chase in those days afforded a double gratification--the one present,
and the other in perspective, (the dinner hour,) it was always followed
with much assiduity. The village, too, happened to be within a short
ride of Ciudad, so that frequent visits to our friends formed an
agreeable variety, and rendered our short sojourn there a season of
real enjoyment.
I was much struck, on first entering Spain, in observing what appeared
to be a gross absurdity in their religious observances; for whenever
one of those processions was heard approaching, the girls, no matter
how they had been employed, immediately ran to the window, where,
kneeling down, they continued repeating their _aves_ until it had
passed, when they jumped up again and were ready for any frolic or
mischief.
Such was the effect produced inwardly by the outward passage of
the _Hoste_, but it was not until I went to Ituera that I had an
opportunity of witnessing the fatal results of a more familiar visit
from those gentlemen bearing torches and dark lanterns, for they
certainly seemed to me to put several souls to flight before they were
duly prepared for it.
One happened to be the landlady of the house in which I was quartered,
a woman about three score, and blind; but she was, nevertheless, as
merry as a cricket, and used to amuse us over the fireside in the
evening, while "twisting her rock and her wee pickle tow," in chaunting
Malbrook and other ditties equally interesting, with a voice which at
one time might have had a little music in it, but had then degenerated
into the squeak of a penny trumpet.
In her last evening on earth, she had treated us with her usual
serenade, and seemed as likely to live a dozen years longer as any
one of the group around her; but on my return from a field-day next
forenoon, I met the Padré, the sexton, and their usual accompaniments,
marching out of the house to the tune of that _grave_ air of theirs;
and I saw that further question was needless, for the tears of the
attendant damsels told me the tale of woe.
Her sudden departure was to me most unaccountable, nor could I ever
obtain an explanation beyond that she was very aged; that they had sent
for the Father to comfort her, and now she was happy in the keeping of
their blessed Virgin.
There was much weeping and wailing for a day or two, and her
grand-daughter, a tall thin lath of a girl, about eleven or twelve
years of age, seemed the most distressed of the group. It so happened
that a few days after, an order was promulgated authorising us to fill
up our ranks with Spanish recruits, to the extent of ten men for each
company, and I started off to some of the neighbouring villages, where
we were well-known, in the hope of being able to pick up some good
ones. On my return I was rather amused to find that the damsel already
mentioned, whom I had left ten days before bathed in tears, was already
a blushing bride in the hands of a strapping muleteer.
While on the subject of those Spanish recruits I may here remark that
we could not persuade the countrymen to join us, and it was not until
we got to Madrid that we succeeded in procuring the prescribed number
for our battalion. Those we got, however, were a very inferior sample
of the Spaniard, and we therefore expected little from them, but to
their credit be it recorded, they turned out admirably well--they were
orderly and well-behaved in quarters, and thoroughly good in the field;
and they never went into action that they had not their full portion of
casualties.
There were fifty of them originally, and at the close of the war,
(about a year and a half after,) I think there were about seventeen
remaining, and there had not been a single desertion from among them.
When we were leaving the country they received some months' gratuitous
pay and were discharged, taking with them our best wishes, which they
richly merited.
Lord Wellington during the whole of the war kept a pack of fox-hounds,
and while they contributed not a little to the amusement of whatever
portion of the army happened to be within reach of head-quarters,
they were to his Lordship valuable in many ways; for while he enjoyed
the chase as much as any, it gave him an opportunity of seeing and
conversing with the officers of the different departments, and other
individuals, without attracting the notice of the enemy's emissaries;
and the pursuits of that manly exercise, too, gave him a better
insight into the characters of the individuals under him, than he
could possibly have acquired by years of acquaintance under ordinary
circumstances.
