and, if I remember right, they were also at Busaco; the naval captain,
(the present admiral of that name,) was there as an amateur, and
unfortunately caught it on a spot where he had the last wish to be
distinguished, for, accustomed to face broadsides on his native
element, he had no idea of taking in a ball in any other direction than
from the front, but on shore we were obliged to take them just as they
came!
This severe harassing action closed only with the day-light, and left
the French army wedged in the formidable pass of Miranda de Corvo.
They seemed so well in hand that some doubt was entertained whether
they did not intend to burst forth upon us; but, as the night closed
in, the masses were seen to melt, and at day-light next morning they
were invisible.
I had been on picquet that night in a burning village, and the first
intimation we had of their departure was by three Portuguese boys,
who had been in the service of French officers, and who took the
opportunity of the enemy's night march to make their escape--they
seemed well fed, well dressed, and got immediate employment in our
camp, and they proved themselves very faithful to their new masters.
One of them continued as a servant to an officer for many years after
the peace.
In the course of the morning we passed the brigade of General
Nightingale, composed of Highlanders, if I remember right, who had made
a flank movement to get a slice at the enemy's rear guard; but he had
arrived at the critical pass a little too late.
In the afternoon we closed up to the enemy at Foz d'Aronce, and, after
passing an hour in feeling for their different posts, we began to squat
ourselves down for the night on the top of a bleak hill, but soon
found that we had other fish to fry. Lord Wellington, having a prime
nose for smelling out an enemy's blunder, no sooner came up than he
discovered that Ney had left himself on the wrong side of the river,
and immediately poured down upon him with our division, Picton's, and
Pack's Portuguese, and, after a sharp action, which did not cease until
after dark, we drove him across the river with great loss.
I have often lamented in the course of the war that battalion officers,
on occasions of that kind, were never entrusted with a peep behind
the curtain. Had we been told before we advanced that there was but a
single division in our front, with a river close behind them, we would
have hunted them to death, and scarcely a man could have escaped; but,
as it was, their greatest loss was occasioned by their own fears and
precipitancy in taking to the river at unfordable places--for we were
alike ignorant of the river, the localities, or the object of the
attack; so that when we carried the position, and exerted ourselves
like prudent officers to hold our men in hand, we were, from want of
information, defeating the very object which had been intended, that
of hunting them on to the finale.
When there is no object in view beyond the simple breaking of the
heads of those opposed to us, there requires no speechification; but,
on all occasions, like the one related, it ought never to be lost
sight of--it is easily done--it never, by any possibility, can prove
disadvantageous, and I have seen many instances in which the advantages
would have been incalculable. I shall mention as one--that three days
after the battle of Vittoria, in following up the retreating foe,
we found ourselves in a wood, engaged in a warm skirmish, which we
concluded was occasioned by our pushing the enemy's rear guard faster
than they found it convenient to travel; but, by and bye, when they had
disappeared, we found that we were near the junction of two roads, and
that we had all the while been close in, and engaged with the flank of
another French division, which was retiring by a road running parallel
with our own. The road (and that there was a retiring force upon it)
must, or ought to have been known to some of our staff officers, and
had they only communicated their information, there was nothing to have
prevented our dashing through their line of march, and there is little
doubt, too, but the thousands which passed us, while we stood there
exchanging shots with them, would have fallen into our hands.
The day after the action at Foz d'Aronce was devoted to repose, of
which we stood much in want, for we had been marching and fighting
incessantly from day-light until dark for several consecutive days,
without being superabundantly provisioned; and our jackets, which had
been tolerably tight fits at starting, were now beginning to sit as
gracefully as sacks upon us. When wounds were abundant, however, we did
not consider it a disadvantage to be low in flesh, for the poorer the
subject the better the patient!
A smooth ball or a well polished sword will slip through one of your
transparent gentlemen so gently that be scarcely feels it, and the
holes close again of their own accord. But see the smash it makes
in one of your turtle or turkey fed ones! the hospital is ruined in
finding materials to reduce his inflammations, and it is ten to one if
ever he comes to the scratch again.
