With Moore at Corunna

by G. A. Henty

And all this had to be done while a great French army was already pouring in through the passes of the Pyrenees. No more tremendous, or, it may be said, impossible, task was ever assigned to an English commander; and to add to the absurdity of their scheme, the British government sent off Sir David Baird without instructions, and even without money. The Duke of York had vainly protested against the plan of the ministry, and had pointed out that nothing short of an army of 60,000 men, fully equipped with all necessaries for war--money, transport, and artillery--could achieve success of any kind.

Upon the day Terence rejoined, news came from the engineers in advance that the assurances Sir John Moore had received that the road by which the army was to travel was perfectly practicable for artillery and baggage-waggons, were wholly false, and it was probable that the artillery and cavalry would have to make a long circuit to the south.

It was too late now to change the route for the rest of the army. Nearly half the force had already started on the road to Almeida, and the supplies for their subsistence had been collected at that town. Therefore it was necessary that the main body of the infantry should travel by that road, while three thousand were to act as a guard for the artillery and cavalry on the other route.

CHAPTER VII

THE ADVANCE

"It is enough to drive Sir John out of his senses," the colonel said, as the news was discussed after mess. "These people must be the champion liars of the world. Not content with doing nothing themselves, they seem to delight in inventing lies to prevent our doing anything for them. Who ever heard of an army marching, without artillery and cavalry, one way, while these arms travelled by a different road entirely, and that not for a march of twenty miles, but for a march of three hundred? One battery is to go with us. But what will be the use of six guns against an enemy with sixty? Every day the baggage is being cut down owing to these blackguard Portuguese breaking their engagements to furnish waggons, and we shall have to march pretty nearly as we stand, and to take with us nothing beyond one change of clothes."

Loud exclamations of discontent ran round the table. It was bad enough that in the midst of a campaign waggons should break down and baggage be left behind, but that troops should start upon a campaign with scarcely the necessaries of life had caused general anger in the army; and no order would have been more willingly obeyed than one to march upon Lisbon, shoot every public official, establish a state of siege, and rule by martial law, seizing for the use of the army every draught animal, waggon, and carriage that could be found in the city, or swept in from the country round. The colonel had not exaggerated matters. The number of tents to be taken were altogether insufficient for the regiment, even with the utmost crowding possible. The officers' baggage had been cut down to twenty pounds a head--an amount scarcely sufficient for a single change of clothes and boots. Even the amount of ammunition to be taken would be insufficient to refill the soldiers' pouches after the supply they carried was exhausted.

The paucity of baggage would not have mattered so much had the march begun at the commencement of summer, instead of just as winter was setting in. In the former case, men could have slept in the open air, and a solitary blanket and one change of clothes would have sufficed; but with the wet season at hand, to be followed by winter cold, the grievance was a very serious one. Terence had already learned that the brigade was to march in two days, and that the great bulk of the baggage was to be stored at Torres Vedras, which was to be occupied on their leaving by some of the troops that would remain in Portugal.

"Faith, it is an evil look-out, Terence," O'Grady, who was sitting next to him, said, pathetically. "Sorra a drop of whisky is there in the camp, and now we sha'n't be able to have even a drink of their bastely spirits, onless we can buy it at the towns; and as Anstruther's division has gone on ahead of us, it is likely that every drop has been drunk up."

"It will be all the better for you, O'Grady. Daly tells me that your arm is not fully healed yet. I know that you would not like to be left behind when we have once started."