It is not unusual to meet, in the society of the present day, some old
Peninsular trump, with the rank very probably of a field officer, and
with a face as polished, and its upper story as well furnished as the
figure-head of his sword hilt, gravely asserting that all the merit
which the Duke of Wellington has acquired from his victories was due to
the troops! And having plundered the Commander-in-Chief of his glory,
and divided it among the followers, he, as an officer of those same
followers, very complacently claims a field officer's allowance in the
division of the spoil.
I would stake all I have in this world that no man ever heard such an
opinion from the lips of a private soldier--I mean a thorough good
service one--for the ideas of such men are beyond it; and I have
ever found that their proudest stories relate to the good or gallant
deeds of those above them. It is impossible, therefore, to hear
such absurdities advanced by one in the rank of an officer, without
marvelling by what fortuitous piece of luck he, with the military
capacity of a baggage animal, had contrived to hold his commission,
for he must have been deeply indebted to the clemency of those above,
and takes the usual method of that class of persons, to shew his sense
thereof, by kicking down the ladder by which he ascended.
Our civil brethren in general are of necessity obliged to swallow a
considerable portion of whatever we choose to place before them. But
when they meet with such an one as I have described, they may safely
calculate that whenever the items of his services can be collected, it
will be found that his Majesty has had a hard bargain! For, knowing,
as every one does, what the best ship's crew would be afloat in the
wide world of waters without a master, they may, on the same principle,
bear in mind that there can no more be an efficient army without a good
general, than there can be an efficient general without a good army,
for the one is part and parcel of the other--they cannot exist singly!
The touching on the foregoing subject naturally obliges me to wander
from my narrative to indulge in a few professional observations,
illustrative not only of war but of its instruments.
Those unaccustomed to warfare, are apt to imagine that a field of
battle is a scene of confusion worse confounded, but that is a mistake,
for, except on particular occasions, there is in general no noise or
confusion any thing like what takes place on ordinary field days in
England. I have often seen half the number of troops put to death,
without half the bluster and confusion which takes place in a sham
fight in the Phoenix-Park of Dublin.
The man who blusters at a field day is not the man who does it on the
field of battle: on the contrary his thoughts there are generally
too big for utterance, and he would gladly squeeze himself into a
nutshell if he could. The man who makes a noise on the field of battle
is generally a good one, but all rules have their exceptions, for I
have seen one or two thorough good ones, who were blusterers in both
situations; but it nevertheless betrays a weakness in any officer who
is habitually noisy about trifles, from the simple fact that when any
thing of importance occurs to require an extraordinary exertion of
lungs, nature cannot supply him with the powers requisite to make the
soldiers understand that it is the consequence of an occurrence more
serious, than the trifle he was in the habit of making a noise about.
In soldiering, as in every thing else, except Billingsgate and ballad
singing, the cleverest things are done quietly.
At the storming of the heights of Bera, on the 8th of October, 1813,
Colonel, now Sir John Colbourne, who commanded our second brigade,
addressed his men before leading them up to the enemy's redoubt with,
"Now, my lads, we'll just charge up to the edge of the ditch, and if we
can't get in, we'll stand there and fire in their faces." They charged
accordingly, the enemy fled from the works, and in following them up
the mountain, Sir John, in rounding a hill, accompanied only by his
brigade-major and a few riflemen, found that he had headed a retiring
body of about 300 of the French, and whispering to his brigade-major
to get as many men together as he could, he without hesitation rode
boldly up to the enemy's commander, and demanded his sword! The
Frenchman surrendered it with the usual grace of his countrymen,
requesting that the other would bear witness that he had conducted
himself like a good and valiant soldier! Sir John answered the appeal
with an approving nod; for it was no time to refuse bearing witness to
the valour of 300 men, while they were in the act of surrendering to
half a dozen.
If a body of troops is under fire, and so placed as to be unable to
return it, the officer commanding should make it a rule to keep them
constantly on the move, no matter if it is but two side steps to the
right or one to the front, it always makes them believe they are doing
something, and prevents the mind from brooding over a situation which
is the most trying of any.
