Villa de Mula—Night expedition to Villa de Puerco—Both parties
retire—Death of Colonel Talbot—A soldier’s grave—The effects of a
miscarriage—Fort Conception blown up—A mistake and no mistake—Another
mistake, a ball in the right knee—The bridge over the Coa—A friend in
need, a friend indeed—Charity abroad and at home—A surgeon’s advice—A
blessing—A cough, an uncomfortable companion—Spanish apathy—We arrive
at Fraxedas.
A FEW days after our arrival at Villa de Mula, a part of the division
formed a night expedition to surprise and cut off one or two French
regiments that nightly occupied an advanced position on our right,
retiring every morning about daylight. The rifles got under arms at ten
o’clock at night, and were soon afterwards joined by several companies
of the 43rd and 52nd regiments, together with one or two troops of the
14th Light Dragoons, and some of our favourite Germans. We soon guessed
that some secret enterprise was about to be undertaken, as strict orders
were issued to keep the men from talking, and to make them refrain from
lighting their pipes, lest our approach should be noticed by the enemy.
Even the wheels of two of Captain Ross’s guns that accompanied us, were
muffled round with haybands to prevent their creaking.
In this disposition we proceeded in the direction of the left of the
enemy’s position which rested on Villa de Puerco. We had all loaded
before marching, and were anxiously looking forward to the result, when
a whispering order was given to enter a large field of standing corn and
to throw ourselves on the ground. There we anxiously waited the first
dawn of day for the expected engagement. At length the cold gray of the
morning appeared faintly in the east, when the commands were given with
scarce a pause between to “fall in,” “double,” and “extend.” This was
accomplished in a moment, and forward we ran through the corn field up
to an eminence, looking down from which we beheld a gallant skirmish on
the plain beneath. The 14th Dragoons were in the act of charging a body
of French infantry, who had, however, thrown themselves into square. The
cavalry cheered forward in gallant style, but the French, veteran like,
stood firm to meet the onset, pouring in, at the same time, a close
running fire that emptied many saddles. Lieutenant-Colonel Talbot, who
headed the charge, fell almost immediately, together with the
quarter-master and from sixteen to eighteen privates. After an
unavailing attempt to shake the square, the cavalry was obliged to
retire—a movement which the enemy on their part immediately imitated. An
attempt was made to annoy them with our guns, but in consequence of
their smallness, being but light field-pieces, our shots were attended
with very little effect.
The following day, we buried Colonel Talbot and the quarter-master close
to the porch of the little chapel in the village we occupied—a somewhat
romantic-looking spot for a soldier’s grave. The miscarriage of our
enterprise, it was generally rumoured, had brought our general into bad
odour at head-quarters; indeed, for some days after, I thought he wore a
troubled look, as though he took our failure to heart.
As I have already remarked, two of our companies alternately did duty in
front of our position, at Fort Conception. The orders issued to the
officer commanding the picquet were to blow up the fort immediately on
the approach of the enemy, for which purpose it was undermined in
several places by the artillerymen, who were left to fire the mines when
the order should be given.
On the morning of the 19th of July, our company and another were on duty
at this point, and it was generally expected we should be attacked on
the morrow. I think the intelligence was brought by a deserter. The fort
contained a great quantity of good English rum and biscuit, which
Captain O’Hare allowed the men of both companies to help themselves to
and fill their canteens, upon their promise, which they kept, not to get
drunk. The following morning, before it was scarcely light, the enemy
proved the correctness of our anticipations by advancing upon us in
heavy columns, preceded by their light troops. The command was instantly
given to fire the mines, and we retired upon our division. A few minutes
after our quitting the fort, its beautiful proportions, which had
excited the admiration of so many beholders, was broken, as by the shock
of an earthquake, into a blackened heap of ruin.
