The North Mayo militiaman--Chances of warfare--Marshal
Beresford--Eight hundred for nothing--Moneymaking.
Whilst we lay near Cork we were joined by one Richard Pullen, amongst
others; he had exchanged from the English militia into the Irish, and
volunteered to us Rifles from the North Mayo. He brought with him
little else to boast of but his wife and his two children, Charles
and Susan. Charles was a mischievous boy of about twelve, and Susan
was a pretty little lass, of about fourteen years of age. I remember
they all went with us to Copenhagen, and got through that expedition
pretty well. That affair suited a man of Pullen's description, for he
didn't like too much service; and we soon found he was rather a shy
cock. "None of your North May_ho_, here, Master Pullen!" used to be
constantly flung in his teeth, when he was lagging behind on the march.
In 1808 he was again wanted, when our four companies went to Portugal;
but Pullen begged off, on account of the wife and the two children,
Charles and Susan. Often had he to endure the taunt again, "_None of
your North Mayho here, Master Pullen!_" till we were fairly away from
Hythe.
After we had knocked the frogs out of Portugal, marching on Sahagun,
we fell in with the army under Sir John Moore, and, amongst the Rifles
that came with them fresh from England, we found Pullen and his wife,
with their two children, Charles and Susan. I remember that the
meeting with Pullen caused no small fun amongst us; and North May_ho_
was again the bye-word for a few days. Nothing, I thought at that time,
could tame down the high spirits and thoughtlessness of the British
soldier. Alas! I lived to see that I was mistaken; and, indeed, saw
them pretty well tamed before many days more were over our heads! I
remember remarking that Pullen (even on the first day of the retreat
to Corunna) looked very chap-fallen and seedy; and he was beginning
even then to complain that he could not stand much more. The wife and
children, too, were dropping behind. _They_ all thought, poor souls!
that when night came on they were, of course, to be billeted; but the
open world was now their only refuge; and no allowance to stop or lie
down, even on the bare heath, at that time. I saw Pullen again on the
third or fourth day; neither the wife nor children were then with
him, nor could he tell _where_ they were; he could only answer for
himself, and expected to drop dead, he said, every step. That's all
I saw of Pullen, and his wife and children, on the retreat, or even
thought of them; for I had enough to do to keep my own strength up.
When we landed at Portsmouth, both myself and others (to our no small
surprise), saw Pullen once more; and much we wondered at the sight of
him, when so many better and stronger soldiers had died before half of
that retreat was accomplished. We had not even then spirits enough left
to jeer him about North May_ho_; and, to add to the dejection of poor
Pullen, we found that he had left behind him, and knew nothing of the
fate of either his wife or his children, Charles and Susan. As the men
continued to disembark, however, there was Pullen inquiring anxiously
of every one for some tidings of them. None, however, could he get. At
last he saw his wife coming up the beach, and hobbled off to meet her,
each at the same moment inquiring for the children, Charles and Susan.
_He_ trusted they were with the wife; and _she_ hoped they were with
the husband; and both sat down upon the beach, and cried in concert.
All our men thought it useless of them to continue their inquiries;
but they never failed to ask after their offspring of every fresh face
they fell in with, who had been in that retreat. In about a fortnight's
time, not satisfied, they advertised Charles and Susan in the public
newspapers; and we all laughed at the very idea of their ever finding
them again, and told them they might have spared the money. To our
no small surprise, however, the artillery at Plymouth answered their
advertisement, stating that a little girl had been heard screaming upon
the mountains in Spain by them in the night, and that they had taken
care of her as well as they could, and had her then with them. The
description answering, the girl was forwarded to Hythe; and Pullen and
his wife once more embraced their daughter Susan.
Meanwhile, no tidings came of the boy; and Pullen died at Walcheren,
with many a gallant soldier for his fellow-victim in that dreadful
country. The wife had confessed long before that the child she had
given birth to after the retreat, she had every reason to believe,
was a Frenchman by the father's side; for she related her adventures
to many of us at that time, and told, amongst other things, that she
and other women, having taken refuge in a barn, were there overtaken
by the French in the night, and treated by those gentlemen in a very
unceremonious manner.
It is easy to suppose that Mrs. Pullen had no great wish to go on
service again, and much did she endeavour to persuade Pullen to evade
it too; but, the whole regiment being under orders for Walcheren,
Pullen could not escape the chance. At last, however, he tried to
excuse himself by tampering with his eyes, which he made sore by
putting snuff in them. He was, however, detected, disgraced, and,
sailing with the expedition, died, as I before said, at Walcheren.
After his death, Mrs. Pullen and her daughter were sent to their
parish, which was in Warwickshire; and, after she had left us some
time, a letter arrived from her son, Charles, who was a prisoner in
France. There was, I think, not a man in the regiment who recollected
the North May_ho_ recruit but myself. War, and pestilence, and
discharge, had taken all away. The bugle-major opened the letter; and,
on inquiry, found that I alone knew the parents of the writer; but no
answer, that I ever heard of, was sent to poor Charles. The captain
of Pullen's company (Crampton) was dead, and the company was almost
entirely new. I myself was then almost in a dying state, and the matter
was soon altogether forgotten. So that, whether Mrs. Pullen ever again
saw her son, I cannot take upon me to say.
It was during the heat of the day of Vimiero. We were rather hotly
pressed by the enemy, after having advanced somewhat too near their
force. Give and take is all fair enough; but we were getting more
kicks than halfpence, as the saying is; and their balls stung us so
sharply that the officers gave the word to "_fire and retire_".[3]
Doubtless, many got a leaden messenger as they did so, which saved
them the unpleasant necessity of retracing their ground altogether.
