, his family, and many an old and once tender association that he had long forgotten were stealing over him now, together with an uncontrollable sadness and depression of mind: his father's cheerful voice, his mother's loving face, came vividly to recollection, with emotions of tenderness for which he could not account—emotions which he strove to repress as unnatural to him, and which actually provoked him, by the strange pertinacity with which they thrust themselves upon his fancy.
"Pshaw!" said he, "that deuced tumble in front of the enemy has unmanned me—and that fellow, too! Confound him," he muttered through his clenched teeth, "I hate him!"
At that moment the great bell of the citadel tolled the hour of three. He arose and stepped out into the garden. The last note of that deep and full but distant bell, yet vibrated in the stilly air; the stars were reflected in the dark waters of the bay, and the light that shone in the great Pharos of Hercules, three hundred feet above it, as it revolved slowly on its ancient tower, cast tremulous rays at regular intervals far across the sea on one side and the inlet of Orsan on the other.
The ocean breeze came gratefully to the flushed brow of Cosmo, who suddenly perceived near him a man in a strange uniform.
He stood in the centre of the garden walk at a short distance from the open window, his figure being clearly defined against the starry sky beyond, and by a ray of light which shone from the room Cosmo could perceive that his dress was scarlet.
Supposing he was some straggler or other man who should be in quarters, Crawford, whose step was somewhat unsteady, walked boldly up to the tall stranger, who remained silent and immovable.
He wore an old-fashioned flowing red coat without a collar, but having deep cuffs, all profusely laced; a large brigadier wig and three-cornered hat, sleeve ruffles, and a long slender sword, and he stood with his right hand firmly planted on a walking cane. His bearing was noble and lofty; his long, pale, and handsome features, in which Cosmo recognised a startling likeness of his own, wore a deathlike hue, and his eyes were sad and stony in expression.
Cosmo Crawford attempted to speak, but the words failed on his lips; he felt the hair bristle on his scalp, and a thrill of terror pass all over him as the figure, phantom, fancy, or whatever it was, pointed with its thin white hand to the plain before Corunna, and then the whole outline began to fade, the stars shone through it, and it seemed to melt away into space!
An icy horror came over Cosmo, and his soul trembled as he remembered the bugbear of his boyhood, the story of the haunted gate at Rohallion, and the wraith of his uncle John the Master, who had been slain by the side of Cornwallis in America. He rushed back to the room and flung himself panting on a sofa.
Then with a furious oath at his own timidity, folly, or fancy, he issued boldly into the garden again, but nothing was there save the laurel bushes that bordered the lonely walk where he had seen that wondrous and fantastic dream.
All seemed still—horribly so—all save the beating of his heart and the rustling of the regimental colours, which the night wind stirred, and which, in virtue of his rank, were always lodged in his apartment.
"Was that a warning?—bah! And the cup of wine!" he exclaimed. "By this time to-morrow night," he reflected, "I may have been again in battle. I may be safe and scatheless, or dreadfully mutilated and beggared for life, or by this hour—dreadful thought, I may be in eternity! I may have learned the secret of life and death, of existence and extinction, and this body may be lying stark, stripped, and bloody, with its glazed eyes fixed on the stars of heaven! Bah! another glass of wine, then!"
Cosmo slept but little that night, and it was with a stern and gloomy foreboding of evil that he saw the day dawn stealing over the dark grey sea and the lofty citadel of Corunna.