It was dusk when Vandeleur’s brigade passed Vittoria, over a plain at last free from the broad ditches which had made progress difficult. As far as the Light Bobs could judge, the French army was fleeing in a state of rout comparable to the disordered flight from the field of Salamanca. As the brigade passed on, leaving the town on their left, they found their advance checked by an indescribable confusion of abandoned baggage. Acres of ground were covered with every kind of conveyance, from fourgons to elegant private-carriages-these last often containing civilians in a state of the wildest terror. Horses had been dragged out of the shafts and ridden off” into the gathering dusk; chests lay tumbled on the ground with the hasps broken, and art treasures spilling out of them; guns, caissons, artillery-wagons completely blocked the great causeway to Bayonne; and it was impossible to set one foot before the other without treading on a kit-bag, a burst portmanteau, a camp-kettle, a battered shako, or em officer’s dressing-case. Everything seemed to have been abandoned by the French, even the precious treasure-chests from Paris.
As the brigade picked their way through the confusion, still in pursuit of the flying enemy, a swarm of French cavalry suddenly bore down upon them, and all but swept away Tom Cochrane’s company. His men flung themselves down behind a bank and met this onslaught with such an accurate fire that the cavalry was checked, and, by the time Harry had rushed some of his own company up in support, was making off, leaving a number of dead and wounded behind them. Except for some desultory skirmishing, there was no more fighting in that quarter of the field. Some regiments were already plundering the abandoned baggage-train, and since cases of wine and brandy had been found, the night bade fair to be a merry one. Vandeleur received orders to join the 1st brigade with Alten’s headquarters, and sent Harry on to take up the ground. Harry did not seem to be unduly fatigued by his exertions during the day, but he had quite lost his voice, as he generally did after a battle. When he approached the 1st brigade, the first thing he heard was a torrent of heart-broken Spanish lamentations. ‘Oh, Charlie Eeles, el no vendra nunca! el no vendra nunca! Muerto, muerto, muerto!’ ‘But Juana, dearest Juana, only wait a little! There’s no saying he’s dead yet! Depend upon it, it was all a mistake! Pray, pray don’t cry! We’ll find him directly, see if we don’t!’ Harry gave a cracked laugh, and spurred forward to where, dimly, in the twilight, he could see his wife. ‘Hija!’
It was the veriest croak, but she heard it, and came running up to him, stumbling over the tail of her riding-dress, which she had let fall in her start of joy. ‘Enrique, mi Enrique! Oh, thank God you are not killed, only badly wounded!’
‘Thank God, I’m neither!’ said Harry hoarsely. ‘But you, you little varmint! What the deuce are you doing here, in all this commotion?’
‘I followed the 1st brigade, with West. I did not know our brigade was not with them! And when they told me that you were dead, for one of your men saw you fall! Oh, why do you lie to me? You must be wounded!’
Nothing would convince her that he was, in fact, untouched by so much as a splinter, and since he had neither voice nor time enough to spare for argument, he consigned her to Eeles’s care, and rode off to find quarters for his General.
The brigade bivouacked in-the stubble-fields beyond Vittoria, and the only habitation to be obtained for Vandeleur and his Staff was a large barn. Quartermaster Surtees reported that although he had located the division’s commissariat-train, it was impossible to bring it beyond Vittoria, since the congestion on the roads was holding everything at a standstill. This was not such a serious business as it might have been, as anyone who chose to give himself the trouble of going for a stroll amongst the French baggage could be sure of returning with a ham, or some sausages, and a couple of bottles of excellent wine. It was unnecessary to post pickets, as the cavalry was already far in advance, pursuing the routed French into the darkness, so Harry was able to join his wife and General in time to share a supper of ham, Swiss cheese, and burgundy.
He brought in the news that one of the French General’s wives, Mme de Gazan, had been found by Mr Larpent, stranded in a carriage from which the horses had been stolen, and loudly bewailing the loss of her little boy. Larpent had escorted her to Vittoria, of course, and as soon as she found that she was to consider herself Lord Wellington’s honoured guest, her spirits revived, and she seemed to be in a fair way to forgetting the loss of her child. ‘What’s she like? Pretty?’ inquired Vandeleur’s ADC.
‘I don’t know, I didn’t see her. Johnny Kincaid’s in luck again: his fellows found a whole case of wine in some old gentleman’s private carriage. I left Johnny drinking the old man’s health. I’ve never seen anything like the mess all over the roads and the fields! They say the whole of Joseph’s private loot is lying about to be picked up by our plunderers. I myself saw a couple of fellows stuffing their pockets with doubloons.’
‘Not ours?’ Vandeleur said quickly.
Harry shook his head, and refrained from telling his General that one of these pilferers had been an officer.
It was growing dark, and as no one’s baggage had come up there was no means of lighting the barn. The batmen had found some forage for the horses, and had procured a tin kettle, which was boiled over a fire kindled at one end of the barn. Supper was eaten by the flickering firelight, and everyone was so tired that as soon as the last mouthful had been swallowed, they all lay down amongst the horses, wrapped in their cloaks, and slept as soundly as if they lay on the best feather-mattresses. Juana was entirely unembarrassed by a situation which would have made any English lady faint with horror. Having had no other experience of life outside convent walls than that which she had gained at Harry’s side, she saw nothing put of the way in sharing sleeping-quarters with half-a-dozen horses, and several Staff-officers. If she had thought about it at all, she would have supposed that every married lady who followed the drum did the same. It would not, of course, be approved by of her own countrymen, but if one was married to an Englishman one’s whole way of life was naturally peculiar. She was young enough to think it very good fun to comb out her tangled curls with the General’s pocket-comb, to wash the dust from her face and hands in a tin pannikin, and to dry them on the ADC’s handkerchief, which happened to be the only clean one to be found amongst the company.
By daybreak, the baggage, thanks to Surtees’s indefatigable exertions, had arrived, and, the various canteens having been unloaded from the mules’ backs, everyone, including Vandeleur, who tried to toast slices of bread on the end of his sword at a smoky fire, set about preparing breakfast. But hardly had the kettle begun to boil than orders came for the divisions to fall in. Everything had to be packed in a hurry, and the horses saddled-up, and led out of the barn. The General had already mounted, and Harry was shouting to Juana to make haste, when she suddenly stopped in the doorway of the barn, and said: ‘Listen! I am sure I hear someone moaning, like a wounded man!’
‘Nonsense, come along!’
‘But I do hear it!’ she insisted.
‘Better take a look round,’ grunted Vandeleur.
Harry went back into the barn, and glanced about him rather impatiently. He discovered that there was a hay-loft over half the barn, which, in the dusk of the previous evening, no one had noticed. As he looked round for the ladder, a stifled groan sounded unmistakably. There did not seem to be a ladder, or else it had been hauled up, but with a little help from Vandeleur’s ADC Harry managed to scramble into the loft.