Our battery was but six light six-pounders; yet even with these we moved over the frozen and slippery roads at a snail's pace, the men tearing their boots to ribbons as they hung on to the drag-ropes--for the artillery captain was a martinet and refused to lock the wheels, declaring that it would damage the carriages. Of damage to his men he never seemed to think: and I, being fool enough to volunteer-- though my weight on the rope could have counted for next to nothing-- found myself on the second day without heels to my shoes, and on the third without shoes at all. Nor is it likely that I had ever reached the Agueda in time for the fighting had we not been met at Coimbra by an order to leave our guns in the magazine there and hurry forward to Ciudad Rodrigo, where my comrades were required to work the 24-pounders which composed the bulk of Lord Wellington's siege-train.

Having been supplied with new boots from the stores in Coimbra, we pushed on eastward through torrents of rain which converted every valley bottom into a quag, so that our march was scarcely less toilsome than before, and the men grumbled worse than they had when dragging the guns over the frozen hill-roads.

They had been forced to leave their wagons behind at Coimbra, and marched like infantry soldiers, each man carrying a haversack with four days' provisions, as well as an extra pair of boots.

But what seemed to vex and deject them most was a rumour that Quartermaster-General Murray had been sent down from the front on leave of absence for England. They argued positively that, with Murray absent, the Commander-in-Chief could not be intending any action of importance: they doubted that he had twenty siege-guns at his call even if he stripped Almeida and left that fortress defenceless. Moreover, who would open a siege in such a country, in the depth of such a winter as this?

Nevertheless we had no sooner pa.s.sed the bridge of the Coa than we discovered our mistake; the roads below Almeida being choked with a continuous train of mule transports, tumbrils, light carts, and wagons heaped with fascines, gabions, long balks of timber, sheaves of spades and siege implements--all crawling southwards.

Our artillerymen were now halted to await and take charge of three bra.s.s guns said to be on their way down from Pinhel under an escort of Portuguese militia; and, taking leave of them, I was handed over to a company of the 23rd Regiment--hurrying in from one of the outlying hamlets near Celorico--with whom I reached on the 7th of January the squalid village of Boden, in and around which the 52nd lay in face of the doomed fortress across the river.

"Here then is war at last," thought I that night, as I curled myself to sleep in a loft where Sergeant Henderson considerately found a corner for me under some pathetically empty fowl-roosts.

Sergeant Henderson in his captain's absence had claimed me from a distracted adjutant who wanted to know where the devil I had come from, and why, and if I would kindly make myself scarce and leave him in peace--a display of temper pardonable in a man who had just come in wet to his middle from fording the river amid cannoning blocks of ice.

Here was war at last, and I was not long in making acquaintance with it. I awoke to find, by the light of the lantern swung from the roost overhead, the dozen men in the loft awake and pulling on their boots. They had lain in their sodden clothes all night: but of their boots, I found, they were as careful as dandies, and to grease them would h.o.a.rd up a lump of fat even while their stomachs craved for it.

Sergeant Henderson motioned me to pull on mine. From my precious bugle I had never parted, even to unsling it, since leaving Figueira.

And so I stood ready.

We bundled on our great-coats, climbed down the ladder, and filed out into the street. It was dark yet, though I could not guess the hour; and bitter cold, with an east wind which seemed to set the very stars shivering. The men stamped their feet on the frozen road as we hurried to the alarm-post, and there I walked into a crowd of dark figures which closed around me at once. For a moment I supposed the whole army to be ma.s.sed there in the darkness, and wondered foolishly if we were to a.s.sault Ciudad Rodrigo at once. A terrible murmur filled the night--the more terrible because, while the few words spoken near me were idle and jocular, it ran down the jostling crowd into endless darkness, gathering menace as it went.

But the sergeant, gripping my shoulder, ordered me gruffly to keep close beside him, and promised to find me my place. The jostling grew regular, almost methodical, and by and by an officer came down the road carrying a lantern, and spoke with Henderson for a moment. At a word from him the men began to number off. Far up the road, other lanterns were moving and voices calling. Then after a long pause, on the reason of which the company speculated in whispers, the troops ahead began to move and the order came down to us--"Order arms--Fix bayonets--Shoulder arms!"--a pause--"By the right, quick march!"

An hour later, still in darkness, we halted beside the Agueda while company after company marched down into the water. A body of cavalry had been drawn across the upper edge of the ford, four deep--the horses' bodies forming a barrier against the swirling blocks of ice; and under this shelter we crossed, the water rising to my small ribs and touching my heart with a shiver that I recall as I write.

But the sergeant's hand was on my collar and steadied me over.

"How much farther?" I made bold to whisper to him as we groped our way up the bank.

"Three miles, maybe: that's as the crow flies. But you mustn't talk."

And not another word did I say. We plodded on--not straight for the fortress, the distant lights of which seemed to be waiting for us, but athwart and, for a mile and more, almost away from it. By and by the road began to climb; and, a little later, we had left it and were crossing the shoulder of a gra.s.sy hill behind which the lights of Ciudad Rodrigo disappeared from view.

Here the dawn overtook us; and here at length, along the northern slope of the hill and close under its summit, we were halted.

Sergeant Henderson gave a satisfied grunt. "Good for _The_ Division--the One and Only!" he remarked. "Now, for my part, I'm ready for breakfast."

CHAPTER XXII.

ON THE GREATER TESSON.

