They were received with the heartiest welcome by the colonel and officers; in whose ranks, however, there were several gaps, for the regiment had suffered heavily at Fuentes d"Onoro.
"So you have been taken prisoner again, Terence!" Captain O"Grady exclaimed; "sure, it must be on purpose you did it. Anyone may get taken prisoner once; but when it happens twice, it begins to look as if he was fonder of French rations than of French guns."
"I didn"t think of it in that light, O"Grady; but now you put it so, I will try and not get caught for the third time."
"We heard of your return, of course, and that you had gone straight with your regiment to Miranda. We had a line from d.i.c.ky, the day before he started; and mighty unkind we have thought it that neither of you have sent us a word since then, and you with nothing to do at all, at all; while we have been marching and countermarching, now here and now there, now backwards and now forwards, ever since Fuentes d"Onoro, till one"s legs were ready to drop off one."
"Give someone else a chance to put in a word, O"Grady," the colonel said. "Here we are, all dying to know how O"Connor slipped through the hands of the French again; and sorra a word can anyone get in, when your tongue is once loosened. If you are not quiet, I will take him away with me to my own quarters; and just ask two or three men, who know how to hold their tongue, to come up and listen to his story."
"I will be as silent as a mouse, colonel dear," O"Grady said, humbly; "though I would point out that O"Connor, being a colonel like yourself, and in no way under your orders, might take it into his head to prefer to stop with us here, instead of going with you.
"Now, Terence, we are all waiting for your story. Why don"t you go on?"
"Because, as you see, I am hard at work eating, just at present. We have marched twenty miles this morning, with nothing but a crust of bread at starting; and the story will keep much better than luncheon."
Terence did not hurry himself over his meal but, when he had finished, he gave them particulars of his escape from Salamanca, his journey down to Cadiz, and then round by Lisbon.
"I thought there would be a woman in it, Terence," O"Grady exclaimed. "With a soft tongue, and a presentable sort of face, and impudence enough for a whole regiment, it was aisy for you to put the comhether on a poor Spanish girl, who had never had the good luck to meet an officer of the Mayo Fusiliers before. Sure, I have always said to meself that, if I was ever taken prisoner, it would not be long before some good-looking girl would take a fancy to me, and get me out of the French clutches. Sure, if a young fellow like yourself, without any special recommendations except a bigger share of impudence than usual, could manage it; it would be aisy, indeed, for a man like meself, with all the advantages of having lost an arm in battle, to get round them."
There was a shout of laughter round the table, for O"Grady had, as usual, spoken with an air of earnest simplicity, as if the propositions he was laying down were beyond question.
"You must have had a weary time at Miranda, since you came back, O"Connor," the colonel said, "with no one there but a wing of the 65th."
"I don"t suppose they were to be pitied, colonel," Doctor O"Flaherty laughed. "You may be sure that they kept Miranda lively, in some way or other. Trust them for getting into mischief of some sort."
"There is no saying what we might have done if we had, as you suppose, been staying for the last two months at Miranda; but in point of fact that has not been the case. We have been across the frontier, and have been having a pretty lively time of it--at least I have, for d.i.c.k has spent a month of it inside a French prison."
"What!" the major exclaimed, "were you with that force that has been puzzling us all, and has been keeping the French in such hot water that, as we hear, Marmont was obliged to give up his idea of invading Portugal, and had to hurry off twenty thousand men, to save Salamanca and Valladolid from being captured? n.o.body has been able to understand where the army sprung from, or how it was composed. The general idea was that a division from England must have landed, at either Oporto or Vigo, or that it must have been brought round from Sicily; for none of our letters or papers said a word about any large force having sailed from England. Not a soul seemed to know anything about it. I know a man on Crawford"s staff, and he a.s.sured me that none of them were in the secret.
"A French officer, who was brought in a prisoner a few days since, put their numbers down at twenty-five thousand, at least; including, he said, a large guerilla force. He said that Zamora had been cut off for a long time, that the country had been ravaged, and posts captured almost at the gates of Salamanca; and that communications had been interrupted, and large convoys captured between Burgos and Valladolid; and that one column, five thousand strong, had been very severely mauled, and forced to fall back. This confirmed the statements that we had before heard, from the peasantry and the French deserters. Now there is a chance of penetrating the mystery, which has been a profound puzzle to us here, and indeed to the whole army.
"The officer taken seemed to consider that the regular soldiers were Portuguese; but of course that was nonsense. Beresford"s troops were all with him down south and, as to any other Portuguese army, unless Wellington has got one together as secretly as he got up the lines of Torres Vedras, the thing is absurd. Besides, who had ever heard of Portuguese carrying on such operations as these, without having a lot of our men to stiffen them, and to set them a good example?"
Terence did not, at once, answer. Looking round the table he saw that, in place of the expressions of amus.e.m.e.nt with which the previous conversation had been listened to, there was now, on every face, a deep and serious interest. He glanced at Ryan, who was apparently absorbed in the occupation of watching the smoke curling up from his cigar. At last he said:
"I fear, major, that I cannot answer your question. I may say that I have had no specific orders to keep silence but, as it seems that the whole matter has been kept a profound secret, I do not think that, unless it comes out in some other way, I should be justified in saying anything about it.
"I think that you will agree with me, Ryan."
d.i.c.k nodded.
"Yes, I agree with you that it would be best to say nothing about it, till we hear that the facts are known. What has been done once, may be done again."
"Quite so, d.i.c.k. I am glad that you agree with me.
