Henty George Alfred
Out with Garibaldi: A story of the liberation of Italy

On going out, they found the streets were still thronged by an almost frenzied populace. These invaded the hotels and cafés, and pressed all they could lay hands on to join in the demonstrations. A few murders were perpetrated; the state of things prevailing affording an excellent opportunity for satisfying private revenge, as it needed only a cry that the victim was a spy of the government to justify it in the eyes of the bystanders.

In the quarter nearest to St. Elmo the enthusiasm had a good deal cooled down, as the fear that the guns of the castle might at any moment open fire for the time dissipated any desire for marching about and acclaiming Garibaldi. At four o’clock, however, it was known that two officers of the castle had gone down to the palace, and at six the welcome news spread that the garrison had capitulated, and would march out on the following morning.

Frank had little sleep that night. All along his hopes had been high that he should find his father here; but now that the question would be so soon decided, his fears were in the ascendant. He remembered that the evidence in favour of his father’s death was extremely strong, the only hopeful fact being that his body had not been discovered. So slight did even his mother and Signora Forli deem the chance of his being alive, that for two years neither had breathed a word to the other as to the existence of a possibility that he might be still living. Undoubtedly the release of his grandfather had increased his own hope, but he felt now that there was but small ground for the feeling. Had his father been hidden away in a fortress, he might also have survived; but the probabilities seemed altogether against this. It was not until midday that St. Elmo was evacuated, and several companies of the national guard marched in. A colonel of the staff had, with Frank, been charged with the duty of searching the dungeons. They had brought with them fifty lazzaroni, who had been engaged for this repulsive work. A dozen of the Garibaldian troops were to accompany them; the prison officials were all ordered to go with the party, and they, as well as the lazzaroni, were told to bring pails and brooms.

The castle of St. Elmo covers an area of no less than four acres; it was cut out of the solid rock, and is surrounded by a sunken ditch, sixty or seventy feet deep, and fifty wide. This great mass of stone is honeycombed in every direction with a network of corridors and subterranean apartments, and there is ample space to hold several thousand prisoners. The upper tiers of chambers were fairly clean; these were, in fact, the barracks of the troops. The guns looked out from embrasures. Several batteries of field artillery, with waggons and all fittings, still remained there, and the chambers were littered with rubbish of all kinds, discarded by the troops before leaving. It was not here that prisoners were to be found. The national guard had already opened the doors of the cells and chambers in the stage below, and had liberated those confined there; the work of searching those still lower began at once. The extent was so vast and the windings were so intricate that the work seemed interminable. In order to make sure that each passage had been searched, a pail of whitewash was sent for, and a splash made at each turning. Each story was darker, and the air more stifling, than that above it, for they were now far below the level of the castle itself.

Frank had taken the advice of Signor Forli, and had bought several bundles of the strongest cigars; and he and the officer in command, the officer of the national guard who attended them and the soldiers all smoked incessantly. At the worst places the lazzaroni and turnkeys were set to work with their buckets and brooms. It was not until late in the evening that they came to the conclusion that every cell and chamber had been searched. About a hundred and fifty prisoners had been found and released, but among them Frank looked in vain for his father. The lowest dungeons of all had been found empty; and this, and the solemn assurances of all the prison officials, who had been threatened with instant death should further search discover any prisoners, convinced him that at any rate his father was not there.

The next day the neighbouring prison of Santa Maria was searched. It had formerly been a monastery, and the upper cells were lofty and capacious. The jailors declared, indeed, that these were the only cells, but a careful search showed a door in the rock. This was burst open, and a series of subterranean passages was discovered. The jailors declared that these had never been used in their time, and, they believed, never before. That they had been used, however, was evident, from the marks where lamps had been hung on the walls, and by many other signs. No prisoners were found here, all having been released directly it was known that the garrison of the castle had capitulated. The search occupied the whole day, so extensive were the underground galleries; and a passage was discovered that evidently at one time formed a communication between St. Elmo and this prison. As he came out into daylight, Frank staggered, and would have fallen had not one of the soldiers caught him. He had been ill the night before; and the effects of the close air, noxious smells, and the work, which had been even more trying than on the previous day, and his bitter disappointment, had now completely overcome him. After some water had been dashed in his face and he had taken a draught of some wine which one of the prison officials fetched, he partially recovered. He was assisted by two of the Garibaldians down the road to the town, and then, obtaining a vehicle, was driven to the palace, and managed with assistance to get up to his apartment. A minute or two later Signor Forli joined him, one of the attendants having summoned him as soon as Frank arrived.

