At Talavera he remained for a week. The Portuguese prisoners remained there, but the British who had been captured in Plasencia, and the convalescents from the hospital at Talavera--in all 200 strong, among whom were six British officers--were to march to the frontier, there to be interned in one of the French fortresses.
The officer who had commanded the escort, on the march from Plasencia, spoke in high terms of Terence to the officer in charge of the two hundred men who were to go on with them. The party had been directed not to pass through Madrid, as the sight of over two hundred British prisoners might give rise to a popular demonstration by the excitable Spaniards, which would possibly lead to disorder. He was therefore directed to march by the road to the Escurial, and then over the Sierra to Segovia, then up through Valladolid and Burgos. The escort was entirely composed of infantry and, as Terence could not therefore take his horse with him, he joined the other officers on foot.
To his great surprise and joy he found that one of these was his chum, Dick Ryan.
"This is an unexpected pleasure, Dicky!" he exclaimed.
"Well, yes, I am as pleased as you are at our meeting, Terence; but I must own that the conditions might have been more pleasant."
"Oh, never mind the conditions!" Terence said. "It is quite enough, for the present, that we both are here; and that we have got before us a journey that is likely to be a jolly one. I suppose that you have given your parole, as I have; but when we are once in prison there will be an end of that, and it is hard if, when we put our heads together, we don't hit on some plan of escape.
"Do you know the other officers? If so, please introduce me to them."
As soon as the introductions were completed, Terence asked Ryan where he had been wounded.
"I was hit by a piece of a French shell," the latter replied. "Fortunately it did not come straight at me, but scraped along my ribs, laying them pretty well bare. As it was a month ago, it is quite healed up; but I am very stiff still, and am obliged to be very careful in my movements. If I forget all about it, and give a turn suddenly, I regularly yell; for it feels as if a red-hot iron had been stuck against me. However, I have learned to be careful and, as long as I simply walk straight on, I am pretty well all right.
"It was a near case, at first; and I believe I should have died of starvation if the French had not come in. Those brutes of Spaniards would do nothing whatever for me, and I give you my word of honour that nothing passed my lips, but water, for three days."