CHAPTER III

"You will have to go under the easiest sail possible. The brig can go two feet to this craft's one, and you will only want your lower sails. If you put on more you will be running ahead and losing us at night. We shall show a light over our stern, and on no account are you to allow yourselves to lose sight of it."

A party of men were already at work nailing battens over the shattered stern of theSea-horse. When this was done, sail-cloth was nailed over them, and a coat of pitch given to it. The operation took four hours, by which time all the other arrangements had been completed. The holds of the two privateers were found to be empty, and they learned from the French crews that the two craft had sailed from Bordeaux in company but four days previously, and that theSea-horsewas the first English ship that they had come across.

"You will remember, Captain O'Grady," the major said, as that officer prepared to go on board, "that Mr. Woods is in command of the vessel, and that he is not to be interfered with in any way with regard to making or taking in sail. He has received precise instructions as to keeping near us, and your duties will be confined to keeping guard over the prisoners, and rendering such assistance to the sailors as they may require."

"I understand, Major; but I suppose that in case you are attacked we may take a share in any divarsion that is going on?"

"I don't think that there is much chance of our being attacked, O'Grady; but if we are, instructions will be signalled to you. French privateers are not likely to interfere with us, seeing that we are together, and if by any ill-luck a French frigate should fall in with us, you will have instructions to sheer off at once, and for each of you to make your way to Lisbon as quickly as you can. You see, we have transferred four guns from each of your craft to take the place of the rotten cannon on board here, but our united forces would be of no avail at all against a frigate, which would send us to the bottom with a single broadside. We can neither run nor fight in this wretched old tub. If we do see a French frigate coming, I shall transfer the rest of the troops to the prizes and send them off at once, and leave theSea-horseto her fate. Of course we should be very crowded on board the privateers, but that would not matter for a few days. So you see the importance of keeping quite close to us, in readiness to come alongside at once if signalled to. We shall separate as soon as we leave the ship, so as to ensure at least half our force reaching its destination."

Captain O'Driscol took Terence with him on board the lugger, leaving his lieutenant in charge of the wing that remained on board the ship.

"You have done credit to the company, and to my choice of you, Terence," he said, warmly, as they stood together on the deck of the lugger. "I did not see anything for it but a French prison, and it would have broken my heart to be tied up there while the rest of our lads were fighting the French in Portugal. I thought that you would make a good officer some day in spite of your love of devilment, but I did not think that before you had been three weeks in the service you would have saved half the regiment from a French prison."

CHAPTER IIIDISEMBARKED

CHAPTER IIIDISEMBARKED

As soon as the vessels were under way again it was found that the lugger was obliged to lower her main-sail to keep in her position astern of theSea-horse, while the brig was forced to take in sail after sail until the whole of the upper sails had been furled.

"It is tedious work going along like this," O'Driscol said; "but it does not so much matter, because as yet we do not know where we are going to land. Sir Arthur has gone on in a fast ship to Corunna to see the Spanish Junta there, and find out what assistance we are likely to get from Northern Spain. That will be little enough. I expect they will take our money and arms and give us plenty of fine promises in return, and do nothing; that is the game they have been playing in the south, and if there were a grain of sense among our ministers they would see that it is not of the slightest use to reckon on Spain. As to Portugal, we know very little at present, but I expect there is not a pin to choose between them and the Spaniards."

"Then we are not going to Lisbon?" Terence said, in surprise.

"I expect not. Sir Arthur won't determine anything until he joins us after his visit to Corunna, but I don't think that it will be at Lisbon, anyhow. There are strong forts guarding the mouth of the river, and ten or twelve thousand troops in the city, and a Russian fleet anchored in the port. I don't know where it will be, but I don't think that it will be Lisbon. I expect that we shall slip into some little port, land, and wait for Junot to attack us; we shall be joined, I expect, by Stewart's force, that have been fooling about for two or three months waiting for the Spaniards to make up their minds whether they will admit them into Cadiz or not. You see, at present there are only 9,000 of us, and they say that Junot has at least 50,000 in Portugal; but of course they are scattered about, and it is hardly likely that he would venture to withdraw all his garrisons from the large towns, so that the odds may not be as heavy as they look, when we meet him in the field. And I suppose that at any rate some of the Portuguese will join us. From what I hear, the peasantry are brave enough, only they have never had a chance yet of making a fight for it, owing to their miserable government, which never can make up its mind to do anything. I hope that Sir Arthur has orders, as soon as he takes Lisbon, to assume the entire control of the country and ignore the native government altogether. Even if they are worth anything, which they are sure not to be, it is better to have one head than two, and as we shall have to do all the fighting, it's just as well that we should have the whole control of things too."

For four days they sailed along quietly. On the morning of the fifth the signal was run up from theSea-horsefor the prizes to close up to her. Mr. Woods, the mate on board the brig, at once sent a sailor up to the mast-head.

"There is a large ship away to the south-west, sir," he shouted down.

"What does she look like?"

"I can only see her royals and top-sails yet, but by their square cut I think that she is a ship-of-war."

"Do you think she is French or English?"

"I cannot say for certain yet, sir, but it looks to me as if she is French. I don't think that the sails are English cut anyhow."

Such was evidently the opinion on board theSea-horse, for as the prizes came up within a hundred yards of her they were hailed by the major through a speaking-trumpet, and ordered to keep at a distance for the present, but to be in readiness to come up alongside directly orders were given to that effect.

In another half-hour the look-out reported that he could now see the lower sails of the stranger, and had very little doubt but that it was a large French frigate. Scarcely had he done so before the two prizes were ordered to close up to theSea-horse. The sea was very calm and they were able to lie alongside, and as soon as they did so the troops began to be transferred to them. In a quarter of an hour the operation was completed, Major Harrison taking his place on board the lugger; half the men were ordered below, and the prize sheered off from theSea-horse.

