Other People, Myself, and my Regiment. Retreat to the Lines of
Torres Vedras. Leave Coimbra, followed by a select group of
Natives. Ford the Streets of Condacia in good spirit. A
Provost-Marshal and his favourites. A fall. Convent of Batalha.
Turned out of Allenquer. Passed through Sobral. Turned into
Arruda. Quartering of the Light Division, and their Quarters at
Arruda. Burial of an only Child. Lines of Torres Vedras.
Difference of opinion between Massena and Myself. Military
Customs.
Having now brought myself regularly into the field, under the renowned
Wellington, should this narrative, by any accident, fall into the
hands of others who served there, and who may be unreasonable enough
to expect their names to be mentioned in it, let me tell them that
they are most confoundedly mistaken! Every man may write a book for
himself, if he likes, but _this_ is mine; and, as I borrow no man's
story, neither will I give any man a particle of credit for his deeds,
as I have got so little for my own that I have none to spare. Neither
will I mention any regiment but my own, if I can possibly avoid it,
for there is none other that I like so much, and none else so much
deserves it; for we were the light regiment of the Light Division, and
fired the first and last shot in almost every battle, siege, and
skirmish, in which the army was engaged during the war.
In stating the foregoing resolution, however, with regard to
regiments, I beg to be understood as identifying our old and gallant
associates, the forty-third and fifty-second, as a part of ourselves,
for they bore their share in every thing, and I love them as I hope to
do my better half, (when I come to be divided,) wherever _we_ were,
_they_ were; and although the nature of our arm generally gave us more
employment in the way of skirmishing, yet, whenever it came to a
pinch, independent of a suitable mixture of them among us, we had
only to look behind to see a line, in which we might place a degree of
confidence, almost equal to our hopes in heaven; nor were we ever
disappointed. There never was a corps of riflemen in the hands of such
supporters!
October 1st, 1810.--We stood to our arms at day light this morning, on
a hill in front of Coimbra; and, as the enemy soon after came on in
force, we retired before them through the city. The civil authorities,
in making their own hurried escape, had totally forgotten that they
had left a gaol full of rogues unprovided for, and who, as we were
passing near them, made the most hideous screaming for relief. Our
quarter-master-general very humanely took some men, who broke open the
doors, and the whole of them were soon seen howling along the bridge
into the wide world, in the most delightful delirium, with the French
dragoons at their heels.
We retired, the same night, through Condacia, where the commissariat
were destroying quantities of stores that they were unable to carry
off. They handed out shoes and shirts to any one that would take them,
and the streets were literally running ankle deep with rum, in which
the soldiers were dipping their cups and helping themselves as they
marched along. The commissariat, some years afterwards, called for a
return of the men who had received shirts and shoes on this occasion,
with a view of making us pay for them, but we very briefly replied
that the one half were dead, and the other half would be d----d before
they would pay any thing.
We retired this day to Leria, and, at the entrance of the city, saw an
English and a Portuguese soldier dangling by the bough of a tree--the
first summary example I had ever seen of martial law.
A provost-marshal, on actual service, is a character of considerable
pretensions, as he can flog at pleasure, always moves about with a
guard of honour, and though he cannot altogether stop a man's breath
without an order, yet, when he is ordered to hang a given number out
of a crowd of plunderers, his _friends_ are not particularly
designated, so that he can invite any one that he takes a fancy to, to
follow him to the nearest tree, where he, without further ceremony,
relieves him from the cares and troubles of this wicked world.
There was only one _furnished_ shop remaining in the town at this
time, and I went in to see what they had got to sell; but I had
scarcely past the threshold when I heard a tremendous clatter at my
heels, as if the opposite house had been pitched in at the door after
me; and, on wheeling round to ascertain the cause, I found, when the
dust cleared away, that a huge stone balcony, with iron railings,
which had been over the door, overcharged with a collection of old
wives looking at the troops, had tumbled down; and in spite of their
vociferations for the aid of their patron saints, some them were
considerably damaged.
We halted one night near the Convent of Batalha, one of the finest
buildings in Portugal. It has, I believe, been clearly established,
that a living man in ever so bad health is better than two dead ones;
but it appears that the latter will vary in value according to
circumstances, for we found here, in very high preservation, the body
of King John of Portugal, who founded the edifice in commemoration of
some victory, God knows how long ago; and though he would have been
reckoned a highly valuable antique, within a glass case, in an
apothecary's hall in England, yet he was held so cheap in his own
house, that the very finger which most probably pointed the way to the
victory alluded to, is now in the baggage of the Rifle Brigade!
Reader, point not _thy_ finger at me, for I am not the man.
