Georgette Heyer - The Spanish Bride by The Spanish Bride

Author:The Spanish Bride
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-04-28T12:29:01+00:00

Chapter Seven. Skerrett

By the middle of July, the Light division was encamped on the Santa Barbara height above Vera, within ten miles of the French frontier. From Pampeluna, which they had left to the Spaniards, and a few British units, to blockade, they had marched north into the Pyrenees, plunging farther and farther into a wild, lovely country of valleys rich with olive groves and fruit-trees, and great stretches of Indian corn; and towering hills, whose lower slopes were thickly covered with chestnut-trees, feathery larches, and grey-stemmed beeches, and whose peaks were lost for six days out of seven in wreaths of cloud. There were rivers in the valleys, tumbling down from the mountainsides, and purling over rocky beds; the villages were better than in Spain, with larger houses, owned by a people who spoke the queer, unintelligible Basque language. When the foothills were passed, marching became more difficult, and sometimes, when only narrow sheep-tracks led up the steep mountain passes, dangerous, since a false step would send one hurtling down a precipice on to craggy outcrops of rock hundreds of feet below. But nobody cared a penny for that when wild strawberries grew beside the way, and every step carried one nearer to the frontier. The Johnny Petits had run back to France, and, by all accounts, their retreat had more closely resembled a rout than a retiring movement. It was said that King Joseph never drew rein until he reached St Jean de Luz. Poor Pepe Botellas! He had lost everything at Vittoria: his treasure, and his guns, and his love-letters, and even the support of his Imperial brother; and the last humiliation was not long delayed. Soult, the Marshal-Duke of Dalmatia, whom he had wanted the Emperor to disgrace, reached Bayonne on the 11th July to take command of the demoralized Armies of Spain, and with orders to place King Joseph under arrest, if the King should prove troublesome. There were to be no more separate commands in Spain, no more quarrels between jealous Marshals, no more vacillations of a puppet-king. Supreme, Soult was going to drive Lord Wellington out of the Pyrenees, over the Ebro, over the Douro, back to his Portuguese lines, just as soon as the great military storehouses at Bayonne could furnish him with artillery, ammunition, and fresh accoutrements for the troops.

But, meanwhile, Sir Thomas Graham was besieging the town and fortress of San Sebastian, on the coast; English convoys were landing supplies at Passages and Bilbao; and Lord Wellington’s army held all the passes from the coast to Roncesvalles: a forty-mile front as the crow flies, with Sir Rowland Hill holding the right wing, from Roncesvalles to Maya, and Graham the left, and with the Light division between them, maintaining their communications.

It was an odd situation, Vera: not as pleasant as Santesteban, where the Light Bobs had camped for a week, amongst the most charming surroundings, but decidedly better then Lesaca, four miles to the rear, where his lordship had fixed his headquarters.

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