"The Frenchman is bearing down straight for us," he said to O'Driscol; "she is bringing a breeze down with her, and in an hour she will be alongside. I shall wait another half-hour, and then we must leave theSea-horseto her fate; except for our stores she is worthless. Well, Terence, have you any suggestion to offer? You got us out of the last scrape, and though this is not quite so bad as that, it is unpleasant enough. The frigate when she comes near will see that theSea-horseis a slow sailer, and will probably leave her to be picked up at her leisure, and will go off in chase either of the brig or us. The brig is to make for the north-west and we shall steer south-east, so that she will have to make a choice between us. When we get the breeze we shall either of us give her a good dance before she catches us--that is, if the breeze is not too strong; if it is, her weight would soon bring her up to us."

"Yes, Major, but perhaps she may not trouble about us at all. She would see at once that the lugger and brig are French, and if they were both to hoist French colours, and theSea-horsewere to fly French colours over English, she would naturally suppose that she had been captured by us, and would go straight on her course without troubling herself further about it."

"So she might, Terence. At any rate the scheme is worth trying. If they have anything like good glasses on board they could make out our colours miles away. If she held on towards us after that, there would be plenty of time for us to run, but if we saw her change her course we should know that we were safe. Your head is good for other things besides mischief, lad."

The lugger sailed up near the ship again, and the major gave the captain instructions to hoist a French ensign over an English one, and then, sailing near the brig, told them to hoist French colours.

"Keep all your men down below the line of the bulwarks, O'Grady. Mr. Woods, you had better get your boat down and row alongside of the ship, and ask the captain to get the slings at work and hoist some of our stores into her; we will do the same on the other side. Tell the captain to lower a couple of his boats; also take twenty soldiers on board with you without their jackets; we will do the same, so that it may be seen that we have a strong party on board getting out the cargo."

In a few minutes the orders were carried out, and forty soldiers were at work on the deck of the Sea-horse, slinging up tents from below, and lowering them into the boats alongside. The approach of the frigate was anxiously watched from the decks of the prizes. The upper sails of theSea-horsehad been furled, and the privateers, under the smallest possible canvas, kept abreast of her at a distance of a couple of lengths. The hull of the French frigate was now visible. "She is very fast," the mate said to the major, "and she is safe to catch one of us if the breeze she has got holds."

As she came nearer the feeling of anxiety heightened.

"They ought to make out our colours now, sir."

Almost immediately afterwards the frigate was seen to change her course. Her head was turned more to the east. A suppressed cheer broke from the troops.

"It is all right now, sir," the mate said; "she is making for Brest. We have fooled her nicely."

The boats passed and repassed between theSea-horseand the prizes, and the frigate crossed a little more than a mile ahead.

"Five-and-twenty guns a-side," the major said. "By Jove! she would have made short work of us."

As it was not advisable to make any change in the position until the frigate was far on her way, the boats continued to pass to and fro, carrying back to theSea-horsethe stores that had just been removed, until the Frenchman was five or six miles away.

"Don't you think that we might make sail again, Captain?" the major then hailed.

"I think that we had better give him another hour, sir. Were she to see us making sail with the prize to the south it would excite suspicion at once, and the captain might take it into his head to come back again to inquire into it."

"Half an hour will surely be sufficient," the major said. "She is travelling at eight or nine knots an hour, and she is evidently bound for port. It would be unlikely in the extreme that her commander would beat back ten miles on what, after all, might be a fool's errand."

"That is true enough, sir. Then in half an hour we shall be ready to sail again."

The major was rowed to theSea-horse. "We may as well transfer the men at once," he said. "We have had a very narrow escape of it, Captain, and there is no doubt that we owe our safety entirely to the sharpness of that young ensign. We should have been sunk or taken if he had not suggested our manning the lugger in the first place, and of pretending that the ship had been captured by French privateers in the second."

"You are right, Major. Another half-hour and the craft would have foundered under us; and the frigate would certainly have captured theSea-horseand one of the prizes if the Frenchman had not, as he thought, seen two privateers at work emptying our hold. He is a sharp young fellow, that."

"That he is," the major agreed. "He has been brought up with the regiment, and has always been up to pranks of all kinds; but he has used his wits to good purpose this time, and I have no doubt will turn out an excellent officer."

Before sail was made the major summoned the officers on board theSea-horse. The troops from the lugger and brig were drawn up on deck, and the major, standing on the poop, said in a voice that could be heard from end to end of the ship:

"Officers and men, we have had a narrow escape from a French prison, and as it is possible that before we arrive at our destination we may fall in with an enemy again and not be so lucky, I think it right to take this occasion at once of thanking Mr. O' Connor, before you all, in my own name, and in yours, for to his intelligence and quickness of wit it is entirely due that we escaped being captured when the brig was pounding us with its shot, without our being able to make any return, and it was certain that in a short time we should have had to haul down our flag or be sunk. It was he who suggested that we should take possession of the lugger, and with her guns drive off the brig. As the result of that suggestion this craft was saved from being sunk, and the brig was also captured.

"In the second place, when that French frigate was bearing down upon us and our capture seemed certain, it was he who suggested to me, that by hoisting the French flag and appearing to be engaged in transferring the cargo of the ship to the privateers, we might throw dust into the eyes of the Frenchmen. As you saw, the ruse succeeded perfectly. I therefore, Mr. O'Connor, thank you most heartily in my own name, and in that of your fellow-officers, also in the name of the four hundred men of the regiment, and of the ship's company, for the manner in which you have, by your quickness and good sense, saved us all from a French prison, and saved his Majesty from the loss of the wing of a fine regiment."