Retired on the morning of a very wet, stormy day to Allenquer, a small
town on the top of a mountain, surrounded by still higher ones; and,
as the enemy had not shewn themselves the evening before, we took
possession of the houses, with a tolerable prospect of being permitted
the unusual treat of eating a dinner under cover. But by the time
that the pound of beef was parboiled, and while an officer of dragoons
was in the act of reporting that he had just patrolled six leagues to
the front, without seeing any signs of an enemy, we saw the
indefatigable rascals, on the mountain opposite our windows, just
beginning to wind round us, with a mixture of cavalry and infantry;
the wind blowing so strong, that the long tail of each particular
horse stuck as stiffly out in the face of the one behind, as if the
whole had been strung upon a cable and dragged by the leaders. We
turned out a few companies, and kept them in check while the division
was getting under arms, spilt the soup as usual, and transferring the
smoking solids to the haversack, for future mastication, we continued
our retreat.
We past through the town of Sobral, soon after dark, the same night;
and, by the aid of some rushlights in a window, saw two apothecaries,
the very counterparts of Romeo's, who were the only remnants of the
place, and had braved the horrors of war for the sake of the
gallipots, and in the hopes that their profession would be held
sacred. They were both on the same side of the counter, looking each
other point blank in the face, their sharp noses not three inches
apart, and neither daring to utter a syllable, but both listening
intensely to the noise outside. Whatever their courage might have been
screwed up to before, it was evident that we were indebted for their
presence now to their fears; and their appearance altogether was so
ludicrous, that they excited universal shouts of laughter as they came
within view of the successive divisions.
Our long retreat ended at midnight, on our arrival at the handsome
little town of Arruda, which was destined to be the piquet post of our
division, in front of the fortified lines. The quartering of our
division, whether by night or by day, was an affair of about five
minutes. The quarter-master-general preceded the troops, accompanied
by the brigade-majors and the quarter-masters of regiments; and after
marking off certain houses for his general and staff, he split the
remainder of the town between the majors of brigades: they in their
turn provided for their generals and staff, and then made a wholesale
division of streets among the quarter-masters of regiments, who, after
providing for their commanding officers and staff, retailed the
remaining houses, in equal proportions, among the companies; so that,
by the time that the regiment arrived, there was nothing to be done
beyond the quarter-master's simply telling each captain, "here's a
certain number of houses for you."
Like all other places on the line of march, we found Arruda totally
deserted, and its inhabitants had fled in such a hurry, that the keys
of their house doors were the only things they carried away; so that
when we got admission, through our usual key,[1] we were not a little
gratified to find that the houses were not only regularly furnished,
but most of them had some food in the larder, and a plentiful supply
of good wines in the cellar; and, in short, that they only required a
few lodgers capable of appreciating the good things which the gods had
provided; and the deuce is in it if we were not the very folks who
could!
[Footnote 1: Transmitting a rifle-ball through the key-hole:
it opens every lock.]
Unfortunately for ourselves, and still more so for the proprietors, we
never dreamt of the possibility of our being able to keep possession
of the town, as we thought it a matter of course that the enemy would
attack our lines; and, as this was only an outpost, that it must fall
into their hands; so that, in conformity with the system upon which we
had all along been retreating, we destroyed every thing that we could
not use ourselves, to prevent their benefiting by it. But, when we
continued to hold the post beyond the expected period, our
indiscretion was visited on our own heads, as we had destroyed in a
day what would have made us luxurious for months. We were in hopes
that, afterwards, the enemy would have forced the post, if only for an
hour, that we might have saddled them with the mischief; but, as they
never even made the attempt, it left it in the power of ill-natured
people to say, that we had plundered one of our own towns. This was
the only instance during the war in which the light division had
reason to blush for their conduct, and even in that we had the law
martial on our side, whatever gospel law might have said against it.
The day after our arrival, Mr. Simmons and myself had the curiosity to
look into the church, which was in nowise injured, and was fitted up
in a style of magnificence becoming such a town. The body of a poor
old woman was there, lying dead before the altar. It seemed as if she
had been too infirm to join in the general flight, and had just
dragged herself to that spot by a last effort of nature, and expired.
We immediately determined, that as her's was the only body that we had
found in the town, either alive or dead, that she should have more
glory in the grave than she appeared to have enjoyed on this side of
it; and, with our united exertions, we succeeded in raising a marble
slab, which surmounted a monumental vault, and was beautifully
embellished with armorial blazonry, and, depositing the body inside,
we replaced it again carefully. If the personage to whom it belonged
happened to have a tenant of his own for it soon afterwards, he must
have been rather astonished at the manner in which the apartment was
occupied.