We retreated under the walls of Almeida, where we halted until the 23rd,
when at night we experienced a storm that for violence, while it lasted,
exceeded anything I had ever before beheld. The lightning, thunder,
wind, and rain were absolutely awful. With a few other men, I had sought
shelter in the hollow of a rock, where we were not a little amazed at
the numbers of snakes and lizards which the occasional gleams of
lightning exhibited to us running about in all directions, as though the
tempest had the effect of bringing them all from their holes.
At break of day, the music that we were now getting quite accustomed
to—_i. e._ the cracking of the rifles of our outline picquet, gave
intelligence of the enemy’s advance. Our company was immediately ordered
to support them. Captain O’Hare accordingly placed us behind some
dilapidated walls, we awaited the approach of the picquet then under the
Hon. Captain Steward engaged about half a mile in our front, and slowly
retreating upon us. They had already, as it afterwards appeared, several
men killed, while Lieutenant M’Culloch had been wounded and taken
prisoner with a number of others. We could distinctly see the enemy’s
columns in great force, but had little time for observation, as our
advance ran in upon us followed by the French tirailleurs, with whom we
were speedily and hotly engaged. The right wing of the 52nd regiment, at
this period, was drawn up about one hundred yards in our rear behind a
low wall, when a shell, which with several others was thrown amongst us
from the town, burst so near, that it killed several of our men, and
buried a sergeant so completely in mud, but without hurting him, that we
were obliged to drag him out of the heap, to prevent his being taken by
the enemy[4]—at this moment also Lieutenant Cohen who stood close to me
received a shot through the body. My old Captain, O’Hare, perceiving him
roll his eyes and stagger, caught him by the arm, saying in a rather
soft tone to the men about him:
“Take that poor boy to the rear, he does not know what is the matter
with him,” and with the same characteristic coolness, he continued his
duties. While hotly engaged, however, with the French infantry in our
front, one or two troops of their hussars which, from the similarity of
uniform, we had taken for our German hussars, whipped on our left flank
between our company and the wing of the 52nd, when a cry of “the French
cavalry are upon us,” came too late as they charged in amongst us. Taken
thus unprepared, we could oppose but little or no resistance, and our
men were trampled down and sabred, on every side. A French dragoon had
seized me by the collar, while several others, as they passed, cut at me
with their swords. The man who had collared me had his sabre’s point at
my breast, when a volley was fired from our rear by the 52nd, who, by
this time had discovered their mistake, which tumbled the horse of my
captor. He fell heavily with the animal on his leg, dragging me down
with him.
It was but for a moment nevertheless: determined to have one brief
struggle for liberty, I freed myself from the dragoon’s grasp, and
dealing him a severe blow on the head with the butt of my rifle, I
rushed up to the wall of our 52nd, which I was in the act of clearing at
a jump, when I received a shot under the cap of my right knee and
instantly fell. In this emergency, there seemed a speedy prospect of my
again falling into the hands of the French, as the division was in rapid
retreat, but a comrade of the name of Little instantly dragged me over
the wall, and was proceeding as quick as possible with me, on his back,
towards the bridge of the Coa, over which our men were fast pouring,
when he, poor fellow! also received a shot, which passing through his
arm smashed the bone, and finally lodged itself in my thigh, where it
has ever since remained.[5] In this extremity, Little was obliged to
abandon me, but urged by a strong desire to escape imprisonment, I made
another desperate effort, and managed to get over the bridge, from the
other side of which Captain Ross’s guns were in full roar, covering our
retreat; in this crippled state and faint through loss of blood, I made
a second appeal to a comrade, who assisted me to ascend a hill on the
other side of the river.
On the summit, we found a chapel which had been converted into a
temporary hospital, where a number of wounded men were being taken to
have their wounds dressed by the surgeons. Fortunately, I had not long
to wait for my turn, for as we momentarily expected the coming of the
French, everything was done with the greatest dispatch.
In this affair our company sustained a very severe loss; our return was,
“one officer, Lieutenant Cohen, quite a youth, dangerously wounded,
eleven file killed and wounded, and forty-five taken prisoners.”