On descending to the river side next morning to trace the effects
of the preceding night's combat, we were horrified and disgusted by
the sight of a group of at least five hundred donkeys standing there
ham-strung. The poor creatures looked us piteously in the face, as much
as to say, "Are you not ashamed to call yourselves human beings?" And
truly we were ashamed to think that even our enemy could be capable of
such refinement in cruelty. I fancy the truth was, they were unable
to get them over the river, they had not time to put them to death,
and, at the same time, they were resolved that we should not have the
benefit of their services. Be that as it may, so disgusted and savage
were our soldiers at the sight, that the poor donkeys would have
been amply revenged, had fate, at that moment, placed five hundred
Frenchmen in our hands, for I am confident that every one of them would
have undergone the same operation.
The French having withdrawn from our front on the 16th, we crossed the
Ciera, at dawn of day, on the 17th; the fords were still so deep, that,
as an officer with an empty haversack on my back, it was as much as I
could do to flounder across it without swimming. The soldiers ballasted
with their knapsacks, and the sixty rounds of ball cartridge were of
course in better fording trim. We halted that night in a grove of cork
trees, about half a league short of the Alva.
Next morning we were again in motion, and found the enemy's rear-guard
strongly posted on the opposite bank of that river.
The Alva was wide, deep, and rapid, and the French had destroyed the
bridge of Murcella, and also the one near Pombeira. Nevertheless,
we opened a thundering cannonade on those in our front, while Lord
Wellington, having, with extraordinary perseverance, succeeded
in throwing three of his divisions over it higher up, threatening
their line of retreat--it obliged those opposed to us to retire
precipitately, when our staff corps, with wonderful celerity, having
contrived to throw a temporary bridge over the river, we passed in
pursuit and followed until dark; we did not get another look at them
that day, and bivouacked for the night in a grove of pines, on some
swampy high lands, by the road side, without baggage, cloaks, or
eatables of any kind.
Who has not passed down Blackfriars-road of an evening? and who has not
seen, in the vicinity of Rowland Hill's chapel, at least half a dozen
gentlemen presiding each over his highly polished tin case, surmounted
by variegated lamps, and singing out that most enchanting of all
earthly melodies to an empty stomach, that has got a sixpence in its
clothly casement, "hot, all hot!" The whole concern is not above the
size of a drum, and, in place of dealing in its empty sounds, rejoices
in mutton-pies, beef-steaks, and kidney-puddings, "hot, all hot!" If
the gentlemen had but followed us to the wars, how they would have been
worshipped in such a night, even without their lamps.
In these days of invention, when every suggestion for ameliorating
the condition of the soldier is thankfully received, I, as one, who
have suffered severely by outward thawings and inward gnawings, beg to
found my claim to the gratitude of posterity, by proposing that, when a
regiment is ordered on active service, the drummers shall deposit their
sheep-skins and their cat-o'-nine tails in the regimental store-room,
leaving one cat only in the keeping of the drum major. And in lieu
thereof that each drummer be armed with a _tin drum_ full of "hot, all
hot!" and that whenever the quarter-master fails to find the _cold_,
the odd cat in the keeping of the drum-major shall be called upon to
remind him of his duty.
If the simple utterance of the three magical monosyllables already
mentioned did not rally a regiment more rapidly round the given point
than a tempest of drums and trumpets, I should be astonished, and as we
fought tolerably well on empty stomachs, I should like to see what we
would not do on kidney puddings, "hot, all hot!"
On the 19th we were again in motion at day-light, and both on that day
and the next, although we did not come into actual contact with the
enemy, we picked up a good many stragglers. We were obliged, however,
to come to a halt for several days from downright want, for the country
was a desert, and we had out-marched our supplies. Until they came
up, therefore, we remained two days in one village, and kept creeping
slowly along the foot of the Sierra, until our commissariat was
sufficiently re-inforced to enable us to make another dash.
