Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon Volume Ii Part 40

"And I," said the other, "a brandy flask, which, after all, is not the worst part of a storming equipage."

"I hope," said O'Shaughnessy, "they may find Maurice in the rear.

Beauclerc's all safe in his hands."

"That they'll not," said Giles, "you may swear. Quill is this moment in the trenches, and will not be the last man at the breach."

"Follow me now, lads," said O'Shaughnessy, in a low voice. "Our fellows are at the angle of this trench. Who the deuce can that be, talking so loud?"

"It must be Maurice," said Giles.

The question was soon decided by the doctor himself, who appeared giving directions to his hospital-sergeant.

"Yes, Peter, take the tools up to a convenient spot near the breach.

There's many a snug corner there in the ruins; and although we mayn't have as good an operation-room as in old 'Steevens's,' yet we'll beat them hollow in cases."

"Listen to the fellow," said Giles, with a shudder. "The thought of his confounded thumbscrews and tourniquets is worse to me than a French howitzer."

"The devil a kinder-hearted fellow than Maurice," said O'Shaughnessy, "for all that; and if his heart was to be known this moment, he'd rather handle a sword than a saw."

"True for you, Dennis," said Quill, overhearing him, "but we are both useful in our way, as the hangman said to Lord Clare."

"But should you not be in the rear, Maurice?" said I.

"You are right, O'Malley," said he, in a whisper; "but, you see, I owe the Cork Insurance Company a spite for making me pay a gout premium, and that's the reason I'm here. I warned them at the time that their stinginess would come to no good."

"I say, Captain O'Malley," said Giles, "I find I can't be as good as my word with you; my servant has moved to the rear with all my traps."

"What is to be done?" said I.

"Is it shaving utensils you want?" said Maurice. "Would a scalpel serve your turn?"

"No, Doctor, I'm going to take a turn of duty with your fellows to-night."

"In the breach, with the stormers?"

"With the forlorn hope," said O'Shaughnessy. "Beauclerc is so badly wounded that we've sent him back; and Charley, like a good fellow, has taken his place."

"Martin told me," said Maurice, "that Beauclerc was only stunned; but, upon my conscience, the hospital-mates, now-a-days, are no better than the watchmakers; they can't tell what's wrong with the instrument till they pick it to pieces. Whiz! there goes a blue light."

"Move on, move on," whispered O'Shaughnessy; "they're telling off the stormers. That rocket is the order to fall in."

"But what am I to do for a coat?"

"Take mine, my boy," said Maurice, throwing off an upper garment of coa.r.s.e gray frieze as he spoke.

"There's a neat bit of uniform," continued he, turning himself round for our admiration; "don't I look mighty like the pictures of George the First at the battle of Dettingen!"

A burst of approving laughter was our only answer to this speech, while Maurice proceeded to denude himself of his most extraordinary garment.

"What, in the name of Heaven, is it?" said I.

"Don't despise it, Charley; it knows the smell of gunpowder as well as any bit of scarlet in the service;" while he added, in a whisper, "it's the ould Roscommon Yeomanry. My uncle commanded them in the year '42, and this was his coat. I don't mean to say that it was new then; for you see it's a kind of heirloom in the Quill family, and it's not every one I'd be giving it to."

"A thousand thanks, Maurice," said I, as I b.u.t.toned it on, amidst an ill-suppressed t.i.tter of laughter.

"It fits you like a sentry-box," said Maurice, as he surveyed me with a lantern. "The skirts separate behind in the most picturesque manner; and when you b.u.t.ton the collar, it will keep your head up so high that the devil a bit you'll see except the blessed moon. It's a thousand pities you haven't the three-c.o.c.ked hat with the feather tr.i.m.m.i.n.g. If you wouldn't frighten the French, my name's not Maurice. Turn about here till I admire you. If you only saw yourself in a gla.s.s, you'd never join the dragoons again. And look now, don't be exposing yourself, for I wouldn't have those blue facings destroyed for a week's pay."

"Ah, then, it's yourself is the darling, Doctor, dear!" said a voice behind me. I turned round; it was Mickey Free, who was standing with a most profound admiration of Maurice beaming in every feature of his face. "It's yourself has a joke for every hour o' the day."

"Get to the rear, Mike, get to the rear with the cattle; this is no place for you or them."

"Good-night, Mickey," said Maurice.

"Good-night, your honor," muttered Mike to himself; "may I never die till you set a leg for me."

"Are you dressed for the ball?" said Maurice, fastening the white tape upon my arm. "There now, my boy, move on, for I think I hear Picton's voice; not that it signifies now, for he's always in a heavenly temper when any one's going to be killed. I'm sure he'd behave like an angel, if he only knew the ground was mined under his feet."

"Charley, Charley!" called out O'Shaughnessy, in a suppressed voice, "come up quickly!"

"No. 24, John Forbes--here! Edward Gillespie--here!"

"Who leads this party, Major O'Shaughnessy?"

"Mr. Beauclerc, sir," replied O'Shaughnessy, pushing me forward by the arm while he spoke.

"Keep your people together, sir; spare the powder, and trust to your cold iron." He grasped my hand within his iron grip, and rode on.

"Who was it, Dennis?" said I.

"Don't you know him, Charley? That was Picton."

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

THE STORMING OF CIUDAD RODRIGO.

Whatever the levity of the previous moment, the scene before us now repressed it effectually. The deep-toned bell of the cathedral tolled seven, and scarcely were its notes dying away in the distance, when the march of the columns was heard stealing along the ground. A low murmuring whisper ran along the advanced files of the forlorn hope; stocks were loosened; packs and knapsacks thrown to the ground; each man pressed his cap more firmly down upon his brow, and with lip compressed and steadfast eye, waited for the word to move.

It came at last: the word "March!" pa.s.sed in whispers from rank to rank, and the dark ma.s.s moved on. What a moment was that as we advanced to the foot of the breach! The consciousness that at the same instant, from different points of that vast plain, similar parties were moving on; the feeling that at a word the flame of the artillery and the flash of steel would spring from that dense cloud, and death and carnage, in every shape our imagination can conceive, be dealt on all sides; the hurried, fitful thought of home; the years long past compressed into one minute's s.p.a.ce; the last adieu of all we've loved, mingling with the muttered prayer to Heaven, while, high above all, the deep pervading sense that earth has no temptation strong enough to turn us from that path whose ending must be a sepulchre!

Each heart was too full for words. We followed noiselessly along the turf, the dark figure of our leader guiding us through the gloom. On arriving at the ditch, the party with the ladders moved to the front. Already some hay-packs were thrown in, and the forlorn hope sprang forward.

All was still and silent as the grave. "Quietly, my men, quietly!" said M'Kinnon; "don't press." Scarcely had he spoken when a musket whose charge, contrary to orders, had not been drawn, went off. The whizzing bullet could not have struck the wall, when suddenly a bright flame burst forth from the ramparts, and shot upward towards the sky. For an instant the whole scene before us was bright as noonday. On one side, the dark ranks and glistening bayonets of the enemy; on the other, the red uniform of the British columns: compressed like some solid wall, they stretched along the plain.

A deafening roll of musketry from the extreme right announced that the Third Division was already in action, while the loud cry of our leader, as he sprang into the trench, summoned us to the charge. The leading sections, not waiting for the ladders, jumped down, others pressing rapidly behind them, when a loud rumbling thunder crept along the earth, a hissing, crackling noise followed, and from the dark ditch a forked and livid lightning burst like the flame from a volcano, and a mine exploded.