Their house, under the circumstances in which we were placed, became an agreeable lounge for many of us for a month or two, for though the sports of the field, with the limited means at our disposal, formed our daily amusement, we always contrived that it should terminate somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Quinta, where we were sure of three things—a hearty welcome, a dish of conversation, and another of chestnuts fried in hog's-lard, with a glass of aguadente to wind up with, which, after the fatigues of the day, carried us comfortably home to our more substantial repast, with a few little pleasing recollections to dream about.
The French marshal, as if envious of our enjoyments, meagre as they were, put a sudden stop to them. His advance, however, was not so rapid but that we were enabled to give our first care towards providing for the safety of our friends of the Quinta, by assisting them with the means of transporting themselves to a more remote glen in the mountains, before it was necessary to look to our own, and
had not been patent ones, yet did it savour somewhat of chivalric times when we had been one evening in the field in the front of the Quinta sporting with the young and the lovely of the land, as if wars and rumours of wars were to be heard of no more.
I say I felt it rather queerish or so, to be spreading down my boat-cloak for a bed in the same field the next night, with an enemy in my front, for so it was, and to find myself again before day-light next morning, from my cold clay couch, gazing at the wonderful comet of 1811, that made such capital claret, and wishing that he would wag his fiery tale a little nearer to my face, for it was so stiff with hoar frost that I dared neither to laugh nor cry for fear of breaking it.
We passed yet another night in the same field hallowed by such opposite recollections; but next day, independently of the gathered strength of the enemy in our front, we found a fight of some magnitude going on behind us, the combat of Elbodon; and our major-general, getting alarmed at last at his own temerity, found a sleeping place for us, some distance in the rear, in a hollow, where none but the comet and its companions might be indulged with a look.
Our situation was more than ticklish—with an enemy on three sides and an almost impassable mountain on the fourth—but starting with the lark next morning and passing through Robledillo, we happily succeeded in joining the army in front of Guinaldo in the afternoon, to the no small delight of his Grace of Wellington, whose judicious and daring front with half the enemy's numbers, had been our salvation. And it must no doubt have been a mortifying reflection to our divisional chief, to find that his obstinacy and disobedience of orders had not only placed his own division, but that of the whole army in such imminent peril.
Marmont had no doubt a laurel-wreath in embryo for the following day, but he had allowed his day to go by; the night was ours and we used it, so that when day-light broke, he had nothing but empty field-works to wreak his vengeance on. He followed us along the road, with some sharp partial fighting at one or two places, and there seemed a probability of his coming on to the position in which Lord Wellington felt disposed to give him battle; but a scarcity of provisions forced him to retrace his steps, and break up to a certain extent for the subsistence of his army, while our retreat terminated at Soita, which it appeared was about the spot on which Lord Wellington had determined to make a stand.
I shall ever remember our night at Soita for one thing. The commissariat had been about to destroy a cask of rum in the course of that day's retreat, when at the merciful intercession of one of my brother officers, it was happily spared and turned over to his safe keeping, and he shewed himself deserving of the trust, for by wonderful dexterity and management, he contrived to get it wheeled along to our resting-place, when establishing himself under the awning of a splendid chestnut-tree, he hung out the usual emblem of its being the head-quarters of a highland chief—not for the purpose of scaring way-fairers as erst did his forefathers of yore, to exclude the worthy Baillie Nicol Jarvie from the clachan of Aberfoyle—but for the more hospitable one of inviting them to be partakers thereof; and need I add that among the many wearers of empty calabashes which the chances of war had there assembled around him, the call was cheerfully responded to, and a glorious group very quickly assembled.
The morrow promised to be a bloody one; but we cared not for the morrow:—"sufficient for the day is the evil thereof:"—the song and the jest went merrily round, and, if the truth must be told, I believe that though we carried our cups to the feast, we all went back in them, and with the satisfaction of knowing that we had relieved our gallant chieftain of all further care respecting the contents of the cask.
The enemy having withdrawn the same night, we retraced our steps, next day, to our former neighbourhood; and though we were occasionally stirred up and called together by the menacing attitudes of our opponents, yet we remained the unusually long period of nearly three months without coming again into actual contact with them.
No officer during that time had one fraction to rub against another; and when I add that our paunches were nearly as empty as our pockets, it will appear almost a libel upon common sense to say that we enjoyed it; yet so it was,—our very privations were a subject of pride and boast to us, and there still continued to be an esprit de corps,—a buoyancy of feeling animating all, which nothing could quell; we were alike ready for the field or for frolic, and when not engaged in the one, went headlong into the other.
Ah me! when I call to mind that our chief support in those days of trial was the anticipated delight of recounting those tales in after years, to wondering and admiring groups around our domestic hearths, in merry England; and when I find that so many of these after years have already passed, and that the folks who people these present years, care no more about these dear-bought tales of former ones than if they were spinning-wheel stories of some "auld wife ayont the fire;" I say it is not only enough to make me inflict them with a book, as I have done, but it makes me wish that I had it all to do over again; and I think it would be very odd if I would not do exactly as I have done, for I knew no happier times, and they were their own reward!
