THE COTTAGE ON THE MAIDA ROAD—THE EAGLE.
Broken by the impetuous and simultaneous advance of our brigades, Regnier's whole line of battle gave way, and retired from the field with precipitation—especially the left wing—leaving the position strewn with dead and wounded, and presenting a terrible scene of carnage and agony, as we pressed triumphantly forward. The right and centre retreated in tolerable order, covered by the cavalry; but the left was swept away and almost annihilated by the fierce charge of the Ross-shire Buffs. Our light battalion, commanded by Colonel Kempt, and Macleod with his regiment, flushed with victory, were ordered forward immediately in pursuit. They followed it up in double quick time for upwards of three miles, killing and capturing an immense number of the enemy; whose rear they galled by a continual fire from the eminences commanding their line of march.
When Sir John again sent me after them with an order to halt, I found them briskly engaged with a small band of fugitives who had thrown themselves into a little cottage by the wayside, over which a gigantic chestnut threw its ample shadow. From the garden wall and barricaded door and windows, the French maintained a spirited fire, to defend a standard and eagle which Regnier's son, a young sub-lieutenant, had carried in there instead of continuing his flight. This rural post was enveloped in the blaze of musketry and clouds of snow-white smoke: steel bayonets bristled above the green hedges, through which, and the shattered casements, red flashes broke incessantly; while fierce faces, pale with anger and chagrin, appeared at every opening.
"Shall I ride to Le Moine, to send up a four-pounder, and blow the place about their ears?" said I to Kempt.
"Cannon against a shelling!" exclaimed Macleod, backing his horse over the heaps of dead. "No, no; let the Buffs storm it. I will lead them on. Forward the Ross-shiremen!"
"Forward!" I added; "for the cavalry have halted, and seem disposed to return and engage. On, then, colonel; and a dozen of wine from the last officer over the wall!"
"CUIDICH'N RHI!" (the motto of the regiment), cried Macleod, dashing spurs into his horse. "Charge, Seventy-eighth!"
A shout burst from the ranks, and the brave fellows rushed to closer conflict. I urged forward Cartouche, and the spirited horse shook the foam from his bit, as snorting and rearing up he bounded over the enclosure of the garden, and came down crash among the mass of Frenchmen, whose bayonets formed a steel hedge around me. I must have been destroyed in a moment, but for the strenuous exertions of Macleod and his gallant Buffs; who came pouring in at the gap my horse had made, and engaged the enemy hand to hand—fighting with that fierce and unconquerable ardour which has enabled those brave sons of the north to sweep all the troops of Europe before them.
I was not slow in seconding their efforts, and made good use of my sabre: one instant it descended upon musket barrels and bear-skin caps, and the next inflicted some deadly wound, which at that wild and exciting time was a matter of exulting triumph to me. Terrible were the bayonet wounds given and received in that short encounter; many poor fellows who were beaten to the earth were trodden to death beneath the hoofs of our horses, and in five minutes the defenders of the cottage surrendered. The walls without and within were piled up with dead and dying, and its once blooming garden was trodden flat, cumbered with bodies, and drenched with blood. But another desperate encounter was yet before me.
"The colours! the eagle!" exclaimed Macleod, breaking in amongst the prisoners; "where is the officer who bore the eagle?"
"Escaped, by Heaven!" answered Oliver Lascelles, who galloped up at that moment, and cleared the garden-wall at a flying leap. "There he goes on the bald-faced nag. A hundred to one the standard is lost!" A muttered exclamation of regret and mortification burst from us all on beholding the bearer of the eagle riding at full speed after the retreating cavalry.
"S'death!" cried Macleod, rushing to his horse; "he has escaped by the rear. Come on, gentlemen, we will have a steeple-chase for it!"
"Stole away! hark forward!" exclaimed Lascelles, with a reckless laugh, as his nag once more cleared the wall. The mounted officers all pushed onward at full gallop; but they were soon outstripped by my noble grey, which rapidly brought me up with the fugitive. On finding himself nearer the French rear-guard than the victors, and perhaps disdaining to fly from a single foe, young Regnier reined up on an eminence near the Amato, and with his sabre lashed by the knot to his wrist, with bent brows, and eyes flashing fire with determination, he awaited my onset. His horse was a small French trooper; the straight neck, drooping ears, and close flanks of which showed its inferiority of breed when compared with my high-headed, bold-eyed, and bluff-chested charger.