As he concluded the men broke into loud cheering, and the officers gathered around Terence and thanked and congratulated him most heartily on the service that he had rendered them.

"You are a broth of a boy, Terence," Captain O'Grady said. "I knew that it was in you all along. I would not give a brass farthing for a lad who had not a spice of divil-ment in him. It shows that he has got his wits about him, and that when he steddys down he will be hard to bate."

Terence was so much overpowered at the praise he had received that, beyond protesting that it was quite undeserved, he had no reply to make to the congratulations that he received from the captain. O'Driscol, seeing that he was on the verge of breaking down, at once called upon him to take his place in the boat, and rowed with him to the lugger.

A few minutes later all sail was set on theSea-horse, and with her yards braced tautly aft she laid her course south, close-hauled; a fresh breeze was now blowing, and she ploughed her way through the water at a rate that almost justified O'Grady's panegyrics upon her. In another three days she entered the port of Vigo, where the convoy was to rendezvous, and all were glad to find that the whole fleet were still there. On anchoring, the major went on board theDauphin, which had brought the headquarters, and the other wing of the regiment. He was heartily greeted by the colonel.

"We were getting very uneasy about you, Harrison," he said. "The last ship of the convoy came in three days ago, and we began to fear that you must have been either dismasted or sunk in the gale. I saw the senior naval officer this morning, and he said that if you did not come in during the day he would send a frigate out in search of you; but I could see by his manner that he thought it most likely that you had gone down. So you may imagine how pleased we were when we made out your number, though we could not for the life of us make out what those two craft flying the English colours over the French, that came in after you, were. But of course they had nothing to do with you. I suppose they were two privateers that had been captured by one of our frigates, and sent in here with prize crews to refit before going home. They have both of them been knocked about a bit."

"I will tell you about them directly, Colonel; it is rather a long story. We have had a narrow squeak of it. We got through the storm pretty well, but we had a bad time of it afterwards, and we owe it entirely to young O'Connor that we are not, all of us, in a prison at Brest at present."

"You don't say so! Wait a moment, I will call his father here; he will be glad to hear that the young scamp has behaved well. I may as well call them all up; they will like to hear the story."

Turning to the group of officers who were standing on the quarter-deck a short distance away, waiting to hear the news when the major had given his report, he said: "You may as well come now and hear Major Harrison's story; it will save his telling it twice. You will be glad to hear, O'Connor, that Terence has been distinguishing himself in some way, though I know not yet in what; the major says that if it had not been for him the whole wing of the regiment would have now been in a French prison."

"Terence was always good at getting out of scrapes, Colonel, though I don't say he was not equally good in getting into them; but I am glad to hear that this time he has done something useful."

The major then gave a full account of their adventure with the privateers, and of the subsequent escape from the French frigate.

"Faith, O'Connor," the colonel said, warmly, holding out his hand to him, "I congratulate you most heartily, which is more than I ever thought to do on Terence's account. I had some misgivings when I recommended him for a commission, but I may congratulate myself as well as you that I did so. I was sure the lad had plenty in him, but I was afraid that it was more likely to come out the wrong way than the right; and now it turns out that he has saved half the regiment, for there is no doubt from what Harrison says that he has done so."

"Thank you, Colonel; I am glad indeed that the boy has done credit to your kindness. It was a mighty bad scrape this time, and he got out of it well."

"Of course, Major, you will give a full report in writing of this, and will send it in to Sir Arthur; he arrived this morning. I will go on board the flag-ship at once and report as to the prizes. Who they belong to I have not the least idea. I never heard of a transport capturing a couple of privateers before; but, I suppose, as she is taken up for the king's service and the prizes were captured by his Majesty's troops, they will rank as if taken by the navy, that is, a certain amount of their value will go to the admiral. Anyhow, the bulk of it will go, I should think, to the troops--the crew and officers of the ship, of course, sharing."

"It won't come to much a head, Colonel, anyhow. You see, they were both empty, and there is simply the value of the ships themselves, which I don't suppose would fetch above five or six hundred apiece."

"Still, the thing must be done in a regular way, and I must leave it in the admiral's hands. I will take your boat, Major, and go to him at once. You will find pen and ink in my cabin, and I should be glad if you would write your report by the time that I return; then I will go off at once to Sir Arthur."

"I have it already written, Colonel," the major said, producing the document.

"That looks to me rather long, Harrison, and busy as Sir Arthur must be, he might not take the trouble to read it. I wish you would write out another, as concise as you can make it, of the actual affair, saying at the end that you beg to report especially the conduct of Ensign O'Connor, to whose suggestions the escape of the ship both from the privateers and French frigate were due. I will hand that in as the official report, and with it the other, saying that it gives further details of the affair. Of course, with them I must give in an official letter from myself, inclosing your two reports. But first I will go and see the admiral."

In a little over half an hour he returned. "The admiral knows no more than I do whether the navy have anything to do with the prizes or not. Being so small in value he does not want to trouble himself about it. He says that the matter would entail no end of correspondence and bother, and that the crafts might rot at their anchors before the matter was decided. He thinks the best thing that I can do will be to sell the two vessels for what they will fetch, and divide the money according to prize rules, and say nothing about it. In that way there is not likely ever to be any question about it, while if the Admiralty and Horse Guards once get into a correspondence over the matter, there is no saying what bother I might have; and that he should advise me, if I do not adopt that plan, to simply scuttle them both, and report that they have sunk. Now I will just write my official letter and take it to head-quarters."

In two hours he was back again.

