[710] Boothby, A Prisoner of France, p. 40. For the adventures of two wounded officers on their weary way to Truxillo see the Diary of Hawker, and the narrative of Colonel Leslie. The latter made a personal appeal to Cuesta, whose carriage he had met by the roadside. The old general sent for the Alcalde, and made him provide a mule—though it turned out to be a very bad one—for the wounded officer. This small fact to his credit needs recording, after the copious abuse heaped on him.
[711] The invalids were admirably cared for by the enemy. See Boothby.
[712] The Marquis del Reino (it will be remembered) had broken the boat-bridge of Almaraz on August 2, after abandoning the Puerto de Baños.
[713] See for example, Le Noble, pp. 339-40.
[714] ‘As usual, General Cuesta wanted to fight general actions,’ writes Wellesley to Beresford, from Arzobispo, on the afternoon of this same day.
[715] ‘M. le Maréchal duc de Trévise crut qu’il serait attaqué,’ says Soult in his report of August 13. He therefore held back, and sent for the 2nd Corps. Hence came Cuesta’s salvation.
[716] General Arteche, who has examined the ford, notes that the main channel, narrow but with a rocky bottom, is close under the northern, i.e. the French, bank. The remaining two-thirds of the breadth of the river has a hard sandy bottom and is in August extremely shallow. If once, therefore, the deep water under the nearer bank was crossed, the French had no difficulties before them.
[717] For details of these privations see the diary of Leach of the 95th, p. 92.
[718] Wellesley to O’Donoju, from Deleytosa, Aug. 7.
[719] Beside his own thirty guns he had the seventeen captured French pieces which had been won at Talavera. Wellesley, it will be remembered (p. 543), had handed them over to him.