Chapter XXXIX: Moore's Last Victory

IN an instant Sir John Moore half raised himself, gazing still with concentrated earnestness, as if nothing had happened, towards the Highland regiment, now hotly engaged. Not a sigh was heard. Not a muscle in his face quivered.

Hardinge had sprung down, and Moore's right hand grasped his firmly. When Hardinge, seeing his anxiety for the 42nd, exclaimed, "They are advancing—" Moore's eyes brightened into their fullest radiance.

Then Colonel Graham hurried to the spot. So placid and unchanged was the General's look, that for a moment he hoped it might be no more than an accidental fall from his horse. The next moment he saw—and he rode off at utmost speed for a surgeon.

It was an awful wound. Almost the whole left shoulder was carried away; the arm was all but separated from the body; the ribs over that intrepid heart were broken; the flesh and muscles were fearfully torn and mangled. Hardinge made an attempt with his sash to check the flow of blood; but with so extensive an injury little could be done.

Moore was then gently lifted upon a blanket; and all the while he still intently watched the struggle, as if his own state were a matter of no importance.

For a moment his attention was recalled from the front. His sword became entangled when the soldiers moved him, and the hilt went into the wound. Captain Hardinge began to unbuckle it, but he was at once checked, Moore saying in his usual voice, with calm distinctness—

"It is as well as it is. I had rather it should go out of the field with me."

So extraordinary was his composure, that Hardinge began to hope, even against hope, that the wound might after all prove not to be mortal—that the General might even yet be spared to his country. He faltered something of the kind; and Moore turned from gazing at the battle to inspect gravely his own injuries.

"No, Hardinge, I feel that to be impossible," he replied. "You need not go with me. Report to General Hope that I am wounded, and carried to the rear."

He was slowly borne towards Coruña, a sergeant and ten soldiers of the Guards and of the 42nd being told off for this service. Two surgeons came hastening to meet him. They had been engaged with the arm of his next in command, Sir David Baird, which was badly shattered; but on hearing what had happened to his chief, Baird hurried them off, and they left his arm half dressed. Moore, who was losing blood rapidly, observed; "You can be of no service to me. Go to the wounded soldiers—you may be of use to them." But this unselfish order could not be obeyed.

Again and again in their sad progress he desired a halt, that he might watch what was going on, and might listen to the fainter sound of the enemy's musketry, as the French were driven back.

Presently they were overtaken by a spring wagon, containing a wounded officer; and here again a slight pause took place, during which Roy Baron joined the mournful cavalcade, not yet knowing what it meant.

A question put by the officer in the wagon, "Who was that in the blanket?" brought an answer which sent a sickening shock through Roy's whole frame.

Would not Sir John like to be placed in the wagon? The officer earnestly suggested this. Moore did not refuse, but he looked at one of the Highlanders, and asked his opinion—would the wagon or the blanket be best? The man advised the latter. "It will not shake you so much, sir," he said; "and we can keep step, and carry you more easy."

"I think so too," Sir John quietly said, and they went on their way as before. By this time the hardy Guardsmen and Highlanders who carried him were one and all in tears.

Roy came close to the younger of the two surgeons, with whom he was slightly acquainted, and murmured, "Wounded!"

"Badly," was the low answer.

"But not—not—He'll get over it!"

Roy knew what the silence meant. After a break, the surgeon said, "We have not examined the wound yet. You are hurt."

"It's nothing. Just a cut. But that he—that he—"

The surgeon looked in pity on that boyish face of despair.

"You'd better keep with us, Baron. I'll patch you up by and by. Don't give in. Things may be better than we fear."

For a moment Roy had been in danger of collapsing. This suggestion revived his failing energies; and he kept steadily up with the little procession till the streets of Coruña were reached. Before the door of Moore's house the bearers paused. Colonel Anderson, the devoted friend and comrade of Sir John through twenty-one years past, met them outside, speechless with distress. This was the third time that he had seen Moore carried, wounded, from a field of battle; and it was the last.

Moore pressed his hand tightly. "Anderson, don't leave me," he murmured, and the words reached Roy, as he came close behind. An appealing glance at the surgeon brought a whispered response, "Yes; come in."

Then, as Moore's faithful French servant, Francois, appeared, in blank horror, with fast-dropping tears, Moore smiled.

"Mon ami, this is nothing," he said.

Roy crept silently to a corner of the room, in which Moore was laid upon a mattress. He felt crushed with the blow, bodily weak, mentally hopeless. That Moore should die seemed to his young spirit to be the end of everything. And from the look on the faces around, from Moore's own ineffable serenity, he read the truth, even before the surgeons had fully examined the wound. It needed no long examination. Medical science had no power to grapple with such injuries as the cannon-ball had worked.

During the process Roy crouched down, his face hidden. Presently his arm was touched by the friendly surgeon.

"Come into the next room, Baron."

"I can't go away," muttered Roy.

"You shall come back. I want to take a look at your arm."

They were near the door, and Roy submitted, caring little at the moment whether his own hurts were great or small. He bore the surgeon's handling without a wince.

