SCENE IV
CORUNA. NEAR THE RAMPARTS
[It is just before dawn on the following morning, objects being
still indistinct. The features of the elevated enclosure of San
Carlos can be recognized in dim outline, and also those of the
Old Town of Coruna around, though scarcely a lamp is shining.
The numerous transports in the harbour beneath have still their
riding-lights burning.
In a nook of the town walls a lantern glimmers. Some English
soldiers of the Ninth regiment are hastily digging a grave there
with extemporized tools.]
A VOICE [from the gloom some distance off]
“I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”
[The soldiers look up, and see entering at the further end of the
patch of ground a slow procession. It advances by the light of
lanterns in the hands of some members of it. At moments the fitful
rays fall upon bearers carrying a coffinless body rolled in a
blanket, with a military cloak roughly thrown over by way of pall.
It is brought towards the incomplete grave, and followed by HOPE,
GRAHAM, ANDERSON, COLBORNE, HARDINGE, and several aides-de-camp,
a chaplain preceding.]
FIRST SOLDIER
They are here, almost as quickly as ourselves.
There is no time to dig much deeper now:
Level a bottom just as far’s we’ve got.
He’ll couch as calmly in this scrabbled hole
As in a royal vault!
SECOND SOLDIER
Would it had been a foot deeper, here among foreigners, with strange
manures manufactured out of no one knows what! Surely we can give
him another six inches?
FIRST SOLDIER
There is no time. Just make the bottom true.
[The meagre procession approaches the spot, and waits while the
half-dug grave is roughly finished by the men of the Ninth.
They step out of it, and another of them holds a lantern to the
chaplain’s book. The winter day slowly dawns.]
CHAPLAIN
“Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is
full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he
fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.”
[A gun is fired from the French battery not far off; then another.
The ships in the harbour take in their riding lights.]
COLBORNE [in a low voice]
I knew that dawn would see them open fire.
HOPE
We must perforce make swift use of out time.
Would we had closed our too sad office sooner!
[As the body is lowered another discharge echoes. They glance
gloomily at the heights where the French are ranged, and then
into the grave.]
CHAPLAIN
“We therefore commit his body to the ground. Earth to earth, ashes
to ashes, dust to dust.” [Another gun.]
[A spent ball falls not far off. They put out their lanterns.
Continued firing, some shot splashing into the harbour below
them.]
HOPE
In mercy to the living, who are thrust
Upon our care for their deliverance,
And run much hazard till they are embarked,
We must abridge these duties to the dead,
Who will not mind be they abridged or no.
HARDINGE
And could he mind, would be the man to bid it....
HOPE
We shall do well, then, curtly to conclude
These mutilated prayers—our hurried best!—
And what’s left unsaid, feel.
CHAPLAIN [his words broken by the cannonade]
“.... We give Thee hearty thanks for that it hath pleased
Thee to deliver this our brother out of the miseries of this
sinful world.... Who also hath taught us not to be sorry, as
men without hope, for them that sleep in Him.... Grant this,
through Jesus Christ our Mediator and Redeemer.”
OFFICERS AND SOLDIERS
Amen!
[The diggers of the Ninth hastily fill in the grave, and the scene
shuts as the mournful figures retire.]