Chapter V

The Light Brigade composed of the 43d and 52d regiments of Light
Infantry, and the 1st battalion 95th Rifle Corps. Embark for Lisbon
under Brigadier-General Robert Crawford. Arrive at Lisbon. Proceed
by water to Vallada. Santarem. Convents and nuns. March from
Santarem to join Sir Arthur Wellesley. Sketch of the march. The Pass
of Villa Velha, Castello Branco, Zarzo Maior, Coria, Orapeza, &c.
Extraordinary long march on 28th July, and want of water. We join
the army at Talavera. Slight sketch of the field of action.

A very short time had elapsed after the return of the army from Corunna and Vigo, when orders were transmitted to the three light regiments, the 43d, 52d, and the first battalion of our own corps, to prepare for service again, with the least possible delay, and to form a brigade under Brigadier-General Robert Crawford. Our destination was Portugal. The losses which we had sustained in the late campaign were filled up from our 2d and 3d battalions; and I conclude that the 43d and 52d were completed in a similar manner. On the 25th May, 1809, our battalion embarked at Dover in the Malabar, Fortune, and Laurel transports, and sailed immediately to the Downs, where we remained at anchor several days, in very boisterous weather. On the 3d of June we sailed under convoy of La Nymphe frigate and the Kangaroo sloop of war, and anchored at St. Helen’s.

In consequence of adverse winds, we were detained between St. Helen’s, Spithead, Ryde, Cowes, and Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight, until the 18th of June, during which we contrived to kill time by various excursions to Portsmouth, Ryde, Newport, Carisbrook Castle, Yarmouth, and Leamington. [N. B. We all agreed that the women of the Isle of Wight were particularly handsome.]

On the 18th of June we passed the Needles with a fresh breeze; and the order of the day on board our transport was, to bombard the sea-fowl which swarm at this season on the rocks. Rifles and fowling-pieces, with ball, slugs, and swan-shot, were brought into full play on this occasion.

On the 19th, we were abundantly supplied with fish by the Torbay fishermen; and, moreover, opened another heavy and destructive fire on such unfortunate gulls and other sea-birds as ventured within reach. We pursued our course with favourable winds and heavenly weather, and entered the Tagus on the 28th of June, and the same day anchored abreast of Lisbon. The pilot who conducted our vessel into the Tagus related some marvellous stories of the Marquis of Romana having recently played the devil with one of the French armies. We placed, however, but little reliance on his report.

As we entered Lisbon last year, after the convention of Cintra, by the roads leading to it from Vimeira, we had not until now so fair an opportunity of judging of its magnificent appearance from the Tagus. The country houses and convents on the sides of most picturesque hills, thickly planted with vines; the legion of windmills near Belem; and, finally, the city itself, form altogether so enchanting a picture, that any attempt of mine to do it justice must inevitably fail _in toto_. Besides, Lisbon and its river have been often described by far more able pens. How sadly is a stranger disappointed when he lands and traverses the dirty, rascally streets of this priest-ridden city, and wades, hour after hour, through one uninterrupted accumulation of disgusting filth, in which the inhabitants appear to glory and rejoice! Instead of being the most disreputable and dirty place in Europe (or perhaps on the globe), it might most assuredly be the very reverse. Above the city is one of the finest aqueducts in the universe, from which almost every street might, with good management, be constantly washed, and every thing offensive carried down to the Tagus. But this, it appears, is quite foreign to Portuguese taste. Let them therefore vegetate in the old way, and luxuriate in the effluvia to which they have ever been accustomed.

We were busily employed, from the moment of our arrival on the 28th of June, to the 2d of July, in purchasing horses, mules, donkeys, pack-saddles, cigars, and various other odds and ends, indispensable in campaigning. We were to proceed, without delay, to join Sir Arthur Wellesley, who was at this time in Spanish Estremadura. He had arrived at Lisbon from England about a couple or three months after Sir John Moore’s army returned from Corunna to England, taking out with him some troops, with which, in addition to the regiments left by Sir John Moore in Portugal the previous autumn, he immediately commenced operations against Marshal Soult; and, by a series of rapid and masterly movements, advanced to the Douro—forced the passage of that river—completely defeated the French army at Oporto, and drove them out of Portugal, with the loss of their artillery, baggage, ammunition, &c. &c.; and occasioned them a heavy loss also in killed, wounded, and prisoners.

