[476] Improvised by dismantling artillery carriages. Wellington to Bathurst, Dispatches, x. 388.
[477] Wellington to Graham, Dispatches, x. p. 392.
[478] Minus Grant’s hussars, who only arrived on the 27th.
[479] Jourdan’s Mémoires, p. 464. Note that Napier (v. 102) has got this expedition a week too late—May 29-30. His statement that the French cavalry got in touch with the northern wing of Graham’s army and was closely followed by British scouting parties, is contradicted by the absolute silence about any touch with the French in the diary of Tomkinson, whose regiment was at Tabara and must have been the one which Boyer would have met.
[480] Digeon’s own report, which chanced to be entirely inaccurate, was that on the 29th his reconnaissance reported that there were signs of intentions to throw trestle bridges across the Esla opposite the ford of Morellas, the lowest ford on the Esla toward the Douro, and at Santa Enferina opposite San Cebrian, where Spanish troops were visible. Also that at Almendra there was a post of British hussars. Only the third item was correct. (Archives Nationaux—copy lent me by Mr. Fortescue.)
[481] Tomkinson says that his regiment, the 16th Light Dragoons, was 20 hours on horseback this day, continually hurried off and countermarching (p. 235).
[482] Julian Sanchez’s lancers, from Hill’s wing, moving from Penauseude, got in the same night to Zamora.
[483] Digeon has an elaborate and unconvincing account of this affair in the long dispatch quoted above. He says that he had two regiments (16th and 21st Dragoons) drawn up in front of a bridge and ravine, awaiting the return of a reconnaissance sent to Toro: that the detachment arrived hotly pursued by British hussars, whereupon he resolved to retire, and told the brigade to file across the ravine. But the 16th Dragoons charged without orders, in order to save the flying party, and got engaged against fourfold numbers, while the 21st was retiring. They did wonders: killed or wounded 100 hussars, captured an officer and 13 men, and retired fighting on the battery and infantry at Pedroso, losing only 100 men.
[484] Two officers of the 16th were taken: the lists in Martinien show only one more officer wounded—from which we should gather that the resistance must have been poor. For a regiment fighting strongly should have had more officer-casualties than three to 208 other ranks. The 16th Dragoons must have been pretty well destroyed—with 1 officer and 108 men unwounded prisoners, 1 officer and 100 men wounded prisoners, and 1 officer and an unknown number of other ranks wounded but not captured. This was the same regiment which had lost the 1 officer and 32 men taken by their own carelessness at Val de Perdices on the 31st. It had been less than 400 strong by its last preserved morning-state.
[485] Jourdan, Mémoires, p. 463.