"I have not seen the chief," he said, "but I gave the reports to his adjutant-general. General Fane was with him; he is an old friend of mine, and I told him the story of your voyage, and the adjutant-general joined in the conversation. Fane was waiting to go in to Sir Arthur, who was dictating some despatches to England, and he said that if he had a chance he would mention the affair to Sir Arthur; and, at any rate, the other officer said that he would lay the reports before him, with such mention that Sir Arthur would doubtless look through them both. I find that there is a bit of insurrection going on in Portugal, but that no one thinks much will come of it, as bands of unarmed peasants can have no chance with the French. Nothing is determined as yet about our landing. Lisbon and the Tagus are completely in the hands of the French.

"Sir Arthur is going down to Oporto to-morrow, where it is likely that he will learn more about the situation than he did at Corunna. Fane says that he hopes we shall soon be ashore, as the general is not the man to let the grass grow under his feet."

After holding counsel with his officers the colonel determined to adopt the advice he had received, and to sell the two craft for what they would fetch, the officers all agreeing to refund their shares if any questions were ever asked on the subject. The captain of theSea-horseagreed to accept the share of a captain in the line, and his mates those of first and second lieutenant. The colonel put himself in communication with some merchants on shore, and the two craft were sold for twelve hundred pounds.

"This gave something over a pound a head to the 400 soldiers and the crew, twice that amount to the non-commissioned officers, and sums varying from ten pounds apiece to the ensigns to fifty pounds to the major. The admiral was asked to approve of the transaction, and said, 'I have no right formally to sanction it, since, so far as I know, it is not a strictly naval matter; but I will give you a letter, Colonel, saying that you have informed me of the course that you have adopted, and that I consider that under the peculiar circumstances of the capture, and the fact that there are no men available for sending the prizes to England, the course was the best and most convenient that could possibly be adopted, though, had the craft been of any great value, it would, of course, have been necessary to refer the matter home.'"

A week passed without movement. The expedition had left England on the 12th of July, 1808, and Sir Arthur rejoined it towards the end of the month. He had learned at Oporto from Colonel Brown, our agent there, that, contrary to what he had been told at Corunna, there were no Spanish troops in the north of Portugal, but that a body of some 8,000 Portuguese irregulars and militia, half-armed and but slightly disciplined, were assembled on the river Mondego. After a consultation with Admiral Sir Charles Cotton, Sir Arthur had concluded that an attack at the mouth of the Tagus was impracticable, owing to the strength of the French there, the position of the forts that commanded the entrance of the river, and the heavy surf that broke in all the undefended creeks and bays near. There was then the choice of landing far enough north of Lisbon to ensure a disembarkation undisputed by the French, or else to sail south, join Spencer, and act against the French army under Dupont.

Sir Arthur finally determined that the Mondego River was the most practicable for the enterprise. The fort of Figueira at its mouth was already occupied by British marines, and the Portuguese force was at least sufficient to deter any small body of troops approaching the neighbourhood. Therefore, to the great joy of the troops, the order was given that the fleet should sail on the following morning; two days later they anchored off the mouth of the Mondego. Just before starting a vessel arrived with despatches from Spencer, saying that he was at St. Mary's and was free to act with Sir Arthur, and a fast vessel was despatched with orders to him to sail to the Mondego.

On arriving there Sir Arthur received the mortifying intelligence that Sir Hew Dalrymple had been appointed over his head, nevertheless he continued to push on his own plans with vigour, pending the arrival of that general. With this bad news came the information that the French general, Dupont, had been defeated. This set free a small force under General Anstruther, and some fast-sailing craft were at once despatched to find his command, and order it to sail at once to the Mondego. Without further delay, however, the landing of the troops began on the 1st of August, and the 9,000 men, their guns and stores, were ashore by the 5th.

On that day Spencer fortunately arrived with 3,300 men. He had not received Sir Arthur's orders, but the moment that Dupont surrendered he had sailed for the Tagus, and had learned from Sir C. Cotton, who commanded the fleet at the entrance to the river, where Sir Arthur was, and at once sailed to join him. While the troops were disembarking Sir Arthur had gone over to the Portuguese head-quarters, two miles distant, to confer with Bernardin Friere, the Portuguese commander-in-chief. The visit was a disappointing one. He found that the Portuguese troops were almost unarmed, and that their commander was full of inflated ideas. He proposed that the forces should unite, that they should relinquish the coast, and march into the interior and commence an offensive campaign, and was lavish in his promises to provide ample stores of provisions. The English general saw, however, that no effectual assistance could be hoped for from the Portuguese troops, and as little from the promises of their commander. He gave Friere 5,000 muskets for his troops, but absolutely declined to adopt the proposed plan, his own intention being to keep near the coast, where he could receive his supplies from the ships and be joined by reinforcements.

As soon as they had landed the Mayo regiment was marched to a village two miles inland, and, with two others of the same brigade, encamped near it. All idea of keeping up a regimental officers' mess had been abandoned, and as soon as the tents were pitched and the troops had settled down in them, O'Grady said to Terence:

"We will go into the village and see if we can find a suitable place for taking our meals. It may be that in time our fellows will learn how to cook for us, but, by jabers! we will live dacent as long as we can. My servant, Tim Hoolan, has gone on ahead to look for such a place, and he is the boy to find one if there is one anyhow to be got. As our companies are number 1 and 2, it is reasonable that we should stick together, and though O'Driscol's a quare stick, with all sorts of ridiculous notions, he is a good fellow at heart, and I will put up with him for the sake of having you with me."

