CHAPTER IX.
From Ariscune we again moved, and occupied the heights above Maya, from whence we advanced in the beginning of October, and drove the French outposts back into the valley, at the same time burning their huts. While engaged at this business, there fell a tremendous shower of hailstones, some of them measuring five inches in circumference. The regiment got partially under cover in a small chapel, but those with the baggage were exposed, and many were hurt severely. On this day the left of our army succeeded in crossing the Bidasoa.
On returning from this affair, we ascended the heights above the village of Zaggaramurdi, where we encamped. From this part of the Pyrenees we had a view of France, and the position of the French army, which occupied a line, their right resting on the sea-port of St Jean de Luz, and the left on St Jean Pied de Port: here they had formed an intrenched camp, and had redoubts on each hill along the whole line.
We remained on this ground until the 10th of November, during which time the weather was severe—the wind often blowing with such violence that the tents could not be kept pitched.
From a precipice above our encampment, we could view the sea, and the towns along the coast. It was now three years since we beheld it, during which time our hopes and wishes had often fondly turned to our native homes; each fresh campaign and each battle was reckoned the precursor of our return, but ‘by expectation every day beguiled,’ we had almost begun to despair of ever beholding it again, when our recent successes, and the sight of the ocean which encircled the land of our birth, produced the most lively hopes and pleasing anticipations. A more than common friendly feeling was displayed amongst us; each saw in his comrade’s face the reflection of the joy that animated his own heart. The mountain air braced our nerves,and gave us a bounding elasticity of spirit, which rose superior to every thing.
A few of us who were drawn together by congeniality of sentiment and disposition, used to assemble and wander up among the giant cliffs with which we were surrounded, and perching ourselves in a cranny, would sit gazing on the ocean and ships passing, with emotions which I have felt, but cannot describe. Its expansive bosom seemed a magic mirror, wherein we could read our future fortune,—a happy return from all our dangers; smiling friends, with all the early loved associations of childhood and youth, swam before our hope-dazzled imaginations, and we sat and sung the songs of Scotland while the tears trickled down our cheeks. He who has never heard the melodies of his native land sung in a foreign country, is ignorant of a pleasure that nothing can surpass. But we were not all doomed to realise those pleasing anticipations: many found their graves in the valleys which we then overlooked.
Lord Wellington having prepared every thing for an attack on the French position in the valley, on the 10th of November, about two o’clock in the morning, we assembled, and having marched down to the foot of the hill, on a signal given by a gun firing, the attack commenced; that on the enemy’s left was made under the direction of General Hill, by the second and sixth divisions, supported by a division of Portuguese and Spaniards. Marshal Beresford commanded the centre, consisting of our division, the fourth and seventh, supported by a division of Spaniards.
The enemy having been driven from the redoubts in front of Sarre, we advanced upon the village. Our regiment being selected to charge a strong column that protected the bridge, Colonel Lloyd filed us off from the division, and led us on to the attack in the most heroic manner. Having succeeded in carrying it with considerable loss on our part, we returned and took up our place in the column. In a short time after, having passed through the village, the whole army co-operating, we advanced to the attack of the enemy’s main positionon the heights behind it, on which a line of strong redoubts were formed, with abattis in front, formed by trees cut down and placed with their branches towards us, serving as a cover for their infantry. Having extended our line at the foot of the hill, our division proceeded to the attack: Colonel Lloyd having pushed his horse forward before the regiment, advanced cheering on his men with the most undaunted bravery—but before he reached its summit, he received a mortal wound in the breast, and was only saved from falling off his horse by some of the men springing forward to his assistance. When this was perceived by the regiment, a pause of a moment was made in the midst of their career, and the tears started into each eye as they saw him borne down the hill; but the next was devoted to revenge, and regardless of every thing, they broke through all obstacles, and driving the enemy from their position, they charged them through their burning huts without mercy. The troops to our right and left having carried the other redoubts, the enemy were obliged to surrender the strong position which they had taken; and in the principal redoubt on the right, they left the first battalion of their 88th regiment, which surrendered.
