Arrests at Madrid—Advantages of speaking French—Seizure of Don Saturio
de Padilla by the police—The author effects his liberation—A bull
day at Madrid—Private theatricals—French and English
soldiers—Blowing up the Retiro—Retreat from Madrid—A pig hunt.
The execution of the priest Lopez, narrated in the last chapter, was
followed by many arrests. In eight days no fewer than one hundred and
forty-nine persons were thrown into prison; some on good grounds, others
on trivial circumstances, and many on the charge alone of having held
employment under the late government. The consequence of this ill-judged
severity was that all those who escaped arrest in the first burst of
tyranny practised by the local authorities fled from Madrid, and
scarcely a family was to be found who had not to lament the loss of some
individual belonging to it, either by flight or imprisonment. Had the
siege of Burgos been successful, and the French troops driven to
Pampeluna, which would have been the natural result, a tragical scene
would have been enacted, not only at Madrid, but throughout the whole of
Spain. Yet all the time nothing but forgiveness for the past and
promises for the future were to be heard of—except the daily and nightly
imprisonments that took place!
Two evenings after the execution of Lopez I met a number of Spaniards at
the house of my _padron_, Don Miguel de Inza, who had himself been an
engineer in the employment of the late King Charles IV.; different
topics, as a matter of course, were discussed—the sieges of Rodrigo and
Badajoz, the battle of Salamanca, and the triumphant entry of our troops
into the capital of Spain. Most of the party seemed well inclined
towards us, and towards the king we proclaimed, Ferdinand VII.; but
there was little confidence amongst the party themselves, and there was
some who would, if they dared, have spoken in favour of the French.
One old Donna in particular was rather severe in her observations on the
dress of the British officers, and remarked that not one in fifty of
them could speak French. Whether it was that she was piqued at my paying
much attention to a lady who sat near her, or that she wished to display
her wit at my expense, I being nearer to her than any other Englishman,
I can’t say, but she turned round and asked if I spoke the French
language. I replied that I understood it tolerably, but that I spoke it
but indifferently. “I thought so,” was her reply; “I knew by that young
fellow’s appearance he was a booby (_sot_),” said she, addressing one of
her friends. This she spoke in the very worst French that ever came from
the mouth of a Bastan peasant. I was determined to have my revenge. I
mustered up all my resolution, made a rapid _repasser_ of all I had ever
learned of French grammar, and took the first opportunity that presented
itself to attack her. In a word, I completely out-talked her, out-spoke
her, and out-crowed her in the estimation of her friends; and she who
had been so short a time before the “leader of the opposition,” was mum
for the remainder of the evening.
Harmony was once more restored, and we were beginning to forget the
bickerings that party feeling had introduced amongst us, when a violent
knocking at the door from the street threw the company into
consternation and dismay. Every one looked confounded; some were for
barring the door, others wished to escape; but this was easier said than
done, for in front stood the police agents (for it was them and none
other), and in the rear—if rear it could be called—was nothing but a
pile of buildings, to the full as lofty as the house we inhabited. “What
is to be done?” was a demand much easier made than answered; though in
fact the proper and only reply to be made was, “Open the door, and see
who the gentlemen are looking after.” Several persons, who had nothing
to dread, loudly called out for this proceeding, but it was far from
palatable to the majority of the company. It was idle, however, to talk,
and, in fine, the massive door was heard to creak on its rusty hinges.
At the same moment six ill-looking fellows entered the saloon, and
having taken a hasty but scrutinising survey of the company, seized the
son-in-law of my patron and rudely carried him away.
Saturio de Padilla was the name of this gentleman, and his only crime
was that of holding the situation of Juiz de Fora, under the government
of King Joseph. Nothing could be more unjust or impolitic than this
arrest: it was, however, idle to reason so with the police agents;
Saturio was taken off to the Fort of La China and thrown into a dungeon,
without bed or any other comfort which a gentleman of his rank might
have expected. At an early hour the following morning I was awoke by his
father-in-law, the venerable Don Miguel de Inza; he begged of me to
allow my servant to convey some bedding to him, which I not only
consented to do, but, at the entreaties of his daughter, Donna Maria
Ignatia de Inza (whose sister was married to Padilla, and who, by the
way, was one of the most beautiful women in Madrid), went to the prison
myself. All entreaties to allow us to see the prisoner were in vain, and
had it not been for the kindness of Colonel Manners of the 74th, who was
the Governor of the Fort, we should not have been allowed to send even a
change of linen to this gentleman.