“Do not trouble to speak, my dear boy,” he said. Frank was lying on the bed sobbing convulsively. “You have failed – that I can well understand; but you must not altogether lose heart. We had thought this the most likely place; but there are still other prisons, and we will not give up hope until every one of these has been ransacked. I am sorry now that I did not accompany you, but I am afraid, after what I have gone through myself, that only a few minutes in one of those places would overpower me; and I wonder how you, young and strong as you are, were able to spend two days in such an atmosphere.”

“I shall be better to-morrow,” Frank said. “That last place was awful; but I think that it was as much the strong tobacco, as those horrible stinks, which upset me. It was a choice of two evils; but I would smoke even worse tobacco if I could get it, if I had to go through it again.”

“I will get you a glass of brandy and water, Frank; that will do you more good than anything.”

The next morning Frank was still too unwell to be able to get up; his failure had completely broken him down, and he felt indisposed to make the slightest exertion. At twelve o’clock, however, Signor Forli came in.

“I have a piece of news to give you,” he said, “news which affords us some shadow of hope that you have not failed altogether. Last night I was talking with the general and one or two of his staff. Garibaldi is, as you know, intensely interested in your search, and sympathises with you most warmly. Suddenly he said, ‘Is it not possible that he may have been removed before the king and his court retired?’ Had Percival been found in the prisons, it would have rendered the bad faith and mendacity of the government more glaring than ever, and would have deprived it of any little sympathy that was felt for it in England. Therefore, feeling sure that the prisons would be searched as soon as I entered, Percival, had he been here, may, with other special prisoners, have been sent to Capua, which is so strongly fortified a place that they may well believe it to be impregnable to anything but a long siege by troops possessing a battering train.”

Frank sat up. “That is indeed a good idea,” he exclaimed. “How stupid of me not to have thought of questioning the prison people! Yes; it is quite likely that if any of the prisoners were removed, he would be one of them.”

“I have no doubt you would have thought of it, Frank, if it had not been that you were completely upset by that strong tobacco. Mind, I don’t blame you for taking it: it is better to be poisoned with nicotine than by the stenches of a Neapolitan prison. The thought only struck Garibaldi after we had chatted over the matter for some time. I went over there this morning with Colonel Nullo. Although the officials at first asserted that no prisoners had been taken away, they soon recovered their memories when he said that he would interrogate every one of the warders separately, and if he found that any prisoners had been sent away he would have them taken out into the courtyard and shot for lying to him. They then remembered that four prisoners had been taken away, but all declared with adjurations to all the saints that they did not know who they were: they were delivered over to them under numbers only. One had been there seven years, and two had been there five years, and one two years. Again threatening to examine all the turnkeys, he learned that the last prisoner received had been confined in one of the lower dungeons, where they yesterday asserted that no one had for years been imprisoned; the other three were also kept in the most rigid seclusion, but in the upper cells.

“I insisted on seeing the man who had attended on the prisoner kept in the lower cell. He was a surly ruffian, and it was not until Nullo ordered four men to load, and to put the fellow with his back to the wall, that he would answer my questions. He said then that the prisoner was, he should say, between forty and fifty, but it was not easy to judge of age after a man had been below there for a few months. He had never said more than a few words to him, and it had never struck him that he was not an Italian. I questioned him more closely as to this, and he admitted that he had sometimes, when he went down, heard the prisoner singing. He had listened, but could not understand the words, and they might have been in a foreign language. He had no more interest in that prisoner than in any other. He supposed, by his being sent down below there, that it was hoped he would die off as soon as possible. They seldom lived many months in those dungeons, but this man seemed tougher than usual, though his strength had failed a good deal lately. He was able to walk up from his cell to the carriage when he was taken away. Now we mustn’t feel too sanguine, Frank, but although there is no proof that this prisoner is your father, the evidence, so far as it goes, is rather in favour of such a supposition than against it.”