The particulars of this brilliant exploit are too well-known to render it necessary for me to enlarge on it. Having cleared Portugal a second time of its invaders, Sir Arthur turned his attention in a southerly direction, and was, at the period of the arrival of our brigade at Lisbon, co-operating with the Spanish General Cuesta in Spanish Estremadura. Instead of landing the light brigade at Lisbon, and marching it to Santarem, it was determined that we should be conveyed in boats to the village of Vallada, forty miles above the capital, and that our baggage-animals should be sent by land to Santarem.

About midnight on the 2d of July, the tide serving to take us up the river, we were put into flat-bottomed boats and launches, and the tedious operation of towing us against the current commenced. After twenty-four hours spent in this bewitching manner, every man’s legs terribly cramped by being crammed so tight into the boat, we reached Vallada, near which place we bivouacked on the bank of the river. I never entertained the smallest doubt that all the frogs in the Peninsula had assembled, by common consent on this occasion, to welcome us to Portugal; for such an eternal croaking I never heard before or since. It failed, however, to spoil our night’s rest, as sleep the previous night had been quite out of the question, owing to our being constrained to sit upright in the boats.

The three regiments composing the light brigade having now landed, I may observe, that unprejudiced persons, and those neither directly nor indirectly connected with it, have pronounced it the finest and most splendid brigade that ever took the field. I will venture to go so far as to assert, that if it has been _equalled_, it has never been _surpassed_, in any army, whether the materials of which it was composed, its fine appointments and arms, its _esprit du corps_, its style of marching and manœuvring, and, in short, every requisite for a light brigade, be considered. Each regiment was nearly eleven hundred strong; there were many hundreds in each battalion to whom the smell of _gunpowder in earnest_ was no novelty; for they had served with Nelson at Copenhagen, with Auchmuty at Monte Video, with Whitelock in the ill-fated and bloody business at Buenos Ayres, with Sir A. Wellesley at Roleia and Vimeira, and with the ever-to-be-lamented Sir John Moore at Corunna. If, therefore, they were not veterans in age, they had at least some claim to the appellation from their services.

4th.—After a few hours’ sleep near Vallada, we bade adieu to our bivouac and the frogs, and marched to Santarem, where we halted until the 7th, waiting for our baggage-animals, ammunition, and commissariat arrangements. Santarem is a good town, beautifully situated on a high hill, clothed with the finest olive groves, on the right bank of the Tagus, overlooking its fertile banks to a considerable distance, both above and below the town. Like all towns of any size in Portugal, it is full of churches and convents. With the fair inmates of the latter we had a deal of chit-chat, although the close iron gratings which separated us from our inamoratas obscured them in great measure from view. That they all were blessed with sparkling black eyes, I am ready to swear; the rest was left to the imagination. By means of the _whirligig_ concern in which various matters find their way out of and into the convent, these fair ladies presented us with preserved fruits, nosegays, and all sorts of fine things; in return for which, certain little notes or love-letters, written in villanously bad Portuguese, were transmitted by the same mode of conveyance to them. They appeared much interested as to the result of the campaign in which we were about to take a part; and two of them, who were heartily tired of their unnatural prison, declared to myself and a brother-officer, that they were ready and willing to make their escape, with our assistance, and to share our fortunes in the “tented field.” When one considers that by so doing they would have brought down on them the vengeance of monks, friars, padres, and mother-abbesses, and that these black-eyed damsels must have calculated on being buried alive, or broiled on a gridiron, had they been detected in such an adventure, we must admit that they were heroines of the first class.

General Crawford having decided that his brigade should proceed independently by regiments, our battalion moved on the 7th from Santarem; and after a broiling march reached Golegao, a small town prettily situated on the Tagus, but almost entirely deserted by the inhabitants. Junot’s army had plundered and ravaged it thoroughly the preceding year.

We marched on the 8th to Punheite and Tanchos, small towns on the right bank of the Tagus. On a small island in the river near the latter place stands a Moorish ruin, called Almeira, to which we paid a visit.