The coolness of an officer in action, if even shewn in trifles, goes
a great way towards maintaining the steadiness of the men. At the
battle of Waterloo, I heard Sir John Lambert call one of his commanding
officers to order for repeating his (the general's) word of command,
reminding him that when the regiments were in contiguous close columns,
they ought to take it from himself! As the brigade was under a terrific
fire at the time, the notice of such a trifling breach of rule shewed,
at all events, that the gallant general was at home!
In the course of the five days' fighting which took place near Bayonne,
in December, 1813, a singular change of fate, with its consequent
interchange of civilities, took place between the commanding officer of
a French regiment and one of ours; I forget whether it was the 4th or
9th, but I think it was one of the regiments of that brigade--it had
been posted amongst some enclosures which left both its flanks at the
mercy of others.
The fighting at that place had been very severe, with various success,
and while the regiment alluded to was hotly engaged in front, a French
corps succeeded in getting in their rear; when the enemy's commandant
advancing to the English one, apologised for troubling him, but begged
to point out that he was surrounded, and must consider himself his
prisoner! While the British colonel was listening to the mortifying
intelligence, and glancing around to see if no hope of escape was
left, he observed another body of English in the act of compassing the
very corps by which he had been caught; and, returning the Frenchman's
salute, begged his pardon for presuming to differ with him in opinion,
but that he was labouring under a mistake, for he (the Frenchman)
was, on the contrary, his prisoner, pointing in his turn to the
movement that had taken place while they had been disputing the point.
As the fact did not admit of a doubt, the Frenchman giving a shrug
of the shoulders, and uttering a lament over the fickleness of the
war-goddess, quietly surrendered.
CHAP. XII.
Shewing rough visitors receiving a rough reception. Some living
and moving specimens thereof. Tailors not such fractions of
humanity as is generally believed. Gentle visitors receiving a
gentle reception, which ends by shewing that two shakes joined
together sound more melodiously on the heart-strings than two
hands which shake of their own accord.
Pass we on to Badajos--to that last, that direful, but glorious
night--the 6th of April--"so fiercely fought, so terribly won, so
dreadful in all its circumstances, that posterity can scarcely be
expected to credit the tale."
Any one who has taken the trouble to read and digest what Napier has
said in vindication of the measures adopted by Lord Wellington for the
subjugation of those fortresses in the manner in which it was done,
must feel satisfied that their propriety admits of no dispute. But as
the want of time rendered it necessary to set the arts and sciences
at defiance--and that, if carried at all, it must have been done with
an extra sacrifice of human life, it will for ever remain a matter
of opinion at what period of the siege the assault should have been
made with the best prospect of success, and with the least probable
loss--and such being the case it must be free to every writer to offer
his own ideas.
Lord Wellington, as is well known, waited on each occasion for open
breaches, and was each time successful--so far he did well, and they
may do better who can. Colonel Lamarre would have attacked Badajos
the first night of the siege with better hopes of success than on the
last, as the garrison, he says, would have been less prepared, and the
defences not so complete. But I differ from him on both positions,
for, depend upon it, that every garrison is excessively alive for
the first few days after they have been invested. And as to defensive
preparations, I have reason to think that few after ones of consequence
took place, but those of counteracting the effects of our battering
guns.
I am, nevertheless, one of those who would like to see the attempt
made at an intermediate period. Breaches certainly serve the important
end of distracting the attention of the garrison, and leading them
to neglect other assailable points--though, whenever they have the
opportunity of retrenching them, as at Badajos, they are undoubtedly
the strongest parts of the works. I should therefore carry on the
siege in the usual manner until about the time the batteries began to
come into operation, and as it might then be fairly presumed that the
garrison, by the regular order of proceedings, would be lulled into a
notion of temporary security, I should feel monstrously inclined to
try my luck. If it turned up trumps it might save valuable time and a
thousand or two of valuable lives. If it failed, the loss would be in
proportion; but it would neither lose time, nor compromise the result
of the siege.