“It is indeed,” Frank said eagerly. “The fact that they put him down into the cells where, as the man says, it was almost certain he would soon die, and that when it was found that he had not done so, he was at the last moment taken away, shows that there was some very strong motive for preventing the fact that he was a prisoner becoming public; and we know that they had the very strongest reason in the case of my father. The age would be about right, and the fact that he was singing would show, at any rate, that it was some one who was determined not to give in, but to keep up his spirits till the very last, and I am sure my father would have done that. Well, I will get up now. I could not lie here quietly; it would be impossible, after what you have been telling me.”

“I think you are right, Frank. I will have a basin of soup sent in for you. When you have eaten that, and dressed, we will take a carriage and go for a long drive by the road along the shore to Pompeii. The sea-breeze will do you more good than anything, and the lovely view, and a stroll through Pompeii itself, will distract your thoughts. There is nothing to be done until Capua is taken, which may not be for a long time yet. However, events are moving. We hear that Victor Emmanuel and his government, alarmed at the success of Garibaldi, and feeling that if they are to have any voice in the matter they must not be content to rest passive while he is carrying all before him, have resolved upon taking some part in the affair. Under the pretext that in order to restore peace and order it is necessary that they should interfere, they are about to despatch an army to Ancona by sea; and, landing there, will advance into Central Italy, and act, as they say, as circumstances may demand. All of which means, that now Garibaldi has pulled the chestnuts out of the fire for them they will proceed to appropriate them.”

“It is too bad!” Frank exclaimed angrily.

“No doubt it is mean and ungracious in the extreme, but Garibaldi will not feel it as other men would; he is human, and therefore he would like to present the Kingdom of Naples and the States of Rome, free from the foreigner, to Victor Emmanuel. But that feeling, natural as it is, is but secondary to his loyalty to Italy. He desires to see her one under Victor Emmanuel, and so long as that end is achieved he cares comparatively little how it comes about. Moreover, he cannot but see that, though he has accomplished marvels, that which remains to be done would tax the power of his army to the utmost. The Neapolitans have still some seventy thousand men, who are encouraged by their king being among them. They have in Capua a most formidable fortress, which could defy the efforts of irregular troops, wholly unskilled in sieges and deficient in heavy guns, for many months. Moreover, it would no longer be mountain warfare, but we should have to fight in plains where the enemy’s cavalry would give them an enormous advantage. There is another thing: the intrigues of Cavour’s agents here are already giving him very serious trouble, and this will doubtless increase; therefore I can well understand that he will be glad rather than otherwise that Sardinia at last should do her part towards the freeing of Italy, from which she will benefit so vastly.”

CHAPTER XVII.
THE BATTLE OF THE VOLTURNO

BEFORE starting for his drive Frank telegraphed to his mother: “Have not found him here. I do not yet despair. Have a faint clue that may lead to something.”

That evening he wrote a long letter, acknowledging that he had been bitterly disappointed, but saying that Signor Forli had found out that some of the prisoners had been sent away to Capua before Garibaldi entered the town, and that he still hoped his father might be among the number. He gave no detail as to these prisoners, for he was anxious not to raise hopes that might not be fulfilled; indeed, he had in all his letters said little on the subject. He knew his mother had refused to allow herself to cherish any hope, and he had written almost entirely of matters concerning the events of the march, the country through which he had travelled, and the scenes in which he had taken a part. He and Signor Forli had at Salerno received long letters from home full of the delight which the news of the discovery and release of the latter had given them. His mother had said: —

“This is a joy indeed, my boy – one that I had never expected, or even hoped for. But do not let yourself anticipate for a moment that because this unlooked-for happiness has been given to us our other dear lost one will similarly be recovered. That my father had been thrown into a Neapolitan prison we never doubted for a moment; and I believed that, should he have survived, Garibaldi’s success would open his prison doors. But it is not so in the case of your father. The evidence is almost overwhelming that he died in the hands of the brigands who carried him off, and nothing short of knowing that he is alive will induce me to abandon the conviction I have all along felt that this was so. I pray you not to indulge in any false hopes, which can but end in bitter disappointment. You will, of course, search until absolutely convinced that he is not in any of the prisons of the country. The search will at least have been useful, for it will remove the last dread which, in spite of myself, I have occasionally felt ever since he has been missing, that he has been wearing his life out in one of these horrible dungeons.”