As they entered the village the servant came up. "I have managed it, Captain; we have got hold of the best quarters in the village; it is a room over the only shebeen here. The ould scoundrel of a landlord wanted to keep it as a general room, but I brought the Church to bear on him, and I managed it finally."

"How did you work it, Tim?"

"Sure, your honour, I went to the praste, and by good luck his house is in front of the church. I went into the church, and I crossed myself before the altar and said a prayer or two. As I did so who should come out of the vestry but the father himself. He waited until I had done and then came up to me, and to my surprise said in good Irish:

"'So it's a Catholic you are, my man?'

"'That am I, your riverence,' said I, 'and most all of the rigiment are; sure, we were raised in the ould country, and belong, most of us, to County Mayo, and glad we were to come out here to fight for those of the true religion against these Frenchmen, who they say have no religion at all, at all. And how is it you spake the language, your riverence, if I may be so bold as to ask?'"

"Then he told me that he had been at college at Lisbon, where the sons of many Catholic Irish gentlemen were sent to be educated, and that he had learned it from them.

"'And how is it that you are not with your regiment, my man?'

"'I am here to hire rooms for the officers, your riverence, just a place where they can ate a dacent meal in peace and quietness. I have been to the inn, but I cannot for the life of me make the landlord understand. He has got a room that would be just suitable, so I thought I would come to your riverence to explain to you that the rigiment are not heretics, but true sons of the Church. I thought that, being a learned man, I might make shift to make you understand, and that you would maybe go wid me and explain the matter to him.'

"'That will I,' says he; and he wint and jabbered away with the innkeeper, and at last turned to me and said: 'He will let you have a room, seeing that it is for the service of good Catholics and not heretics.'"

"But, you rascal, you know that we are not Catholics."

"Sure, your honour, didn't I say that most all the rigiment were Catholics; I did not say all of them."

"I must go and explain the matter to him, Hoolan. If he calls upon us, as like he may do, he would find out at once that you have desaved him."

"Sure, your honour, if you think that it is necessary, of course it must be done; but would it not be as well to go to the shebeen first and to take possession of the room, and to get comfortably settled down in it before ye gives me away?"

"I think it might be worth while, Tim," O'Grady said, gravely. "What do you say, Terence?"

"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 assistants, 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 IVUNDER CANVAS

CHAPTER IVUNDER 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 forbueno 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."

Dick Ryan assisted 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 pronounced 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 glass 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 scrap 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 quantities 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.

"I am, nevertheless, glad to have been of service to you, gentlemen," he said, courteously; "at least you are Irishmen, and I have many good friends countrymen of yours. And you have still another claim upon us all, for are you not here to aid us to shake off this French domination? I hope that you are comfortable, but judging from what I see and hear when passing I fear that your lodging is a somewhat noisy one."

"You may well say that, Father; and we do our full share towards making it so; but having the room makes all the difference to us. They have no time to cook downstairs, and it is done by our own servants; but it is handy to have the wine and other things within call, and if we always do as well, we shall have good cause to feel mighty contented; for barring that we are rather crowded, we are just as well off here as we were at home, saving only in the quality of the spirits. Now, Father, we cannot ask you up there, seeing that it is your own village, but if you would like to take a walk through the camps we should be glad to show you what there is to be seen, and can give you a little of the real cratur. It is not much of it that we have been able to bring ashore, for the general is mighty stiff in the matter of baggage, but I doubt whether there is one of us who did not manage to smuggle a bottle or two of the real stuff hidden in his kit."

The priest accepted the invitation, and was taken through the brigade camp, staying some time in that of the Mayos, and astonishing some of the soldiers by chatting to them in English, and with a brogue almost as strong as their own. He then spent half an hour in O'Grady's tent, and sampled the whisky, which he pronounced excellent, and of which his entertainer insisted upon his taking a bottle away with him.

Three days later it was known in camp that two French divisions had been set in motion against them, the one from Abrantes to the east under Loison, the other from the south under Laborde. Junot himself remained at Lisbon. The rising in the south, and the news of the British landing caused an intense feeling among the population, and the French general feared that at any moment an insurrection might break out. The natural point of junction of these two columns would be at Leirya. That night orders were issued for the tents of the division to which the Mayo regiment belonged to be struck before daylight, and the troops were to be under arms and ready to march at six o'clock.

"Good news!" O'Grady said, as he entered the mess-room at four o'clock in the afternoon, after having learned from the colonel the orders for the next morning; "our brigade is to form the advanced guard, and we are to march at six tomorrow."

A general exclamation of pleasure broke from the five or six officers present. "We shall have the first of the fun, boys; hand me that horn, Terence. Here is to Sir Arthur; good-luck to him, and bad cess to the French!"

The toast was drunk with some laughter. "Now we are going to campaign in earnest," he went on; "no more wine swilling, no more devilled ham---- "

"No more spirits, O'Grady," one of the group cut in; "and as for the wine, you have drunk your share, besides twice your share of the spirits."

"Whin there is nothing to do, Debenham, I can take me liquor in moderation."

"I have never remarked that, O'Grady," one of the others put in.

"In great moderation," O'Grady said, gravely, but he was again interrupted by a shout of laughter.

"Ye had to be helped home last night, O'Grady, and it took Hoolan a quarter of an hour to wake you this morning. I heard him say, 'Now, master dear, the bugle will sound in a minute or two; it's wake you must, or there will be a divil of botheration over it.' I looked in, and there you were. Hoolan was standing by the side of you shaking his head gravely, as if it was a hopeless job that he had in hand, and if I had not emptied a water-bottle over you, you would never have been on parade in time."

