Passage Illustrated: A Sudden Reversal

By this time the scene around me was sufficiently ludicrous. Such of the Guerillas as had not been thrown by force from their saddles, had slid peaceably down, and depositing their arms upon the ground, dropped upon their knees in a semicircle around us, and amidst the hoarse laughter of the troopers, and the irrepressible merriment of the Frenchmen, rose up the muttered prayers of the miserable Spaniards, who believed that now their last hour was come.

“Madre de Dios, indeed!” cried Mike, imitating the tone of a repentant old sinner in a patched mantle; “it’s much the blessed Virgin thinks of the like o’ ye, thieves and rogues as ye are; it a’most puts me beyond my senses to see ye there crossing yourselves like rale Christians.”

If I could not help indulging myself in this retributive cruelty towards the chief, and leaving him to the tender mercies of Mike, I ordered the others to rise and form in line before me. Affecting to occupy myself entirely with them, I withdrew the attention of all from the French officers, who remained quiet spectators of the scene around them. [Chapter XCIII, "A Night on the Azava," pp. 479-480]

Commentary: O'Malley's camaraderie with the Enemy

Wandering near where his reconnaissance unit is bivouacked in the woods, O'Malley literally stumbles upon a small party of French encamped on the Azava River. At first, they try to take him prisoner, but, pulling his pistol, he calls their bluff. He then joins them in a bottle of champagne chilled in the river as he listens to their songs and reminiscences. Suddenly a group of carbine-wielding Spanish guerillas bursts upon group, and refuses to accept O'Malley's assurance that the French are prisoners of war. Undeterred, the leader of the Spanish irregulars threatens to carve up the British officer and his trio of prisoners until O'Malley summons his dragoons with a loud, shrill whistle. As Phiz's title states, the tables are now turned, the captors are now captives, and O'Malley has at his mercy the rather disreputable guerillas who had threatened moments before to carve him up as a spy.

In Phiz's illustration, O'Malley speaks to the Spanish prisoners, kneeling on the ground as the detachment of Fourteenth Dragoons, on horseback, surveys the scene from the rear. Beside O'Malley stands the jovial French commander, a Captain in the Imperial Guard of the Sixty-ninth and veteran of many campaigns in Italy and Austria, with his two companions. The picture underscores Captain O'Malley's linguistic facility as he converses with to the Guerillas in Spanish, but the French trio (whom he is about to release) en française. This is the first significant moment in the narrative which casts French soldiers in a positive light after so many scenes of French military depredation of the Portuguese countryside and villages. To the right, Mickey Free holds a pistol to the head of the guerillas' leader whom he has just felled: Mickey had ridden at their chief "with the force of a catapult. Down went the Spaniard, horse and all, and, before he could disentangle himself, Mike was upon him, his knee pressed upon his neck" (479).

Necessary Background

• Charles Lever's Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon (1840-41)

Bibliography

Lever, Charles. Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. Published serially in The Dublin University Magazine from Vol. XV (March 1840) through XVIII (December 1841). Dublin: William Curry, March 1840 through December 1841, 2 vols. London: Samuel Holdsworth, 1840; rpt., Chapman and Hall, 1873.

Lever, Charles. Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. Vol. I and II. In two volumes. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: 2 September 2016.

Steig, Michael. Chapter Two: "The Beginnings of 'Phiz': Pickwick, Nickleby, and the Emergence from Caricature." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 24-50.

Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter V, "Renegade from Physic, 1839-1841." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. Pp. 73-93.

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Created 26 March 2023