Chapter XIII Don Miguel’s Man
Fine Feathers—A Fight by the River—Lax Discipline—Scenes at Astorga—A Cry for Help—The One-eyed Man—At Bay—A Warm Corner—Wilkes to the Rescue—Miguel Explains—Righteous Indignation—Wilkes’s Supper
Captain O’Hare’s eyes were twinkling as he watched the aggrieved exit of the two soldiers, and when they had gone he joined in Jack’s shout of laughter.
“Ah! ’tis all very well for you to laugh at Corporal Wilkes; but faith, my boy, we’ll have to court-martial you for deserting his Majesty’s stores, to say nothing of my best pair of galligaskins. Begorra, let’s hope they won’t fit the spalpeen of a Frenchman who gets them. The whole mess is rejuced to one suit.”
Then, changing his tone, the captain proceeded to inform Jack of what had happened since his arrival at Benavente. The inhabitants of the town had received the British army with an attitude of sullen dislike and even animosity. Relying for their rations on what could be obtained during the march, the troops had come into the place tired and hungry, to find the doors barred and food withheld. The shops were all closed, the magistrates had taken flight, and although the British were prepared to pay for supplies, neither bread nor wine was to be had. The men were already embittered by the hardships of their long march, and disappointed of their hopes of meeting the French in fair fight, and it was small wonder that coldness where they might well have looked for warmth, and aversion where they might have claimed active friendship, provoked resentment and reprisal. They were received as enemies; they could scarcely be expected to act as friends.
“Indade, the whole army’s going to the dogs,” said Captain O’Hare dejectedly; “all except the Gyards and the Reserve. Things are as bad as they can be, and there’s worse to come. The main body’s looting, and behaving worse than Pagans and Turks. They should be at Astorga by now, and we’re to follow them in an hour or so. The company’s falling in, and you’d better hurry up, or you run a risk of finding an escort like our friend Wilkes. And bedad,” he added, as the dull sound of firing was heard in the direction of the river, “there’s the music again.”
Jack had by this time finished his breakfast, and, hurrying out with the captain, he found the 95th preparing to move off.
“Hullo!” cried Smith, “you’ve turned up, then! What have you done with the wagon?”
“Where are my boots?” asked Pomeroy.
“And my best frilled shirt, the one with the ruffles?” continued Smith.
“And my new highlows, the ones with the silver buckles?” added Pomeroy.
“They are coming after us,” returned Jack. “If you care to wait they’ll probably be here in half an hour—and Colbert’s dragoons inside them.”
As the regiment moved off, the firing behind them became more and more distinct and continuous. Bodies of mounted troops could be seen on the horizon; a smart cavalry action was apparently being fought, and the men of the 95th were again jealous of what they considered the better luck of the cavalry. But Jack’s company, marching away at the quick step, was soon beyond sight of the combatants, though for an hour afterwards the boom of guns could be plainly heard.
