"Oh, plenteous England! comfort's dwelling-place
Blest be thy well-fed, glossy, John-Bull face!
Blest be the land of Aldermanic paunches,
Rich turtle-soup, and glorious ven'son haunches!
Inoculated by mad martial ardour,
Why did I ever quit thy well-stored larder?
Why, fired with scarlet-fever, in ill time,
Come here to fight and starve in this accursed clime?"
On this march the army was in arrears of pay, so Quentin's remaining moidores soon melted away, as he shared them, to the last vintin, fraternally with his friends and comrades; but long ere the army reached Lugo, he saw many a strange and startling episode of horror and suffering.
Moore's troops continued to make forced marches to prevent the foe from closing on their flanks, and now every day provisions grew scarcer.
The skies were lowering, and heavy clouds rested on the tops of the gloomy mountains; the rough, narrow, and wretched roads were knee-deep in drifted snow; half-famished and half-frozen, the soldiers became desperate, and, in defiance of Moore's orders, plundered whatever they could get to satisfy the cravings of nature.
From Astorga to Villa Franca (in the mountain district called the Bierzo—so lovely in summer), is a route of fully sixty English miles, through wild and savage mountain tracts and passes, where the horses failed, as their shoes were worn away; but though there were plenty of iron-works near Villa Franca, there was no time to re-shoe them, so every hour saw whole sections of our noble English horses shot down, lest they should fall into the hands of the pursuing enemy; and then the dismounted troopers had to trudge on foot, laden with all their useless trappings.
One of the 3rd Light Dragoons of the German Legion, whose horse had been shot according to the usage of war, was urged by Major Burgwesel to go on faster.
"Herr Major," said he, "the game is pretty well played out with me, and if you expect me to march quicker with all this load, you may as well shoot me as you have done my poor horse."
"Himmel und Erde, get on, fellow!" shouted the major, with an angry malediction.
On this, the exasperated dragoon placed a pistol to his mouth and blew out his brains, to the horror of the stern major.
Now came rain in torrents, and even the baggage had to be dragged through the melting snow, as the mules and burros perished in scores by the way. Then the spare arms were abandoned and the extra ammunition destroyed; next, knapsacks were cast away occasionally, and everything that might serve to lighten the burden of the despairing soldiers, many of whom were found frozen and dead in the bodegas and cellars of Villa Franca by the French advanced guard.
A mile beyond this place, poor Ensign Pimple (as Monkton used to call him) gave in, utterly incapable of proceeding further; weeping like a child, in utter prostration, he sank in exhaustion by the wayside, and no doubt perished during the night.
After passing Benvibre the French cavalry came up with the long line of stragglers in the rear, and slashed among them right and left, treading others under foot as they galloped through, and so stupefied were some by fatigue and others by intoxication, that they could neither resist nor seek safety in flight. Two thousand were taken prisoners between Astorga and Lugo; a thousand more fled away towards Portugal; many of these were concealed by the Spaniards, and few were ever heard of again.
So on and on the army toiled from Villa Franca to Castro up the Monte del Cebrero, a long and continued ascent, through one of the wildest districts in Spain, where, in summer, woods of umbrageous oak, alder, and hazel, with groves of wild pears, cherries, and mulberries, make the landscape lovely; but now it was wild and desolate; and there, to add to other misfortunes, the sick and wounded had to be abandoned among the melting snow.
On the sloping road towards Castro-Gonzalo, Askerne found a poor rifleman of the old 95th lying on his back, and blowing bells of blood from his mouth; he had been riddled by canister shot, and all his limbs were broken.
"Unfortunate fellow," said he, with commiseration: "what can I do for you?"
"Have me shot, sir—shot dead, for the mercy of God!" was the terrible reply.
"I looked round," says an officer in one of his letters, "when we had hardly gained the highest point of those slippery precipices, and saw the rear of the army winding along the narrow road—I saw the way marked by the wretched people, who lay on all sides expiring from fatigue and the severity of the cold; their bodies reddened in spots the white surface of the ground."
There a Portuguese bullock driver who had been with the British since the landing of the army, was seen dying amid the snow on his knees, with his hands clasped in an attitude of prayer before a little wooden crucifix, a consolation not left to the hundreds of our soldiers, who were flinging themselves down in utter despair to die, with curses and bitter imprecations on their lips—curses on the Spaniards, who, they fancied, had betrayed them.
And there, too, were women and little children!
About nightfall, just as the grenadiers of the Borderers struggled up the Monte del Cebrero through all the horrible débris that the columns in front had left behind, they passed several of the sick and artillery waggons, broken down or abandoned by the wayside. In these were many soldiers' wives and sick men dead and frozen!
In one was a woman in labour dying, with her infant, amid the icy drift; in another a woman already dead, with a wailing infant tugging at her white cold breast. The little one was taken by good old Sergeant-major Calder, who wrapped it in his great-coat, but it died of cold ere the summit of the mountain was attained.