It is worthy of remark that Lord Wellington, during the time I speak of, had made his arrangements for pouncing upon the devoted fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo, with such admirable secrecy, that his preparations were not even known to his own army.
I remember, about a fortnight before the siege commenced, hearing that some gabions and fascines were being made in the neighbourhood, but it was spoken of as a sort of sham preparation, intended to keep the enemy on the qui vive, as it seemed improbable that he would dare to invest a fortress in the face of an army which he had not force enough to meet in the field, unless on some select position; nor was it until the day before we opened the trenches that we became quite satisfied that he was in earnest.
The sieges, stormings, and capture of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos followed hard on each other's heels; and as I gave a short detail of the operations in my former volume, it only remains for me now to introduce such anecdotes and remarks as were there omitted.
The garrison of Ciudad was weak in number, but had a superabundant store of ammunition, which was served out to us with a liberal hand; yet, curious enough, except what was bestowed on the working parties, (and that was plenty in all conscience,) the greater portion of what was intended for the supporting body was expended in air, for they never seemed to have discovered the true position of the besieging force; and though some few of us, in the course of each night, by chance-shots, got transferred from natural to eternal sleep, yet their shells were chiefly employed in the ploughing-up of a hollow way between two hills, where we were supposed to have been, and which they did most effectually at their own cost.
When our turn of duty came for the trenches, however, we never had reason to consider ourselves neglected, but, on the contrary, could well spare what was sent at random.
I have often heard it disputed whether the most daring deeds are done by men of good or bad repute, but I never felt inclined to give either a preference over the other, for I have seen the most desperate things done by both. I remember one day during the siege that a shell pitched in the trenches within a few yards of a noted bad character of the 52d regiment, who, rather than take the trouble of leaping out of the trench until it had exploded, went very deliberately up, took it in his arms, and pitched it outside, obliging those to jump back who had there taken shelter from it.
A wild young officer, whose eccentricities and death, at Waterloo, were noticed in my former volume, was at that time at variance with his father on the subject of pecuniary matters, and in mounting the breach, at Ciudad, sword in hand, while both sides were falling thick and fast, he remarked to a brother-officer alongside of him, in his usual jocular way, "Egad, if I had my old father here now, I think I should be able to bring him to terms!"
Nothing shows the spirit of daring and inherent bravery of the British soldier so much as in the calling for a body of volunteers for any desperate service. In other armies, as Napier justly remarks, the humblest helmet may catch a beam of glory; but in ours, while the subaltern commanding the forlorn hope may look for death or a company, and the field-officer commanding the stormers an additional step by brevet, to the other officers and soldiers who volunteer on that desperate service, no hope is held out—no reward given; and yet there were as many applicants for a place in the ranks as if it led to the highest honours and rewards.
At the stormings of Badajos and St. Sebastian I happened to be the adjutant of the regiment, and had the selection of the volunteers on those occasions, and I remember that there was as much anxiety expressed, and as much interest made by all ranks to be appointed to the post of honour, as if it had been sinecure situations, in place of death-warrants, which I had at my disposal.
For the storming of St. Sebastian, the numbers from our battalion were limited to twenty-five; and in selecting the best characters out of those who offered themselves, I rejected an Irishman of the name of Burke, who, although he had been on the forlorn hope both at Ciudad and Badajos, and was a man of desperate bravery, I knew to be one of those wild untameable animals that, the moment the place was carried, would run into every species of excess.
The party had been named two days before they were called for, and Burke besieged my tent night and day, assuring me all the while that unless he was suffered to be of the party, the place would not be taken! I was forced at last to yield, after receiving an application in his behalf from the officer who was to command the party; and he was one of the very few of that gallant little band who returned to tell the story.
Nor was that voracious appetite for fire-eating confined to the private soldier, for it extended alike to all ranks. On the occasion just alluded to, our quota, as already stated, was limited to a subaltern's command of twenty-five men; and as the post of honour was claimed by the senior lieutenant, (Percival,) it in a manner shut the mouths of all the juniors; yet were there some whose mouths would not be shut,—one in particular (Lieutenant H.) who had already seen enough of fighting to satisfy the mind of any reasonable man, for he had stormed and bled at Ciudad Rodrigo, and he had stormed at Badajos, not to mention his having had his share in many, and not nameless battles, which had taken place in the interim; yet nothing would satisfy him but that he must draw his sword in that also.
Our colonel was too heroic a soul himself to check a feeling of that sort in those under him, and he very readily obtained the necessary permission to be a volunteer along with the party. Having settled his temporal affairs, namely, willing away his pelisse, jacket, two pairs of trousers, and sundry nether garments,—and however trifling these bequests may appear to a military youth of the present day, who happens to be reconnoitring a merchant tailor's settlement in St. James's Street, yet let me tell him that, at the time I speak of, they were valued as highly as if they had been hundreds a year in reversion.
