“Sir,” said one, in an austere voice, “I know what soldiering is. I have fought and seen service as well as the British Army.” The reader has, perhaps, already guessed that these “gentlemen” formerly belonged to Don Pedro, and had served in Portugal during the struggle for that crown.
I was anxious to see my Colonel to report myself, but on going to his quarters I heard another of my poor fellows lustily calling on me to intercede for him. This was in a small field, close to the village, where he was being held down, across a low, dry wall, by two men, while the bugler was belabouring him on the bare breech with the “cats,” and another of these Pedroite officers standing by seeing the punishment inflicted. The poor fellow had been formerly a bugler in the British Army, and was now flogged for straggling into Portugaletta without leave. I had not yet been sixteen hours on the Spanish soil, but I was growing heartily sick of the campaign, even at this early period.
In the course of the day, I had an opportunity of mixing with the officers; who in appearance were a fine set of fellows.
They were composed of three different classes. The first were gentlemen who formerly held commissions in the British Army; the second were those who, through interest, had obtained commissions from General Evans; and the third class, and who, I was sorry to find, were treble in number to the other two, were what is termed Pedroites. These last self-taught heroes were brought up in neither military nor civil life, but had passed a little Quixotic tour under Don Pedro. In fact, every regiment of the Legion, like my own, was full of Pedroites.
The recruits, at length, having received arms and clothing, were drafted into companies, each about a hundred strong, and of which six completed the regiment; they were a fine set of men, and with the Legion altogether, if properly handled, would have done credit to any army in Europe.
During the few days that we remained here, a Major, formerly in the British Army, named Barton, of the Rifles, resigned; this left a vacancy, which was immediately filled by the senior Captain, Fortescue. This caused a vacancy for a Captain, and I was promoted to that rank, in his place, and took command of his company; I may say with safety, I was one of the few officers in command of a company, at the time, that could put the men even through their facings. After remaining here about a week, our regiment was ordered to march, and we took possession of a small village, Zorossa, about two miles from Bilboa, and situated on the left bank of the Nervion. This place had experienced all the ravages and desolation a civil war could inflict; the houses were in a most dilapidated state. That in which myself and a number of other officers were quartered had been evidently tenanted by an opulent person; but the furniture and interior decorations of the rooms had been destroyed, or defaced by the soldiers of Don Carlos, who had been in possession of the village a short time before our entry.
Here lay one of her Britannic Majesty’s gun-brigs, the ‘Ringdove’, to afford assistance and protection to vessels passing up the river from the bay to Bilboa, with arms, ammunition, and stores for the Legion: yet, strange to say, the crew of the ‘Ringdove’ were on the most friendly terms with the Carlist troops until we arrived.
Bilboa was at this time the head-quarters of the Legion. With the view of relieving this important commercial town from the state of blockade which it had sustained; and of affording protection to the works which were at this time erecting for its defence, and probably also for keeping open a more easy communication with England, for the supply of recruits, stores, &c., a few troops were stationed at Bilboa—but in straggling convents and houses about its suburbs. The soldiers of the Legion, notwithstanding these arrangements, were badly quartered—the greater part of them laying on the cold stone floors of churches and convents, without beds, blankets, or even straw. It was evident to me, even thus early in the campaign, that General Evans did not display much solicitude or feeling for the comforts of his soldiers. The men, who were at this time chiefly raw recruits, unaccustomed to the change of diet as well as to the climate of the country, undergoing fatiguing military instructions by a severe daily drill of six hours, surely a representation of their situation to the proper Spanish authorities by General Evans would have made things better for the poor men: but this was merely a foretaste of the treatment that was to be endured by them, which I shall have more particularly to allude to, after their arrival at Vittoria, &c.
But the miserable and comfortless condition of the men was nothing to the disgraceful Provost system which was carried on most rigorously in every regiment of the Legion. Any officer, for the slightest supposed dereliction of duty, or as he felt inclined, could order a man from one to four dozen lashes. Every regiment had its provost; nay, in some there were two, with a proportion of cats.[[26]]
It mattered not who they were, recruits or old campaigners, of which last there were no less than a dozen (Chelsea pensioners), in the company I commanded. Although the rules of the service at first starting were boasted as being purely British, I now found them entirely different.