“And Tom?” inquired Dick.
“Was sent back to Ireland, sir.”
“That was hard, after the Duke smiled at him,” said Murphy.
“Well, he did not let him suffer in pocket; he was transferred at as a good a salary to a less important department, but you know the Duke has been celebrated all his life for never overlooking a breach of duty.”
“And who can blame him?” said Moriarty.
“One great advantage of the practice has been,” said the Squire, “that no man has been better served. I remember hearing a striking instance of what, perhaps, might be called severe justice, which he exercised on a young and distinguished officer of artillery in Spain; and though one cannot help pitying the case of the gallant young fellow who was the sacrifice, yet the question of strict duty, to the very word, was set at rest for ever under the Duke's command, and it saved much after-trouble by making every officer satisfied, however fiery his courage or tender his sense of being suspected of the white feather, that implicit obedience was the course he must pursue. The case was this:—the army was going into action——” “What action was it?” inquired Father Phil, with that remarkable alacrity which men of peace evince in hearing the fullest particulars about war, perhaps because it is forbidden to their cloth; one of the many instances of things acquiring a fictitious value by being interdicted—just as Father Phil himself might have been a Protestant only for the penal laws.
“I don't know what action it was,” said the Squire, “nor the officer's name—for I don't set up for a military chronicler; but it was, as I have been telling you, going into action that the Duke posted an officer, with his six guns, at a certain point, telling him to remain there until he had orders from him. Away went the rest of the army, and the officer was left doing nothing at all, which he didn't like; for he was one of those high-blooded gentlemen who are never so happy as when they are making other people miserable, and he was longing for the head of a French column to be hammering away at. In half an hour or so he heard the distant sound of action, and it approached nearer and nearer, until he heard it close behind him; and he wondered rather that he was not invited to take a share in it, when, pat to his thought, up came an aide-de-camp at full speed, telling him that General Somebody ordered him to bring up his guns. The officer asked did not the order come from Lord Wellington? The aide-de-camp said no, but from the General, whoever he was. The officer explained that he was placed there by Lord Wellington, under command not to move, unless by an order from himself. The aide-de-camp stated that the General's entire brigade was being driven in and must be annihilated without the aid of the guns, and asked, 'would he let a whole brigade be slaughtered?' in a tone which wounded the young soldier's pride, savouring, as he thought it did, of an imputation on his courage. He immediately ordered his guns to move and joined battle with the General; but while he was away, an aide-de-camp from Lord Wellington rode up to where the guns had been posted, and, of course, no gun was to be had for the service which Lord Wellington required. Well, the French were repulsed, as it happened; but the want of those six guns seriously marred a preconcerted movement of the Duke's, and the officer in command of them was immediately brought to a court-martial, and would have lost his commission but for the universal interest made in his favour by the general officers in consideration of his former meritorious conduct and distinguished gallantry, and under the peculiar circumstances of the case. They did not break him, but he was suspended, and Lord Wellington sent him home to England. Almost every general officer in the army endeavoured to get his sentence revoked, lamenting the fate of a gallant fellow being sent away for a slight error in judgment while the army was in hot action but Lord Wellington was inexorable saying he must make an example to secure himself in the perfect obedience of officers to their orders; and it had the effect.”
“Well, that's what I call hard!” said Dick.
“My dear Dick,” said the Squire, “war is altogether a hard thing, and a man has no business to be a General who isn't as hard as his own round shot.”
“And what became of the dear young man?” said Father Phil, who seemed much touched by the readiness with which the dear young man set off to mow down the French.