The Dynasts: An Epic-Drama of the War with Napoleon Part 76

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Has he no heart-hints that this Austrian court, Whereon his mood takes mould so masterful, Is rearing naively in its nursery-room A future wife for him?

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Thou dost but guess it, And how should his heart know?

NAPOLEON [opening and reading another dispatch]

Now eastward. Ohe!-- The Orient likewise looms full somberly....

The Turk declines pacifically to yield What I have promised Alexander. Ah!...

As for Constantinople being his prize I'll see him frozen first. His flight's too high!

And showing that I think so makes him cool. [Rises.]

Is Soult the Duke Dalmatia yet at hand?

OFFICER

He has arrived along the Leon road Just now, your Majesty; and only waits The close of your perusals.

[Enter SOULT, who is greeted by NAPOLEON.]

FIRST DESERTER

Good Lord deliver us from all great men, and take me back again to humble life! That's Marshal Soult the Duke of Dalmatia!

SECOND DESERTER

The Duke of d.a.m.nation for our poor rear, by the look on't!

FIRST DESERTER

Yes--he'll make 'em rub their poor rears before he has done with 'em! But we must overtake 'em to-morrow by a cross-cut, please G.o.d!

NAPOLEON [pointing to the dispatches]

Here's matter enough for me, Duke, and to spare.

The ominous contents are like the threats The ancient prophets dealt rebellious Judah!

Austria we soon shall have upon our hands, And England still is fierce for fighting on,-- Strange humour in a concord-loving land!

So now I must to Paris straight away-- At least, to Valladolid; so as to stand More apt for couriers than I do out here In this far western corner, and to mark The veerings of these new developments, And blow a counter-breeze....

Then, too, there's Lannes, still sweating at the siege Of sullen Zaragoza as 'twere h.e.l.l.

Him I must further counsel how to close His twice too tedious battery.--You, then, Soult-- Ney is not yet, I gather, quite come up?

SOULT

He's near, sire, on the Benavente road; But some hours to the rear I reckon, still.

NAPOLEON [pointing to the dispatches]

Him I'll direct to come to your support In this pursuit and hara.s.sment of Moore Wherein you take my place. You'll follow up And chase the flying English to the sea.

Bear hard on them, the bayonet at their loins.

With Merle's and Mermet's corps just gone ahead, And Delaborde's, and Heudelet's here at hand.

While Lorge's and Lahoussaye's picked dragoons Will follow, and Franceschi's cavalry.

To Ney I am writing, in case of need, He will support with Marchand and Mathieu.-- Your total thus of seventy thousand odd, Ten thousand horse, and cannon to five score, Should near annihilate this British force, And carve a triumph large in history.

[He bends over the fire and makes some notes rapidly.]

I move into Astorga; then turn back, [Though only in my person do I turn]

And leave to you the destinies of Spain.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

More turning may be here than he design.

In this small, sudden, swift turn backward, he Suggests one turning from his apogee!

[The characters disperse, the fire sinks, and snowflakes and darkness blot out all.]

SCENE III

BEFORE CORUNA

[The town, harbour, and hills at the back are viewed from an aerial point to the north, over the lighthouse known as the Tower of Hercules, rising at the extremity of the tongue of land on which La Coruna stands, the open ocean being in the spectator's rear.

In the foreground the most prominent feature is the walled old town, with its white towers and houses, shaping itself aloft over the harbour. The new town, and its painted fronts, show bright below, even on this cloudy winter afternoon. Further off, behind the harbour--now crowded with British transports of all sizes--is a series of low broken hills, intersected by hedges and stone walls.

A mile behind these low inner hills is beheld a rocky chain of outer and loftier heights that completely command the former.

Nothing behind them is seen but grey sky.

DUMB SHOW

On the inner hills aforesaid the little English army--a pathetic fourteen thousand of foot only--is just deploying into line: HOPE'S division is on the left, BAIRD'S to the right. PAGET with the reserve is in the hollow to the left behind them; and FRASER'S division still further back shapes out on a slight rise to the right.

This hara.s.sed force now appears as if composed of quite other than the men observed in the Retreat insubordinately straggling along like vagabonds. Yet they are the same men, suddenly stiffened and grown amenable to discipline by the satisfaction of standing to the enemy at last. They resemble a double palisade of red stakes, the only gaps being those that the melancholy necessity of scant numbers entails here and there.

Over the heads of these red men is beheld on the outer hills the twenty thousand French that have been pushed along the road at the heels of the English by SOULT. They have an ominous superiority, both in position and in their abundance of cavalry and artillery, over the slender lines of English foot. The left of this background, facing HOPE, is made up of DELABORDE'S and MERLE'S divisions, while in a deadly arc round BAIRD, from whom they are divided only by the village of Elvina, are placed MERMET'S division, LAHOUSSAYE'S and LORGE'S dragoons, FRANCESCHI'S cavalry, and, highest up of all, a formidable battery of eleven great guns that rake the whole British line.

It is now getting on for two o'clock, and a stir of activity has lately been noticed along the French front. Three columns are discerned descending from their position, the first towards the division of SIR DAVID BAIRD, the weakest point in the English line, the next towards the centre, the third towards the left. A heavy cannonade from the battery supports this advance.