The troops under General Hill having succeeded in forcing them from their positions on the right of our army, our division and the seventh moved by the left of the Nivelle, on St Pe, covered by the second and sixth divisions. A part of the enemy’s troops had crossed, and advancing, gained possession of the height above it. Our centre and right columns were now established behind the enemy’s right; but night came on, and we were obliged to cease firing. Having encamped, intelligence was brought up of the death of Colonel Lloyd: he had been carried to a house at the foot of the hill, where he expired in a few minutes.
Thus fell the brave and noble Lloyd, in the vigour of manhood and the height of his fame, for his worth and services were well known, and duly appreciated by Lord Wellington. Though young, his extraordinary abilities had caused him to rise rapidly in theservice, and had attracted the admiration of the army in which he served; while his humanity and wise system of discipline endeared him to those he commanded. Humble though thy grave be, gallant Lloyd, and though no sculptured marble rises o’er thy tomb, thine is a nobler meed: thy virtues are engraven on many a heart, which nothing but the rude hand of death can e’er efface; and though no pageantry followed thy remains to the grave, honest heart-felt tears were shed upon it.
I never witnessed sorrow so general as that produced by the intelligence of his death; our hearts were full—we felt as if we had lost a father—all his good qualities were recapitulated, and tears were shed in abundance during the recital.
Had any of those overbearing officers who carry all with a high hand and by dint of severity, witnessed the feeling displayed that night among the men of our regiment, they would have forsworn tyranny for ever. One individual only exulted in his death, and that was the captain of yellow and black badge celebrity, whom I have already had occasion to mention; he considered that Colonel Lloyd’s promotion into our regiment had hindered his own, and as the goodness which some men cannot imitate causes their hate, so it was with him. When he received intelligence of Colonel Lloyd’s death, snapping his fingers in a manner peculiar to himself, he exclaimed, ‘They have been licking the butter off my bread for some time, but I think I have them now.’
This unfeeling expression becoming known in the regiment, caused him more detestation even than his former cruelty.
The enemy retired from the position on their right that night, and quitting also their position and works in front of St Jean de Luz, retired upon Bidart, destroying the bridges on the lower Nivelle. In the course of the preceding day we had taken fifty-one piece of cannon, six ammunition tumbrils, and one thousand four hundred prisoners.
In consequence of the rapid movements of the division, the baggage had not come up, and as it rained heavy, we were rather uncomfortably situated. Next day we moved forward a short distance, through dreadfully dirty roads, but the enemy having retired into an intrenched camp before Bayonne, we halted and again encamped, when the baggage joined us. Some of them had been nearly taken by the French during the preceding night; our division being farther advanced than the enemy’s right, they were uncertain where to direct their march. The corporal of our band, (a Glasgow lad,) coming up that evening with the baggage, observed a poor woman of the 88th regiment endeavouring to raise the ass that carried her necessaries, out of a hole it had fallen into. As it was getting dark, and the baggage had all passed, the poor woman was in a miserable plight, and begged of him to assist her. She could not have applied to one more willing to succour a person in distress, and setting to work, after a good deal of trouble, he got the ‘borico’ on its feet, but so much time had elapsed that the baggage was now out of hearing, and they were uncertain which way to proceed. After travelling some distance, they heard bugles sounding to their left, and they kept on in that direction, until they found themselves in the midst of some regiments of Spaniards, but who could give them no information respecting the position of our division. Pointing, however, to where they suspected them to be, our travellers continued their route in that direction; but the poor ass was so fatigued, that it lay down every now and then under its burden. Assisting it on in the best way they could, the road they had taken brought them between two hills, on which they perceived the fires of different encampments. When they arrived opposite them, they suspected from their relative position, that one must be the enemy, but which of them they knew not; they were now in a dilemma, and to add to it, the poor ass tumbled headlong into a stream that ran through the valley, and their united efforts could not raise it.P——’s spirit of knight-errantry was now fast evaporating, and he was almost tempted to swear that he would never again be caught succouring distressed damsels, when the woman, whose invention was sharpened by the exigency of her situation, proposed that she would creep softly up the hill, until she came within hearing of the soldiers in the camp, and from their language she would be able to learn whether they were our troops or the enemy. She then ascended the hill that she considered the most likely to be the encampment of our troops, leaving poor P—— sitting beside the half-drowned animal, to whose name he was inclined to think the transactions of that night gave him some claim. After waiting a considerable time in anxious suspense, he was beginning to forget his selfish considerations, in concern for the safety of the poor woman who had thus ventured on a forlorn hope, when his attention was attracted by some one descending the hill waving a light backwards and forwards, and shouting at the same time; having answered the signal, the woman soon made her appearance, with a Portuguese soldier, whose division was encamped on the hill which she ascended, and they now learned that those on the opposite hill were the French. Having succeeded in raising the half-perished ‘buro,’ the Portuguese lifted the baggage on his back, and the others half dragging, half carrying the animal, they reached the top of the hill, but still no information could be got of the division. Considering it of no use to proceed farther, they seated themselves by a fire, but they had scarcely done so, when it came on a heavy shower of rain which drenched them to the skin—there was no remedy, however, but patience. Next morning at daylight they again took the road, but they were now more fortunate, for falling in with some of the baggage they had parted with the preceding night, they reached the division by the time we had encamped.
