Run Them Ashore Read Online Free PDF

Hanley, and look forward to exploring many deep questions with you.’ Sinclair’s smile was so broad that he was almost beaming. ‘But for the moment I will simply say that I believe you have mistaken the nature of Irish luck. We need constant difficulties and scrapes otherwise we would never know how lucky we are to come through them! An Irishman free of problems would be a very dull Irishman indeed. Isn’t that so, Sergeant?’
    Murphy laughed this time, a genuine roar of laughter. ‘Your Honour’s talking sense,’ he said. ‘And with that sort of wisdom, you can see why we need all the luck we can get.’
    Sinclair bowed to honour the sentiment, and even Hanley was smiling.
    ‘Well, at least we got away,’ Pringle said. ‘And now that we are a little rested, we should get away again and keep moving. With your leave, of course, Major?’
    ‘Certainly, my dear fellow, certainly.’ Sinclair had insisted that he was there to assist and not to take command. ‘Just here to pave the way, old boy, and I shall be off into the shadows again once I have seen you to our destination.’ He spoke in the rapid Spanish of the south to the two muleteers he had brought with him, telling them to check the loads before they went on. Hanleysaid something more quietly to the guide, who kept himself apart from the other Spaniards as well as the British. Sinclair had somehow arranged for the man to meet them, but confessed that he knew neither him nor the band he came from. ‘We need to meet them,’ he had said, ‘and learn how best we can aid each other against the common foe. But the reputation of Don Antonio Velasco and his band is truly splendid. I suspect that I have heard more songs sung of him that any of the other chiefs.’
    The guide was small, blind in one eye, and said no more than was absolutely essential, but had led them along tracks which they would never have found in broad daylight, let alone at night. What little he said, he said to Hanley, and this did not include his own name, or that of the leader.
    ‘ Ya veremos ,’ he said, and nothing more. ‘We shall see.’
    So they went on, the major chattering away, the bell on the collar of the lead mule ringing as it toiled up the steep paths, the other five pack mules following and now and then baying in protest or whatever it was that prompted mules to give voice. The riding mules were as awkward and contrary as most of their kind. Hanley fell more than once, and Pringle only stayed on by copying Murphy and keeping one hand entwined in his beast’s mane.
    ‘Sadly the spirit of patriotism seems undeveloped in the mules of Iberia,’ Sinclair said as he watched Hanley climbing back on to his mount after another fall. ‘A sorry state of affairs, and one that surely reminds us how brightly that spirit burns in the human inhabitants of these lands. They hate with a passion. And at least the mules have given no welcome to the invaders. According to the best reports they are as inimical to the French as they are to the rest of humanity!’
    Pringle smiled at that. The other men said little, the guide nothing at all unless prompted, and then just, ‘You will see.’ He indicated the route solely by gestures.
    ‘You ride well, Sergeant,’ Sinclair said a mile or so on. ‘You remind me a lot of a man named Murphy who used to deliver the coal in Ballymena. The resemblance is striking.’
    ‘Probably my uncle. He was just like me except that he was small, fat and with red hair.’
    ‘That sounds like the same man,’ the major said happily. ‘I am sure of it. And how is your good uncle?’
    ‘Well, as far as we know. Apart from being dead.’
    They went on for hours, and saw no one, but since they were led through pine forests, little valleys and dells, that was not so surprising. These were paths taken by those who did not wish to be seen. That was good, and showed that the man knew his business, but as they went on Pringle’s worries only grew. From the start