Those who wish a description of the lines of Torres Vedras, must read
_Napier_, or some one else who knows all about them; for my part, I
know nothing, excepting that I was told that one end of them rested on
the Tagus, and the other somewhere on the sea; and I saw, with my own
eyes, a variety of redoubts and field-works on the various hills which
stand between. This, however, I do know, that we have since kicked the
French out of more formidable looking and stronger places; and, with
all due deference be it spoken, I think that the Prince of Essling
ought to have tried his luck against them, as he could only have been
beaten by fighting, as he afterwards was without it! And if he thinks
that he would have lost as many men by trying, as he did by not
trying, he must allow me to differ in opinion with him!!!
In very warm or very wet weather it was customary to put us under
cover in the town during the day, but we were always moved back to our
bivouac, on the heights, during the night; and it was rather amusing
to observe the different notions of individual comfort, in the
selection of furniture, which officers transferred from their _town
house_ to their _no house_ on the heights. A sofa, or a mattress, one
would have thought most likely to be put in requisition; but it was
not unusual to see a full-length looking-glass preferred to either.
The post of the company to which I belonged, on the heights, was near
a redoubt, immediately behind Arruda; there was a cattle-shed near it,
which we cleaned out, and used as a sort of quarter. On turning out
from breakfast one morning, we found that the butcher had been about
to offer up the usual sacrifice of a bullock to the wants of the day;
but it had broken loose, and, in trying to regain his victim, had
caught it by the tail, which he twisted round his hand; and, when we
made our appearance, they were performing a variety of evolutions at a
gallop, to the great amusement of the soldiers; until an unlucky turn
brought them down upon our house, which had been excavated out of the
face of the hill, on which the upper part of the roof rested, and _in_
they went, heels over head, butcher, bullock, tail and all, bearing
down the whole fabric with a tremendous crash.
N.B. It was very fortunate that we happened to be outside; and very
unfortunate, as we were now obliged to remain out.
We certainly lived in _clover_ while we remained here; every thing we
saw was our own, seeing no one there who had a more legitimate claim;
and every field was a vineyard. Ultimately it was considered too much
trouble to pluck the grapes, as there were a number of poor native
thieves in the habit of coming from the rear, every day, to steal
some, so that a soldier had nothing to do but to watch one until he
was marching off with his basket full, when he would very deliberately
place his back against that of the Portuguese, and relieve him of his
load, without wasting any words about the bargain. The poor wretch
would follow the soldier to the camp, in the hope of having his basket
returned, as it generally was, when emptied.
Massena conceiving any attack upon our lines to be hopeless, as his
troops were rapidly mouldering away with sickness and want, at length
began to withdraw them nearer to the source of his supplies.
He abandoned his position, opposite to us, on the night of the 9th of
November, leaving some stuffed-straw gentlemen occupying their usual
posts. Some of them were cavalry, some infantry, and they seemed such
respectable representatives of their spectral predecessors, that, in
the haze of the following morning, we thought that they had been
joined by some well-fed ones from the rear; and it was late in the day
before we discovered the mistake and advanced in pursuit. In passing
by the edge of a mill-pond, after dark, our adjutant and his horse
tumbled in, and, as the latter had no tail to hold on by, they were
both very nearly drowned.
It was late ere we halted for the night, on the side of the road, near
to Allenquer, and I got under cover in a small house, which looked as
if it had been honoured as the head-quarters of the tailor-general of
the French army, for the floor was strewed with variegated threads,
various complexioned buttons, with particles and remnants of
_cabbage_; and, if it could not boast of the flesh and fowl of Noah's
ark, there was an abundance of the creeping things which it were to be
wished that that commander had not left behind. We marched before
daylight next morning, leaving a _rousing_ fire in the chimney, which
shortly became too small to hold it; for we had not proceeded far
before we perceived that the well-dried thatched roof had joined in
the general blaze, a circumstance which caused us no little
uneasiness, for our general, the late Major-general Robert Crawford,
had brought us up in the fear of our master; and, as he was a sort of
person who would not see a fire, of that kind, in the same _light_
that we did, I was by no means satisfied that my commission lay snug
in my pocket, until we had fairly marched it out of sight, and in
which we were aided not a little by a slight fire of another kind,
which he was required to watch with the advanced guard.
On our arrival at Valle, on the 12th of Nov. we found the enemy behind
the Rio Maior, occupying the heights of Santarem, and exchanged some
shots with their advanced posts. In the course of the night we
experienced one of those tremendous thunderstorms which used to
precede the Wellington victories, and which induced us to expect a
general action on the following day. I had disposed myself to sleep in
a beautiful green hollow way, and, before I had time even to dream of
the effects of their heavy rains, I found myself floating most
majestically towards the river, in a fair way of becoming food for
the fishes. I ever after gave those inviting-looking spots a wide
birth, as I found that they were regular watercourses.
