Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1045 page)

facing HOPE, is made up of DELABORDE'S and MERLE'S divisions, while

in a deadly arc round BAIRD, from whom they are divided only by the

village of Elvina, are placed MERMET'S division, LAHOUSSAYE'S and

LORGE'S dragoons, FRANCESCHI'S cavalry, and, highest up of all, a

formidable battery of eleven great guns that rake the whole British

line.

It is now getting on for two o'clock, and a stir of activity has

lately been noticed along the French front.  Three columns are

discerned descending from their position, the first towards the

division of SIR DAVID BAIRD, the weakest point in the English line,

the next towards the centre, the third towards the left.  A heavy

cannonade from the battery supports this advance.

The clash ensues, the English being swept down in swathes by the

enemy's artillery.  The opponents meet face to face at the village

in the valley between them, and the fight there grows furious.

SIR JOHN MOORE is seen galloping to the front under the gloomy sky.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

I seem to vision in San Carlos' garden,

That rises salient in the upper town,

His name, and date, and doing, set within

A filmy outline like a monument,

Which yet is but the insubstantial air.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Read visions as conjectures; not as more.

When MOORE arrives at the front, FRASER and PAGET move to the right,

where the English are most sorely pressed.  A grape-shot strikes

off BAIRD'S arm.  There is a little confusion, and he is borne to

the rear; while MAJOR NAPIER disappears, a prisoner.

Intelligence of these misfortunes is brought to SIR JOHN MOORE.

He goes further forward, and precedes in person the Forty-second

regiment and a battalion of the Guards who, with fixed bayonets,

bear the enemy back, MOORE'S gestures in cheering them being

notably energetic.  Pursuers, pursued, and SIR JOHN himself pass

out of sight behind the hill.  Dumb Show ends.

[The point of vision descends to the immediate rear of the

English position.  The early January evening has begun to spread

its shades, and shouts of dismay are heard from behind the hill

over which MOORE and the advancing lines have vanished.

Straggling soldiers cross in the gloom.]

FIRST STRAGGLER

He's struck by a cannon-ball, that I know; but he's not killed,

that I pray God A'mighty.

SECOND STRAGGLER

Better he were.  His shoulder is knocked to a bag of splinters.

As Sir David was wownded, Sir John was anxious that the right

should not give way, and went forward to keep it firm.

FIRST STRAGGLER

He didn't keep YOU firm, howsomever.

SECOND STRAGGLER

Nor you, for that matter.

FIRST STRAGGLER

Well, 'twas a serious place for a man with no priming-horn, and

a character to lose, so I judged it best to fall to the rear by

lying down.  A man can't fight by the regulations without his

priming-horn, and I am none of your slovenly anyhow fighters.

SECOND STRAGGLER

'Nation, having dropped my flit-pouch, I was the same.  If you'd

had your priming-horn, and I my flints, mind ye, we should have

been there now?  Then, forty-whory, that we are not is the fault

o' Government for not supplying new ones from the reserve!

FIRST STRAGGLER

What did he say as he led us on?

SECOND STRAGGLER

"Forty-second, remember Egypt!"  I heard it with my own ears.  Yes,

that was his strict testament.

FIRST STRAGGLER

"Remember Egypt."  Ay, and I do, for I was there!... Upon my

salvation, here's for back again, whether or no!

SECOND STRAGGLER

But here.  "Forty-second, remember Egypt," he said in the very

eye of that French battery playing through us.  And the next omen

was that he was struck off his horse, and fell on his back to the

ground.  I remembered Egypt, and what had just happened too, so

thorough well that I remembered the way over this wall!—Captain

Hardinge, who was close to him, jumped off his horse, and he and

one in the ranks lifted him, and are now bringing him along.

FIRST STRAGGLER

Nevertheless, here's for back again, come what will.  Remember

Egypt!  Hurrah!

[Exit First straggler.  Second straggler ponders, then suddenly

follows First.  Enter COLONEL ANDERSON and others hastily.]

AN OFFICER

Now fetch a blanker.  He must be carried in.

[Shouts heard.]

COLONEL ANDERSON

That means we are gaining ground!  Had fate but left

This last blow undecreed, the hour had shone

A star amid these girdling days of gloom!

[Exit.  Enter in the obscurity six soldiers of the Forty-second

bearing MOORE on their joined hands.  CAPTAIN HARDINGE walks

beside and steadies him.  He is temporarily laid down in the

shelter of a wall, his left shoulder being pounded away, the arm

dangling by a shred of flesh.

Enter COLONEL GRAHAM and CAPTAIN WOODFORD.]

GRAHAM

The wound is more than serious, Woodford, far.

Ride for a surgeon—one of those, perhaps,

Who tend Sir David Baird? 
[Exit Captain Woodford.]

His blood throbs forth so fast, that I have dark fears

He'll drain to death ere anything can be done!

HARDINGE

I'll try to staunch it—since no skill's in call.

[He takes off his sash and endeavours to bind the wound with it.

MOORE smiles and shakes his head.]

There's not much checking it!  Then rent's too gross.

A dozen lives could pass that thoroughfare!

[Enter a soldier with a blanket.  They lift MOORE into it.  During

the operation the pommel of his sword, which he still wears, is

accidentally thrust into the wound.]

I'll loose the sword—it bruises you, Sir John.

[He begins to unbuckle it.]

MOORE

No.  Let it be!  One hurt more matters not.