A week passed away, and no tidings were heard of Padilla; and his
friends, fearing that he might be made away with, became extremely
uneasy. Without mentioning my intention, I waited upon Colonel Manners,
who was much interested in his behalf when I told him the circumstances;
and, owing to his intercession, I had the happiness of seeing my friend,
Don Saturio, at liberty the day but one following. I need scarcely say
that this exploit of mine, for so my Spanish friends termed it, raised
me considerably in the estimation of the ladies, and all of them, my old
formidable antagonist not excepted, were lavish in their praises of my
conduct. Nothing but balls, concerts, and parties to the theatre and the
Prado were thought of, until the announcement in the newspapers, and the
never-ceasing cries of _affiche_ venders in the streets, that the
bull-fights were to take place, put a stop to all thoughts on any other
but this, to a Spaniard at least, momentous affair.
This national amusement is of so old a standing, and has been so often
related in novels and romances, that a description of it may, in the
present day, be thought ill-timed. The day’s fighting which I witnessed
was considered specially good, and a tremendous day’s sport it was. Nine
bulls were killed, seven horses shared the same fate, and one of the
fighters was dreadfully injured. More than twenty people were hurt by
the last bull, who leaped the barriers and got among the audience, but
fortunately, and indeed miraculously, no person was killed. Thus the
“casualties” of the day may be summed up as follows:—Killed, nine bulls,
seven horses: total, sixteen; wounded, twenty-three men and women: grand
total of killed and wounded, thirty-nine.
The bull-fights once over, the execution of the Priest Lopez forgotten,
and the probability of our soon leaving Madrid taking place, were not
things to be passed over lightly by the ladies of that city; and no
matter what may be said or written of their being “a grave people,” I
saw, during my sojourn amongst them, no symptoms of “gravity,” except
when they thought we were about to leave their capital. It was palpably
evident that something should be done to drive away the gloom that had
in a great measure already begun to take a fast hold of our friends; and
the officers of the Light Division, aided by some of the other regiments
in the garrison, resolved to treat the inhabitants with a specimen of
their dramatic powers. The play selected was the _Revenge_, and “Zanga”
was well personated by Captain Kent of the Rifles; but whether it was
that the other characters were ill cast, or that the tragedy was too
dull for the Spaniards to relish, it is a positive fact that, long
before the second act was ended, the audience were heartily tired of the
play; and, notwithstanding the fine acting of Kent, the play would have
never been allowed to proceed had not the performers been British
officers, and the object the relief of the poor of the capital. The
_Mayor of Garrett_ followed, and this amusing farce was a set-off
against the _Revenge_, and put the audience quite at ease; for from the
moment “Zanga” (or _El Preto_, as they styled him) appeared, there was
one universal buzz of disapprobation. It is not possible for me to say
why they were so averse to the play; it might have been their dislike to
the Moors; but be this as it may, I would advise my friends in the army
never to try the same play before a Madrid audience—that is, which is a
hundred to one, should they ever have the same opportunity we had. This
was the first and last play ever attempted by us to be got up at Madrid.