"Nothing serious, I'm glad to find. A clean cut, and you'll soon be right again. The loss of blood makes you feel a trifle queer, of course."

Roy crept once more silently into the room. He passed near enough to the mattress to receive one last kind glance and smile, which all but broke him down. But by this time Moore's agony had become so overwhelming, that he was unable to speak, and his face had grown deathly pale. Colonel Anderson from first to last remained close by his side, supporting him as he lay.

After a while he so far mastered the torture as to utter one short sentence after another, at intervals.

"Anderson, you know that I have always wished to die in this way," came first. As the officers of his staff appeared, one by one, he put the same question to each, "Are the French beaten?"

Next, with unconscious pathos, read now in the light of after misrepresentations—

"I hope the people of England will be satisfied! I hope my Country will do me justice."

Presently there was the thought of his own relatives.

"Anderson—you will see my friends, as soon as you can. Tell them—everything. Say to my mother—"

For the first time self-control failed. His voice broke, and his features were strongly agitated. The love between that son and that mother had been of no common kind. He was utterly unable to give the message that he wished, and he turned to another subject.

"Hope—Hope—I have much to say to him—but—cannot get it out. Are Colonel Graham and all my aides-de-camp safe?"

Anderson hastily signed to others not to tell him that one of the latter had been dangerously wounded, knowing well the great affection which existed between Moore and his whole staff. The question was evaded.

He then mentioned that he had made his will, and had in it remembered his servants. "Colbourne has my will—and all my papers," he said. And when Major Colbourne came in, Moore greeted him with exceeding kindness, turning to say with difficulty to Sir John Hope, "Hope, go to the Duke of York, and say he ought to give Colbourne a regiment."

He asked again, "Were the French beaten?"

"In every direction," he was told.

"It's a great satisfaction for me to know we have beaten the French," he remarked. "Is Paget in the room?"

Anderson replied in the negative.

"Remember me to him. It is General Paget I mean. He is a fine fellow."

A little later came the words, "I feel myself so strong—I fear I shall be long dying. It is great uneasiness—it is great pain."

This was the only approach to a complaint which passed those patient lips. But the strength of which he spoke was that of the indomitable will, not of the shattered body; for already life was ebbing fast, and the shadows were closing around.

Yet surely for him, beyond the shadows, waited a Light Divine!

He met the last enemy as he had met his earthly foes, as indeed he had ofttimes faced the former, with unshaken composure and without dread, no more startled by the summons than if he had been called upon to cross the English Channel. And, as always, his thoughts were for others, not for himself.

Some grateful words were addressed to the surgeons, thanking them for their efforts to give him ease. He spoke kindly to two more aides-de-camp who came in. One of these was Captain James Stanhope, brother to Charles Stanhope killed that day, and to Lady Hester Stanhope, Moore's friend. Stanhope's eyes met those of the dying soldier, and Moore said distinctly—

"Stanhope—remember me to your sister."

This was his last utterance. He sank into silence, pressing the hand of Anderson closely to his side. A few minutes later, calmly and without a struggle, the grand spirit triumphed over death and passed away.

And in that still chamber might be heard the sounds of smothered convulsive weeping. The younger officers present broke utterly down, while the elder men looked on with bowed heads, scarcely better able to restrain their anguish; and Roy's sobs mingled with those of the rest.

It was a scene that he could never in all his after life forget. Colonel Anderson still knelt, supporting the lifeless head, and gazing with parted lips into that quiet face, which for twenty-one years had been the centre and the illumination of his being; his look of woe beyond the power of words to describe. On the other side of the mattress, one in sorrow with all these mourning Englishmen, was the faithful and devoted Francois. French by birth, he cared for little in the world besides this idolised master, over whom he despairingly hung, his hands clasped together, his face matching in pallor those placid features.

For one of the noblest of men was gone from their midst that hour; and a heavy shadow fell upon the victorious British Army.

"Dark lay the field of slain; the battle's strife was o'er,
That shook Coruña's hills, and rent the Iberian shore;
Dim twilight veiled the scene of glory and of death,
Till o'er the blood-stained snow
The moon, pale, trembling, slow,
Revealed each crimson wreath."

"Low on the victor-field the Warrior Chief was laid;
His eye still sought the foe, his hand still grasped the blade;
Triumphant was his smile, though dim his closing eye—
While bending o'er the slain,
His mournful gallant train
Learnt how the brave should die."

* * * * * * *

"No sculptured trophy rose to deck his honoured head,
Or monumental urn, to mark the Mighty Dead;
No lettered scroll to point the pilgrim soldier's way—
The musing foe to greet,
And guide his wandering feet
To where the warrior lay."

"But o'er his loved remains were choicest honours shed,
Tears such as Heroes weep bedewed his lowly bed;
A deep responsive sigh from Albion's woe-struck isle
Swelled o'er the Atlantic wave,
And decked his early grave—
Who for his Country fought, who for his Country fell!" ¹

¹ Written in memory of Moore by William Stark of Edinburgh in 1813.