The Tremendous Adventures of Major Gahagan Part 2

"The enemy--psha! Mr. Gahagan, the enemy is on the other side of the river."

"I can only tell your Excellency that the enemy's guns will hardly carry five miles, and that Cornet O'Gawler was this moment shot dead at my side with a cannon-ball."

"Ha! is it so?" said his Excellency, rising, and laying down the drumstick of a grilled chicken. "Gentlemen, remember that the eyes of Europe are upon us, and follow me!"

Each aide-de-camp started from table and seized his c.o.c.ked hat; each British heart beat high at the thoughts of the coming melee.

We mounted our horses, and galloped swiftly after the brave old General; I not the last in the train, upon my famous black charger.

It was perfectly true, the enemy were posted in force within three miles of our camp, and from a hillock in the advance to which we galloped, we were enabled with our telescopes to see the whole of his imposing line. Nothing can better describe it than this:-

___________________ A /....................

- A is the enemy, and the dots represent the hundred and twenty pieces of artillery which defended his line. He was moreover, entrenched; and a wide mora.s.s in his front gave him an additional security.

His Excellency for a moment surveyed the line, and then said, turning round to one of his aides-de-camp, "Order up Major-General Tinkler and the cavalry."

"HERE, does your Excellency mean?" said the aide-de-camp, surprised, for the enemy had perceived us, and the cannon-b.a.l.l.s were flying about as thick as peas.

"HERE, SIR!" said the old General, stamping with his foot in a pa.s.sion, and the A.D.C. shrugged his shoulders and galloped away.

In five minutes we heard the trumpets in our camp, and in twenty more the greater part of the cavalry had joined us.

Up they came, five thousand men, their standards flapping in the air, their long line of polished jack-boots gleaming in the golden sunlight. "And now we are here," said Major-General Sir Theophilus Tinkler, "what next?" "Oh, d- it," said the Commander-in-Chief, "charge, charge--nothing like charging--galloping--guns--rascally black scoundrels--charge, charge!" And then turning round to me (perhaps he was glad to change the conversation), he said, "Lieutenant Gahagan, you will stay with me."

And well for him I did, for I do not hesitate to say that the battle WAS GAINED BY ME. I do not mean to insult the reader by pretending that any personal exertions of mine turned the day,-- that I killed, for instance, a regiment of cavalry or swallowed a battery of guns,--such absurd tales would disgrace both the hearer and the teller. I, as is well known, never say a single word which cannot be proved, and hate more than all other vices the absurd sin of egotism: I simply mean that my ADVICE to the General, at a quarter-past two o'clock in the afternoon of that day, won this great triumph for the British army.

Gleig, Mill, and Thorn have all told the tale of this war, though somehow they have omitted all mention of the hero of it. General Lake, for the victory of that day, became Lord Lake of Laswaree.

Laswaree! and who, forsooth, was the real conqueror of Laswaree? I can lay my hand upon my heart and say that I was. If any proof is wanting of the fact, let me give it at once, and from the highest military testimony in the world--I mean that of the Emperor Napoleon.

In the month of March, 1817, I was pa.s.senger on board the "Prince Regent," Captain Harris, which touched at St. Helena on its pa.s.sage from Calcutta to England. In company with the other officers on board the s.h.i.+p, I paid my respects to the ill.u.s.trious exile of Longwood, who received us in his garden, where he was walking about, in a nankeen dress and a large broad-brimmed straw hat, with General Montholon, Count Las Casas, and his son Emanuel, then a little boy; who I dare say does not recollect me, but who nevertheless played with my sword-knot and the ta.s.sels of my Hessian boots during the whole of our interview with his Imperial Majesty.

Our names were read out (in a pretty accent, by the way!) by General Montholon, and the Emperor, as each was p.r.o.nounced, made a bow to the owner of it, but did not vouchsafe a word. At last Montholon came to mine. The Emperor looked me at once in the face, took his hands out of his pockets, put them behind his back, and coming up to me smiling, p.r.o.nounced the following words:-

"a.s.saye, Delhi, Deeg, Futtyghur?"

I blushed, and, taking off my hat with a bow, said, "Sire, c'est moi."

"Parbleu! je le savais bien," said the Emperor, holding out his snuff-box. "En usez-vous, Major?" I took a large pinch (which, with the honour of speaking to so great a man, brought the tears into my eyes), and he continued as nearly as possible in the following words:-

"Sir, you are known; you come of an heroic nation. Your third brother, the Chef de Bataillon, Count G.o.dfrey Gahagan, was in my Irish Brigade."

Gahagan. "Sire, it is true. He and my countrymen in your Majesty's service stood under the green flag in the breach of Burgos, and beat Wellington back. It was the only time, as your Majesty knows, that Irishmen and Englishmen were beaten in that war."

