Under Wellington's Command: A Tale of the Peninsular War by G. A. Henty (best pdf ebook reader txt) 📗

the hire of the waggon; and then Terence was lifted into a boat and, with several other wounded, was taken on board the transport.

The surgeon came at once to examine him.

"Do you wish to be taken below, colonel?" he asked Terence.

"Certainly not," Terence said. "I can sit up here, and can enjoy myself as much as ever I could; and the air from the sea will do more for me than any tonics you can give me, Doctor."

He was placed in a comfortable deck chair, and Bull had another beside him. There were many officers already on board, and Terence presently perceived, in one who was stumping about on a wooden leg, a figure he recognized. He was passing on without recognition, when Terence exclaimed:

"Why, O'Grady, is it yourself?"

"Terence O'Connor, by the powers!" O'Grady shouted. "Sure, I didn't know you at first. It is meself, true enough, or what there is left of me. It is glad I am to see you, though in a poor plight. The news came to me that you had lost a leg. There was, at first, no one in the hospital knew where you were, and I was not able to move about, meself, to make inquiries; and when I found out, before I came away, they said you were very bad, and that even if I could get to you--which I could not, for I had not been fitted with a new leg, then--I should not be able to see you.

"It is just like my luck. I was hit by one of the first shots fired, and lost all the fun of the fight."

"Where were you hit, O'Grady?"

"Right in the shin. Faith, I went down so sudden that I thought I had trod in a hole; and I was making a scramble to get up again, when young Dawson said:

"'Lie still, O'Grady, they have shot the foot off ye.'

"And so they had, and divil a bit could I find where it had gone to. As I was about the first man hit, they carried me off the field at once, and put me in a waggon and, as soon as it was full, I was taken down to Salamanca. I only stopped there three weeks, and I have been here now more than two months, and my leg is all right again. But I am a lop-sided creature, though it is lucky that it is my left arm and leg that have gone. I was always a good hopper, when I was a boy; so that, if this wooden thing breaks, I think I should be able to get about pretty well."

"This is Major Bull, O'Grady. Don't you know him?"

"Faith, I did not know him; but now you tell me who it is, I recognize him. How are you, major?"

"I am getting on, Captain O'Grady."

"Major," O'Grady corrected. "I got my step at Salamanca; both our majors were killed. So I shall get a dacent pension: a major's pension, and so much for a leg and arm. That is not so bad, you know."

"Well, I have no reason to grumble," Bull said. "If I had been with my old regiment and got this hurt, a shilling a day would have been the outside. Now I shall get lieutenant's pension, and so much for my arm and shoulder."

"I have no doubt you will get another step, Bull. After the way the regiment suffered, and with poor Macwitty killed, and you and I both badly wounded, they are sure to give you your step," and indeed when, on their arrival, they saw the Gazette, they found that both had been promoted.

"I suppose it is all for the best," O'Grady said. "At any rate, I shall be able to drink dacent whisky for the rest of me life, and not have to be fretting meself with Spanish spirit; though I don't say there was no virtue in it, when you couldn't get anything better."

Three days later, the vessel sailed for England. At Plymouth Terence, O'Grady, and several other of the Irish officers left her; Bull promising Terence that, when he was quite restored to health, he would come and pay him a visit.

Terence and his companion sailed the next day for Dublin. O'Grady had no relations whom he was particularly anxious to see and therefore, at Terence's earnest invitation, he took a place with him in a coach--to leave in three days, as both had to buy civilian clothes, and to report themselves at headquarters.

"What are you going to do about a leg, Terence?"

"I can do nothing, at present. My stump is a great deal too tender, still, for me to bear anything of that sort. But I will buy a pair of crutches."

This was, indeed, the first thing done on landing, Terence finding it inconvenient in the extreme to have to be carried whenever he wanted to move, even a few yards. He had written home two or three times from the hospital, telling them how he was getting on; for he knew that when his name appeared among the list of dangerously wounded, his father and cousin would be in a state of great anxiety until they received news of him; and as soon as they had taken their places in the coach he dropped them a line, saying when they might expect him.

They had met with contrary winds on their voyage home, but the three weeks at sea had done great things for Terence and, except for the pinned-up trousers leg, he looked almost himself again.

"Be jabers, Terence," O'Grady said, as the coach drove into Athlone, "one might think that it was only yesterday that we went away. There are the old shops, and the same people standing at their doors to see the coach come in; and I think I could swear even to that cock, standing at the gate leading into the stables. What games we had here. Who would have thought that, when we came back, you would be my senior officer!"

When fifteen miles beyond Athlone there was a hail, and the coach suddenly stopped. O'Grady looked out of the window.

"It's your father, Terence, and the prettiest girl I have seen since we left the ould country."

He opened the door and got out.

"Hooroo, major! Here we are, safe and sound. We didn't expect to meet you for another eight miles."