"Oh! it was you, was it?" O'Grady said, wrathfully. "Hoolan swore by all the saints that he had not seen who it was. Never mind, me boy, I will be even wid ye yet; the O'Grady is not to be waked in that fashion; mind I owe you one, though I am not saying that I should have been on parade in time if you had not done it; I only just saved my bacon."

"And hardly that," Terence laughed, "for the adjutant was down upon you pretty sharply; your coatee was all buttoned up wrong; your hair had not been brushed, and stuck up all ways below your shako; your sword-belt was all awry, and you looked worse than you did when I brought you home."

"Well, it is a poor heart that never rejoices, Terence. We must make a night of it, boys; if the tents are to be struck before daylight it will be mighty little use your turning in."

"You won't catch me sitting up all night," Terence said, "with perhaps a twenty-mile march in the morning, and maybe a fight at the end of it. If it is to Leirya we are going it will be nearer thirty miles than twenty, and even you, seasoned vessel as you are, will find it a long walk after being up all night, and having had pretty hard work to-day."

"I cannot hold wid the general there," O'Grady said, gravely; "he has been kapeing us all at it from daybreak till night, ivery day since we landed, and marching the men's feet off. It is all very well to march when we have got to march, but to keep us tramping fifteen or twenty miles a day when there is no occasion for it is out of all reason."

"We shall march all the better for it to-morrow, O'Grady. It has been hard work, certainly, but not harder than it was marching down to Cork; and we should have a good many stragglers to-morrow if it had not been for the last week's work. We have got half a dozen footsore men in my company alone, and you would have fifty to-morrow night if the men had not had all this marching to get them fit."

"It is all very well for you, Terence, who have been tramping all over the hills round Athlone since you were a gossoon; but I am sure that if I had not had that day off duty when I showed the priest round the camp I should have been kilt."

"Here is the general order of the day," the adjutant said, as he came in with Captain O'Connor. "The general says that now the army is about to take the field he shall expect the strictest discipline to be maintained, and that all stragglers from the ranks will at once be handed over to the provost-marshal, and all offences against the peasantry or their property will be severely punished. Then there are two or three orders that do not concern us particularly, and then there is one that concerns you, Terence. The general has received a report from Colonel Corcoran of the Mayo Fusiliers stating that 'the transport carrying the left wing of that regiment was attacked by two French privateers, and would have been compelled to surrender, she being practically unarmed, had it not been for the coolness and quick wit of Ensign Terence O'Connor. Having read the report the general commanding fully concurs, and expresses his high satisfaction at the conduct of Ensign O'Connor, which undoubtedly saved from capture the wing of the regiment.'

"There, Terence, that is a feather in your cap. Sir Arthur is not given to praise unduly, and it is seldom that an ensign gets into general orders. It will do you good some day, perhaps when you least expect it."

"I am heartily pleased, my lad," Captain O'Connor said, as he laid his hand upon Terence's shoulder. "I am proud of you. I have never seen my own name in general orders, but I am heartily glad to see yours. Bedad, when I think that a couple of months ago you were running wild and getting into all sorts of mischief, it seems hard to believe that you should not only be one of us, but have got your name into general orders."

"And all for nothing, father," Terence said. "I call it a beastly shame that just because I thought of using that lugger I should be cracked up more than the others."

"It was not only that, though, Terence; those guns that crippled the lugger could not have been fired if you had not thought of putting rope round them, and that French frigate would never have left you alone had not you suggested to the major how to throw dust into their eyes. No, my lad, you thoroughly deserve the credit that you have got, and I am sure that there is not a man in the regiment who would not say the same."

"Gintlemen," Captain O'Grady said, solemnly, "we will drink to the health of Ensign Terence O'Connor; more power to his elbow!" And the toast was duly honoured.

"It is mighty good of me to propose it," O'Grady went on, after Terence had said a few words of thanks, "because I have a strong idea that in another two or three minutes I should have made just the same suggestion that you did, me lad. I knew at the time that there was a plan I wanted to propose, but sorra a word came to me lips. I was just brimful with it when you came up and took the words out of me mouth. If I had spoken first it is a brevet majority I had got, sure enough."

"You must be quicker next time, O'Grady," the adjutant said, when the laughter had subsided; "as you say, you have missed a good thing by your slowness. I am afraid your brain was still a little muddled by your indulgence the night before."

"Just the contrary, me boy; I feel that if I had taken just one glass more of the cratur me brain would have been clearer and I should have been to the fore. But I bear you no malice, Terence. Maybe the ideas would not have managed to straighten themselves out until after we had had to haul down the flag, and then it would have been too late to have been any good. It has happened to me more than once before that I have just thought of a good thing when it was too late."

"It has occurred to most of us, O'Grady," Captain O'Connor said, laughing. "Terence, you see, doesn't care for whisky, and perhaps that has something to do with his ideas coming faster than ours. Well, so we are off to-morrow; though, of course, no one knows which way we are going to march, it must be either to Leirya or along the coast road. It is a good thing Spencer has come up in time, for there is no saying how strong the French may be; though I fancy they are all so scattered about that, after leaving a garrison to keep Lisbon in order, and holding other points, Junot will hardly be able at such short notice to gather a force much superior to ours. But from what I hear there are some mighty strong positions between this and Lisbon, and if he sticks himself up on the top of a hill we shall have all our work to turn him off again."

"I fancy it will be to Leirya," the adjutant said; "the Portuguese report that one French division is at Candieros and another coming from Abrantes, and Sir Arthur is likely to endeavour to prevent them from uniting."

That evening there was a grand feast at the mess-room. The colonel had been specially invited, and every effort was made to do honour to the occasion. Tim Hoolan had been very successful in a foraging expedition, and had brought in a goose and four ducks, and had persuaded the landlord's nieces to let him and the cook have sole possession of the kitchen. The banquet was a great success, but the majority of those present did not sit very long afterwards. The colonel set the example of rising early.