The next ten days passed slowly. Frank and the other members of the staff had bought fresh horses a few days after the capture of Reggio; and he was now constantly in the saddle, carrying messages between Garibaldi’s headquarters and the army. Garibaldi himself had been distracted by the intrigues going on around him, and had been obliged to go to Sicily. Depretis, who had been appointed head of the government there, was inclined to the annexational policy, which was opposed by Crispi and the other Garibaldians, and the consequence was that an alarming state of affairs existed there. Garibaldi was therefore obliged to hurry over there himself, and having appointed Mordeni, a determined partisan of his own, pro-dictator, and arranged affairs generally, he returned to Naples, where his presence was urgently required.

The Neapolitan army at Capua had been very largely reinforced, and had taken post along the river Volturno. Turr, who was in command of the Garibaldian army, had in consequence, taken up a defensive position at Madelone, Caserta and Aversa, thereby barring any advance on the part of the royal army. The latter’s position was an extremely formidable one: its right rested on Gaeta near the sea, and forty thousand men were massed on the right bank of the Volturno, a river which was here from fifty to a hundred yards in width, their left was at Cajazzo, in the mountains of the Abruzzi, where the inhabitants were favourable to the royal cause.

Capua itself, on the left bank of the river, afforded them a means of moving forward to the attack of the Garibaldians. Three sides of its fortifications were surrounded by the river, which here makes a great loop, and around the town twenty thousand men were massed, one half of whom were in position in front of it. The only bridge across the river was at Capua, but there was a ferry near Caserta. The position was so threatening that Turr, who had under him about seventeen thousand men, pushed a force up to the town of Santa Maria and the heights of Sant’Angelo, both of which points were occupied after a skirmish.

On the 17th, six hundred men were sent off to march far up the river, to cross it, and to throw themselves into the mountains above Cajazzo, which was occupied by two thousand two hundred men with four guns. Garibaldi arrived at Caserta on the night of the 18th, but did not interfere with Turr’s command. In order to attract the attention of the enemy, and keep them from sending reinforcements to Cajazzo, it was arranged that a feint should be made against Capua: two battalions were to advance from Aversa to menace the southwest of that town, six battalions were to advance directly against it from Santa Maria, and Ebor’s brigade was to march to Sant’Angelo, and then to drive the Neapolitans on their left into Capua, and to extend on the right along the hills as far as the road to Cajazzo.

The movement was completely successful. Cajazzo was captured, and the force in front of Capua obliged to retire under the guns of the citadel. Some loss, however, was sustained, owing to the division from Santa Maria, instead of returning as soon as the work was done, being kept for four hours under the fire of the guns of the fortress, owing to a misconception of orders. The positions now taken were occupied in strength. The next day, six hundred and fifty men were sent off to Cajazzo to strengthen the small force of three hundred there, as the place was attacked by no fewer than twelve thousand Neapolitan troops. Although without artillery, the town was desperately defended for four hours. The barricades at the end of the main streets were held, in spite of repeated attacks and the fire from eight guns. Not until two hundred of the little force had fallen, did the Garibaldians fall back, and they succeeded in crossing the river at the ferry, covered by two companies and a couple of guns, which had been posted at that point to prevent the Neapolitans from crossing.