9th.—Reached Abrantes, a dirty town, but situated similarly to Santarem, and commanding a most extensive and diversified prospect. We did not halt in the town, but crossing to the left bank of the Tagus by a pontoon bridge, bivouacked in some large woods.

On the 10th we halted on the same ground. General Crawford at this period issued a long string of standing orders and regulations to his brigade: many of them were undoubtedly excellent, and well calculated to insure regularity, on the march, in camp, and in quarters; but they were so exceedingly numerous, and some so very minute and tedious, that a man must have been blessed with a better memory than falls to the general lot of mortals to have recollected one half of them. I shall here remark that, in consequence of the suffocating heat of the weather, our march from Santarem into Spanish Estremadura was chiefly performed in the night, or very early in the morning. We usually started soon after midnight, and were thereby able, in general, to finish the day’s work by eight or nine in the morning, and to rest during the heat of the day. In some instances, when we did not commence the march until dawn of day, we had, of course, the full benefit of a southern sun the greater part of the way.

I was, unfortunately, one of those restless beings who, after a night spent in marching, could not sleep in the bivouac during the day; and many a time have I envied the happy fellows who lay down like dogs, under a cork-tree, and slept most soundly, until the rations of tough beef (perhaps killed only a few hours before), boiled into an _omnium gatherum_, with an onion or two, some rice, and a mouldy ship biscuit, were pronounced in a fit state for the table; the said dinner-table being neither more nor less than the turf at the foot of a tree, with a soldier’s knapsack by way of camp-chair; a japanned half-pint tin cup stood for wine glass, which, with a pocket-knife, fork, and spoon, and a tin plate, constituted the whole of our dinner service. It being utterly impracticable to have a regimental mess whilst in the field, the officers of each company formed a little mess of their own. Candlesticks not being the fashion of the day, we substituted an empty bottle in their place; and a most bandit-like appearance the interior of our tents presented after dark, filled generally with such clouds of smoke from our cigars, that I have often since wondered we were not smothered in our sleep from such an atmosphere, in which we reposed rolled up in our cloaks.

At midnight of the 10th we harnessed for the night’s march, and poked our way in the dark towards Gavion, a poor town. Near it are some Moorish ruins, which I would willingly have visited, had not my marching propensities been fully satisfied for one day; having been thirteen hours under arms, many of them under a scorching sun.

12th.—We reached, after a tedious march, Neza, a dirty town, where there are some Moorish walls and ruins, on which multitudes of storks build their nests. Both old and young birds were perched on the walls in great numbers, and were fully as tame as pigeons. These birds are held sacred in the Peninsula, and to shoot one of them is considered nothing short of sacrilege.

13th.—Long before dawn of day we were again on our legs, and in due time approached the awfully grand and terrific pass of Villa Velha, leading down to the Tagus by a zig-zag mountainous road, so well known to all old Peninsula men.

It would be presumptuous beyond measure for any one less gifted with descriptive powers than Anne Radcliffe, to fancy he could do justice to the wild beauties of this pass; suffice it, therefore, to say, that its features are as bold and terrific as are to be found any where short of the Alps or Pyrenees. There is scarcely a vestige of cultivation on either bank of the river, which rushes with great rapidity through its rocky bed at the foot of the pass. Eagles and vultures are abundant in those regions; and their constantly soaring above the summits of the mountains, which frown over the river, gives an additional interest to the picture.

On the summit of a mountain rising abruptly from the Tagus on the opposite bank, and clothed with gum cistus, stands a Moorish watch-tower, an object which the admirers of fine scenery cannot fail fully to appreciate. We bivouacked on the right bank of the river, having passed it by a curious flying bridge, large enough to carry only a company or two at a time, which made it a long and tedious process.

After two days’ march from Villa Velha over a bad description of mountainous roads, and through an uncultivated country, prolific only in stones, gum cistus, and cork-trees, we reached Castello Branco, a place of considerable size, but, like the generality of Portuguese towns, extremely dirty, with narrow streets, where tens of millions of flies were amusing themselves. We halted here on the 16th and 17th, to allow the 43d and 52d regiments to join us. Three men of the latter corps died between Santarem and this place, from the excessive heat and fatigue. We tried in vain, during our short sojourn there, to get a peep at the nuns; but, as we afterwards learnt that they were old and ugly, it ceased to be a disappointment. Leaving Castello Branco soon after midnight, the light brigade bivouacked in some large woods of Spanish oak and cork near Ladouira; and on the 19th, after toiling through many leagues of a most barren, desolate, parched, uninteresting country, we constructed huts for the day near the wretched village of Zebreira, a few miles distant from which stand the town and Moorish castle of Monte Santo—fine, wild-looking objects, perched on the summit of a mountain.

