PORTALEGRE.
"You ask what's campaigning? As out the truth must,
'Tis a round of complaining, vexation, disgust,
Night marches and day, in pursuit of our foes,
Up hill or down dale, without prog or dry clothes;
And to add to our pleasure in every shape,
The French give us doses of round shot and grape."
_Military Panorama_, vol. ii.
On the evening of the 11th October, the armed guerillas who hovered
on the wooded mountains which look down on the rough old winding
Roman highway that leads from the dilapidated citadel of Crato to
Portalegre, saw the glitter of arms in the yellow sunshine, the
flashing of polished barrels and bright bayonets, and the waving of
uncased colours, amid the clouds of rolling dust that betoken the
march of troops; and ere long, the same picturesque gentry, in their
mantles, sombreros, and sheepskin zamarras, might have heard the
martial rattle of the British drum, and the shrill notes of the fife,
together with wilder strain of the Scottish bagpipe, echoing between
the green and fertile ranges of the sierra that there forms the
northern boundary of Alentejo, and the sides of which are clothed in
many places by groves of olive, laurel and orange trees; but from the
latter the golden fruit had long since been gathered, ere it was
quite ripe, to save it alike from the marauding soldiery of friend
and foe.
Covered with the dust of a march of twenty miles from the rustic
village of Gaviao, they were our old friends of the 25th, the
Highlanders, and Warriston's detachment, that were now approaching
the head-quarters of the division to which they were to be attached.
On this route from the Bay of Maciera, Quentin had undergone all the
misery of a soldier's life during the wet season in Portugal, where
the towns were then in ruins and desolate, the country utterly
destroyed, and where every one who was not in arms seemed to have
fled towards the coast, for, like the breath of a destroying angel,
the armies of France had passed over the entire length of the land
from Algarve to Galicia, laying all desolate in that wicked spirit of
waste which has been so peculiar to the French soldier in all ages.
Each day, in lieu of the old Scottish reveille welcoming the morning,
Quentin had heard the sharp note of the warning bugle, or of the
drummer beating hastily the _générale_, through the ruined streets of
Santarem, of Abrantes or elsewhere; through the equally silent lines
of tents when they encamped on the mountains, or the miserable
bivouac when they halted in some wild place where whilom maize or
Indian corn grew, summoning the drowsy and weary soldiers to their
ranks for the monotonous march of another day.
From the bare boards, the hard-tiled floor, or perhaps the cold
ground, whereon our volunteer had slept with his knapsack for a
pillow, he had been roused by the voices of the sergeant-major, or
Buckle the adjutant, shouting in the grey morning, "Fall in,
25th--stand to your arms--turn out the whole!" while the rain that
swept in sheet-like torrents along the desolate streets, and the gale
that tore in angry gusts among the ruined gables and shattered
windows, formed no pleasant prelude to a day's march that was to be
begun without other breakfast, perhaps, than a ration biscuit soaked
in the half-stale fluid that filled his wooden canteen.
In camp, the tents were made to hold twelve soldiers each; but some
of these were always on duty. All lay with their feet to the pole
and their heads to the wall or curtain. Each man's pack was his
pillow, and each slept, if he could, with a blanket half under and
half over him. The rain always sputtered and filtered through in
their faces, till the drenched canvas tightened, and the water was
carried off by a little circular trench.
Quentin shared Askerne's tent with his two subalterns.
So the night would pass, till the cry of "Rouse!" rang along the
lines, and the bugles sounded the assembly, when the blankets were
rolled up and strapped to the knapsacks; the wet tents were struck
and folded; the pegs and mallets replaced in their bags, and the
troops prepared to march in the grey morning haze, weary, wet, stiff
and sore, by reposing on the damp sod.
Quentin had always fancied a bivouac a species of military pic-nic,
minus the ladies, pink cream, and champagne; but on the first night
he lay in one, when the baggage guard was lagging in the rear and no
tents were pitched, as he was drenched in a soaking blanket under the
cold October wind that swept down the rocky sierra, he began to have
serious doubts whether man was really a warm-blooded animal.
"Ugh!" grumbled Monkton on this night, "who, with brains in his
head-piece, would become a soldier?"
