Death to the French (aka Rifleman Dodd) by C.S. Forester Read Free Book Online Page A

almost convinced that this big Englishman whom he had been deputed to guide was slightly mad. He had only one thought-it might be said he had only one word. What he wanted was to reach the Tagus. Nothing else would satisfy him. He would not rest a moment more than necessary; he was always up at the first streak of dawn; he insisted on striding along even when Bernardino was whimpering with fatigue. Bernardino had not heard of the Indian pilgrims whose one wish it was to bathe in the Ganges, but once or twice he had encountered Spaniards or Portuguese who were set on visiting some particular shrine- Santiago di Compostella or some other- and who also were slightly mad, and he came to class Dodd with them in his mind. He explained to everyone they met that he had a mad Englishman in his charge whose one wish in life was to set eyes on the Tagus; in Bernardino's opinion this was just as remarkable as that the long rifle which the Englishman carried would (so he had been assured) kill a man with deadly accuracy at half a mile. Bernardino's ambition was, after having gratified the Englishman's strange passion for the Tagus, to lure him into sight of a Frenchman and then see the feat performed.
    There were plenty of people for Bernardino to tell all this to, because the country through which they were passing was not laid waste. The proclamations commanding this to be done had been issued-every priest and every alcalde had one-but the country was not in the direct line of march of the contending armies and Wellington had not been able to come there in person and see his orders carried out. It would take more than a mere proclamation to make a wretched peasant burn his crops and his farm and send his womenfolk to Lisbon while he himself went up into the hills to starve.
    Here and there were patches of ruined country where some Capitao Mor of unusual energy had swept the district with his militia, but elsewhere there were flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, and fields under the plough making ready for the winter sowing.
    Dodd shook his head at sight of all this; if the French army should come this way they would be able to demonstrate their practice that every village should be able to feed a battalion for a week or a division for a day. He was surly towards the village people on whom Bernardino billeted him each night. He could not even accept the pleasant advances of the women in his billets; the women ran delighted eyes over his burly inches, and would have liked to tell him how much they missed their husbands whom the conscription had swept away, but Dodd turned away from them angrily. Their refusal to destroy all their possessions was imperilling his regiment.
    There came a day when the road along which they were marching climbed up a small slope, and then descended into a green valley. At the crest Bernardino stopped and pointed forwards dramatically.
    'Eis!' he said. 'Tejo.'
    He gazed at Dodd expectantly to see what effect this long wished for spectacle would have upon him, and he was woefully disappointed. For Dodd merely gazed for a moment across the flat land to where the vast green river ran turbulently in its rocky bed, and then strode on carelessly. And when the country track they were following joined the main high road above the river's bank he turned along it to the right without stopping for Bernardino's guidance and without another glance at the river he had been asking for for at least the last three days, the river he had walked sixty-five miles to see. Bernardino pulled him by the sleeve to call his attention to it again, but Dodd merely shook him off. 'Lisboa,' said Dodd, pointing forwards remorsely.
    Bernardino could only resign himself to another sixty- five-mile march to Lisbon.
    Only for brief stretches does the Tagus run through fertile, cultivated land. Before very long their march took them once again into a stony, sandy desert, a high plateau towering far above the water's edge, and cut up here and there