March to Estremadura. At Soito, growing Accommodations for Man
and Beast. British Taste displayed by Portuguese Wolves. False
Alarm. Luxuries of Roquingo Camp. A Chaplain of the Forces.
Return towards the North. Quarters near Castello de Vide.
Blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo. Village of Atalya; Fleas abundant;
Food scarce. Advance of the French Army. Affairs near Guinaldo.
Our Minister administered to. An unexpected Visit from our
General and his Followers. End of the Campaign of 1811. Winter
Quarters.
Lord Wellington, soon after the battle of Fuentes, was again called
into Estremadura, to superintend the operations of the corps of the
army under Marshal Beresford, who had, in the mean time, fought the
battle of Albuera, and laid siege to Badajos. In the beginning of
June our division was ordered thither also, to be in readiness to aid
his operations. We halted one night at the village of Soito, where
there are a great many chestnut trees of very extraordinary
dimensions; the outside of the trunk keeps growing as the inside
decays. I was one of a party of four persons who dined inside of one,
and I saw two or three horses put up in several others.
We halted, also, one night on the banks of the Coa, near Sabugal, and
visited our late field of battle. We found that the dead had been
nearly all torn from their graves, and devoured by wolves, who are in
great force in that wild mountainous district, and shew very little
respect either for man or beast. They seldom, indeed, attack a man;
but if one happens to tie his horse to a tree, and leaves him
unattended, for a short time, he must not be surprised if he finds, on
his return, that he has parted with a good _rump steak_; _that_ is the
piece that they always prefer; and it is, therefore, clear to me,
that the first of the wolves must have been reared in England!
We experienced, in the course of this very dark night, one of those
ridiculous false alarms which will sometimes happen in the best
organized body. Some bullocks strayed, by accident, amongst the piles
of arms, the falling clatter of which, frightened them so much that
they went galloping over the sleeping soldiers. The officers'
baggage-horses broke from their _moorings_, and joined in the general
charge; and a cry immediately arose, that it was the French cavalry.
The different regiments stood to their arms, and formed squares,
looking as sharp as thunder for something to fire at; and it was a
considerable time before the cause of the _row_ could be traced. The
different followers of the army, in the mean time, were scampering off
to the rear, spreading the most frightful reports. One woman of the
52d succeeded in getting three leagues off before daylight, and swore,
"that, as God was her judge, she did not leave her regiment until she
saw the last man of them cut to pieces!!!"
On our arrival near Elvas, we found that Marshal Beresford had raised
the siege of Badajos; and we were, therefore, encamped on the river
Caya, near Roquingo. This was a sandy unsheltered district; and the
weather was so excessively hot, that we had no enjoyment, but that of
living three parts of the day up to the neck in a pool of water.
Up to this period it had been a matter of no small difficulty to
ascertain, at any time, the day of the week; that of the month was
altogether out of the question, and could only be reckoned by counting
back to the date of the last battle; but our division was here joined
by a chaplain, whose duty it was to remind us of these things. He
might have been a very good man, but he was not prepossessing, either
in his appearance or manners. I remember, the first Sunday after his
arrival, the troops were paraded for divine service, and had been some
time waiting in square, when he at length rode into the centre of it,
with his tall, lank, ungainly figure, mounted on a starved, untrimmed,
unfurnished horse, and followed by a Portuguese boy, with his
canonicals and prayer-books on the back of a mule, with a hay-bridle,
and having, by way of clothing, about half a pair of straw breeches.
This spiritual comforter was the least calculated of any one that I
ever saw to excite devotion in the minds of men, who had seen nothing
in the shape of a divine for a year or two.
In the beginning of August we began to retrace our steps towards the
north. We halted a few days in Portalegre, and a few more at Castello
de Vide.
The latter place is surrounded by extensive gardens, belonging to the
richer citizens; in each of which there is a small summer-house,
containing one or two apartments, in which the proprietor, as I can
testify, may have the enjoyment of being fed upon by a more healthy
and better appetized flea, than is to be met with in town houses in
general.
These _quintas_ fell to the lot of our battalion; and though their
beds, on that account, had not much sleep in them, yet, as those who
preferred the voice of the nightingale in a bed of cabbages, to the
pinch of a flea in a bed of feathers, had the alternative at their
option; I enjoyed my sojourn there very much. Each garden had a
bathing tank, with a plentiful supply of water, which at that season
was really a luxury; and they abounded in choice fruits. I there
formed an attachment to a mulberry-tree, which is still fondly
cherished in my remembrance.