The season was on the wane, summer was almost over, and it was well
known that Lord Wellington meditated an attack on the town of Burgos;
nevertheless all was tranquillity and gaiety with the troops at Madrid,
and many of the sick and wounded from Salamanca reached us. Amongst the
number was my friend and companion, Frederick Meade of the 88th. He had
been badly wounded in the action of the 22nd, and with his arm in a
sling, his wounds still unhealed, and his frame worn down by fatigue and
exhaustion, his commanding officer was surprised to see him again so
soon with his regiment; but various rumours were afloat as to the
advance of the Madrid army upon Burgos, and Meade was not the kind of
person likely to be absent from his corps when anything like active
service was to be performed by it. Endowed with qualities which few
young men in the army could boast of, he soon made his way into the very
best society that the capital of Spain could be said to possess. A
finished gentleman in the fullest acceptation of the word; young,
handsome, speaking the Castilian language well, the French fluently, a
first-rate musician, endowed by nature with a fine voice, which had been
well cultivated, it is not surprising that he soon became a general
favourite. In a word, wherever he went he was the magnet of attraction,
and when we quitted Madrid it would have required a train of vehicles
much more numerous than would have suited our order of march to convey
those ladies who were, and would like to be more closely, attached to
him. Poor fellow! he was greatly to blame, but it was not his fault; if
the ladies of Madrid liked his face, or his voice, how could he help
that? My man, Dan Carsons—and here I must say a word of apology to my
friend Meade for coupling their names together—told me when we were on
the eve of quitting Madrid, “that he (Carsons) didn’t know how the devil
he could get away at-all-at-all, without taking three women, besides his
wife Nelly with him.”
So far all went on gaily at Madrid; but Lord Wellington was deeply
occupied with matters of a different nature, although he joined in the
amusements that took place. The capture of Burgos was what he aimed at,
and his stay at Madrid was but a cloak to cover his real intentions. On
the 1st of September he quitted the capital, and took upon himself the
direction of that part of the army which he had decided was to march
upon Burgos. He crossed the Douro on the 6th, and arrived at Valladolid
on the same day, and from thence he followed the enemy on their retreat
to Burgos. On the 16th he was, with a portion of his army, before that
fortress, which he soon invested and laid siege to. The result of that
siege, its failure, and the circumstances which led to it, have nothing
to do with my adventures; they are the property of Colonel Napier—the
only writer that, I believe, can be held up as a standard to refer to on
the Peninsular War.
I have to bring forward to the public eye, and the eye of posterity,
too, the character of the Peninsular soldiers, whether they be shown up
as men who were able to conquer the choicest legions of France, or as
men who would sell the most essential part of their dress for a glass of
brandy. No matter; they would have done both. Perfection is nowhere to
be found; and if the British soldier equalled the Frenchman in habits of
sobriety and caution, there could be no possible comparison between
them; but the retreat from Madrid and Burgos, which I am about to
relate, will give the reader a clearer insight into what I have just now
written: and I will here say, without the least fear of contradiction,
that the French soldier as far surpasses the British soldier in the
essential qualities requisite for general operations, as the latter
excels the Frenchman in a pitched battle. Let two armies of the two
nations be placed in circumstances the same, in advance or retreat. The
supply of provisions may be scanty or abundant—no matter which; both
armies, for argument sake, we will say, are placed in the same position
as to food. It may be asked what, then, is the great difference between
the soldiers of two nations who have been opposed to each other for so
many campaigns, and who ought to have profited by the better system
followed by either? It is this: the British soldier is not so moderate
in his appetites as his neighbour, and he wants the head, which the
other possesses, to control him. Give to a British regiment ten days',
nay five days' bread at a time, and, as may be necessary, five days'
rations of spirits; at the end of the second day—not the fifth, to which
period it ought to last—what quantity will be forthcoming? Not one half
ounce of bread, or half pint of spirits—half pint did I say! not one
thimbleful, nay, less than that, not one drop! Should the ration be
limited to bread, and in all armies, even the most temperate, a large
advance of spirits ought to be avoided, the danger would be the same in
any British army, because the soldiers would barter their bread for
spirits or wine, and would become quite as inefficient, as if they had
been supplied with both by our commissaries. Added to this, what means
had the soldiers of the Peninsular army to compete with the French in
celerity of cooking? None. The latter carried their cooking utensils on
their backs, while the camp-kettles for our troops were often leagues
distant when the meat arrived. This was the state of our army when the
retreat from Burgos on the one side, and Madrid on the other, commenced,
and it will be seen in the following pages how that retreat was
conducted, and how the subordinate officers of the army were blamed for
not performing a duty which was impossible; and for this reason was it
impossible, that the means did not rest with them. Our system was
altogether faulty, and no exertions of the junior, or even senior,
officers could remedy it. Lord Wellington at length discovered this, and
in his next campaign profited by the example which the enemy showed him,
and which ought to have been followed long before.
