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The Dynasts: An Epic Drama Of The War With Napoleon, a play by Thomas Hardy |
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Part 2 - Act 3 - Scene 3. Before Coruna |
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_ PART SECOND. ACT THIRD. SCENE III. [The town, harbour, and hills at the back are viewed from an aerial point to the north, over the lighthouse known as the Tower of Hercules, rising at the extremity of the tongue of land on which La Coruna stands, the open ocean being in the spectator's rear. In the foreground the most prominent feature is the walled old town, with its white towers and houses, shaping itself aloft over the harbour. The new town, and its painted fronts, show bright below, even on this cloudy winter afternoon. Further off, behind the harbour--now crowded with British transports of all sizes--is a series of low broken hills, intersected by hedges and stone walls. A mile behind these low inner hills is beheld a rocky chain of outer and loftier heights that completely command the former. Nothing behind them is seen but grey sky.
On the inner hills aforesaid the little English army--a pathetic fourteen thousand of foot only--is just deploying into line: HOPE'S division is on the left, BAIRD'S to the right. PAGET with the reserve is in the hollow to the left behind them; and FRASER'S division still further back shapes out on a slight rise to the right. This harassed force now appears as if composed of quite other than the men observed in the Retreat insubordinately straggling along like vagabonds. Yet they are the same men, suddenly stiffened and grown amenable to discipline by the satisfaction of standing to the enemy at last. They resemble a double palisade of red stakes, the only gaps being those that the melancholy necessity of scant numbers entails here and there. Over the heads of these red men is beheld on the outer hills the twenty thousand French that have been pushed along the road at the heels of the English by SOULT. They have an ominous superiority, both in position and in their abundance of cavalry and artillery, over the slender lines of English foot. The left of this background, facing HOPE, is made up of DELABORDE'S and MERLE'S divisions, while in a deadly arc round BAIRD, from whom they are divided only by the village of Elvina, are placed MERMET'S division, LAHOUSSAYE'S and LORGE'S dragoons, FRANCESCHI'S cavalry, and, highest up of all, a formidable battery of eleven great guns that rake the whole British line. It is now getting on for two o'clock, and a stir of activity has lately been noticed along the French front. Three columns are discerned descending from their position, the first towards the division of SIR DAVID BAIRD, the weakest point in the English line, the next towards the centre, the third towards the left. A heavy cannonade from the battery supports this advance. The clash ensues, the English being swept down in swathes by the enemy's artillery. The opponents meet face to face at the village in the valley between them, and the fight there grows furious. SIR JOHN MOORE is seen galloping to the front under the gloomy sky.
I seem to vision in San Carlos' garden,
Read visions as conjectures; not as more.
Intelligence of these misfortunes is brought to SIR JOHN MOORE. He goes further forward, and precedes in person the Forty-second regiment and a battalion of the Guards who, with fixed bayonets, bear the enemy back, MOORE'S gestures in cheering them being notably energetic. Pursuers, pursued, and SIR JOHN himself pass out of sight behind the hill. Dumb Show ends. [The point of vision descends to the immediate rear of the English position. The early January evening has begun to spread its shades, and shouts of dismay are heard from behind the hill over which MOORE and the advancing lines have vanished. Straggling soldiers cross in the gloom.]
He's struck by a cannon-ball, that I know; but he's not killed, that I pray God A'mighty.
Better he were. His shoulder is knocked to a bag of splinters. As Sir David was wownded, Sir John was anxious that the right should not give way, and went forward to keep it firm.
He didn't keep YOU firm, howsomever.
Nor you, for that matter.
Well, 'twas a serious place for a man with no priming-horn, and a character to lose, so I judged it best to fall to the rear by lying down. A man can't fight by the regulations without his priming-horn, and I am none of your slovenly anyhow fighters.
'Nation, having dropped my flit-pouch, I was the same. If you'd had your priming-horn, and I my flints, mind ye, we should have been there now? Then, forty-whory, that we are not is the fault o' Government for not supplying new ones from the reserve!
What did he say as he led us on?
"Forty-second, remember Egypt!" I heard it with my own ears. Yes, that was his strict testament.
"Remember Egypt." Ay, and I do, for I was there! . . . Upon my salvation, here's for back again, whether or no!
But here. "Forty-second, remember Egypt," he said in the very eye of that French battery playing through us. And the next omen was that he was struck off his horse, and fell on his back to the ground. I remembered Egypt, and what had just happened too, so thorough well that I remembered the way over this wall!--Captain Hardinge, who was close to him, jumped off his horse, and he and one in the ranks lifted him, and are now bringing him along.
Nevertheless, here's for back again, come what will. Remember Egypt! Hurrah! [Exit First straggler. Second straggler ponders, then suddenly follows First. Enter COLONEL ANDERSON and others hastily.]
Now fetch a blanker. He must be carried in. [Shouts heard.]
That means we are gaining ground! Had fate but left [Exit. Enter in the obscurity six soldiers of the Forty-second bearing MOORE on their joined hands. CAPTAIN HARDINGE walks beside and steadies him. He is temporarily laid down in the shelter of a wall, his left shoulder being pounded away, the arm dangling by a shred of flesh. Enter COLONEL GRAHAM and CAPTAIN WOODFORD.]
The wound is more than serious, Woodford, far.
I'll try to staunch it--since no skill's in call. [He takes off his sash and endeavours to bind the wound with it. MOORE smiles and shakes his head.] There's not much checking it! Then rent's too gross. [Enter a soldier with a blanket. They lift MOORE into it. During the operation the pommel of his sword, which he still wears, is accidentally thrust into the wound.] I'll loose the sword--it bruises you, Sir John. [He begins to unbuckle it.]
No. Let it be! One hurt more matters not.
I like the sound of that. It augurs well
Hardinge, no:
Ay, Sir John-- [He is borne in the blanket a little way onward, and lifted so that he can view the valley and the action.]
They seem to be advancing. Yes, it is so! [Enter SIR JOHN HOPE.] Ah, Hope!--I am doing badly here enough;
My dear friend, they are borne back steadily.
I hope England--will be satisfied--
O would that Soult had but accepted battle
Yes . . . yes.--But it has never been my lot I grieve for Zaragoza, if, as said,
He's now coming up. [Enter MAJOR COLBORNE, principal aide-de-camp.]
Are the French beaten, Colborne, or repulsed?
I do, Sir John: I am more than sad thereat!
That's good! Is Paget anywhere about?
He's at the front, Sir John.
Remembrance to him! [Enter two surgeons.] Ah, doctors,--you can scarcely mend up me.--
You must be borne
Anything. . . . Surely fainter ebbs that fire?
Yes: we must be advancing everywhere: [They lift him by stretching their sashes under the blanket, and begin moving off. A light waggon enters.]
Who's in that waggon?
Colonel Wynch, Sir John.
No. I will not. This suits. . . . Don't come with me; [Exeunt slowly in the twilight MOORE, bearers, surgeons, etc., towards Coruna. The scene darkens.] _ |
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