With Moore at Corunna Part 7

"I think the matter will keep for a few hours," Terence said, laughing, "and when we are once settled there it will be very hard to turn us out."

The room was found to be larger than they had expected, and O'Grady proposed that they should admit the whole officers of their wing to share it with them, to which Terence at once agreed heartily. "I think that with a little squeezing the place would hold the officers of the five companies, and the major and O'Flaherty. The more of us there are, the merrier, and the less fear of our being turned out."

"That is so. We had better put the names up on the door. You go down and try and make that black-browed landlord understand that you want some paper and pen and ink."

With some difficulty and much gesticulation Terence succeeded. The names of the officers were written down on a paper and it was then fastened on the door.

"Now, Terence, I will go and fetch the boys; you and Hoolan make the landlord understand that we want food and wine for fifteen or sixteen officers. Of course they won't all be able to get away at once. We must contint ourselves with anything we can get now; afterwards we will send up our rations, and with plenty of good wine and a ham (there are lots of them hanging from the ceiling down below), we shall do pretty well, with what you can forage outside."

Terence left this part of the work to Hoolan, who, by bringing up a number of plates and ranging them on the table, getting down a ham and cutting it into slices, and by pointing to the wine-skins, managed to acquaint the landlord with what was required. In this he was a good deal aided by the man's two nieces, who acted as his a.s.sistants, and who were much quicker in catching his meaning than was the landlord himself. Very soon the room below was crowded with officers from other regiments, and Hoolan went up to Terence:

"I think, Mr. O'Connor, that it would be a good job if you were to go down and buy a dozen of them hams. A lot of them have been sold already, and it won't be long before the last has gone, though I reckon that there are three or four dozen of them still there."

"That is a very good idea, Tim. You come down with me and bring them straight up here, and we will drive some nails into those rafters. I expect before nightfall the place will be cleared out of everything that is eatable."

The bargain was speedily concluded. The landlord was now in a better temper. At first he had been very doubtful of the intentions of the new- comers. Now that he saw that they were ready to pay for everything, and that at prices much higher than he could before have obtained, his face shone with good-humour. He and the two girls were already busy drawing wine and selling it to the customers.

"I will get some wood, your honour, and light a fire here, or it is mighty little dinner that you will be getting. The soldiers will soon be dropping in, that is, if they don't keep this place for officers only, for there are two other places where they sell wine in the village. When I came up two officers had a slice of ham each on the points of their swords over the fire."

"That will be a very good plan, Tim; you had better set to work about it at once, and at the same time I will try and get some bread."

By the time that O'Grady returned with seven or eight other officers the fire was blazing. Terence had managed to get a sufficient number of knives and forks; there was, however, no table-cloth in the house. He and Terence were cooking slices of ham on a gridiron over the fire.

"This is first-rate, O'Grady," Major Harrison said; "the place is crowded down below, and we should have fared very badly if you had not managed to get hold of this room."

"If some of the boys will see to the cooking, Major, I will go down with Hoolan and get a barrel of wine and bring it up here; then we shall do first-rate."

"How about the rations, Major?" Terence asked.

"They have just been served out. I sent my man down to draw the rations for the whole wing at once, and told him to bring them up here."

"And I have told mine," Captain O'Driscol said, "to go round the village and buy up two or three dozen chickens, if he can find them, and as many eggs as he can collect. I think that we had better tell off two of the men as cooks. I don't think it is likely that they will be able to get much done that way below. Hoolan and another will do."

"I should think it best to keep Hoolan as forager; he is rather a genius in that capacity. I think he has got round those two girls, whether by his red hair or his insinuating manners I cannot say, but they seem ready to do anything for him, and we shall want lots of things in the way of pots and pans and so on."

"Very well, Terence, then we will leave him free and put two others on."

CHAPTER IV

UNDER CANVAS

In a short time O'Grady returned, followed by Hoolan, carrying a small barrel of wine.

"It is good, I hope," the major said, as the barrel was set down in one corner of the room.

"I think that it is the best they have; one of the girls went down with Tim into the cellar and pointed it out to him. I told him to ask her for bueno vino. I don't know whether it was right or not, but I think she understood."

"How much does it hold, O'Grady?"

"I cannot say; five or six gallons, I should think; anyhow, I paid three dollars for it."

"You must put down all the outgoings, O'Grady, and we will square up when we leave here."

"I will put them down, Major. How long do you think we shall stop here?"

"That is more than anyone can say; we have to wait for Anstruther and Spencer. It may be three or four days; it may be a fortnight."

d.i.c.k Ryan a.s.sisted Terence in the cooking, while Tim went down to get something to drink out of. He returned with three mugs and two horns.