On the 20th of October, 1812, the siege of Burgos was raised, and the
troops before it retired towards the Douro, while the portion of the
army which occupied Madrid made arrangements to join them when the
proper time should arrive. Accordingly, the fort of La China was mined,
the battering train found there removed, and all the necessary
arrangements for retreat were completed. On the 31st of October the army
quitted Madrid, and bivouacked in the Royal Park near the palace.
The conflagration of La China continued all night, and story after story
fell in until it became a heap of ruins. The following day, the 1st of
November, the advance of the French entered Madrid, and on that day our
army commenced its retreat upon Rodrigo and Portugal. On the side of
Burgos matters were in the same state. The attack against the citadel,
having failed, in default of means to carry it on, the army before it
broke up on the 20th of October, and by the admirable arrangements of
Lord Wellington, who took the command in person, gained two marches on
the enemy before he was aware of it. Nevertheless a vigorous pursuit
took place, and the Burgos army was closely pressed, until it reached
the heights of San Christoval, where it was joined by the troops that
had occupied Madrid.
Up to this time no serious disaster had occurred, although from the
heavy rains that had fallen, which rendered the roads nearly impassable,
and the scanty supply of rations which the troops received, it was
feared that, if Soult pressed on vigorously, our army would shortly
become much disorganised; but the Marshal took six days, that is to say,
from the 10th to the 16th of November, to examine the ground occupied by
the British General. On the 14th, our army was in battle array close to
the spot where we had fought the battle of Salamanca the July before,
but Soult, although at the head of 90,000 soldiers, and two hundred
pieces of cannon, declined the offer, and confined his operations to the
sending a brigade or two on the line of our communication with Rodrigo.
On the 17th, Lord Wellington commenced his march for the frontiers of
Portugal, and from that moment he was closely pursued by Marshal Soult.
The rain fell in torrents, almost without any intermission; the roads
could no longer be so called, they were perfect quagmires; the small
streams became rivers, and the rivers were scarcely fordable at any
point. In some instances the soldiers were obliged to carry their
ammunition boxes strapped on their shoulders to preserve them, while
passing a ford which on our advance was barely ankle deep. The baggage
and camp-kettles had left us; the former we never saw until we reached
Rodrigo, and the latter rarely reached us until two o’clock in the
morning, when the men, from fatigue, could make but little use of them.
The wretched cattle had to be slaughtered, as our rations seldom arrived
at their destination before the camp-kettles, and when both arrived,
there was not one fire in our bivouac sufficient to boil a mess.
Officers as well as soldiers had no covering except the canopy of
heaven; we had not one tent, and the army never slept in a village. We
thus lay in the open country; our clothes saturated with rain, half the
men and officers without shoes, nothing to eat, or, at all events, no
means of cooking it. What then could be much worse than the situation in
which the army was placed? But this was not the worst, because, from the
nature of the retreat, and the pursuit, neither the cavalry nor
artillery horses could be supplied with forage. The retreat each day
generally began at four in the morning, in the dead dark of night;
towards eight the army had gained perhaps six miles', perhaps not five,
start of the enemy. At ten they were at our heels. The rear, as a matter
of necessity, for the preservation of the whole, was then obliged to
face about and show a front, to enable the remainder to proceed on their
retreat. The position taken up was, as a matter of course, according to
the urgency of the moment, sometimes in a vast tract of ploughed land,
where the troops were drawn up ankle deep in mud. In this position,
those who were not fighting were obliged to remain, in their tattered
uniforms, worn to rags after two years' service, scarcely a good pair of
shoes or trousers on any, and the greater part without the former. The
ague had also attacked the bulk of the army, and as the soldiers picked
up the acorns that fell from the oak trees (these, by the way, are the
property of the pigs in Spain, but the pigs, fortunately for themselves,
had not yet appeared in the woods we now traversed), many were unable to
eat them, so much were they enfeebled by the disorder.
