Random Shots from a Rifleman

by J. Kincaid

A decayed tree full of holes, against which the officers of our company had built their straw hut, was quite filled with snakes, and I have often seen fellows three feet long winding their way through the thatch, and voting themselves our companions at all hours, but the only inconvenience we experienced was in a sort of feeling that we would rather have had the hut to ourselves.

One morning in turning over a stone on which my head had rested all night, I saw a scorpion with the tail curled over his back looking me fiercely in the face; and though not of much use, I made it a rule thereafter to take a look at the other side of my pillow before I went to sleep, whenever I used a stone one.

An officer in putting on his shoe one morning, found that he had squeezed a scorpion to death in the toe of it. That fellow must have been caught napping, or he certainly would have resisted the intruder.

The only thing in the shape of an accident from reptiles that I remember ever having occurred in our regiment was to a soldier who had somehow swallowed a lizard. He knew not when or how, and the first hint he had of the tenement being so occupied, was in being troubled with internal pains and spitting of blood, which continued for many months, in spite of all the remedies that were administered. But a powerful emetic eventually caused him to be delivered of as ugly a child of the kind as one would wish to look at, about three inches long. I believe that Dr. Burke, late of the Rifles, has it still preserved.

In that neighbourhood I was amused in observing the primitive method adopted by the farmers in thrashing their corn,—namely, in placing it on a hard part of the public road and driving some bullocks backwards and forwards through it; and for winnowing, they tossed it in a sieve and trusted to the winds to do the needful. Notwithstanding the method, however, they contrived to shew us good looking bread in that part of the world—as white as a confectioner's seed cake—and though the devil take such seeds as these sons of cows had contrived to grind up with the flour, yet it was something like the cooking on board ship; we ought to have been thankful for the good which the Gods provided and asked no questions.

In July, the breaking up of the assembled armies which had so long menaced us, sent our division again stretching off to the north in pursuit of fresh game. The weather was so intensely hot, that it was thought advisable to perform the greater part of our marches during the night. I can imagine few cases, however, in which a night march can prove in any way advantageous; for unless the roads are remarkably good, it requires double time to perform them. The men go stumbling along half asleep, and just begin to brighten up when their permitted hour of repose arrives. The scorching sun, too, murders sleep, and of our ten or twelve days' marching on that occasion, I scarcely ever slept at all. I have always been of opinion that if men who are inured to fatigue are suffered to have a decent allowance of repose during the night, that you may do what you like with them during the day, let the climate or the weather be what it may.

I remember having been at that time in possession of a small black pony, and like the old man and his ass, it might have admitted of a dispute among the spectators which of us ought to have carried the other, but to do myself justice I rarely put him to the inconvenience of carrying anything beyond my boat-cloak, blanket, &c.; but one morning before day-light, in stumbling along through one of those sleepy marches, my charger, following at the length of the bridle-rein, all at once shot past me as if he had been fired out of a mortar, and went heels over head, throwing a complete somerset and upsetting two of the men in his headlong career. I looked at the fellow in the utmost astonishment to see whether he was in joke or earnest, thinking that I had by accident got hold of one of Astley's cast-off's, who was shewing me some of his old stage tricks, but when he got up, he gave himself a shake and went quietly on as usual, so that it must have been nothing beyond a dreaming caper, seeing that he was not much given to the exhibition of feats of agility in his waking moments.

On reaching our destination in the north, our division took up a more advanced position than before, and placed the garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo under blockade.

In the first village we occupied (Mortiago) the only character worthy of note was a most active half-starved curate, whose duty it was to marry and to bury every body within a wide range, besides performing the usual services in sundry chapels in that and the adjoining villages. He was so constantly at a gallop on horseback in pursuit of his avocations that we dubbed him the Padrè volante (the flying parson.) We did there, as in all the Spanish villages the moment we took possession, levelled the ground at the end of the church, and with wooden bats cut out in the shape of rackets, got up something like an apology for that active and delightful game.

Our greatest enjoyment there was to catch the Padrè in one of his leisure moments and to get him to join in the amusement, of which he was remarkably fond, and he was no sooner enlisted, than it became the malicious aim of every one to send the ball against his lank ribs. Whenever he saw that it was done intentionally, however, he made no hesitation in shying his bat at the offender; but he was a good-natured soul, as were also his tormentors, so that every thing passed off as was intended.