But they were not there.
During the greater part of a fortnight he had been incessantly at work, conducting this most arduous retreat, bringing his Army through dangers and difficulties innumerable. Perpetual fighting had been the order of the day. Yet not once had the regiments of the Reserve, either horse or foot, been beaten; not once had the rearguard quailed.
Seventy or eighty thousand soldiers, trained veterans of Napoleon, at first under Napoleon himself, and then under two of his most experienced commanders, had striven hard to overtake Moore, to outflank him, to cut off his little force of twenty-three thousand men; but they had been baffled.
More than two hundred and fifty miles of rough country had been traversed in bleakest wintry weather; and the Army reached Coruña, somewhat lessened in numbers, it is true, yet absolutely unbroken.
Baggage had had to be abandoned or destroyed for lack of means to convey it further, and a few small cannon had had to be left behind for that same reason. But not one single British gun had been captured in fight; not one single standard or military trophy of any kind had been taken.
[CHAPTER XXXVIII]
THE BATTLE OF CORUÑA
WELL might Moore cast anxious glances towards the harbour of Coruña, where the vessels from Vigo should have been. They had been delayed by contrary winds, and their failure to arrive in time was a most serious matter. The British Army, brought thus far in safety, would lie without the means of escape in a narrow trap, between Scylla and Charybdis, hemmed in by the pitiless ocean on one side, by the ever-increasing hordes of the enemy on the other.
With unfaltering courage he at once set himself to examine the position, assigning the troops to various quarters, some in the town of Coruña, some in villages hard by. A range of hills, three or four miles off, would have been the right line of defence; but Moore had not men enough to occupy it. He saw at once that, should he attempt to do so, the French might turn his flank and cut him off from embarkation.
That post of vantage had to be left to the foe. Moore was obliged to content himself with a lower ridge, nearer to the walls, which was with all speed put into a state of defence.