Yet under all these privations, the soldiers, at least the “Connaught
Rangers,” never lost their gaiety. Without shoes they fancied themselves
“at home,” and there were few, I believe, who would not have wished
themselves there in reality. Without food they were nearly at home, and
without a good coat to their backs equally so! My man, Dan Carsons, came
up to me, and with a broad grin said, “By gor, Sir, this same place” (at
the time we were, and had been for hours before, standing in a wet
ploughed field) “puts me greatly in mind iv Madrid.”—“Of Madrid! why,
Dan, no two places can be more unlike.”—“By Jasus, Sir, the’re as like
as two _paise_, only that we want the houses, and the fires, and the
mate, and the dhrink, and the women! But, excepting that, don’t the jaws
_iv_ the boys with the ague, when they rattle so, put your honour
greatly in mind _iv_ the castonetts?” Dan’s joke was not quite so
palatable as it might have proved at a more fitting opportunity, or in a
more fitting place, for at that moment I felt a queer sort of motion
about my own jaws, which in less than an hour proved itself to be a
confirmed attack of ague. On this night the rain never ceased; the
rations could not be cooked, having arrived too late, and the army had
no food except biscuit.
What I have related took place on the 16th. The following day matters
became worse, the rain continued to come down in torrents, and in the
passage of one river, out of ten that we forded, a woman and three
children were lost, as likewise some baggage mules, which the women of
the army, in defiance of the order against it, still contrived to
smuggle into the line of retreat. The rations arrived alive (I mean the
meat), as usual after midnight, but no kettles reached us for an hour
after the poor famished brutes had been knocked on the head. Each man
obtained his portion of the quivering flesh, but before any fires could
be re-lighted, the order for march arrived, and the men received their
meat dripping with water, but little, if anything, warmer than when it
was delivered over to them by the butcher. The soldiers drenched with
wet, greatly fatigued, nearly naked, and more than half asleep, were
obliged either to throw away the meat, or put it with their biscuit into
their haversacks, which from constant use, without any means of cleaning
them, more resembled a beggarman’s wallet than any part of the
appointments of a soldier. In a short time the wet meat completely
destroyed the bread, which became perfect paste, and the blood which
oozed from the undressed beef, little better than carrion, gave so bad a
taste to the bread that many could not eat it. Those who did were in
general attacked with violent pains in their bowels, and the want of
salt brought on dysentery. A number of cavalry and artillery horses died
on this night, and fatigue and sickness had already obliged several men
and officers to remain behind, so that our ranks were now beginning to
show that we had commenced, in downright earnest, a most calamitous
retreat.
Lord Wellington wished for a battle, if he could fight one on
advantageous terms, before his army became disorganised; but this was
not to the interest of the French army; and the Duke of Dalmatia, who
could at any time make choice of his own field from his vast superiority
in horsemen, was too experienced a tactician to be led into so fatal an
error as that of fighting. Experience had shown him that a retreat, such
as the one I am describing, would cost him little trouble to inflict as
great a loss upon our army as if he gained the advantage in a battle,
and that it would be a bloodless victory to him; whereas, if a general
action took place, and the entire of the two armies were thrown into the
fight, he could not expect to get off with a loss of less than six or
eight thousand men, with the chance, perhaps the probability, of being
defeated.
No Marshal in the French army knew the good and the bad qualities of the
soldiers he now followed better, few so well, as Soult. He had pursued
them to Corunna, and fought them at Albuera. Knowing then, as he did,
their imperfection in retreat, and their superlative perfection in a
pitched battle, it would have been strange had he risked by a battle,
what it was as clear as the noon-day he would gain without one, namely,
the loss to us of several thousand men and horses, who, if they did not
fall into his hands, or die on the retreat, were sure to be lost to our
ranks in consequence of its effects. The game was in his hands, and if
he lost it by bad play, the fault would be his, and his only. He did not
do so, but played a safe game, and when battle was offered him near
Salamanca, he _reneged_. He finessed well, and though he did not drive
us before him at the point of the bayonet, his flank movement on the
Rodrigo line, by a side wipe, effected his purpose just as well for him.