There was an interval now: the Garibaldians were far too weak to attack their numerous enemy, posted in an almost impregnable position. Garibaldi was so much harassed by the political intriguers, that he left Caserta every morning long before daybreak, and remained the whole day at a cottage on the heights of San Antonio. He had already done all in his power to satisfy the royal party that he had no intention of favouring a republic. Bertram, who had done so much for him as chief organiser and agent, was requested to leave Rome. Mazzini also was sent away, and other appointments were made, showing how bent he was on handing over his conquest to Victor Emmanuel. There can be no doubt now that it would have been far better had he from the first abandoned his wish not to present his conquests to the king until they were completed. Had he, on his arrival at Messina, at once declared Victor Emmanuel king of the island, and requested him to take possession, he would have allayed the jealousy and suspicion with which his movements were viewed by Cavour and the Piedmontese ministry.

A similar course, as soon as Naples was occupied, would have had a still greater effect, and both Garibaldi himself and his brave followers would have been spared the bitter humiliations and the gross display of ingratitude, which, however, disgraced those who inflicted them far more than those so undeservedly treated.

Turr remained idle during the next six days, and beyond throwing up two or three small intrenchments, did nothing to strengthen the position. In fact, it was daily becoming more probable that there would be no further fighting. Cialdini’s division had landed near Alcona, had defeated the army of Lamoriciere, and was advancing westwards without opposition. Fanti, with another army, had crossed the northern frontier of the Neapolitan territory, and was marching south. Thus, in a short time, the Neapolitans would be surrounded by three armies, and would be forced to lay down their arms.

On the 29th it became evident that a considerable movement was in progress on the other side of the river and fort. Forty thousand men were being concentrated at Capua and Cajazzo.

Garibaldi’s force, available in case of attack, was about twenty-four thousand men, of whom thirteen thousand were Northern Italians, eleven thousand Calabrians and Sicilians, and one inhabitant of Naples. Of these, two thousand five hundred were with Conti at Aversa, and over seven thousand at Caserta; the remainder being at Santa Maria, Sant’Angelo, the village of Santa Lucia, and Madalone. The position occupied was nearly thirty miles long, but the reserves at Caserta and Madalone, lying behind the centre, could be despatched speedily to any point required. Frank had come out with Garibaldi to Caserta, and spent the whole of his time riding between the different points occupied, with communications from Garibaldi to his generals.

At three o’clock on the morning of October 1st, Garibaldi started as usual for the front. Frank, with two or three of the younger staff-officers, rode, and three carriages carried the general and the older members of the staff. They had scarcely left the town when a scattered fire of musketry was heard near Santa Maria. This rapidly increased in volume; and soon afterwards the guns at Sant’Angelo opened vigorously. When approaching the town, a mounted soldier, riding at a furious gallop, overtook them. He was the bearer of a message that a telegram had just been received from Bixio, who was in command at Madalone, saying that he was being assailed in great force. This was even more serious than the attack in front, for, if successful, it would have cut the communication between the Garibaldians and Naples.

Galloping on to Santa Maria, Garibaldi sent a telegram to Sartori, who commanded at Caserta, to tell him to hold a brigade in readiness to support Bixio if the latter was pressed; and that Turr, with the rest of the reserves, was to hold himself in readiness to move to the front, but was only to send forward a single brigade, till quite assured of Bixio’s success. At Santa Maria were the greater part of the old cacciatori, with four thousand other good troops, and Garibaldi felt confident that the town was in no danger of being taken. He accordingly started at once for Sant’Angelo, which was the key of his position. Morning had broken now, but a heavy mist, rising from the low ground near the river, rendered it impossible to see more than a few yards. The din of conflict was prodigious. The Garibaldian guns at Santa Maria kept up a desultory fire, answered by those of the Neapolitans, and the rattle of musketry was incessant ahead, and, as it seemed, the fight was raging all round; but it was impossible to tell whether Santa Lucia and other posts to the right were also attacked. Suddenly a volley was fired from an invisible enemy within a hundred yards. The balls whistled overhead.

“This is uncomfortable,” Frank said to the officer riding next to him. “They have evidently broken through our line connecting Sant’Angelo with Santa Maria. If we had had a few earthworks thrown up this would not have happened. Now they will be able to take Sant’Angelo in rear; and, what is much more important, we may at any moment run right into the middle of them, and the loss of Garibaldi would be more serious than that of all our positions put together.”