The prejudice against will-making by soldiers on service is so strong, that had H. been a rich man in place of a poor one, he must have died on the spot for doing what was accounted infinitely more desperate than storming a breach; but his poverty seemed to have been his salvation, for he was only half killed,—a ball entered under his eye, passed down the roof of the mouth, through the palate, entered again at the collar-bone, and was cut out at the shoulder-blade. He never again returned to his regiment, but I saw him some years after, in his native country (Ireland), in an active situation, and, excepting that he had gotten an ugly mark on his countenance, and his former manly voice had dwindled into a less commanding one, he seemed as well as ever I saw him.
Will-making, as already hinted at, was, in the face of the enemy, reckoned the most daring of all daring deeds, for the doer was always considered a doomed man, and it was but too often verified—not but that the same fatality must have marked him out without it; but so strong was the prejudice generally on that subject that many a goodly estate has, in consequence, passed into what, under other circumstances, would have been forbidden hands.
On the subject of presentiments of death in going into battle, I have known as many instances of falsification as verification. To the latter the popular feeling naturally clings as the more interesting of the two; but I am inclined to think that the other would preponderate if the account could be justly rendered. The officer alluded to may be taken as a specimen of the former—he had been my messmate and companion at the sieges and stormings of both Ciudad and Badajos—and on the morning after the latter, he told me that he had had a presentiment that he would have fallen the night before, though he had been ashamed to confess it sooner—and yet to his credit be it spoken, so far from wishing to avoid, he coveted the post of danger—as his duty for that day would have led him to the trenches, but he exchanged with another officer, on purpose to ensure himself a place in the storm.
Of my own feelings on the point in consideration, I am free to say that, while I have been engaged in fifty actions, in which I have neither had the time, nor taken the trouble to ask myself any questions on the subject, but encountered them in whatever humour I happened to be—yet, in many others, (the eve of pitched battles,) when the risk was imminent, and certain that one out of every three must go to the ground, I have asked myself the question, "Do I feel like a dead man?" but I was invariably answered point blank, "No!" And yet must I still look like a superstitious character, when I declare that the only time that I ever went into action, labouring under a regular depression of spirits, was on the evening on which the musket-ball felt my head at Foz d'Aronce.
But to return to the storming of Ciudad. The moment which is the most dangerous to the honour and the safety of a British army is that in which they have won the place they have assaulted. While outside the walls, and linked together by the magic hand of discipline, they are heroes—but once they have forced themselves inside they become demons or lunatics—for it is difficult to determine which spirit predominates.
To see the two storming divisions assembled in the great square that night, mixed up in a confused mass, shooting at each other, and firing in at different doors and windows, without the shadow of a reason, was enough to drive any one, who was in possession of his senses, mad. The prisoners were formed in a line on one side of the square—unarmed, it is true—but, on my life, had they made a simultaneous rush forward, they might have made a second Bergen-op-Zoom of it—for so absolute was the sway of the demon of misrule, that half of our men, I verily believe, would have been panic-struck and thrown themselves into the arms of death, over the ramparts, to escape a danger that either did not exist or might have been easily avoided. After calling, and shouting, until I was hoarse in endeavouring to restore order, and when my voice was no longer audible, seeing a soldier raising his piece to fire at a window, I came across his shoulders with a musket-barrel which I had in my hand, and demanded, "What the devil, sir, are you firing at?" to which he answered, "I don't know, sir! I am firing because every body else is!"
The storming of a fortress was a new era to the British army of that day, and it is not to be wondered at if the officers were not fully alive to the responsibility which attaches to them on such an occasion—but on their conduct every thing hinges—by judgement and discretion men may be kept together—but once let them loose and they are no longer redeemable.
I have often lamented that speechifying was at such a discount in those days, for, excepting what was promulgated in Lord Wellington's orders, which were necessarily brief, the subordinates knew nothing of the past, present, or the future, until the glimpse of an English newspaper some months after served to enlighten their understandings; but there were every day occasions, in which the slightest hint from our superiors, as to the probable results, would have led to incalculable advantages, and in none more so than in the cases now quoted. So far from recommending caution, the chief of one of the storming divisions is grievously belied if he did not grant some special licenses for that particular occasion, though I am bound to say for him that he did all he could to repress them when he found the advantage taken.
Ciudad, being a remote frontier fortress, could boast of few persons of any note within its walls—our worthy friends of Horquera, (the Alcaldé, with his family,) were probably the best, and he returned and resumed his official functions as soon as he found that the place had reverted to its legal owners—his house had been a princely one, but was, unfortunately, situated behind the great breach, and was blown to atoms—so that, for the time being, he was obliged to content himself with one more humble—though, if I may speak as I have felt, I should say not less comfortable, for I contrived to make it my home as often as I could find an excuse for so doing—and, as the old Proverb goes, "where there is a will there is a way," it was as often as I could.
One portion of the ceremony of Spanish hospitality was their awaking me about five in the morning to take a cup of chocolate, made so thick that a tea-spoon might stand in it, which, with a little crisp brown toast, was always administered by the fair hands of one of the damsels, and certes I never could bring myself to consider it an annoyance, however unusual it may seem in this cold land of ours.
