The subaltern

by G. R. Gleig

Matters continued in this state till towards noon, and yet a comparatively trifling number of our troops were engaged. The entire brigade to which I belonged, the brigade of light cavalry, as well as the greater proportion of the first division, had been mere spectators of the valour of others; when the enemy, as if worn out with fatigue, and disheartened by repeated failures, suddenly began to retire. His column of infantry having moved to the rear, till some rising ground in a great degree concealed it, seemed to disperse; his guns were withdrawn; and his skirmishers falling back, left our advanced corps in possession of the disputed post. A retreat, indeed, appeared to have begun, and to many it was matter of surprise that no pursuit was on our side instituted. But our general, by keeping his soldiers steady in their places, showed that he was quite aware of his adversary's intentions, and that he was a far better judge of the measures which it behoved him to adopt than any of the numerous critics who presumed to pass censure upon him. The whole of this movement was no other than a manœuvre on the part of the French marshal to draw our troops from their position, and to enfeeble the centre of our line, by causing the left to be too far advanced; but, though skilfully executed, it proved of no avail,—thanks to the superior sagacity of Lord Wellington. Instead of being harassed by any useless change of ground, we were commanded to take advantage of the temporary truce by cooking our dinners—a measure which the long fast of many of the soldiers, particularly of the Portuguese, who had eaten nothing during the whole of yesterday, rendered peculiarly desirable.

In a moment numerous fires were again lighted, and half of the men in each regiment, disencumbering themselves of their accoutrements, set to work, felling wood, boiling kettles, and preparing food for their comrades. In the meanwhile, six or eight spring-waggons arriving, such of the wounded as were unable to crawl to the rear were collected from the various spots where they lay mingled with the dead, and lifted into them with as much care as circumstances would permit. It was a sad spectacle this. The shrieks and groans of many of these poor fellows sounded horribly in our ears; whilst the absolute silence of the rest was not less appalling, inasmuch as it gave but too much reason to believe that they were removed from the field only to die in the waggons. Nor were the muleteers and other followers of the camp idle. These harpies, spreading themselves in vast numbers over the face of the country, stripped and plundered the dead in an incredibly short space of time; and they were withal so skilful in their vocation that they rarely afforded an opportunity of detecting them in the act. Nothing, indeed, has ever astonished me more than the celerity with which these body-strippers execute their task. A man falls by your side, and the very next moment, if you chance to look round, he is as naked as he was when he came into the world, without your being able so much as to guess by whom his garments have been taken.

Whilst all these persons were engaged in their various occupations, I wandered towards the front, for the purpose of examining, in a moment of coolness, the nature of the ground on which we had yesterday fought. It was well dotted with the carcasses of men and horses. Round the mayor's house, in particular, they lay in clusters; and not a few of the Frenchmen bore marks of having fallen by the sabre. One man, in particular, I observed, whose head was cloven asunder, the sword of his adversary having fairly divided it as far as the eyes; another lay upon his back, with his face split into two parts across the line of the nose. The great majority had, however, been shot; and they were mixed indiscriminately together, English and French, as if each had been cut off by the hand of his next neighbour.

I was not, however, so fully occupied in contemplating the dead but that I cast various anxious glances towards the living; nor was ground of anxiety wanting. The enemy had, indeed, fallen back; neither did he show any column upon the road, nor any masses in the woods; but I observed his men crossing the highway towards our right by twos and threes at a time, as if some formation were going on which he desired might escape notice. Nor was the circumstance lost upon my companions. "We shall have it again presently," said a veteran sergeant who stood near me; and the prediction was hardly uttered when it was fulfilled. As if they had risen from beneath the earth, two ponderous masses of infantry, covered by the fire of twelve pieces of cannon, rushed forward, one a little to the right of where I was, and the other upon the church and village of Arcanques; and such was the fury of their attack, that for the instant they carried everything before them. A Portuguese corps which occupied the former of those points was broken, and gave way; a British regiment, stationed to support them, followed their example: and now, for the first time since the battle began, the head of a French column showed itself upon the common.

In the meanwhile all was hurry and bustle in the rear. The plunderers, taking to their heels, fled in all directions; the waggons with the wounded set off at full speed; our people, casting their half-dressed provisions into the fire, buckled on their accoutrements, and took their stations; and the artillery, which had begun to retire, came up again at a hand-gallop to the front. Two squadrons of cavalry were next ordered out, partly to stop the fugitives, partly to check a body of the enemy which at this moment appeared upon the main road; and I must say that our troopers executed both of these orders with great effect. Every man whom they met, no matter whether he were an English or a Portuguese soldier, they drove back, beating him with the flats of their swords over the head and shoulders; and then, suddenly rushing past a projecting copse which concealed their motions, they spread death and dismay among the French infantry. But we had not much time given to watch the operations of others. We were ourselves in line in a moment, and advancing to the charge.

