Stories of Waterloo;
and Other Tales.
by William Hamilton Maxwell
London: Henry Colburn & Richard Bentley
1829
Vol. 1.
———
—Chapter 6—
The March.
EARLY
on a sweet spring morning, the detached companies of the 28th marched form Woodford for head-quarters. Than this distinguished regiment no finer body of men could be found. Some corps might boast larger grenadiers, or a more compact light infantry; but a military eye would dwell with pleasure on the ranks of this gallant regiment. The termination of the war had enabled Colonel Hilson, the commanding officer, to invalid all whose best days had gone by; and while a large proportion of veteran soldiers remained, the vacancies were filled with the élite of the western peasantry, who, from their naturally martial disposition, and the absence of useful or manufacturing employment, are ever ready to adopt a military life, and leave a home, which, from neglected advantages, and the abandonment of the heartless landlords, can promise no permanent advantage to the tenant, beyond that acquired by labour barely requited, by procuring the common necessaries of existence.
On the third evening the flank companies rejoined the regiment, whose route being for a northern sea-port, moved the following morning, and, in two divisions, directed its march on Newry.
Ireland, the great military depôt of Britain, was in agitation from one extremity to the other. A simultaneous movement of the soldiery had taken place; the effective regiments were ordered to the coast for embarkation; the field artillery left the forts where they had been cantoned; and the corresponding marches of militia and veteran companies to replace the garrisons vacated by the corps ordered on service, crowded the leading roads, and filled the towns lying in the line of march to an overflow. On the fourth day the Enniskillen dragoons and the 28th regiment, which had been moving by parallel routes, crossed each other at Longford. The barracks were occupied by English militia, and the inns and private houses were assigned to the soldiers on their march; and from the smallness of the town, could afford but indifferent accommodation to both the dragoons and infantry. Colonel Hilson and Kennedy were billeted in the same house where Captain Mac Carthy with Cornet Mansell had been already quartered; and, as the three former had been well acquainted, and served together during the Peninsular war, the accidental meeting on the march was a subject of satisfaction to all.
Colonel Hilson had commenced his military career in the Royal Irish Artillery. He served in that corps till its reduction, after the Rebellion of 1798, and rejoining the army after the short peace, entered into the line, and distinguished himself in the Peninsula. He had been on the personal staff of the lamented Picton, and, on the termination of the war, obtained the command of a regiment for his past services. Hilson held a proud place in the annals of British bravery. Admired by his officers and beloved by his men, he had, by a system peculiar to himself, brought his regiment to a state of efficiency and discipline which justly ranked it among the finest in the service; and yet severity of drill, and that disgrace to the British army, corporal punishment inflicted for trivial offences, were unknown in the 28th.
Hilson was in the prime of life; his figure tall and slight, with a burnt brow and faded cheek, which told of fatigue endured, and a residence in unhealthy climates; his eye, like Napoleon's, was dark, quick, and searching; and in the character of his face there was something so manly and intelligent, that one preferred it far to fresher beauty and a more regular cast of features. Mac Carthy had been for a time attached to the same staff with Hilson; and although no two men on earth were more dissimilar in their habits, they entertained for each other a sincere regard.
As the evening advanced the lowering of the clouds, and a rising wind gave token of an approaching tempest. Young Mansell complained of fatigue, and retired early, leaving his companions to talk over their wine of past campaigns and military adventure, and speculate on those scenes of martial life which were now in perspective. Time flew unheeded. Hilson, though proverbially moderate in his cups, exhibited no wish to abridge the conviviality of his friends; while Mac Carthy, whose spirits rose as the hours advanced to midnight, amused his companions with curious anecdotes of himself, given in that naïve manner which, when he pleased, made his stories irresistible.
Kennedy alone seemed thoughtful.—"Frank," said the dragoon, "art thou arranging thy affairs, man? Come, rouse thee, boy; for 'when shall we three meet again?' What, ho! some wine, here. Hang it, the bell is broken. Kennedy, thou art some ten years younger than Hilson and myself; thou hast a happy share of effrontery, with a swagger in thy gait, which no bar-maid can withstand. The host's daughter is pert and pretty. Go down, use thy winning ways, and get us a cooper of sounder port than the last the jade sent us."
Kennedy rose with a smile, and left the room to do his comrade's bidding.
"Frank is but dull to-night," said the colonel. "Is he in love, Maurice?"
