Maurice Tiernay, Soldier of Fortune

by Charles James Lever

The battalions were marched off to barracks, and the group of officers broke up to repair to their several quarters. It was the hour of dinner, but it had been many a day since that meal had been heard of amongst them. A stray café here and there was open in the city, but a cup of coffee, without milk, and a small roll of black bread, a horrid compound of rye and cocoa, was all the refreshment obtainable; and yet, I am bold to say that a murmur or a complaint was unheard against the general or the Government. The heaviest reverses, the gloomiest hours of ill fortune, never extinguished the hope that Genoa was to be relieved at last, and that all we had to do was to hold out for the arrival of Bonaparte. To the extent of this conviction is to be attributed the wide disparity between the feeling displayed by the military and the townsfolk.

The latter, unsustained by hope, without one spark of speculation to cheer their gloomy destiny, starved, and sickened, and died in masses. The very requirements of discipline were useful in averting the despondent vacuity which comes of hunger. Of the sanguine confidence of the soldiery in the coming of their comrades, I was to witness a strong illustration on the very day of which I have been speaking.

It was about four o’clock in the afternoon, the weather had been heavy and overcast, and the heat excessive, so that all who were free from duty had either lain down to sleep, or were quietly resting within doors, when a certain stir and movement in the streets, a rare event during the hours of the siesta, drew many a head to the windows. The report ran, and like wildfire it spread through the city, that the advanced guard of Bonaparte had reached Ronco that morning, and were already in march on Genoa. Although nobody could trace this story to any direct source, each believed and repeated it; the tale growing more consistent and fuller at every repetition. I need not weary my reader with all the additions and corrections the narrative received, nor recount how now it was Moreau with the right wing of the army of the Rhine; now it was Kellermann’s brigade; now it was Macdonald, who had passed the Ticino; and last of all, Bonaparte. The controversy was often even an angry one, when, finally, all speculation was met by the official report, that all that was known lay in the simple fact, that heavy guns had been heard that morning, near Ronco, and as the Austrians held no position with artillery there, the firing must needs be French.

This very bare announcement was, of course, a great ‘come down’ for all the circumstantial detail with which we had been amusing ourselves and each other, but yet it nourished hope, and the hope that was nearest to all our hearts, too! The streets were soon filled; officers and soldiers hastily dressed, and with many a fault of costume were all commingled, exchanging opinions, resolving doubts, and even bandying congratulations. The starved and hungry faces were lighted up with an expression of savage glee. It was like the last flickering gleam of passion in men whose whole vitality was the energy of fever! The heavy debt they owed their enemy was at last to be paid, and all the insulting injury of a besieged and famine-stricken garrison to be avenged. A surging movement in the crowd told that some event had occurred; it was Masséna and his staff, who were proceeding to a watch-tower in the bastion, from whence a wide range of country could be seen. This was reassuring. The general himself entertained the story, and here was proof that there was ‘something in it.’ All the population now made for the walls; every spot from which the view towards Ronco could be obtained was speedily crowded, every window filled, and all the housetops crammed. A dark mass of inky cloud covered the tops of the Apennines, and even descended to some distance down the sides. With what shapes and forms of military splendour did our imaginations people the space behind that sombre curtain! What columns of stern warriors, what prancing squadrons, what earth-shaking masses of heavy artillery! How longingly each eye grew weary watching—waiting for the veil to be rent, and the glancing steel to be seen glistening bright in the sun-rays!

As if to torture our anxieties, the lowering mass grew darker and heavier, and, rolling lazily adown the mountain, it filled up the valley, wrapping earth and sky in one murky mantle.

‘There, did you hear that?’ cried one; ‘that was artillery.’

A pause followed, each ear was bent to listen, and not a word was uttered for full a minute or more; the immense host, as if swayed by the one impulse, strained to catch the sounds, when suddenly, from the direction of the mountain top, there came a rattling, crashing noise, followed by the dull, deep booming that every soldier’s heart responds to What a cheer then burst forth! never did I hear—never may I hear—such a cry as that was; it was like the wild yell of a shipwrecked crew, as some distant sail hove in sight; and yet, through its cadence, there rang the mad lust for vengeance! Yes, in all the agonies of sinking strength, with fever in their hearts, and the death sweat on their cheeks, their cry was Blood! The puny shout, for such it seemed now, was drowned in the deafening crash that now was heard; peal after peal shook the air, the same rattling, peppering noise of musketry continuing through all.

That the French were in strong force, as well as the enemy, there could now be no doubt. Nothing but a serious affair and a stubborn resistance could warrant such a fire. It had every semblance of an attack with all arms. The roar of the heavy guns made the air vibrate, and the clatter of small-arms was incessant. How each of us filled up the picture from the impulses of his own fancy! Some said that the French were still behind the mountain, and storming the heights of the Borghetto; others thought that they had gained the summit, but not en force, and were only contesting their position there; and a few, more sanguine, of whom I was one myself, imagined that they were driving the Austrians down the Apennines, cleaving their ranks, as they went, with their artillery.

Each new crash, every momentary change of direction of the sounds, favoured this opinion or that, and the excitement of partisanship rose to an immense height. What added indescribably to the interest of the scene, was a group of Austrian officers on horseback, who, in their eagerness to obtain tidings, had ridden beyond their lines, and were now standing almost within musket range of us. We could see that their telescopes were turned to the eventful spot, and we gloried to think of the effect the scene must have been producing on them.

‘They’ve seen enough!’ cried one of our fellows, laughing, while he pointed to the horsemen, who, suddenly wheeling about, galloped back to their camp at full speed.