The Red, White, and Green Part 50

Now we charged at the head of a shattered remnant of a cavalry regiment; again we were in the midst of an infantry square, encouraging the men to stand firm; then we were making a desperate attempt on a battery.

The staff had their fill of fighting for once, but to no avail.

Even Gorgei acknowledged the truth at last, and reluctantly gave the order to withdraw.

We were fairly beaten, but not routed; and the enemy had been too severely handled to follow up their success.

Taking our wounded, we retired slowly, the men, in spite of their terrible punishment, being unwilling to leave the field.

I had lost sight of Szondi in the heat of the conflict, but he returned later to the entrenchments unhurt, save for an odd scratch or two of little account.

Fortune had dealt less kindly with several of our comrades, and we missed more than one familiar face.

"That's the worst bout I've ever been in," said Szondi. "I thought at one time not a man would come out alive."

"We might as well have stayed out there," said Mizvy gruffly. "The game's up."

"Oh, come!" I cried cheerfully. "It surely isn't as bad as that!"

"Well, my young wiseacre, if you can show me one single loophole, you've more brains than I ever gave you credit for."

There was a laugh at this, but Mizvy went on sulkily, "We can't stay here--that's certain; and where are we to go? It will take 20,000 men to garrison Comorn, and what's Gorgei to do with the rest? Fight Haynau and Paskewitch together?"

"There's our army in the south," I began, but Mizvy pulled me up.

"Army in the south!" he echoed scornfully; "why, Bern, brave old fellow as he is, can hardly hold his own head above water!"

"But there's Dembinski. He'll make a big effort to join us."

Mizvy looked at me with a grin. "Dembinski's off to Szegedin with the Diet," he said. "It's a handy place to slip over into Turkey from, when the crash comes."

Several of the officers cried "Shame!" but Mizvy took this mark of displeasure with admirable coolness.

"All right," he said quietly. "But just wait till any of those fellows venture north."

"What then?" I asked, laughing.

"Why, then you can sew me up in a sack and drop me into any river that's handy!"

"We'll do that with pleasure," said Szondi. "But there's the general beckoning to you."

Mizvy took himself off, but he left an unpleasant sensation behind him.

He was a level-headed man, with plenty of shrewd sense, and having no prejudices to warp his judgment.

I am not sure that personally he cared the toss of a b.u.t.ton for either Gorgei or Kossuth, the const.i.tution of '48, or independence; but he was a thorough soldier, and did care very much about beating the enemy.

In his eyes, a man's chief if not sole merit lay in his ability to win battles, and I remember hearing him more than once unfold his pet theory about the treatment of generals.

Mizvy had little sympathy with unsuccessful leaders, and his scheme would hardly have proved popular amongst men of weak minds; yet, as Szondi often pointed out to scoffers, promotion would become rapid.

The foundation of the theory was that no responsible officer should ever be beaten; if he so far forgot himself, the authorities were to have him shot, and give his command to another.

"Cruel?" growled Mizvy, when a listener offered that objection. "Not half as cruel as the present system. It would soon weed out all the duffers, and the peac.o.c.ks, whose only idea of soldiering is to strut about in gold lace. Now, here's a fellow--goodness knows where he comes from, but he has influence; give him a brigade, and set him to do something. Back he comes in a day or two with a handful of men; the enemy has accounted for the others. He wouldn't do that trick often, if you shot him the first time. Think a second duffer would want to fill the vacancy? Hardly. None but the best men would try to get the pick of the berths in my army, I can tell you."

Mizvy was not exactly popular with his fellows, but he was a man whose opinions claimed some attention, and his remarks concerning our allies were far from comforting.

We did not dream for an instant, of course, that any of them would be frightened, but at the same time there were various little matters concerning which we felt doubtful.

Nicholas Szondi summed up the case very clearly.

"There's no question of Bern's courage," he said, "or of Dembinski's either; but we needn't pretend they're in love with Gorgei, or he with them. Now, if we joined forces--and that's the only way to save Hungary--we should only want one chief."

"Well, Gorgei isn't likely to yield his command to the Poles."

"Just so; and they won't be too eager to serve under him. That's where the difficulty lies."

"If old Mizvy's plan were in working order," said one man lazily, "'twould save a lot of bother at present."

"We certainly shouldn't suffer from having too many generals."

Szondi agreed laughingly. "Gorgei and Klapka look very solemn over there."

"They're discussing the new plans, and it's my belief we shall find Mizvy wasn't far out in his forecast."

That same night our general told us he had resolved on retreating to Waitzen with a portion of the army, while Klapka, with 76 guns and 18,000 men, was to throw himself into Comorn.

I now learned that one Austrian army corps was marching straight on Pesth, from which our troops had withdrawn, and I looked forward with pleasure to again meeting my old friends of the 9th Honved regiment.

Since joining the staff I had not heard from Rakoczy, but as there had been no fighting at the capital I concluded he was still alive and well.

Early on the morning succeeding the stubborn fight we said farewell to our friends in Klapka's division, and before it was really light began the march.

Two days later, having picked up various bodies of troops on the route, we halted a few hours' distance from Waitzen.

Here the 9th Honveds were a.s.sembled, and as soon as the general had finished with me, I rushed off to find Rakoczy.

I really don't know which of us was the more pleased at the meeting, though the genial colonel could not forego his chaff, and pretended it was a great honour to receive a visit from one of the staff. Then he took me into his tent and sent for Dobozy, from whom I had another warm welcome.

"The accounts from the front frightened us a bit," said Dobozy. "We began to think you would have been better off in Pesth."

"Been pretty warm, hasn't it?" asked Rakoczy. "But there, you shall tell us all about it. You must be getting pretty used to playing a losing game by now, eh?"

"Still, I don't know that I like it any better than at first. By the way, have you seen Count Beula lately?"

"Cleared out the same time as Kossuth. Paid you a visit at Raab, didn't he?"

"Yes, with a proclamation from the Diet in his pocket. But I had better begin at the beginning, and tell you the story properly."