[535] Grattan’s With the Connaught Rangers, pp. 241-2.
[536] Two of 14th Light Dragoons, three of 1st Hussars K.G.L.
[537] All this from Leith Hay, ii. pp. 51-2.
[538] Marmont says that it was ‘environ trois heures du soir.’ But I think that about 3.45 should be given as the hour, since Maucune only left the woods at 2 o’clock, and had to march on to the plateau, to take up his position, to send out his voltigeurs, and to get them close in to Arapiles before he would have sent such a message to his chief. Foy says ‘between 3 and 4 p.m.’
[539] Many years after, when Marmont, now a subject of Louis XVIII, was inspecting some British artillery, an officer had the maladroit idea of introducing to him the sergeant who had pointed the gun—the effect of the shot in the middle of the French staff had been noticed on the British Arapile.
[540] Vie militaire de Foy, p. 177.
[541] Marmont to Berthier, Mémoires, iv. p. 468.
[542] Ibid., ‘la gauche eut été formée en moins d’un quart d’heure’!
[543] The exact moment of Marmont’s wound is very difficult to fix, as also that of Wellington’s attack. The Marshal himself (as mentioned above, p.438) says that he was hit ‘environ les trois heures,’ and that Leith and Cole advanced ‘peu après, sur les quatre heures.’ Foy places the wound merely ‘between 3 and 4 p.m.’ Parquin, who commanded Marmont’s escort of chasseurs, says that the Marshal had been carried back to Alba de Tormes by 4 o’clock—impossibly early. On the other hand Napier gives too late an hour, when saying that Marmont was wounded only at the moment when Leith and Cole advanced, 4.45 or so, and was running down from the Arapile because of their movement. This is, I imagine, much too late. But it is supported by Victoires et Conquêtes, sometimes a well-documented work but often inaccurate, which places the unlucky shot at 4.30. Grattan places the order to the British infantry (Leith and Cole) to prepare to attack at 4.20—Leith Hay at ‘at least an hour after 3 o’clock.’ Gomm, on the other hand, makes Wellington move ‘at 3 o’clock in the afternoon.’ Tomkinson (usually very accurate) places Pakenham’s and Leith’s success at ‘about 5 p.m.’ D’Urban thinks that he met Lord Wellington and received his orders after 4 p.m.—probably he is half an hour too late in his estimate.
[544] Wellington in his dispatch (ix. p. 302) speaks of the four columns, D’Urban makes it clear that his own squadrons formed the outer two, but the fact that Power’s Portuguese followed Wallace in the 3rd column only emerges in the Regimental History of the 45th (Dalbiac), p. 103. This is quite consistent with the other information.