Napoleonic Literature
Kincaid: Adventures in the Rifle Brigade
Chapter VI
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 meantime fought the battle of Albuera,
and laid siege to Badajoz. 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 meantime were
scampering off to the rear, spreading the most frightful reports. One woman
of the 52d succeeded in getting three leagues off before daylight and swore,
"that as God was her judge she did not leave her regiment until she saw
the last man of them cut to pieces!!"
On our arrival near Elvas we found that Marshal
Beresford had raised the siege of Badajoz 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 prayerbooks 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 anyone 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 Vadillo. On
taking possession of my quarter, the people showed me an outhouse which
they said I might use as a stable, and I took my horse into it, but, seeing
the floor strewed with what appeared to be a small brown seed, heaps of
which lay in each corner, as if shovelled together in readiness to take
to market, I took up a handful out of curiosity, and truly they were a
curiosity, for I found that they were all regular fleas and that they were
proceeding to eat both me and my horse without the smallest ceremony. I
rushed out of the place and knocked them down by fistfuls, and never yet
could comprehend the cause of their congregating together in such a place.
This neighbourhood had been so long the theatre
of war, and alternately forced to supply both armies, that the inhabitants
at length began to dread starvation themselves and concealed for their
private use all that remained to them; so that, although they were bountiful
in their assurances of good wishes, it was impossible to extract a loaf
of their good bread, of which we were so wildly in want that we were obliged
to conceal patrols on the different roads and footpaths for many miles
around to search the peasants passing between the different villages, giving
them an order on the commissary for whatever we took from them; and we
were not too proud to take even a few potatoes out of an old woman's basket.
On one occasion, when some of us were out shooting,
we discovered about twenty hives of bees in the face of a glen concealed
among the gumcestus, and, stopping up the mouth of one them, we carried
it home on our shoulders, bees and all, and continued to levy contributions
on the depot as long as we remained there.
Towards the end of September the garrison of Ciudad
Rodrigo began to get on such "short commons" that Marmont, who had succeeded
Masséna in the command of the French army, found it necessary to
assemble the whole of his forces to enable him to throw provisions into
it.
Lord Wellington was still pursuing his defensive
system and did not attempt to oppose him; but Marmont, after having effected
his object, thought that he might as well take that opportunity of beating
up our quarters in return for the trouble we had given him and, accordingly,
on the morning of the 25th, he attacked a brigade of the third division,
stationed at El Bodon, 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 meantime remained on the banks of the Vadillo,
and had nearly been cut off through the obstinacy of General Crawford,
who did not choose to obey an order he received to retire the day before;
but we nevertheless succeeded in joining the army by a circuitous route
on the afternoon of the 26th; and, the whole of both armies being now assembled,
we considered a battle on the morrow as inevitable.
Lord Wellington, however, was not disposed to accommodate
them on this occasion; for about the middle of the night we received an
order to stand to our arms with as little noise as possible, and to commence
retiring, the rest of the army having been already withdrawn, unknown to
us; an instance of the rapidity and uncertainty of our movements which
proved fatal to the liberty of several amateurs and followers of the army,
who, seeing an army of sixty thousand men lying asleep around their campfires
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 woeful state.
September 27th. - General Crawford remained behind
us this morning, with a troop of dragoons, to reconnoitre; and while we
were marching carelessly along the road he and his dragoons galloped right
into our column, with a cloud of French ones at his heels. Luckily, the
ground was in our favour and, dispersing our men among the broken rocks
on both sides of the road, we sent them back somewhat faster than they
came on. They were, however, soon replaced by their infantry, with whom
we continued in an uninteresting skirmish all day. There was some sharp
firing the whole of the afternoon to our left and we retired, in the evening,
to Soito.
This affair terminated the campaign of 1811, as
the enemy retired the same night, and we advanced next day to resume the
blockade of Rodrigo; and were suffered to remain quietly in cantonments
until the commencement of a new year.
In every interval between our active services we
indulged in all manner of childish trick and amusement, with an avidity
and delight of which it is impossible to convey an adequate idea. We lived
united, as men always are who are daily staring death in the face on the
same side, and who, caring little about it, look upon each new day added
to their lives as one more to rejoice in.