On the 20th we crossed the Elga, which river is here the boundary between Portugal and Spain, and encamped near Zarza Maior.

A stranger is forcibly struck, on entering Spain from Portugal, by the superior neatness and cleanliness which he finds, not only in the dress of the Spanish peasantry, but moreover in their cottages; to say nothing of the independent manly manner of the Spaniard, which, contrasted with that of his Portuguese neighbour, throws the latter inevitably into the shade. It was no trifling luxury to be able to purchase to-day some of the excellent white bread of Spain, after grinding, day after day, a short allowance of ship biscuit, or the very inferior bread of Portugal.

After two long and burning marches, through a country not particularly attractive, we arrived at Coria on the 22d. On the 21st I shot, in a large wood where we encamped, a beautiful bird, the name of which I am ignorant of, never having seen one of the kind before or since. It was of the crow genus, but much smaller, and the plumage variegated. On the 23d we halted at Coria. We made a fruitless effort to see and converse with the nuns in one of the convents, who, we were assured, were young and handsome. We undoubtedly had to thank the lady-abbess for their non-appearance at their prison gates. Coria is a city of great antiquity, situated in a country affording a variety of interesting scenery. From the summit of a castle, now in a dilapidated state, but once perhaps formidable, is an extensive and delightful prospect, with mountains in the distance, forming an amphitheatre round the plains watered by the Allagon, and bearing abundance of corn, vines, and olives. The cathedral is a fine building, having, nevertheless, too much gingerbread work in the interior. The streets of this city are exceedingly clean and regular when compared with those of the towns which we had recently marched through in Portugal.

During the 24th, 25th, 26th, and 27th, we continued our march, under a burning sun. In those four days we passed from Coria to Naval Moral, many miles of the route being through extensive and very thick forests of ilex and cork. Half a pound of bread per man was served out on the 27th, which was instantly consumed, as, since our departure from Coria, we knew of such a thing only by _name_.

On the evening of the 27th, vague rumours reached us at Naval Moral relative to the hostile armies. We knew nothing certain further than that Sir Arthur Wellesley and the Spanish General Cuesta had united their forces in the plains some leagues in our front; and as the French under Marshal Victor, the Duke of Belluno, were known to be not far distant from the allied army, a general action might be expected daily.

28th.—Before day dawned we were off again, and ere long, something like a distant cannonade was heard. Our suspense and anxiety can easily be imagined, aware as we were of the proximity of the hostile armies to each other. We arrived at Orapeza at mid-day, where General Crawford considered a short halt indispensably necessary. He then directed the commanding officers of regiments to select and leave at Orapeza such men as were thought incapable of enduring the forced march which he determined to make, and not to halt until he reached the British army, which was known to be engaged in our front, as the distant but unceasing cannonade plainly announced. Having rested his brigade in this burning plain, where water was not to be procured, General Crawford put it in motion towards Talavera de la Reina. It may well be conceived it was a march productive of the highest degree of feverish anxiety and excitement. The one only feeling was to push forward, to throw our mite into the scale, and to lend a helping hand to our brothers in arms.

We soon met _wounded_ Spanish soldiers, and Spanish soldiers _not wounded_, bending their course in a direction from the field of battle. I wish I could assert with equal truth that this retrogression was confined to our Spanish allies; but the truth must be told; and I regret to say, that stragglers from the ranks of the British army, some without a wound, were also taking a similar direction to the rear. As they passed our column they circulated all sorts and kinds of reports of a most disheartening nature: “The British army was utterly defeated, and in full retreat;” “Sir Arthur Wellesley was wounded;” and, by others, “he was killed.” In short, all was suspense and uncertainty. One thing was, nevertheless, certain—that the cannonade continued without cessation.

