a commander is in doubt he never can do wrong in placing himself
alongside of the enemy. We instantly uncorked our muzzle-stoppers, off
with our lock-caps, and our four companies of riflemen, led through
the river, (which was deep and rapid,) followed by the 43d, driving in
the enemy's picquet which defended it. The officer commanding, left his
sky-blue cloak fluttering in the breeze on the top of a furze bush,
and I felt a monstrous inclination to transfer it to my own shoulders,
for it was an article of which I happened, at that moment, to be in
especial want; but as it was the beginning of a battle in place of the
end of one, and I had an insurmountable objection to fight under false
colours, I passed it by.
As soon as we gained the summit of the hill it became as clear as
the mist that we were regularly in for it. Beckwith, finding himself
alone and unsupported, in close action, with only hundreds to oppose
to the enemy's thousands, at once saw and felt all the danger of his
situation; but he was just the man to grapple with any odds, being
in his single person a host--of a tall commanding figure and noble
countenance, with a soul equal to his appearance--he was as Napier
says, "a man equal to rally an army in flight."
Our four companies had led up in skirmishing order, driving in the
enemy's light troops; but the summit was defended by a strong compact
body, against which we could make no head; but opening out, and
allowing the 43d to advance, they, with a tearing volley and a charge,
sent the enemy rolling into the valley below, when the rifles again
went to work in front, sticking to them like leeches.
The hill we had just gained became our rally-post for the remainder of
the day, and, notwithstanding the odds on the side of the enemy, they
were never able to wrest it from us. Our force was as well handled as
theirs was badly, so that in the successive and desperate encounters
which took place, both in advance and in retreat, we were as often to
be seen in their position as they were in ours.
Beckwith himself was the life and soul of the fray; he had been the
successful leader of those who were then around him in many a bloody
field, and his calm, clear, commanding voice was distinctly heard amid
the roar of battle, and cheerfully obeyed. He had but single companies
to oppose to the enemy's battalions; but, strange as it may appear, I
saw him twice lead successful charges with but two companies of the
43d, against an advancing mass of the enemy. His front, it is true, was
equal to theirs, and such was his daring, and such the confidence which
these hardy soldiers had in him, that they went as fiercely to work
single-handed as if the whole army had been at their heels.
Beckwith's manner of command on those occasions was nothing more than
a familiar sort of conversation with the soldier. To give an idea of
it I may as well mention that in the last charge I saw him make with
two companies of the 43d, he found himself at once opposed to a fresh
column in front, and others advancing on both flanks, and, seeing the
necessity for immediate retreat, he called out, "Now, my lads, we'll
just go back a little if you please." On hearing which every man began
to run, when he shouted again, "No, no, I don't mean that--we are in no
hurry--we'll just walk quietly back, and you can give them a shot as
you go along." This was quite enough, and was obeyed to the letter--the
retiring force keeping up a destructive fire, and regulating their
movements by his, as he rode quietly back in the midst of them,
conversing aloud in a cheerful encouraging manner--his eye all the
while intently watching the enemy to take advantage of circumstances.
A musket-ball had, in the meantime, shaved his forehead, and the blood
was streaming down his countenance, which added not a little to the
exciting interest of his appearance. As soon as we had got a little way
up the face of our hill, he called out, "Now, my men, this will do--let
us shew them our teeth again!" This was obeyed as steadily as if the
words halt, front, had been given on parade, and our line was instantly
in battle array, while Beckwith, shaking his fist in the faces of the
advancing foe, called out to them, "Now, you rascals, come on here if
you dare!" Those he addressed shewed no want of courage, but, for a
while, came boldly on to the tune of _old trousers_,[C] notwithstanding
the fearful havoc we were making in their ranks; but they could not
screw themselves up the long disputed hill--the 52d (two battalions)
had, by this time, come into the line of battle, and were plying them
hard on the right, while our rifles were peppering them on their front
and left, and, as soon as they came near enough, another dash by
Beckwith, at the head of the 43d, gave them the _coup de grace_. The
fate of the day was now decided--the net which had been wove in the
morning, and which the state of the weather had prevented being brought
to a crisis as soon as was intended, now began to tighten around
them--the 5th division crossed by the bridge of Sabugal, and the 3d,
(I believe,) by a ford to the right--and Reynier, seeing no hopes of
salvation but by immediate flight, very speedily betook himself to it,
and, I believe, saved all that did not fall on the field of battle--a
piece of good fortune of which his conduct that day shewed him
undeserving, for, had not the extraordinary state of the weather caused
the delays and mistakes which took place on our side, he could scarcely
have taken a man out of the field.
