The subaltern

by G. R. Gleig

As the duty on which we were now employed was by no means agreeable, and as any very lengthened exposure to the inclemency of such a season must have proved detrimental to the health of those engaged in it, the custom was to relieve the advanced corps at the end of three days, by which means each brigade, at least in the left column of the army, found itself in the field, and under canvas, only once in three weeks. That to which I was attached held what may be termed the stationary outposts only four times during the entire winter; nor have I any reason to believe that we were in this respect peculiarly favoured. Of the events which took place during our present interval of more active service, it is needless to enter into any minute detail. They were such as generally occur on like occasions: that is to say, our time was passed in alternate watching and labour; whilst an uninterrupted continuance of cold and stormy weather rendered the arrival of the troops destined to succeed us highly acceptable. Nor was this temporary endurance of hardship and fatigue without its good effect. We learned from it to lay aside what yet remained to us of fastidiousness; and returned to our quarters perfectly reconciled to those inconveniences and drawbacks which existed more perhaps in our imagination than in reality.

I should try, beyond all endurance, the patience of my reader, were I to relate in regular detail the occurrences of each day from the 21st of December 1813, when we returned to our cantonments, to the 2d of January 1814, when we again quitted them. Enough is done when I state in few words that the ordinary resources against ennui—that is to say, shooting, coursing, and even fishing—were adopted; and that the evenings were spent, for the most part, in convivial parties, to the inordinate consumption of cigars, wine, and sometimes of patience. Nor were other and more rational employments wanting. On more than one occasion I visited St Jean de Luz, attended high mass, and the theatre; and once I rode as far to the rear as Irun. The effect of the latter ride upon myself was vivid at the time, and may, perhaps, be worth conveying to others.

The distance from our present cantonments to Irun might amount to sixteen or eighteen miles. Over the whole of that country, between the two extreme points, the tide of war, it will be recollected, had swept; not boisterously, but with comparative harmlessness—as when one army rapidly retreats and another rapidly follows—but slowly and ruinously; every foot of ground having been obstinately contested, and every fold, garden, and dwelling exposed to the ravages inseparable from the progress of hostilities. Hence the spectacle which met the traveller's gaze on either side of the road was distressing in the extreme. The houses and hovels were everywhere in ruins; the enclosures and cultivated fields were all laid waste and desolate; the road itself was strewed with the carcasses of oxen, mules, horses, and other animals, which had dropped down from fatigue, and died upon their march. I was particularly struck with the aspect of things in and about Urogne. Of the works on the heights above it, so carefully and skilfully erected by Marshal Soult, some had already begun to yield to the destructive operation of the elements, and others had been wantonly demolished by the followers of the camp. In the town itself, where so lately was heard the roar of cannon and the rattle of musketry, the most perfect silence prevailed. It was wholly tenantless; not even a sutler or muleteer had taken up his abode there; the cavalry were all withdrawn; and of the original inhabitants not one had returned. The reader will easily believe that I looked round, during this part of my journey, with peculiar interest, for the fields across which I had myself skirmished; more especially for a friendly hedge, the intervention of a stout stake in which had saved my better arm; and that I did not pass the churchyard without dismounting to pay a visit to the grave of my former comrades. Neither was I unmindful of the chateau in which, to my no small surprise, I had found a letter from my father; and the change wrought in it since last I beheld it gave me a more perfect idea of the disastrous effects of war than any other object upon which I had yet looked.

When a man of peaceable habits—one, for example, who has spent his whole life in this favoured country under the shelter of his own sacred roof—reads of war, and the miseries attendant upon war, his thoughts invariably turn to scenes of outrage and rapine, in which soldiers are the actors, and to which the hurry and excitement of battle give rise. I mean not to say that a battle is ever fought without bringing havoc upon the face of that particular spot of earth which chances to support it; but the mischief done by both contending armies to the buildings and property of the inhabitants is as nothing when compared to that which the followers of a successful army work. These wretches tread in the steps of the armed force with the fidelity and haste of kites and vultures. No sooner is a battle won and the troops pushed forward, than they spread themselves over the entire territory gained; and all which had been spared by those in whom an act of plunder, if excusable at all, might most readily be excused, is immediately laid waste. The chateau of which I am speaking, for example, and which I had left perfectly entire, fully furnished, and in good order, was now one heap of ruins. Not a chair or a table remained; not a volume of all the library so lately examined by me existed; nay, it was evident from the blackened state of the walls, and the dilapidation of the ceilings, that fire had been wantonly applied to complete the devastation which avarice had begun. To say the truth, I could not but regret at the moment that I had not helped myself to a little more of Monsieur Briguette's property than the Spanish Grammar already advertised for redemption.