Lord Paget was fighting one of those brilliant little rear-guard actions that stamped him in an age of great soldiers as one of the finest cavalry leaders of his time. At Benavente he had to deal, not with the ruck of Napoleon’s cavalry, who, be it said to their credit, were never wanting in dash, but with the flower of the emperor’s troops, the famous Cavalry of the Guard, led in person by Lefebvre-Desnouettes, his favourite general, who had been until now the spoiled child of fortune. When Lefebvre-Desnouettes discovered that the bridge across the Esla was broken beyond possibility of immediate repair, he rode fuming up and down the river, vainly seeking a practicable ford for the large body of infantry that had now gathered on the banks. On the farther side was a thin chain of British vedettes; beyond these, as far as the eye could reach across the great plain, there was no sign of Sir John Moore’s army except a few belated camp-followers hurrying into Benavente. The French general, chafing with impatience, at last flung prudence to the winds and decided to follow up the pursuit with his cavalry alone, leaving the infantry to follow as soon as the bridge could be patched up. Fording the swollen river with 600 chasseurs of the Guard at a spot some distance above the ruined arches, he drove back the vedettes in his front and pushed rapidly across the plain in the direction of Benavente. Meanwhile the news of the crossing had brought the British vedettes at full gallop from their posts opposite the fords below and above the bridge; and when a few score had collected they made a plucky charge at the head of the French column, and in spite of their small numbers threw it into disorder. The discomfited chasseurs, supported by the succeeding squadrons, rallied and pursued the audacious little band; but they were again broken by a second charge, led in person by General Stewart, who had come up with a few reinforcements. The British troopers broke clean through the first line, and although they narrowly escaped being cut off by the main body, they hewed their way out again and retired in good order towards Benavente. They were only two hundred, the French were three times their number, and Lefebvre-Desnouettes, irritated by these checks, incautiously pressed them into the outskirts of the town. There Lord Paget, with the 10th Hussars, lay grimly in waiting. Forming up his men under cover of some buildings, he held them, straining at the leash, until the chasseurs were well within striking distance, then he let them loose, and the hussars, instantly joined by Stewart’s pickets, rode at the enemy at a headlong, irresistible gallop. The leading squadrons of chasseurs went down like ninepins; the rest wheeled about, galloped back to the Esla, and did not draw rein until they were safe on the French side of the stream. Lefebvre-Desnouettes himself rode his horse at the river, but the animal had received a wound and refused to face the water. While still floundering at the brink, it was seized by an enterprising British trooper; the general was captured with seventy of his men, and Napoleon was left chafing at the first decisive check he had personally met with in Spain.
Meanwhile there was growing dissatisfaction in the ranks of the British infantry, and even among the officers. It had been stated, with some show of authority, that Moore intended to make a stand at Astorga, but no one believed it; a similar statement had been made so many times before, always to be falsified. Some of the more clear-headed among the rank and file endeavoured to prove to their discontented comrades that the retreat was inevitable; Moore was no coward, and only the knowledge that he was overwhelmingly outmatched would have induced him to retire without giving battle. He had nothing personally to gain by running away; his military reputation was at stake, and he had further the duty of showing that Britain honourably stood by her pledges to Spain. It was a bitter disappointment to him, and nothing but a strong sense of responsibility had actuated his decision to march to the sea.
Unhappily a retreating army is always prone to get out of hand. Already marauding had taken place at various stages of the march, and the sullen incivility of the Spaniards provoked ill-tempered words and deeds on the part of the British. The road was encumbered with stragglers, as well as with numbers of women and children, who suffered from the inevitable hardships of a march through wild country in mid-winter. The confusion and disorder were only increased when the troops reached Astorga. There they met the ragged Spanish regiments of the Marquis of La Romana, who, in spite of Moore’s repeated requests that he would retreat northwards into the Asturias, had marched westward into Galicia, giving as his reason that the only available pass into the former province was blocked with snow. In retreating before Soult his rear-guard had been cut to pieces by Franceschi’s dragoons at the bridge of Mansilla, where there had been every opportunity of making a stubborn resistance. They arrived at Astorga in a state of panic, more like a crowd of peasants driven from their homes than a regular army. They were half-naked, and half-starved; many were suffering from a malignant fever, and they were maddened by cold, disease, and want. Learning that large supplies of food lay at Astorga, as well as stores of shoes, blankets, and muskets, they prowled through the town, seizing whatever they could lay hands on, setting an example which too many of the British soldiers showed themselves ready to follow.