A circumstance occurred on this day that so strongly marks the
difference between the British soldiers and the soldiers of any other
nation on such a retreat as we were engaged in, that I cannot avoid
noticing it. I have already said that we had no means of cooking our
meat, and that the soldiers and officers, for all shared the same
privations alike, carried their meat raw, or nearly raw; consequently it
was not an additional supply of “raw material” that we so much needed as
the means of dressing what we had. Nevertheless, towards noon, while a
portion of the army was engaged in a warm skirmish with the enemy’s
advance, which lay through a vast forest of oak, some hundreds of swine,
nearly in a wild state, were discovered feeding upon the acorns which
had fallen from the trees the autumn before. No flag of truce ever sent
from the advance post of one army to the advance of another had a more
decisive effect. Our soldiers immediately opened a murderous fire upon
the pigs, who suffered severely on the occasion, being closely pursued
on the route, which they followed with that stupid—and for them, on this
occasion, fatal—pertinacity which the pig tribe are so proverbial for,
namely, going to the rear when they ought to go straight forward. Had
this herd of swine deviated from the old beaten track of pigs in
general—had they, in short, gone forward instead of rearward—many
valuable lives, in the eyes of the owners at least, would have been
saved, because they would have soon reached the French advance, and our
fellows, once more placed _vis à vis_ with the riflemen of the _grande
nation_, would have left off the pursuit—if for nothing else _but to
save their bacon_! This _rencontre_, one of the most curious that came
within my knowledge during my Peninsular campaigns, or indeed during my
sojourn in this world, led to consequences the most comic as well as
tragic. Colonel O‘Shea, who commanded the cavalry of the French advance
ordered to support the _tirailleurs_, was astounded when he saw the
direction which the British fire took. He could not be mistaken; the
fire of the advance of his own soldiers had slackened—ceased. It
immediately occurred to him that some corps must have got in rear of our
advance, and he galloped up to the _tirailleurs_ to ascertain the real
state of affairs. He was soon undeceived; but when he learned the cause
of the retrograde movement on the part of our men, he could not
avoid—and who could?—laughing heartily.
Meanwhile the discomfited and routed pigs fled, and soon got out of the
clutches of the advanced guard. The bulk of the fugitives took the road
to _their_ rights but here they were again _wrong_. Had those ill-fated
animals known anything of the “rules of the road,” they would have kept
to the _left_. On the right they were encountered by a nearly famished
brigade that had received no rations at all in the preceding twenty-four
hours; and when they were, as has been seen, so roughly handled by men
whose haversacks were amply stocked with meat, what chance had they—I
ask the question fearlessly—of any mercy from a body of famished,
ferocious fellows? The question I have just put is easily answered. They
had none to expect, and none did they receive. Neither age nor sex was
spared; and out of this fine herd of swine, scarcely one in one hundred
escaped unhurt. No victory was ever more complete; and the grunting and
squeaking of the wounded pigs and hogs throughout the forest was a sad
contrast with the merriment of the soldiers, who toasted, on the points
of their bayonets—intended for other and more noble game—the mangled
fragments of their former companions.
Day was drawing to its close, and the 3rd Division, commanded by Sir
Edward Pakenham, was about to retire from the ground it had held during
several hours in face of the enemy, when a warm fire of musketry on our
left led us to suppose we were outflanked. The officers of the staff
galloped in the direction from whence the firing proceeded. Sir Edward
did the same, but it was some time before they reached the scene of
action. In the meantime the different regiments were so arranged as to
be ready either to advance or retreat, as circumstances might require;
and the French corps in our front made demonstrations of a similar kind.
In this state of suspense we remained for nearly an hour, when at last
Sir Edward returned, with the news that the firing was caused by a fresh
attack on the pigs that had escaped the first brunt of the attack
against them. He ordered the different advance posts to be placed, which
he superintended in person; the soldiers then prepared to fell timber
for fires, and some ran to an uninhabited village—they were all
uninhabited on the line of our march for that matter—for the purpose of
getting dry wood, that is to say, the doors and roofs of the houses, to
enable us to light up the green timber, which was the only fuel we could
command. The soldiers and officers of all ranks were nearly exhausted
from cold and wet; and had the village in question belonged to the king
of England, much less to a parcel of Spanish peasants, it would have
shared the same fate as the one in question.
