Tracy laid his head on his kit again, and was silent. Here each man gave a short account of his fallen comrade.
“Why, by Jasus!” exclaimed Tracy, who had been eagerly listening all the while, “by Jasus, they have kilt half our mess. But never mind, boys, fill a tot, fill a tot, and may I be d——d but here’s luck:” he placed the wine to his mouth, but took it away untasted, and laid it on the ground. “Poor Jemmy Copely! poor Jemmy! they had drilled him well with balls before, damn them, now they have finished him. The best comrade I ever had, or ever will have.”
The last part of the sentence was uttered in a broken accent as he wiped his eye, then commenced filling a wooden pipe, the bowl made from a tailor’s thimble, his head stooping all the while as if to hide the large drops that unconsciously rolled over his nose; a short pause took place among the group until Tracy, recovering himself a little, took up the tot of wine and drank it off, and, jumping up at the same moment, with a loud voice, he called out to all, “Hear me, boys, hear me! hear what I am going to say.” A deep silence followed. He knelt on his knapsack, his hands squeezed together in the attitude of prayer. “May the Lord God,” ejaculated Tracy, “grant that those fellows in yonder camp remain where they are until we have the pleasure of thrashing them for the gap they have this day made in our mess.”
“Amen! amen!” responded a dozen voices, with an emphasis that would have done credit to a clerk in a country church, and I am certain with a better inclination for the desired object.
Tracy laid himself at his length once more, and after recapitulating their different losses, and the good qualities of their fallen comrades, but taking care not to mention any of their bad ones, every man gradually relaxed into a sleep, from which nothing could arouse him, save the sound of the bugles, or the hard cracking of the rifle, which ever brings the soldier on his legs again, ready to advance or retreat, or as the night closed over the column, to lament or be lamented, as one of the fallen or absent messmates.
Those unacquainted with a camp-fire, after a hard-fought battle, can have little idea of its true sublimity, while leaning on my rifle, surveying the scene at this dead hour of night; it impressed me with more awe than any that I had before witnessed. Here I stood, as it were, a solitary sentinel in the midst of twenty thousand men, yet so silent, you might have thought yourself secreted within the walls of a cloister; while, by the moon, now and then hiding itself behind a cloud, might be observed the faint light of the French out-post fires that occasionally caught the eye like meteors. Again emerging from her mantle, by her clear light might here and there be seen the dead bodies of French soldiers, not yet interred, ever distinguished by their large red shoulder-knots. Turning the eye to my comrades, whose happy repose I envied, might be seen blood oozing from the furrow made by a French bullet, while the perforated cap lay beside its owner. How sweet is the soldier sleep when such repose is earned by the fatigue of eighteen hours hard fighting. That gave each man a double relish for repose, knowing it was his own courage gained the spot of ground on which he laid. The crackling of the fires soon ceased for want of fuel, and nothing remained but the embers; the whole camp was as still as the grave; nothing to disturb the soldiers’ repose, but the casual braying of the donkeys, that answered each other from camp to camp, and gradually died away in the echo of the distant woods.
I quietly walked round the fires to see that none of the men’s pouches were near it; but, no—there was each man with his rifle loaded, and leaning on his arm, close to his breast, hugged with all the affection a fond lover would press to his bosom the girl of his heart—this was our usual custom, as riflemen seldom pile arms; yet with all, I never knew an accident to occur by the rifles going off.
The next morning the sale of the spoils, which fell into our hands, took place in the village, near the camp-ground, where our battalion lay. The Spaniards were in general the purchasers, and property late belonging to the French, such as uniforms, horses, camp-equipage, &c., was sold in abundance at about one-tenth of its value. Mules worth thirty or forty dollars brought on an average three. As I had no means of conveyance for the spoil I had obtained, I set about depositing it where I thought it would be safe: three hundred pounds I intrusted to our quarter-master, and several sums to other officers of the battalion, distributing nearly the remainder of the silver, to the amount, I suppose, of about one hundred pounds, among the men of my own squad, who undertook to carry it for me; very little of the latter, however, I ever received back. But after all money, as may be imagined, was of very little use during some of the hardships we afterwards endured, when I state, that I frequently offered a doubloon for a single glass of rum, and was not always able to obtain it.
About twelve o’clock we marched in pursuit of the enemy through the town of Salvatierra, many of our men gibing me for my wealth, saying, among other agreeable things, that if I fell they would take care of my knapsack for me. To tell the truth, I was not now over anxious to go much to the front, as I began to look upon my life as of some value.
On our second day’s march we came up with the rear-guard of the enemy, who made a stand in the road, assisted by the only gun they had carried from Vittoria. The first shot fired from this piece took off the arm of one of our corporals at the socket. But on our dashing at them they soon abandoned their gun, which we took, making the first and last piece of ordnance we had captured from them on this retreat.