Napoleon (looking as if he would say, "D- your candour, Major Gahagan"). "Well, well; it was so. Your brother was a Count, and died a General in my service."

Gahagan. "He was found lying upon the bodies of nine-and-twenty Cossacks at Borodino. They were all dead, and bore the Gahagan mark."

Napoleon (to Montholon). "C'est vrai, Montholon: je vous donne ma parole d'honneur la plus sacree, que c'est vrai. Ils ne sont pas d'autres, ces terribles Ga'gans. You must know that Monsieur gained the battle of Delhi as certainly as I did that of Austerlitz. In this way:- Ce belitre de Lor Lake, after calling up his cavalry, and placing them in front of Holkar's batteries, qui balayaient la plaine, was for charging the enemy's batteries with his horse, who would have been ecrases, mitrailles, foudroyes to a man but for the cunning of ce grand rogue que vous voyez."

Montholon. "Coquin de Major, va!"

Napoleon. "Montholon! tais-toi. When Lord Lake, with his great bull-headed English obstinacy, saw the facheuse position into which he had brought his troops, he was for dying on the spot, and would infallibly have done so--and the loss of his army would have been the ruin of the East India Company--and the ruin of the English East India Company would have established my Empire (bah! it was a republic then!) in the East--but that the man before us, Lieutenant Goliah Gahagan, was riding at the side of General Lake."

Montholon (with an accent of despair and fury). "Gredin! cent mille tonnerres de Dieu!"

Napoleon (benignantly). "Calme-toi, mon fidele ami. What will you? It was fate. Gahagan, at the critical period of the battle, or rather slaughter (for the English had not slain a man of the enemy), advised a retreat."

Montholon. "Le lache! Un Francais meurt, mais il ne recule jamais."

Napoleon. "Stupide! Don't you see why the retreat was ordered?-- don't you know that it was a feint on the part of Gahagan to draw Holkar from his impregnable entrenchments? Don't you know that the ignorant Indian fell into the snare, and issuing from behind the cover of his guns, came down with his cavalry on the plains in pursuit of Lake and his dragoons? Then it was that the Englishmen turned upon him; the hardy children of the North swept down his feeble hors.e.m.e.n, bore them back to their guns, which were useless, entered Holkar's entrenchments along with his troops, sabred the artillerymen at their pieces, and won the battle of Delhi!"

As the Emperor spoke, his pale cheek glowed red, his eye flashed fire, his deep clear voice rung as of old when he pointed out the enemy from beneath the shadow of the Pyramids, or rallied his regiments to the charge upon the death-strewn plain of Wagram. I have had many a proud moment in my life, but never such a proud one as this; and I would readily pardon the word "coward," as applied to me by Montholon, in consideration of the testimony which his master bore in my favour.

"Major," said the Emperor to me in conclusion, "why had I not such a man as you in my service? I would have made you a Prince and a Marshal!" and here he fell into a reverie, of which I knew and respected the purport. He was thinking, doubtless, that I might have retrieved his fortunes; and indeed I have very little doubt that I might.

Very soon after, coffee was brought by Monsieur Marchand, Napoleon's valet-de-chambre, and after partaking of that beverage, and talking upon the politics of the day, the Emperor withdrew, leaving me deeply impressed by the condescension he had shown in this remarkable interview.

CHAPTER III: A PEEP INTO SPAIN--ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN AND SERVICES OF THE AHMEDNUGGAR IRREGULARS

HEADQUARTERS, MORELLA: September 15, 1838

I have been here for some months, along with my young friend Cabrera: and in the hurry and bustle of war--daily on guard and in the batteries for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, with fourteen severe wounds and seven musket-b.a.l.l.s in my body--it may be imagined that I have had little time to think about the publication of my memoirs. Inter arma silent leges--in the midst of fighting be hanged to writing! as the poet says; and I never would have bothered myself with a pen, had not common grat.i.tude incited me to throw off a few pages.

Along with Oraa's troops, who have of late been beleaguering this place, there was a young Milesian gentleman, Mr. Toone O'Connor Emmett Fitzgerald Sheeny by name, a law student, and a member of Gray's Inn, and what he called Bay Ah of Trinity College, Dublin.

Mr. Sheeny was with the Queen's people, not in a military capacity, but as representative of an English journal; to which, for a trifling weekly remuneration, he was in the habit of transmitting accounts of the movements of the belligerents, and his own opinion of the politics of Spain. Receiving, for the discharge of his duty, a couple of guineas a week from the proprietors of the journal in question, he was enabled, as I need scarcely say, to make such a show in Oraa's camp as only a Christino general officer, or at the very least a colonel of a regiment, can afford to keep up.

