One of the 28th Part 32

"You must ask the clerk of the weather," the skipper replied. "At present there is not a breath of wind stirring, and from the look of the sky I see no chance of a change at present."

Day after day pa.s.sed, and still the vessels remained at anchor. Not a breath of wind stirred the water, and the troops had nothing to do but to lounge idly about the decks and whistle for a breeze. Whenever a vessel came in from England boats were lowered and rowed alongside to get the latest news. This was little enough. It was, however, known that all the powers had determined to refuse to recognize Napoleon as Emperor of France, and that a great coalition against him was being arranged. There were rumors that Belgium was likely to be the scene of operations.

Already, by the terms of the late treaty, several English regiments were stationed on the Belgian frontier, and three or four more were already under orders to embark for that country. It was reported that Russia, Austria, and Prussia were taking steps to arm. The militia had been called out at home, and high bounties were offered for volunteers from these regiments into the line. Recruiting was going on vigorously all over the country. Horses were being bought up, and efforts made to place the attenuated regiments on a war footing. All this was tantalizing news to the Twenty-eighth. The colonel was known to have written to influential friends in London, begging them to urge upon the authorities the folly of allowing a fine regiment like his to leave the country at such a moment. But little was hoped from this, for at any moment a change in the weather might place them beyond the possibility of a recall.

Three weeks pa.s.sed and then the barometer fell, and there were signs of a change. There was bustle and movement on board the ships, and even the soldiers were glad that the monotony of their imprisonment on board was about to come to an end, and their voyage to commence. The sails were loosed from their gaskets, and the sounds of the drum and fifes struck up as the capstans were manned, the soldiers lending a hand at the bars, and the chains came clanking in at the hawse-holes.

"There is a vessel coming in round the point," O'Connor said. "But we shall hardly get the last news; we shall be under way before she anchors."

"She is signaling to the fort on the hill," Ralph said, as he watched the flags run up on the signal-staff on the summit of Spike Island; "and they are answering down below there at the station in front of the commandant's house."

A moment later a gun was fired.

"That's to call our attention, I think," the skipper said, taking up his gla.s.s and directing it to the sh.o.r.e. "Yes, there is our number flying. Get the signal-book, boy. Mr. Smith, run up the answering pennant."

As soon as this ascended the flags on sh.o.r.e were lowered, and a fresh set run up--3. 5. 0. 4.

"Give me the book. 'The vessels are not to sail until further orders,'" he read aloud.

"Hooray, lads!" Captain O'Connor shouted at the top of his voice. "We are stopped until further orders."

A loud cheer broke from the troops, which was echoed by a roar from the other vessel; and for a few minutes the greatest excitement reigned. The men threw their caps into the air, and shouted until they were hoa.r.s.e. The officers shook each other by the hand, and all were frantic with delight at the narrow escape they had had.

As soon as the brig had dropped anchor boats rowed off to her, but nothing further was learned. Just as she was leaving Plymouth an officer had come on board with dispatches, and instructions to the captain to signal immediately he arrived at Cork that if the Twenty-eighth had not already sailed they were to be stopped. Owing to the lightness of the wind the brig had been eight days on her pa.s.sage from Plymouth.

For another fortnight the regiment remained on board ship. The imprisonment was borne more patiently, now they felt sure that they were not at any rate to be sent across the Atlantic. Then a vessel arrived with orders that the Twenty-eighth were at once to proceed to Ostend, and two hours afterward the transports set sail.

Belgium was hardly the spot which the troops in general would have approved of as the scene of operations, for the disastrous expedition to Walcheren was still fresh in mens' minds. They would, moreover, have preferred a campaign in which they would have fought without being compelled to act with a foreign army, and would have had all the honor and glory to themselves. Still Belgium recalled the triumphs of Marlborough, and although every mail brought news of the tremendous efforts Napoleon was making to reorganize the fighting power of France, and of the manner in which the veterans of his former wars had responded to the call, there was not a doubt of success in the minds of the Twenty-eighth, from the colonel down to the youngest drummer-boy.

Ralph was sorry that he had not been able to pay a flying visit to his mother before his departure on active and dangerous service.

He had been somewhat puzzled by her letters ever since he had been away. They had been almost entirely devoted to his doings, and had said very little about herself beyond the fact that she was in excellent health. She had answered his questions as to his various friends and acquaintances in Dover; but these references had been short, and she had said nothing about the details of her daily life, the visits she paid, and the coming in of old friends to see her. She had evidently been staying a good deal, he thought, with the Withers, and she kept him fully informed about them, although she did not mention when she went there or when she had returned.

