The Splendid Spur<br />Being Memoirs of the Adventures of Mr. John Marvel, a Servant of His Late Maj by Arthur Quiller-Couch (libby ebook reader TXT) 📕

to be so beprais'd by the first captain (as I yet hold) on the royal side. Who now, not without a sly triumph, flung the price of Billy's cider on the table and, folding up his map, address'd me again—

“Master Marvel, the fight to-day will lie but little with the horse—or so I hope. You will do well, if your wish be to serve us best, to leave your mare behind. The troop which my Lord Mohun and I command together is below. But Sir Bevill Grenville, who has seen and is interested in you, has the first claim: and I would not deny you the delight to fight your first battle under so good a master. His men are, with Sir John Berkeley's troop, a little to the westward: and if you are ready I will go some distance with you, and put you in the way to find him. My lord, may we look for you presently?”

The Lord Mohun nodded, surly enough: so, Billy's cider being now drunk and Molly given over to an ostler, we set out down the hill together, Billy shouldering a pipe and walking after with the groom that led Sir Ralph's horse. Be sure the General's courtly manner of speech set my blood tingling. I seem'd to grow a full two inches taller; and when, in the vale, we parted, he directing me to the left, where through a gap I could see Sir Bevill's troop forming at some five hundred paces' distance, I felt a very desperate warrior indeed; and set off at a run, with Billy behind me.

'Twas an open space we had to cross, dotted with gorsebushes; and the enemy's regiments, plain to see, drawn up in battalia on the slope above, which here was gentler than to the south and west. But hardly had we gone ten yards than I saw a puff of white smoke above, then another, and then the summit ring'd with flame; and heard the noise of it roaring in the hills around. At the first sound I pull'd up, and then began running again at full speed: for I saw our division already in motion, and advancing up the hill at a quick pace.

The curve of the slope hid all but the nearest: but above them I saw a steep earthwork, and thereon three or four brass pieces of ordnance glittering whenever the smoke lifted. For here the artillery was plying the briskest, pouring down volley on volley; and four regiments at least stood mass'd behind, ready to fall on the Cornish-men; who, answering with a small discharge of musketry, now ran forward more nimbly.

To catch up with them, I must now turn my course obliquely up the hill, where running was pretty toilsome. We were panting along when suddenly a shower of sand and earth was dash'd in my face, spattering me all over. Half-blinded, I look'd and saw a great round shot had ploughed a trench in the ground at my feet, and lay there buried.

At the same moment, Billy, who was running at my shoulder, plumps down on his knees and begins to whine and moan most pitiably.

“Art hurt, dear fellow?” asked I, turning.

“Oh, Jack, Jack—I have no stomach for this! A cool, wet death at sea I do not fear; only to have the great hot shot burning in a man's belly—'tis terrifying. I hate a swift death! Jack, I be a sinner—I will confess: I lied to thee yesterday—never kiss'd the three maids I spoke of—never kiss'd but one i' my life, an' her a tap-wench, that slapp'd my face for 't, an' so don't properly count. I be a very boastful man!”

Now I myself had felt somewhat cold inside when the guns began roaring: but this set me right in a trice. I whipp'd a pistol out of my sash and put the cold ring to his ear: and he scrambled up; and was a very lion all the rest of the day.

But now we had again to change our course, for to my dismay I saw a line of sharpshooters moving down among the gorsebushes, to take the Cornishmen in flank. And 'twas lucky we had but a little way further to go; for these skirmishers, thinking perhaps from my dress and our running thus that we bore some message open'd fire on us: and tho' they were bad marksmen, 'twas ugly to see their bullets pattering into the turf, to right and left.

We caught up the very last line of the ascending troop—lean, hungry looking men, with wan faces, but shouting lustily. I think they were about three hundred in all. “Come on, lad,” called out a bearded fellow with a bandage over one eye, making room for me at his side; “there's work for plenty more!”—and a minute after, a shot took him in the ribs, and he scream'd out “Oh, my God!” and flinging up his arms, leap'd a foot in air and fell on his face.

Pressing up, I noted that the first line was now at the foot of the earthwork; and, in a minute, saw their steel caps and crimson sashes swarming up the face of it, and their pikes shining. But now came a shock, and the fellow in front was thrust back into my arms. I reeled down a pace or two and then, finding foothold, stood pushing. And next, the whole body came tumbling back on me, and down the hill we went flying, with oaths and cries. Three of the rebel regiments had been flung on us and by sheer weight bore us before them. At the same time the sharpshooters pour'd in a volley: and I began to see how a man may go through a battle, and be beat, without striking a blow.

But in the midst of this scurry I heard the sound of cheering. 'Twas Sir John Berkeley's troop (till now posted under cover of the hedges below) that had come to our support; and the rebels, fearing to advance too far, must have withdrawn again behind their earthwork, for after a while the pressure eas'd a bit, and, to my amaze, the troop which but a minute since was a mere huddled crowd, formed in some order afresh, and once more began to climb. This time, I had a thick-set pikeman in front of me, with a big wen at the back of his neck that seem'd to fix all my attention. And up we went, I counting the beat of my heart that was already going hard and short with the work; and then, amid the rattle and thunder of their guns, we stopp'd again.

I had taken no notice of it, but in the confusion of the first repulse the greater part of our men had been thrust past me, so that now I found myself no further back than the fourth rank, and at the very foot of the earthwork, up the which our leaders were flung like a wave; and soon I was scrambling after them, ankle deep in the sandy earth, the man with the wen just ahead, grinding my instep with his heel and poking his pike staff between my knees as he slipp'd.

And just at the moment when the top of our wave was cleaving a small breach above us, he fell on the flat of his pike, with his nose buried in the gravel and his hands clutching. Looking up I saw a tall rebel straddling above him with musket clubb'd to beat his brains out: whom with an effort I caught by the boot; and, the bank slipping at that instant, down we all slid in a heap, a jumble of arms and legs, to the very bottom.

Before I had the sand well out of my eyes, my comrade was up and had his pike loose; and in a twinkling, the rebel was spitted through the middle and writhing. 'Twas sickening: but before I could