In searching for a stream from which I might procure water, I fell upon a small fountain, close to which lay two or three murdered Portuguese; their brains and blood, which seemed freshly to have oozed from their mangled remains, had even streamed into the spring, and turned me away with disgust from the water. Proceeding onward, I observed a gaunt ghastly figure in a cloak stealing towards a group of cadaverous looking Frenchmen—on his getting a little nearer to them, he suddenly spat in his hands and throwing his cloak aside, produced a heavy club, with which, I suppose, he was going to beat their brains out. Struck with horror, I instantly seized the stick from his half-famished grasp, drove him away, and assisted by one or two comrades got the poor men into a house, and pursued my search.
As I, however, approached into the Plaza, the desolation thickened; all the havoc that can possibly be imagined in so small a compass lay before me—murdered and violated women—shrieking and dying children—and, indeed, all that had possessed life in the village, lay quivering in the last agony of slaughter and awful vengeance.
These became every-day scenes until we overtook the French rear-guard at Pombal, which we did on the 11th, my company had been hurried forward by the cavalry, each dragoon mounting a rifleman behind him on his horse—a method of riding peculiarly galling to the infantry, but which we frequently had to experience during the war. From the friction alone produced on the legs and seat by the dragoon’s saddle-bags, it was some time before the foot-soldier, when placed upon his legs, could move with anything like dispatch. Besides, this method of riding was generally attended by the loss of the men’s mess-tins, which became shaken off by the jolting. There were, indeed, few of our men who would not have preferred marching twice the distance on foot to being thus carried.[[7]]
We first got sight of the enemy about two miles from the town of Pombal. They had possession of a wood, from which, however, we soon managed to drive them. They retired in great disorder in the direction of the town. The long straight road that led to Pombal became filled for some hundred yards, with the confused masses of the French; but their distress was still further increased by the arrival of Brigade-Major Mellish, who came up, at the time, with a couple of Ross’s guns, and commenced playing upon them. It soon became a complete rout with the enemy, and they pressed pell-mell over the bridge of the river between us and the town. They suffered considerably in this business—the ground was strewed with their dead, and as we followed we found several poor fellows at the bridge badly wounded by the rifles, and many dissevered legs and arms, the latter, no doubt, caused by Ross’s two pieces.
It was during the preceding skirmish that, for the first time, I heard the words that afterwards became so common in our regiment, “kill a Frenchman for yourself.” Its origin was as follows: Two men of known daring, named Palmer and Tracey, during our approach to the bridge, seeing a French sergeant fall, ran up to claim the meed of conquest, by relieving him of any valuables he might be possessed of. They were quarrelling as to the appropriation of the spoil, when Palmer, who was a known excellent shot, told Tracey to go “and kill a Frenchman for himself,” as he had shot this man.
This circumstance afterwards gave birth to a little gasconade in the regiment, that every rifleman could and ought to kill a Frenchman in action. From the period of the above occurrence, Palmer received the nick-name of the “man-killer,” until a singular circumstance, that occurred at the siege of Badajoz, gave him a new title. In relieving picquet in the trenches, many of our men, instead of going quietly through the trenches or parallels in front of the walls of the town, used to show their contempt of danger by jumping out of them and running across in the face of the enemy’s fire. In executing this feat one day with some others, a cannon-shot fired by the French, struck the ground first, and then hit Palmer on the back, and he fell, as we thought, killed upon the spot. To our surprise, however, in a moment he jumped up unhurt, the ball having glanced off his knapsack. In commemoration of this event, he was afterwards known by the appellation of “the bomb proof man.”
It must be borne in mind, that my own company only were present here, and we had to sustain, at a great disadvantage, a smart fire from the different houses, occupied by the rear-guard of the enemy. As soon as we crossed the bridge we took possession of the houses opposite those held by the French, from which we kept up a brisk fire out of the windows. Tired however, with this cross work, several of our men dashed into one of the French holds and found it crowded with the enemy, who to the number of thirty or forty quietly surrendered themselves prisoners. I recollect Sergeant Fleming, who was the first to mount the stairs, bundling them neck and crop over the staircase. Lieutenant Hopwood, however, fell severely wounded in the thigh on entering the house. We maintained the conflict until the remainder of the regiment came up, and then drove the enemy entirely out of their cover.
In the eagerness of pursuit, however, we had suffered severely: as our men followed the enemy a considerable distance out of the town, galling them terribly in the street, when perceiving how few our numbers were, being supported by a single troop only of our German Hussars, they turned round and made it a hard matter for us to escape the consequences of our temerity. Several of the men were out-flanked, and taken prisoners, and for myself, I had to run a great risk, and should certainly have been killed or captured, but for the gallantry of a German dragoon, who riding up, dragged me behind him, and galloped away amidst a volley of shots, unhurt.
At night, the French, who had posted themselves partly under cover of a wood, threw shells into the town of Pombal, of which we had possession, and succeeded in setting it on fire in several places. We nevertheless remained for the night, and sold by auction among the officers and men some baggage which we had taken, snugly packed on a grey horse, from one of their Generals; among other valuables it contained, were two beautiful gold medals, which we presented to our old Captain; we divided the proceeds, which amounted to six dollars to each man of the company.
In the morning, the French continued their retreat, and we were again in pursuit. After crossing a well wooded hill, we came up with them at Redinha, a small town situated in the hollow of rather a difficult pass,—the company ascending a hill covered with pine-trees, on the right of our battalion.