After the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo, our battalion took possession for a time of Ituera, a pretty little village on the banks of the Azava.
It was a delightful coursing country, abounding in hares; and as the chase in those days afforded a double gratification—the one present, and the other in perspective, (the dinner hour,) it was always followed with much assiduity. The village, too, happened to be within a short ride of Ciudad, so that frequent visits to our friends formed an agreeable variety, and rendered our short sojourn there a season of real enjoyment.
I was much struck, on first entering Spain, in observing what appeared to be a gross absurdity in their religious observances; for whenever one of those processions was heard approaching, the girls, no matter how they had been employed, immediately ran to the window, where, kneeling down, they continued repeating their aves until it had passed, when they jumped up again and were ready for any frolic or mischief.
Such was the effect produced inwardly by the outward passage of the Hoste, but it was not until I went to Ituera that I had an opportunity of witnessing the fatal results of a more familiar visit from those gentlemen bearing torches and dark lanterns, for they certainly seemed to me to put several souls to flight before they were duly prepared for it.
One happened to be the landlady of the house in which I was quartered, a woman about three score, and blind; but she was, nevertheless, as merry as a cricket, and used to amuse us over the fireside in the evening, while "twisting her rock and her wee pickle tow," in chaunting Malbrook and other ditties equally interesting, with a voice which at one time might have had a little music in it, but had then degenerated into the squeak of a penny trumpet.
In her last evening on earth, she had treated us with her usual serenade, and seemed as likely to live a dozen years longer as any one of the group around her; but on my return from a field-day next forenoon, I met the Padré, the sexton, and their usual accompaniments, marching out of the house to the tune of that grave air of theirs; and I saw that further question was needless, for the tears of the attendant damsels told me the tale of woe.
Her sudden departure was to me most unaccountable, nor could I ever obtain an explanation beyond that she was very aged; that they had sent for the Father to comfort her, and now she was happy in the keeping of their blessed Virgin.
There was much weeping and wailing for a day or two, and her grand-daughter, a tall thin lath of a girl, about eleven or twelve years of age, seemed the most distressed of the group. It so happened that a few days after, an order was promulgated authorising us to fill up our ranks with Spanish recruits, to the extent of ten men for each company, and I started off to some of the neighbouring villages, where we were well-known, in the hope of being able to pick up some good ones. On my return I was rather amused to find that the damsel already mentioned, whom I had left ten days before bathed in tears, was already a blushing bride in the hands of a strapping muleteer.
While on the subject of those Spanish recruits I may here remark that we could not persuade the countrymen to join us, and it was not until we got to Madrid that we succeeded in procuring the prescribed number for our battalion. Those we got, however, were a very inferior sample of the Spaniard, and we therefore expected little from them, but to their credit be it recorded, they turned out admirably well—they were orderly and well-behaved in quarters, and thoroughly good in the field; and they never went into action that they had not their full portion of casualties.
There were fifty of them originally, and at the close of the war, (about a year and a half after,) I think there were about seventeen remaining, and there had not been a single desertion from among them. When we were leaving the country they received some months' gratuitous pay and were discharged, taking with them our best wishes, which they richly merited.
Lord Wellington during the whole of the war kept a pack of fox-hounds, and while they contributed not a little to the amusement of whatever portion of the army happened to be within reach of head-quarters, they were to his Lordship valuable in many ways; for while he enjoyed the chase as much as any, it gave him an opportunity of seeing and conversing with the officers of the different departments, and other individuals, without attracting the notice of the enemy's emissaries; and the pursuits of that manly exercise, too, gave him a better insight into the characters of the individuals under him, than he could possibly have acquired by years of acquaintance under ordinary circumstances.
It is not unusual to meet, in the society of the present day, some old Peninsular trump, with the rank very probably of a field officer, and with a face as polished, and its upper story as well furnished as the figure-head of his sword hilt, gravely asserting that all the merit which the Duke of Wellington has acquired from his victories was due to the troops! And having plundered the Commander-in-Chief of his glory, and divided it among the followers, he, as an officer of those same followers, very complacently claims a field officer's allowance in the division of the spoil.
I would stake all I have in this world that no man ever heard such an opinion from the lips of a private soldier—I mean a thorough good service one—for the ideas of such men are beyond it; and I have ever found that their proudest stories relate to the good or gallant deeds of those above them. It is impossible, therefore, to hear such absurdities advanced by one in the rank of an officer, without marvelling by what fortuitous piece of luck he, with the military capacity of a baggage animal, had contrived to hold his commission, for he must have been deeply indebted to the clemency of those above, and takes the usual method of that class of persons, to shew his sense thereof, by kicking down the ladder by which he ascended.
Our civil brethren in general are of necessity obliged to swallow a considerable portion of whatever we choose to place before them. But when they meet with such an one as I have described, they may safely calculate that whenever the items of his services can be collected, it will be found that his Majesty has had a hard bargain! For, knowing, as every one does, what the best ship's crew would be afloat in the wide world of waters without a master, they may, on the same principle, bear in mind that there can no more be an efficient army without a good general, than there can be an efficient general without a good army, for the one is part and parcel of the other—they cannot exist singly!
