The Bravest of the Brave — or, with Peterborough in Spain

by G. A. Henty

During the whole evening nothing approaching to a joke was made, there was scarcely a smile upon the countenance of any present; and yet the tone of courtliness and deference to the opinions of each other, the grave politeness, the pride with which each spoke of his country, their enthusiasm in the cause, and the hatred with which they spoke of the enemy, impressed Jack very favorably; and though, as he said to himself when thinking it over, the evening had certainly not been a lively one, it had by no means been unpleasant.

Two hours before daybreak the bell of the church gave the signal. As the men had only to rise to their feet, shake themselves, take up their arms, and sling their bags of provisions round their necks, it was but a few minutes before they were formed up in order. The count saw the three divisions file off silently in the darkness, and then, placing himself at the head of the main body, led the way toward the spot which he and Jack had selected for opposing the march of Tesse's invading column.

Daylight was just breaking when they reached it, and the count ordered the men to pile their arms and at once to set to work. The road, which had been winding along in a valley, here mounted a sharp rise, on the very brow of which stood a hamlet of some twenty houses. It had already been deserted by the inhabitants, and the houses were taken possession of by the workers. Those facing the brow of the hill were loopholed, as were the walls along the same line. Men were set to work to build a great barricade across the road, and to run breastworks of stones right and left from the points where the walls ended along the brow. Other parties loopholed the houses and walls of the village, and formed another barricade across the road at the other end. With two thousand men at work these tasks were soon carried out; and the count then led the men down the hill, whose face was covered with loose stones, and set them to work piling these in lines one above another.

At ten o'clock in the morning the work was complete. The count told the men off by parties, each of which were to hold one of the lines of stones; each party was, as the French charged, to retire up the hill and join that at the line above, so that their resistance would become more and more obstinate till the village itself was reached. Here a stand was to be made as long as possible. If the column advanced only by the road, every house was to be held; if they spread out in line so as to overlap the village on both sides, a rapid retreat was to be made when the bugler by the count's side gave the signal.

The men sat down to breakfast in their allotted places, quiet, grave, and stern; and again the contrast with the laughter and high spirits which prevail among English soldiers, when fighting is expected, struck Jack very forcibly.

“They would make grand soldiers if properly trained, these grave, earnest looking men,” he said to himself. “They look as if they could endure any amount of fatigue and hardship; and although they don't take things in the same cheerful light our men do, no one can doubt their courage. I can quite understand now the fact that the Spanish infantry was once considered the finest in Europe. If they only had leaders and discipline Spain would not want any foreign aid; her own people would be more than a match for any army the French could send across the northern frontier.”

The meal was scarcely finished when, at the end of the valley, some three miles away, a cloud of dust was seen to rise with the sparkle of the sun on arms and accouterments.

“There are Tesse's cavalry!” the count exclaimed. “Another half hour will cause a transformation in this quiet valley.”

The head of the column came on but slowly, the cavalry regiment forming it accommodating their pace to that of the infantry and baggage wagons in the rear. Slowly they moved on, until the bottom of the valley appeared covered with a moving mass extending from the end, three miles away, to within half a mile of the foot of the hill on which the Spaniards were posted. Suddenly from the hillsides on the left puffs of smoke darted out, and instantly a similar fire was opened on the right.

“They are at work at last,” Jack exclaimed as the rattle of musketry sounded loud and continuous. “I wondered when they were going to begin.”