Upon this order I immediately related what I had seen, and told the manner of his death. After awhile Mrs. Cochan appeared anxious to seek the spot where her husband fell, and in the hope of still finding him alive, asked me to accompany her over the field. She trusted, notwithstanding what I had told her, to find him yet alive.
"Do you think you could find it?" said Captain Leech, upon being referred to.
I told him I was sure I could, as I had remarked many objects whilst looking for cover during the skirmishing.
"Go then," said the captain, "and shew the poor woman the spot, as she seems so desirous of finding the body."
I accordingly took my way over the ground we had fought upon, she following and sobbing after me, and, quickly reaching the spot where her husband's body lay, pointed it out to her.
She now soon discovered all her hopes were in vain; she embraced a stiffened corpse, and after rising and contemplating his disfigured face for some minutes, with hands clasped, and tears streaming down her cheeks she took a prayer-book from her pocket, and kneeling down, repeated the service for the dead over the body. When she had finished she appeared a good deal comforted, and I took the opportunity of beckoning to a pioneer I saw near with some other men, and together we dug a hole, and quickly buried the body. Mrs. Cochan then returned with me to the company to which her husband had been attached, and laid herself down upon the heath near us. She lay amongst some other females, who were in the same distressing circumstances with herself, with the sky for her canopy, and a turf for her pillow, for we had no tents with us. Poor woman! I pitied her much; but there was no remedy. If she had been a duchess she must have fared the same. She was a handsome woman, I remember, and the circumstance of my having seen her husband fall, and accompanied her to find his body, begot a sort of intimacy between us. The company to which Cochan had belonged, bereaved as she was, was now her home, and she marched and took equal fortune with us to Vimiero. She hovered about us during that battle, and then went with us to Lisbon, where she succeeded in procuring a passage to England. Such was my first acquaintance with Mrs. Cochan. The circumstances of our intimacy were singular, and an attachment grew between us during the short time we remained together. What little attention I could pay her during the hardships of the march I did, and I also offered on the first opportunity to marry her. "She had, however, received too great a shock on the occasion of her husband's death ever to think of another soldier," she said; she therefore thanked me for my good feeling towards her, but declined my offer, and left us soon afterwards for England.
CHAPTER IV.
Battle of Vimiero—Presentiments—The cobbler and the cannon ball—Value of a handicraft—A lubberly artilleryman—A bad shot and a good one—Conversation during the heat of action.