"However, there can be no objection to your giving an account of your gallant charge into the middle of the French cavalry, and the story of your imprisonment and escape.
"I am sure, colonel, that it will be a source of gratification to you, to know that one of your officers dashed, single handed, right into the midst of a French squadron."
Ryan laughed.
"I am afraid the interest in the matter will be diminished, colonel, when I mention that the charge was executed at night, and that I was ignorant of the vicinity of the French until I rode into the middle of them."
There was again a general laugh.
"I was on my way with despatches for Lord Wellington," he went on, "when this unfortunate business happened."
"That was unfortunate, indeed, Ryan," the colonel said. "They did not capture your despatches, I hope?"
"Indeed and they did, colonel. They had fast hold of me before I could as much as draw my sword. They, however, gained very little by them for, knowing that it was possible I might be captured, the despatches had been so worded that they would deceive, rather than inform, anyone into whose hands they might fall; though of course, I had instructions to explain the matter, when I delivered them safely."
Then he proceeded to give a full account of his rescue from the prison of Salamanca. This was listened to with great interest.
"It was splendidly managed," the colonel said, when he had brought his story to an end. "It was splendidly managed. Terence himself could not have done it better. Well, you are certainly wonderfully handy at getting into sc.r.a.pes. Why, you have both been captured twice, and both times got away safely.
"When I gave you your commission, Terence, I thought that you and Ryan would keep things alive; but I certainly did not antic.i.p.ate that you would be so successful, that way, as you have been."
"I have had very little to do with it, colonel," Ryan said.
"No, I know that at Athlone Terence was the ringleader of all the mischief that went on. Still, you were a good second, Ryan; that is, if that position does not really belong to O"Grady."
"Is it me, colonel?" O"Grady said, in extreme surprise, and looking round the table with an air of earnest protest, "when I was always lecturing the boys?"
"I think, O"Grady, your manner of lecturing was akin to the well-known cry:
""Don"t throw him into the pond, boys.""
At this moment there was a sound of horses drawing up in front of the house.
"It is the general and his staff," one of the ensigns said, as he glanced through the window.
The table had been cleared, but there was a sudden and instant rush to carry away bottles and gla.s.ses to hiding places. Newspapers were scattered along the table and, when the door opened half a minute later and the general entered, followed by his staff, the officers of the Mayo Fusiliers presented an orderly and even studious appearance. They all rose and saluted, as the general entered.
"I hope I am not disturbing you, gentlemen," General Crawford said gravely, but with a sly look of amus.e.m.e.nt stealing across his rugged face; "I am glad to see you all so well employed. There is no doubt that the Irish regiments are greatly maligned. On two or three occasions, when I have happened to call upon their officers, I have uniformly found them studying the contents of the newspapers. Your cigars, too, must be of unusually good quality, for their odour seems mingled with a faint scent of--what shall I say? It certainly reminds me of whisky though, as I see, that must be but fancy on my part. However, gentlemen, I have not come in to inspect your mess room, but to speak to Colonel O"Connor," and he looked inquiringly round.
Terence at once stepped forward, and again saluted. The general, whom Terence had not before met, looked him up and down, and then held out his hand.
"I have heard of you many times, Colonel O"Connor. General Hill has talked to me frequently of you and, not long since, when I was at headquarters, Lord Wellington himself spoke to me for some time about you, and from his staff I learned other particulars. That you were young, I knew; but I was not prepared to find one who might well pa.s.s as a junior lieutenant, or even as an ensign. This was the regiment that you formerly belonged to; and as, on sending across to your corps, I learned that you were here, I thought it as well to come myself to tell you, before your comrades and friends, that I have received from headquarters this morning a request from the adjutant general to tell you personally, when you arrived, the extreme satisfaction that the commander-in-chief feels at the services that you have rendered.
"When I was at headquarters the other day, I was shown the reports that you have, during the last six weeks, sent in; and am therefore in a position to appreciate the work you have done. It is not too much to say that you have saved Portugal from invasion, have paralyzed the movements of the French, and have given to the commander-in-chief some months in which to make his preparations for taking the field in earnest, in the spring.
"Has Colonel O"Connor told you what he has been doing?" he said suddenly, turning to Colonel Corcoran.
"No, general. In answer to our questions he said that, as it seemed the matter had been kept a secret, he did not feel justified in saying anything on the subject, until he received a distinct intimation that there was no further occasion for remaining silent."
"You did well, sir," the general said, again turning to Terence, "and acted with the prudence and discretion that has, with much dash and bravery, distinguished your conduct. As, however, the armies have now gone into winter quarters; and as a general order will appear, today, speaking of your services, and I have been commissioned purposely to convey to you Lord Wellington"s approval, there is no occasion for further mystery on the subject.
"The force whose doings have paralyzed the French, broken up their communications, and compelled Marmont to detach twenty thousand men to a.s.sist at least an equal force in Salamanca, Zamora, Valladolid, and Valencia, has consisted solely of the men of Colonel O"Connor"s regiment; and about an equal number of guerillas, commanded by the partisan Moras. I need not tell you that a supreme amount of activity, energy, and prudence, united, must have been employed thus to disarrange the plans of a French general, commanding an army of one hundred thousand men, by a band of two battalions of Portuguese, and a couple of thousand undisciplined guerillas. It is a feat that I, myself, or any other general in the British army, might well be proud to have performed; and too much praise cannot be bestowed upon Colonel O"Connor, and the three British officers acting under his command; of all whose services, together with those of his Portuguese officers, he has most warmly spoken in his reports.