During our campaigns in the Peninsula, it is almost incredible what the poor women who followed us had to endure, marching often in a state of pregnancy, andfrequently bearing their children in the open air, in some instances, on the line of march, by the roadside; suffering at the same time, all the privation to which the army is liable. In quarters, on the other hand, they were assailed by every temptation which could be thrown in their way, and every scheme laid by those who had rank and money, to rob them of that virtue which was all they had left to congratulate themselves upon. Was it to be wondered at, then, if many of them were led astray, particularly when it is considered that their starving condition was often taken advantage of by those who had it in their power to supply them, but who were villains enough to make their chastity the price?
From this encampment we advanced to Ustaritz, where we remained until the 9th of December, when we crossed the Nive. At the point we passed, we met with little or no opposition, but some of the army were warmly engaged. We then took up our quarters in Hasparin. The day that we entered this village, one of our men cut off his right hand, under circumstances that may be worth relating.
For some time previous to this he had been low in spirits, troubled with what some people callreligious melancholy, but which, at that time, was no very prevalent disease in the army. He scarcely ever spoke to any one, and was in the habit of wandering out from the encampment, with his Bible in his pocket, and seating himself in some place where he was not likely to be disturbed, he would sit for hours poring over it. While in Ustaritz, he conceived some ill will against the landlord of the house where he was quartered, and very unceremoniously knocked him down. Being confined for this offence, he remained a prisoner when we entered Hasparin. On the guard being placed in a house, he sat down, and having taken out his Bible, he commenced reading it. But suddenly rising, he laid down the book, and going over to a man who was breaking wood with a hatchet, he asked the loan of it for a few minutes. When the man gave it to him, he walkedvery deliberately into an inner apartment, and placing his right hand on the sill of the window, he severed it at the wrist. The first two strokes that he made did not finish the business, and he had nerve enough not only to repeat it a third time, but afterwards to wrench the lacerated integuments asunder, and throw the hand into the court below. He had been observed by some of the men in a window opposite, but too late to prevent the deed.
I assisted in leading him to the assistant-surgeon’s quarters, where the stump was dressed in a manner which I shall describe, and leave to the profession either to praise or censure, as they may feel inclined. The bone had been rather splintered than cut, and its sharp point protruded about two inches beyond the mangled integuments. Having prepared his apparatus, he placed the patient on a seat, and after half-an-hour’s poking with a tenacalum, he succeeded in taking up and tying the two principal arteries. He then nipt off the rough angles at the point of the bone, and forcing down the retracted integuments by straps of adhesive plaster, under which he had introduced some dry lint, he rolled the whole up with a bandage, and left him, congratulating himself, no doubt, on his dexterity.
The man, on being questioned as to his motive in thus mutilating himself, replied, ‘that he had only done what the Lord commanded, in a passage he had been reading,—If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee,’ &c., which injunction he had literally fulfilled, as his right hand offended him by knocking down his landlord. This was the only reason he ever assigned. As he went to the rear some time after, and did not join the regiment again, I had never an opportunity of learning whether the operation proved successful.
From the village of Hasparin we were removed about a mile, to the deserted palace of some Gascon nobleman, where we were quartered until the 6th of January, when we advanced, and drove in the enemy’s outposts; but returning on the 7th, we did not again move until the middle of February.