From one of those covered sick-waggons that lay broken down and abandoned among the snow and sleet, there came the sound of a strange wailing song sung by a woman. This prompted Quentin to leave the ranks, which were somewhat irregular now, and peep in. There he found a soldier of the 25th lying dead, and his wife, with their child, sitting by his side, in misery. They formed a touching group!
She was evidently deranged by suffering, terror, and sorrow, and she was a pretty young woman, too. She heard not the wailing of the infant that nestled among the wet straw by her side, but sat with her husband's head in her lap, and her hollow eyes fixed on vacancy, as she toyed with his hair, and "crooned" a fragment of an old Scottish song to a plaintive air, somewhat like that of "My Love's in Germanie."
"They say my love is dead,
Gone to his gory bed,
They say my love is dead,
Ayont the sea.
In the stillness o' the night,
When the moon is shining bright,
My true-love's shroud sae white
Haunteth me,
Haunteth me!
My true love's shroud sae white
Haunteth me!"
"Good heavens, sir," said a soldier, "it is poor Allan Grange, the sergeant who was broken at Colchester, and his wife, too! She's clean demented, puir thing! Ailie, woman, come awa; the regiment is moving on."
Quentin too, tried his powers of persuasion, but without avail, and the stern order of Cosmo, to "Close up—close up, and move on—no loitering!" together with the distant boom of a French field-piece, the flash of which came redly through the drift and darkness, compelled them to leave her. If she lived she must soon after have fallen into the hands of the enemy. At all events, Ailie Grange was heard of no more.
In one of the many skirmishes with the enemy's light dragoons, a singular instance of gross treachery occurred at the little village of Palacios de la Valduerna. There a sergeant of our 7th Hussars, belonging to Captain Duckinfield's detachment, vanquished, in single combat, a French dragoon and took him prisoner. The Frenchman threw down his sword, drew off his leather gauntlet, and held out his hand in token of amity. Then the sergeant, with the characteristic generosity of a gallant Englishman, also put forth his right hand; but inserting his left into his holster, the Frenchman drew a pistol, blew his captor's wrist to pieces, and killed his horse under him.
Before the poor hussar could rise from under his fallen charger, the would-be assassin was bayoneted by some of Romana's Spanish soldiers, who in their rage and hatred, made up a fire and consumed his body to ashes; after this, in blind vengeance, they somewhat needlessly slew his horse.
At this part of the disastrous retreat nearly a hundred waggons that were coming on, laden with shoes and clothes for Romana's Spaniards, from England, but too late to be of any avail, fell into the hands of the enemy.
As the column defiled past them, Quentin saw the body of an officer lying dead under one of the wheels in a pool of blood, snow, and mire. A vague recollection, combined with a horrible anxiety, made him draw near to observe the corpse.
It was that of Warriston! his kind and generous friend, Captain Richard Warriston, of the Scots Brigade; but "push on—push on," was the order, and there was no time given for thought, examination, or inquiry........
On, and on yet! and at last it was found necessary, at Nogales, to abandon the military chest. Why its contents were not distributed among the troops it is difficult to say, unless that time would have been lost by the process of division. Two bullock-carts, laden with twenty-five thousand pounds in dollars, were backed over a lofty precipice, and fell crashing from the summit among the rocks and snow beneath; and then as the waggons broke and the casks burst, the broad silver dollars flew far and wide.
It was hoped that this money would escape the observation of the French, and so fall into the hands of the Spaniards. Part was found by the former, part by the Gallician peasantry, and a Highland tradition tells us of a thrifty Scots paymaster who contrived to conceal a cask or two under a certain cork-tree, where he found the specie all safe when he went back to Spain for it, after Toulouse; and that he bought therewith a snug little estate on the shore of the Moray Firth.
At the very time that the bullock-carts with the treasure were cast over the precipice, by some absurd mistake, Quentin's battalion, with two pieces of cannon, were engaged with the enemy in order to protect it!
Evening was coming on, and shimmering through the slanting sheet, a cloud of French cavalry passed along the snowy and miry way, while the two field guns were ploughing lanes of death through their ranks; but still with brandished sabres and cries of "Vive la France! Vive l'Empereur!" they came on thundering to the attack.
"Square against cavalry!" was now the cry; "square on the grenadiers!"
It was formed double-quick, and a smile of grim joy spread over every sallow and weather-beaten face as the toil-worn and tattered regiment made the movement, enclosing many of the wounded foes as well as friends. The light company formed the rear face of the square.
Cosmo was undoubtedly brave, for a lofty expression of pride and defiance spread over his features on beholding the rapidity with which the square was formed. Jolly old Middleton drew off his gloves and stuck them in his belt; he then flourished an enormous sabre, so rusty and notched in the edge that it was known as "Jock Middleton's hand-saw," saying—
"I like to use my tools, lads, without mittens; the cat that wore gloves never caught mice."
