Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands Part 3

After the action at Sabugal, the enemy retired to the neighbourhood of Ciudad Rodrigo, without our getting another look at them, and we took up the line of the Agueda and Axava rivers, for the blockade of the fortress of Almeida, in which they had left a garrison indifferently provisioned.

The garrison had no means of providing for their cattle, but by turning them out to graze upon the glacis; and we sent a few of our rifles to practice against them, which very soon reduced them to salt provisions.

Towards the end of April the French army began to a.s.semble on the opposite bank of the Agueda to attempt the relief of the garrison, while ours began to a.s.semble in position at Fuentes D'Onor to dispute it.

Our division still continued to hold the same line of outposts, and had several sharp affairs between the piquets at the bridge of Marialva.

As a general action seemed now to be inevitable, we anxiously longed for the return of Lord Wellington, who had been suddenly called to the corps of the army under Marshal Beresford, near Badajos, as we would rather see his long nose in the fight than a reinforcement of ten thousand men any day. Indeed, there was a charm not only about himself but all connected with him, for which no odds could compensate. The known abilities of Sir George Murray, the gallant bearing of the lamented Pakenham, of Lord Fitzroy Somerset, of the present Duke of Richmond, Sir Colin Campbell, with others, the flower of our young n.o.bility and gentry, who, under the auspices of such a chief, seemed always a group attendant on victory; and I'll venture to say that there was not a bosom in that army that did not beat more lightly, when we heard the joyful news of his arrival, the day before the enemy's advance.

He had ordered us not to dispute the pa.s.sage of the river, so that when the French army advanced, on the morning of the 3d of May, we retired slowly before them, across the plains of Espeja, and drew into the position, where the whole army was now a.s.sembled. Our division took post in reserve, in the left centre. Towards evening, the enemy made a fierce attack on the Village of Fuentes, but were repulsed with loss.

On the 4th, both armies looked at each other all day without exchanging shots.

BATTLE OF FUENTES D'ONOR,

May 5th, 1811.

The day began to dawn, this fine May morning, with a rattling fire of musketry on the extreme right of our position, which the enemy had attacked, and to which point our division was rapidly moved.

Our battalion was thrown into a wood, a little to the left and front of the division engaged, and was instantly warmly opposed to the French skirmishers; in the course of which I was struck with a musket-ball on the left breast, which made me stagger a yard or two backward, and, as I felt no pain, I concluded that I was dangerously wounded; but it turned out to be owing to my not being hurt. While our operations here were confined to a tame skirmish, and our view to the oaks with which we were mingled, we found, by the evidence of our ears, that the division which we had come to support was involved in a more serious onset, for _there_ was the successive rattle of artillery, the wild hurrah of charging squadrons, and the repulsing volley of musketry; until Lord Wellington, finding his right too much extended, directed _that_ division to fall back behind the small river Touronne, and ours to join the main body of the army. The execution of our movement presented a magnificent military spectacle, as the plain, between us and the right of the army, was by this time in possession of the French cavalry, and, while we were retiring through it with the order and precision of a common field-day, they kept dancing around us, and every instant threatening a charge, without daring to execute it.

We took up our new position at a right angle with the then right of the British line, on which our left rested, and with our right on the Touronne. The enemy followed our movement with a heavy column of infantry; but, when they came near enough to exchange shots, they did not seem to like our looks, as we occupied a low ridge of broken rocks, against which even a rat could scarcely have hoped to advance alive; and they again fell back, and opening a tremendous fire of artillery, which was returned by a battery of our guns. In the course of a short time, seeing no further demonstration against this part of the position, our division was withdrawn, and placed in reserve in rear of the centre.

The battle continued to rage with fury in and about the village, whilst we were lying by our arms under a burning hot sun, some stray cannon-shot pa.s.sing over and about us, whose progress we watched for want of other employment. One of them bounded along in the direction of an _amateur_, whom we had for some time been observing securely placed, as he imagined, behind a piece of rock, which stood about five feet above the ground, and over which nothing but his head was shown, sheltered from the sun by an umbrella. The shot in question touched the ground three or four times between us and him; he saw it coming--lowered his umbrella, and withdrew his head. Its expiring bound carried it into the very spot where he had that instant disappeared. I hope he was not hurt; but the thing looked so ridiculous that it excited a shout of laughter, and we saw no more of him.