I turned for a look behind us and below. At the foot of the slope, where daylight had just begun to touch the dark shadows, stood a line of mules--animals scarcely taller than the loads they carried, which a crowd of Portuguese had already begun to unpack; and already, on the plateau to the left of us half a dozen markers, with a quartermaster, were mapping out a camp for the 52nd. They went to work so deliberately, and took such careful measurements with their long tapes, that even a tyro could no longer mistake this for an ordinary halt.

I looked at Sergeant Henderson. Word had just been given to the ranks to dismiss, and he returned my look with a humorous wink.

"That'll do, eh?" He nodded towards the markers.

"What does it mean?" I asked.

"It means that we've done with cold baths, my son, and may leave 'em to the other divisions. What else it means you'll discover before you sleep, maybe." He glanced up at the ridge, towards which at a dozen different points our sentries were creeping--some of them escorted by knots of officers--and ducking low as they neared the sky-line.

"May I go down and watch?" I asked again, pointing at the plateau; for I was young enough to find all operations of war amusing.

"Ay--if you won't get in the way and trip over the pegs. I'll be down there myself by 'n by with a fatigue party."

I left him and strolled down the hill. The morning air was cold and the turf, on this north side of the hill, frozen hard underfoot.

But I felt neither hunger nor weariness. Here was war, and I was in it!

As I drew near the plateau a young officer came walking across it and, halting beside the quartermaster, held him in talk for a minute.

He wore the collar of his great-coat turned up high about his ears: but I recognised him at once. It was Archibald Plinlimmon.

Leaving the quartermaster, he strolled towards the edge of the plateau, hard by where I stood; halted again, and gazed down through his field-gla.s.ses upon the muleteers unloading beneath us; but by and by closed his gla.s.ses with a snap, faced round, and was aware of me.

"Hallo!" said he, as I saluted: but his voice was listless and I thought him looking wretchedly ill. "You're in Number 4 Company, are you not? I heard that you'd joined."

It struck me that at least he might have smiled and seemed glad to welcome me. He did indeed seem inclined to say something more, but hesitated, and fumbled as he slipped back the gla.s.ses into their cases.

"Are they looking after you?" he asked.

I told him of the sergeant. "But are you well, sir?" I made bold to ask.

He put the question aside. "Henderson's a good man," he said: "I wish we had him in our company. Ah," he broke off, "they won't be long pitching tents now!"

He swung slowly on his heel and left me, at a pace almost as listless as his voice. I felt hurt, rebuffed. To be sure he was an officer now, and I a small bugler: still, without compromising himself, he might (I felt) have spoken more kindly.

The fatigue party descended, the tents were brought up and distributed, and at a silent signal sprang up and expanded like lines of mushrooms. The camp was formed; and the 52nd, in high good humour, opened their haversacks and fell to their breakfast.

The meal over, the men lit their pipes and stretched themselves within the tents to make up arrears of sleep. It does not take a boy long to learn how to s.n.a.t.c.h a nap even on half-thawed turf packed with moisture, and to manage it without claiming much room. We were eleven in our tent, not counting the sergeant--who had gone off on some errand which he did not explain, but which interested the men sufficiently to keep them awake for a while discussing it in low voices.

I was at once too shy to ask questions and too sleepy to listen attentively. Here was war, I told myself, and I was in it.

To be sure, I had not yet seen a shot fired, nor--save for the infrequent boom of a gun beyond the hill--had I heard one: and yet all my ideas of war were undergoing a change. My uppermost sense-- odd as it may seem--was one of infinite protection. It seemed impossible that, with all these cheerful men about me, joking and swearing, I could come to much harm. It surprised me, after my months of yearning and weeks of tramping to reach this army, to discover how little my presence was regarded even in my own regiment. The men took me for granted, asking no questions.

I might have strolled in upon them out of nowhere, with my hands in my pockets. And the officers, it appeared, were equally incurious.

Captain Lockhart, commanding the company, had scarcely flung me a look. The Colonel I had not seen: the Adjutant had dismissed me to the devil: and Archibald Plinlimmon had treated me as I have told.

All this indifference contained much comfort. I began to understand the restfulness of a great army--a characteristic left clean out of account in a boy's imaginings, who thinks of war as a series of combats and brilliant personal efforts at once far more glorious and more terrifying than the reality.

So I dreamed, secure, until awakened by my comrades' voices, lifted all together and all excitedly questioning Sergeant Henderson, whose head and shoulders intruded through the flap-way.

"Light Company and Number 3," he was announcing.

"Blasted favouritism!" swore the man next to me. "Ain't there no other battalion company in the regiment, that Number 3's been picked for special twice now in four days?"

"The Major's sweet on 'em, that's why," snarled another.

"I ain't saying nothing against the Bobs. But what's the matter with _us_, I'd like to know? Why Number 3 again? Ugh, it makes me sick!"

"Our fun'll come later, lads," said the sergeant cheerfully.

"When you reach _my_ years you'll have learnt to wait. Now, if you'd asked _me_, I'd have chosen the grenadiers: they're every bit as good as a light company for this work."

"Ay--grenadiers and Number 4. Why not? It's cruel hard."

I asked in my ignorance what was happening. My neighbour turned to me with a grin. "Happening? Why, you've a-lost your chance of death or victory, that's all. Here you are, company bugler for twenty-four hours by the grace of Heaven and the sergeant's contrivance, and because everyone's forgot you and because, as it happens, for twenty-four hours there's no bugling wanted. To-morrow you'll be found out and sent back to the band, where there's five supernumeraries waiting for your shoes. And the bandmaster'll cuff your head every day for months before you get such another chance.