At daylight we proceeded to Celorico, which place we reached, after suffering indescribable torture, in the evening. Here I learned our loss more particularly, a sergeant having come to take charge of us. Captain Creagh, shot through the lower part of his body, died the night of the action; Lieutenant M'Leod shot through the heart, eight officers wounded, and Lieutenant M'Cullock taken prisoner.[12]
27th
This morning we found the Portuguese muleteers had disappeared and left the spring waggon without the mules, so we were all put upon bullock cars once again. These were easier to ride upon, so I was pleased with the change. I had the intelligence that Reilly breathed his last towards evening yesterday. Several of our poor fellows died from the rough usage they suffered, and several soldiers who had neglected to cover their wounds now became one frightful mass of maggots all over the surface, which really made me tremble to see them dressed. The flies and mosquitoes followed us in myriads. We had no means of keeping off the swarms of insects, and the slow pace that the bullocks went, made us feel the vertical rays of the sun with redoubled force. We had some salt meat as rations, which, in the feverish state of our existence, we turned from with disgust; we very seldom got bread, generally biscuit, and that full of worms or mouldy; we were hurried away daily to the rear as fast as possible in order that our army, if pressed by the enemy, should not have us on the line of its march to impede its progress to the rear. Halted for the night at Villa Cortez.
28th
Villa Cortez to Pinhancos.
29th
On this day's journey to Galizes I had very nearly finished my military career. As the bullocks were dragging me along through a pass between two steep hills, a Portuguese who had three loaded mules behind each other and tied together, was also travelling along a sort of sheep path several yards above me. The last mule, when just over my car, stumbled and down he came, dragging the rest with him; he fell very heavily upon the car close to me; how he did not injure me I cannot account for, but so it was. It alarmed me, and consequently increased my circulation, which gave me more pain than usual in my wounded thigh for the rest of the way.
30th
Arrived at San Payo, where the bullock-driver took my food and my servant's, and departed with his bullocks also.