I could not help remarking the manner of cure adopted by our doctors; it principally consisted in throwing cold water from canteens or mess kettles as often as possible over the bodies of the patients; this in many cases was effectual, and I think cured me.
I, however, had a narrow squeak for my life, though I fortunately recovered after an illness of nearly six weeks, thanks to my good constitution, but none to the brute of an orderly, who, during the delirium of the fever, beat me once most furiously with a broom stick. On leaving the hospital with other convalescents, I was sent to the Bomb Proof Barracks, where it frequently became our duty to see the dead interred. This was a most horrible office, and obliged us to attend at the hospital to receive the bodies, which were conveyed away in cart-loads at a time to the ground appropriated for their burial. This lay outside the town beneath the ramparts, and was so very small for the purpose required, that we were obliged to get large oblong and deep holes excavated, in which two stout Portuguese were employed to pack the bodies, heads and heels together, to save room. For this duty these two brutes seemed duly born—for never before did I see two such ruffianly looking fellows.
It was singularly revolting to witness how the pair went to work when handing the bodies from the hospital to the cart; each carried a skin of vinegar, with which they first soused themselves over the neck and face; this done, with one jerk they jilted a single corpse at a time across their shoulders, naked as it was born, and bolted off to the cart, into which it was pitched as if it had been a log of wood. The women, however, who fell victims to the epidemic were generally sewed in a wrapper of calico or some such thing, but they partook of the same hole as the opposite sex, and otherwise were as little privileged. Many were the scores of my poor comrades I thus saw committed to their first parent, and many were the coarse jests the grave-diggers made over their obsequies.
While I was confined in hospital, the brigade marched and took up their cantonments between Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida. In the beginning of February about three hundred convalescents, among whom I was one, were marched, under charge of an officer of the German Legion, to join their respective regiments. Nothing of any consequence, in the march of our party, occurred, with the exception of a very narrow escape I had of being provosted, or in other words flogged. As the anecdote serves to show the light in which the Germans regarded this description of punishment during the war, I will detail it.
The men being from different regiments, and under the command of a foreigner, some availed themselves of what they considered a fair opportunity of pilfering from the country people as we pursued our march, and I am sorry to say that drunkenness and robbery were not unfrequent. The German officer, as is usual under such circumstances, experienced great difficulty in keeping the skulkers and disorderly from lingering in the rear. In compliment to my steadiness, he had made me an acting corporal, with strict orders to make the rear men of our detachment keep up. Just before we arrived at the town of Viseu, then occupied by the Foot Guards, and the head-quarters of the Commander-in-chief, I came up to some of our party who were doing their best to empty a pig-skin of wine they had stolen. Being dreadfully fatigued and thirsty, I had not sufficient restraint upon myself to refuse the invitation held out to me to drink, which I did, and so became a partner in the crime. I was in the act of taking the jug of wine from my lips, when a party of the 16th Light Dragoons rode up and made us prisoners; the peasant, from whom the wine had been taken, having made his complaint at head-quarters. We were imprisoned, nine of us in number, in Viseu. The second day, the Hon. Captain Pakenham,[[3]] of the Adjutant-General’s department, paid us a visit, and told us he had had great difficulty in saving us from being hanged. Although this was probably said to frighten, still it was not altogether a joke, as a man of the name of Maguire of the 27th regiment, who had been with me in hospital, was hung for stopping and robbing a Portuguese of a few vintems.
As it was, the German officer in charge of the detachment received orders, on leaving Viseu, to see that we received two dozen each from the Provost-Marshal every morning, until we rejoined our regiments. This comfortable kind of a breakfast I was not much inclined to relish, particularly as we had seven days’ march to get through before we reached our battalion. The following day, the eight culprits and myself were summoned during a halt, to appear before the German, expecting to be punished. We were, however, agreeably deceived by the officer addressing us as follows, to the best of my recollection, in broken English:
“I have been told to have you mens flogged, for a crime dat is very bad and disgraceful to de soldier—robbing de people you come paid to fight for. But we do not flog in my country, so I shall not flog you, it not being de manner of my people; I shall give you all to your Colonels, if they like to flog you, they may.”
Being thus relieved, each of us saluted the kind German and retired. From that moment, I have always entertained a high respect for our Germans, which indeed they ever showed themselves deserving of, from the British, not only on account of their humanity and general good feeling to us, but from their determined bravery and discipline in the field. As cavalry, they were the finest and most efficient I ever saw in action; and I had many opportunities of judging, as some troops of them generally did duty with us during the war. Indeed, while alluding to the cavalry of the German Legion, I cannot help remarking on the care and fondness with which they regarded their horses. A German soldier seldom thought of food or rest for the night until his horse had been provided for. The noble animals, themselves, seemed perfectly aware of this attention on the part of their riders, and I have often been amused by seeing some of the horses of the Germans run after their masters with all the playfulness of a dog. The consequence of this attention to their horses was, they were in condition when those of our own cavalry were dying, or otherwise in very deplorable state; this, without wishing to throw a disparagement upon our own countrymen, I attributed to the difference of custom between the two countries. We never saw a German vidette or express galloping furiously, that we did not immediately know there was work for some one to do. While on outpost duty their vigilance was most admirable.
CHAPTER V.
Old Trowsers—Sleeping and waking—O’Hare again—Colonel Beckwith—Two upon one—Meagher—Barba del Puerco—General Crauford taken by surprise—The Portuguese incorporation with the light division—Rodrigo—Gallegos—The Beacon night scenes on picquet—Lord Wellington—Napoleon’s Marriage—Crauford’s stratagem—The French spy—We retreat to Fort Conception.