"Probably enough," answered Mac Carthy. "It would be a pity he made a fool of himself—he's a kind lad."
"And a brave one," said Hilson. "We should be proud of him, Maurice, for he's a favourable specimen of Ireland: he has a lion's spirit, with a woman's heart."
"A woman's heart! Pish!—a woman has no heart," said the dragoon scornfully.
"Come, Maurice, leave the sex alone. I mention Kennedy, to prove that a sensitive heart may inhabit the same breast which holds a daring spirit. On the retreat from Burgos, his was one of the covering regiments, and consequently its losses were severe. A sergeant who was accompanied by his wife, with an infant in her arms, was killed early in the retreat, and she soon after died from fatigue. At the close of the hot skirmish Kennedy was retiring, having driven back the French advance, when the body of a young and beautiful female lying dead on the road side attracted his attention. He stopped to look at it, and the men recognised the wife of their deceased comrade. A child was folded in the arms of the corpse. Kennedy gazed on the infant—it was alive and sleeping. His eyes filled as he gazed on this singular picture of human destitution—a sleeping infant—a dead mother, and all around bespeaking war, and want, and desolation. 'I could not leave it,' he said; and raising the slumbering child, he folded it carefully in his cloak, while the soldiers turned a few sods with their bayonets, and threw them lightly over the body of the ill-starred mother. With the assistance of his servant he conveyed the poor orphan safely to the lines, and afterwards had it sent to England and placed in one of our military asylums for soldiers' children.
"I saw Kennedy at the storming of Badajoz; the company lost its captain, and he led it to the assault. I saw him place the first ladder: he mounted it, and it was thrown from the walls by the French. He mounted it again and again; and though bleeding from bayonet thrusts and sword cuts, he made good at last his desperate footing, and followed by his daring comrades, he carried in succession the different defences of the castle; and as they drove the French from work to work, above the infernal din of that tremendous night, the roar of cannon, and the roll of musquetry, the hissing of rockets, and the bursting of shells, the wild and terror-striking cheer of the 88th was audible, mingled with their well-known cry of 'Faugh a ballagh.'"*
*"Faugh a ballagh" is the charging world of the 87th and 88th Irish regiments. Its literal meaning is, "clear the way." A French officer, speaking of the Peninsular war, says "That nothing shook the steadiness of the French infantry, but the wild cheer of the Irish regiments, as they came up to a bayonet charge."
"Frank is a gallant fellow," said the dragoon. "But what a night it is!—how it blows!—and lightning too!—it is a regular tempest."
"A tremendous night to be in the channel. Ha! that squall! it shakes the very table."
"It was such a night last autumn," said Mac Carthy, "when the American vessel went ashore on the northern coast, where I was then quartered. We were brought out early next morning by the magistrate, to preserve from plunder any property which might come ashore. At a short distance from the vessel, which was now lying high and dry upon the sands, I observed something drifting in with the tide. Some of the peasantry had watched it, and descending from the cliffs, they were examining what it was, when I rode off to ascertain if it was any thing worth saving. On coming up, the country people left it, and retired hastily. It was the body of a man, apparently a foreigner. No clothes except a sailor's trowsers were on the corpse; but the shirt appeared too fine to be the property of a common mariner. The peasants who had been before me had plundered the pockets, and no clue remained to assist me in determining who the stranger had been. I was retiring slowly, when at the distance of a few paces, my horse struck with his foot a small tin case which the plunderers had dropped in their hurry. I dismounted and picked it up, and finding that it contained a roll of written paper, I brought it with me. The water had not penetrated the case, and the writing remained uninjured."
"What was the manuscript?" inquired Colonel Hilson.
"I have but partially looked it over," replied Mac Carthy. "Are you, Hilson, an adept at decyphering a cramp handwriting? The scroll is in my writing-box."
"Bring it hither, Maurice," said the commander. "A tale, a story, or even a sailor's will, will be some relief from the tedium of a dull night, in dreary quarters."
The dragoon produced the case; and, on opening it, the papers were found in perfect preservation. Kennedy having returned with the handsome bar-maid, on the opening of a fresh bottle, was pronounced by Mac Carthy to have executed his commission successfully; and while the storm roared fearfully without, the bog-deal fire was replenished, and Hilson finding the manuscript sufficiently legible, read the following narrative to his comrades.
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