Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 05

by Unknown

In the morning, when we were engaged in cooking our breakfasts, master, making what fires we could with the withered leaves of the date-tree, our colonel and two officers came up to us. The colonel was an Englishman—as brave a gentleman as ever lived—ay, and as kind an officer, too. He was a fine-looking old man, as tall as Bill, and as well built, too; but his health was much broken; it was said he had entered the army out of break-heart on losing his wife. Well, he came up to us, and shook Bill by the hand, as cordially as if he had been a colonel like himself. He was a brave, good soldier, he said, and, to show him how much he valued good men, he had come to make him a sergeant, in room of the one we had lost. He had heard he was a scholar, he said, and he trusted his conduct would not disgrace the halberd. Bill, you may be sure, thanked the colonel, and thanked him, master, very like a gentleman; and, that very day, he swaggered scarlet and a sword, as pretty a sergeant as the army could boast of—ay, and for that matter, though his experience was little, as fit for his place.

For the first fortnight, we didn't eat the king's biscuit for nothing. We had terrible hard fighting on the 13th; and, had not our ammunition failed us, we would have beaten the enemy all to rags; but, for the last two hours, we hadn't a shot, and stood just like so many targets set up to be fired at. I was never more vexed in my life, than when I saw my comrades falling round me; and all for nothing. Not only could I see them falling; but in the absence of every other noise—for we had ceased to cheer, and stood as silent and as hard as foxes—I could hear the dull, hollow sound of the shot, as it pierced them through. Sometimes the bullets struck the sand, and then rose and went rolling over the level, raising clouds of dust at every skip. At times, we could see them coming through the air like little clouds, and singing all the way as they came. But it was the frightful smoking shot that annoyed us most; these horrid shells. Sometimes, they broke over our heads in the air, as if a cannon charged with grape had been fired at us from out the clouds; at times, they sank into the sand at our feet, and then burst up like so many Vesuviuses, giving at once death and burial to hundreds. But we stood our ground, and the day passed. I remember we got, towards evening, into a snug hollow between two sandhills, where the shot skimmed over us, not two feet above our heads; but two feet is just as good as twenty, master; and I began to think, for the first time, that I hadn't got a smoke all day. I snapped my musket, and lighted my pipe, and Bill, whom I hadn't seen since the day after the landing, came up to share with me.

"Bad day's work, Jack," he said; "But we have at least taught the enemy what British soldiers can endure, and, ere long, we shall teach them something more. But here comes a shell! Nay, do not move," he said; "it will fall just ten yards short." And down it came, roaring like a tempest, sure enough, about ten yards away, and sank into the sand. "There now, fairly lodged," said Bill; "lie down, lads, lie down." We threw ourselves flat on our faces—the earth heaved under us, like a wave of the sea, and in a moment, Bill and I were covered with half a ton of sand. But the pieces whizzed over us; and, save that the man who was across me had an ammunition bag carried away, not one of us more than heard them. On getting ourselves disinterred, and our pipes relighted, Bill, with a twitch on the elbow—so—said he wished to speak with me apart; and we went out together, into a hollow, in front.

"You will think it strange, Jack," he said, "that, all this day, when the enemy's bullets were hopping around us like hail, there was but just one idea that filled my mind, and I could find room for no other. Ever since I saw Colonel Westhope it has been forced upon me, through a newly-awakened dream-like recollection, that he is the gentleman with whom I lived ere I was taken away by your people; for, taken away I must have been. Your mother used to tell me, that my father was a Cumberland gipsy, who met with some bad accident from the law; but I am now convinced she must have deceived me, and that my father was no such sort of man. You will think it strange; but, when putting on my coat this morning, my eye caught the silver bar on the sleeve, and there leaped into my mind a vivid recollection of having worn a scarlet dress before—scarlet bound with silver; and that it was in the house of a gentleman and lady, whom I had just learned to call papa and mamma. And every time I see the colonel, as I say, I am reminded of the gentleman. Now, for heaven's sake, Jack, tell me all you know about me. You are a few years my senior, and must remember better than I can myself, under what circumstances I joined your tribe."

"Why Bill," I said, "I know little of the matter, and, 'twere no great wonder though these bullets should confuse me somewhat in recalling what I do know. Most certainly we never thought you a gipsy like ourselves; but then I am sure mother never stole you; she had family enough of her own, and, besides, she brought with her, for your board, she said, a purse with more gold in it than I have seen at one time, either before or since. I remember it kept us all comfortably in the creature for a whole twelvemonth; and it wasn't a trifle, Bill, that could do that. You were at first like to die among us. You hadn't been accustomed to sleeping out, or to food such as ours. And, dear me! how the rags you were dressed in used to annoy you; but you soon got over all, Bill, and became the hardiest little fellow among us. I once heard my mother say that you were a love-begot, and that your father, who was an English gentleman, had to part from both you and your mother on taking a wife. And no more can I tell you, Bill, for the life of me."

We slept that night on the sand, master, and found, in the morning, that the enemy had fallen back some miles nearer Alexandria. Next evening there was a party of us dispatched on some secret service across the desert. Bill was with us; but the officer under whose special charge we were placed was a Captain Turpic, a nephew of Colonel Westhope, and his heir. But he heired few of his good qualities. He was the son of a pettifogging lawyer, and was as heartily hated by the soldiers as the colonel was beloved. Towards sunset, the party reached a hollow valley in the waste, and there rested, preparatory, as we all intended, for passing the night. Some of us were engaged in erecting temporary huts of branches, some in providing the necessary materials, and we had just formed a snug little camp, and were preparing to light our fires for supper, when we heard a shot not two furlongs away. Bill, who was by far the most active among us, sprung up one of the tallest date-trees, to reconnoitre. But he soon came down again.