Major O'Connor was hurrying to the door, but the girl was there before him.

"Welcome home, Terence! Welcome home!" she exclaimed, smiling through her tears, as she leaned into the coach and held out both her hands to him, and then drew aside to make room for his father.

"Welcome home, Terence!" the latter said, as he wrung his hand. "I did not think it would have been like this, but it might have been worse."

"A great deal worse, father. Now, will you and the guard help me out? This is the most difficult business I have to do."

It was with some difficulty he was got out of the coach. As soon as he had steadied himself on his crutches, Mary came up again, threw her arms round his neck, and kissed him.

"We are cousins, you know, Terence," she said, "and as your arms are occupied, I have to take the initiative."

She was half laughing and half crying.

The guard hurried to get the portmanteaus out of the boot. As soon as he had placed them in the road he shouted to the coachman, and climbed up on to his post as the vehicle drove on; the passengers on the roof giving hearty cheers for the two disabled officers. By this time, the major was heartily shaking hands with O'Grady.

"I saw in the Gazette that you were hit again, O'Grady."

"Yes. I left one little memento of meself in Portugal, and it was only right that I should lave another in Spain. It has been worrying me a good deal, because I should have liked to have brought them home to be buried in the same grave with me, so as to have everything handy together. How they are ever to be collected when the time comes bothers me entirely, when I can't even point out where they are to be found."

"You have not lost your good spirits anyhow, O'Grady."

"I never shall, I hope, O'Connor; and even if I had been inclined to, Terence would have brought them back again."

As they stood chatting, a manservant had placed the portmanteaus on the box of a pretty open carriage, drawn by two horses.

"This is our state carriage, Terence, though we don't use it very often for, when I go about by myself, I ride. Mary has a pony carriage, and drives herself about.

"You remember Pat Cassidy, don't you?"

"Of course I do, now I look at him," Terence said. "It's your old soldier servant," and he shook hands with the man. "He did not come home with you, did he, father?"

"No, he was badly wounded at Talavera, and invalided home. They thought that he would not be fit for service again, and so discharged him; and he found his way here, and glad enough I was to have him."

Aided by his father and O'Grady, Terence took his place in the carriage. His father seated himself by his side, while Mary and O'Grady had the opposite seat.

"There is one advantage in losing legs," O'Grady said. "We can stow away much more comfortably in a carriage. Is this the nearest point to your place?"

"Yes. It is four miles nearer than Ballyhovey, so we thought that we might as well meet you here, and more comfortably than meeting you in the town. It was Mary's suggestion. I think she would not have liked to have kissed Terence in the public street."

"Nonsense, uncle!" Mary said indignantly. "Of course I should have kissed him, anywhere. Are we not cousins? And didn't he save me from being shut up in a nunnery, all my life?"

"All right, Mary, it is quite right that you should kiss him; still, I should say that it was pleasanter to do so when you had not a couple of score of loafers looking on, who would not know that he was your cousin, and had saved you from a convent."

"You are looking well, father," Terence said, to turn the conversation.

"Never was better in my life, lad, except that I am obliged to be careful with my leg; but after all, it may be that, though it seemed hard to me at the time, it is as well that I left the regiment when I did. Quite half the officers have been killed, since then. Vimiera accounted for some of them. Major Harrison went there, and gave me my step. Talavera made several more vacancies, and Salamanca cost us ten officers, including poor O'Driscoll. I am lucky to have come off as well as I did. It did not seem a very cheerful lookout, at first; but since this young woman arrived, and took possession of me, I am as happy and contented as a man can be."

"I deny altogether having taken possession of you, uncle. I let you have your way very much, and only interfere for your own good."

"You will have another patient to look after now, dear, and to fuss over."

"I will do my best," she said softly, leaning forward and putting her hand on that of Terence. "I know that it will be terribly dull for you, at first--after being constantly on the move for the last five years, and always full of excitement and adventure--to have to keep quiet and do nothing."

"I shall get on very well," he said. "Just as first, of course, I shall not be able to get about very much, but I shall soon learn to use my crutches; and I hope, before very long, to get a leg of some sort; and I don't see why I should not be able to ride again, after a bit. If I cannot do it any other way, I must take to a side saddle. I can have a leg made specially for riding, with a crook at the knee."

Mary laughed, while the tears came in her eyes.

"Why, bless me, Mary," he went on, "the loss of a leg is nothing, when you are accustomed to it. I shall be able, as I have said, to ride, drive, shoot, fish, and all sorts of things. The only thing that I shall be cut off from, as far as I can see, is dancing; but as I have never had a chance of dancing, since the last ball the regiment gave at Athlone, the loss will not be a very grievous one.

"Look at O'Grady. There he is, much worse off than I am, as he has no one to make any particular fuss about him. He is getting on capitally and, indeed, stumped about the deck so much, coming home, that