Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1061 page)

SCENE II

THE FORD OF SANTA MARTA, SALAMANCA

[We are in Spain, on a July night of the same summer, the air being

hot and heavy.  In the darkness the ripple of the river Tormes can

be heard over the ford, which is near the foreground of the scene.

Against the gloomy north sky to the left, lightnings flash

revealing rugged heights in that quarter.  From the heights comes

to the ear the tramp of soldiery, broke and irregular, as by

obstacles in their descent; as yet they are some distance off.

On heights to the right hand, on the other side of the river,

glimmer the bivouac fires of the French under MARMONT.  The

lightning quickens, with rolls of thunder, and a few large drops

of rain fall.

A sentinel stands close to the ford, and beyond him is the ford-

house, a shed open towards the roadway and the spectator.  It is

lit by a single lantern, and occupied by some half-dozen English

dragoons with a sergeant and corporal, who form part of a mounted

patrol, their horses being picketed at the entrance.  They are

seated on a bench, and appear to be waiting with some deep intent,

speaking in murmurs only.

The thunderstorm increases till it drowns the noise of the ford

and of the descending battalions, making them seem further off

than before.  The sentinel is about to retreat to the shed when

he discerns two female figures in the gloom.  Enter MRS. DALBIAC

and MRS. PRESCOTT, English officers wives.]

SENTINEL

Where there's war there's women, and where there's women there's

trouble! 
[Aloud]
Who goes there?

MRS. DALBIAC

We must reveal who we are, I fear
[to her companion]
.  Friends!

[to sentinel]
.

SENTINEL

Advance and give the countersign.

MRS. DALBIAC

Oh, but we can't!

SENTINEL

Consequent which, you must retreat.  By Lord Wellington's strict

regulations, women of loose character are to be excluded from the

lines for moral reasons, namely, that they are often employed by

the enemy as spies.

MRS. PRESCOTT

Dear good soldier, we are English ladies benighted, having mistaken

our way back to Salamanca, and we want shelter from the storm.

MRS. DALBIAC

If it is necessary I will say who we are.—I am Mrs. Dalbiac, wife

of the Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fourth Light Dragoons, and this

lady is the wife of Captain Prescott of the Seventh Fusileers.  We

went out to Christoval to look for our husbands, but found the army

had moved.

SENTINEL
[incredulously]

"Wives!"  Oh, not to-day!  I have heard such titles of courtesy

afore; but they never shake me.  "W" begins other female words than

"wives!"—You'll have trouble, good dames, to get into Salamanca

to-night.  You'll be challenged all the way down, and shot without

clergy if you can't give the countersign.

MRS. PRESCOTT

Then surely you'll tell us what it is, good kind man!

SENTINEL

Well—have ye earned enough to pay for knowing?  Government wage is

poor pickings for watching here in the rain.  How much can ye stand?

MRS. DALBIAC

Half-a-dozen pesetas.

SENTINEL

Very well, my dear.  I was always tender-hearted.  Come along.

[They advance and hand the money.]
  The pass to-night is "Melchester

Steeple."  That will take you into the town when the weather clears.

You won't have to cross the ford.  You can get temporary shelter in

the shed there.

[As the ladies move towards the shed the tramp of the infantry

draws near the ford, which the downfall has made to purl more

boisterously.  The twain enter the shed, and the dragoons look

up inquiringly.]

MRS. DALBIAC
[to dragoons]

The French are luckier than you are, men.  You'll have a wet advance

across this ford, but they have a dry retreat by the bridge at Alba.

SERGEANT OF PATROL
[starting from a doze]

The moustachies a dry retreat?  Not they, my dear.  A Spanish

garrison is in the castle that commands the bridge at Alba.

MRS. DALBIAC

A peasant told us, if we understood rightly, that he saw the Spanish

withdraw, and the enemy place a garrison there themselves.

[The sergeant hastily calls up two troopers, who mount and ride off

with the intelligence.]

SERGEANT

You've done us a good turn, it is true, darlin'.  Not that Lord

Wellington will believe it when he gets the news.... Why, if my

eyes don't deceive me, ma'am, that's Colonel Dalbiac's lady!

MRS. DALBIAC

Yes, sergeant.  I am over here with him, as you have heard, no doubt,

and lodging in Salamanca.  We lost our way, and got caught in the

storm, and want shelter awhile.

SERGEANT

Certainly, ma'am.  I'll give you an escort back as soon as the

division has crossed and the weather clears.

MRS. PRESCOTT
[anxiously]

Have you heard, sergeant, if there's to be a battle to-morrow?

SERGEANT

Yes, ma'am.  Everything shows it.

MRS. DAlBIAC
[to MRS. PRESCOTT]

Our news would have passed us in.  We have wasted six pesetas.

MRS. PRESCOTT
[mournfully]

I don't mind that so much as that I have brought the children from

Ireland.  This coming battle frightens me!

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

This is her prescient pang of widowhood.

Ere Salamanca clang to-morrow's close

She'll find her consort stiff among the slain!

[The infantry regiments now reach the ford.  The storm increases

in strength, the stream flows more furiously; yet the columns of

foot enter it and begin crossing.  The lightning is continuous;

the faint lantern in the ford-house is paled by the sheets of

fire without, which flap round the bayonets of the crossing men

and reflect upon the foaming torrent.]

