SCENE III
BEFORE CORUNA
[The town, harbour, and hills at the back are viewed from an
aerial point to the north, over the lighthouse known as the
Tower of Hercules, rising at the extremity of the tongue of
land on which La Coruna stands, the open ocean being in the
spectator’s rear.
In the foreground the most prominent feature is the walled old
town, with its white towers and houses, shaping itself aloft
over the harbour. The new town, and its painted fronts, show
bright below, even on this cloudy winter afternoon. Further
off, behind the harbour—now crowded with British transports
of all sizes—is a series of low broken hills, intersected by
hedges and stone walls.
A mile behind these low inner hills is beheld a rocky chain of
outer and loftier heights that completely command the former.
Nothing behind them is seen but grey sky.
DUMB SHOW
On the inner hills aforesaid the little English army—a pathetic
fourteen thousand of foot only—is just deploying into line: HOPE’S
division is on the left, BAIRD’S to the right. PAGET with the
reserve is in the hollow to the left behind them; and FRASER’S
division still further back shapes out on a slight rise to the right.
This harassed force now appears as if composed of quite other than
the men observed in the Retreat insubordinately straggling along
like vagabonds. Yet they are the same men, suddenly stiffened and
grown amenable to discipline by the satisfaction of standing to the
enemy at last. They resemble a double palisade of red stakes, the
only gaps being those that the melancholy necessity of scant numbers
entails here and there.
Over the heads of these red men is beheld on the outer hills the
twenty thousand French that have been pushed along the road at the
heels of the English by SOULT. They have an ominous superiority,
both in position and in their abundance of cavalry and artillery,
over the slender lines of English foot. The left of this background,
facing HOPE, is made up of DELABORDE’S and MERLE’S divisions, while
in a deadly arc round BAIRD, from whom they are divided only by the
village of Elvina, are placed MERMET’S division, LAHOUSSAYE’S and
LORGE’S dragoons, FRANCESCHI’S cavalry, and, highest up of all, a
formidable battery of eleven great guns that rake the whole British
line.
It is now getting on for two o’clock, and a stir of activity has
lately been noticed along the French front. Three columns are
discerned descending from their position, the first towards the
division of SIR DAVID BAIRD, the weakest point in the English line,
the next towards the centre, the third towards the left. A heavy
cannonade from the battery supports this advance.
The clash ensues, the English being swept down in swathes by the
enemy’s artillery. The opponents meet face to face at the village
in the valley between them, and the fight there grows furious.
SIR JOHN MOORE is seen galloping to the front under the gloomy sky.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
I seem to vision in San Carlos’ garden,
That rises salient in the upper town,
His name, and date, and doing, set within
A filmy outline like a monument,
Which yet is but the insubstantial air.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Read visions as conjectures; not as more.
When MOORE arrives at the front, FRASER and PAGET move to the right,
where the English are most sorely pressed. A grape-shot strikes
off BAIRD’S arm. There is a little confusion, and he is borne to
the rear; while MAJOR NAPIER disappears, a prisoner.
Intelligence of these misfortunes is brought to SIR JOHN MOORE.
He goes further forward, and precedes in person the Forty-second
regiment and a battalion of the Guards who, with fixed bayonets,
bear the enemy back, MOORE’S gestures in cheering them being
notably energetic. Pursuers, pursued, and SIR JOHN himself pass
out of sight behind the hill. Dumb Show ends.
[The point of vision descends to the immediate rear of the
English position. The early January evening has begun to spread
its shades, and shouts of dismay are heard from behind the hill
over which MOORE and the advancing lines have vanished.
Straggling soldiers cross in the gloom.]
FIRST STRAGGLER
He’s struck by a cannon-ball, that I know; but he’s not killed,
that I pray God A’mighty.
SECOND STRAGGLER
Better he were. His shoulder is knocked to a bag of splinters.
As Sir David was wownded, Sir John was anxious that the right
should not give way, and went forward to keep it firm.
FIRST STRAGGLER
He didn’t keep YOU firm, howsomever.
SECOND STRAGGLER
Nor you, for that matter.
FIRST STRAGGLER
Well, ’twas a serious place for a man with no priming-horn, and
a character to lose, so I judged it best to fall to the rear by
lying down. A man can’t fight by the regulations without his
priming-horn, and I am none of your slovenly anyhow fighters.
SECOND STRAGGLER
’Nation, having dropped my flit-pouch, I was the same. If you’d
had your priming-horn, and I my flints, mind ye, we should have
been there now? Then, forty-whory, that we are not is the fault
o’ Government for not supplying new ones from the reserve!
FIRST STRAGGLER
What did he say as he led us on?
SECOND STRAGGLER
“Forty-second, remember Egypt!” I heard it with my own ears. Yes,
that was his strict testament.
FIRST STRAGGLER
“Remember Egypt.” Ay, and I do, for I was there!... Upon my
salvation, here’s for back again, whether or no!
SECOND STRAGGLER
But here. “Forty-second, remember Egypt,” he said in the very
eye of that French battery playing through us. And the next omen
was that he was struck off his horse, and fell on his back to the
ground. I remembered Egypt, and what had just happened too, so
thorough well that I remembered the way over this wall!—Captain
Hardinge, who was close to him, jumped off his horse, and he and
one in the ranks lifted him, and are now bringing him along.