When, on the evening of December 30th, Jack’s company marched into Astorga, they found disorder reigning everywhere within its ancient turreted walls. Several houses were on fire, men were plundering on every side, all kinds of objects were littering the streets. Three divisions of Moore’s army had already left the town on the way to Villafranca, and the only British troops now quartered there were the Reserve under General Paget and the two light brigades. These had kept better discipline than most of the regiments which had preceded them, and the signs of havoc provoked a great burst of indignation from the rear companies of the 95th as they swung round into the great square. Corporal Wilkes was especially voluble in denunciation of the bad discipline among the Spaniards. He was expressing himself warmly to Bates as they kept step together, when the sight of a tall Spanish soldier in somewhat better trim than the tatterdemalion rank and file of La Romana’s forces added fuel to his wrath. The men were standing near the lighted door of the Town Hall, where Jack’s company was to be quartered, and the Spaniard looked with a cynical smile at the Riflemen defiling past. He had a villainous countenance, its forbidding aspect enhanced by the fact that he had only one eye, which was gazing at the men with a fixed, stony, unwinking stare.
“What’s that one-eyed villain of a Don doing there?” growled Wilkes, staring into the solitary eye as he passed. “Why ain’t he keeping his men in order, instead of loafing about like a London whitewasher out o’ work?”
Jack heard the remark, and turned to look at the one-eyed man; but a scuffle between a man of the 28th and a squalid Spaniard drew off his attention for a moment, and when the quarrel was ended by the Englishman’s fist, the man had disappeared.
After the men had been safely got to quarters Jack was sitting in the room he was to share with Pomeroy and Shirley when he was summoned to the Casa Morena. He there found Colonel Beckwith vigorously haranguing a Spanish officer, and was called on to act as interpreter. Beckwith was insisting in no measured terms that the officer should make some attempt to check the disorder among his men, and Jack did his best to soften the colonel’s language without depriving it of its authority. At the close of the interview, about eight o’clock at night, he was returning to his quarters when he fancied he heard a cry proceeding from a large house that stood alone, and by its size seemed to belong to a person of some importance. He stopped and listened; the cry was not repeated; he was passing on, when out of the darkness a little boy ran up, seized his hand, and began to pull him towards the house.
“Señor! Señor!” he cried in a terrified wail, “my father—he is being murdered. He is an old man; he cannot fight. Come, Señor, and save him!”
Jack had broken from the boy’s clutch and was already making with long strides to the front door. It was firmly barred and unyielding to his pressure.
“Not that way, not that way, Señor!” cried the boy, and seizing Jack’s hand again, he led him to the back, through a narrow enclosure, to a flight of stone steps, at the head of which was a French window with one of its halves open inwards, and a dim light shining through. Running with the boy up the steps, Jack found himself in what was evidently the sala of the house. It was in darkness, but a door at the far end giving on to a corridor was open, and a dim light filtered into the room from a lamp, consisting of a shallow bowl in which a wick was floating on oil. Treading very warily, the two crossed the room to the corridor beyond; at the end of the passage a brighter light was streaming from a half-open door, and Jack, alert to catch the slightest sound, heard a rasping voice say in Spanish:
“Now, you old dotard, I will give you one minute by yonder clock. After that the knife, and I will search for myself.”
Pushing the boy behind him, and signing to him to be quiet, Jack crept cautiously to the door and peeped into the room. Tied to a chair, with a rope cut from the bell-pull, was an old gentleman, very frail and thin, with sparse gray hair and beard. On the table before him a long knife, driven into the wood, rocked to and fro with diminishing oscillation; an angular man in Spanish uniform, his back half-turned to the door, occupied a chair within a couple of feet of the victim, and, leaning forward, elbows upon his knees, gazed with a vengeful smile into the old man’s face. At the side of the room a large escritoire lay open, its contents thrown pell-mell upon the floor.
The old Spaniard, bound and helpless as he was, looked steadily with unflinching gaze into the face of his enemy.
“Do you think for a moment, wretch that you are,” he said with quiet scorn, his tone strangely contrasting with the fury of the other, “do you think for a moment that you will cajole me with empty promises, or scare me with insolent threats? I expect no mercy from you—you were always a villain,—but I can at least baulk your greed. I am an old man, do your worst; your knife has no terrors for me.”