The touching on the foregoing subject naturally obliges me to wander from my narrative to indulge in a few professional observations, illustrative not only of war but of its instruments.
Those unaccustomed to warfare, are apt to imagine that a field of battle is a scene of confusion worse confounded, but that is a mistake, for, except on particular occasions, there is in general no noise or confusion any thing like what takes place on ordinary field days in England. I have often seen half the number of troops put to death, without half the bluster and confusion which takes place in a sham fight in the Phœnix-Park of Dublin.
The man who blusters at a field day is not the man who does it on the field of battle: on the contrary his thoughts there are generally too big for utterance, and he would gladly squeeze himself into a nutshell if he could. The man who makes a noise on the field of battle is generally a good one, but all rules have their exceptions, for I have seen one or two thorough good ones, who were blusterers in both situations; but it nevertheless betrays a weakness in any officer who is habitually noisy about trifles, from the simple fact that when any thing of importance occurs to require an extraordinary exertion of lungs, nature cannot supply him with the powers requisite to make the soldiers understand that it is the consequence of an occurrence more serious, than the trifle he was in the habit of making a noise about.
In soldiering, as in every thing else, except Billingsgate and ballad singing, the cleverest things are done quietly.
At the storming of the heights of Bera, on the 8th of October, 1813, Colonel, now Sir John Colbourne, who commanded our second brigade, addressed his men before leading them up to the enemy's redoubt with, "Now, my lads, we'll just charge up to the edge of the ditch, and if we can't get in, we'll stand there and fire in their faces." They charged accordingly, the enemy fled from the works, and in following them up the mountain, Sir John, in rounding a hill, accompanied only by his brigade-major and a few riflemen, found that he had headed a retiring body of about 300 of the French, and whispering to his brigade-major to get as many men together as he could, he without hesitation rode boldly up to the enemy's commander, and demanded his sword! The Frenchman surrendered it with the usual grace of his countrymen, requesting that the other would bear witness that he had conducted himself like a good and valiant soldier! Sir John answered the appeal with an approving nod; for it was no time to refuse bearing witness to the valour of 300 men, while they were in the act of surrendering to half a dozen.
If a body of troops is under fire, and so placed as to be unable to return it, the officer commanding should make it a rule to keep them constantly on the move, no matter if it is but two side steps to the right or one to the front, it always makes them believe they are doing something, and prevents the mind from brooding over a situation which is the most trying of any.
The coolness of an officer in action, if even shewn in trifles, goes a great way towards maintaining the steadiness of the men. At the battle of Waterloo, I heard Sir John Lambert call one of his commanding officers to order for repeating his (the general's) word of command, reminding him that when the regiments were in contiguous close columns, they ought to take it from himself! As the brigade was under a terrific fire at the time, the notice of such a trifling breach of rule shewed, at all events, that the gallant general was at home!
In the course of the five days' fighting which took place near Bayonne, in December, 1813, a singular change of fate, with its consequent interchange of civilities, took place between the commanding officer of a French regiment and one of ours; I forget whether it was the 4th or 9th, but I think it was one of the regiments of that brigade—it had been posted amongst some enclosures which left both its flanks at the mercy of others.
The fighting at that place had been very severe, with various success, and while the regiment alluded to was hotly engaged in front, a French corps succeeded in getting in their rear; when the enemy's commandant advancing to the English one, apologised for troubling him, but begged to point out that he was surrounded, and must consider himself his prisoner! While the British colonel was listening to the mortifying intelligence, and glancing around to see if no hope of escape was left, he observed another body of English in the act of compassing the very corps by which he had been caught; and, returning the Frenchman's salute, begged his pardon for presuming to differ with him in opinion, but that he was labouring under a mistake, for he (the Frenchman) was, on the contrary, his prisoner, pointing in his turn to the movement that had taken place while they had been disputing the point. As the fact did not admit of a doubt, the Frenchman giving a shrug of the shoulders, and uttering a lament over the fickleness of the war-goddess, quietly surrendered.
Pass we on to Badajos—to that last, that direful, but glorious night—the 6th of April—"so fiercely fought, so terribly won, so dreadful in all its circumstances, that posterity can scarcely be expected to credit the tale."
Any one who has taken the trouble to read and digest what Napier has said in vindication of the measures adopted by Lord Wellington for the subjugation of those fortresses in the manner in which it was done, must feel satisfied that their propriety admits of no dispute. But as the want of time rendered it necessary to set the arts and sciences at defiance—and that, if carried at all, it must have been done with an extra sacrifice of human life, it will for ever remain a matter of opinion at what period of the siege the assault should have been made with the best prospect of success, and with the least probable loss—and such being the case it must be free to every writer to offer his own ideas.