The officers dressed the four faces as well as the shattered and unequal state of the companies could form them now. Sending a last discharge of grape plunging into the masses of the foe, the gunners rushed for shelter behind the wall of bayonets, and now through the gloom of evening, the wrack, mist, and smoke, on came the French dragoons like rolling thunder!
As the ground was tolerably open the square was approached on three faces.
Against one was a brigade of cuirassiers, their brass helmets with scarlet plumes and brass corslets with elaborate shoulder-belts all dimmed by rain; opposed to another was the Lancer Regiment of Napoleon-Louis, the hereditary Duc de Berg, with white plumes and kalpecks in their busbies; and on the third face came the Light Dragoons of Ribeaupierre, in pale green lapelled with white and laced with silver, their tricolors waving above a forest of flashing sabres.
Quentin felt his heart beating wildly as they came on. In the square, every eye lit up, every brow was knit, and every lip compressed; but not a shot was fired until the foe was within pistol-range, when, from the faces of the square, there opened a close and disastrous fire, first from the right to the left, and then it became a wild roar of musketry, the men loading and firing as fast as they could, while many a pistol and carbine-shot took effect in their ranks, and Quentin was covered by the blood of a man who was killed thus by his side.
Yells of death were mingled with shouts of rage and defiance, as horse and man went down on every hand, the front squadrons swerving or recoiling madly on the rear, thus making all advance impossible; steeds reared, plunged, and neighed, their riders groaned, shrieked, and swore; swords, helmets, shakos, and broken lances were seen flying into the air, while lancers and cuirassiers, wounded and dying, were crushed and trodden flat by hoofs and falling horses.
The whole cuirassier brigade became an undistinguishable mass of confusion and indiscriminate slaughter; but not a horseman came within sword's point of that steady and invincible square of infantry.
At that moment, when the firing slackened a little, the voice of the Master of Rohallion was heard.
"Well done, my brave Borderers! kneeling ranks, fire a volley—ready—present—fire!"
It rang like thunder in the winter air, and found a thousand echoes among the mountains, and ere these died away the ruin of the foe was complete. This was the first occasion on which Quentin had fired a shot in grim earnest, and a thrill passed through his heart as he pulled the trigger and sent a bullet on its errand, while ignorant of its effect amid the smoke in front.
Ere the butts were again on the earth in their original position, and the bristling bayonets were pointed upward, amid the smoke that rolled around them like a murky curtain, the cavalry were seen in full flight, leaving a terrible débris of death and bloodshed behind them on the snow-clad mountain slope.
"The battalion will form quarter-distance column," cried Cosmo, as coolly as if he was in Colchester again. Then he ordered the pouches of the dead and wounded to be emptied, as ammunition was running short. The field guns were then limbered up, and once more the weary retreat was resumed with all speed.
Sergeant Ewen Donaldson, whose leg was shattered by a carbine-ball, was here left behind, after some of the soldiers had made an effort to drag him along with them.
"Push on, boys—push on, and never mind me," said the poor fellow; "before morning I shall be gone to where I'm fast wearin' awa'—the land o' the leal."
And this, too probably, was the case.
The tender and compassionate heart of Sir John Moore bled at the misery he beheld hourly on this miserable retreat. He bitterly deplored the relaxation of discipline consequent on it, and he never ceased issuing orders, warm exhortations, cheering addresses, and stirring appeals to honour and courage, to keep up the spirit of those under his command; but despair and sullen apathy reigned in many instances in officers and men alike, while the retreat lasted. But, with all this, grand and touching instances of humanity were not wanting to brighten the terrible picture.
An infantry officer, in despair of proceeding further, turned aside into a thicket of trees, to lie down and die unseen and uncared for; but there he found a soldier's wife stretched at the point of death, and, with the last effort of expiring nature, she implored him to receive and preserve her child. He did so, and endued with fresh strength and energy by the trust, he carried the infant on his back, and it never quitted his care till he reached one of the transports in the bay of Vigo, after the battle of Corunna.*
* Edinburgh Annual Register.
At a place where the green coats of the 95th dotted the snow, showing where a skirmish had been, Quentin assisted a rifleman to place one of his comrades in a waggon that stood near.
"Tom—old fellow," said the sufferer, in a weak voice, for he was dying with a bullet in his chest, and rustled fatuously among the damp straw on which they placed him; "I say, Tom—we've long been comrades."
"Yes, Bill," said the other, in a husky voice, "ever since Copenhagen."
"Well, when I'm dead, I want you to do summut for me, and I'll give you all I have in the world. My kit's wore out, ever so long ago, but I've three biscuits in my havresack, and you're welcome to them; give one to poor Pat Riley's widow."
"But wot am I to do for you, Bill?"
"Close my right eye, Tom; dont'ee forget; the cursed French knocked t'other out at Vimiera."
"Yes, Bill—I was wounded that day, too."
Bill's eye was closed, and the snow and the sods were over him within an hour after this, and close by Tom sat, munching his legacy, for he was starving, with his fierce moist eyes fixed on the little mound where his old comrade lay.