[C] _Old trousers_ was a name given by our soldiers to the
point of war which is beat by the French drummers in
advancing to the charge. I have, when skirmishing in
a wood, and a French regiment coming up to the relief
of the opposing skirmishers, often heard the drum
long before we saw them, and, on those occasions, our
riflemen immediately began calling to each other, from
behind the different bushes, "Holloa there! look sharp!
for damn me, but here comes old trousers!"
While standing in our last position, awaiting the attack in our front,
I was much amused in observing, on the opposite height, the approach
of our 3d division, unnoticed by the enemy--a French column occupied
the top of what seemed to be almost a precipice overlooking the river;
but I observed some of the 60th rifles clambering up the face of it on
all fours, and, to see their astonishment, when they poked their heads
over the brink, to find themselves within a couple of yards of a French
column! They, of course, immediately concealed themselves under the
bank; but it was curious to observe that they were unseen by the enemy,
who were imprudent enough either to consider themselves secure on that
side, or to give all their attention to the fight going on between
their comrades and us; but certain it is they allowed the riflemen to
gather there in formidable numbers. As we advanced immediately, the
intervening rising ground prevented my seeing what took place, but on
crowning the opposite height, which the French had just evacuated,
we found, by the bodies on the ground, that they had just received a
volley from a part of the third division--and one of the most deadly
which had been fired that day.
Our cavalry had been astray during the fight, but they afterwards made
two or three ineffectual attempts to break in upon the enemy's line of
retreat.
Immediately after the action, we drew up behind an old cow-shed, which
Lord Wellington occupied for a short time, while it poured torrents of
rain. Sir William Erskine, with some of his horsemen, joined us there,
and I heard him say to the commander-in-chief that he claimed no merit
for the victory, as it belonged alone to Sidney Beckwith! I believe his
lordship wanted no conjurer to tell him so, and did ample justice to
the combatants, by stating in his dispatch that "this was one of the
most glorious actions that British troops were ever engaged in."
To those accustomed to the vicissitudes of warfare it is no less
curious to remark the many miraculous escapes from wounds than the
recovery from them. As an instance of the former, I may observe, that,
in the course of the action just related, I was addressing a passing
remark to an officer near me, who, in turning round to answer, raised
his right foot, and I observed a grape shot tear up the print which it
had but that instant left in the mud. As an instance of the latter I
shall here relate, (though rather misplaced,) that, at the storming of
Badajos, in April, 1812, one of our officers got a musket-ball in the
right ear, which came out at the back of the neck, and, though after
a painful illness, he recovered, yet his head got a twist, and he was
compelled to wear it, looking over the right shoulder. At the battle of
Waterloo, in 1815, (having been upwards of three years with his neck
awry,) he received a shot in the left ear, which came out within half
an inch of his former wound in the back of the neck, and it set his
head straight again!
This is an anecdote which I should scarcely have dared to relate were
it not that, independent of my personal knowledge of the facts, the
hero of it still lives to speak for himself, residing on his property,
in Nottinghamshire, alike honoured and respected as a civilian, as he
was loved and esteemed as a gentleman and a gallant soldier.[D]
[D] Lieutenant Worsley.
After the action at Sabugal our brigade was placed under cover in the
town, and a wild night it proved--the lightning flashed--the winds
howled--and the rains rained. The house occupied by my brother sub and
myself was a two-story one, and floored after the manner of some of
our modern piers, with the boards six inches apart, and transferrable,
if necessary, to a wider range, without the trouble of extracting or
unscrewing nails.