Colonel Jones, an able writer and an able fighter, in his particular
department, would have had us do what his great guns ought to have done
on that memorable night--namely, to have cleared away the defences on
the top of the breach, which he affirms might have been done by the
rush of a dense mass of troops. But had he been where I was he would
have seen that there was no scarcity of rushes of dense masses of
troops; but, independently of every other engine of destruction which
human ingenuity could invent--they were each time met by a dense rush
of balls, and it is the nature of man to bow before them. No dense mass
of troops could reach the top of that breach.
Major (then Lieutenant) Johnston, of ours, who was peculiarly
calculated for desperate enterprize, preceded the forlorn hope, in
command of a party carrying ropes, prepared with nooses, to throw over
the sword blades, as the most likely method of displacing, by dragging
them down the breach; but he and his whole party were stricken down
before one of them had got within throwing distance.
When an officer, as I have already mentioned, with a presentiment of
death upon him, resigned a safe duty to take a desperate one--when
my own servant, rather than remain behind, gave up his situation and
took his place in the ranks--when another man of ours (resolved to
win or to die,) thrust himself beneath the chained sword blades, and
there suffered the enemy to dash his brains out with the ends of their
muskets--these, I say, out of as many thousand instances of the kind
which may be furnished, will shew that there was no want of daring
leaders or desperate followers.
The defences on the tops of the breaches ought to have been cleared
away by our batteries before the assault commenced. But failing that,
I cannot see why a couple of six-pounders (or half a dozen) might
not have been run up along with the storming party, to the crest of
the glacis. Our battalion took post there, and lay about ten minutes
unknown to the enemy, and had a few guns been sent along with us, I am
confident that we could have taken them up with equal silence, and had
them pointed at the right place--when, at the time that the storming
party commenced operations, a single discharge from each, at that range
of a few yards, would not only have disturbed the economy of the sword
blades and sand-bags, but astonished the wigs of those behind them. As
it was, however, when I visited the breaches next morning, instead of
seeing the ruin of a place just carried by storm, the whole presented
the order and regularity of one freshly prepared to meet it--not a
sword blade deranged, nor a sand-bag removed!
The advance of the fourth division had been delayed by some accident,
and the head of their column did not reach the ditch until our first
attack had been repulsed, and when considerable confusion consequently
prevailed.
The seventh Fusileers came gallantly on, headed by Major ----, who,
though a very little man, shouted with the lungs of a giant, for the
way to be cleared, to "let the royal Fusileers advance!" Several of our
officers assisted him in such a laudable undertaking; but, in the mean
time, a musket-ball found its way into some sensitive part, and sent
the gallant major trundling heels over head among the loose stones,
shouting to a less heroic tune--while his distinguished corps went
determinedly on, but with no better success than those who had just
preceded them, for the thing was not to be done.
After we had withdrawn from the ditch and reformed the division for
a renewal of the attack, (it must have been then about two or three
o'clock in the morning,) some of those on the look-out brought us
information that the enemy were leaving the breaches, and our battalion
was instantly moved forward to take possession.
We stole down into the ditch with the same silence which marked our
first advance--an occasional explosion or a discharge of musketry
continued to be heard in distant parts of the works; but in the awful
charnel pit we were then traversing to reach the foot of the breach,
the only sounds that disturbed the night were the moans of the dying,
with an occasional screech from others suffering under acute agony;
while a third class lying there disabled, and alive to passing events,
on hearing the movement of troops, (though too dark to distinguish
them,) began proclaiming their names and regiments, and appealing to
individual officers and soldiers of the different corps, on whose
friendly aid they seemed to feel that they could rely if they happened
to be within hearing.
It was a heart-rending moment to be obliged to leave such appeals
unheeded; but, though the fate of those around might have been ours the
next instant, our common weal, our honour, and our country's, alike
demanded that every thing should be sacrificed to secure the prize
which was now within our grasp; and our onward movement was therefore
continued into the breach with measured tread and stern silence,
leaving the unfortunate sufferers to doubt whether the stone walls
around had not been their only listeners.
