Georgette Heyer - The Spanish Bride

‘Is that you, Smith? We missed the bridge, and had gone a good league out of our way before we found there had been a mistake.’

‘Where’s my wife?’ Harry shot out. ‘I don’t know: I haven’t seen her.’

Harry told him curtly to continue along the road till he came to a left-hand turning, and rode on. The road, which was little better than a mule-track, soon got so uneven that he was obliged to dismount, and to lead Old Chap. The column was straggling, and to keep out of the way of the infantry Harry led his horse on to the bank above the river. The first cold dawn-light was beginning to creep into the sky, but the rain kept coming down with unabated vigour. Part of the bank gave way suddenly under Harry’s feet; a flicker of lightning showed him the river surging over rocks thirty feet below him! He had the presence of mind to hold fast to the bridle, and Old Chap, frightened by the glimpse of the rushing waters below, reared up, and spun around on his hind legs, dragging Harry on to firm ground. As he was pulled up, he heard a shriek, and the next instant Juana was beside him, trembling with horror at the danger he had been in.

‘No harm done!’ Harry said. ‘Thank God, you’re safe! What’s the matter with Tiny?’ ‘Oh, he is dreadfully lame again! And, do you know, we took the wrong turning, and I heard you shouting, oh, a long way off! And then I thought I had lost Vitty!’

‘Never mind that now: go on and join Vandeleur! You’ll find him across the bridge. I’ve no time to look after you until I get this infernal muddle straightened out.’ ‘Muy bien!’ said Juana cheerfully.

It took Harry some time to collect his scattered brigade in the darkness, but the daylight soon made the task easier. Having delivered himself of some pithy comments on the battalions’ un-Craufurd-like progress, he rode back to where he had left his General. He found Vandeleur and Juana sitting on a sodden bank, Juana holding her umbrella over the General’s rheumaticky shoulder, and recounting to him in fluent French the tale of her adventures during the night.

‘Hallo, Harry!’ Vandeleur called. ‘I hope you damned the lot of them!’ ‘I did, of course, but the fact is it was no one’s fault,’ Harry replied. “The turn of the road to the bridge was very abrupt, and the road was too narrow to allow the Staff-officers to ride up and down the flank of the column, as they ought to. Juana, you’re wet to the skin!’ ‘Yes, but never mind! Charlie Gore says he shall give a ball when we get to Sanguessa, because it is now certain that we shall never catch the French in this bad weather.’ ‘I wish I had you in Sanguessa now!’ said Harry. ‘How far did you walk on that foot of yours?’ ‘I don’t know. Nada importa! But everyone wants to be in Sanguessa. Johnny Kincaid says that when we get there all our troubles will vanish.’

Sanguessa, an ancient town with rickety houses jostling one another in all the narrow streets, was reached later in the day, but although the Honourable Charles Gore, who was General Kempt’s ADC, and a young gentleman of means, at once made the most lavish preparations for his ball, and reported that the girls of Sanguessa were an uncommonly handsome set, the division’s troubles were not by any means over. Camps were pitched outside the town, and the usual difficulty of getting wood for firing arose. George Simmons being sent out with a party to collect sufficient for the division, was obliged to ask the local authorities for permission to pull down a disused building. This being granted, a very strenuous time was spent by the party, gathering every scrap of timber from amongst the debris, and loading it on to the mules. As ill-luck would have it, on their return journey they ran plump into General Picton, coming up at the head of the 3rd division. ‘You there!” Picton thundered, glaring at poor George. ‘What have you got on those mules, sir?’

‘Firewood for the Light division, sir,” replied George, saluting.

‘Well, sir, you have got enough for my division and yours! I shall have it divided,’ said Picton, who hated the Light division. ‘Make your men throw it down! It is a damned concern to have to follow you cursed fellows! You sweep up everything before you!”

There was nothing for George to do but to obey. He gave the order to his men, while Picton sat his cob, looking the very picture of a burly ruffian. But as George’s party began with black scowls to unload the mules, George caught sight of General Alten, and slipped off to report the matter to him.

General Baron Charles von Alten, a lean, hard-bitten warrior, bent his stern, bright gaze upon George. ‘Vot’s dat you say? General Picton takes our vood for his division? I dink not!’

Knowing Alten, George did not think so either. He fell in behind him, and followed him back to his mule-train. Alten rode past it, and straight up to Picton. George heard him say: ‘Goot evening to you, General! Dere is von little mistake dat you make, I dink.’ ‘Quick, load up the mules!’ George said to his men. ‘Never mind staring! We’ll be off while we may.’