The Neapolitans had indeed issued out in three columns. One of them, pushing out under cover of the deep water-courses, had broken through the weak line, had captured a battery of four guns and a barricade, and had then mounted one of the spurs of Tifata and taken Sant’Angelo in rear; while a second column, attacking it in front, had captured another four-gun battery and a barricade two hundred and fifty yards below the village on the Capua road, and had taken two or three hundred prisoners, the rest of Medici’s division taking up their position in and around the abbey, which stood on the hillside above the village.

Three of the guides, who had accompanied Garibaldi to carry messages, and the three mounted staff officers, took their place in front of the carriages in readiness to charge should they come suddenly upon the enemy, and so give time to their occupants to escape. The horses were all galloping at full speed; and though occasionally caught sight of by the enemy, and exposed to a fire, not only of musketry but of round shot, they remained uninjured until two-thirds of the distance to Sant’Angelo, which Garibaldi believed to be still in possession of his troops, had been covered. Presently, however, they saw, but sixty or seventy yards away, a strong body of Neapolitans on the road.

“Turn off to the right!” Garibaldi shouted. As the carriage left the road a round shot struck one of the horses. Garibaldi and the other occupants at once jumped out, and shouting to the carriages behind to follow them, ran across the fields. Fortunately there was a deep watercourse close by; and the others, leaving their carriages, all ran down into this. The mist was too thick for the movement to be observed, and the Neapolitans kept up a heavy fire in the direction in which they had seen the carriages through the mist. As soon as they entered the watercourse Garibaldi told Frank and his companions to dismount, as, although the bank was high enough to conceal the men on foot, those on horseback could be seen above it. All ran along at the top of their speed. As they did so, Frank told his companions and the guides, if they came upon any force of the enemy, to throw themselves into their saddles again and charge, so as to give time to the general to turn off and escape.

They had gone but a few hundred yards when a party of the enemy, who were standing on the left bank of the watercourse, ran suddenly down into it. Frank and the others sprang into their saddles, and with a shout rode at them; there was a hurried discharge of musketry, and then they were in the midst of the Neapolitans. These were but some twenty in number. They had already emptied their muskets, but for a minute there was a hand-to-hand contest. The horsemen first used their revolvers with deadly effect, and then fell on with their swords so fiercely that the survivors of their opponents scrambled out of the watercourse and fled, just as Garibaldi and his staff ran up to take part in the conflict. It was well for the general that he had found the road to the village blocked, for, had he ridden straight on, he must have been captured by the enemy, who were already in full possession of it, with the exception of the abbey church and a few houses round it, and the slope of the hill.

Two of the mounted party were missing. One of the guides had fallen when the Neapolitans fired, and an officer had been killed by the thrust of a bayonet. One of Garibaldi’s party was also missing; but whether he had been killed by a chance shot or had fallen behind and been taken prisoner none knew. As they ascended the slope of the hill they got above the mist, and could now see what had happened. A part of the column that had broken through the line of outposts had pressed on some distance, and then moved to its left, until in the rear of Sant’Angelo, where its attack had taken the defenders wholly by surprise. The force had then mounted the hill, and from there opened fire upon the defenders of the abbey and the houses round it.

These were stoutly held. The houses were solidly-built structures in which resided the priests and servitors of the church, and the only road leading up from the village to it was swept by two twenty-four-pounders, while from the windows of the houses and from the roof of the abbey a steady musketry fire was maintained. Garibaldi ordered Frank to gallop to the pass, a short distance behind the village, where two companies of Genoese carbineers and two mountain howitzers were posted, and to direct them to mount the hill and take up a position on the heights above that occupied by the enemy. With a cheer the men ran forward as soon as they received the order. Ignorant of what was taking place in front, but certain from the roar of battle that it was raging round the village, they had been eager to advance to take part in the struggle; but their orders to hold the pass had been imperative, as their presence here was indispensable to cover the retreat of the Garibaldians in Sant’Angelo, and to check pursuit until reinforcements came up from the rear.