The man, springing to his feet, snatched the knife from the table, and lifted his hand to strike; but Jack had already sprung into the room. The sound of Jack’s step arrested the villain’s movement; he half-turned to meet the intruder, disclosing as he did so the distorted features of a man with one eye. Even at that tense moment Jack connected him vaguely in thought with some previous experience, but there was no pause in his action. Before the man had time to wheel completely round, Jack struck him a blow on the chin that felled him to the floor, where he lay stunned and motionless. The boy threw himself on the fallen man with a cry of triumph, snatched up the knife that had dropped from his grasp, and with two quick strokes severed the cords that bound the old man. Then in a paroxysm of fury he turned to drive the weapon into the would-be assassin’s heart. Jack stayed his hand, and at the same moment heard the sound of trampling feet, and a familiar voice exclaiming:
“This way, my men; we shall find the English bandit here.”
“Miguel!” said Jack under his breath, remembering in a flash the one-eyed servant he had seen following him in Salamanca. Turning quickly to the old gentleman, who now stood in seeming uncertainty what the new interruption might portend, he pointed to the prostrate man and said:
“It is this man’s master.”
Then, as there was obviously no time to parley, he rushed to the door and slammed it, intending to turn the key. The key was not in the lock. Pressing his knee against the door, Jack looked round and saw the missing key on the table. He called to the boy to bring it, but he was too late. The door was pressed inwards in spite of Jack’s exertions; there was greater force on the other side. Feeling it opening inch by inch Jack turned on his shoulder, set his back against the oak, and drew his sword, preparing to give way suddenly and attack the enemy before they could recover from their sudden inrush. But the boy, with a quick wit that did him credit, had rushed into the corner of the room, where there was a space of some two feet between the jamb and the wall, and there, crouching on the floor, he jabbed with the knife through the slowly widening aperture at the legs of the nearest figure. There was a yell of pain; the pressure on the door instantly relaxed; and Jack, putting forth all his strength, had almost succeeded in closing it when a musket was thrust into the gap. Jack’s muscles were strained to the utmost. From the clamour in the corridor he knew that the enemy were preparing for a concerted rush. He called to the old Spaniard to push the table against the door, but before that could be done he felt overpowering pressure on the other side. Hastily forming his resolution, he sprang back suddenly; the door flew open, and three of La Romana’s ragged ruffians fell sprawling upon the floor. Others came behind, and one of them, with his heavy flintlock, struck out of Jack’s hand the sword he had drawn, dropping his weapon immediately with a yell as he felt the boy’s knife in his leg. Jack saw that the old Spaniard had taken down one of two rapiers that hung on the wall beneath the portrait of an ancient caballero. Exerting all his strength, he dragged the table round so that it stood obliquely across the room, cutting off a triangular corner. Then he seized the second rapier, and stood side by side with the Spaniard, behind the table, facing their foes just as several of them were preparing to leap across it.
Among them Jack now recognized Miguel Priego, his face lit up with savage excitement, flourishing his sword and goading on his desperadoes. The boy had crawled beneath the table, prepared to use his terrible knife on all who came within reach. The one-eyed man had recovered from the blow dealt him by Jack, and had snatched a musket from one of his fellows. Fortunately none of the firearms were loaded, and the Spaniards, mad with rage, grudged the delay necessary to charge their cumbrous weapons.
“I think, Miguel, you had better call off your followers,” said Jack, in a momentary lull that preceded the rush.
