"Colonel O'Connor is authorized to requisition six carts from the quartermaster's department, and to hand over his tents to them; to draw 50,000 rounds of ball cartridge, and such rations as he may be able to carry with him. The paymaster has received authority to hand over to him 500 pounds, for the payment of supplies for his men. When this sum is exhausted, Colonel O'Connor is authorized to issue orders for supplies payable by the paymaster to the forces, exercising the strictest economy, and sending notification to the Paymaster General of the issue of such orders.
"This despatch is confidential, and the direction of the route is, on no account, to be divulged."
"You hear that, O'Grady; and you too, Dicky. I ought not to have read the despatch out loud. However, I know you will keep the matter secret."
"You may trust us for that, Terence, for it is a secret worth knowing. It is evident that Sir Arthur is going to join Cuesta, and make a dash on Madrid. Well, he has been long enough in making up his mind; but it is a satisfaction that we are likely to have hot work, at last, though I wish we could have done it without those Spaniards. We have seen enough of them to know that nothing, beyond kind words, are to be expected of them and, when the time for fighting comes, I would rather that we depended upon ourselves than have to act with fellows on whom there is no reliance, whatever, to be placed."
"I agree with you there, heartily, O'Grady. However, thank goodness we are going to set out at last; and I am very glad that it falls to us to act as the vanguard of the army, instead of being attached to Beresford's command and kept stationary in the passes.
"Now I must be at work. I daresay we shall meet again, before long."
Terence wrote an acknowledgment of the receipt of the general's order, and handed it to the orderly who had brought it. A bugler at once sounded the field-officers' call.
"We are to march at once," he said, when Herrara, Bull, and Macwitty arrived. "Let the tents be struck, and handed over to the quartermaster's department. See that the men have four days' biscuit in their haversacks.
"Each battalion is to take three carts with it. I will go to the quartermaster's department, to draw them. Tell off six men from each battalion to accompany me, and take charge of the carts. Each battalion will carry 25,000 rounds of spare ammunition, and a chest of 250 pounds. I will requisition from the commissariat as much biscuit as we can carry, and twenty bullocks for each battalion, to be driven with the carts.
"As soon as the carts are obtained, the men will drive them to the ordnance stores for the ammunition, and to the commissariat stores to load up the food. You had better send an officer in charge of the men of each battalion.