He was so angry that he would have said much more, had Skerrett given him an opportunity. But Skerrett, without seeming greatly to resent his hasty rejoinder, began to argue the matter. It was a moment calling for action, not discussion, and before Skerrett had had time to elaborate his views, a cloud of voltigeurs, supported by a large column, descended upon the bridge-houses.

‘Now will you move?’ shouted Harry.

No, General Skerrett would not move. He considered it would be unwise to hazard any troops merely to defend the bridge-houses; he wanted advice, and time to think the matter over, and he feared that his Brigade-Major was a very reckless young man. While he argued, and fidgeted, the French possessed themselves of the houses, and consequently the bridge itself, and the Riflemen, after putting up a spirited resistance, had to retire, with even heavier losses than Harry had feared.

To one who was a Rifleman himself, and knew, as though he had been amongst them, how implicitly the men posted in the houses had trusted in the support of their comrades, it was maddening to see this faith, built up by so many hard fights, destroyed by wanton stupidity, and lives uselessly sacrificed. Bitter reproaches sprang to Harry’s lips, but he suppressed them, because the harm was done, and nothing could be gained by reproaches. The houses could be retaken, and must be retaken. From their position, the French could not hope to hold them, unless they drove the Light division back from its commanding position above them. He said: ‘You see now what you have permitted, General. We must retake those houses, which we ought never to have lost.’

‘Well,’ Skerrett said, ‘I believe you are right.’ Harry waited, but no order to advance any part of the brigade was given him. Skerrett seemed more undecided than ever, and losing any shreds of patience or temper remaining to him, Harry wheeled his horse, and galloped off through a storm of shot, to where the 52nd regiment was drawn up. He rode straight to Colborne, who greeted him with a very stern look, and an unusually grim: ‘Well, Smith? Pray, what are you about?’

‘Sir, General Skerrett will do nothing!’ Harry burst out. ‘We must retake those houses! I told him what would happen!’

‘Oh!’ said Colborne. Tm glad of that, for I was angry with you. Very well, we’ll retake them at once.’

It did not take many minutes to reoccupy the houses, the French retiring as soon as they saw that the British were in earnest. Harry could not help wondering what Skerrett must feel at seeing a part of his brigade go into action without any order from himself, but when he presently rejoined them, Skerrett made no comment. This did nothing to advance his claim to Harry’s good opinion. ‘Only fancy old Vandeleur, if one had taken the law into one’s own hands!’ he said scornfully.

‘Wouldn’t have had to,’ said Brother Tom, Adjutant, tersely.

The firing ceased during the afternoon, but the weather grew steadily worse. Vedettes reported six feet of racing water in the Bidassoa, and the rain was all the time falling in torrents. The streams trickling down the mountain-sides had become cascades, carrying stones with them in a roar audible above the incessant rumble of thunder. George Simmons, who was on picket-duty in the valley, was not only drenched to the skin, but was nearly knocked down by a branch, torn from its tree, and tossed through the air by a wind like a hurricane.

It was known that the French had everywhere crossed the Bidassoa, and as it could not be doubted that Lord Wellington would fling them back before nightfall, the swollen state of the river began by dusk to cause Harry grave anxiety. He proposed to Skerrett that the whole of the and Battalion of the 95th Rifles should be posted by the bridge-houses, with the 52nd regiment near to them, in support; and that no time should be lost in barricading the bridge itself.

Skerrett, lulled into a false feeling of security by the inaction of the French during the afternoon, and the disappearance towards the Lower Bidassoa of Clausel’s force, only laughed at him. ‘Upon my word, Smith, you make me think of a cat on a hot bake-stone! You may leave a picket of one officer and thirty men at the bridge.’

‘General Skerrett,’ said Harry, ‘the French are on our side of the river, and they will have to recross it. The fords are already impassable, and I submit that it is of the utmost importance to hold the bridge!’

Skerrett, who was about to sit down to supper in his house on the Santa Barbara hill, reddened, and said angrily: ‘Have the goodness to do as you’re told, sir!’ ‘Very well!’ snapped Harry. ‘I am to order the battalion to retire to these heights.’ He pulled his memorandum-book out of his pocket, and, for the first time in his life, jotted down his General’s orders in it. ‘Is that correct, sir?’ he demanded, showing Skerrett what he had written.

‘Yes, I have already told you so!’

‘We shall repent this before daylight!’ Harry said, and flung out of the house before Skerrett had time to censure his impertinence.

