Alice Lorraine: A Tale of the South Downs

by R. D. Blackmore

Hilary looked at this true veteran with all the reverence, and even awe, which a young subaltern (if fit for anything) feels for commanding experience. Never a word he spoke, however, but waited to be spoken to.

“You will do, lad. You will do,” said the Colonel, who had little time to spare. “I would rather see you like that, than uproarious, or even as cool as a cucumber. I was just like that, before my first action. Lorraine, you will not disgrace your family, your country, or your regiment.”

The Colonel had lost two sons in battle, younger men than Hilary, otherwise he might not have stopped to enter into an ensign’s mind. But every word he spoke struck fire in the heart of this gentle youth. True gratitude chokes common answers; and Hilary made none to him. An hour afterwards he made it, by saving the life of the Colonel.

The Light Division (kept close and low from the sight of the sharp French gunners) were waiting in a hollow curve of the inner parallel, where the ground gave way a little, under San Francisco. There had been no time to do anything more than breach the stone of the ramparts; all the outer defences were almost as sound as ever. The Light Division had orders to carry the lesser breach—cost what it might—and then sweep the ramparts as far as the main breach, where the strong assault was. And so well did they do their work, that they turned the auxiliary into the main attack, and bodily carried the fortress.

For, sooth to say, they expected, but could not manage to wait for, the signal to storm. No sooner did they hear the firing on the right than they began to stamp and swear; for the hay-bags they were to throw into the ditch were not at hand, and not to be seen. “Are we horses, to wait for the hay?” cried an Irishman of the Fifty-second; and with that they all set off as fast as ever their legs could carry them. Hilary laughed—for his sense of humour was never very far to seek—at the way in which these men set off, as if it were a game of football; and at the wonderful mixture of fun and fury in their faces. Also, at this sudden burlesque of the tragedy he expected—with heroes out at heels and elbows, and small-clothes streaming upon the breeze. For the British Government, as usual, left coats, shoes, and breeches, to last for ever.

“Run, lad, run,” said Major Malcolm, in his quiet Scottish way; “you are bound to be up with them, as one might say; and your legs are unco long. I shal na hoory mysell, but take the short cut over the open.”

“May I come with you?” asked Hilary, panting.

“If you have na mither nor wife,” said the Major; “na wife, of course, by the look of you.”

Lorraine had no sense what he was about; for the grapeshot whistled through the air like hornets, and cut off one of his loose fair locks, as he crossed the open with Major Malcolm, to head their hot men at the crest of the glacis.

Now, how things happened after that, or even what things happened at all, that headlong young officer never could tell. As he said in his letter to Gregory Lovejoy—for he was not allowed to write to Mabel, and would not describe such a scene to Alice—“the chief thing I remember is a lot of rushing and stumbling, and swearing and cheering, and staggering and tumbling backward. And I got a tremendous crack on the head from a cannon laid across the top of the breach, but luckily not a loaded one; and I believe there were none of our fellows in front of me; but I cannot be certain, because of the smoke, and the row, and the rush, and confusion; and I saw a Crapaud with a dead level at Colonel C——. I suppose I was too small game for him,—and I was just in time to slash his trigger-hand off (which I felt justified in doing), and his musket went up in the air and went off, and I just jumped aside from a fine bearded fellow, who rushed at me with a bayonet; and before he could have at me again, he fell dead, shot by his own friends from behind, who were shooting at me—more shame to them—when our men charged with empty muskets. And when the breach was our own, we were formed on the top of the rampart, and went off at double-quick, to help at the main breach, and so we did; and that is about all I know of it.”