There was no reply; in point of fact Jack scarcely expected one. Miguel was at the moment out of sight behind a burly mountaineer, and Jack felt rather by instinct than by any reasoned process of thought that the Spaniard would scarcely let slip this opportunity of taking him at a disadvantage. Behind the table Jack measured the forces opposed to him. Six men were gathering themselves for the onslaught—lean, half-starved wretches for the most part, but ugly customers in the bulk. A raw-boned mountaineer, armed with a long musket and a rusty bayonet, was the most formidable among the gang, and Jack marked him out for special attention when the critical moment came. It was not long in coming. At the cry from Miguel: “Down with the English dog!” the six made a simultaneous rush, and if they had not impeded one another’s movements they must have made short work of the little garrison. The lanky Asturian lunged viciously at Jack, who dodged the point by a hair’s-breadth, narrowly escaping, as he did so, the clubbed musket of another Spaniard on the right. Before the mountaineer could recover, Jack’s long rapier, stretching far across the table, had ploughed a gash in his arm from wrist to elbow, and at the same moment the second assailant, howling with pain, had dropped his musket and fallen to the ground a victim to the terrible knife of the little Spaniard, who had been forgotten by the enemy in the excitement of the fight.
The old man, however, had been less successful; one of his opponents had felt the point of his rapier, but, attacked simultaneously by another, his weapon had been dashed from his grasp, and he now stood defenceless against the foe, who were beginning to push the table into the corner of the room. Miguel, having left the brunt of the action to his allies, now advanced resolutely to the attack; and Jack’s rapier had crossed with the long sword carried by his opponent, when through the open door sounded the heavy tramp of feet; and a loud voice was heard shouting: “What I want to know—” The sentence was never completed, for Corporal Wilkes sprang into the room, cleaving a way through the maddened Spaniards with his fist. Before they realized the meaning of this unlooked-for interruption, the corporal flung himself on Miguel, caught him by the collar, and hurled him upon two of his men, who fell under him with a resounding thud. Immediately behind Wilkes, Bates and two other men of the 95th had dashed in, and the rear of the unexpected reinforcement was brought up by Pepito, who at once engaged in a tussle with the Spanish boy, now upon his feet, for the possession of the knife.
Wilkes stood with clenched fists over Miguel, while his companions of the 95th threw themselves on the other Spaniards and speedily disarmed them.
“You hound of a Don!” cried Wilkes, preparing to knock Miguel down if he should attempt to rise; “what I want to—”
“Wilkes, let him get up,” said Jack quietly, coming round the table, the rapier still in his hand.
Miguel rose stiffly, his face expressing the purest amazement.
“Verdaderamente!” he exclaimed. “If it is not my dear friend Jack! There is some strange mistake. And I did not recognize you in your uniform, Jackino! Last time I saw you, you remember, you were dressed as one of ourselves. Truly, dress makes a world of difference, amigo mio.”
His tone had all the oily suavity that Jack knew so well, and so cordially detested. Wilkes was looking from one to the other with concentrated interrogation in his eye, ready at a word from Jack to lay the Spaniard low again.
“Shut the door, Bates,” said Jack, as he saw the one-eyed man slinking in that direction. “That’s your man, I think?” he added, addressing Miguel.
“My servant, who accompanied me from Saragossa,” replied Miguel. “And I am at a loss to understand—”
“So am I,” interrupted Jack. “I am at a loss to understand why a man in your position should countenance violence, robbery, almost actual murder.”
“Robbery! Murder! Really, my dear friend, these are strange words to me. I was in the street, and one of these men—soldiers in the army of the Marquis of La Romana—told me that an English ruffian—it was a mistake, yes, but he said an English ruffian—had forced himself into this house: for what purpose? It could only be, as you say, to rob or murder. You know what sad excesses your troops, usually so excellently disciplined, have been guilty of; and having but a short time ago heard that your colonel—Beckwith, is that his name?—had sternly ordered his men to refrain from acts of pillage, why, my dear friend, was it not natural for me to come in and do what little I could to prevent such admirable orders from being disobeyed? That explains—”
“Oh!” said Jack. “And your man—was that his errand too?”
“Perez? Oh no! He obtained my permission to visit his old master, the faithful fellow. It was inconvenient, for we should now be on the road; but could I—would you?—hesitate in such a case? I was touched by the poor fellow’s devotion.”
