Departure from Badajoz—The wounded left to the protection of Spanish soldiers—Subsequently removed to Elvas—The author leaves Elvas to join the army—Spaniards and Portuguese—Rodrigo revisited—A Spanish ball—Movements of Marshal Marmont—Fall of the forts of Salamanca—Amicable enemies.

On the 15th of April, 1812, the heroes of Badajoz took a last farewell of the scene of their glory and the graves of their fallen companions, and marched towards the banks of the Coa and Agueda, where, but a few months before, they had given proofs of their invincible valour. Indeed it might be said, without any great stretch of historical truth, that every inch of ground upon which they trod was a silent evidence of their right to be its occupant—so far, at least, as right of conquest goes.

Ill as I was, in common with many others, who, like myself, lay wounded, and were unable to accompany our friends, I arose from my truss of straw to take a parting look at the remnant of my regiment as it mustered on the parade; but in place of upwards of seven hundred gallant soldiers, and four-and-twenty officers, of the former there were not three hundred, and of the latter but five! At any time, when in the full enjoyment of health and vigour, this sad diminution would have affected me; but in my then frame of mind it acted powerfully upon my nerves. I asked myself, where are the rest? I suppose I spoke louder than I intended; for my man, Dan Carsons, ran out of his tent to inquire “who I was looking after?”—“Dan,” replied, “I am looking for the men that are absent from parade; where are they?”—“Kilt, sir,” replied Dan, “and the greater part of them buried at the fut of the ould castle forenent ye.” “Their bodies are there, Dan, but where are they themselves?” “Och, Jasus!” cried Dan to his wife, “he’s out of his sinces! Nelly! run and fetch the pig-skin of wine; you know how it sarved him last night when he was raving.” Nelly brought the remnant of the Tinta de la Mancha, and a few mouthfuls of it raised my spirits considerably, but the fever with which I was attacked was increasing rapidly.

The drums of the division beat a ruffle; the officers took their stations; the bands played; the soldiers cheered, and, in less than half an hour, the spot which, since the 17th of the preceding month, had been a scene of the greatest excitement, was now a lone and deserted waste, having no other occupants than disabled or dying officers and soldiers, or the corpses of those who had fallen in the strife. The contrast was indeed great, and of that cast that made the most unreflecting think, and the reflecting feel. The sound of the drums died away; the division was no longer visible, except by the glittering of their firelocks; at length we lost sight of even this, and we were left alone, like so many outcasts, to make the best of our way to the hospitals in Badajoz.

It is a task of more difficulty than may appear to the reader to describe the feelings that a separation, such as I have told of, caused in our breasts. More than half of our old companions—dear to us from the intimate terms upon which we had lived together, fought together, and, I might say, died together, for three years—were parted from us, most of them for ever!—the others gone to a distant part of the theatre of war, while we, enervated and worn down, either by loss of limb, or by loss of strength and vigour, were left to seek shelter under the roofs of those very people who had been so barbarously maltreated by our own soldiers. Nevertheless every one betook himself to the method he thought best suited to the occasion. Some caused themselves to be conveyed in waggons; others rode on horseback; and many, from a disinclination to bear the jolting of the carts, or the uneasy posture of sitting astride a horse, hobbled on towards the dismantled walls of the fortress. As we continued our walk, we met, at almost every step, heaps of newly turned-up earth, beneath which lay the bodies of some of our companions; and a little farther in advance was the olive-tree, at the foot of which so many officers of the 3rd Division had been buried. At length we reached the ravelin of San Roque.

The Talavera gate was opened for our admission; it was guarded by a few ill-looking, ill-fed, and ill-appointed Spanish soldiers. As we entered, each man we passed saluted us with respect; but the contrast between these men, who were now our protectors, and the soldiers we had but a short time before commanded, was great indeed; and the circumstance, trifling as it may appear, affected us proportionally. We walked on towards our wretched billets, and as we passed through the streets that led to them, we saw nothing but the terrible traces of what had taken place. Piles of dismantled furniture lay scattered here and there; houses, disfigured by our batteries, in a ruined state; the streets unoccupied except by vagabonds of the lowest grade, who prowled about in search of plunder; while at the windows of some houses were to be seen a few females in disordered dresses; but their appearance was of that caste that served rather to increase the gloom which overhung the city. Nevertheless, as the wounded men and officers passed, they waved their handkerchiefs and saluted us with a viva; but it was pitiable to witness the wretched state to which the unfortunate inhabitants had been reduced.

