Under Wellington's Command Part 24

Even now he did not feel safe, though rejoined by a large number of convalescents; and, drawing rations for his troops from the stores of the citadel, he retired with the army to Salamanca. Having reorganized his force, procured fresh horses for his guns, and rested the troops for a few days; Ma.s.sena advanced to cover Ciudad Rodrigo, and to raise the siege of Almeida--which Wellington had begun without loss of time--and, with upwards of 50,000 men, Ma.s.sena attacked the British at Fuentes d'Onoro.

The fight was long and obstinate, and the French succeeded in driving back the British right; but failed in a series of desperate attempts to carry the village of Fuentes. Both sides claimed the battle as a victory, but the British with the greater ground; for Ma.s.sena fell back across the Aqueda, having failed to relieve Almeida; whose garrison, by a well-planned night march, succeeded in pa.s.sing through the besieging force, and effected their retreat with but small loss, the town falling into the possession of the British.

Terence had come up, after a series of long marches, on the day before the battle. His arrival was very opportune, for the Portuguese troops with Wellington were completely demoralized, and exhausted, by the failure of their government to supply them with food, pay, or clothes. So deplorable was their state that Wellington had been obliged to disband the militia regiments, and great numbers of desertions had taken place from the regular troops.

The regiment had been stationed on the British right. Here the fighting had been very severe. The French cavalry force was enormously superior to the British, who had but a thousand troopers in the field. These were driven back by the French, and Ramsay's battery of horse artillery was cut off. But Ramsay placed himself at the head of his battery and, at full gallop, dashed through the French infantry and cavalry, and succeeded in regaining his friends.

The two battalions of the Minho regiment, who were posted in a wood, defended themselves with the greatest resolution against an attack by vastly superior numbers; until the French, advancing on each side of the wood, had cut them off from the rest of the division. Then a bugle call summoned the men to a.s.semble at the rear of the wood and, forming squares, the two battalions marched out.

Twelve French guns played upon them and, time after time, ma.s.ses of cavalry swept down on them but, filling up the gaps in their ranks, they pressed on; charged two French regiments, at the double, that endeavoured to block their way; burst a path through them, and succeeded in rejoining the retiring division, which received them with a burst of hearty cheering. Two hundred had fallen, in the short time that had elapsed since they left the wood.

Terence had been in the centre of one of the squares but, just as they were breaking through the French ranks, he had ridden to the rear face; and called upon the men to turn and repulse a body of French cavalry, that was charging down upon them. At this moment a bullet struck his horse in the flank. Maddened with the sudden pain, the animal sprang forward, broke through the ranks of the Portuguese in front of it and, before Terence could recover its command, dashed at full speed among the French cavalry. Before he could strike a blow in defence, Terence was cut down. As he fell the cavalry pa.s.sed over him but, fortunately, the impetus of his charge had carried him nearly through their ranks before he fell; and the horses of the rear rank leapt over his body, without touching him. It was the force of the blow that had felled him for, in the hurry of striking, the trooper's sword had partly turned, and it was with the flat rather than the edge that he was struck.

Although half stunned with the blow and the heavy fall, he did not altogether lose consciousness. He heard, as he lay, a cras.h.i.+ng volley; which would, he felt sure, repulse the hors.e.m.e.n and, fearing that in their retreat they might ride over him, trampling him to death, he struggled to his feet. The French, however, though repulsed, did not retire far, but followed upon the retreating regiment until it joined the British; when a battery opened upon them, and their commander called upon them to fall back. This was done in good order, and at a steady trot.

On seeing Terence standing in their path, an officer rode up to him.

"I surrender," Terence said.

A trooper was called out, and ordered to conduct him to the rear; where many other prisoners, who had been taken during the French advance, were gathered. Here an English soldier bound up Terence's wound, from which the blood was streaming freely, a portion of the scalp having been shorn clean off.

"That was a narrow escape, sir," the man said.

"Yes; I don't know how it was that it did not sever my skull; but I suppose that it was a hasty blow, and the sword must have turned. It might have been worse, by a good deal. I am afraid things are going badly with us."

"Badly enough, here," the soldier said; "but I think we are holding our own, in the centre. There is a tremendous roar of fire going on, round that village there. I was captured half an hour ago, and it has been growing louder and louder, ever since."

For another two hours the battle continued and, as it still centred round the village, the spirits of the prisoners rose; for it was evident that, although the right had been driven back, the centre was at least holding its position, against all the efforts of the French. In the afternoon the fire slackened, and only a few shots were fired.

The next morning at daybreak the prisoners, 300 in number, were marched away under a strong escort. Both armies still occupied the same positions they had held the day before, and there seemed every probability of the battle being renewed. When, however, they had marched several miles, and no sound of heavy firing was heard, the prisoners concluded that either Wellington had retired; or that Ma.s.sena, seeing his inability to drive the British from their position, intended himself to fall back upon Ciudad.

The convoy marched twenty miles, and then halted for the night. Two hours after they did so a great train of waggons containing wounded came up, and halted at the same place. The wounded were lifted out and laid on the ground, where the surgeons attended to the more serious cases.

