Death to the French (aka Rifleman Dodd) Read Online Free PDF Page B

gathering round roaring fires, with, if they were lucky, roast pork or boiled beef for supper, and perhaps a nip of brandy. There would be no fire for him to-night, as near to the French as he was, and there would be little enough supper.
    It was on an open hillside again that Dodd stopped for the night. He would not camp in a valley or in a wood-that was the sort of place patrols would explore. Philosophically he chose once more the lee of an isolated patch of bushes, but there was comfort to be found in the sight of the glow of the French bivouac fires behind him this evening. With any luck there would be a clear road before him tomorrow back to the Lines-back to his regiment. Strangely, the idiot wanted no supper that night. Dodd could hear his teeth chattering where he lay some distance off.
    And in the morning, before it was yet light, it was the idiot who woke Dodd. He was calling out in a loud voice, so that even as Dodd awoke and got to his feet his hand went out to his rifle and he stared through the twilight for an approaching enemy. He could see nothing; he could hear nothing save the idiot's voice, and as he went towards him the voice rose an octave and broke into laughter. Dodd knelt beside him; there was just enough light for him to see that the idiot was lying on his back with his arms thrashing about while he laughed and laughed. Then the laughter changed to words-terror-laden words obviously-while he struggled up to a sitting position and then fell back again. The poor wretch was delirious and in the grip of pneumonia -'fever' Dodd called it to himself. Doddd had to decide what to do; he made his decision in the course of his preparation for the day's march.
    If he stayed by the idiot they would starve together. If he burdened himself with his weight he would never catch up on the marching French, never rejoin his regiment. All he could do was to leave him there, to starve if the fever did not kill him first. He made a pitifully feeble attempt to make the idiot comfortable among the heather, and then, sick at heart but fierce with resolution, he turned away and left him, chuckling anew at some comic thought which had penetrated his fevered, idiot's mind. The last Dodd heard of him was a new shout of 'Morran os Franceses'-a fitting cry enough. Dodd left him there, shouting and laughing, to sink into exhaustion and coma and die, alone on the windswept hill. After all, a soldier had much more important work to do than to ease an idiot's last hours, as anyone would agree who did not have to make the decision.

    Chapter VI

    DODD had promised himself that he would not continue across country after noon that day. By that time he ought to be fairly safe from patrols, and would take the first cross-road that bore in approximately the direction he wished. Before the morning was half over he came across a tempting path which he resolutely kept away from. Twice he saw grey villages in the distance and went cautiously round them out of sight; there was smoke rising from one of them, but smoke might at that point indicate the presence of French as much as Portuguese. He found a stream-a raging torrent after yesterday's rain-which gave him fresh heart because it was running in the right direction, towards the Tagus and not towards the sea. He marched on, never slackening his pace. A man who had marched with Craufurd to Talavera could do without rest. In the nearly roadless desert of the Lisbon Peninsula it was easy enough to keep straight across country, avoiding all the habitations of man. He kept to the hills, away from the sky-line, as much as possible, only descending into the valleys when his route compelled him to do so, and hastening across them with extreme care. All through that morning's march he saw no one, no man working in the fields, not a cow nor a sheep, nothing save a herd of wild swine in a beech wood.
    That was only to be expected, for it was by Wellington's orders that the country had been swept clear of