My old Captain O’Hare had only eleven men on parade next day. The
preceding facts will serve to show the unmilitary reader, that
skirmishes are frequently more partially destructive to riflemen than
general actions, although attended with but little of their celebrity.
For my own part, I was never nearer death, excepting on the night we
took Badajoz.
I must not forget a singular escape that occurred: a man of the name of
Charity, of my own company, when the cavalry first rushed upon us, had
fallen, wounded in the head by a sabre, while on the ground, he received
another severe sword slash on the seat of honour, and a shot through the
arm, the latter, no doubt, from the 52nd. Yet after all this, he managed
to escape, and
Clothed in scarlet lived to tell the tale,
as a pensioner in Chelsea Hospital.
Having no mules nor waggons to accommodate us, the surgeons advised all
who were by any means capable of moving, to get on as quick as they
could to Pinhel.
There were of our regiment about seventy or eighty disabled, a number of
those hobbled onwards assisting each other by turns.
We commenced our slow and painful march, and by the help of a couple of
rifles that served as crutches, I managed to reach the first village
where the Juiz or chief magistrate selected, and put the worst of our
wounded into bullock-carts. Amongst those I fortunately was one; and
although crammed with six others into a wretched little vehicle,
scarcely capable of accommodating more than two, I thought it a blessing
for which I could not feel sufficiently thankful.
In this manner, we were dragged along all night, and by the following
daylight we halted at another village, where I felt so dreadfully faint
from loss of blood and my confined position, that I could not move at
all. While refreshing our parched lips with some water that had been
eagerly demanded, Lord Wellington and some of his staff galloped up.
Glancing his eye at us for a moment, and seeing our crowded condition in
the carts, he instantly gave an order to one of his aides-de-camp to
obtain additional conveyance from the Juiz de Fora, and also bread and
wine. His Lordship then rode off towards Almeida.
Although neither bread nor wine made their appearance, a few additional
carts were procured, into one of which I was transferred with four other
men.
We again continued our march, until we came into a stream of water where
we halted; here we lost a most excellent officer, a Lieutenant Pratt,[6]
who was wounded through the neck, and at first appeared to be doing very
well. He was seated on one of the men’s knapsacks conversing with some
of his wounded brother officers, when he was suddenly seized with a
violent fit of coughing, and almost instantly began pumping a quantity
of blood from the wound. I never before saw so much come from any man.
It appeared that the ball, which went through his neck, had passed so
close to the carotid artery, that the exertion of coughing had burst it,
and it became impossible to stop the hæmorrhage. He bled to death, and
warm as he was, they covered him in the sand and proceeded. After we had
been driven some few miles further, one of my wounded comrades, who was
shot through the body, and whose end seemed momentarily approaching, at
length, in a dying state relaxed his hold from the cart sides and fell
across me as I lay at the bottom, whilst foam mixed with blood kept
running from his mouth. This with his glass eyes fixed on mine made me
feel very uncomfortable. Being weak and wounded myself, I had not power
to move him, and in this situation, the horrors of which survived for
some time in my mind, death put an end to his sufferings, but without
granting me any respite for some hours. His struggles having ceased,
however, I was enabled to recover myself a little, and called to the
driver to remove the body. But the scoundrel of a Portuguese, who kept
as much ahead of the bullocks as possible, was so afraid of the French,
that I could get no other answer from him than “non quireo,” “don’t
bother me,” and a significant shrug of the shoulder, which bespoke even
more than his words.
At length we arrived at Fraxedas on the road to Coimbra, where we found
the 1st division encamped outside the town. Here I got rid of my dead
comrade, and we had our wounds dressed. The guards, who belonged to the
1st division, behaved to us with a kindness which I never can forget; as
we had no men of our own to attend to us, forty of their number, under
an officer, were ordered to supply our wants until we arrived at Lisbon.