I charged him with such fury that both man and horse were almost overturned by the shock; and parrying his thrust, I dealt a blow which had certainly cleft his jaws, but for the thick brass scales of his shako. He was stunned, and reeled in his saddle for a moment, striking blindly and at random. At that instant the French cavalry trumpets sounded an advance, and I was compelled to press him more boldly than ever. Grasping the colour-staff with my bridle hand, the flag was nearly rent between us; while he endeavoured to hew off the eagle with his sabre. He glared at me like a tiger and cut fiercely at my left hand, which the twisted reins and thick military glove alone saved from being slashed off; but at the second blow his sabre turned in his grasp, and the blade was shivered into fragments on the stout ash-pole. In the heat of the moment, my sword was raised to cut him down: he was completely at my mercy. He was young, brave, and handsome. I remembered how his countryman had spared me but an hour before, and could I be less generous? Determined, however, to carry off the colours, I grasped him by the belt, placed my foot under his left stirrup, and hurled him to the ground on the other side. The moment he let go the staff, I struck spurs into my grey, and galloped off with the prize to our own troops; who had watched the combat from the eminence on which the contested cottage stood.
My heart bounded with exultation as I bore aloft the tricoloured trophy: it was so torn with shot and shell splinters, that we could never discover to what regiment it belonged. How different must have been the feelings of the poor sub-lieutenant, while borne off by the French cavalry; who, returning to the rescue, discharged their carbines after me: but I was happily beyond the range of their fire.
The battle was now completely over, and every hostile sound had died away. No trace now remained of all that gallant host, whose bayonets had flashed back the morning rays from the ridge of Maida, save the wounded and the dead: the distant glitter of arms and eddying clouds of dust, marked the route of columns hurrying in full retreat towards the shores of the Adriatic. Four thousand Frenchmen lay dead or wounded on the plain; exhibiting a melancholy picture of war and its attendant horrors—more especially on the day succeeding the action. A French account of the battle of St. Eufemio, as they style it, states that Regnier left fifteen hundred on the field; but we had substantial proofs that this number was far below the truth. Our own loss was trifling: one officer only was killed (Maclean of the 20th); but Major Hamil of the Maltese, and many others, lay severely wounded on the plain: our casualties, however, amounted to only three hundred and twenty-six. When riding towards our position, to present my trophy to the general, I had to pick my way with the utmost nicety, to avoid treading on the wounded; who filled the air with groans and ceaseless cries for "water!" as they lay unheeded, bleeding—too many of them to death—under a blazing Italian sun.
The evening, like the morning, was serene and beautiful. The dense white smoke, which during the whole day enveloped the plain of Maida and overhung the dark forest of St. Eufemio, had now floated away to the distant sea. The volleying musketry and hollow thunder of the cannon awoke no more the echoes of the lofty hills, and the deep dingles of the woods: a mournful silence seemed to have succeeded to the roar, the turmoil and carnage of that eventful day,—eventful at least to those who witnessed and survived it.
It is a deplorable sight—when one is calm or suffering under a reaction of spirits so lately excited to the utmost stretch, and after the fierce tumult of a hot engagement has evaporated—to behold a vast plain bepuddled with human blood, and strewn with the bodies of men and horses, mingled with arms, broken cannon, splintered shells, balls half buried in the turf, shattered drums, and torn standards—on every hand, destruction, agony, and death; while ghastly piles of slain mark where the fiercest encounters have taken place. Alas! how changed the aspect of the gay young officer, or the stout and toil-worn veteran, when, shorn of their trappings, they lie weltering in blood—death glazing the eyes that have no kind hand to close them, and each yielding up his life like a dog in a ditch, unnoticed and unknown!
—"The groan, the roll in dust, the all white eye
Turned back within its socket,—these reward
Your rank and file by thousands; while the rest
May win, perhaps, a ribbon at the breast."