"I should advise you, gentlemen, to turn in soon," he said. "I do not say where we are to march to-morrow, but I can tell you at least that the march is a very long one, and that it were best to get as much sleep as possible, for I can assure you that it will be no child's play; and I think that it is quite probable we shall smell powder before the day is over."

Accordingly, all the young officers and several of the seniors left with him, but O'Grady and several of the hard drinkers kept it up until midnight, observing, however, more moderation than usual in their potations.

There was none of the grumbling common when men are turned out of their beds before dawn; all were in high spirits that the time for action had arrived; the men were as eager to meet the enemy as were their officers; and the tents were all down and placed in the waggons before daylight. The regimental cooks had already been at work, and the officers went round and saw that all had had breakfast before they fell in. At six o'clock the whole were under arms and in their place as the central regiment in the brigade. They tramped on without a halt until eleven; then the bugle sounded, and they fell out for half an hour.

The men made a meal from bread and the meat that had been cooked the night before, each man carrying three days' rations in his haversack. There was another halt, and a longer one, at two o'clock, when the brigade rested for an hour in the shade of a grove.

"It is mighty pleasant to rest," O'Grady said, as the officers threw themselves down on the grass, "but it is the starting that bates one. I feel that my feet have swollen so that every step I take I expect my boots to burst with an explosion. Faith, if it comes to fighting I shall take them off altogether, and swing them at my belt. How can I run after the French when I am a cripple?"

"You had better take your boots off now, O'Grady," one of the others suggested.

"It is not aisy to get them off, and how should I get them on again? No; they have got there, and there they have got to stop, bad cess to them! I told Hoolan to rub grease into them for an hour last night, but the rascal was as drunk as an owl."

There was no more talking, for every man felt that an hour's sleep would do wonders for him; soon absolute quiet reigned in the grove, and continued until the bugle again called them to their feet. All knew now that it was Leirya they were making for, and that another ten miles still remained to be accomplished. A small body of cavalry which accompanied them now pushed on ahead, and when half the distance had been traversed a trooper brought back the news that the enemy had not yet reached the town. It was just six o'clock when the brigade marched in amid the cheers and wild excitement of the inhabitants. The waggons were not yet up, and the troops were quartered in the town, tired, and many of them foot-sore, but proud of the march they had accomplished, and that it had enabled them to forestall the French.

Laborde, indeed, arrived the same night at Batalha, eight miles distant, but on receiving the news in the morning that the British had already occupied Leirya, he advanced no farther. His position was an exceedingly difficult one; his orders were to cover the march of Loison from Abrantes, and to form a junction with that general; but to do so now would be to leave open the road through Alcobaca and Obidos to the commanding position at Torres Vedras. Batalha offered no position that he could hope to defend until the arrival of Loison; therefore, sending word to that general to move from Torras Novas, as soon as he reached that town, to Santarem, and then to march to join him at Rolica, he fell back to Alcobaca and then to Obidos, a town with a Moorish castle, built on a gentle eminence in the middle of a valley.

Leaving a detachment here, he retired to Rolica, six miles to the south of it. At this point several roads met, and he at once covered all the approaches to Torres Vedras, and the important port of Peniche, and could be joined by Loison marching down from Santarem.

The advanced brigade of the British force remained in quiet possession of Leirya during the next day, and on the following, the 11th of August, the main body of the army arrived, having taken two days on the march. The Portuguese force also came in under Friere. That general at once took possession of the magazines there, and although he had promised the English general that their contents should be entirely devoted to the maintenance of the English army, he divided them among his own force. Disgusted as the British commander was at this barefaced dishonesty, he was not in a position to quarrel with the Portuguese. It was essential to him that they should accompany him, not for the sake of the assistance that they would give, for he knew that none was to be expected from them, but from a political point of view. It was most important that the people at large should feel that their own troops were acting with the British, and that no feelings of jealousy or suspicion of the latter should arise. Friere was acting under the orders of the Bishop and Junta of Oporto, whose great object was to keep the Portuguese army together and not to risk a defeat, as they desired to keep this body intact in order that, if the British were defeated, they should be able to make favourable terms for themselves. Consequently, even after appropriating the whole of the stores and provisions found at Leirya, Friere continued to make exorbitant demands, and to offer a vigorous opposition to any further advance.

So far did he carry this that the British general, finding that in no other way could he get the Portuguese to advance with him, proposed that they should follow behind him and wait the result of the battle, to which Friere at last consented. The Portuguese, in fact, had no belief whatever that the British troops would be able to withstand the onslaught of the French, whom they regarded as invincible. Colonel Trant, however, one of our military agents, succeeded in inducing Friere to place 1,400 infantry and 250 cavalry under the command of Sir Arthur.

The addition of the cavalry was a very useful one, for the English had with them only 180 mounted men; the country was entirely new to them, scarcely an officer could speak the language, and there was no means, therefore, of obtaining information as to the movements of the enemy. Moving forward through Batalha, and regaining the coast road at Alcobaca, the British forces arrived at Caldas on the 15th; and on the same day Junot quitted Lisbon with a force of 2,000 infantry, 2,000 cavalry, and ten pieces of artillery, leaving 7,000 to garrison the forts and keep down the population of the city. His force was conveyed to Villa Franca by water, and the general then pushed forward to Santarem, where he found Loison, and took command of his division.