The upper floor, as the most honoured portion, was assigned to us,
while the first was reserved for the accommodation of some ten or a
dozen well-starved inmates.
We had scarcely proceeded to dry our clothes, and to masticate the few
remaining crumbs of biscuit, when we received a deputation from the
lower regions, craving permission to join the mess; but, excepting the
scrapings of our haversacks, we had literally nothing for ourselves,
and were forced to turn a deaf ear to their entreaties, for there was
no making them believe we were as destitute as we seemed. It was one
of those cruel scenes to which the seats of war alone can furnish
parallels, for their wan and wasted countenances shewed that they were
wildly in want.
The following day saw Portugal cleared of its invaders, and the British
standard once more unfurled within the Spanish boundary.
The French army retired behind the Agueda, and our division took
possession of a portion of its former quarters, Fuentes d'Onoro,
Gallegos, and Espeja. There we enjoyed a few days repose, of which we
stood in much need, it having been exactly a month since we broke up in
front of Santarem, and, as the foregoing pages shew, it was not spent
in idleness.
CHAP. VIII.
National Characters. Adventures of a pair of leather Breeches.
Ditto of a pound of Beef. Shewing what the French General did
not do, and a Prayer which he did not pray; with a few random
Shots.
Fuentes, which was our first resting place, was a very handsome
village, and every family so well known to the light division, that no
matter into which quarter the billet fell, the individual was received
as an old and approved friend.
The change from Portugal into Spain, as alluded to in my first work,
was very striking. In the former the monkish cowl seemed even on
ordinary occasions to be drawn over the face of nature; for though
their sun was a heavenly one, it shone over a dark and bigotted race;
and though they were as ripe for mischief as those of more enlightened
nations, yet even in that they were woefully defective, and their
joys seemed often sadly miscalled. But at the time I speak of, as if
to shroud every thing in unfathomable gloom, the ravages of the enemy
had turned thousands of what (to them) were happy homes, into as many
hells--their domestic peace ruined--their houses and furniture fired,
and every countenance bearing the picture of melancholy and wan despair.
Their damsels' cheeks wore no roses, yet did they wear soil enough on
which to rear them. But at the same time be it remarked that I quarrel
not with the countenance but with the soil, for I am a pale lover
myself.
In Spain, on the contrary, health and joy seemed to beam on every
countenance, and comfort in every dwelling. I have observed some
writers quarrel with my former statement on this subject, and maintain
that though the difference in appearance was remarkable, that so
far as regards the article of cleanliness, the facts were not so.
With these, however, I must still differ after giving every thing due
consideration. The Portuguese did not assume to be a cleanly race,
and they were a filthy one in reality. The Spaniards did affect to
be the former, and I do think that they approached it as nearly as
may be. I allude to the peasantry, for the upper and middling classes
sink into immeasurable contempt in the comparison, but their peasantry
I still maintain are as fine and as cleanly a class as I ever saw.
Their dress is remarkably handsome, and though I can give no opinion
as to the weekly value of soap expended on their manly countenances,
yet in regard to the shirt, which is their greatest pride, and neatly
embroidered in the bosom according to the position of the wearer in
the minds of those on whom that portion of the ornamental devolves, I
can vouch for their having shewn a clean one as often as need be. And
though I do not feel myself at liberty to enter into the details of the
dress of their lovely black-eyed damsels, I may be permitted to say
that it is highly becoming to them; and, in short, I should have some
dread of staking our national credit by parading the inmates of any
chance village of our own against a similar one of theirs.
Their houses too are remarkably neat and cleanly, and would be
comfortable were it not for those indefatigable villainous insects that
play at a perpetual hop, skip, and jump, giving occasional pinches
to the exposed parts of the inmate; and yet what warm country is
exempt from them or something worse. Go into boasted America, and so
great is the liberty of all classes there, that what with the hum of
the musquitto above, and the bug below the blanket, the unfortunate
wight, as I can testify, is regularly _hum-bugged_ out of his natural
repose. As I have taken a trip across the Atlantic for the foregoing
example, I cannot resist giving an anecdote to shew that our brethren
on that side of the water sometimes have a night's rest sacrificed to
_inexpressible_ causes as well as natural ones.