I was amused at that time, in marching through those towns and
villages which had been the head-quarters of the French army, to
observe the falling off in their respect to the Marquess d'Alorna,
a Portuguese nobleman, who had espoused their cause, and who, during
Massena's advance, had been treated like a prince among them. On
their retreat, however, it was easily seen that he was considered
an incumbrance. Their names were always chalked on the doors of the
houses they occupied, and we remarked that the one allotted to the
unfortunate marquis grew gradually worse as we approached the frontier,
and I remember that in the last village before we came to Celerico,
containing about fifty houses, only a cow's share of the buildings had
fallen to his lot.
We halted one day at Mello, and seeing a handsome-looking new church on
the other side of the Mondego, I strolled over in the afternoon to look
at it. It had all the appearance of having been magnificently adorned
in the interior, but the French had left the usual traces of their
barbarous and bloody visit. The doors were standing wide open, the
valuable paintings destroyed, the statues thrown down, and mixed with
them on the floor, lay the bodies of six or seven murdered Portuguese
peasants. It was a cruel and a horrible sight, and yet in the midst
thereof was I tempted to commit a most sacrilegious act, for round
the neck of a prostrate marble female image, I saw a bone necklace of
rare and curious workmanship, the only thing that seemed to have been
saved from the general wreck, which I very coolly transferred to my
pocket and in due time to my portmanteau. But a day of retribution was
at hand, for both the portmanteau and the necklace went from me like a
tale that is told, and I saw them no more.
It was the 28th before we again came in contact with the enemy at the
village of Frexadas. Two companies of ours and some dragoons were
detached to dislodge them, which they effected in gallant style,
sending them off in confusion and taking a number of prisoners; but the
advantage was dearly purchased by the death of our adjutant, Lieutenant
Stewart. He imprudently rode into the main street of the village,
followed by a few riflemen, before the French had had time to withdraw
from it, and was shot from a window.
One would imagine that there is not much sense wrapped up in an ounce
of lead, and yet it invariably selects our best and our bravest, (no
great compliment to myself by the way, considering the quantity of
those particles that must have passed within a yard of my body at
different times, leaving all standing.) Its present victim was a public
loss, for he was a shrewd, active, and intelligent officer; a gallant
soldier, and a safe, jovial, and honourable companion.
I was not one of the party engaged on that occasion, but with many of
my brother officers, watched their proceedings with my spy-glass from
the church-yard of Alverca. Our rejoicings on the flight of the enemy
were quickly turned into mourning by observing in the procession of our
returning victorious party, the gallant adjutant's well-known bay horse
with a dead body laid across the saddle. We at first indulged in the
hope that he had given it to the use of some more humble comrade; but
long ere they reached the village we became satisfied that the horse
was the bearer of the inanimate remains of his unfortunate master, who
but an hour before had left us in all the vigour of health, hope, and
manhood. At dawn of day on the following morning the officers composing
the advanced guard, dragoons, artillery, and riflemen, were seen
voluntarily assembled in front of Sir Sidney Beckwith's quarters, and
the body, placed in a wooden chest, was brought out and buried there
amid the deep but silent grief of the spectators.
Brief, however, is the space which can be allotted to military
lamentations in such times, for within a quarter of an hour we were
again on the move in battle array, to seek laurels or death in another
field.
Our movement that morning was upon Guarda, the highest standing town
in Portugal, which is no joke, as they are rather exalted in their
architectural notions--particularly in convent-building--and were even
a thunder-charged cloud imprudent enough to hover for a week within
a league of their highest land, I verily believe that it would get so
saddled with monks, nuns, and their accompanying iron bars, that it
would be ultimately unable to make its escape.
Our movement, as already said, was upon Guarda, and how it happened,
the Lord and Wellington only knows, but even in that wild mountainous
region the whole British army arriving from all points of the compass
were seen to assemble there at the same instant, and the whole French
army were to be seen at the same time in rapid retreat within gun-shot
through the valley below us.
There must have been some screws loose among our minor departments,
otherwise such a brilliant movement on the part of our chief would not
have gone for nothing. But notwithstanding that the enemy's masses were
struggling through a narrow defile for a considerable time, and our
cavalry and horse artillery were launched against them, three hundred
prisoners were the sole fruits of the day's work.
CHAP. VII.
The persecution of the guardian of two angels. A Caçadore and
his mounted followers. A chief of hussars in his trousers.
A chief of rifles in his glory, and a sub of ditto with two
screws in the neck.
In one of the first chapters of this book I not only pledged my
constancy to my fair readers, but vowed to renew my addresses from
time to time as opportunities offered. As my feet, however, have since
trodden from one extremity of a kingdom to the other, and many months
have, in the meanwhile, rolled away without giving me an opportunity
of redeeming the pledge, I fear that my fidelity might be doubted
if I delayed longer in assuring them that the spirit has all along
been willing, but the subject fearfully wanting; for wherever I have
wandered the angel of death has gone before, and carefully swept from
the female countenance all lines of beauty, leaving nothing for the eye
to dwell on but the hideous ruins of distress.
The only exceptions were our fellow travellers, for the country on
our line of march, as already said, was reduced to a desert, and no
one remained in it who had either wealth or strength to remove, and
our regimental wife had deserted, but our gallant associates, the
43d and 52d regiments, had one each, who had embarked with them, and
remained true to the brigade until the end of the war. One of them was
remarkably pretty, and it did one's heart good to see the everlasting
sweets that hung upon her lovely countenance, assuring us that our
recollections of the past were not ideal, which they would otherwise
have been apt to revolve themselves into from the utter disappearance
of reality for so long a period.
The only addition to them which our division could boast, were two
smart substantial looking Portuguese angels, who followed our two
Caçadore regiments, and rode on mule-back under the especial protection
of their regimental chaplain. These two were a continual source of
amusement to us on the march whenever we found ourselves at liberty
to indulge in it. The worthy father himself was quite a lady's man,
(Portuguese,) he was a short stout old fellow, with a snuff-coloured
coat buttoned up to the throat, which was quite unnecessary with him,
seeing that he shaved and put on a clean shirt sometimes as often as
once a fortnight. The round mealy-faced ball which he wore as a head
was surmounted by a tall cocked hat, and when mounted on his bay pony
in his Portuguese saddle, which is boarded up like a bucket, (the shape
of his seat and thighs,) he was exactly like some of the cuts I have
seen of Hudibras starting on his erratic expedition.
It was our daily amusement whenever we could steal away from our
regiment a short time, for two or three of us to start with some
design against the Padré and his dark-eyed wards. One of us would ride
quietly up alongside of him and another on that of the ladies as if we
wished to pass, but in wishing them the compliments of the season we of
course contrived to get ourselves entangled in conversation, while a
third officer of our party rode some distance in the rear in readiness
to take advantage of circumstances.
The Padré was a good-natured old fellow, fond of spinning a yarn, and
as soon as one of us had got him fairly embarked in his story, the
other began gradually to detach one or both of the damsels from his
side, according as the inequalities of the road favoured the movement.
They entered into the frolic merrily, but still he was so much alive
that we rarely succeeded in stealing one out of sight; but if we did
by any accident, it was a grand scene to see the scramble which he and
his pony made after the fugitives, and on recovering the one, his rage
on his return to find that the other had also disappeared. After one of
these successful expeditions we found it prudent never to renew the
attack until his wrath was assuaged, and it never abode with him long,
so that week after week and year after year we continued to renew the
experiment with various success.
It is amusing to think to what absurdities people will have recourse
by way of amusement when subjects for it are scarce. It was long
a favourite one with us to hunt a Caçadore as we called it. Their
officers as well as our own were always mounted, and when their corps
happened to be marching in our front, any officer who stopped behind,
(which they frequently had occasion to do,) invariably, in returning
to rejoin his regiment, passed ours at a full gallop; and on those
occasions he had no sooner passed our first company than the officers
of it were hard at his heels, the others following in succession as
he cleared them, so that by the time he had reached the head of the
regiment the whole of our officers had been in full chace. We never
carried the joke too far, but made it a point of etiquette to stop
short of our commanding officer, (who was not supposed to see what was
going on,) and then fell quietly back to our respective places.
