FRESH DISASTERS.
"Oh, plenteous England! comfort's dwelling-place
Blest be thy well-fed, glossy, John-Bull face!
Blest be the land of Aldermanic paunches,
Rich turtle-soup, and glorious ven'son haunches!
Inoculated by mad martial ardour,
Why did I ever quit thy well-stored larder?
Why, fired with scarlet-fever, in ill time,
Come here to fight and starve in this accursed clime?"
On this march the army was in arrears of pay, so Quentin's remaining
moidores soon melted away, as he shared them, to the last vintin,
fraternally with his friends and comrades; but long ere the army
reached Lugo, he saw many a strange and startling episode of horror
and suffering.
Moore's troops continued to make forced marches to prevent the foe
from closing on their flanks, and now every day provisions grew
scarcer.
The skies were lowering, and heavy clouds rested on the tops of the
gloomy mountains; the rough, narrow, and wretched roads were
knee-deep in drifted snow; half-famished and half-frozen, the
soldiers became desperate, and, in defiance of Moore's orders,
plundered whatever they could get to satisfy the cravings of nature.
From Astorga to Villa Franca (in the mountain district called the
Bierzo--so lovely in summer), is a route of fully sixty English
miles, through wild and savage mountain tracts and passes, where the
horses failed, as their shoes were worn away; but though there were
plenty of iron-works near Villa Franca, there was no time to re-shoe
them, so every hour saw whole sections of our noble English horses
shot down, lest they should fall into the hands of the pursuing
enemy; and then the dismounted troopers had to trudge on foot, laden
with all their useless trappings.
One of the 3rd Light Dragoons of the German Legion, whose horse had
been shot according to the usage of war, was urged by Major Burgwesel
to go on faster.
"Herr Major," said he, "the game is pretty well played out with me,
and if you expect me to march quicker with all this load, you may as
well shoot me as you have done my poor horse."
"Himmel und Erde, get on, fellow!" shouted the major, with an angry
malediction.
On this, the exasperated dragoon placed a pistol to his mouth and
blew out his brains, to the horror of the stern major.
Now came rain in torrents, and even the baggage had to be dragged
through the melting snow, as the mules and burros perished in scores
by the way. Then the spare arms were abandoned and the extra
ammunition destroyed; next, knapsacks were cast away occasionally,
and everything that might serve to lighten the burden of the
despairing soldiers, many of whom were found frozen and dead in the
bodegas and cellars of Villa Franca by the French advanced guard.
A mile beyond this place, poor Ensign Pimple (as Monkton used to call
him) gave in, utterly incapable of proceeding further; weeping like a
child, in utter prostration, he sank in exhaustion by the wayside,
and no doubt perished during the night.
After passing Benvibre the French cavalry came up with the long line
of stragglers in the rear, and slashed among them right and left,
treading others under foot as they galloped through, and so stupefied
were some by fatigue and others by intoxication, that they could
neither resist nor seek safety in flight. Two thousand were taken
prisoners between Astorga and Lugo; a thousand more fled away towards
Portugal; many of these were concealed by the Spaniards, and few were
ever heard of again.
So on and on the army toiled from Villa Franca to Castro up the Monte
del Cebrero, a long and continued ascent, through one of the wildest
districts in Spain, where, in summer, woods of umbrageous oak, alder,
and hazel, with groves of wild pears, cherries, and mulberries, make
the landscape lovely; but now it was wild and desolate; and there, to
add to other misfortunes, the sick and wounded had to be abandoned
among the melting snow.
On the sloping road towards Castro-Gonzalo, Askerne found a poor
rifleman of the old 95th lying on his back, and blowing bells of
blood from his mouth; he had been riddled by canister shot, and all
his limbs were broken.
"Unfortunate fellow," said he, with commiseration: "what can I do for
you?"
"Have me shot, sir--shot dead, for the mercy of God!" was the
terrible reply.
"I looked round," says an officer in one of his letters, "when we had
hardly gained the highest point of those slippery precipices, and saw
the rear of the army winding along the narrow road--I saw the way
marked by the wretched people, who lay on all sides expiring from
fatigue and the severity of the cold; their bodies reddened in spots
the white surface of the ground."
There a Portuguese bullock driver who had been with the British since
the landing of the army, was seen dying amid the snow on his knees,
with his hands clasped in an attitude of prayer before a little
wooden crucifix, a consolation not left to the hundreds of our
soldiers, who were flinging themselves down in utter despair to die,
with curses and bitter imprecations on their lips--curses on the
Spaniards, who, they fancied, had betrayed them.
And there, too, were women and little children!
About nightfall, just as the grenadiers of the Borderers struggled up
the Monte del Cebrero through all the horrible débris that the
columns in front had left behind, they passed several of the sick and
artillery waggons, broken down or abandoned by the wayside. In these
were many soldiers' wives and sick men dead and frozen!
In one was a woman in labour dying, with her infant, amid the icy
drift; in another a woman already dead, with a wailing infant tugging
at her white cold breast. The little one was taken by good old
Sergeant-major Calder, who wrapped it in his great-coat, but it died
of cold ere the summit of the mountain was attained.