A gentleman at the head of the law there, (not the hangman,) told me
that in his early days while the roads were yet in their infancy, he
was in the habit of going his circuit on horseback, with nothing but
a change of linen tacked to his crupper--that one day he had been
overtaken by a shower of rain before he could reach the lonely cottage,
which he had destined for his night's repose--and that it interfered
materially with the harmony which had hitherto existed between him
and his leather breeches, for he felt uncomfortable in them, and he
felt uncomfortable out of them, arising from the dread that he might
never be able to get into them again. His landlady, however, succeeded
in allaying his fears for the moment, and having lent him one of her
nether garments for present use, she finally consigned him to bed, with
injunctions to sleep undisturbed, for that she would take especial
care, while they underwent the necessary fiery ordeal, that she would
put that within which should preserve their capacities undiminished.
Notwithstanding the satisfactory assurance on the part of the dame, a
doubt continued still to hang on the mind of the man in the petticoat;
and as "the mind disturbed denies the body rest," so was every attempt
of his to close an eye, met by the vision of a pair of shrivelled
leathers, until at length in a fit of feverish excitement he started
from his couch determined to know the worst; and throwing open the door
of the kitchen, he, to his no small astonishment, beheld his leathers
not only filled, but well filled too, by the landlady herself, who
there stood in them, toasting and turning round and round; neither so
gracefully nor so fast as Taglioni, perhaps, but still she kept turning
all the same; and it, most probably, was the smoke arising from the
lawyer's wet leathers which Tom Moore saw curling so gracefully above
the green elms when he wrote the Woodpecker.
But to return to the Peninsula. While it must be admitted that the
hidalgo's evil is the lesser, I could, nevertheless, wish that the
good old Spaniard would march a little more with the spirit of the
times, for by the ordinary use of a small-tooth comb, he might be
enabled to limit his _hair_ hunting to the sports of the field.
The day after our arrival at Fuentes I was amused to hear one of our
soldiers describing to a comrade his last night's fare in the new
quarter. Soon after his taking possession of it, three days' rations
had been served out to him, and his landlady, after reconnoitring it
for a while with a wistful eye, at length proposed that they should
mess together while he remained in their house, to which he readily
assented; and by way of making a fair beginning, he cut off about a
pound of the beef which he handed over to her, but at the same time
allowing her about as much play with it as a cat does to a mouse--a
precaution which he had reason to rejoice in, for he presently found
it transferred to a kettle then boiling on the fire, containing, as
he said, thirteen buckets of water, in which his pound of beef was
floating about like a cork in the middle of the ocean! "Hilloah, my
nice woman, says I, if you and I are to mess together I'll just trouble
you to take out twelve buckets and a half of that water, and in place
thereof, that you will be pleased to put in a pound of beef for every
mouth which you intend shall keep mine in company--and if you choose to
give some butter or a slice or two of bacon in addition, I shall not
object to it, but I'll have none of your gammon!" The dispute ended in
the rifleman's being obliged to fish out his pound of beef and keep it
under his own protection.
Our repose in Fuentes was short. The garrison of Almeida was blockaded
with a fortnight's provision only, and two companies of ours under
Colonel Cameron were immediately dispatched to shoot their bullocks
while grazing on the ramparts, which still further contracted their
means of subsistence.
Lord Wellington had in the mean time hurried off to the south in
consequence of the pressing importance of the operations of the corps
under Marshal Beresford, leaving the main army for the time being under
the command of Sir Brent Spencer. In the afternoon of the 16th of April
we were hastily ordered under arms, and passing through Gallegos we
were halted behind a hill on the banks of the Agueda, when we found
that the movement had been occasioned by the passing of a convoy
of provisions which the enemy were attempting to throw into Ciudad
Rodrigo, and which was at that moment with its escort of two hundred
men shut up in some inclosures of stone walls within half a mile of us
surrounded by our dragoons.
