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Updated: June 23, 2025
I have given Colonel Herrara a duplicate of my despatches and official orders, in case you should be killed." "Cannot we go with you, sir?" Bull asked. "I don't think so, Bull. Dress as you might, you could hardly be taken for anything but an Englishman. Your walk and your complexion, to say nothing of your hair, would betray you both at once.
The French were recoiling, but a mass of their troops could be seen at the further end of the bridge, and two field batteries were keeping up an incessant fire. Herrara was posted with a company at the end of the bridge. "We had better fall back, Herrara, before they form a fresh column of attack.
Indeed, the battle itself was concentrated into an hour's hard fighting; and a French officer, describing it, said that 40,000 men were defeated in forty minutes. Presently the din of battle died out and, as soon as it did so, Herrara and Ryan both hurried to the side of Terence. "My dear Terence," Ryan said, dropping on his knees beside him, "this is terrible.
"The question is, Herrara," Terence said, when he and his colonel had exchanged congratulations on the repulse of the French, "what will Soult do next? "That is a question upon which everything depends. I don't think he will try again here.
Terence's last words were: "By the way, Herrara, if you should be able to find at any store in Lisbon some Irish whisky, I wish you would get six dozen cases for me, or what would be more handy, a sixteen or eighteen gallon keg, and could get it sent on by some cart coming here, I should be very much obliged. It had better be sent to me, care of Colonel Corcoran, Mayo Fusiliers, Abrantes.
Colonel Herrara is a good officer in many ways, and the regiment has maintained its state of efficiency; but he does not possess your energy and enterprise, nor the readiness to assume responsibilities and to act solely upon his own initiative a most valuable quality," he said, with one of his rare smiles, "when combined with sound judgment, for an officer commanding a partisan corps like your own; but which, if general, would in a very short time put an end to all military combinations, and render the office of a commander-in-chief a sinecure.
"What were yours, Herrara?" "They are that I was to consult with Moras; to operate carefully, and not to be drawn into any combat with superior or nearly equal French forces; which I took to mean equal to the strength of the regiment, for the guerillas are not to be depended upon, to the smallest extent, in anything like a pitched combat." "There is no doubt about that," Terence agreed.
Bull marched his battalion down the hill and, as Terence and Herrara were about to mount, a sudden burst of musketry fire, from the crest of the opposite hill, showed that the French were attempting to carry that position.
It is a different thing drilling on this sandy ground from drilling on a stretch of good turf. Of course, you will come back and lunch with us, and bring your friend Herrara." Herrara, however, excused himself. He did not know a word of English, and felt that until he could make himself understood he would feel uncomfortable at a gathering of English officers.
Lighting his cigarrita, Herrara requested Inez to seek her own apartment, that he might secure the door outside, and then return to the fire. Without a word she ascended the stairs to her own room. A chain was passed about the door, and then the retreating steps of the soldier died away. What should she do? Inez sat down to collect her thoughts, and looked round the apartment.
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