I wish it to go off the field with me.

HARDINGE

I like the sound of that.  It augurs well

For your much-hoped recovery.

MOORE
[looking sadly at his wound]

     Hardinge, no:

Nature is nonplussed there!  My shoulder's gone,

And this left side laid open to my lungs.

There's but a brief breath now for me, at most....

Could you—move me along—that I may glimpse

Still how the battle's going?

HARDINGE

     Ay, Sir John—

A few yard higher up, where we can see.

[He is borne in the blanket a little way onward, and lifted so

that he can view the valley and the action.]

MOORE
[brightly]

They seem to be advancing.  Yes, it is so!

[Enter SIR JOHN HOPE.]

Ah, Hope!—I am doing badly here enough;

But they are doing rarely well out there. 
[Presses HOPE'S hand.]

Don't leave! my speech may flag with this fierce pain,

But you can talk to me.—Are the French checked?

HOPE

My dear friend, they are borne back steadily.

MOORE
[his voice weakening]

I hope England—will be satisfied—

I hope my native land—will do me justice!...

I shall be blamed for sending Craufurd off

Along the Orense road.  But had I not,

Bonaparte would have headed us that way....

HOPE

O would that Soult had but accepted battle

By Lugo town!  We should have crushed him there.

MOORE

Yes... yes.—But it has never been my lot

To owe much to good luck; nor was it then.

Good fortune has been mine, but
[bitterly]
mostly so

By the exhaustion of all shapes of bad!...

Well, this does not become a dying man;

And others have been chastened more than I

By Him who holds us in His hollowed hand!...

I grieve for Zaragoza, if, as said,

The siege goes sorely with her, which it must.

I heard when at Dahagun that late day

That she was holding out heroically.

But I must leave such now.—You'll see my friends

As early as you can?  Tell them the whole;

Say to my mother....
[His voice fails.]

Hope, Hope, I have so much to charge you with,

But weakness clams my tongue!... If I must die

Without a word with Stanhope, ask him, Hope,

To—name me to his sister.  You may know

Of what there was between us?...

Is Colonel Graham well, and all my aides?

My will I have made—it is in Colborne's charge

With other papers.

HOPE

He's now coming up.

[Enter MAJOR COLBORNE, principal aide-de-camp.]

MOORE

Are the French beaten, Colborne, or repulsed?

Alas! you see what they have done too me!

COLBORNE

I do, Sir John: I am more than sad thereat!

In brief time now the surgeon will be here.

The French retreat—pushed from Elvina far.

MOORE

That's good!  Is Paget anywhere about?

COLBORNE

He's at the front, Sir John.

MOORE

Remembrance to him!

[Enter two surgeons.]

Ah, doctors,—you can scarcely mend up me.—

And yet I feel so tough—I have feverish fears

My dying will waste a long and tedious while;

But not too long, I hope!

SURGEONS
[after a hasty examination]

     You must be borne

In to your lodgings instantly, Sir John.

Please strive to stand the motion—if you can;

They will keep step, and bear you steadily.

MOORE

Anything.... Surely fainter ebbs that fire?

COLBORNE

Yes: we must be advancing everywhere:

Colbert their General, too, they have lost, I learn.

[They lift him by stretching their sashes under the blanket, and

begin moving off.  A light waggon enters.]

MOORE

Who's in that waggon?

HARDINGE

     Colonel Wynch, Sir John.

He's wounded, but he urges you to take it.

MOORE

No.  I will not.  This suits.... Don't come with me;

There's more for you to do out here as yet. 
[Cheerful shouts.]

A-ha!  'Tis THIS way I have wished to die!

[Exeunt slowly in the twilight MOORE, bearers, surgeons, etc.,

towards Coruna.  The scene darkens.]

SCENE IV

CORUNA.  NEAR THE RAMPARTS

[It is just before dawn on the following morning, objects being

still indistinct.  The features of the elevated enclosure of San

Carlos can be recognized in dim outline, and also those of the

Old Town of Coruna around, though scarcely a lamp is shining.

The numerous transports in the harbour beneath have still their

riding-lights burning.

In a nook of the town walls a lantern glimmers.  Some English

soldiers of the Ninth regiment are hastily digging a grave there

with extemporized tools.]

A VOICE
[from the gloom some distance off]

"I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that

believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live."

[The soldiers look up, and see entering at the further end of the

patch of ground a slow procession.  It advances by the light of

lanterns in the hands of some members of it.  At moments the fitful

rays fall upon bearers carrying a coffinless body rolled in a

blanket, with a military cloak roughly thrown over by way of pall.

It is brought towards the incomplete grave, and followed by HOPE,

GRAHAM, ANDERSON, COLBORNE, HARDINGE, and several aides-de-camp,

a chaplain preceding.]

FIRST SOLDIER

They are here, almost as quickly as ourselves.

There is no time to dig much deeper now:

Level a bottom just as far's we've got.

He'll couch as calmly in this scrabbled hole

As in a royal vault!

SECOND SOLDIER

Would it had been a foot deeper, here among foreigners, with strange

manures manufactured out of no one knows what!  Surely we can give

him another six inches?

FIRST SOLDIER

There is no time.  Just make the bottom true.

[The meagre procession approaches the spot, and waits while the

half-dug grave is roughly finished by the men of the Ninth.

They step out of it, and another of them holds a lantern to the

chaplain's book.  The winter day slowly dawns.]

CHAPLAIN