A little before dusk, in the evening, our battalion was ordered forward to relieve the troops engaged in the village, part of which still remained in possession of the enemy, and I saw, by the mixed nature of the dead, in every part of the streets, that it had been successively in possession of both sides. The firing ceased with the daylight, and I was sent, with a section of men, in charge of one of the streets for the night. There was a wounded Serjeant of highlanders lying on my post. A ball had pa.s.sed through the back part of his head, from which the brain was oozing, and his only sign of life was a convulsive hiccough every two or three seconds. I sent for a medical friend to look at him, who told me that he could not survive; I then got a mattress from the nearest house, placed the poor fellow on it, and made use of one corner as a pillow for myself, on which, after the fatigues of the day, and though called occasionally to visit my sentries, I slept most soundly. The highlander died in the course of the night.

When we stood to our arms, at daybreak next morning, we found the enemy busy throwing up a six-gun battery, immediately in front of our company's post, and we immediately set to work, with our whole hearts and souls, and placed a wall, about twelve feet thick, between us, which, no doubt, still remains there in the same garden, as a monument of what can be effected, in a few minutes, by a hundred modern men, when their personal safety is concerned; not but that the proprietor, in the midst of his admiration, would rather see a good bed of garlic on the spot, manured with the bodies of the architects.

When the sun began to s.h.i.+ne on the pacific disposition of the enemy, we proceeded to consign the dead to their last earthly mansions, giving every Englishman a grave to himself, and putting as many Frenchmen into one as it could conveniently accommodate. Whilst in the superintendence of this melancholy duty, and ruminating on the words of the poet:--

"There's not a form of all that lie Thus ghastly, wild and bare, Tost, bleeding, in the stormy sky, Black in the burning air, But to his knee some infant clung, But on his heart some fond heart hung!"

I was grieved to think that the souls of deceased warriors should be so selfish as to take to flight in their regimentals, for I never saw the body of one with a rag on after battle.

The day after one of those negative sort of victories is always one of intense interest. The movements on each side are most jealously watched, and each side is diligently occupied in strengthening such points as the fight of the preceding day had proved to be the most vulnerable.

Lord Wellington was too deficient in his cavalry force to justify his following up his victory; and the enemy, on their parts, had been too roughly handled, in their last attempt, to think of repeating the experiment; so that, during the next two days, though both armies continued to hold the same ground, there was scarcely a shot exchanged.

They had made a few prisoners, chiefly guardsmen and highlanders, whom they marched past the front of our position, in the most ostentatious way, on the forenoon of the 6th; and, the day following, a number of their regiments were paraded in the most imposing manner for review.

They looked uncommonly well, and we were proud to think that we had beaten such fine-looking fellows so lately!

Our regiment had been so long and so often quartered in Fuentes that it was like fighting for our fire-sides. The _Padre's_ house stood at the top of the town. He was an old friend of ours, and an old fool, for he would not leave his house until it was too late to take anything with him; but, curious enough, although it had been repeatedly in the possession of both sides, and plundered, no doubt, by many expert artists, yet none of them thought of looking so high as the garret, which happened to be the repository of his money and provisions. He came to us the day after the battle, weeping over his supposed loss, like a sensitive Christian, and I accompanied him to the house, to see whether there was not some consolation remaining for him; but, when he found his treasure safe, he could scarcely bear its restoration with becoming gravity. I helped him to carry off his bag of dollars, and he returned the compliment with a leg of mutton.

The French army retired on the night of the 7th, leaving Almeida to its fate; but, by an extraordinary piece of luck, the garrison made their escape the night after, in consequence of some mistake or miscarriage of an order, which prevented a British regiment from occupying the post intended for it.

May 8th.--We advanced this morning, and occupied our former post at Espeja, with some hopes of remaining quiet for a few days; but the alarm sounding at daylight on the following morning, we took post on the hill, in front of the village. It turned out to be only a patrole of French cavalry, who retired on receiving a few shots from our piquets, and we saw no more of them for a considerable time.

CHAP. VII.

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 G.o.d 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 a.s.surances 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 pa.s.sing 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 _Ma.s.sena_, in the command of the French army, found it necessary to a.s.semble 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 a.s.sembled, 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.