Upon reaching the house allotted to me, I was met at the door by an old woman who showed me my apartment. It was scantily garnished with furniture, most of which was broken; the bed was on the tiles, but that was rather an advantage than the contrary, because the heat was excessive. I stood in no need of any refreshment; my man, Dan, having been so active during the bouleversement that he supplied my cellar as well as larder; and it was fortunate that he did so, for the inhabitants of the house, as I afterwards learned, were without a morsel of food or a stitch of clothing, having been plundered of everything.

I lay down upon my mattress, soon fell asleep, and in less than an hour awoke in a high fever. Dan wished that I should attack the pig-skin of the Tinta de la Mancha, but I positively refused to do so: “Why then, sir,” said he, “hasn’t it been the making ov yee?”—“You mean the killing of me, Dan. Go and seek for a surgeon.” He went, and soon returned with a young man in the uniform of the staff surgeons of our army; but from his youthful appearance, and the unworkmanlike manner he went about dressing my wound, I opine he was but an hospital mate. My man Dan was decidedly of my opinion; for after the doctor had examined my breast, and applied some dressing to it, he was about to retire, when Dan said with an air of authority, “You’re not going to be afthur going without looking at his hinder part?” meaning my back. The doctor took the hint, and, turning me on my face, found a large piece of the cloth of my coat, which had been carried in by the ball, protruding through the wound. The doctor looked confounded; Dan looked ferocious, and though he spoke with respect to the medical man, I plainly saw the storm which was gathering. I feared that he was about to make use of the fortiter in re, in preference to the suaviter in modo; so I dismissed the doctor, upon an assurance that he would visit me the following morning.

After a lapse of three days, all the wounded capable of being removed were ordered to Elvas. Spring waggons, carts drawn by oxen, mules harnessed with pack-saddles, and in default of them, asses prepared in like manner, were put in requisition for the purpose of freeing Badajoz of as many of the disabled men, who crowded the hospitals, as possible. I was among the number, but so ill was I as to have no recollection of how I was transported, except that a waggon stopped at my door, and, after some hours, I found myself in the streets of Elvas. From the waggon I was placed in a car, and it was night before my man Dan, with all his tact, was enabled to procure me a billet. During a space of fifteen days I lay in a state of great pain, accompanied by fever, but after that I soon recovered my strength, and being allowed the option of either joining the second battalion of my regiment, to which I then belonged, quartered at home, or going back to the army, I preferred the latter.

My friends, Darcy and Adair, were my companions on my route to the army; and, punctual at the appointed hour, we left Elvas at six o’clock on the morning of the 3rd of June, without any encumbrance, such as a detachment to look after. We had no escort except our three servants, and Dan’s wife Nelly; and it is needless to say that they were perfectly competent to take care of themselves, without causing us one moment’s uneasiness, either on their account or our own; and never did any three officers in the service of His Britannic Majesty, or in the service of any other sovereign, set out on a route to join their companions with a more fervent intention of making the time pass as agreeably as possible. Our route towards Salamanca, near which city the army was stationed, lay through the old line of march, and we were obliged, unfortunately, once more to encounter that place of dirt and wretchedness, Niza. No matter what change had taken place either amongst ourselves or the different towns through which we passed, Niza was still the same; positively dirt—comparatively dirt—superlatively dirt!—dirt! dirt! dirt! The ditches were filled with reptiles, the houses with bugs and fleas, and Adair, who was already blind of one eye, had the other nearly darkened by the bite of a huge centipede. We poulticed his eye with rye bread and cold water, and in the morning carried him, with a wry face, to his saddle.

Once clear of Niza, we traversed the country towards the Spanish frontier; at length we got clear of Portugal, and once more reached the village of Fuentes d'OÑoro; every house, I might almost say every face, was familiar to me. The heaps of embanked earth, which denoted the places where many of our old companions had been interred, were covered with grass, which grew luxuriantly over the graves of the men who had once stood there victorious, but who were now lifeless clay. We traversed the churchyard where so many of the Imperial Guard and our Highlanders had fallen; and we marked well the street where three hundred of the former had been put to death by the 88th Regiment. Many of the doors still retained the marks of the contest; and the chimneys, up which the Guard had sought shelter, bore the traces of what had taken place. The torn apertures in the large twigged chimneys, broken down by the Guard in attempting to get up them, were in the same state we had left them—untouched, unmended. Even the children could trace with accuracy the footsteps of those fallen heroes.

We walked on to the chapel wall, where the 79th had suffered so severely, and through which the French had forced their passage, under a torrent of shot, against the bayonets of the brave Highlanders. The chapel door was riddled through and through with bullets, and the walls bore the marks of the round shot fired from the French batteries. Several mounds of earth, covered as they were with herbage, still pointed out the grave of some one who had fallen; yet, to a passing stranger, the inequality of the ground would scarcely have been noticed, so little attention had been paid to the arrangement of the graves, which were dug in the hurry of the moment; but with us it was different. We could point out every spot, and lay our finger on the place where a grave ought to be found.