The party from the village soon arrived, some bringing doors, others
articles of different kinds of household furniture, such as chairs,
tables, and bedsteads; but nothing in the shape of food was to be found.
No doubt, had it been day, something might be got at, but warmth was
what we stood in need of more than food. Several of us still carried the
parboiled beef of the night before, and, when the fires were lighted, we
made a shift to roast it either on our swords, bayonets, or bits of
sticks, which we formed into respectable skewers. This operation
finished, the fire around which each group sat or stood, in order of
companies, their arms regularly piled behind them, was replenished with
green and dry timber, according to our supply of each or both. The
soldiers then placed their knapsacks round the outer part of the circle,
and, having given the best place to their officers inside the circle,
all lay down together, or at their own choice, with their feet towards
the heat of the fire. Some arranged in this manner, others did not lie
down at all; and those who had captured a door, propped it up as a
defence against the rains and winds. There were others who got a blanket
and fixed it with branches of trees and stones against some uneven spot,
and lay down in the mud. It was, in fact, all mud and wet; and in
whatever manner we accommodated ourselves, according to circumstances,
whether walking, standing, or sleeping, it was of little difference. No
matter what _mood_ any of us might have been disposed to follow, the
_imperative_ had the call; and, as has been seen, we could not _decline_
it. _Verbum sat sapienti._
Thus ended the operations of this day; officers and soldiers were placed
exactly, or nearly, as I have described. Many were so feeble as not to
be capable of the least exertion; others, on the contrary, were hale and
stout, and I myself was amongst the number of the latter. I had lain
some time with my feet near the fire, but I dreaded an attack of ague,
and I walked about to keep my body warm, which was but thinly clad. I
had not been long on my legs, and I was at the moment standing near the
small tent where Sir Edward Pakenham lay in his wet clothes, when a rush
of pigs—the remnant, I suppose, of those that had escaped in the
day—disorganised several piles of arms. The soldiers stood up, and every
man seized his firelock. A Portuguese regiment near us, thinking the
enemy were at their heels, began to fire right and left, without knowing
what they fired at. Sir Edward Pakenham ran out of his tent, and while
in the act of mounting his horse and giving directions to his orderly
dragoon, the man was shot dead by the side of the General. It required
some time before the confusion that prevailed could be remedied; but the
soldiers never for a moment lost their presence of mind, and the 3rd
Division was formed with astonishing celerity in battle array. The error
into which the Portuguese had fallen was with some difficulty remedied,
and, except a few men who were wounded, nothing serious happened. The
pigs, who were the cause of all, escaped without any loss, but whether
they ever found their way back to their original owners I know not.
Trifling as the affair was, with troops less accustomed and less ready
to face an enemy than those that composed the 3rd Division, it might
have had a different result.
The march was continued the following morning. The troops commenced the
retreat some hours before day. Towards ten o’clock the enemy’s advance
were at the heels of the rear-guard, which, as before, disputed the
ground. A rapid stream on the Rodrigo side of the village of San Munoz
was to be passed before the rear could be considered safe. Many
regiments had already forded the river, but one entire brigade was
missing, and the haze was so great that it was difficult to distinguish
any object clearly.
Pakenham’s division was already on the left bank of the stream, while
the brigade of nine-pounders, commanded by that admirable officer,
Captain Douglas, opened its fire on the French advance. This, for a
moment, arrested their progress; but O‘Shea, at the head of fifteen
hundred dragoons, passed between the French infantry and the river, and,
disregarding the fire of our artillery, overtook the brigade before it
had passed the ford. The confusion at this point was great; some men
were sabred; but the fire of Douglas’s guns caused the French dragoons
many casualties, and they galloped back to their former ground. The
safety of the brigade which was missing was thus ensured; but Sir Edward
Paget, who had gone in quest of it, and who knew nothing of what had
taken place at the river’s edge, was taken prisoner by O‘Shea. We thus
lost our second in command, as also many men; and the cavalry and
artillery horses had become so enfeebled for want of forage, that it was
manifest our retreat, if vigorously followed by Soult, would, as a
matter of necessity, have been protected by the infantry alone; but
Soult either could not or would not press us, and the remainder of the
day passed over languidly.