Story of the lost regimental books and the honesty of the soldiers

I MUST now tell a more creditable story. At this time I commanded a company, and had also unofficially the charge of the accounts and payments of another company, the captain having a great dislike to bookkeeping. In those days the military chest of the army was so low that the troops were frequently two or three months in arrear of pay; but the soldiers’ accounts were regularly made up and balanced every month, and carried forward ready for payment when money was available. I was then sufficiently lucky to have a donkey of my own, although before this I was, like most subalterns, contented to share a donkey or mule with another officer, for the carriage of our limited baggage and spare provision; the Government allowing us forage for one animal between every two subalterns, and one ration of forage to each captain. My good and trusty beast carried two hampers covered with tarpaulin, on which was printed most distinctly my name, “Lieutenant Anderson, 24th Regiment,” and in these I carried not only my few changes of clothes and spare provisions, but also my two companies’ books, ledgers, etc., and at that time about two hundred dollars in cash. We had all native servants at this time; mine, a Portuguese boy, was always in charge of my baggage and donkey. The day we marched into Cartaxo, all the baggage arrived in due course except mine, and for some hours we could hear nothing of my boy nor of my donkey. At last, about dusk, he came up crying, and told me he had lost my all. I waited for many days, still hoping to hear something of my property, but all to no purpose. There were no records kept of the soldiers’ accounts except the company’s ledgers, so I was thus, in consequence of my loss, entirely at the mercy of my men, and had no other course left to me but to parade my own, and then the other company, and explain the situation, and my confidence in them all, and then to take from their own lips the amount of balances, debit or credit, of their respective accounts. I committed their statements at once to paper, but of course I could not say if they were correct or not. I then gave up all hope of ever seeing my lost property again.

I was advised to request the adjutant-general of the army to circulate a memorandum in General Orders, describing my donkey and baggage, and offering a handsome reward for discovery, recovery, or for any information respecting them. A few days afterwards I received a letter from a corporal of the 5th Dragoon Guards, stationed at Azambuja, informing me that on the very evening of my loss he found my donkey feeding in a cornfield near his quarters; soon afterwards, seeing two soldiers of the 24th Regiment, he asked them if they knew Lieutenant Anderson; being told that they did, he asked if they would take charge of the donkey, to which they willingly consented, so he gave all over to them, with directions to be sure to deliver them in safety. This letter I at once took to my commanding officer, who ordered me to go without delay to Azambuja to see the corporal, and ask if he thought he could remember and identify the men. I rode off alone through a wild country, a distance of twenty miles, got to Azambuja in good time that evening, and found the corporal, whose name I cannot now remember. He expressed great surprise at my not having received the things, as more than a month had passed since he had given them over to the two men of the 24th. He said one was a grenadier and the other a battalion man, that he had not noticed them much, but thought he might be able to point them out. On this I went to General Sir Lowry Cole and told him my story; he at once ordered the corporal to accompany me back to Cartaxo. That evening we started under heavy rain, and rode all night. The corporal was a tall and powerful man, and I must confess that I felt a little afraid of him. The night was very dark, and the ride for many miles was through a long wood. I more than once thought that if the corporal was himself the thief he might now dispose of me without any one being the wiser, so I ordered him to ride some distance in front, on pretence of looking for the road, so as to give me time for a bolt should he turn upon me. My fears proved ungenerous and unfounded, for without any accident we arrived at Cartaxo.

I reported myself to my commanding officer, who ordered the adjutant to parade the whole regiment in front of my quarters. This was done, and man after man was called in for the corporal’s inspection, then passed out by a back door, without any communication with those still outside. After about a hundred had passed, the corporal, looking at the next man who entered, said, “I’ll swear this is one of them.” The accused became at once indignant and insolent, denying all knowledge of the charge. He was searched, and a few dollars were found between his coat and the lining, but these he said he got, like most soldiers, in course of the war.

The adjutant then proceeded to call in the remaining men; at last the corporal fixed his eyes on one of the men who entered, and said, “This is the other man; I feel sure these are the two men; I’ll swear to them both.” This was a private of the grenadiers, and he, like the other, boldly denied the charge. Both were then secured and sent under escort to the guard-house, and were given till twelve o’clock to make a full confession; if they did not, they would be brought to a general court-martial, and would be shot if found guilty. They both knew that such tragic ends were then by no means uncommon. They were also told the serious inconvenience and loss which their officers and fellow-soldiers had sustained, and if they would tell how the books could be recovered the commanding officer would be as easy as possible with them, and that Mr. Anderson did not care much for the rest of the things. But still they denied, swearing vengeance on the corporal. At last they saw their danger and sent for the sergeant-major and made a full confession, saying they knew there was money in the hampers, and that tempted them; they had led the donkey into a wood near Azambuja, tied him to a tree, taken the money, and buried the hampers and all their contents on the spot, and offered to show the place. I was ordered to march the two prisoners under a strong escort to the wood they mentioned, and there we found, still tied to the tree, the skeleton of my poor donkey, dead for at least a month. We began to dig, and soon came upon my long-lost and precious hampers, and found everything destroyed by the rain, but the books, though greatly injured, were still legible. We marched back to Cartaxo, and on arrival the prisoners were recommitted to the guard-house. My next care was to compare the verbal statements given to me by the men with the original accounts in the ledgers; and here comes the cream of my long story, and my reasons for going into this lengthy digression. To their honour, therefore, be it told, there was not half-a-crown’s difference between the accounts in the ledgers and those given by each soldier from memory, the voluntary statements of no less than a hundred and fifty men! I consider this a great proof of the general honesty and integrity of the British soldier. The two prisoners were brought before a regimental court-martial, found guilty, and sentenced to corporal punishment and to be put under stoppages of pay until the money taken from me was made good. The former they suffered, but I never got back a shilling of my money. One of them died some months afterwards from wounds received at the battle of Fuentes d’Onoro, and the other was killed by another soldier in a boxing match.

We remained at Cartaxo, with the armies in the various relative positions which I have already described, and without any great fighting, until the morning of the 7th March, 1811, when we heard that the main body of the French army had been for some days retreating, and that their headquarters, under Marshal Massena, and their rear guard had that morning retired from Santarem.