Lord Wellington, as is well known, waited on each occasion for open breaches, and was each time successful—so far he did well, and they may do better who can. Colonel Lamarre would have attacked Badajos the first night of the siege with better hopes of success than on the last, as the garrison, he says, would have been less prepared, and the defences not so complete. But I differ from him on both positions, for, depend upon it, that every garrison is excessively alive for the first few days after they have been invested. And as to defensive preparations, I have reason to think that few after ones of consequence took place, but those of counteracting the effects of our battering guns.
I am, nevertheless, one of those who would like to see the attempt made at an intermediate period. Breaches certainly serve the important end of distracting the attention of the garrison, and leading them to neglect other assailable points—though, whenever they have the opportunity of retrenching them, as at Badajos, they are undoubtedly the strongest parts of the works. I should therefore carry on the siege in the usual manner until about the time the batteries began to come into operation, and as it might then be fairly presumed that the garrison, by the regular order of proceedings, would be lulled into a notion of temporary security, I should feel monstrously inclined to try my luck. If it turned up trumps it might save valuable time and a thousand or two of valuable lives. If it failed, the loss would be in proportion; but it would neither lose time, nor compromise the result of the siege.
Colonel Jones, an able writer and an able fighter, in his particular department, would have had us do what his great guns ought to have done on that memorable night—namely, to have cleared away the defences on the top of the breach, which he affirms might have been done by the rush of a dense mass of troops. But had he been where I was he would have seen that there was no scarcity of rushes of dense masses of troops; but, independently of every other engine of destruction which human ingenuity could invent—they were each time met by a dense rush of balls, and it is the nature of man to bow before them. No dense mass of troops could reach the top of that breach.
Major (then Lieutenant) Johnston, of ours, who was peculiarly calculated for desperate enterprize, preceded the forlorn hope, in command of a party carrying ropes, prepared with nooses, to throw over the sword blades, as the most likely method of displacing, by dragging them down the breach; but he and his whole party were stricken down before one of them had got within throwing distance.
When an officer, as I have already mentioned, with a presentiment of death upon him, resigned a safe duty to take a desperate one—when my own servant, rather than remain behind, gave up his situation and took his place in the ranks—when another man of ours (resolved to win or to die,) thrust himself beneath the chained sword blades, and there suffered the enemy to dash his brains out with the ends of their muskets—these, I say, out of as many thousand instances of the kind which may be furnished, will shew that there was no want of daring leaders or desperate followers.
The defences on the tops of the breaches ought to have been cleared away by our batteries before the assault commenced. But failing that, I cannot see why a couple of six-pounders (or half a dozen) might not have been run up along with the storming party, to the crest of the glacis. Our battalion took post there, and lay about ten minutes unknown to the enemy, and had a few guns been sent along with us, I am confident that we could have taken them up with equal silence, and had them pointed at the right place—when, at the time that the storming party commenced operations, a single discharge from each, at that range of a few yards, would not only have disturbed the economy of the sword blades and sand-bags, but astonished the wigs of those behind them. As it was, however, when I visited the breaches next morning, instead of seeing the ruin of a place just carried by storm, the whole presented the order and regularity of one freshly prepared to meet it—not a sword blade deranged, nor a sand-bag removed!
The advance of the fourth division had been delayed by some accident, and the head of their column did not reach the ditch until our first attack had been repulsed, and when considerable confusion consequently prevailed.
The seventh Fusileers came gallantly on, headed by Major ——, who, though a very little man, shouted with the lungs of a giant, for the way to be cleared, to "let the royal Fusileers advance!" Several of our officers assisted him in such a laudable undertaking; but, in the mean time, a musket-ball found its way into some sensitive part, and sent the gallant major trundling heels over head among the loose stones, shouting to a less heroic tune—while his distinguished corps went determinedly on, but with no better success than those who had just preceded them, for the thing was not to be done.
After we had withdrawn from the ditch and reformed the division for a renewal of the attack, (it must have been then about two or three o'clock in the morning,) some of those on the look-out brought us information that the enemy were leaving the breaches, and our battalion was instantly moved forward to take possession.
We stole down into the ditch with the same silence which marked our first advance—an occasional explosion or a discharge of musketry continued to be heard in distant parts of the works; but in the awful charnel pit we were then traversing to reach the foot of the breach, the only sounds that disturbed the night were the moans of the dying, with an occasional screech from others suffering under acute agony; while a third class lying there disabled, and alive to passing events, on hearing the movement of troops, (though too dark to distinguish them,) began proclaiming their names and regiments, and appealing to individual officers and soldiers of the different corps, on whose friendly aid they seemed to feel that they could rely if they happened to be within hearing.
It was a heart-rending moment to be obliged to leave such appeals unheeded; but, though the fate of those around might have been ours the next instant, our common weal, our honour, and our country's, alike demanded that every thing should be sacrificed to secure the prize which was now within our grasp; and our onward movement was therefore continued into the breach with measured tread and stern silence, leaving the unfortunate sufferers to doubt whether the stone walls around had not been their only listeners.