We invited the villagers every evening to a dance
at our quarters alternately. A Spanish peasant girl has an address about
her which I have never met with in the same class of any other country;
and she at once enters into society with the ease and confidence of one
who had been accustomed to it all her life. We used to flourish away at
the bolero, fandango, and waltz, and wound up early in the evening with
a supper of roasted chestnuts.
Our village belles, as already stated, made themselves
perfectly at home in our society, and we, too, should have enjoyed theirs
for a season; but when month after month, and year after year, continued
to roll along, without producing any change, we found that the cherry cheek
and sparkling eye of rustic beauty furnished but a very poor apology for
the illuminated portion of Nature's fairest works, and ardently longed
for an opportunity of once more feasting our eyes on a lady.
In the month of December we heard that the chief
magistrate of Rodrigo, with whom we were personally acquainted, had, with
his daughter and two other young ladies, taken shelter in Robledillo, a
little town in the Sierra de Gata, which, being within our range, presented
an attraction not to be resisted.
Half-a-dozen of us immediately resolved ourselves
into a committee of ways and means. We had six months' pay due to us so
that the fandango might have been danced in either of our pockets without
the smallest risk, but we had this consolation for our poverty, that there
was nothing to be bought, even if we had the means. Our only resource,
therefore, was to lighten the cares of such of our brother-officers as
were fortunate enough to have anything to lose; and at this moment of doubt
and difficulty a small flock of turkeys belonging to our major presented
themselves, most imprudently grazing opposite the windows of our council-chamber,
two of which were instantly committed to the bottom of a sack, as a foundation
to go upon. One of our spies soon after apprehended a sheep, the property
of another officer, which was committed to the same place; and, getting
the commissary to advance us a few extra loaves of bread, some ration beef,
and a pig-skin full of wine, we placed a servant on a mule, with the whole
concern tackled to him, and proceeded on our journey.
In passing over the mountain, we saw a wild boar
bowling along in the midst of a snow-storm, and, voting them fitting companions,
we suffered him to pass, (particularly as he did not come within shot).
On our arrival at Robledillo, we met with the most
cordial reception from the old magistrate who, entering into the spirit
of our visit, provided us with quarters and filled our room in the evening
with everybody worth seeing in the place. We were malicious enough, by
way of amusement, to introduce a variety of absurd pastimes, under the
pretence of their being English, and which, by virtue thereof, were implicitly
adopted. We, therefore, passed a regular romping evening; and at a late
hour, having conducted the ladies to their homes, some friars who were
of the party very kindly intended doing us the same favour, and with that
view had begun to precede us with their lanterns, but, in the frolic of
the moment, we set upon them with snow balls, some of which struck upon
their broad shoulders, while others fizzed against their fiery faces, and,
in their astonishment and alarm, all sanctimony was forgotten; their oaths
flew as thick as our snow balls, while they ran ducking their heads and
dousing their lights for better concealment; but we, nevertheless, persevered
until we had pelted each to his own home.
We were afterwards afraid that we had carried the
joke rather too far, and entertained some doubts as to the propriety of
holding our quarters for another day; but they set our minds at rest on
that point by paying us an early visit in the morning, and seemed to enjoy
the joke in a manner that we could not have expected from the gravity of
their looks.
We passed two more days much in the same manner,
and on the third returned to our cantonments, and found that our division
had moved during our absence into some villages nearer to Ciudad Rodrigo,
preparatory to the siege of that place.
On inquiry, we found that we had never been suspected
for the abduction of the sheep and turkeys, but that the blame, on the
contrary, had been attached to the poor soldiers, whose soup had been tasted
every day to see if it savoured of such dainties. The proprietor of the
turkeys was so particularly indignant that we thought it prudent not to
acknowledge ourselves as the culprits until some time afterwards, when,
as one of our party happened to be killed in action, we, very uncharitably,
put the whole of it on his shoulders.
* Dominie Abel Sampson, librarian to Colonel
Mannering, Guy Mannering, Sir Walter Scott, 1815. Return
to paragraph text.
** A picaresque French novel by Alain Lesage published
in parts between 1715 and 1735. Return to paragraph
text.
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