It so happened that the house I was quartered in for the night was one of those in which some of the Imperial Guard had sought shelter. I asked my patron why he had not mended the broken chimney? His reply was, that he preferred the inconvenience of the smoke which the aperture caused, for the pleasure he derived from viewing the grave, as he termed it, of the base French who had so scandalously ravaged his country. I cannot say that I much admired his feeling.

From Fuentes d'OÑoro we reached Rodrigo, which we had left only five months before. The breaches were repaired, the trenches levelled, and were it not for the different spots that had been assigned to many of our fallen companions, which we found untouched, there was no trace of those works which had caused us so much time and labour to construct. But those places, well known to us, brought back to our recollection the ground upon which we had stood a short time before, under circumstances so different; and the change that had taken place during the short interval—the thousands that had fallen in the two sieges,—and the difference of our attitude as compared to what it was when we before trod the spot we were then standing upon, afforded ample food for reflection. From the period of our investment of Rodrigo to the capture of Badajoz, that is to say, eighty-eight days, we lost in my regiment alone twenty-five officers and five hundred and fifty-six men; and it cannot be wondered at that we, who were alive and in health, should have a feeling of regret for our less fortunate companions, as also a feeling of thankfulness for our own escape.

There may be some who will think that such ideas are out of place, but, in my opinion, they are not so. No truly brave man ever looked upon the graves of his fallen companions without a feeling of regret. A man falling in the heat of battle is quite a different thing, because there all are alike, and subject to the same chance; and it is, moreover, wrong to mourn over the death of a comrade while the strife is going on; but the strife once ended, then will the feelings be brought into play, and the man who is incapable of a pang of regret for his fallen companion is unworthy of the name of a British soldier.

My man, Dan, had scarcely arranged my billet, ere I bent my steps to the house where I had slept on the night of the storming of the town. I had scarcely made my appearance at the portal, when the old lady to whom the house belonged recognised my voice. She ran forward to meet and welcome me; her daughters accompanied her, and it was in vain that I said I had a billet in a distant part of the town. The excuse would not be taken, and I was forced, absolutely forced, to have my baggage conveyed to the house where I had so short a time before entered under far different circumstances. The old lady asked how long I was to remain at Rodrigo. I replied, for that night only. “J'en suis fÂchÉ,” she replied in French, which language she spoke tolerably well,—“mais j’essayerai de faire votre sÉjour ici plus agrÉable qu’elle ne l'Était la derniÈre fois”—and she immediately sent an invitation to her friends to assemble at her house the same evening.

Profiting by the confusion which of necessity took place in arrangements for the soirÉe, I left the house and took a survey of the town and breaches. The houses which were destroyed in the Great Square, by the fire which had taken place on the night of the assault, as also those near the breaches, remained in the same ruined state we had left them; but excepting this, and a few gabions which out-topped the large breach, whose reconstruction had not been quite completed, we could find nothing to denote the toil and labour we had sustained during our operations. An hour sufficed for me to make my “reminiscence” of past events. It was eight o’clock before Darcy and Adair joined me, and when we reached my billet, we found the saloon filled by a large and varied company.

Upon entering the room, all eyes were turned towards us, for the good hostess had said a thousand kind things in my praise, and the height and imposing look of Darcy were in themselves sufficient to cause a stare; but the elegance of Adair’s manners, who had passed the greater part of his life on the Continent—his perfect knowledge of the Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and French languages—captivated all. And although he was some fifteen or twenty years our senior, he decidedly bore away the palm; and in less than an hour after our entrÉ, he made, to my own knowledge, five conquests; while Darcy and myself could boast of but two each! I never felt so humiliated—from that moment I resolved that if ever I had a son I would make him a linguist.

The ball was opened by Avandano de Alcantara, a young Portuguese captain, belonging to the garrison of Almeida, and SeÑora Dolores de Inza, a Spanish lady, a relative of the Governor. The dance was the bolero, of which I had heard so much, but had never seen danced before. All eyes were turned towards the spot which the youthful couple occupied. I was an attentive spectator. Avandano danced well, and kept his elbows—a material point by the way—in that position which no bolero dancer should depart from (I obtained this information at Madrid), not to raise them higher than his ear; but he danced mechanically, like one that had been taught, and had his lesson by rule more than by heart. Although he moved his arms with much grace, and kept the proper measure with his feet, there was nothing inspiring in his mode of dance, or in the manner he used his castanettes. His partner, on the contrary, had all the fire of the true Andalusian breed. Her movements, though not perhaps as correct as his, were spirited, and drew down thunders of applause from the spectators; and each plaudit, as was natural, caused her to increase her exertions. She danced beautifully, and every one expressed by their approbation the gratification they felt by her display; but the dance had scarcely ended when she fainted away, in consequence, no doubt, of the exertions she had made. She soon recovered, and would have once more joined the dance, had not her friends dissuaded her from so foolish an act, and she was reluctantly obliged to be a spectator for the remainder of the night. Waltzing was continued to a late hour; but there was no lady hardy enough to attempt the bolero after the success of SeÑora Dolores in this most difficult and graceful dance. The company at length retired to their different homes; I bade an affectionate good-night to my hostess and her daughters; and long before they were awake in the morning, I was several miles on the road leading to Salamanca.