"Divil a thing else is there that can be found, yer honour," he said, as he placed them on the table; "every mortial thing is in use."

"That will do to begin with," the major said; "we will get our own things up this afternoon. We must manage as best we can for this meal; it is better than I expected by a long way."

Tim now relieved the two young officers at the gridiron, and sitting down at the benches along the table the meal was eaten with much laughter and fun.

"After all, there is nothing like getting things straight from the gridiron," the major said.

O'Grady had got the bung out of the barrel and filled the five drinking vessels, and the wine was p.r.o.nounced to be very fair. One by one the other officers dropped in, and Hoolan was for an hour kept busy. The major, who spoke a little Spanish, went down and returned with a dozen bottles of spirits, two or three of which were opened and the contents consumed.

"It is poor stuff by the side of whisky," O'Grady said, as he swallowed a stiff gla.s.s of it; "still, I will not be denying that it is warming and comforting, and if we can get enough of it we can hold on till we get home again. Here is success to the campaign. I will trouble you for that bottle, O'Driscol."

"Here it is. I shall stick to wine; I don't care for that fiery stuff. Here is success to the campaign, and may we meet the French before long!

"We are pretty sure to do that," he went on, as he set his horn down on the table. "If Junot knows his business he won't lose a day before marching against us directly he hears of our landing. He will know well enough that unless he crushes us at once he will have all Portugal up in arms. Here, Terence, you can have this horn."

The difficulty of drinking had to some extent been solved by Hoolan, who had gone downstairs, and returned with a tin pot capable of holding about a couple of quarts. This he had cleaned by rubbing it with sand and water, and it went round as a loving-cup among those unprovided with mugs or horns. When all had finished, the two soldier servants, who had now arrived with the rations, were left in charge. O'Driscol's servant had brought in a dozen fowls and a large basket full of eggs, and, ordering supper to be ready at eight, the officers returned to their camp. They found that their comrades had done fairly well. Several rooms had been obtained in the village, and hams, black sausages, and other provisions purchased, and cooked in a rough way on a gridiron.

"I am afraid that it is too good to last," the colonel said, as the officers gathered around him as the bugle sounded for parade; "a week of this and the last sc.r.a.p of provisions here will have been eaten, and we shall have nothing but our rations to fall back upon. There is one thing, however, that is not likely to give out, that is wine. They grow it about here, and I hear that the commissariat have bought up large quant.i.ties without difficulty to serve out to the troops."

The regiment had a long afternoon's drill to get them out of the slackness occasioned by their enforced idleness on the voyage. When it was over they were formed up, and the colonel addressed a few words to the men.

"Men of the Mayo regiment," he said, "I trust that, now we are fairly embarked upon the campaign, you will so behave as to do credit to yourselves and to Ireland. Perhaps some of you think that, now that you are on a campaign, you can do just as you like. Those who think so are wrong; it is just the other way. When you were at home I did not think it necessary that I should be severe with you; and as long as a man was able, when he came into barracks, to walk to his quarters, I did not trouble about him. But it is different here; any breach of duty will be most severely punished, and any man who is found drunk will be flogged. Any man plundering or ill-treating the people of the country will be handed over to the provost-marshal, and, unless I am mistaken, he is likely to be shot.

"Sir Arthur Wellesley is not the man to stand nonsense. There must be no straggling; you must keep within the bounds of the camps, and no one must go into the village without a permit from the captain of his company. As to your fighting--well, I have no fear of that; we will say nothing about it. Before the enemy I know that you will all do your duty, and it is just as necessary that you should do your duty and be a credit to your regiment at other times. There are blackguards in the regiment, as there are in every other, but I tell them that a sharp eye will be kept upon them, and that no mercy will be shown them if they misbehave while they are in Portugal. That is all I have to say to you."

"That was the sort of thing, I think, Major," he said, as, after the men were dismissed, he walked back to his tent with Major Harrison.

"Just the sort of thing, Colonel," the other said, smiling; "and said in the sort of way that they will understand. I am afraid that we shall have trouble with some of them. Wine and spirits are cheap, and it will be very difficult to keep them from it altogether. Still, if we make an example of the first fellow who is caught drunk it will be a useful lesson to the whole. A few floggings at the start may save some hanging afterwards. I know you are averse to flogging--there have only been four men flogged in the last six months--but this is a case where punishment must be dealt out sharply if discipline is to be maintained, and the credit of the regiment be kept up."

O'Grady and one of the other officers called upon the priest to thank him for his good offices in obtaining the room for them.

"I am afraid from what my man tells me that he did not state the case quite fairly to you. Our regiment was, as he said, raised in Ireland, and the greater portion of the men are naturally of your faith, Father, but we really have no claim to your services whatever."

The priest smiled.