Sir Arthur had quitted Oporto on the fourteenth with his whole force except the brigade of Murray, which had already gone forth on the eastern line of pursuit, and the 20th Light Dragoons, which he had been ordered to send back to Lisbon. On that day his army covered twenty-two miles of road in vile weather, and slept at Villa Nova de Famelicção. On the fifteenth the British started early, and their vanguard had already marched twelve miles and reached Braga when the French dragoons were descried. The latter, seeing themselves forestalled, retired on their main body, and when Wellesley’s men mounted the crest of the Monte Adaufé (Eben’s old position in the battle of March 20), they caught a glimpse of the whole French army retiring up the valley. Soult, immediately on hearing that the pursuers were in Braga, had commenced a new retreat. He had rearranged his order of march. Loison now led the column, with Heudelet’s division and Lorges’ dragoons: then came the droves of artillery horses and pack-mules, with the reserve ammunition and the little baggage that had been saved, followed by Delaborde and Mermet. Merle’s infantry and Franceschi’s horse were in the rear, under the Marshal’s own command. In this order the French remounted the stream of the Cavado as far as Salamonde, where the broad valley narrows down to a defile. They were followed by the British light dragoons, but the infantry of the pursuing column had not got far beyond Braga, where Wellesley’s head quarters were established that night. Murray’s German brigade, which had crossed the mountains from Guimaraens in Soult’s wake, joined the main body on this evening.
On reaching Salamonde Soult was informed by the cavalry in his front that they had been brought to stand at the bridge of Ponte Nova, a few miles up the defile, by a body of Ordenanza, who had taken up the wooden flooring of the bridge, torn down its balustrades, and barricaded themselves upon the further side. Unless they could be dislodged ruin stared the Marshal in the face: for the British were close in his rear, and there was no lateral line of escape from the precipitous defile. Surrender next morning must follow. In this crisis Soult saw no chance of safety before him save a dash at the half-demolished bridge. When darkness had fallen he sent for Major Dulong, an officer of the 31st Léger, who enjoyed the reputation of being the most daring man in the whole army, and told him that he must surprise the Portuguese by a sudden rush at midnight, and win the passage at all costs. He was allowed to pick 100 volunteers from his own regiment for the enterprise.
The safety of a whole army has seldom depended upon a more desperate venture than that which Dulong took in hand. Nothing remained of the bridge save the two large cross-beams, no more than three or four feet broad; they were slippery with continuous rain, and had to be passed in complete darkness under the driving sleet of a bitter north wind. Fortunately for the assailants the same cold and wet which made their enterprise so dangerous had driven the Ordenanza under cover: they had retired to some huts a little way beyond the bridge. If they left any one on guard, the sentinel had followed his friends, for when Dulong and his party crept up to the passage they found it absolutely deserted. They crossed in single file, and reached the further side unobserved, losing one man who slipped and fell into the fierce river below. A moment later they came on the Portuguese, who were surprised in their sleep: many were bayonetted, the rest fled in dismay—they were but a few score of peasants, and were helpless when once the passage had been won.
For six hours Soult’s sappers were working hard to replace the flooring of the ruined bridge with tree trunks, and boards torn from the houses of the neighbouring village. At eight it was practicable, and the troops began to cross. It was a long business: for 20,000 men with 4,000 cavalry horses and a great drove of pack-animals had to be passed over the narrow, rickety, and uneven structure, whose balustrades had not been replaced. All the day was spent in hurrying the troops across, but they got forward so slowly that Soult saw himself forced to place a strong rearguard in position, to hold back the pursuers till the main body was safe. He left behind a brigade of Merle’s division, and two of Franceschi’s cavalry regiments, ranged behind a lateral ravine which crosses the road some distance below the bridge. They were placed with their right on the rough river bank and their left on the cliffs which overhang the road; orders were given to the effect that they must hold on at all costs till the army had completed the passage of the Ponte Nova. At half-past one the British light dragoons arrived in front of the position, saw that they could not force it, and started a bickering fire with the French pickets, while they waited for the main body to come up.
Owing to the long distance which Wellesley’s infantry had to cover, the day wore on without any serious collision on this point. But meanwhile Soult found that another and more serious danger lay ahead of him. After crossing the Cavado at the Ponte Nova there were two paths available for the army—the main road leads eastward to Chaves by way of Ruivaens, a branch, however, turns off north to Montalegre and the sources of the Misarella, the main affluent of the Cavado. The former was the easier, but there was a grave doubt whether Chaves might not already be in the hands of Beresford and his turning column—as a matter of fact it only arrived there a few hours after Soult stood uncertain at the parting of the ways. Bearing this in mind, the Marshal resolved to take the more rugged and difficult path; but when Loison and the vanguard were engaged in it they found that the bridge over the Misarella, the Saltador as it was called from the bold leap which its single arch makes across the torrent, was held against them. Again it was only with Ordenanza that the army had to deal: Beresford had just reached Chaves, but his troops were some miles further back; Silveira, who ought to have been at Ruivaens that morning, had not appeared at all. But Major Warre, an officer of Beresford’s staff, had ridden ahead to rouse the peasantry, and had collected several hundred half-armed levies at the Saltador bridge, which he encouraged them to hold, promising that the regulars would be up to support them before nightfall. Unfortunately he could not persuade them to destroy the bridge, on which all the cross-communications of the Misarella valley depend. But they had thrown down its parapets, built an abattis across its head, and thrown up earthworks on each side of it so as to command the opposite bank. This, unhappily, was not enough to hold back 20,000 desperate men, who saw their only way of salvation on the opposite bank.