FIRST STRAGGLER
Nevertheless, here’s for back again, come what will. Remember
Egypt! Hurrah!
[Exit First straggler. Second straggler ponders, then suddenly
follows First. Enter COLONEL ANDERSON and others hastily.]
AN OFFICER
Now fetch a blanker. He must be carried in.
[Shouts heard.]
COLONEL ANDERSON
That means we are gaining ground! Had fate but left
This last blow undecreed, the hour had shone
A star amid these girdling days of gloom!
[Exit. Enter in the obscurity six soldiers of the Forty-second
bearing MOORE on their joined hands. CAPTAIN HARDINGE walks
beside and steadies him. He is temporarily laid down in the
shelter of a wall, his left shoulder being pounded away, the arm
dangling by a shred of flesh.
Enter COLONEL GRAHAM and CAPTAIN WOODFORD.]
GRAHAM
The wound is more than serious, Woodford, far.
Ride for a surgeon—one of those, perhaps,
Who tend Sir David Baird? [Exit Captain Woodford.]
His blood throbs forth so fast, that I have dark fears
He’ll drain to death ere anything can be done!
HARDINGE
I’ll try to staunch it—since no skill’s in call.
[He takes off his sash and endeavours to bind the wound with it.
MOORE smiles and shakes his head.]
There’s not much checking it! Then rent’s too gross.
A dozen lives could pass that thoroughfare!
[Enter a soldier with a blanket. They lift MOORE into it. During
the operation the pommel of his sword, which he still wears, is
accidentally thrust into the wound.]
I’ll loose the sword—it bruises you, Sir John.
[He begins to unbuckle it.]
MOORE
No. Let it be! One hurt more matters not.
I wish it to go off the field with me.
HARDINGE
I like the sound of that. It augurs well
For your much-hoped recovery.
MOORE [looking sadly at his wound]
Hardinge, no:
Nature is nonplussed there! My shoulder’s gone,
And this left side laid open to my lungs.
There’s but a brief breath now for me, at most....
Could you—move me along—that I may glimpse
Still how the battle’s going?
HARDINGE
Ay, Sir John—
A few yard higher up, where we can see.
[He is borne in the blanket a little way onward, and lifted so
that he can view the valley and the action.]
MOORE [brightly]
They seem to be advancing. Yes, it is so!
[Enter SIR JOHN HOPE.]
Ah, Hope!—I am doing badly here enough;
But they are doing rarely well out there. [Presses HOPE’S hand.]
Don’t leave! my speech may flag with this fierce pain,
But you can talk to me.—Are the French checked?
HOPE
My dear friend, they are borne back steadily.
MOORE [his voice weakening]
I hope England—will be satisfied—
I hope my native land—will do me justice!...
I shall be blamed for sending Craufurd off
Along the Orense road. But had I not,
Bonaparte would have headed us that way....
HOPE
O would that Soult had but accepted battle
By Lugo town! We should have crushed him there.
MOORE
Yes... yes.—But it has never been my lot
To owe much to good luck; nor was it then.
Good fortune has been mine, but [bitterly] mostly so
By the exhaustion of all shapes of bad!...
Well, this does not become a dying man;
And others have been chastened more than I
By Him who holds us in His hollowed hand!...
I grieve for Zaragoza, if, as said,
The siege goes sorely with her, which it must.
I heard when at Dahagun that late day
That she was holding out heroically.
But I must leave such now.—You’ll see my friends
As early as you can? Tell them the whole;
Say to my mother.... [His voice fails.]
Hope, Hope, I have so much to charge you with,
But weakness clams my tongue!... If I must die
Without a word with Stanhope, ask him, Hope,
To—name me to his sister. You may know
Of what there was between us?...
Is Colonel Graham well, and all my aides?
My will I have made—it is in Colborne’s charge
With other papers.
HOPE
He’s now coming up.
[Enter MAJOR COLBORNE, principal aide-de-camp.]
MOORE
Are the French beaten, Colborne, or repulsed?
Alas! you see what they have done too me!
COLBORNE
I do, Sir John: I am more than sad thereat!
In brief time now the surgeon will be here.
The French retreat—pushed from Elvina far.
MOORE
That’s good! Is Paget anywhere about?
COLBORNE
He’s at the front, Sir John.
MOORE
Remembrance to him!
[Enter two surgeons.]
Ah, doctors,—you can scarcely mend up me.—
And yet I feel so tough—I have feverish fears
My dying will waste a long and tedious while;
But not too long, I hope!
SURGEONS [after a hasty examination]
You must be borne
In to your lodgings instantly, Sir John.
Please strive to stand the motion—if you can;
They will keep step, and bear you steadily.
MOORE
Anything.... Surely fainter ebbs that fire?
COLBORNE
Yes: we must be advancing everywhere:
Colbert their General, too, they have lost, I learn.
[They lift him by stretching their sashes under the blanket, and
begin moving off. A light waggon enters.]
MOORE
Who’s in that waggon?
HARDINGE
Colonel Wynch, Sir John.
He’s wounded, but he urges you to take it.
MOORE
No. I will not. This suits.... Don’t come with me;
There’s more for you to do out here as yet. [Cheerful shouts.]
A-ha! ’Tis THIS way I have wished to die!
[Exeunt slowly in the twilight MOORE, bearers, surgeons, etc.,
towards Coruna. The scene darkens.]