While in Hasparin the weather was bad, and we were much harassed, marching a distance of two or three miles every morning to the alarm-post two hours before daylight, and remaining there until it appeared. The inhabitants of the province we were now in were different in dress and manners from both Spaniards and French, but their language (Patois) seemed to our ears harsh and discordant. The round bonnets of the men, and the dress and healthy look of the women, was much similar to the Scottish peasantry.
I am not certain whether it was here or in Ustaritz,—the latter, I believe,—that we had two men of our division executed; one hanged for robbing an officer’s portmanteau, and another shot for presenting his empty piece at a sergeant of the mounted police corps, which acted as assistants to the provost marshal, and had been attached to the army since the commencement of the last campaign. Every one thought he would be pardoned, or at least his sentence commuted, as it was said there was some unnecessary provocation given by the sergeant; but mercy was not extended to him. We were often inclined to think that the provosts marshal were possessed of more power than they ought to have had, particularly as they were generally men of a description who abused it, and were guided more by caprice and personal pique than any regard to justice. In fact, they seemed to be above all control, doing what they pleased, without being brought to any account, and were often greater robbers than the men they punished.
After leaving this place, we came up with the French on the 23d of February, near the village of Sauveterre. A river ran between us and the town, over which there was a bridge that they had placed in a state of defence, their army occupying the opposite bank. On the morning of the 24th, our brigade were ordered some way down from the bridge, for the purpose of crossing a ford near a mill. Our light companies, covered by a party of the seventh hussars, first took the river, in a particular part of which there was a strong current,caused by the mill stream. This, together with the large round stones that formed the bottom, caused some difficulty in getting across; but they effected it, and advancing up the bank through a narrow lane, lined a wall on the top of the height. The cavalry then returned, and the right of the brigade had crossed the river, when the enemy, having detached a strong force to oppose our progress, drove in the light troops so precipitately, that in retreating through the lane already mentioned, they were wedged in so closely that they could not move. A number then struck off to the right, and attempted to swim the river, but being carried away with the current, many of them were drowned. Of those who crossed at the ford many were wounded in the river, and losing their footing sunk to rise no more, among whom was a brave young officer of our regiment. The French had by this time come close down on them, and none would have escaped being killed or taken prisoners had not a brigade of guns been brought down to the edge of the river, and by a heavy fire of grape covered the retreat. On re-crossing, the brigade withdrew under cover of some houses, and on the 25th the division crossed the river on a bridge of boats, the enemy having blown up the stone bridge, and retreated.
In the affair on the 24th a great number of our men were taken prisoners, exclusive of the killed and wounded. On the 27th, we came up with the enemy again at Orthes, where their whole army had taken up a position, their left resting on the village and heights of Orthes, and right extending to that of St Boes. The right of our line was composed of the third and sixth divisions, led on by General Picton; the light division, under Baron Alten, formed the centre; and Marshal Beresford, with the fourth and seventh, formed the left. The battle commenced by the latter attacking St Boes and carrying it; but by reason of the difficult nature of the ground, it was found impracticable to carry the heights. Their whole line was then attacked by the third, fourth, sixth, and light divisions, when the enemywere dislodged from the heights; and Sir Rowland Hill, who, in advancing to join the conflict, saw the French already routed, the more effectually to prevent their escape, pushed forward the second division and cavalry. Their retreat was well conducted at first, but it gradually became disorderly, and in the end a complete flight, many of the conscripts throwing down their arms and deserting.
The French had made a most obstinate resistance at the point which we had to carry, and kept up a severe cannonade on us, by which many of our men were decapitated, in consequence of their firing chain shot. In one part of the road where they had been driven from the fields, our cavalry had made a furious charge on them, and taken a number of prisoners. The road was almost rendered impassable by the number of arms lying on it. Near this place lay a sergeant belonging to our light brigade, extended by the side of a French grenadier, their bayonets transfixed in each other, and both dead. Passing Orthes, we followed the retreat of the enemy until we passed through another town, where part of their rear-guard lined the walls of a churchyard, situated a little above the town, and had brought out tables and chairs to stand on while they fired over upon us. In passing through this village, a shot from one of their cannon shattered the leg of an old midwife while she was crossing the street; the head doctor of our regiment, a skilful and intelligent surgeon, being passing at the time, having inspected the injury, found it necessary to amputate the limb, and although she was far advanced in years, in three weeks after, when we had occasion to pass near the village, she had almost entirely recovered.