On the 17th, Darcy, Adair, and I rejoined the 88th and the 3rd Division on the heights of San Christoval. We found that we were engaged in “covering” the siege of the forts of Salamanca, which Marshal Marmont was most anxious to disturb. On the 23rd of June he came up against us, tried our lines at several points, did not like the look of them, and after some futile manoeuvring on both sides of the Tormes, fell back upon Huerta, where he remained until the 27th, and then retreated towards the Douro.

Meanwhile our bombardment of the Salamanca forts continued, and on the 27th its effect was so powerful that one of the magazines in the principal fort blew up, and the fire communicating with a quantity of wood which had been incautiously placed near the magazine, the whole fort was soon one vast fire, and a general attack by our troops taking place at the moment, completed the disorder which naturally prevailed. The three forts were thus taken; our loss, which was estimated by the enemy at thirteen hundred, did not much exceed one-third of that number; and Salamanca was freed from the enemy.

As soon as the garrison of the forts were made prisoners, they were marched through the streets leading from the outworks to that part of the town that had been allotted for their reception; but it was painful to witness the degradation which these men were obliged to endure at the hands of the excited population. Women of the lowest grade insulted them, and some there were base enough to spit in their faces; yet the French soldiers bore all these insults with composed—I might say, with truth,—gentlemanly demeanour; but it is not possible for me to express the disgust I felt at seeing brave men so treated by a base rabble who, but a few hours before, were on the most friendly terms with these very men. At one time, when I saw such an indignity as mud thrown at them, and a likelihood of something more serious taking place, I expressed myself in strong terms against the ruffians who so acted; and whether it was that I spoke Spanish well enough to be understood, or that I suited the action to the word by knocking down two fellows who were the ringleaders, I know not; but from that moment the prisoners were allowed to move on quietly.

Thus fell the forts of Salamanca. The news soon reached Marmont, and on the 28th he retrograded towards the Douro, and on the following day rested at Alaejos. Lord Wellington followed the enemy’s movement, who, on the 2nd of July, passed the Douro at Tordesillas, which post was sufficiently formidable to embarrass a general who might be desirous of forcing it. The line of the Douro is unexceptionable; it possesses all the requisites which a retreating army could wish for—uneven banks, narrow fords, and abundance of woods, sufficient to mask the operations of a large body of troops; and Marmont did all that a general could do to render any effort to force it more than hazardous.

On the evening of the 3rd, Picton’s division was abreast of the ford of Pollos; some cavalry tried the depth of the river, which was deemed fordable; but the attitude of the enemy on the opposite bank was so imposing that the idea of forcing the passage was given up. From the 3rd until the 12th of July the two armies remained in presence of each other, encamped on each side of a river which at times is a formidable sheet of water, but which was then little more than an insignificant stream. Nevertheless, although both armies kept their guards on their respective sides of the water, and the movements of each were cautiously watched, not one life was lost, nor one shot fired by either army.

Indeed so different from hostility was the conduct of both nations, that the French and British lived upon the most amicable terms. If we wanted wood for the construction of huts, our men were allowed to pass without molestation to the French side of the river to cut it. Each day the soldiers of both armies used to bathe together in the same stream, and an exchange of rations, such as biscuit and rum, between the French and our men was by no means uncommon. A stop was, however, soon to be put to this friendly intercourse; and it having been known in both armies that something was about to be attempted by Marmont, on the evening of the 12th of July, we shook hands with our vis-À-vis neighbours and parted the best friends.

It is a remarkable fact that the part of the river of which I am speaking was occupied, on our side, by our 3rd Division, on the French side by the 7th Division. The French officers said to us on parting, “We have met, and have been for some time friends. We are about to separate, and may meet as enemies. As 'friends' we received each other warmly—as 'enemies' we shall do the same.” In ten days afterwards the British 3rd and the French 7th Divisions were opposed to each other at the battle of Salamanca—and the 7th French were destroyed by the British 3rd. But I am now about describing one of the most memorable battles ever fought by the British army—the battle of Salamanca.