In the famous sortie which we made upon the twenty-third, I was of course among the foremost in the melee, and found myself, after a good deal of slaughtering (which it would be as disagreeable as useless to describe here), in the court of a small inn or podesta, which had been made the headquarters of several Queenite officers during the siege. The pesatero or landlord of the inn had been despatched by my brave chapel-churies, with his fine family of children--the officers quartered in the podesta had of course bolted; but one man remained, and my fellows were on the point of cutting him into ten thousand pieces with their borachios, when I arrived in the room time enough to prevent the catastrophe. Seeing before me an individual in the costume of a civilian--a white hat, a light blue satin cravat, embroidered with b.u.t.terflies and other quadrupeds, a green coat and bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, and a pair of blue plaid trousers, I recognised at once a countryman, and interposed to save his life.

In an agonised brogue the unhappy young man was saying all that he could to induce the chapel-churies to give up their intention of slaughtering him; but it is very little likely that his protestations would have had any effect upon them, had not I appeared in the room, and shouted to the ruffians to hold their hand.

Seeing a general officer before them (I have the honour to hold that rank in the service of His Catholic Majesty), and moreover one six feet four in height, and armed with that terrible cabecilla (a sword so called, because it is five feet long) which is so well known among the Spanish armies--seeing, I say, this figure, the fellows retired, exclaiming, "Adios, corpo di bacco nosotros," and so on, clearly proving (by their words) that they would, if they dared, have immolated the victim whom I had thus rescued from their fury. "Villains!" shouted I, hearing them grumble, "away! quit the apartment!" Each man, sulkily sheathing his sombrero, obeyed, and quitted the camarilla.

It was then that Mr. Sheeny detailed to me the particulars to which I have briefly adverted; and, informing me at the same time that he had a family in England who would feel obliged to me for his release, and that his most intimate friend the English Amba.s.sador would move heaven and earth to revenge his fall, he directed my attention to a portmanteau pa.s.sably well filled, which he hoped would satisfy the cupidity of my troops. I said, though with much regret, that I must subject his person to a search; and hence arose the circ.u.mstance which has called for what I fear you will consider a somewhat tedious explanation. I found upon Mr. Sheeny's person three sovereigns in English money (which I have to this day), and singularly enough a copy of the New Monthly Magazine, containing a portion of my adventures. It was a toss-up whether I should let the poor young man be shot or no, but this little circ.u.mstance saved his life. The gratified vanity of authors.h.i.+p induced me to accept his portmanteau and valuables, and to allow the poor wretch to go free. I put the Magazine in my coat-pocket, and left him and the podesta.

The men, to my surprise, had quitted the building, and it was full time for me to follow; for I found our sallying party, after committing dreadful ravages in Oraa's lines, were in full retreat upon the fort, hotly pressed by a superior force of the enemy. I am pretty well known and respected by the men of both parties in Spain (indeed I served for some months on the Queen's side before I came over to Don Carlos); and, as it is my maxim never to give quarter, I never expect to receive it when taken myself. On issuing from the podesta with Sheeny's portmanteau and my sword in my hand, I was a little disgusted and annoyed to see our own men in a pretty good column retreating at double-quick, and about four hundred yards beyond me, up the hill leading to the fort; while on my left hand, and at only a hundred yards, a troop of the Queenite lancers were clattering along the road.

I had got into the very middle of the road before I made this discovery, so that the fellows had a full sight of me, and whizz!

came a bullet by my left whisker before I could say Jack Robinson.

I looked round--there were seventy of the accursed malvados at the least, and within, as I said, a hundred yards. Were I to say that I stopped to fight seventy men, you would write me down a fool or a liar: no, sir, I did not fight, I ran away.

I am six feet four--my figure is as well known in the Spanish army as that of the Count de Luchana, or my fierce little friend Cabrera himself. "GAHAGAN!" shouted out half-a-dozen scoundrelly voices, and fifty more shots came rattling after me. I was running-- running as the brave stag before the hounds--running as I have done a great number of times before in my life, when there was no help for it but a race.

After I had run about five hundred yards, I saw that I had gained nearly three upon our column in front, and that likewise the Christino hors.e.m.e.n were left behind some hundred yards more; with the exception of three, who were fearfully near me. The first was an officer without a lance; he had fired both his pistols at me, and was twenty yards in advance of his comrades; there was a similar distance between the two lancers who rode behind him. I determined then to wait for No. 1, and as he came up delivered cut 3 at his horse's near leg--off it flew, and down, as I expected, went horse and man. I had hardly time to pa.s.s my sword through my prostrate enemy, when No. 2 was upon me. If I could but get that fellow's horse, thought I, I am safe; and I executed at once the plan which I hoped was to effect my rescue.