"Pardon, monsieur," Terence said in French, to one of the doctors who was near him, "are there any of our countrymen among the wounded?"

"No, sir, they are all French," the doctor replied.

"That is a good sign," Terence said, to an English officer who was standing by him when he asked the question.

"Why so, Colonel?"

"Because, if Ma.s.sena intended to attack again tomorrow, he would have sent the British wounded back, as well as his own men. The French, like ourselves, make no distinction between friends and foes; and that he has not sent them seems, to me, to show that he intends himself to fall back, and to leave the British wounded to the care of their own surgeons, rather than embarra.s.s himself with them."

"Yes, I have no doubt that is the case," the officer said. "It seems, then, that we must have won the day, after all. That is some comfort, anyhow, and I shall sleep more soundly than I expected. If we had been beaten, there would have been nothing for it but for the army to fall back again to the lines of Torres Vedras; and Wellington would have had to fight very hard to regain them. If Ma.s.sena does fall back, Almeida will have to surrender."

"I was inside last time it surrendered," Terence said, "but I managed to make my way out with my regiment, after the explosion."

"I wonder whether Ma.s.sena means to leave us at Ciudad, or to send us on to Salamanca?"

"I should think that he would send us on," Terence replied; "he will not want to have 300 men eating up the stores at Ciudad, besides requiring a certain portion of the garrison to look after them."

Terence's ideas proved correct and, without stopping at Ciudad, the convoy of prisoners and wounded continued their march until they arrived at Salamanca. Terence could not help smiling, as he was marched through the street, and thought of the wild panic that he and d.i.c.ky Ryan had caused, when he was last in that town. The convent which the Mayo Fusiliers had occupied was now turned into a prison, and here the prisoners taken at Fuentes d'Onoro were marched, and joined those who had fallen into the hands of the French during Ma.s.sena's retreat. Among these were several officers of his acquaintance and, as discipline was not very strict, they were able to make themselves fairly comfortable together.

The French, indeed, along the whole of the Portuguese frontier, had their hands full; and the force at Salamanca was so small that but few men could be spared for prison duties and, so long as their captives showed no signs of giving trouble, their guards were satisfied to leave them a good deal to their own devices; watching the gate carefully, but leaving much of the interior work of the prison to be done by Spanish warders for, violent as the natives were in their expressions of hatred for the French, they were always ready to serve under them, in any capacity in which money could be earned.

"There can be no difficulty, whatever, in making one's escape from here," Terence said, to a party of four or five officers who were lodged with him in a room, from whose window a view over the city was obtainable. "It is not the getting out of this convent that is difficult, but the making one's way across this country to rejoin. I have no doubt that one could bribe one of those Spaniards to bring in a rope and, even if that could not be obtained, we might manage to make one from our blankets; but the question is, what to do when we have got out? Ma.s.sena lies between us and Ciudad and, from what I hear the French soldiers say, the whole line is guarded down to Badajoz, where Soult's army is lying. Victor is somewhere farther to the south, and their convoys and cavalry will be traversing the whole country. I speak Portuguese well, and know enough of Spanish to pa.s.s as a Spaniard, among Frenchmen, but to anyone who does not speak either language it would be next to impossible to get along."

"I quite see that," one of the officers said, "and for my part I would rather stay where I am, than run the risk of such an attempt. I don't know a word of Spanish, and should be recaptured before I had been out an hour. If I got away from the town I should be no better off, for I could not obtain a disguise. As to making one's way from here to Almeida, it would be altogether hopeless."

The others agreed, and one of them said:

"But don't let us be any hindrance to you, O'Connor. If you are disposed to try, by all means do so and, if we can help you in any way, we will."

"I shall certainly try," Terence said; "but I shall wait a little to see how things go. It may be by this time Wellington has fallen back again and, in that case, no doubt Ma.s.sena will advance. We heard as we came along that Marmont, with six divisions, is approaching the frontier and, even if Wellington could maintain himself on the Aqueda, Soult is likely to crush Beresford, and may advance from Badajoz towards Lisbon, when the British will be obliged to retire at once.

"To make one's way across the open country between this and Ciudad would be easy enough; while it would be dangerous in the extreme to enter the pa.s.ses, while the French troops are pressing through them on Wellington's rear. My Portuguese would, of course, be a hindrance rather than a benefit to me on this side of the frontier; for the Spaniards hate the Portuguese very much more heartily than they do the French. You know that, when they were supplying our army with grain, the Spanish muleteers would not bring any for the use of the Portuguese brigades; and it was only by taking it as if for the British divisions, and distributing it afterwards to the Portuguese, that the latter could be kept alive. As a British officer I should feel quite safe, if I fell into the hands of Spanish guerillas; but as a Portuguese officer my life would not be worth an hour's purchase."

Two days later came the news that a desperate battle had been fought by Beresford at Albuera, near Badajoz. He had been attacked by Soult but, after tremendous fighting, in which the French first obtained great advantages, they had been at last beaten off by the British troops; and it ended a drawn battle, the losses on both sides being extraordinarily heavy. It was not until some time afterwards that Terence learned the particulars of this desperate engagement. Beresford had 30,000 infantry, 2000 cavalry, and 38 guns; but the British infantry did not exceed 7000. Soult had 4000 veteran cavalry, 19,000 infantry, and 40 guns.