Once established within the walls we felt satisfied that the town was ours—and, profiting by his experience at Ciudad, our commandant (Colonel Cameron) took the necessary measures to keep his battalion together, so long as the safety of the place could in any way be compromised—for, knowing the barbarous license which soldiers employed in that desperate service claim, and which they will not be denied, he addressed them, and promised that they should have the same indulgence as others, and that he should not insist upon keeping them together longer than was absolutely necessary; but he assured them that if any man quitted the ranks until he gave permission he would cause him to be put to death on the spot. That had the desired effect until between nine and ten o'clock in the morning, when, seeing that the whole of the late garrison had been secured and marched off to Elvas, he again addressed his battalion, and thanked them for their conduct throughout: he concluded with, "Now, my men, you may fall out and enjoy yourselves for the remainder of the day, but I shall expect to see you all in camp at the usual roll-call in the evening!"
When the evening came, however, in place of the usual tattoo report of all present, it was all absent, and it could have been wished that the irregularities had ended with that evening's report.
As soon as a glimpse of day-light permitted I went to take a look at the breach, and there saw a solitary figure, with a drawn sword, stalking over the ruins and the slain, which, in the grey dawn of morning, appeared to my astonished eyes like a headless trunk, and concluded that it was the ghost of one of the departed come in search of its earthly remains. I cautiously approached to take a nearer survey, when I found that it was Captain M'Nair, of the 52d, with his head wrapped in a red handkerchief.
He told me that he was looking for his cap and his scabbard, both of which had parted company from him in the storm, about that particular spot; but his search proved a forlorn hope. I congratulated him that his head had not gone in the cap, as had been the case with but too many of our mutual companions on that fatal night.
When our regiment had reformed after the assault we found a melancholy list of absent officers, ten of whom were doomed never to see it more, and it was not until our return to the camp that we learnt the fate of all.
The wounded had found their way or been removed to their own tents—the fallen filled a glorious grave on the spot where they fell.
The first tent that I entered was Johnston's, with his shattered arm bandaged; he was lying on his boat-cloak fast asleep; and, coupling his appearance with the recollection of the daring duty he had been called on to perform but a few hours before, in front of the forlorn hope, I thought that I had never set my eyes on a nobler picture of a soldier. His whole appearance, even in sleep, shewed exactly as it had been in the execution of that duty; his splendid figure was so disposed that it seemed as if he was taking the first step on the breach—his eyebrows were elevated—his nostrils still distended—and, altogether, he looked as if he would clutch the castle in his remaining hand. No one could have seen him at that moment without saying, "there lies a hero!"
Of the doomed, who still survived, was poor Donald Mac Pherson, a gigantic highlander of about six feet and a half, as good a soul as ever lived; in peace a lamb—in war a lion. Donald feared for nothing either in this world or the next; he had been true to man and true to his God, and he looked his last hour in the face like a soldier and a Christian!
Donald's final departure from this life shewed him a worthy specimen of his country, and his methodical arrangements, while they prove what I have stated, may, at the same time, serve as as a model for Joe Hume himself, when he comes to cast up his last earthly accounts.
Donald had but an old mare and a portmanteau, with its contents, worth about £15, to leave behind him. He took a double inventory of the latter, sending one to the regiment by post, and giving the other in charge of his servant—and paying the said worthy his wages up to the probable day of his death; he gave him a conditional order on the paymaster for whatever more might be his due should he survive beyond his time—and, if ever man did, he certainly quitted this world with a clear conscience.
Poor Donald! peace be to thy manes, for thou wert one whom memory loves to dwell on!
It is curious to remark the fatality which attends individual officers in warfare. In our regiment there were many fine young men who joined us, and fell in their first encounter with the enemy; but, amongst the old standing dishes, there were some who never, by any chance got hit, while others, again, never went into action without.
At the close of the war, when we returned to England, if our battalion did not shew symptoms of its being a well-shot corps, it is very odd: nor was it to be wondered at if the camp-colours were not covered with that precision, nor the salute given with the grace usually expected from a reviewed body, when I furnish the following account of the officers commanding companies on the day of inspection, viz.
Beckwith with a cork-leg—Pemberton and Manners with a shot each in the knee, making them as stiff as the other's tree one—Loftus Gray with a gash in the lip, and minus a portion of one heel, which made him march to the tune of dot and go one—Smith with a shot in the ankle—Eeles minus a thumb—Johnston, in addition to other shot holes, a stiff elbow, which deprived him of the power of disturbing his friends as a scratcher of Scotch reels upon the violin—Percival with a shot through his lungs. Hope with a grape-shot lacerated leg—and George Simmons with his riddled body held together by a pair of stays, for his was no holyday waist, which naturally required such an appendage lest the burst of a sigh should snap it asunder; but one that appertained to a figure framed in nature's fittest mould to "brave the battle and the breeze!"
I know not to what particular circumstances British tailors were in the first instance indebted, for ranking them so low in the scale of humanity, but, as far as my knowledge extends, there never was a more traduced race. Those of our regiment I know were among the best soldiers in it, and more frequently hit than any, very much to our mortification; for the very limited allowance of an officer's campaigning baggage left him almost constantly at their mercy for the decoration of his outward man; but as the musket-balls shewed no mercy to them, we could not of course expect them to extend it to us.
