Under Wellington's Command: A Tale of the Peninsular War

by G. A. Henty

"Why so, Colonel?"

"Because, if Massena intended to attack again tomorrow, he would have sent the British wounded back, as well as his own men. The French, like ourselves, make no distinction between friends and foes; and that he has not sent them seems, to me, to show that he intends himself to fall back, and to leave the British wounded to the care of their own surgeons, rather than embarrass himself with them."

"Yes, I have no doubt that is the case," the officer said. "It seems, then, that we must have won the day, after all. That is some comfort, anyhow, and I shall sleep more soundly than I expected. If we had been beaten, there would have been nothing for it but for the army to fall back again to the lines of Torres Vedras; and Wellington would have had to fight very hard to regain them. If Massena does fall back, Almeida will have to surrender."

"I was inside last time it surrendered," Terence said, "but I managed to make my way out with my regiment, after the explosion."

"I wonder whether Massena means to leave us at Ciudad, or to send us on to Salamanca?"

"I should think that he would send us on," Terence replied; "he will not want to have 300 men eating up the stores at Ciudad, besides requiring a certain portion of the garrison to look after them."

Terence's ideas proved correct and, without stopping at Ciudad, the convoy of prisoners and wounded continued their march until they arrived at Salamanca. Terence could not help smiling, as he was marched through the street, and thought of the wild panic that he and Dicky Ryan had caused, when he was last in that town. The convent which the Mayo Fusiliers had occupied was now turned into a prison, and here the prisoners taken at Fuentes d'Onoro were marched, and joined those who had fallen into the hands of the French during Massena's retreat. Among these were several officers of his acquaintance and, as discipline was not very strict, they were able to make themselves fairly comfortable together.

The French, indeed, along the whole of the Portuguese frontier, had their hands full; and the force at Salamanca was so small that but few men could be spared for prison duties and, so long as their captives showed no signs of giving trouble, their guards were satisfied to leave them a good deal to their own devices; watching the gate carefully, but leaving much of the interior work of the prison to be done by Spanish warders for, violent as the natives were in their expressions of hatred for the French, they were always ready to serve under them, in any capacity in which money could be earned.

"There can be no difficulty, whatever, in making one's escape from here," Terence said, to a party of four or five officers who were lodged with him in a room, from whose window a view over the city was obtainable. "It is not the getting out of this convent that is difficult, but the making one's way across this country to rejoin. I have no doubt that one could bribe one of those Spaniards to bring in a rope and, even if that could not be obtained, we might manage to make one from our blankets; but the question is, what to do when we have got out? Massena lies between us and Ciudad and, from what I hear the French soldiers say, the whole line is guarded down to Badajoz, where Soult's army is lying. Victor is somewhere farther to the south, and their convoys and cavalry will be traversing the whole country. I speak Portuguese well, and know enough of Spanish to pass as a Spaniard, among Frenchmen, but to anyone who does not speak either language it would be next to impossible to get along."

"I quite see that," one of the officers said, "and for my part I would rather stay where I am, than run the risk of such an attempt. I don't know a word of Spanish, and should be recaptured before I had been out an hour. If I got away from the town I should be no better off, for I could not obtain a disguise. As to making one's way from here to Almeida, it would be altogether hopeless."