The battle began badly. Blake with his Spaniards were soon disposed of by the French and, in half an hour, the battle was all but lost; a brigade of the British infantry being involved in the confusion caused by the Spanish retreat, and two-thirds of its number being destroyed. The whole brunt of the battle now fell upon the small British force remaining. French columns pushed up the hill held by them. The cannon on both sides swept the ground with grape. The heavy French columns suffered terribly from the fire from the English lines; but they pressed forward, gained the crest of the rise and, confident of victory, were still advancing; when Cole and Houghton's brigades came up and restored the battle, and the British line, charging through a storm of grape and musketry, fell upon the French columns and drove them down the hill again, in confusion.

The Portuguese battalions had fought well, as had the German regiment; but it was upon the British that the whole brunt of the fight had fallen. In the four hours that the combat lasted, 7000 of the allies and over 8000 of the French had been killed or wounded. Of the 6000 British infantry, only 1800 remained standing when the battle was over, 4200 being killed or wounded; 600 Germans and Portuguese were placed hors de combat; while of the Spaniards, who formed the great ma.s.s of the army, 2000 were killed or wounded by the French artillery and musketry, or cut down while in disorder by the French cavalry.

Never was the indomitable valour of British infantry more markedly shown than at the battle of Albuera. The battle had been brought on, in no small degree, by their anxiety for action. The regiments had been disappointed that, while their comrades were sharing in Wellington's pursuit of Ma.s.sena, they were far away from the scene of conflict; and when Beresford would have fallen back, as it would have been prudent to do, they became so insubordinate that he gave way to their desire to meet the French; and so fought a battle where defeat would have upset all Wellington's plans for the campaign, and victory would have brought no advantages with it. Like Inkerman, it was a soldiers' battle. Beresford's dispositions were faulty in the extreme and, tactically, the day was lost before the fighting began.

The Spanish portion of the army did no real fighting and, in their confusion, involved the loss of nearly the whole of a British brigade; and it was only by the unconquerable valour of the remainder of the British force that victory was gained, against enormous odds, and that against some of the best troops of France.

Terence was in the habit of often going down and chatting with the French guard at the gate. Their duties were tedious, and they were glad of a talk with this young British officer, who was the only prisoner in their keeping who spoke their language fluently; and from them he obtained what news they had of what was going on. A fortnight later, he gathered that the British force on the Aqueda had been greatly weakened, that there was no intention of laying siege to Ciudad, and it was believed that Wellington's main body had marched south to join Beresford.

This was, indeed, the only operation left open to the British general. Regnier's division of Marmont's army had joined Ma.s.sena, and it would be impossible to besiege Ciudad while a force, greatly superior to his own, was within easy striking distance. On the other hand, Beresford was in no position to fight another battle and, as long as Badajoz remained in the hands of the French, they could at any time advance into Portugal; and its possession was therefore of paramount importance.

Marmont had succeeded Ma.s.sena in command, the latter marshal having been recalled to France; and the great bulk of the French army was now concentrated round Salamanca, from which it could either march against the British force at Ciudad; or unite with Soult and, in overwhelming strength, either move against Cadiz or advance into Portugal. Wellington therefore left Spencer to guard the line of the Coa, and make demonstrations against Ciudad; while with the main body of his army he marched south.

The news decided Terence to attempt to make his escape in that direction. He did not know whether his own regiment would be with Spencer, or Wellington; but it was clear that more important events would be likely to take place near Badajoz than on the Coa. The French would be unlikely to choose the latter route for an advance into Portugal. The country had been stripped bare by the two armies that had marched across it. The roads were extremely bad, and it would be next to impossible for an army to carry with it sustenance for the march; still less for maintaining itself after it had traversed the pa.s.ses. Moreover Spencer, falling back before them, would retire to the lines of Torres Vedras; and the invaders would find themselves, as Ma.s.sena had done, baffled by that tremendous line of fortifications, where they might find also Wellington and his army, who would have shorter roads to follow, established before they arrived.

Some of the townspeople were allowed to pa.s.s in and out of the convent, to sell fruit and other articles to the British prisoners; and Terence thought it better to open negotiations with one of these, rather than one of the warders in French pay. He was not long in fixing upon one of them as an ally. She was a good-looking peasant girl, who came regularly with grapes and other fruit. From the first, Terence had made his purchases from her, and had stood chatting with her for some time.

"I want to get away from here, Nita," he said, on the day he received the news of Wellington's march to the south.

"I dare say, senor," she laughed. "I suppose all the other prisoners want the same."

"No doubt; but you see, they would not have much chance of getting away, because none of them understand Spanish. I talk it a little, as you see. So if I got out and had a disguise, I might very well make my way across the country."

"There are many brigands about," she said, "and it is not safe for a single man to travel anywhere. What do you want me to do?"

"I want a rope fifty feet long; not a very thick one, but strong enough to bear my weight. That is the first thing. Then I want a disguise; but that I could get, if a friend would be in readiness to give it to me, after I had slid down the rope into the street."