Our master-man having at this time got his third shot, we deemed it high time to place him on the shelf, by confining his operations in the field, to the baggage guard. So long as we could preserve him in a condition to wield the scissors, we luckily discovered that there were minor thimble-plyers ready to rally round him, for we should otherwise have been driven sometimes to the extraordinary necessity of invading the nether garments of the ladies!
The last night at Badajos had been to the belligerents such as few had ever seen—the next, to its devoted inhabitants, was such as none would ever wish to see again, for there was no sanctuary within its walls.
I was conversing with a friend the day after, at the door of his tent, when we observed two ladies coming from the city, who made directly towards us; they seemed both young, and when they came near, the elder of the two threw back her mantilla to address us, shewing a remarkably handsome figure, with fine features, but her sallow, sunburnt, and careworn, though still youthful countenance, shewed that in her, "The time for tender thoughts and soft endearments had fled away and gone."
She at once addressed us in that confident heroic manner so characteristic of the high bred Spanish maiden, told us who they were, the last of an ancient and honourable house, and referred to an officer high in rank in our army, who had been quartered there in the days of her prosperity, for the truth of her tale.
Her husband she said was a Spanish officer in a distant part of the kingdom; he might or he might not still be living. But yesterday, she and this her young sister were able to live in affluence and in a handsome house—to day, they knew not where to lay their heads—where to get a change of raiment or a morsel of bread. Her house, she said, was a wreck, and to shew the indignities to which they had been subjected, she pointed to where the blood was still trickling down their necks, caused by the wrenching of their earrings through the flesh, by the hands of worse than savages who would not take the trouble to unclasp them!
For herself, she said, she cared not; but for the agitated, and almost unconscious maiden by her side, whom she had but lately received over from the hands of her conventual instructresses, she was in despair, and knew not what to do; and that in the rapine and ruin which was at that moment desolating the city, she saw no security for her but the seemingly indelicate one she had adopted, of coming to the camp and throwing themselves upon the protection of any British officer who would afford it; and so great, she said, was her faith in our national character, that she knew the appeal would not be made in vain, nor the confidence abused. Nor was it made in vain! nor could it be abused, for she stood by the side of an angel!—A being more transcendantly lovely I had never before seen—one more amiable, I have never yet known!
Fourteen summers had not yet passed over her youthful countenance, which was of a delicate freshness, more English than Spanish—her face though not perhaps rigidly beautiful, was nevertheless so remarkably handsome, and so irresistibly attractive, surmounting a figure cast in nature's fairest mould, that to look at her was to love her—and I did love her; but I never told my love, and in the meantime another, and a more impudent fellow stepped in and won her! but yet I was happy—for in him she found such a one as her loveliness and her misfortunes claimed—a man of honour, and a husband in every way worthy of her!
That a being so young, so lovely, so interesting, just emancipated from the gloom of a convent, unknowing of the world and to the world unknown, should thus have been wrecked on a sea of troubles, and thrown on the mercy of strangers under circumstances so dreadful, so uncontrollable, and not to have sunk to rise no more, must be the wonder of every one. Yet from the moment she was thrown on her own resources, her star was in the ascendant.
Guided by a just sense of rectitude, an innate purity of mind, a singleness of purpose which defied malice, and a soul that soared above circumstances, she became alike the adored of the camp and of the drawing-room, and eventually the admired associate of princes. She yet lives, in the affections of her gallant husband in an elevated situation in life, a pattern to her sex, and the every body's beau ideal of what a wife should be.
My reader will perhaps bear with me on this subject yet a little longer.
Thrown upon each other's acquaintance in a manner so interesting, it is not to be wondered at that she and I conceived a friendship for each other, which has proved as lasting as our lives—a friendship which was cemented by after circumstances so singularly romantic, that imagination may scarcely picture them! The friendship of man is one thing—the friendship of woman another; and those only who have been on the theatre of fierce warfare, and knowing that such a being was on the spot, watching with earnest and unceasing solicitude over his safety, alike with those most dear to her, can fully appreciate the additional value which it gives to one's existence.
About a year after we became acquainted, I remember that our battalion was one day moving down to battle, and had occasion to pass by the lone country-house in which she had been lodged.
The situation was so near to the outposts, and a battle certain, I concluded that she must ere then have been removed to a place of greater security, and, big with the thought of coming events, I scarcely even looked at it as we rolled along, but just as I had passed the door, I found my hand suddenly grasped in her's—she gave it a gentle pressure, and without uttering a word had rushed back into the house again, almost before I could see to whom I was indebted for a kindness so unexpected and so gratifying.
My mind had the moment before been sternly occupied in calculating the difference which it makes in a man's future prospects—his killing or being killed, when "a change at once came o'er the spirit of the dream," and throughout the remainder of that long and trying day, I felt a lightness of heart and buoyancy of spirit which, in such a situation, was no less new than delightful.
I never, until then, felt so forcibly the beautiful description of Fitz James's expression of feeling, after his leave-taking of Helen under somewhat similar circumstances:—