From one of those covered sick-waggons that lay broken down and
abandoned among the snow and sleet, there came the sound of a strange
wailing song sung by a woman. This prompted Quentin to leave the
ranks, which were somewhat irregular now, and peep in. There he
found a soldier of the 25th lying dead, and his wife, with their
child, sitting by his side, in misery. They formed a touching group!
She was evidently deranged by suffering, terror, and sorrow, and she
was a pretty young woman, too. She heard not the wailing of the
infant that nestled among the wet straw by her side, but sat with her
husband's head in her lap, and her hollow eyes fixed on vacancy, as
she toyed with his hair, and "crooned" a fragment of an old Scottish
song to a plaintive air, somewhat like that of "My Love's in
Germanie."
"They say my love is dead,
Gone to his gory bed,
They say my love is dead,
Ayont the sea.
In the stillness o' the night,
When the moon is shining bright,
My true-love's shroud sae white
Haunteth me,
Haunteth me!
My true love's shroud sae white
Haunteth me!"
"Good heavens, sir," said a soldier, "it is poor Allan Grange, the
sergeant who was broken at Colchester, and his wife, too! She's
clean demented, puir thing! Ailie, woman, come awa; the regiment is
moving on."
Quentin too, tried his powers of persuasion, but without avail, and
the stern order of Cosmo, to "Close up--close up, and move on--no
loitering!" together with the distant boom of a French field-piece,
the flash of which came redly through the drift and darkness,
compelled them to leave her. If she lived she must soon after have
fallen into the hands of the enemy. At all events, Ailie Grange was
heard of no more.
In one of the many skirmishes with the enemy's light dragoons, a
singular instance of gross treachery occurred at the little village
of Palacios de la Valduerna. There a sergeant of our 7th Hussars,
belonging to Captain Duckinfield's detachment, vanquished, in single
combat, a French dragoon and took him prisoner. The Frenchman threw
down his sword, drew off his leather gauntlet, and held out his hand
in token of amity. Then the sergeant, with the characteristic
generosity of a gallant Englishman, also put forth his right hand;
but inserting his left into his holster, the Frenchman drew a pistol,
blew his captor's wrist to pieces, and killed his horse under him.
Before the poor hussar could rise from under his fallen charger, the
would-be assassin was bayoneted by some of Romana's Spanish soldiers,
who in their rage and hatred, made up a fire and consumed his body to
ashes; after this, in blind vengeance, they somewhat needlessly slew
his horse.
At this part of the disastrous retreat nearly a hundred waggons that
were coming on, laden with shoes and clothes for Romana's Spaniards,
from England, but too late to be of any avail, fell into the hands of
the enemy.
As the column defiled past them, Quentin saw the body of an officer
lying dead under one of the wheels in a pool of blood, snow, and
mire. A vague recollection, combined with a horrible anxiety, made
him draw near to observe the corpse.
It was that of Warriston! his kind and generous friend, Captain
Richard Warriston, of the Scots Brigade; but "push on--push on," was
the order, and there was no time given for thought, examination, or
inquiry........
On, and on yet! and at last it was found necessary, at Nogales, to
abandon the military chest. Why its contents were not distributed
among the troops it is difficult to say, unless that time would have
been lost by the process of division. Two bullock-carts, laden with
twenty-five thousand pounds in dollars, were backed over a lofty
precipice, and fell crashing from the summit among the rocks and snow
beneath; and then as the waggons broke and the casks burst, the broad
silver dollars flew far and wide.
It was hoped that this money would escape the observation of the
French, and so fall into the hands of the Spaniards. Part was found
by the former, part by the Gallician peasantry, and a Highland
tradition tells us of a thrifty Scots paymaster who contrived to
conceal a cask or two under a certain cork-tree, where he found the
specie all safe when he went back to Spain for it, after Toulouse;
and that he bought therewith a snug little estate on the shore of the
Moray Firth.
At the very time that the bullock-carts with the treasure were cast
over the precipice, by some absurd mistake, Quentin's battalion, with
two pieces of cannon, were engaged with the enemy in order _to
protect it_!
Evening was coming on, and shimmering through the slanting sheet, a
cloud of French cavalry passed along the snowy and miry way, while
the two field guns were ploughing lanes of death through their ranks;
but still with brandished sabres and cries of "Vive la France! Vive
l'Empereur!" they came on thundering to the attack.
"Square against cavalry!" was now the cry; "square on the grenadiers!"
It was formed double-quick, and a smile of grim joy spread over every
sallow and weather-beaten face as the toil-worn and tattered regiment
made the movement, enclosing many of the wounded foes as well as
friends. The light company formed the rear face of the square.
Cosmo was undoubtedly brave, for a lofty expression of pride and
defiance spread over his features on beholding the rapidity with
which the square was formed. Jolly old Middleton drew off his gloves
and stuck them in his belt; he then flourished an enormous sabre, so
rusty and notched in the edge that it was known as "Jock Middleton's
hand-saw," saying--
"I like to use my tools, lads, without mittens; the cat that wore
gloves never caught mice."