It was a tremendous and overwhelming rush. The enemy stood nobly, and fought with desperate resolution; but we bore them back, as I have seen one bull borne back by another, into the wood. And then began again the same ceaseless roar of musketry which had sounded in our ears last evening; whilst four or five pieces of cannon sent showers of grape and canister amongst us, which, but for the shelter afforded by the trees, must have swept us all into eternity.

As soon as we were fairly in the wood, our compact order was, in spite of every effort, lost. We fought, however, with the same spirit as before, in detached parties, and pressed the enemy on all hands, who became as much divided as ourselves, till not only was the ground recovered which had at first been abandoned, but we were considerably in advance of our original position. Nor was it practicable even then to check the ardour of the men. As fast as the enemy retired, our soldiers pushed on, till at length we found ourselves on the margin of a little lake, round the extremity of which the French were fleeing in great confusion. Such a sight added fuel to the fire of our eagerness, and we pursued in a state of little less confusion than that which prevailed among the fugitives.

We had already reached the farther end of the lake, and were in hot and heedless chase of a couple of field-pieces, when a cry was suddenly raised of "The cavalry! the cavalry!" Several troops of French dragoons were advancing; their horses were already in speed. There was no time to collect or form a square, so we threw ourselves as we best could into compact circles, and stood to receive them. They came on with the noise of thunder. One circle wavered—some of the men abandoned their ranks—the cavalry rode through it in an instant. That in which I was stood more firm. We permitted them to approach till the breasts of the horses almost touched our bayonets, when a close and well-directed volley was poured in, and numbers fell beneath it. But we knew that we had no business to remain where we were. Having therefore repelled this charge, we slowly retraced our steps, the cavalry hovering round us as we retired, till we had gained once more the shelter of the wood, and were safe from farther molestation. There we stood fast, till a bugle sounding the recall warned us to retire still farther; and we again united ourselves with the rest of the brigade.

The attack upon our post being thus defeated, we were directed to lie down in a ditch, for the purpose of sheltering ourselves against a heavy cannonade with which the enemy still entertained us. A couple of brigades were at the same time moved towards the right to support the light division, which had been very sorely pressed in its position of Arcanques. The French column had come on at a moment when a regiment which held the church were in the act of cleaning their rifles, and hence one-half of the troops were virtually unarmed. But though driven through the village and gardens, our people maintained themselves in the church, and the rising ground on which it stood; nor did the French succeed in making any lasting impression on that point. The loss, however, had on our part been so great, and the enemy still continued his exertions with so much ardour, that it was deemed requisite to send fresh regiments to relieve those which had been so long engaged; and hence five or six battalions were withdrawn from our rear; and the post which they had hitherto assisted in maintaining was left entirely to our protection.

Whether it was the intention of Soult to cause this movement, or whether he only hoped to avail himself of it as soon as it should have been made, I know not; but just as the bayonets of our detached troops began to glitter in the wood behind Arcanques, another most determined charge was made upon the corps in our immediate front. This corps was not only weak in point of numbers, but worn out with hard fighting and want of food. It gave way almost immediately. Again the French were upon us; again we were hotly engaged, and, as it appeared to me, with a still denser and more numerous division than any which had yet attacked us. The wood and the mayor's house were now both of them carried—the French came on with loud shouts and great courage—our Portuguese allies fairly fled the field—one or two British regiments were overpowered—and even we, whose ranks had hitherto been preserved, began to waver, when Lord Wellington himself rode up. The effect was electrical. "You must keep your ground, my lads," cried he; "there is nothing behind you. Charge! charge!" Instantly a shout was raised. Many fugitives who had lost their own corps threw themselves into line upon our flank. We poured in but one volley, and then rushed on with the bayonet. The enemy would not stand it; their ranks were broken, and they fled in utter confusion. We followed, without giving them a moment to recover from their panic; and having suffered hardly any loss in killed or wounded, we once more took possession of the chateau and the thicket. This was the last effort on either side, darkness having already set in; and hence we found ourselves, for the second time, at the close of a day of carnage and fatigue, occupying exactly the spot of ground which we had occupied when the day began. The same wild and outlandish tumult ensued; men of all countries bawling and hallooing to each other; and the same arrangements of lighting fires, and lying down to sleep around them, were entered into by the weary combatants. The corps to which I belonged was indeed moved about a quarter of a mile to the right, where the charge of the outposts was committed to it; and those who had hitherto kept them being called in, were permitted to repose more securely in the rear. But, with this exception, everything which had been done during the night before was repeated, and such as were not actually employed on picket slept soundly beside their watch-fires.