He galloped down to the bridge through the blinding rain. The wind was so violent that he seemed to be riding through a maelstrom of leaves, sticks, and the rubbish cast out of the cottages in the village, all whirled about in the gusts and eddies of the storm. He ordered the battalion to retire to the Santa Barbara position, and called up the Adjutant. Colonel Norcott said: ‘Have you gone mad, or have I misunderstood you?’ ‘Neither,’ said Harry curtly. He found Tom Smith at his elbow. ‘Call me a picket of an officer and thirty men for the bridge!’ he said.

‘By God, you are mad!’ Norcott exclaimed. ‘I’ll have no hand in this!’ ‘Do as you please! Your orders are to retire to the heights.’

‘Harry, you can’t mean to leave one picket to hold the bridge!’ Tom said urgently. ‘It’s murder!’

‘I don’t need your comments!” Harry rapped out ‘What the hell are you standing there for, when you’re given an order? Call a picket to me at once, damn you!’ ‘Cadoux’ company is for picket,’ Tom said, startled by the savagery in Harry’s voice. Harry vouchsafed no answer. In a few minutes, Cadoux came riding up on Barossa. ‘What nice weather we do have, to be sure!’ he said. ‘Ah, is that you, Harry? I have been wanting a word with you ever since this morning. I should not like to be thought impolite, but what the devil did you mean by not supporting us in our little affair?’

‘Scold away! no fault of mine!’ Harry replied, with an ugly little laugh. ‘Oh, was it not? You’ll have to pardon me: I thought you were our Brigade-Major. Do you know, we held on in the expectation of being supported? We are not loving you much, Harry. My company is reduced to fifty. Did you know that?’

‘You fool, Dan, do you suppose it was my doing? But come: no time for jaw! The picket!’ ‘Oh, so that was true, was it?’ said Cadoux. ‘A picket of an officer and thirty men for the bridge! Well, with your kind permission, we’ll make it the whole company, and I’ll stay with them.’

‘Of course you have my permission!’ Harry said. ‘And, Dan, keep a strict watch: you’ll be attacked before daylight, for Clausel’s somewhere this side of the river, trying to find a safe way over it.’

‘Most certainly we shall be attacked,’ Cadoux said coolly. ‘I’ll block up the bridge as well as I can, and if possible I’ll hold it until I’m. supported. But I should like to find myself still with a company by morning, so when the attack begins, send the whole battalion down to me, will you?’

‘You know I’ll do everything I can!’ Harry said. ‘But that damned fool-!’ ‘Well, please God I’ll hold the bridge! Oh, and-er-Harry?’

Harry looked back. Cadoux, his wet cloak whipped about him by the wind, was sitting nonchalantly, a hand on his hip, Barossa sidling uneasily beneath him. Harry could not distinguish his face very clearly in the dusk, but he knew that he was smiling. ‘Well?’ ‘My love to General Skerrett,’ said Cadoux.

‘May he rot!’ growled Harry.

Leaving the battalion getting ready to retire, he rode off, not to report to Skerrett, but to find Colborne, and to show him the order in his memorandum-book.

It was just as well that he had made a note of the order, for Colborne, incredulous of such folly, was almost inclined to believe that he must have mistaken Skerrett’s meaning. ‘I’ve left Cadoux with his company to hold the bridge, sir,’ Harry said. ‘But this morning’s wicked muddle has so reduced him he has only about fifty men left. I know him: he’ll hold the bridge to the last man, but he must be supported!’

‘Of course he must be supported,’ said Colborne, his calm voice in odd contrast to Harry’s impetuous tone. “The whole battalion should move down into Vera.’

‘Move down into Vera! I had them there, and they are even now retiring up the hill!’ said Harry bitterly. ‘Cadoux expects them to go to his support, but, oh, Colonel, Skerrett is callous to anything! I fear I shall never prevail on him to move!’

‘Well,’ said Colborne, ‘you must do as you can. When the attack comes, the 95th must move to the support of the picket without an instant’s loss of time. As soon as I see the battalion in motion, I will move down the hill on your flank. You had better go back to the Brigadier now.’ He added, with a slight smile: ‘And if I were you, Smith, I would not lose my temper with him.’

‘No use, sir, it’s lost already. If he lets Cadoux’ company be cut to pieces, I don’t care how soon he breaks me, for by God, I’ll be no Brigade-Major of his!’

He found Skerrett sitting over the fire in his quarters. When he reported the arrangements he had made with Colborne, Skerrett merely laughed, and said he should be glad to know who was in command of the brigade: himself, Colonel Colborne, or a young whipper-snapper of a Brigade-Major?