Passage of the Mondego. Swearing to a large Amount. Two
Prisoners, with their Two Views. Two Nuns, Two Pieces of Dough,
and Two Kisses. A Halt. Affair near Frexedas. Arrival near
Guarda. Murder. A stray Sentry. Battle of Sabugal. Spanish and
Portuguese Frontiers. Blockade of Almeida. Battle-like. Current
Value of Lord Wellington's Nose. Battle of Fuentes D'Onor. The
Day after the Battle. A grave Remark. The _Padre's_ House.
Retreat of the Enemy.
March 17th.--Found the enemy's rear-guard behind the Mondego, at Ponte
de Marcella, cannonaded them out of it, and then threw a temporary
bridge across the river, and followed them until dark.
The late Sir Alexander Campbell, who commanded the division next to
ours, by a wanton excess of zeal in expecting an order to follow,
would not permit any thing belonging to us to pass the bridge, for
fear of impeding the march of his troops; and, as he received no order
to march, we were thereby prevented from getting any thing whatever to
eat for the next thirty-six hours. I know not whether the curses of
individuals are recorded under such circumstances, but, if they are,
the gallant general will have found the united hearty ones of four
thousand men registered against him for that particular act.
March 19th.--We, this day, captured the aide-de-camp of General
Loison, together with his wife, who was dressed in a splendid hussar
uniform. _He_ was a Portuguese, and a traitor, and looked very like a
man who would be hanged. _She_ was a Spaniard, and very handsome, and
looked very like a woman who would get married again.
March 20th.--We had now been three days without any thing in the shape
of bread, and meat without it, after a time, becomes almost
loathsome. Hearing that we were not likely to march quite so early as
usual this morning, I started, before daylight, to a village about two
miles off, in the face of the Sierra D'Estrella, in the hopes of being
able to purchase something, as it lay out of the hostile line of
movements. On my arrival there, I found some nuns who had fled from a
neighbouring convent, waiting outside the building of the village-oven
for some Indian-corn-leaven, which they had carried there to be baked,
and, when I explained my pressing wants, two of them, very kindly,
transferred me their shares, for which I gave each a kiss and a dollar
between. They took the former as an unusual favour; but looked at the
latter, as much as to say, "our poverty, and not our will, consents."
I ran off with my half-baked dough, and joined my comrades, just as
they were getting under arms.
March 21st.--We, this day, reached the town of Mello, and had so far
outmarched our commissary that we found it necessary to wait for him;
and, in stopping to get a sight of our friends, we lost sight of our
foes, a circumstance which I was by no means sorry for, as it enabled
my shoulders, once more, to rejoice under the load of a couple of
biscuits, and made me no longer ashamed to look a cow or a sheep in
the face, now that they were not required to furnish more than their
regulated proportions of my daily food.
March 30th.--We had no difficulty in tracing the enemy, by the wrecks
of houses and the butchered peasantry; and overtook their rear-guard,
this day, busy grinding corn, in some windmills, near the village of
Frexedas. As their situation offered a fair opportunity for us to reap
the fruits of their labours, we immediately attacked and drove them
from it, and, after securing what we wanted, we withdrew again, across
the valley, to the village of Alverca, where we were not without some
reasonable expectations that they would have returned the compliment,
as we had only a few squadrons of dragoons in addition to our
battalion, and we had seen them withdraw a much stronger force from
the opposite village; but, by keeping a number of our men all night
employed in making extensive fires on the hill above, it induced them
to think that our force was much greater than it really was; and we
remained unmolested.
The only person we had hit in this affair was our adjutant, Mr.
Stewart, who was shot through the head from a window. He was a gallant
soldier, and deeply lamented. We placed his body in a chest, and
buried it in front of Colonel Beckwith's quarters.
March 31st.--At daylight, this morning, we moved to our right, along
the ridge of mountains, to Guarda: on our arrival there, we saw the
imposing spectacle of the whole of the French army winding through the
valley below, just out of gun-shot.
On taking possession of one of the villages which they had just
evacuated, we found the body of a well-dressed female, whom they had
murdered by a horrible refinement in cruelty. She had been placed upon
her back, alive, in the middle of the street, with the fragment of a
rock upon her breast, which it required four of our men to remove.
April 1st.--We overtook the enemy this afternoon, in position, behind
the Coa, at Sabugal, with their advanced posts on our side of the
river.
I was sent on piquet for the night, and had my sentries within
half-musket shot of theirs: it was wet, dark, and stormy when I went,
about midnight, to visit them, and I was not a little annoyed to find
one missing. Recollecting who he was, a steady old soldier and the
last man in the world to desert his post, I called his name aloud,
when his answering voice, followed by the discharge of a musket,
reached me nearly at the same time, from the direction of one of the
French sentries; and, after some inquiry, I found that in walking his
lonely round, in a brown study, no doubt, he had each turn taken ten
or twelve paces to his front, and only half that number to the rear,
until he had gradually worked himself up to within a few yards of his
adversary; and it would be difficult to say which of the two was most
astonished--the one at hearing a voice, or the other a shot so near,
but all my rhetoric, aided by the testimony of the serjeant and the
other sentries, could not convince the fellow that he was not on the
identical spot on which I had posted him.
April 2d.--We moved this day to the right, nearer to the bridge, and
some shots were exchanged between the piquets.