The Dynasts: An Epic-Drama of the War with Napoleon Part 78

The wound is more than serious, Woodford, far.

Ride for a surgeon--one of those, perhaps, Who tend Sir David Baird? [Exit Captain Woodford.]

His blood throbs forth so fast, that I have dark fears He'll drain to death ere anything can be done!

HARDINGE

I'll try to staunch it--since no skill's in call.

[He takes off his sash and endeavours to bind the wound with it.

MOORE smiles and shakes his head.]

There's not much checking it! Then rent's too gross.

A dozen lives could pa.s.s that thoroughfare!

[Enter a soldier with a blanket. They lift MOORE into it. During the operation the pommel of his sword, which he still wears, is accidentally thrust into the wound.]

I'll loose the sword--it bruises you, Sir John.

[He begins to unbuckle it.]

MOORE

No. Let it be! One hurt more matters not.

I wish it to go off the field with me.

HARDINGE

I like the sound of that. It augurs well For your much-hoped recovery.

MOORE [looking sadly at his wound]

Hardinge, no: Nature is nonplussed there! My shoulder's gone, And this left side laid open to my lungs.

There's but a brief breath now for me, at most....

Could you--move me along--that I may glimpse Still how the battle's going?

HARDINGE

Ay, Sir John-- A few yard higher up, where we can see.

[He is borne in the blanket a little way onward, and lifted so that he can view the valley and the action.]

MOORE [brightly]

They seem to be advancing. Yes, it is so!

[Enter SIR JOHN HOPE.]

Ah, Hope!--I am doing badly here enough; But they are doing rarely well out there. [Presses HOPE'S hand.]

Don't leave! my speech may flag with this fierce pain, But you can talk to me.--Are the French checked?

HOPE

My dear friend, they are borne back steadily.

MOORE [his voice weakening]

I hope England--will be satisfied-- I hope my native land--will do me justice!...

I shall be blamed for sending Craufurd off Along the Orense road. But had I not, Bonaparte would have headed us that way....

HOPE

O would that Soult had but accepted battle By Lugo town! We should have crushed him there.

MOORE

Yes... yes.--But it has never been my lot To owe much to good luck; nor was it then.

Good fortune has been mine, but [bitterly] mostly so By the exhaustion of all shapes of bad!...

Well, this does not become a dying man; And others have been chastened more than I By Him who holds us in His hollowed hand!...

I grieve for Zaragoza, if, as said, The siege goes sorely with her, which it must.

I heard when at Dahagun that late day That she was holding out heroically.

But I must leave such now.--You'll see my friends As early as you can? Tell them the whole; Say to my mother.... [His voice fails.]

Hope, Hope, I have so much to charge you with, But weakness clams my tongue!... If I must die Without a word with Stanhope, ask him, Hope, To--name me to his sister. You may know Of what there was between us?...

Is Colonel Graham well, and all my aides?

My will I have made--it is in Colborne's charge With other papers.

HOPE

He's now coming up.

[Enter MAJOR COLBORNE, princ.i.p.al aide-de-camp.]

MOORE

Are the French beaten, Colborne, or repulsed?

Alas! you see what they have done too me!