Next morning our division crossed the river, and commenced a false
attack on the enemy's left, with a view of making them show their
force; and it was to have been turned into a real attack, if their
position was found to be occupied by a rear guard only; but, after
keeping up a smart skirmishing-fire the greater part of the day, Lord
Wellington was satisfied that their whole army was present, we were
consequently withdrawn.
This affair terminated the campaign of 1810. Our division took
possession of the village of Valle and its adjacents, and the rest of
the army was placed in cantonments, under whatever cover the
neighbouring country afforded.
Our battalion was stationed in some empty farm-houses, near the end of
the bridge of Santarem, which was nearly half a mile long; and our
sentries and those of the enemy were within pistol-shot of each other
on the bridge.
I do not mean to insinuate that a country is never so much at peace as
when at open war; but I do say that a soldier can no where sleep so
soundly, nor is he any where so secure from surprise, as when within
musket-shot of his enemy.
We lay four months in this situation, divided only by a rivulet,
without once exchanging shots. Every evening, at the hour
"When bucks to dinner go,
And cits to sup,"
it was our practice to dress for sleep: we saddled our horses, buckled
on our armour, and lay down, with the bare floor for a bed and a stone
for a pillow, ready for any thing, and reckless of every thing but the
honour of our corps and country; for I will say (to save the expense
of a trumpeter) that a more devoted set of fellows were never
associated.
We stood to our arms every morning at an hour before daybreak, and
remained there until a _grey horse_ could be seen a mile off, (which
is the military criterion by which daylight is acknowledged, and the
hour of surprise past,) when we proceeded to unharness, and to indulge
in such _luxuries_ as our toilet and our table afforded.
The Maior, as far as the bridge of Valle, was navigable for the small
craft from Lisbon, so that our table, while we remained there, cut as
respectable a figure, as regular supplies of rice, salt fish, and
potatoes could make it; not to mention that our pig-skin was, at all
times, at least three parts full of a common red wine, which used to
be dignified by the name of _black-strap_. We had the utmost
difficulty, however, in keeping up appearances in the way of dress.
The jacket, in spite of shreds and patches, always maintained
something of the original about it; but woe befel the regimental
small-clothes, and they could only be replaced by very extraordinary
apologies, of which I remember that I had two pair at this period,
_one_ of a common brown Portuguese cloth, and the _other_, or
Sunday's pair, of black velvet. We had no women with the regiment; and
the ceremony of washing a shirt amounted to my servant's taking it by
the collar, and giving it a couple of shakes in the water, and then
hanging it up to dry. Smoothing-irons were not the fashion of the
times, and, if a fresh well-dressed aide-de-camp did occasionally come
from England, we used to stare at him with about as much respect as
Hotspur did at his "waiting gentlewoman."
The winter here was uncommonly mild. I am not the sort of person to
put myself much in the way of ice, except on a warm summer's day; but
the only inconvenience that I felt in bathing, in the middle of
December, was the quantity of leeches that used to attach themselves
to my personal supporters, obliging me to cut a few capers to shake
them off, after leaving the water.
Our piquet-post, at the bridge, became a regular lounge, for the
winter, to all manner of folks.
I used to be much amused at seeing our naval officers come up from
Lisbon riding on mules, with huge ships' spy-glasses, like
six-pounders, strapped across the backs of their saddles. Their first
question invariably was, "Who is that fellow there," (pointing to the
enemy's sentry, close to us,) and, on being told that he was a
Frenchman, "Then why the devil don't you shoot him!"
Repeated acts of civility passed between the French and us during this
tacit suspension of hostilities. The greyhounds of an officer followed
a hare, on one occasion, into their lines, and they very politely
returned them.
I was one night on piquet, at the end of the bridge, when a ball came
from the French sentry and struck the burning billet of wood round
which we were sitting, and they sent in a flag of truce, next morning,
to apologize for the accident, and to say that it had been done by a
stupid fellow of a sentry, who imagined that people were advancing
upon him. We admitted the apology, though we knew well enough that it
had been done by a malicious rather than a stupid fellow, from the
situation we occupied.
General Junot, one day reconnoitring, was severely wounded by a
sentry, and Lord Wellington, knowing that they were at that time
destitute of every thing in the shape of comfort, sent to request his
acceptance of any thing that Lisbon afforded that could be of any
service to him; but the French general was too much of a politician to
admit the want of any thing.