Beyond this village, about two miles, we encamped by the road side, and had not been long encamped, when my friend, the corporal of the band, whom I have already mentioned, arrived, bringing with him a child which he had found in a field under peculiar circumstances. As he and a musician of the 83d regiment were passing along the road, they were attracted bythe piteous cries of a French officer, who lay severely wounded in a ditch a short distance from them; he begged for God’s sake that they would give him a drink, and as I have already hinted, P——, always ready to follow the dictates of a benevolent heart, gave him some wine from his canteen. It was then dusk, but while he stooped to give the officer the wine, he perceived something moving beneath his cloak, and on drawing it a little aside, he found a fine boy, about four years old, dressed in the English fashion, nestled in beside him. Taking him up in his arms, he asked him his name, when the child replied, ‘James.’ The officer entered into an explanation of the matter, and P—— understood enough of the language to learn that the child came up the road during a heavy fire, while our army and the French were engaged. The officer, who had been wounded a little before, seeing the poor child in imminent danger, and in the midst of his own sufferings, feeling interested for his fate, had enticed him off the road, and kept him amused until he fell asleep, when he wrapped him in the corner of his cloak. The officer expressed the utmost gratitude for P——’s kindness in giving him the wine, but he seemed to feel in parting with the child, nor did the child seem very willing to part with him. With the view, however, of finding out his parents, the child was brought home to the camp, and notice being sent to the different divisions of the army, in a few days the child’s mother arrived. Her feelings on again finding her child, may be better imagined than described. She stated, that having come into the town in rear of where the army were engaged, the child had wandered from her knee while she was suckling a younger one, and that she had searched every part of the town for him without being able to get the least trace of the direction he had taken, or what had become of him.
Having children certainly increased the hardships that the poor women were fated to endure; but excess of suffering, which tore asunder every other tie, only rendered maternal love stronger, and it was amazingwhat hardships were voluntarily endured for the sake of their offspring. I remember one poor fellow of our brigade, whose wife died, and left an infant with him of a few months old, and although he might have got one of the women to take care of it, he preferred taking charge of it himself, and for many a day he trudged along with it sitting on the top of his knapsack. Sickness at length overtook him, and he went to the rear to hospital, carrying the child with him, but what was their fate afterwards I have never been able to learn.
Next morning we left our encampment, and returning by the way we had come, we passed a man of the division on the road side, who had been hung up to the branch of a tree a few minutes before. According to the current report in the division, he had entered a mill, and asked the miller to sell him some flour, but the miller refusing to sell it, he took it by force; and being caught in the act by some one, who reported the affair to Lord Wellington, he was tried by a general court martial, and sentenced to death. For a long time after his trial, he was marched a prisoner with the provost guard, and he entertained hopes of pardon; but on that morning, without any previous warning, while he was sitting at the fire with some of his fellow-prisoners, the provost came in and ordered him to rise, when placing the rope round his neck, he marched him forward on the road a short distance, and hung him up on the branch of a tree. Examples, perhaps, were necessary, but we were inclined to think that the time was often unfortunately chosen; it was rather an awkward sort of spectacle to greet the eyes of an army the morning after a hard-fought and successful battle: and the poor wretch’s fate excited more commiseration that morning, than detestation of his crime.
Some of the men happened to make remarks on the subject,—‘Pshaw!’ said Dennis, who was listening to them, ‘I don’t believe my countryman would do anything of the sort. Sure it’s only a dead man he has ordered to be hung up to frighten yees.’
‘He is dead enough now,’ said another. ‘Do youremember,’ said a third, ‘the tickler of a circular that was served out to us after the dreadful retreat from Salamanca,—wasthatyour countryman’s doings?’
‘Troth, I don’t know,’ said Dennis; ‘but it didn’t go well down with us; and if this is the sort of payment we get for beating the French, the best way is to go down on our knees, and promise never to be guilty of the like again.’