We reached the scene of our former operations, in the north, towards
the end of August.
The French had advanced and blockaded Almeida, during our absence, but
they retired again on our approach, and we took up a more advanced
position than before, for the blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo.
Our battalion occupied Atalya, a little village at the foot of the
Sierra de Gata, and in front of the River Vadilla. On taking
possession of my quarter, the people showed me an outhouse, which,
they said, I might use as a stable, and I took my horse into it, but,
seeing the floor strewed with what appeared to be a small brown seed,
heaps of which lay in each corner, as if shovelled together in
readiness to take to market, I took up a handful, out of curiosity,
and, truly, they were a curiosity, for I found that they were all
regular fleas, and that they were proceeding to eat both me and my
horse, without the smallest ceremony. I rushed out of the place, and
knocked them down by fistfuls, and never yet could comprehend the
cause of their congregating together in such a place.
This neighbourhood had been so long the theatre of war, and
alternately forced to supply both armies, that the inhabitants, at
length, began to dread starvation themselves, and concealed, for their
private use, all that remained to them; so that, although they were
bountiful in their assurances of good wishes, it was impossible to
extract a loaf of their good bread, of which we were so wildly in want
that we were obliged to conceal patroles on the different roads and
footpaths, for many miles around, to search the peasants passing
between the different villages, giving them an order on the commissary
for whatever we took from them; and we were not too proud to take even
a few potatoes out of an old woman's basket.
On one occasion, when some of us were out shooting, we discovered
about twenty hives of bees, in the face of a glen, concealed among the
gumcestus, and, stopping up the mouth of one them, we carried it home
on our shoulders, bees and all, and continued to levy contributions on
the _depot_ as long as we remained there.
Towards the end of September, the garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo began to
get on such "short commons" that _Marmont_, who had succeeded
_Massena_, in the command of the French army, found it necessary to
assemble the whole of his forces, to enable him to throw provisions
into it.
Lord Wellington was still pursuing his defensive system, and did not
attempt to oppose him; but Marmont, after having effected his object,
thought that he might as well take that opportunity of beating up our
quarters, in return for the trouble we had given him; and,
accordingly, on the morning of the 25th, he attacked a brigade of the
third division, stationed at El Bedon, which, after a brilliant
defence and retreat, conducted him opposite to the British position,
in front of Fuente Guinaldo. He busied himself, the whole of the
following day, in bringing up his troops for the attack. Our division,
in the mean time, remained on the banks of the Vadillo, and had nearly
been cut off, through the obstinacy of General Crawford, who did not
choose to obey an order he received to retire the day before; but we,
nevertheless, succeeded in joining the army, by a circuitous route, on
the afternoon of the 26th; and, the whole of both armies being now
assembled, we considered a battle on the morrow as inevitable.
Lord Wellington, however, was not disposed to accommodate them on this
occasion; for, about the middle of the night, we received an order to
stand to our arms, with as little noise as possible, and to commence
retiring, the rest of the army having been already withdrawn, unknown
to us; an instance of the rapidity and uncertainty of our movements
which proved fatal to the liberty of several amateurs and followers of
the army, who, seeing an army of sixty thousand men lying asleep
around their camp-fires, at ten o'clock at night, naturally concluded
that they might safely indulge in a bed in the village behind, until
daylight, without the risk of being caught napping; but, long ere that
time, they found themselves on the high road to Ciudad Rodrigo, in the
rude grasp of an enemy. Amongst others, was the chaplain of our
division, whose outward man, as I have already said, conveyed no very
exalted notion of the respectability of his profession, and who was
treated with greater indignity than usually fell to the lot of
prisoners, for, after keeping him a couple of days, and finding that,
however gifted he might have been in spiritual lore, he was as
ignorant as Dominie Sampson on military matters; and, conceiving good
provisions to be thrown away upon him, they stripped him nearly naked
and dismissed him, like the barber in Gil Blas, with a kick in the
breech, and sent him in to us in a woful state.
September 27th.--General Crawford remained behind us this morning,
with a troop of dragoons, to reconnoitre; and, while we were marching
carelessly along the road, he and his dragoons galloped right into our
column, with a cloud of French ones at his heels. Luckily, the ground
was in our favour; and, dispersing our men among the broken rocks, on
both sides of the road, we sent them back somewhat faster than they
came on. They were, however, soon replaced by their infantry, with
whom we continued in an uninteresting skirmish all day. There was some
sharp firing, the whole of the afternoon, to our left; and we retired,
in the evening, to Soito.
