"Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the ramparts we hurried,
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot,
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.
"We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning,
By the struggling moonbeams' misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning."
CHARLES WOLFE.
Moore's first impulse was to struggle into a sitting posture, and, while resting on his right hand, to watch the wild conflict between the French and Highlanders at Elvina. Not a sigh of pain escaped him, as he bent his keen blue eyes on the corps engaged in front; but on seeing the black and crimson plumes of the 42nd triumphantly waving in the village, a smile of gratification stole over his handsome face, and he allowed himself to be borne to the rear by six Highlanders and guardsmen, Quentin Kennedy and Captain Hardinge assisting to keep him in an easy position with the sash of the latter.
"Report to General Hope that I am wounded," said he, calmly, "and desire him to assume the command."
Quentin observed that Sir John's sword had got entangled in the wound, and that the hilt was actually entering it. On this, Captain Hardinge kindly and gently attempted to unbuckle it.
"Never mind it, dear Hardinge," said the dying hero; "I had rather it should go out of the field with me."
Fast flowed the blood, and the torture of the complicated wound was terrible! His hands were become cold and clammy, and his face grew deadly pale in the dusky twilight.
"Colonel Graham of Balgowan, and Captain Woodford of the Guards, are both gone for surgeons," said Quentin, in his ear, while Captain Hardinge now strove in vain to stop the crimson current with his sash; "they will soon be here."
"You will recover from your injuries," said Hardinge; "I can perceive it, Sir John, by the expression of your eyes."
"No, Hardinge," said he, gravely; "I feel that to be impossible!"
Several times he made the bearers turn him round that he might behold the field of battle, and then a sublime expression stole over his fine face on seeing that everywhere the French were falling back, and that his slender army, after all its sufferings, was triumphant!
At this moment a spring waggon passed, in which lay Colonel Wynch, of the 4th Regiment, who was wounded.
"Who's in that blanket?" asked the colonel, faintly.
"Sir John Moore, most severely wounded," replied Quentin.
On hearing this, the good colonel, though bleeding fast, insisted on letting his general have the waggon; but the Highlanders urged that they would carry him easier in the blanket, "so they proceeded with him to his quarters in Corunna, weeping as they went."
Still the echoing musketry pealed through the murky air, and still the death-dealing blaze reddened the dusk of the coming evening. Heavily it volleyed at times in the intervals between the cannon on the rocks, and through the mingled haze up came the blood-red disc of the winter moon. Great clouds of white powder smoke crept sluggishly along the earth, and through it the flashes of the French guns above Elvina came redly and luridly out.
On being brought to his billet in Corunna, Sir John Moore was laid on a pallet and examined, and then all could see the terrible nature of his wound.
The entire left shoulder was shattered; the arm hung by a piece of skin; the ribs over the heart were stripped of flesh and bruised to pieces, and the muscles of the breast were torn in long strips that had become interlaced by the recoil of the fatal cannon-ball.
In the dusk of the gloomy apartment, where he lay rapidly dying on a poor mattrass, he recognised the face of Colonel Anderson, an old friend and comrade of twenty years and more. It was the third time Anderson had seen him borne from a field thus steeped in blood, but never before so awfully mangled. Moore pressed the hand of his old friend, who was deeply moved.
"Anderson," said he, with a sad smile, "you know I have always wished to die in this way."
Anderson answered only with his tears, yet he was a weather-beaten soldier, who had looked death in the face on many a hard-fought field.
"Are the French beaten?" Moore asked of all who came in, successively, and the assurances that they were retiring fast soothed his dying moments.
"I hope the people of England will be satisfied—I hope my dear country will do me justice!" said he, with touching earnestness; "oh, Anderson, you will see my friends at home as soon as you can—tell them everything—my poor mother——" Here his voice completely failed him; he became deeply agitated; but after a pause said, "Hope—Hope—I have much to say to him, but am too weak now! Are all my aides-de-camp well?"
"Yes," replied Anderson, who did not wish to distress him by the information that young Captain Burrard was mortally wounded.
"I have made my will, and—and—have remembered all my servants. Colbourne has it—tell Willoughby that Colbourne is to get his lieutenant-colonelcy.—Oh, it is a great satisfaction to me that we have beaten the French. Is Paget in the room?"
"No," replied Anderson, in a low voice.
"It is General Paget, I mean; remember me to him—he is a fine fellow! I feel myself so strong—ah, I fear that I shall be a long time in dying!"
In the intervals of his faint and disjointed remarks the boom of the distant artillery was occasionally heard, and their fitful flashes reddened the walls and windows of the room where he lay.
"Is that young lieutenant of the Fusiliers—Kennedy—is, is he here?"
"I am here, sir," said Quentin, in a choking voice.
"I cannot see you—the light of my eyes fails me now. I meant—I meant—for you."
What he "meant" to have done, Quentin was fated never to know.
In broken accents the general thanked the surgeons politely for the care they had taken; and apologized for the trouble he gave them. He then said to the son of Earl Stanhope, who served on his staff,
"Remember me—Stanhope—to—your sister."
He referred to the famous and brilliant Lady Hester Stanhope, whom he was said to have loved, and who died in Syria in 1839. Here his voice again completely failed him, and while pressing to his breast the hand of Colonel Anderson, who had saved his life at St. Lucia, he expired without a struggle in his forty-eighth year......
All stood in silence around the pallet whereon that brave gentleman and Christian soldier lay dead, and some time elapsed before they could realize the full extent of the calamity which had befallen them, and with moistened eyes they watched the pale still face, the fallen jaw, the shattered and blood-soaked form.