We pressed forward until ten o’clock at night, when, having reached a pool of stagnant water near the road, in which cattle had been watered during the summer, and where they had constantly wallowed, a halt was ordered for an hour or two. Those who have never been in similar situations may be inclined to doubt my veracity when I state, that the whole brigade, officers and soldiers, rushed into this muddy water, and drank with an eagerness and avidity impossible to describe. The use of such an execrable beverage, except on extreme occasions, like the one in question, where we had been the whole day without water, under a sun as oppressive as can be experienced in Europe, might indeed be deemed extraordinary; but excessive thirst knows no law.

After a short repose on the banks of this horse-pond, we again got under weigh, and without another halt joined the British army in its position at Talavera. Here we learnt that a most sanguinary contest had taken place the day before, wherein the British army gained immortal glory, the particulars of which are generally known; and as the light brigade arrived too late to take a share in the fight, I shall not be expected to describe them. To shew that our brigade did all men could do to reach the field of action in time, suffice it to say, that in twenty-four hours it passed over upwards of fifty miles of country; as extraordinary a march, perhaps, as is to be found on record; particularly when it is remembered that each soldier carried from sixty to eighty rounds of ammunition, a musket or rifle, a great coat, and (if I recollect rightly) a blanket, a knapsack complete, with shoes, shirts, &c. &c.; a canteen and haversack, bayonet, belts, &c. &c. Such a load, carried so great a distance, would be considered a hard day’s work for a horse. The heat was intense, as every soldier who has served in the Peninsula well knows is the case in the month of July, in the heart of Spain, on its sun-burnt, arid plains. Water was scarcely to be had, and of such quality that the quadrupeds doomed to drink it need not have been envied, much less the bipeds. It must also be added, that for some days before we had been very scantily supplied with provisions. Very few men, comparatively speaking, were left on the road. The constant cannonade heard in front was a stimulus which had a most beneficial effect, and made them forget, for a time, their extraordinary fatigue.

It is not my intention to question the propriety or necessity of the light brigade having been halted two days at Santarem, one day at Abrantes, two days at Castello Branco, and one day at Coria, on its march to Talavera; certain, however, it is, that one day’s rest at Santarem instead of two, and one day’s rest at Castello Branco instead of two, would have brought a reinforcement of more than three thousand light troops to Sir Arthur Wellesley, before the bloody battle of the 28th; and that such an addition to his force would have been highly acceptable, particularly as he was deficient in the number of his light troops. Could General Crawford have foreseen that by those halts his brigade would have arrived a _few hours too late_ at Talavera, I feel thoroughly convinced that he would have pushed on, _pêle-mêle_, without a single halt between Santarem and the field of battle.

On our arrival at the position, we were immediately sent to occupy some woods in front, and to take charge of the outposts. Hundreds of wounded were still on the field; but parties were actively employed in taking them to the hospitals in the town of Talavera. Very many of the wounded of both armies who had been so injured as not to be able to crawl back into their own lines during the battle, were, most unfortunately, burnt to death by the dry grass and brush-wood catching fire from the explosion of the shells. A more horrid death can scarcely be imagined. This occurred on what might properly be termed the _neutral ground_, in front of the two armies, where the light troops had been engaged, and when knocked down, could not be carried from the field so long as the contest continued.

The Spanish army commanded by General Cuesta was strongly posted on the right of the British, on intersected ground, and took but little share in the battle; as the game of the French commander evidently was, to crush and annihilate Sir Arthur Wellesley’s troops with overwhelming numbers, whilst he contented himself with keeping the Spaniards in check with a very inferior force. Although the loss of the British was extremely severe, that of their opponents was infinitely greater; nor were the sterling qualities of our soldiers on any occasion put more severely to the test, or the character of the British army more nobly upheld, than on this bloody and memorable day.

The allied army remained in the position on which it had fought until the 3d of August, during which time no movement of consequence took place on its part. The enemy kept a strong rear guard on the Alberchè (a river flowing into the Tagus near the town of Talavera), which the cavalry and the light brigade had an eye to.

About the 1st of August Marshal Victor fell back some leagues towards Toledo. The Spanish cavalry pickets caused frequent false alarms in the camp, by blazing away in a most unmeaning and useless manner at the French videttes.

I have but little to relate of occurrences from the day our brigade joined the army, on the 29th of July, to the 3d of August.