"You remind me," said Askerne, as he shook the water for the
twentieth time from his bear-skin cap, "of a story I have heard of
Maitland, one of our early colonels who served on the staff of the
Duke of Marlborough. It was at Blenheim, I think, when he was riding
along the line accompanied by the colonel and another aide-de-camp,
whose head was suddenly shattered by a cannon shot from the Bavarian
artillery. Perceiving that Maitland looked long and fixedly at the
fallen man, Marlborough said angrily--
"'Colonel Maitland, what the devil are you wondering at?'
"'Simply, that how a man possessed of so much brains as our poor
friend, ever became a soldier,' replied Maitland, and the phlegmatic
victor of Blenheim and Ramilies smiled as he rode on."
Then the dinner during a halt on the march was not tempting, and the
cuisine was so decidedly bad that even Monkton could not joke about
it. The slices of beef fried in a camp-kettle lid, or broiled on an
old ramrod--beef that had never been _cold_ (the miserable ration
bullocks after being goaded in rear of the troops for miles by
muleteers and mounted guerillas, being shot, flayed and cut up the
moment the drum beat to prepare for dinner) was always tough as
india-rubber; while the soup which the soldiers tried to make with a
few handfuls of rice and the bones of the said bullocks, lacked only
the snails mentioned by Peregrine Pickle, to make it resemble the
famous black broth of the Spartans.
A little more of this common-place detail, and then we have done.
For all Quentin suffered, the novelty of treading a new soil and all
the varied scenery of Portugal could scarcely make amends; yet there
were times when he could not but view with interest and pleasure the
old arches and aqueducts, the stony skeletons of departed Rome, the
ruined amphitheatres and temples, especially that of Diana which
Quintus Sertorius built at Evora, while remains of baths and
cisterns, columns, capitals and cornices of marble and jasper lying
prostrate among the reeds and weeds in wild places, made him think of
Dominie Skaill and the rapture with which he would have lingered over
them. Then there were the beautiful vineyards, the verdant valleys
where the lemon and orange trees grew; the steep frowning sierras,
wild and barren, but majestic; the fertile plain overlooked by the
thirteen spires of Santarem; and the old Roman bridges, spanning
rivers that rushed in foam down the granite steeps to mingle with the
Tagus.
Little convents perched in solitudes where the French had failed to
penetrate, and where now the bells rang in welcome to the British;
tiny wayside chapels and holy wells, presided over by local saints;
wooden crosses and cairns that marked where some paisano or guerilla
had been shot by the French--green mounds that marked where the
French, butchered in their turn, had been buried without coffin or
shroud, all seemed to tell of the new and strange land he traversed.
Though stout and hardy, poor Quentin's powers of endurance were
sorely taxed. In his knapsack were all the necessaries of a
soldier--to wit, one pair of shoes and long gaiters of black cloth,
shirts, socks, and mitts; a forage cap, brushes, black-ball,
pipeclay, hair-ribbon, and leather. He had to carry a blanket and
great-coat, a canteen of wood for water, and a canvas havresack for
provisions was slung over the right shoulder; a pouch with sixty
rounds of ball cartridge was over the left; add to these his musket,
bayonet, belts, and grenadier cap, and the reader may believe that
the poor volunteer felt life a burden before he saw the hill and
spires of Portalegre.
Stiff, sore, and weary, on halting he was unable to remove his
trappings, or even to take off his cap without the assistance of his
servant; and he usually found himself all over livid marks, as if he
had been beaten about the back and shoulders with a stick. Not the
least of his discomforts was to march under the hot morning sun after
a night of rain, with two wet pipeclayed cross-belts smoking upon his
chest.
"Ah, if Flora Warrender or Lady Rohallion could see me now!" he would
think, when, at the close of each day's march, he lay breathless and
powerless on the floor of a billet, or the sod of a camp, or whatever
it might chance to be!
Use, however, becomes second nature, and after a time Quentin learned
to carry all his harness with ease, or ceased to feel it a burden.
"Châteaux en Espagne!" He was a skilful builder of such edifices,
and had often erected one of great comfort and magnificence for
himself; but he found a difficulty in dreaming of them while lying
under a drenched blanket, or in a tent on the sides of which the rain
was rushing like Rounceval peas, while he had only a knapsack for a
pillow, and Brown Bess for a bedfellow.