Jock Gillespie and myself wheeled about, and obeyed the order. Just
as we had done so, I saw Gillespie limp along as though some one had
bestowed a violent kick upon his person. However, he didn't give up at
first, but continued to load, and fire, and make off with the other
skirmishers, till we halted, and made another stand; for we never went
further from them when once engaged, than we could possibly help.
Gillespie loaded, and fired very sharply, I recollect; seemingly quite
affronted at the treatment he had received; but he got weaker and more
lame as he did so, and at last was quite unable to continue the game
any longer; and, when we advanced again, he was floored from loss of
blood. I had asked him once or twice where he was hit, but he seemed
unwilling to say, till at last he confessed; and the confession gave
him apparently as much pain as the wound.
After the battle was over, I observed him endeavouring to get about,
and limping as badly as if one leg was a foot shorter than the other,
whilst our men, who had got hold of the story, kept calling after, and
making all sorts of fun about his wound; till poor Gillespie (who was
a very sensitive man) sat down and cried like a child with vexation.
I never saw him after that night; and I rather think his wound had
completely disabled him, and that eventually he got a discharge.
I remember a great many of the leaders and heroes of the wars of my own
time. Alas! they have been cleared off of late pretty handsomely! A few
years more, and the world will be without another living remembrancer
of either them or their deeds. The ranks are getting thin, too, amongst
those who, like myself, were the tools with which the great men of
former days won their renown. I don't know a single living man now
who was a comrade during the time I served. Very nearly fifteen years
back, I remember, however, meeting with Robert Liston; and that meeting
brings Marshal Beresford to my mind. Robert Liston was a corporal
in the second battalion of the Rifles, when we lay for a few days in
the passages of a convent in Portugal. We were then making for the
frontiers of Spain, when we were swept into that disastrous retreat to
Corunna. There was a punishment parade in the square of this convent.
A soldier of the Ninety-second or Seventy-ninth was the culprit, and
the kilts were formed to witness the performance. Some of the Rifles
were looking from the windows of the convent at the punishment of the
Highlander, when a brickbat was hurled from one of the casements, and
fell at the very toe of the lieutenant-colonel, who was standing in the
midst, and in command of the regiment. The lieutenant-colonel (whose
name I never knew,) was of course indignant at such an act; he gazed
up at the window from which the brick had been thrown, and caused an
inquiry instantly to be made. It was between the lights when this
happened, and it was impossible to discover who had done it; however,
two or three men of the Rifles were confined on suspicion. A man named
Baker flatly accused Corporal Liston of the act; upon which Liston was
marched a prisoner to Salamanca (a distance, I should think, of some
hundred miles); and often did he complain of his hard fate in being a
prisoner so long. When we got to Salamanca we halted there for eight
days; and Liston, being tried by general court-martial, was sentenced
to receive eight hundred lashes. The whole brigade turned out on the
occasion; and I remember that the drummers of the Ninth regiment were
the inflictors of the lash. Liston received the whole sentence without
a murmur. He had, indeed, been a good soldier, and we were all truly
sorry for him; in fact, he always declared solemnly that he had no
more to do with the brickbat than Marshal Beresford who commanded the
brigade. Whoever committed the act, in my opinion, well deserved what
_Liston got_. Marshal Beresford was in command of the brigade at this
time; and I well remember what a fine-looking soldier he was. He was
equal to his business, too, I should say; and he, amongst others of our
generals, often made me think that the French army had nothing to shew
in the shape of officers who could at all compare with ours. There was
a noble bearing in our leaders, which they, on the French side (as far
as I was capable of observing) had not; and I am convinced that the
English soldier is even better pleased to be commanded by some man of
rank in his own country, than by one who has risen from his own station.
They are a strange set, the English! and so determined and
unconquerable, that they will have their way if they can. Indeed,
it requires one who has authority in his face, as well as at his
back, to make them respect and obey him. They see too often, in the
instance of serjeant-majors, that command does not suit ignorant and
coarse-minded men; and that tyranny is too much used even in the
brief authority which they have. A soldier, I am convinced, is driven
often to insubordination by being worried by these little-minded men
for the veriest trifles, about which the gentleman never thinks of
tormenting him. The moment the severity of the discipline of our army
is relaxed, in my opinion, farewell to its efficiency; but for our men
to be tormented about trifles (as I have seen at times) is often very
injurious to a whole corps.
I never saw Liston after that punishment whilst in Spain; and I suppose
he remained behind, and got on in the best manner he was able in the
rear; but, about ten years afterwards, as I was passing down Sloane
Street, Chelsea, I observed a watchman calling the hour. It struck me
that I knew his face, and, turning back, I stopped him, asking if he
was not Robert Liston, formerly a corporal in the Ninty-fifth Rifles?
After answering in the affirmative, the first words he spoke were, "Oh!
Harris! do you remember what happened to me at Salamanca?"
"I do _well_," I said.
"I was never guilty," he continued. "There is no occasion for me to
deny it now; but I tell you that I was never guilty of the crime for
which I suffered. Baker was a villain, and I believe that he was
himself the culprit."
I recollect Marshal Beresford making a speech on the subject of the
buttons of our great-coats; and, however such a subject may appear
trifling for a general officer to speak on, I can tell you, it was a
discourse which our men (some of them) much needed; for they had been
in the habit of tearing off the buttons from their coats, and after
hammering them flat, passing them as English coin, in exchange for the
good wines of Spain. So that, at last, the Spaniards, finding they got
nothing by the exchange but trumpery bits of battered lead, and the
children in that country not being in the habit of playing at dumps as
ours are, they made complaints to the Marshal. Halting the brigade,
therefore, one day, he gave them a speech upon this fraud, and ended
by promising a handsome flogging to the first man he found thereafter,
whose great-coat would not keep buttoned in windy weather.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: One of the light-infantry movements, when pressed by the
advance of the enemy.]