The British advanced guard, after arriving at Caldas, pushed forward, drove the French pickets out of Brilos, and then from Obidos. Here, however, a slight reverse took place. Some companies of the 95th and 60th Rifles pressed forward three miles farther in pursuit, when they were suddenly attacked in flank by a greatly superior force, and had it not been that General Spencer, whose division was but a short distance behind, pressed forward to their assistance, they would have suffered heavily; as it was they escaped with the loss of two officers and twenty-seven men killed and wounded. Their rashness, however, led to the discovery that Laborde's force had taken up a strong position in front of the village of Rolica, and that he apparently intended to give battle there.

The next day was spent in reconnoitring the French position. It was a very strong one. Rolica stood on a table-land rising in a valley, affording a view of the road as far as Obidos. The various points of defence there, and on the flank, were held by strong parties of the enemy. A mile in the rear was a steep and lofty ridge that afforded a strong second line of defence. By the side of this ridge the road passed through a deep defile, and then mounted over a pass through the range of hills extending from the sea to the Tagus, and occupying the intermediate ground until close to Lisbon. Laborde's position was an embarrassing one. If he retired upon Torres Vedras his line of communication with Loison would be lost, if he moved to meet Loison he would leave open the direct road to Lisbon, while if he remained at Rolica he had to encounter a force almost three times his own strength.

Trusting in the advantages of his position, and confident in the valour of his troops, he chose the last alternative. Very anxiously, during the day, the British officers watched the French line of defence, fearful lest the enemy would again retreat. By sunset they came to the conclusion that Laborde intended to stay where he was, and to meet them. The French, indeed, had been so accustomed to beat the Spanish and Portuguese, that they had not woke up to the fact that they had troops of a very different material facing them.

"We ought to have easy work," Major Harrison said, as the officers gathered round the fire that had been built in front of the colonel's tent; "the people here all declare that Laborde has not above 5,000 troops with him, while, counting Trant's Portuguese, we have nearly 14,000."

"There will be no credit in thrashing them with such odds as that," Dick Ryan grumbled.

"I suppose, Ryan," Major Harrison said, "if you had been in Sir Arthur's place you would have preferred remaining at Leirya until Junot could have gathered all his forces, and obtained a reinforcement of some fifty thousand or so from Spain, then you would have issued a general order saying, that as the enemy had now a hundred thousand troops ready, the army would advance and smite them."

"Not so bad as that, Major," the young ensign said, colouring, as there was a general laugh from the rest; "but there does not seem much satisfaction in thrashing an enemy when we are three to one against him."

"But that is just the art of war, Ryan. Of course, it is glorious to defeat a greatly superior army and to lose half your own in doing so; that may be heroic, but it is not modern war. The object of a general is, if possible, to defeat an enemy in detail, and to so manoeuvre that he is always superior in strength to the force that is immediately in front of him, and so to ensure victory after victory until the enemy are destroyed. That is what the general is doing by his skilful manoeuvring; he has prevented Junot from massing the whole of the army of Portugal against us.

"To-morrow we shall defeat Laborde, and doubtless a day or two later we shall fight Loison; then I suppose we shall advance against Lisbon, Junot will collect his beaten troops and his garrison, there will be another battle, and then we shall capture Lisbon, and the French will have to evacuate Portugal. Whereas, if all the French were at Rolica they would probably smash us into a cocked hat, in spite of any valour we might show; and as we have no cavalry to cover a retreat, as the miserable horses can scarcely drag the few guns that we have got, and the carriages are so rickety that the artillery officers are afraid that as soon as they fire them they will shake to pieces, it is not probable that a single man would regain our ships."

"Please say no more, Major; I see I was a fool."

"Still," Captain O'Connor said, "you must own, Major, that one does like to win against odds."

"Quite so, O'Connor; individuals who may survive such a battle no doubt would be glad that it was a superior force that they had beaten, but then you see battles are not fought for the satisfaction of individuals. Moreover, you must remember that the proportion of loss is much heavier when the numbers are pretty equally matched, for in that case they must meet to a certain extent face to face. Skill on the part of the general may do a great deal, but in the end it must come to sheer hard fighting. Now, I expect that to-morrow, although there may be hard fighting, it is not upon that that Sir Arthur will principally rely for turning the French out of those strong positions.

"He will, no doubt, advance directly against them with perhaps half his force, but the rest will move along on the top of the heights, and so threaten to cut the French line of retreat altogether. Laborde is, they say, a good general, and therefore won't wait until he is caught in a trap, but will fall back as soon as he sees that the line of retreat is seriously menaced. I fancy, too, that he must expect Loison up some time tomorrow, or he would hardly make a stand, and if Loison does come up, Ryan's wish will be gratified and we shall be having the odds against us.

"Then you must remember that our army is a very raw one. A large proportion of it is newly raised, and though there may be a few men here who fought in Egypt, the great bulk have never seen a shot fired in earnest; while, on the other hand, the French have been fighting all over Europe. They are accustomed to victory, and are confident in their own valour and discipline. Our officers are as raw as our men, and we must expect that all sorts of blunders will be made at first. I can tell you that I am very well satisfied that our first battle is going to be fought with the odds greatly on our side. In six months I should feel pretty confident, even if the French had the same odds on their side."

"The major gave it you rather hotly, Dick," Terence said to his friend, as they sauntered off together from the group. "I am glad that you spoke first, for I had it on the tip of my tongue to say just what you did, and I expect that a good many of the others felt just the same."

"Yes, I put my foot in it badly, Terence. I have no doubt the major was right; anyhow, I have nothing to say against it. But for all that I wish that either we were not so strong or that they were stronger. What credit is there, I should like to know, in thrashing them when we are three to one? Anyhow, I hope that we shall have some share in the scrimmage. We shall get an idea when the orders are published to-night, and shall see where Fane's brigade is to be put."


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