In the Highland regiments the gentlemen volunteers carried simply a
claymore and dirk; in other regiments generally a musket only; but
Cosmo was resolved to _grind_ Quentin to the utmost; thus he
compelled the poor lad to carry all the trappings of the stoutest
grenadier.
Rowland Askerne, who loved the lad for his unrepining temper, manly
spirit, and gentleness, and who, like the entire regiment, saw how
studiously the haughty colonel ignored his existence, was unremitting
in kindness to him; and Monkton never ceased to encourage him in his
own fashion.
"Well, well," he would say, "it's queer work just now, of course; but
some of these fine days you will receive a parchment from the king,
greeting you as his 'trusty and well-beloved,' appointing you ensign
to that company, whereof, I hope, Richard Monkton, Esquire, is
captain; so take courage, Kennedy, my boy!"
He strove to do so, but felt thankful with all his heart for the
prospect of a few days' halt, as the regiment approached the western
gate of Portalegre, where a captain's guard of Cazadores was under
arms as the Borderers marched in with bayonets fixed and colours
flying, their band playing General Leslie's march, "All the Blue
Bonnets are bound for the Border," since 1689 their invariable quick
step. And now its lively measure woke all the echoes of this
singularly picturesque old Portuguese town, which crowns the summit
of a hill, where its narrow, dark, and tortuous streets, with quaint
mansions overhanging the roadway, are surrounded by an old wall,
among the ruins of which may be traced the foundations of twelve
great towers, and a castle where, as the monks tell us, dwelt Lysias
the son of Bacchus!
The town was crowded by the regiments composing the division of Sir
John Hope; thus, the deserted convents, the two hospitals, and even
the episcopal palace, had all become temporary barracks; and now in
the stately chambers where the Bishops of Lisbon and the Counts of
Gaviao, of old the Lords of Portalegre, with their white-robed
prebends, or their steel-clad titulados, held their chapters and
courts, and where a hundred years before the period of our story,
Philip, Duke of Avignon, received the submission of the ancient city,
the rollicking Irishman sung "Garryowen" as he pipeclayed his belts
or polished his musket; the grave and stern Scottish sergeant daily
and nightly called the roll, and John Bull in his shirt sleeves or
shell jacket might be seen cooking his rations under a splendid
marble mantelpiece, which bore the bishop's mitre and the count's
coronet, with the knightly _paete gules_ of Christ, and the green
_fleur de lis_ of St. Avis, while the fuel was supplied by the cedar
wood of fine old cabinets, or gilded furniture that had survived the
sojourn of the Marshal Duke d'Abrantes and his suite in the same
place.
The grenadiers of the Borderers were all billeted in a narrow and
antique street, which was overshadowed by the vast façade of the
cathedral; and there, from the open lattices of their room (in a
house the proprietors of which were either dead or had fled) Askerne
and Quentin sat smoking cigars and enjoying some of the purple wine
of Oporto, from the cool, vaulted _bodega_ of a neighbouring
wine-house, and with their feet planted on a charcoal _brasero_, they
felt, on the evening after their arrival, for the first time, that
they were somewhat at home and could take their ease, with belts off
and coats unbuttoned. And so they sat and watched, almost in
silence, the swift-coming shadows of the October evening as they
deepened in the quaint vista of the old Portuguese street, where the
costumes were so striking and singular; the citizen who seemed to
have no lawful occupation but smoking, in his ragged mantle and broad
sombrero; a secular priest with his ample paunch and shovel-shaped
chapeau; a white-robed Carmelite or grey Franciscan, flitting,
ghostlike, amid the masses of red coats who lounged about the doors
and arcades, most of them smoking, and all chatting and laughing,
till the stars came out, when the bugles would sound tattoo, and when
all loiterers would have to turn in, save the quarter guards and
inlying picquet.
These were ordered to be of considerable strength, as a numerous band
of homeless and lawless Spanish and Portuguese guerillas, under a
runaway student of Salamanca, named Baltasar de Saldos, hovered among
the hills. This band was of somewhat dubious loyalty, as the members
of it, more than once, had scuffles with the British foraging
parties, and even fired on them--the alliance between this country
and Spain being so recent, that after the long and vexatious wars of
the preceding century, the people could not understand it.