When Loison found his advance barred, he made an appeal to that same Major Dulong who had forced the Ponte Nova on the preceding night. Again that daring soldier volunteered to conduct the forlorn hope: he was given a company of voltigeurs to lead the column, and two battalions of Heudelet’s division to back them. Forming the whole in one continuous mass—there was only room for four men abreast—he dashed down towards the bridge amid a spluttering and ineffective fire from the Portuguese entrenchments on the opposite bank. The column reached the arch, passed it, was checked but a moment while tearing down the abattis, and then plunged in among the scared Ordenanza, who fled in every direction, leaving the passage free. Dulong was wounded, but no more than eighteen of his companions were hit, and at this small sacrifice the army was saved. Late in the afternoon the whole mass began to stream up the Montalegre road; they had no longer anything more to fear than stray shots from the scattered Ordenanza, who hung about on the hillsides, firing into the column from inaccessible rocks, but doing little damage.
If Dulong had failed at the Saltador Soult would have been lost, for just as the passage was forced the rumbling of cannon began to be heard from the rear. Merle was attacked by the British, and was being driven in. At five o’clock the Guards’ brigade, forming the head of Wellesley’s infantry, had come up with the French rearguard. It was formidably posted, but Sir Arthur thought that it might be dislodged. Accordingly he placed the two three-pounders, which accompanied the column, on the high road, and began to batter the French centre, while he sent off the three light companies of the brigade[442] to turn the French left flank on the cliffs to the south. When the crackling of their musketry was heard among the rocks, he silenced his guns and flung the Guards upon the enemy’s main body. They broke, turned, and fled in confusion, though the regiment on the road, the 4th Léger, was considered one of the best in the French army[443].
The chase continued as far as the Ponte Nova, which the broken troops crossed in a struggling mass, thrusting each other over the edge (where the balustrades were wanting) till the torrent below was choked with dead men and horses. The British guns were brought up and played upon the weltering crowd with dreadful effect. But the night was already coming on, and the darkness hid from the pursuers the full effect of their own fire. They halted and encamped, having slain many and taken about fifty prisoners, of whom one was an officer. It was only at daybreak that they realized the terrors through which the French had passed. ‘The rocky bed of the Cavado,’ says an eye-witness, ‘presented an extraordinary spectacle. Men and horses, sumpter animals and baggage, had been precipitated into the river, and literally choked its course. Here, with these fatal accompaniments of death and dismay, was disgorged the last of the plunder of Oporto. All kinds of valuable goods were left on the road, while above 300 horses, sunk in the water, and mules laden with baggage, fell into the hands of the grenadier and light companies of the Guards. These active-fingered gentry found that fishing for boxes and bodies out of the stream produced pieces of plate, and purses and belts full of gold money. Amid the scenes of death and desolation arose their shouts of the most noisy merriment[444].’
On the night of the 17th Soult’s army poured into Montalegre, a dilapidated old town on the edge of the frontier, from which all the inhabitants had fled. Little or no food could be procured, and the houses did not suffice to shelter more than a part of the troops. Next morning the 2nd Corps took to its heels once more, and climbed the Serra de Gerez, which lies just above the town. On descending its northern slope they had at last entered Spain, and had reached safety. But the country was absolutely desolate: for twenty miles beyond Montalegre there was hardly a single village on this rugged by-path. Still dreading pursuit, the Marshal urged on his men as fast as they could be driven forward, and in two long marches at last reached Orense.
Wellesley, however, had given up any hope of catching the 2nd Corps, when once it had passed the Saltador and reached the Spanish frontier. He had halted the British infantry at Ruivaens, and only sent on in chase of the flying host the 14th Light Dragoons and the division of Silveira, which had at last appeared on the scene late in the evening of the seventeenth. What this corps had been doing during the last forty-eight hours it is impossible to discover. It had started from Amarante on the same day that Beresford marched for Chaves, and ought to have been at Ruivaens on the sixteenth, when it would have found itself just in time to intercept Soult’s vanguard after it had passed the Ponte Nova. Apparently the same wild weather and constant rain which had delayed Beresford’s column had checked his subordinate. At any rate it is certain that Silveira, though he had a shorter route than his chief, only got to Ruivaens late on the seventeenth, while the other column had reached Chaves more than twelve hours earlier.