This affair terminated the campaign of 1811, as the enemy retired the
same night, and we advanced next day to resume the blockade of
Rodrigo; and were suffered to remain quietly in cantonments until the
commencement of a new year.
In every interval between our active services, we indulged in all
manner of childish trick and amusement, with an avidity and delight of
which it is impossible to convey an adequate idea. We lived united, as
men always are who are daily staring death in the face on the same
side, and who, caring little about it, look upon each new day added to
their lives as one more to rejoice in.
We invited the villagers, every evening, to a dance at our quarters
alternately. A Spanish peasant girl has an address about her which I
have never met with in the same class of any other country; and she at
once enters into society with the ease and confidence of one who had
been accustomed to it all her life. We used to flourish away at the
bolero, fandango, and waltz, and wound up early in the evening with a
supper of roasted chestnuts.
Our village _belles_, as already stated, made themselves perfectly at
home in our society, and we, too, should have enjoyed theirs for a
season; but, when month after month, and year after year, continued to
roll along, without producing any change, we found that the cherry
cheek and sparkling eye of rustic beauty furnished but a very poor
apology for the illuminated portion of Nature's fairest works, and
ardently longed for an opportunity of once more feasting our eyes on a
_lady_.
In the month of December, we heard that the chief magistrate of
Rodrigo, with whom we were personally acquainted, had, with his
daughter and two other young ladies, taken shelter in Robledillo, a
little town in the Sierra de Gata, which, being within our range,
presented an attraction not to be resisted.
Half-a-dozen of us immediately resolved ourselves into a committee of
ways and means. We had six months' pay due to us; so that the fandango
might have been danced in either of our pockets without the smallest
risk; but we had this consolation for our poverty, that there was
nothing to be bought, even if we had the means. Our only resource,
therefore, was to lighten the cares of such of our brother-officers as
were fortunate enough to have any thing to lose; and, at this moment
of doubt and difficulty, a small flock of turkeys, belonging to our
major, presented themselves, most imprudently, grazing opposite the
windows of our council-chamber, two of which were instantly committed
to the bottom of a sack, as a foundation to go upon. One of our spies,
soon after, apprehended a sheep, the property of another officer,
which was committed to the same place; and, getting the commissary to
advance us a few extra loaves of bread, some ration beef, and a
pig-skin full of wine, we placed a servant on a mule, with the whole
concern tackled to him, and proceeded on our journey.
In passing over the mountain, we saw a wild boar bowling along, in the
midst of a snow-storm, and, voting them fitting companions, we
suffered him to pass, (particularly as he did not come within shot).
On our arrival at Robledillo, we met with the most cordial reception
from the old magistrate; who, entering into the spirit of our visit,
provided us with quarters, and filled our room in the evening with
every body worth seeing in the place. We were malicious enough, by way
of amusement, to introduce a variety of absurd pastimes, under the
pretence of their being English, and which, by virtue thereof, were
implicitly adopted. We, therefore, passed a regular romping evening;
and, at a late hour, having conducted the ladies to their homes, some
friars, who were of the party, very kindly, intended doing us the same
favour, and, with that view, had begun to precede us with their
lanterns, but, in the frolic of the moment, we set upon them with
snow-balls, some of which struck upon their broad shoulders, while
others fizzed against their fiery faces, and, in their astonishment
and alarm, all sanctimony was forgotten; their oaths flew as thick as
our snow-balls, while they ran ducking their heads and dousing their
lights, for better concealment; but we, nevertheless, persevered until
we had pelted each to his own home.
We were, afterwards, afraid that we had carried the joke rather too
far, and entertained some doubts as to the propriety of holding our
quarters for another day; but they set our minds at rest on that
point, by paying us an early visit in the morning, and seemed to enjoy
the joke in a manner that we could not have expected from the gravity
of their looks.
We passed two more days much in the same manner, and, on the third,
returned to our cantonments, and found that our division had moved,
during our absence, into some villages nearer to Ciudad Rodrigo,
preparatory to the siege of that place.
On inquiry, we found that we had never been suspected for the
_abduction_ of the sheep and turkeys, but that the blame, on the
contrary, had been attached to the poor soldiers, whose soup had been
tasted every day to see if it savoured of such dainties. The
proprietor of the turkeys was so particularly indignant that we
thought it prudent not to acknowledge ourselves as the culprits until
some time afterwards, when, as one of our party happened to be killed
in action, we, very uncharitably, put the whole of it on his
shoulders.