The officers dressed the four faces as well as the shattered and
unequal state of the companies could form them now. Sending a last
discharge of grape plunging into the masses of the foe, the gunners
rushed for shelter behind the wall of bayonets, and now through the
gloom of evening, the wrack, mist, and smoke, on came the French
dragoons like rolling thunder!
As the ground was tolerably open the square was approached on three
faces.
Against one was a brigade of cuirassiers, their brass helmets with
scarlet plumes and brass corslets with elaborate shoulder-belts all
dimmed by rain; opposed to another was the Lancer Regiment of
Napoleon-Louis, the hereditary Duc de Berg, with white plumes and
kalpecks in their busbies; and on the third face came the Light
Dragoons of Ribeaupierre, in pale green lapelled with white and laced
with silver, their tricolors waving above a forest of flashing sabres.
Quentin felt his heart beating wildly as they came on. In the
square, every eye lit up, every brow was knit, and every lip
compressed; but not a shot was fired until the foe was within
pistol-range, when, from the faces of the square, there opened a
close and disastrous fire, first from the right to the left, and then
it became a wild roar of musketry, the men loading and firing as fast
as they could, while many a pistol and carbine-shot took effect in
their ranks, and Quentin was covered by the blood of a man who was
killed thus by his side.
Yells of death were mingled with shouts of rage and defiance, as
horse and man went down on every hand, the front squadrons swerving
or recoiling madly on the rear, thus making all advance impossible;
steeds reared, plunged, and neighed, their riders groaned, shrieked,
and swore; swords, helmets, shakos, and broken lances were seen
flying into the air, while lancers and cuirassiers, wounded and
dying, were crushed and trodden flat by hoofs and falling horses.
The whole cuirassier brigade became an undistinguishable mass of
confusion and indiscriminate slaughter; but not a horseman came
within sword's point of that steady and invincible square of infantry.
At that moment, when the firing slackened a little, the voice of the
Master of Rohallion was heard.
"Well done, my brave Borderers! kneeling ranks, fire a
volley--ready--present--_fire_!"
It rang like thunder in the winter air, and found a thousand echoes
among the mountains, and ere these died away the ruin of the foe was
complete. This was the first occasion on which Quentin had fired a
shot in grim earnest, and a thrill passed through his heart as he
pulled the trigger and sent a bullet on its errand, while ignorant of
its effect amid the smoke in front.
Ere the butts were again on the earth in their original position, and
the bristling bayonets were pointed upward, amid the smoke that
rolled around them like a murky curtain, the cavalry were seen in
full flight, leaving a terrible débris of death and bloodshed behind
them on the snow-clad mountain slope.
"The battalion will form quarter-distance column," cried Cosmo, as
coolly as if he was in Colchester again. Then he ordered the pouches
of the dead and wounded to be emptied, as ammunition was running
short. The field guns were then limbered up, and once more the weary
retreat was resumed with all speed.
Sergeant Ewen Donaldson, whose leg was shattered by a carbine-ball,
was here left behind, after some of the soldiers had made an effort
to drag him along with them.
"Push on, boys--push on, and never mind me," said the poor fellow;
"before morning I shall be gone to where I'm fast wearin' awa'--the
land o' the leal."
And this, too probably, was the case.
The tender and compassionate heart of Sir John Moore bled at the
misery he beheld hourly on this miserable retreat. He bitterly
deplored the relaxation of discipline consequent on it, and he never
ceased issuing orders, warm exhortations, cheering addresses, and
stirring appeals to honour and courage, to keep up the spirit of
those under his command; but despair and sullen apathy reigned in
many instances in officers and men alike, while the retreat lasted.
But, with all this, grand and touching instances of humanity were not
wanting to brighten the terrible picture.
An infantry officer, in despair of proceeding further, turned aside
into a thicket of trees, to lie down and die unseen and uncared for;
but there he found a soldier's wife stretched at the point of death,
and, with the last effort of expiring nature, she implored him to
receive and preserve her child. He did so, and endued with fresh
strength and energy by the trust, he carried the infant on his back,
and it never quitted his care till he reached one of the transports
in the bay of Vigo, after the battle of Corunna.*
* Edinburgh Annual Register.
At a place where the green coats of the 95th dotted the snow, showing
where a skirmish had been, Quentin assisted a rifleman to place one
of his comrades in a waggon that stood near.
"Tom--old fellow," said the sufferer, in a weak voice, for he was
dying with a bullet in his chest, and rustled fatuously among the
damp straw on which they placed him; "I say, Tom--we've long been
comrades."
"Yes, Bill," said the other, in a husky voice, "ever since
Copenhagen."
"Well, when I'm dead, I want you to do summut for me, and I'll give
you all I have in the world. My kit's wore out, ever so long ago,
but I've three biscuits in my havresack, and you're welcome to them;
give one to poor Pat Riley's widow."
"But wot am I to do for you, Bill?"
"Close my right eye, Tom; dont'ee forget; the cursed French knocked
t'other out at Vimiera."
"Yes, Bill--I was wounded that day, too."
Bill's eye was closed, and the snow and the sods were over him within
an hour after this, and close by Tom sat, munching his legacy, for he
was starving, with his fierce moist eyes fixed on the little mound
where his old comrade lay.