Part 43 (2/2)
”I have two horses here, sergeant; my own, and one of Colonel Tempe's. General Chanzy told me I should find room here, but it does not look like it.”
”I will turn two of these horses out, sir,” the sergeant said.
”Is there no other place?” Ralph asked.
”They are all as full as this, sir.”
”There is a little shed, down at the end of the garden,” one of the men said. ”I noticed it this afternoon. The door was locked. I looked in, and it seemed a cow shed. I don't know whether anyone is there. I will go down with you, sir, and show you the way, if you like.”
The shed was soon found, and the soldier forced the door open with his sword bayonet. The place had, as he supposed, been a cow shed; but the walls and roof were in good order, and the ground hard.
”This will do first rate, your honor,” Tim said. ”There is room for all four horses, if they squeeze a bit; and for Jacques here, and myself. I suppose, your honor, there will be no harm in knocking up some of this woodwork, to make a bit of a fire? It's too dark to look for sticks, tonight; and they would be so damp, from the snow, that the smoke would choke the bastes entirely--to say nothing of us.”
”Well, under the circ.u.mstances, Tim, I agree with you; but don't do more damage than you can help, and only make enough fire to make the water hot for coffee, and so on. You will be warm enough, here, with the four horses. You must go and see if you can get them some forage.”
”But how about your honor's and the colonel's dinner?” Tim asked.
”I haven't drawn rations; but I have got plenty of bread and meat, in the haversack. I got them at Tours, for I thought there wouldn't be much to be had here.”
”Thank you for thinking of it, Tim, but we dine with the general.
When you have got the horses comfortable, and lit your fire, one of you bring up our cloaks to the house. Keep the horses' saddles on, with loosened girths. We may want them suddenly, at any moment of the night.”
The next morning, General Chanzy said to Ralph:
”I should recommend you, Captain Barclay, to spend an hour studying this map; and getting up, from these lists, the exact position of our forces. When you think you have mastered them, ride through the whole of the positions occupied by the corps and, without exposing yourself, gain as good an idea as you can of the country beyond.
Tomorrow you may have to ride straight to certain points, with orders; and it may save important time if you are thoroughly acquainted with the ground, and position.”
After a couple of hours' study of the staff map, so as to know every little by-lane and hamlet, for ten miles on either side, Ralph mounted his horse and went for a long ride. When he returned, Colonel Tempe told him that General Chanzy was gone over to General D'Aurelle's quarters, to arrange the details; and that the attack was to take place the next day.
At five o'clock the general returned; and Colonel Tempe and the chief of his staff were occupied with him, for two hours, in drawing up the specific orders for each corps. Colonel Tempe had not been out, all day; and he therefore offered his horse to Ralph, in order that Ralph's own might be fresh for the next day.
Four staff officers set off in various directions with the dispatches; and Ralph congratulated himself upon having been upon the ground he was now traversing once before that day as, even with that previous acquaintance, it was hard work to find the way through the darkness, from the snow altering the general appearance and apparent distance of each object. Thanks, however, to his ride of the morning, he reached the various corps to which he was dispatched without any serious mistakes in his way; and got back to headquarters by eleven o'clock.
Tim was waiting up for him.
”Sure, your honor, and it's a mighty cold night. I've got a pot of coffee on the boil in the stables.”
”Thank you, Tim. I will just go in and make my report to the general, and then go off to bed. Bring the coffee into my room. We shall be up early, for we fight tomorrow.”
”Do we, now?” Tim said, admiringly. ”And it's about time; for we should be all frozen into skeletons, if we were to wait here doing nothing much longer. Bad luck to the weather, says I.”
At ten o'clock the next morning the French troops were in motion, the objects of their attack being the villages of Guillonville, Terminiers, and Conier. The country was extremely flat and, for an hour, they saw no bodies of the enemy. A few videttes, only, were seen. These galloped off hastily, the moment they caught sight of the heavy ma.s.ses of the French debouching from the wood. Ralph was riding, with the rest of the staff, behind the general.
”That is Terminiers,” Colonel Tempe said, pointing to a house or two at a distance, on the plain.
As he spoke, a puff of smoke came from the houses.
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