She frequently spoke about the missing will, and of her hopes it would some day be recovered; and had mentioned that the search for it was still being maintained, and that she felt confident that sooner or later it would come to light. But even as to this she gave him no specific details; and he felt that, even apart from his desire to see his mother, he should greatly enjoy a long talk with her, to find out about everything that had been going on during his absence.

Mrs. Conway had indeed abstained from giving her son the slightest inkling of the work upon which she was engaged; for she was sure he would be altogether opposed to her plan, and would be greatly disturbed and grieved at the thought of her being in any menial position. Whether if, when he returned, and she had not attained the object of her search she would let him know what she was doing she had not decided; but she was determined that at any rate until he came home on leave he should know nothing about it.

"So we are going to fight Bony at last, Mister Conway," Ralph's servant said to him. "We've never had that luck before. He has always sent his generals against us, but, by jabbers, he will find that he has not got Roosians and Proosians this time."

"It will be hot work, Denis; for we shall have the best troops of France against us, and Napoleon himself in command."

"It's little we care for the French, your honor. Didn't we meet them in Spain and bate them? Sure, they are are hardly worth counting."

"You will find them fight very much better now they have their emperor with them. You know, Wellington had all his work to beat them."

"Yes, but he did bate them, your honor."

"That's true enough, Denis; but his troops now are old soldiers, most of whom have been fighting for years, while a great part of our force will be no better than militia."

"They won't fight any the worse for that, your honor," Denis said confidently. "We will bate them whenever we meet them. You see if we don't."

"We will try anyhow, Denis; and if all the regiments were as good as our own I should feel very sure about it. I wish, though, we were going to fight by ourselves; we know what we can do, but we do not know how the Belgians and Dutch and Germans who will be with us can be depended upon."

"If I were the duke I wouldn't dipend on them at all, at all, your honor. I would just put them all in the rare, and lave our fellows to do the work. They are miserable, half-starved cratures all them foreigners, they tells me; and if a man is not fed, sure you can't expect him to fight. I couldn't do it myself. And I hope the duke ain't going to put us on short rations, because it would be murther entirely on the boys to make them fight with impty stomachs."

"I fancy we shall be all right as to that, Denis. I expect that we shall wait quiet till the French attack us, and waiting quiet means getting plenty of food."

"And dacent food, I hope, your honor; not the sort of thing they say them foreigners lives on. Denis Mulligan could live on frogs and snails as well as another, no doubt; but it would go sorely against me, your honor."

"I don't think there's much chance of your having to live on that Denis. You will get rations there just the same as you did in Spain."

"What! beef and mutton, your honor? I suppose they will bring them across from England?"

"They may bring some across, Denis; but I suppose they will be able to buy plenty for the supply of the army out there."

"What! have they got cattle and sheep there, your honor?" Denis asked incredulously.

"Of course they have, Denis; just the same as we have."

"The hathens!" Denis exclaimed. "To think that men who can get beef and mutton should feed upon such craturs as snails and such like. It's downright flying in the face of Providence, your honor."

"Nonsense, Denis; they eat beef and mutton just the same as we do. As to the frogs and snails, these are expensive luxuries, just as game is with us. There is nothing more nasty about snails after all than there is about oysters; and as to frogs they were regarded as great dainties by the Romans, who certainly knew what good eating was."

"Sure, I am a Roman myself, your honor--so are most of the men of the regiment--but I never heard tell of sich a thing."

"Not that sort of Roman, Denis," Ralph laughed. "The old Romans--people who lived long before there were any popes--a people who could fight as well as any that ever lived, and who were as fond of good living as they were of fighting."

"Well, your honor, there is no accounting for tastes. There was Bridget Maloney, whom I courted before I entered the regiment. Well, your honor, if you would believe it, she threw over a dacent boy like myself, and married a little omadoun of a man about five feet high, and with one shoulder higher than the other. That was why I took to soldiering, your honor. No, there is no accounting for tastes anyhow.

There's the mess-bugle, your honor. Next time we hear it, it will be at say, and maybe there won't be many ready to attind to it."

Denis' prediction was verified. The vessel sailed at two o'clock in the afternoon, and by six was rolling heavily, and a brisk wind was blowing. The Twenty-eighth had not long before made the voyage from the south of France, but they had been favored by exceptionally fine weather, and had experienced nothing like the tossing they were now undergoing. The consequence was that only about half a dozen officers obeyed the bugle call to mess.

There was a general feeling of satisfaction when the low coast round Ostend was sighted, for the voyage throughout had been a rough one.