Having cleared Urogne, and passed through the remains of the barricade which I had assisted in carrying on the 10th of the last month, I arrived next at the site of the village of which I have formerly taken notice, as being peopled and furnished with shops and other places of accommodation, by sutlers and adventurers. The huts or cottages still stood, though they were all unroofed, and many of them otherwise in ruins; but the sign of the "Jolly Soldier" was gone. Like other incitements to folly, if not to absolute vice, it had followed the track of the multitude. I marked, too, as I proceeded, the bleak hillside on which our tents had so long contended with the winds of heaven; and I could not help thinking how many of those who had found shelter beneath their canvas, were now sleeping upon the bosom of mother earth. Of course I paid to their memories the tribute of a regret as unavailing as I fear it was transitory.

By-and-by I reached the brow of the last height on the French border, and the Bidassoa once more lay beneath me. The day on which my present excursion was made chanced to be one of the few lovely days with which, during that severe winter, we were favoured. The air was frosty, but not intensely so; the sky was blue and cloudless; and the sun shone out with a degree of warmth which cheered without producing languor or weariness. High up, the mountains which overhang the river were covered with snow, which sparkled in the sunbeams, and contrasted beautifully with the sombre hue of the leafless groves beneath; whilst the stream itself flowed on as brightly and placidly as if it had never witnessed a more desperate struggle than that which the fisherman maintains with a trout of extraordinary agility and dimensions. Fain would I have persuaded myself that I was quietly travelling in a land of peace; but there were too many proofs of the contrary presented at every stage to permit the delusion to keep itself for one moment in the mind.

CHAPTER XV.

The stone bridge which used to connect the two banks of the Bidassoa, and which the French, after their evacuation of the Spanish territory, had destroyed, was not, I found, repaired; but a temporary bridge of pontoons rendered the stream passable without subjecting the traveller to the necessity of fording. A party of artificers were, moreover, at work renewing the arches which had been broken down; and a new tête-de-pont on the opposite side from the old one was already erected, to be turned to account in case of any unlooked-for reverse of fortune, and consequent retreat beyond the frontier. I observed, too, that the whole front of the pass beyond the river was blocked up with redoubts, batteries, and breastworks; and that Lord Wellington, though pressing forward with victory in his train, was not unmindful of the fickleness of the blind goddess.

As I was crossing the pontoon-bridge, two objects, very different in kind, but intimately connected the one with the other, attracted my attention almost at the same moment. A body of Spanish cavalry, which appeared to have passed the river at one of the fords a little higher up, presented themselves winding along a steep by-path which communicated with the highroad just beside the old tête-de-pont. They were guerillas, and were consequently clothed, armed, and mounted in a manner the least uniform that can well be imagined. Of the men, some were arrayed in green jackets, with slouched hats and long feathers; others in blue, helmeted like our yeomanry or artillery-drivers; several wore cuirasses and brazen headpieces, such as they had probably plundered from their slaughtered enemies. But, notwithstanding this absence of uniformity in dress, the general appearance of these troopers was exceedingly imposing. They were, on the whole, well mounted; and they marched in that sort of loose and independent manner which, without indicating the existence of any discipline amongst them, bespoke no want of self-confidence in individuals. Their whole appearance, indeed—for they could not exceed sixty or eighty men—reminded me forcibly of a troop of bandits; and the resemblance was not the less striking that they moved to the sound, not of trumpets or other martial music, but of their own voices. They were singing a wild air as they passed, in which sometimes one chanted by himself, then two or three chimed in, and by-and-by the whole squadron joined in a very musical and spirited chorus.

The other object which divided my attention with these bold-looking but lawless warriors, was about half-a-dozen dead bodies, which the flow of the tide brought at this moment in contact with the pontoons. They were quite naked, bleached perfectly white, and so far had yielded to the operation of decay that they floated like linen rags on the surface of the water. Perhaps these were some of our own men who had fallen in the passage of the river upwards of eight weeks ago; perhaps they were the bodies of such of the French soldiers as had perished in their retreat after one of Soult's desperate but fruitless efforts to relieve the garrison of St Sebastian. Who or what they were I had no means of ascertaining, nor was it of much consequence: to whatever nation they might have once belonged, they were now food for the fishes; and to the fishes they were left, no one dreaming that it was requisite to pull them to land, or to rob one set of reptiles of their prey only to feed another.