CHORUS OF THE PITIES
[aerial music]

The skies fling flame on this ancient land!

And drenched and drowned is the burnt blown sand

That spreads its mantle of yellow-grey

Round old Salmantica to-day;

While marching men come, band on band,

Who read not as a reprimand

To mortal moils that, as 'twere planned

In mockery of their mimic fray,

  The skies fling flame.

Since sad Coruna's desperate stand

Horrors unsummed, with heavy hand,

Have smitten such as these!  But they

Still headily pursue their way,

Though flood and foe confront them, and

  The skies fling flame.

[The whole of the English division gets across by degrees, and

their invisible tramp is heard ascending the opposite heights as

the lightnings dwindle and the spectacle disappears.]

SCENE III

THE FIELD OF SALAMANCA

[The battlefield—an undulating and sandy expanse—is lying

under the sultry sun of a July afternoon.  In the immediate

left foreground rises boldly a detached dome-like hill known

as the Lesser Arapeile, now held by English troops.  Further

back, and more to the right, rises another and larger hill of

the kind—the Greater Arapeile; this is crowned with French

artillery in loud action, and the French marshal, MARMONT, Duke

of RAGUSA, stands there.  Further to the right, in the same

plane, stretch the divisions of the French army.  Still further

to the right, in the distance, on the Ciudad Rodrigo highway, a

cloud of dust denotes the English baggage-train seeking security

in that direction.  The city of Salamanca itself, and the river

Tormes on which it stands, are behind the back of the spectator.

On the summit of the lesser hill, close at hand, WELLINGTON, glass

at eye, watches the French division under THOMIERE, which has become

separated from the centre of the French army.  Round and near him

are aides and other officers, in animated conjecture on MARMONT'S

intent, which appears to be a move on the Ciudad Rodrigo road

aforesaid, under the impression that the English are about to

retreat that way.

The English commander descends from where he was standing to a nook

under a wall, where a meal is roughly laid out.  Some of his staff

are already eating there.  WELLINGTON takes a few mouthfuls without

sitting down, walks back again, and looks through his glass at the

battle as before.  Balls from the French artillery fall around.

Enter his aide-de-camp, FITZROY SOMERSET.]

FITZROY SOMERSET
[hurriedly]

The French make movements of grave consequence—

Extending to the left in mass, my lord.

WELLINGTON

I have just perceived as much; but not the cause.

  
[He regards longer.]

Marmont's good genius is deserting him!

[Shutting up his glass with a snap, WELLINGTON calls several aides

and despatches them down the hill.  He goes back behind the wall

and takes some more mouthfuls.]

By God, Fitzroy, if we shan't do it now!

    
[to SOMERSET]
.

Mon cher Alava, Marmont est perdu!

         
[to his SPANISH ATTACHE]
.

FITZROY SOMERSET

Thinking we mean to attack on him,

He schemes to swoop on our retreating-line.

WELLINGTON

Ay; and to cloak it by this cannonade.

With that in eye he has bundled leftwardly

Thomiere's division; mindless that thereby

His wing and centre's mutual maintenance

Has gone, and left a yawning vacancy.

So be it.  Good.  His laxness is our luck!

[As a result of the orders sent off by the aides, several British

divisions advance across the French front on the Greater Arapeile

and elsewhere.  The French shower bullets into them; but an English

brigade under PACK assails the nearer French on the Arapeile, now

beginning to cannonade the English in the hollows beneath.

Light breezes blow toward the French, and they get in their faces

the dust-clouds and smoke from the masses of English in motion, and

a powerful sun in their eyes.

MARMONT and his staff are sitting on the top of the Greater Arapeile

only half a cannon-shot from WELLINGTON on the Lesser; and, like

WELLINGTON, he is gazing through his glass.

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

Appearing to behold the full-mapped mind

Of his opponent, Marmont arrows forth

Aide after aide towards the forest's rim,

To spirit on his troops emerging thence,

And prop the lone division Thomiere,

For whose recall his voice has rung in vain.

Wellington mounts and seeks out Pakenham,

Who pushes to the arena from the right,

And, spurting to the left of Marmont's line,

Shakes Thomiere with lunges leonine.

When the manoeuvre's meaning hits his sense,

Marmont hies hotly to the imperilled place,

Where see him fall, sore smitten.—Bonnet rides

And dons the burden of the chief command,

Marking dismayed the Thomiere column there

Shut up by Pakenham like bellows-folds

Against the English Fourth and Fifth hard by;

And while thus crushed, Dragoon-Guards and Dragoons,

Under Le Marchant's hands [of Guernsey he]
,

Are launched upon them by Sir Stapleton,

And their scathed files are double-scathed anon.

Cotton falls wounded.  Pakenham's bayoneteers

Shape for the charge from column into rank;

And Thomiere finds death thereat point-blank!

SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES
[aerial music]

In fogs of dust the cavalries hoof the ground;

Their prancing squadrons shake the hills around:

Le Marchant's heavies bear with ominous bound

           Against their opposites!

SEMICHORUS II

A bullet crying along the cloven air

Gouges Le Marchant's groin and rankles there;

In Death's white sleep he soon joins Thomiere,

   And all he has fought for, quits!

[In the meantime the battle has become concentrated in the middle