I have often seen the hunted devil look round in astonishment, but I
do not think he ever saw the wit of the thing, and for that matter I
don't know that my readers will feel that they are much wiser, but
it was nevertheless amusing to us; and not without its use, for the
soldiers enjoyed the joke, which, though trifling, helped to keep up
that larking spirit among them, which contributed so much towards
the superiority and the glory of our arms. In times of hardship and
privation the officer cannot be too much alive to the seizing of every
opportunity, no matter how ridiculous, if it serves to beguile the
soldier of his cares.
On the 1st of April we again closed up with the enemy on the banks of
the Coa, near Sabugal. It was a wet muggy afternoon near dusk when we
arrived at our ground, and I was sent, with the company which I had
charge of, on picquet to cover the left front of our position.
The enemy held an opposite post on our side of the river, and I was
ordered if they were civil to me not to interfere with them, but in the
event of the reverse, to turn them over to their own side. My stomach
was more bent upon eating than fighting that evening, and I was glad
to find that they proved to be _gentlemen_, and allowed me to post my
sentries as close as I pleased without interruption.
I found one of our German hussar videttes on a rising ground near me,
and received an order from my brigadier to keep him there until he
was relieved, and I accordingly placed a rifleman alongside of him
for his better security, but after keeping him an hour or two in the
dark and no relief appearing, I was forced to let him go or to share
my slender allowance with him, for the poor fellow (as well as his
horse) was starving. I have seen the day, however, that I would rather
have dispensed with my dinner (however sharp set) than the services
of one of those thorough-bred soldiers, for they were as singularly
intelligent and useful on outpost duty, as they were effective and
daring in the field.
The first regiment of hussars were associated with our division
throughout the war and were deserved favourites. In starting from a
swampy couch and bowling along the road long ere dawn of day, it was
one of the romances of a soldier's life to hear them chanting their
national war songs--some three or four voices leading and the whole
squadron joining in the chorus. As I have already said, they were no
less daring in the field than they were surpassingly good on out-post
duty. The hussar was at all times identified with his horse, he shared
his bed and his board, and their movements were always regulated by the
importance of their mission. If we saw a British dragoon at any time
approaching in full speed, it excited no great curiosity among us, but
whenever we saw one of the first hussars coming on at a gallop it was
high time to gird on our swords and bundle up.
Their chief, too, was a perfect soldier, and worthy of being the leader
of such a band, for he was to them what the gallant Beckwith was to
us--a father, as well as a leader.
He was one who never could be caught napping. They tell a good
anecdote of him after the battle of Toulouse, when the news arrived
of the capture of Paris and Bonaparte's abdication. A staff officer
was sent to his outpost quarter to apprise him of the cessation of
hostilities--it was late when the officer arrived, and after hearing
the news, the colonel proceeded to turn into bed as usual, "all
standing," when the officer remarked with some surprise, "Why, colonel,
you surely don't mean to sleep in your clothes to-night, when you know
there is an armistice?"
"Air mistress or no air mistress," replied the veteran, "by Got I
sleeps in my breeches!"
We remained another day in front of Sabugal, and as it was known
that Reynier held that post with his single corps unsupported, Lord
Wellington resolved to punish him for his temerity.
The day dawned on the morning of the 3d of April, however, rather
inauspiciously. Aurora did not throw off her night-cap at the usual
hour, and when she could no longer delay the ceremony she shed such
an abundance of dewy tears that Sabugal, with its steel-clad heights,
remained invisible to the naked eye at the distance of a few hundred
yards, which interfered materially with that punctuality in the
combined movements so necessary to ensure the complete success of our
enterprize. Leaving, therefore, to those concerned to account for their
delays, my object in renewing this battle is to pay a last tribute to
the memory of Sir Sidney Beckwith, the hero of that day.
He, as he had been directed, moved his brigade to a ford of the Coa,
and was there waiting further orders, when a staff officer rode up, and
hastily demanded why he had not attacked?