The wood was hastily loaded again, while a battle-royal raged at a little distance from the party. Alten never shouted, but the echoes of Picton’s roar pursued George’s party for quite some way. What was the outcome of the encounter, George never learned, for he left both irate Generals in the middle of their altercation, but not another word did he hear about sharing his loads with the 3rd division.

‘Such a time as I have had!’ he told Kincaid, whom he found presently, superintending the erection of his tent.

‘Such a time as you’ve had?’ interrupted Kincaid. ‘Such a time as I’ve had!’ ‘Why, what is the matter, old fellow?’

‘I snatch the first hour off duty I’ve had in a week to write a couple of letters in my tent,’ said Kincaid, ‘and before I’ve had time to dip my pen in the ink, I find myself wrapped up into a bundle with my tent-pole and tent, rolling on the ground, mixed up with the table and all my writing utensils, and the devil himself dancing hornpipes over my body!’ ‘But how-why?’ asked George, trying not to laugh, ‘What devil?’

‘It turned out to be two of ’em. Would you believe it, the whole scene-oh, don’t mind me! You laugh!-the whole scene was arranged by a couple of rascally donkeys in a frolicsome humour, who had been chasing each other about the neighbourhood till they tumbled into my tent with a force which drew every peg, and rolled the whole lot over on the top of me! And it was I who said that our troubles would be over when we reached this rattle-trap of a town!’

By the middle of July, the Light division was encamped on the Santa Barbara height above Vera, within ten miles of the French frontier. From Pampeluna, which they had left to the Spaniards, and a few British units, to blockade, they had marched north into the Pyrenees, plunging farther and farther into a wild, lovely country of valleys rich with olive groves and fruit-trees, and great stretches of Indian corn; and towering hills, whose lower slopes were thickly covered with chestnut-trees, feathery larches, and grey-stemmed beeches, and whose peaks were lost for six days out of seven in wreaths of cloud. There were rivers in the valleys, tumbling down from the mountainsides, and purling over rocky beds; the villages were better than in Spain, with larger houses, owned by a people who spoke the queer, unintelligible Basque language. When the foothills were passed, marching became more difficult, and sometimes, when only narrow sheep-tracks led up the steep mountain passes, dangerous, since a false step would send one hurtling down a precipice on to craggy outcrops of rock hundreds of feet below. But nobody cared a penny for that when wild strawberries grew beside the way, and every step carried one nearer to the frontier. The Johnny Petits had run back to France, and, by all accounts, their retreat had more closely resembled a rout than a retiring movement. It was said that King Joseph never drew rein until he reached St Jean de Luz. Poor Pepe Botellas! He had lost everything at Vittoria: his treasure, and his guns, and his love-letters, and even the support of his Imperial brother; and the last humiliation was not long delayed. Soult, the Marshal-Duke of Dalmatia, whom he had wanted the Emperor to disgrace, reached Bayonne on the 11th July to take command of the demoralized Armies of Spain, and with orders to place King Joseph under arrest, if the King should prove troublesome. There were to be no more separate commands in Spain, no more quarrels between jealous Marshals, no more vacillations of a puppet-king. Supreme, Soult was going to drive Lord Wellington out of the Pyrenees, over the Ebro, over the Douro, back to his Portuguese lines, just as soon as the great military storehouses at Bayonne could furnish him with artillery, ammunition, and fresh accoutrements for the troops.

But, meanwhile, Sir Thomas Graham was besieging the town and fortress of San Sebastian, on the coast; English convoys were landing supplies at Passages and Bilbao; and Lord Wellington’s army held all the passes from the coast to Roncesvalles: a forty-mile front as the crow flies, with Sir Rowland Hill holding the right wing, from Roncesvalles to Maya, and Graham the left, and with the Light division between them, maintaining their communications.

It was an odd situation, Vera: not as pleasant as Santesteban, where the Light Bobs had camped for a week, amongst the most charming surroundings, but decidedly better then Lesaca, four miles to the rear, where his lordship had fixed his headquarters. Lesaca was pretty enough, lying in a cup of the densely wooded hills, but it had the reputation of being a damp, unhealthy town, and it was certainly very dirty. The headquarters Staff complained that you could actually see the fleas hopping on the floors in all the houses, while the racket in the overcrowded streets was appalling. When you tried to concentrate your mind upon your work, ten to one someone would start killing a pig under your window, your landlord would begin to thresh his garnered wheat in the loft above your head, or a shrill-voiced street-seller would linger under your window, calling interminably: ‘Aqua ardente! Aqua ardente!’