I don't know how it happened, but we were kept there inactive for a
couple of hours with eight thousand men sending in summonses for them
to surrender, when a couple of our idle guns would have sent the loose
wall about their ears and made them but too happy to be allowed to do
so. But as it was, the garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo came out and carried
them off triumphantly from under our noses.
"There's nae luck about the house,
There's nae luck ava;
There's nae luck about the house,
When our gude man's awa."
This was the most critical period of the whole war; the destinies not
only of England but of Europe hung upon it, and all hinged on the
shoulders of one man,--that man was Wellington! I believe there were
few even of those who served under him capable of knowing, still less
of appreciating, the nature of the master-mind which there, with God's
assistance, ruled all things; for he was not only the head of the army
but obliged to descend to the responsibility of every department in
it. In the different branches of their various duties, he received
the officers in charge, as ignorant as schoolboys, and, by his energy
and unwearied perseverance, he made them what they became--the most
renowned army that Europe ever saw. Wherever he went at its head, glory
followed its steps--wherever he was not--I will not say disgrace,
but something near akin to it ensued, for it is singular enough
to remark that of all the distinguished generals who held separate
commands in that army throughout the war Lord Hill alone (besides
the commander-in-chief) came out of it with his fame untarnished
by any palpable error. In all his battles Lord Wellington appeared
to us never to leave any thing to chance. However desperate the
undertaking--whether suffering under momentary defeat, or imprudently
hurried on by partial success--we ever felt confident that a redeeming
power was at hand, nor were we ever deceived. Those only, too, who
have served under such a master-mind and one of inferior calibre can
appreciate the difference in a physical as well as a moral point of
view--for when in the presence of the enemy, under him, we were never
deprived of our personal comforts until prudence rendered it necessary,
and they were always restored to us again at the earliest possible
moment. Under the temporary command of others we have been deprived of
our baggage for weeks through the timidity of our chief, and without
the shadow of necessity; and it is astonishing in what a degree the
vacillation and want of confidence in a commander descends into the
different ranks.
Of all the commanders in that army at the period I speak of, none
stood more distinguished than he who was for the moment our head (the
gallant Spencer,) and yet, singularly enough, the moment he was left to
himself, not only his usual daring but all spirit of enterprise seemed
to have forsaken him. Witness the escape of the French detachment
as just related, as well as the various subsequent movements under
him; whereas, within a few days, when in the field of Fuentes under
Wellington, he was himself again.
While halted behind the hill already mentioned, I got my first
look at the celebrated Guerilla chief, Don Julian Sanchez. He was
a middling-sized thick-set fellow, with a Spanish complexion, well
whiskered and mustached, with glossy black hair, and dressed in a
hussar uniform. The peasantry of that part of the country used to tell
rather a romantic story of the cause which induced him to take up
arms,--namely, that the French had maltreated and afterwards murdered
his wife and family before his face, besides firing his house, (cause
enough in all conscience,) and for which he amply revenged himself,
for he became the most celebrated throat-cutter in that part of the
world. His band when he first took the field did not exceed fifty
men, but about the period I speak of his ranks had swelled to about
fifteen hundred. They were a contemptible force in the field, but
brave, enterprising, and useful in their mountain fastnesses--in
cutting off supplies and small detachments. I did not see his troops
until some time after, when his heavy dragoons one day crossed our line
of march. They afterwards cut a more respectable figure; but at that
period they looked a regular set of ragamuffins, wearing cocked hats
with broad white lace round the edges; yellow coats, with many more
than button-holes, and red facings; breeches of various colours and no
stockings, but a sort of shoe on the foot with a spur attached, and
their arms were as various as their colours; some with lances, some
with carabines, and in short, every one seemed as if he had equipped
himself in whatever the fortune of war had thrown in his way.