Perez’ solitary eye gleamed with a baleful light singularly out of keeping with the sentimental character thrust upon him by his master. He wriggled venomously in Bates’s grasp. The burly Rifleman checked his contortions by impressing his knuckles into the nape of his neck.
Jack turned to the old man, who had watched the scene in dignified silence.
“I think, Señor, you can throw some light on this man’s devotion.”
The Spaniard, in a few quiet words, told Jack that the man had, in fact, been his servant, but had been dismissed two years before for attempted robbery. He had suddenly made his appearance that evening, taken his old master unawares, and when he had bound him had broken open the bureau containing, as he supposed, the valuables he coveted, and, failing to find them, had demanded the secret of their hiding-place under threat of assassination.
“I owe my life,” he concluded, “the little that remains of it, to my son here, who providentially overheard from his bedroom above the threats of this wretch, and to you, Señor, whose chivalrous intervention came at a moment when I regarded my case as hopeless. I thank you!”
“This, Señor,” said Miguel, turning to the old man, “is to me a most extraordinary, a most painful, discovery. The man was recommended to me by Señor Alvarez, my father’s partner”—Miguel’s fluency in his present predicament recalled to Jack’s memory many of his youthful essays in mendacity. “It only shows, Señor, how sadly one may be deceived by a specious exterior.”
As he spoke he regarded his one-eyed follower with a look of mournful disappointment.
If Perez’ exterior at this moment was any index to his quality, he was scarcely a man in whom the most credulous would have placed confidence. In Bates’s iron grip his body was quiescent; but the malignant glitter of his single eye told of raging fires within.
“It will be my duty,” continued Miguel with increasing sternness, “to bring this wretch to justice. Men, seize him, and see that he does not escape. He shall be dealt with by the marquis himself.”
The Spanish soldiers advanced to carry out Miguel’s order, but Bates merely tightened his grip and looked enquiringly at Jack for instructions. Jack could not but admire Miguel’s astuteness. He was perfectly well aware that the man would be released as soon as he was out of reach; but while loth to let him escape scot-free, he saw how powerless he was in the face of Miguel’s declaration. It was a matter for the Spanish authorities, in which, except as a witness, he himself had no concern; and it was nothing to the point that the Spanish authorities were hiding in cellars, lofts, and even, as he had heard, in pig-styes. He turned to the old man, and said:
“I fear, Señor, that, as things are, we have no choice but to return this man to the care of his present—master. Bates,” he added in English, “let him go.”
In apparent abstraction, Bates gave a farewell twist to the Spaniard’s neck-band, shot him among the knot of tattered soldiery in the doorway, drew himself up, and saluted. With a ceremonious bow Miguel followed his men from the room, several of them carrying with them painful mementoes of the affray. Wilkes shadowed them to the end of the corridor. Meanwhile the venerable Spaniard had taken a decanter and several glasses from a press in the corner of the room.
“You will permit me, Señor,” he said to Jack, “my servant having deserted me, to offer you and your worthy soldiers a little refreshment. It is a poor expression of my gratitude to you and them, but it comes, believe me, from a full heart.”
The men willingly tossed off their bumpers, and soon afterwards escorted Jack to his quarters. He there learnt from them that while at supper they had been summoned by Pepito, who announced in broken English, eked out by gestures, that el Señor Lumsden was in urgent need of help. He had apparently been shadowing Jack as usual, had seen him enter the house, and a moment after heard Miguel hounding on his willing dupes to kill the English bandit.
“The little rascal is always putting me in his debt,” said Jack to himself as the squad saluted and marched off. “He is quite a guardian angel.”
No one but Jack had cause to regard Pepito in this gracious light.
“What I want to know,” asked Corporal Wilkes wrathfully, when he returned to his billet “—what I want to know is, what’s become of my supper?”
Only Pepito knew.