Under certain circ.u.mstances a sea voyage is delightful, but confinement in a crowded transport in rough weather is the reverse of a pleasant experience. The s.p.a.ce below decks was too small to accommodate the whole of the troops, and a third of their number had to be constantly on deck; and this for a ten days' voyage in a heavy sea, with occasional rain-showers, is not, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, calculated to raise the spirits of troops. But men bound on active and dangerous service are always in the highest spirits, and make light of disagreeables and hardships of all kinds.

They had expected to find Ostend full of troops, for several regiments had landed before them; but they soon found they were to be marched inland. As soon as the regiment had landed they marched to a spot where a standing camp had been erected for the use of troops on their pa.s.sage through. Their baggage was at once sent forward, and the men had therefore nothing to do but to clean up their arms and accoutrements, and to wander as they pleased through the town. They started early next morning, and after two days' marching arrived at Ghent, where several regiments were quartered, either in the town itself or in the villages round it. Ralph's company had billets allotted to them in a village a mile from the town, a cottage being placed at the disposal of the captain and his two subalterns. The next morning, after the parade of the regiment was over, most of the officers and many of the men paid a visit to the town, where the fugitive King of France had now established his court.

Ralph, who years before had read the history of Ghent, was greatly interested in the quaint old town; though it was difficult to imagine from the appearance of its quiet streets that its inhabitants had once been the most turbulent in Europe. Here Von Artevelde was killed, and the streets often ran with the blood of contending factions. Was it possible that the fathers of these quiet workmen in blouses, armed with axes and pikes, had defeated the chivalry of France, and all but annihilated the force of the Duke of Anjou? What a number of convents there were! The monks seemed a full third of the population, and it was curious to hear everyone talking in French when the French were the enemy they were going to meet. The populace were quite as interested in their English visitors as the latter were with them. The English scarlet was altogether strange to them, and the dress of the men of the Highland regiment, who were encamped next to the Twenty-eighth, filled them with astonishment.

For a fortnight the regiment remained at Ghent, then they with some others of the same division marched to Brussels, and took up their quarters in villages round the town. The Twenty-eighth belonged to Picton's division, which formed part of the reserve concentrated round Brussels. The first army corps, consisting of the second and third divisions of Dutch and Belgians, and the first and third of the British, extended from Enghien on the right to Quatre Bras on the left. The first British division were at the former town, the third between Soignies and Roeulx, while the Belgians and Dutch lay between Nivelles and Quatre Bras.

The second army corps held the ground on the right of the first, and extended to Oudenarde on the Scheldt. The cavalry, with the exception of the Brunswick brigade, were posted at Grammont, Mons, and Roeulx, their outposts being thrown forward as far as Maubeuge and Beaumont.

The Prussians were on the left of Wellington's force, and extended from Ligny through Namur toward Liege, their advanced posts being at Charleroi, where Zieten's division had their headquarters. But although the allied armies thus formed together the arc of a large circle covering Brussels, they were entirely distinct. The British drew their supplies from Ostend, on the right of their position, while Liege on the extreme left was the base of the Prussians.

Napoleon's movements were uncertain. He might either advance upon Namur and cut off the Prussians from their base, or between Grammont and Oudenarde, by which measure he would similarly cut the British off from Ostend; or he might advance from Charleroi direct upon Brussels, breaking through at the point where Wellington's left joined the Prussian right. The Duke of Wellington believed that he would attempt the second of these alternatives, as in that case he would fall upon the British before the Prussians could come up to their a.s.sistance, and if successful would not only cut them off from the base of supplies, but would be able to march straight upon Brussels. It was to defeat this plan that the duke posted the largest proportion of his British troops along the frontier, holding, however, two British divisions and the Brunswick and Na.s.sau troops in and round Brussels, where they were nearly equidistant from any point that could be attacked, and could be moved forward as soon as the enemy's intentions became manifest.

By the time that the whole of the forces were a.s.sembled Wellington had ninety thousand men under his orders; Blucher, the Prussian general, had one hundred and sixteen thousand; while Napoleon had one hundred and twenty-five thousand with which to encounter this vastly superior force. Upon the other hand, Napoleon's were all veteran troops, and the French had for a long time been accustomed to victory over the Prussians. Of Wellington's force fully a half were of mixed nationalities: Belgians, Dutch, Brunswickers, and Hessians; while his British division consisted chiefly of young troops, so hastily raised that a great number of them absolutely fought at Waterloo in the uniforms of the militia regiments from which they had been drafted.

It seemed, however, a well-nigh desperate enterprise for Napoleon to attack so greatly superior a force. But he had, in fact, no choice but to do so; for Russia and Austria were arming, and their forces would soon be advancing upon France, and it was therefore necessary if possible to defeat the British and Prussians before they could arrive.