Once established within the walls we felt satisfied that the town
was ours--and, profiting by his experience at Ciudad, our commandant
(Colonel Cameron) took the necessary measures to keep his battalion
together, so long as the safety of the place could in any way be
compromised--for, knowing the barbarous license which soldiers employed
in that desperate service claim, and which they will not be denied, he
addressed them, and promised that they should have the same indulgence
as others, and that he should not insist upon keeping them together
longer than was absolutely necessary; but he assured them that if any
man quitted the ranks until he gave permission he would cause him
to be put to death on the spot. That had the desired effect until
between nine and ten o'clock in the morning, when, seeing that the
whole of the late garrison had been secured and marched off to Elvas,
he again addressed his battalion, and thanked them for their conduct
throughout: he concluded with, "Now, my men, you may fall out and enjoy
yourselves for the remainder of the day, but I shall expect to see you
all in camp at the usual roll-call in the evening!"
When the evening came, however, in place of the usual tattoo report of
all present, it was all absent, and it could have been wished that the
irregularities had ended with that evening's report.
As soon as a glimpse of day-light permitted I went to take a look
at the breach, and there saw a solitary figure, with a drawn sword,
stalking over the ruins and the slain, which, in the grey dawn of
morning, appeared to my astonished eyes like a headless trunk, and
concluded that it was the ghost of one of the departed come in search
of its earthly remains. I cautiously approached to take a nearer
survey, when I found that it was Captain M'Nair, of the 52d, with his
head wrapped in a red handkerchief.
He told me that he was looking for his cap and his scabbard, both of
which had parted company from him in the storm, about that particular
spot; but his search proved a forlorn hope. I congratulated him that
his head had not gone in the cap, as had been the case with but too
many of our mutual companions on that fatal night.
When our regiment had reformed after the assault we found a melancholy
list of absent officers, ten of whom were doomed never to see it more,
and it was not until our return to the camp that we learnt the fate of
all.
The wounded had found their way or been removed to their own tents--the
fallen filled a glorious grave on the spot where they fell.
The first tent that I entered was Johnston's, with his shattered arm
bandaged; he was lying on his boat-cloak fast asleep; and, coupling his
appearance with the recollection of the daring duty he had been called
on to perform but a few hours before, in front of the forlorn hope, I
thought that I had never set my eyes on a nobler picture of a soldier.
His whole appearance, even in sleep, shewed exactly as it had been in
the execution of that duty; his splendid figure was so disposed that it
seemed as if he was taking the first step on the breach--his eyebrows
were elevated--his nostrils still distended--and, altogether, he looked
as if he would clutch the castle in his remaining hand. No one could
have seen him at that moment without saying, "there lies a hero!"
Of the doomed, who still survived, was poor Donald Mac Pherson, a
gigantic highlander of about six feet and a half, as good a soul as
ever lived; in peace a lamb--in war a lion. Donald feared for nothing
either in this world or the next; he had been true to man and true to
his God, and he looked his last hour in the face like a soldier and a
Christian!
Donald's final departure from this life shewed him a worthy specimen of
his country, and his methodical arrangements, while they prove what I
have stated, may, at the same time, serve as as a model for Joe Hume
himself, when he comes to cast up his last earthly accounts.
Donald had but an old mare and a portmanteau, with its contents,
worth about £15, to leave behind him. He took a double inventory of
the latter, sending one to the regiment by post, and giving the other
in charge of his servant--and paying the said worthy his wages up to
the probable day of his death; he gave him a conditional order on the
paymaster for whatever more might be his due should he survive beyond
his time--and, if ever man did, he certainly quitted this world with a
clear conscience.
Poor Donald! peace be to thy manes, for thou wert one whom memory loves
to dwell on!