Just as Colonel Anderson knelt down to close the eyes of his dead friend and commander, Quentin Kennedy, with a heavy sigh in his throat, a sob in his breast, issued from the house, and grasping the sabre of Colbert, Moore's doubly-prized gift, he leaped on his horse, and, as if to relieve himself from thoughts of grief and sorrow, galloped towards the battle-field.
The night was now quite dark, and Sir John Hope had succeeded in following out Moore's dispositions so well, that he had driven the whole French line so far back that the British had now advanced far beyond their original position.
All Soult's ammunition was expended, though his troops were still the most numerous. He could not advance, and neither could he retreat, as the rain-swollen Mero was foaming along in full flood in his rear, and the rudely re-constructed bridge of El Burgo was his only avenue for escape.
It was now that Hope ordered a great line of watch-fires to be lighted by the picquets, and to have them kept burning to deceive the enemy, while the wounded, so far as possible, were carried off, and the whole army embarked, covered by Rowland Hill's brigade, which was posted in and near the ramparts of the citadel.
The field presented a scene of unexampled horror as Quentin rode back towards Corunna. Worn out by the long day passed under arms, the troops fell back, in somewhat shattered order, by companies and regiments towards the beach, the shadow of night concealing innumerable episodes of suffering, of solitary and unpitied dissolution.
The British loss was estimated at eight hundred, the French at three thousand men, so superior were our arms and firing.
In a place where the dead lay thick there sat a piper of the 92nd; he was wounded and bleeding to death, yet he played to his retreating comrades so long as strength remained, and then lay back dead, with the mouth-piece of the chanter between his relaxed jaws.
Everywhere in the dark Quentin heard voices calling for water.
"Un verre de l'eau, pour l'amour de Dieu!" cried many a poor Frenchman unheeded, as the columns fell back in fierce exultation upon Corunna, in many instances double quick.
Quentin rode back to the town, a three-miles' distance, and having neither post nor duty to repair to, went straight through the dark and crowded streets, which were full of soldiers and terrified citizens, to the house where he had seen his beloved leader expire. The door stood open; the mansion was dark, empty, chilly, and silent, and the body had been removed, he knew not where.
Just as he was turning away irresolute whether to inquire for the Borderers and get into one of the hundred boats now plying in the dark with war-worn troops, between the mole and fleet of transports, or whether he should join the staff of General Hill, whose brigade still occupied the citadel, a mounted staff-officer passed near him, and, by the light of a torch held by a Spaniard, who ran through the street, they recognised each other.
"'Tis well I have met you, Kennedy—come this way—we are about to pay the last earthly rites to poor Sir John Moore."
He who spoke was Captain Hardinge, and Kennedy, without a word, for his heart was very full, accompanied him into the strong old citadel of Corunna. The church bells were tolling midnight, and all was pitchy blackness around, for the moon was hidden; but in the dim distance, along the abandoned position on the hills, a line of watch-fires burned like dim and wavering stars to deceive the beaten but yet too powerful enemy.
The dim light of a lantern, upheld by a soldier, shone faintly on a group of officers who stood near, silent, sad, and thoughtful, and leaning on their swords. All were bareheaded. Beside them lay a body muffled in a blue cloak and a blanket soaked with blood—the mutilated remains of Moore, for whom no coffin could be procured.
Close by, a party of the 9th or East Norfolk Regiment were digging a grave, and there stood the chaplain-general, book in hand, but without a surplice, for the sound of distant cannon announced that the French, already discovering that they were foiled, were pushing on to St. Lucia, and hastened the interment.
The "lantern dimly burning" was held by Sergeant Rollo, of the Artillery, who died lately at Tynemouth, in his eighty-second year, and by its fitful light the body was deposited in its last home.
"Aid me, good gentlemen," said Colonel Anderson, with a broken voice, as the aides-de-camp lowered the remains into the rudely-dug hole, Quentin as the youngest carrying the feet. "It is a strange fatality, this! He always said that if he fell in battle, he wished to be buried where he died, and you see, gentlemen, his wish has been fulfilled."
Near him lay his countryman, General Anstruther, who had died of suffering and privations on the march.
Hastily the burial service was read, and the soldiers of the brave old 9th covered him up, literally, "the sod with their bayonets turning."
All lingered for a few minutes near the spot, and when they withdrew, there was not an eye unmoistened among them.
Thus passed away Sir John Moore, like Wolfe, in the moment of victory!
"A soldier from his earliest youth," says General Napier, "he thirsted for the honours of his profession, and feeling that he was worthy to lead a British army, hailed the fortune that placed him at the head of the troops destined for Spain. The stream of time passed rapidly, and the inspiring hopes of triumph disappeared, but the austerer glory of suffering remained; with a firm heart he accepted that gift of a severe fate, and confiding in the strength of his genius, disregarded the clamours of presumptuous ignorance; opposing sound military views to the foolish projects so insolently thrust upon him by the ambassador, he conducted a long and arduous retreat with sagacity, intelligence, and fortitude. No insult could disturb, no falsehood deceive him, no remonstrances shake his determination; fortune frowned without subduing his constancy; death struck, and the spirit of the man remained unbroken, when his shattered body scarcely afforded it habitation. Having done all that was just towards others, he remembered what was due to himself. Neither the shock of the mortal blow, nor the lingering hours of acute pain which preceded his dissolution, could quell the pride of his gallant heart, or lower the feeling with which (conscious of merit) he asserted his right to the gratitude of the country he had served so truly.
"If glory be a distinction, for such a man death is not a leveller!”