"We have lost our pains this time," he said; "there is a party of French, of fully five times our number, not half a mile away." The captain on the news, wasn't slow, as you may think, in ordering us off; and, hastily gathering up our blankets, and the contents of our knapsacks, we struck across the sand just as the sun was setting. There is scarce any twilight in Egypt, master; it is pitch dark twenty minutes after sunset. The first part of the evening, too, is infinitely disagreeable. The days are burning hot, and not a cloud can be seen in the sky; but no sooner has the sun gone down, than there comes on a thick white fog, that covers the whole country, so that one can't see fifty yards around; and so icy cold is it, that it strikes a chill to the very heart. It is with these fogs that the dews descend; and deadly things they are. Well, the mist and the darkness came upon us at once; we lost all reckoning; and, after floundering on for an hour or so, among the sandhills, our captain called a halt, and bade us burrow as we best might among the hollows. Hungry as we were, we were fain to leave our supper, to begin the morning with, and huddled all together into what seemed a deep, dry, ditch. We were at first surprised, master, to find an immense heap of stone under us; we couldn't have lain harder had we lain on a Scotch cairn; and that, d'ye see, is unusual in Egypt, where all the sand has been blown by the hot winds from the desert, hundreds of miles away, and where, in the course of a few days' journey, one mayn't see a pebble larger than a pigeon's egg. There were hard, round, bullet-like masses under us, and others of a more oblong shape, like pieces of wood that had been cut for fuel; and, tired as we were, their sharp points, protruding through the sand, kept most of us from sleep. But that was little, master, to what we felt afterwards. As we began to take heat together, there broke out among us a most disagreeable stench; bad, at first, and unlike anything I had ever felt before, but at last altogether overpowering. Some of us became dead sick, and some, to show how much bolder they were than the rest, began to sing. One half the party stole away one by one, and lay down outside; for my own part, master, I thought it was the plague that was breaking out upon us from below, and lay still, in despair of escaping it. I was wretchedly tired, too, and, despite of my fears and the stench, I fell asleep, and slept till daylight. But never before, master, did I see such a sight as when I awoke. We had been sleeping on the carcases of ten thousand Turks, whom Bonaparty had massacred about a twelvemonth before. There were eyeless skulls grinning at us by hundreds from the side of the ditch, and black, withered hands and feet sticking out, with the white bones glittering between the shrunken sinews. The very sand, for roods around, had a brown iron-like tinge, and seemed baked into a half-solid mass, resembling clay. It was no place to loiter in; and you may trust me, master, we breakfasted elsewhere. Bill kept close to our captain all that morning; he didn't much like him, even so early in their acquaintance as this—no one did, in fact; but he was anxious to learn from him all he could regarding the colonel. He told him, too, something about his own early recollections; but he would better have kept them to himself. From that hour, master, Captain Turpic never gave him a pleasant look, and sought every means to ruin him.

We joined the army again on the evening of the 20th March. You know, master, what awaited us next morning. I had been marching, on the day of our arrival, for twelve hours, under a very hot sun, and was fatigued enough to sleep soundly. But the dead might have awakened next morning. The enemy broke in upon us about three o'clock. It was pitch dark. I had been dreaming, at the moment, that I was busily engaged in the landing, fighting in the front rank beside Bill, and I awoke to hear the enemy, outside the tent, struggling in fierce conflict with such of my comrades as, half-naked and half-armed, had been roused by the first alarm, and had rushed out to oppose them. You will not think I was long in joining them, master, when I tell you that Bill himself was hardly two steps a-head of me. Colonel Westhope was everywhere at once that morning, bringing his men in the darkness and the confusion, into something like order; threatening, encouraging, applauding, issuing orders—all in a breath. Just as we got out, the French broke through, beside our tent, and we saw him struck down in the throng. Bill gave a tremendous cry of 'Our colonel! our colonel!' and struck his pike up to the cross into the breast of the fellow who had given the blow. And, hardly had that one fallen, than he sent it crashing through the face of the next foremost, till it lay buried in the brain. The enemy gave back for a moment; and, as he was striking down a third, the colonel got up, badly wounded in the shoulder; but he kept the field all day. He knew Bill the moment he rose, and leant on him till he had somewhat recovered. 'I shall not forget, Bill,' he said, 'that you have saved your colonel's life.' We had a fierce struggle, master, ere we beat out the French; but, broken and half-naked as we were, we did beat them out, and the battle became general.

At first, the flare of the artillery, as the batteries blazed out in the darkness, dazzled and blinded me; but I loaded and fired incessantly; and the thicker the bullets went whistling past me, the faster I loaded and fired. A spent shot, that had struck through a sandbank, came rolling on like a bowl, and, leaping up from a hillock in front, struck me on the breast. It was such a blow, master, as a man might have given with his fist; but it knocked me down; and, ere I got up, the company was a few paces in advance. The bonnet of the soldier who had taken my place, came rolling to my feet ere I could join them. But, alas! it was full of blood and brains; and I found that the spent shot had come just in time to save my life. Meanwhile, the battle raged with redoubled fury on the left, and we in the centre had a short respite. And some of us needed it. For my own part, I had fired about a hundred rounds; and my right shoulder was as blue as your waistcoat.

You will wonder, master, how I should notice such a thing in the heat of an engagement; but I remember nothing better than that there was a flock of little birds shrieking and fluttering over our heads for the greater part of the morning. The poor little things seemed as if robbed of their very instinct by the incessant discharges on every side of them; and, instead of pursuing a direct course, which would soon have carried them clear of us, they kept fluttering in helpless terror in one little spot. About mid-day an aide-de-camp went riding by us to the right.