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

by G. A. Henty

Then taking out a copy of his report, he gave in much fuller detail than in the report, itself, an account of the movements of the various columns and flying parties, during the first ten days; and then, more briefly, their operations between Burgos and Valladolid, ending up by saying:

"You see, colonel, there was really nothing out of the way in all this. We had the advantage of having a great number of men who knew the country intimately; and the cutting of all their communications, the exaggerated reports brought to them by the peasants, and the maintenance of our posts round Salamanca and Zamora while we were operating near Burgos and Valladolid, impressed the commanders of these towns with such an idea of our strength, and such uneasiness as to their communications that, after the reverse to their column, none of them ever ventured to attack us in earnest."

"That is no doubt true," the colonel said, "but to have done all this when--with the reinforcements sent up, and the very strong garrison at four of the towns, to say nothing of the division of Burgos--they had forty thousand men disposable, is a task that wanted a head well screwed on. I can see how you did it; but that would be a very different thing to doing it, oneself.

"However, you have taught us a great deal of the geography of the country between the frontier and Burgos, and it ought to be useful. If I had received an order, this afternoon, to march with the regiment to Tordesillas, for example, I should have known no more where the place stood, or by what road I was to go to it, than if they had ordered me to march to Jericho. Now I should be able to go straight for it, by the shortest line. I should cross the roads at points at which we were not likely to be attacked, and throw out strong parties to protect our flanks till we had passed; and should feel that I was not stumbling along in the dark, and just trusting to luck."

"Now, colonel, we must be off to our own quarters," Terence said. "We have been too long away now and, if I had not known that Herrara and the majors were to be trusted to do their work--and in fact they did it well, without my assistance, all the time I was away prisoner--I could not have left them, as I did, half an hour after they had encamped."

The next morning Terence received a copy of the orders of the day of the division, at present, under General Crawford's command; together with the general orders of the whole army, from headquarters. In the latter, to which Terence first turned, was a paragraph:

"Lord Wellington expresses his great satisfaction at the exceptional services rendered by the Minho Portuguese regiment, under its commander Captain T. O'Connor, of the headquarter staff, bearing the rank of colonel in the Portuguese army. He has had great pleasure in recommending him to the commander-in-chief for promotion in the British army. He has also to report very favourably the conduct of Lieutenant Ryan, of the Mayo Fusiliers, and Ensigns Bull and Macwitty, all attached for service to the Minho regiment; and shall bring before General Lord Beresford that of Lieutenant Colonel Herrara, of the same regiment."

In the divisional orders of the day appeared the words:

"In noticing the arrival of the Minho Portuguese regiment, under the command of Colonel Terence O'Connor, to join the division temporarily under his command, General Crawford takes this opportunity of congratulating Colonel O'Connor on the most brilliant services that his regiment has performed, in a series of operations upon the Spanish side of the frontier."

Four days later, Terence received two letters from home. These were written after the receipt of that sent off by him on his arrival at Cadiz, narrating his escape. His father wrote: