Heroes of science

by P. Martin Duncan

“Here it was that Sir Arthur Wellesley overtook us after a smart gallop. He had witnessed from a distance our steady and successful charge, and our capture of the guns, and he now saw how we were thrusting the French out of this hamlet. Through the sound of the musketry, and in the midst of much confusion, I heard a shrill voice calling out, ‘Where are the colours of the 36th?’ and I turned round (my brother ensign, poor Peter Bone, having just been knocked down), and looking up into Sir Arthur’s bright and confident face said, ‘Here they are, sir.’ Then he shouted, ‘Very well done, my boys! Halt, halt—quite enough.’

“The French were now at their last run, in spite of every effort of Solignac to rally them. Several of our bloody-minded old soldiers said in levelling, ‘they would bring down the —— on the white horse,’ and sure enough the gallant fellow fell, just as the 71st Highlanders, who were on our left, being moved round en potence, charged down the hill, with their wounded piper playing, sitting on the ground, and completed the rout of the enemy, taking General Solignac of course prisoner.”

Subsequently Murchison’s regiment joined the expedition of Sir John Moore, and participated in the disastrous retreat upon Corunna. “Murchison (writes Professor Geikie) suffered much, although he was strong and in good health, from the excessive fatigue. On one occasion, after a fruitless midnight march against the enemy, who was supposed to be advancing to the attack, Murchison, commanding that night an outlying picquet, threw himself into a corner of a farmer’s yard, and soon fell asleep. Day had scarcely broken when the cry of ‘Picquet, turn out!’ roused him from his rest, but not in time to escape the notice of the vigilant Colonel Packe, who, however, allowed him to escape with a severe reprimand. But after the halt at Tugo, when having vainly offered battle to the French, the British army retreated by a forced march to Corunna, the young lieutenant fairly broke down. The mule, which had hitherto carried himself or his kit, was lost; his old soldier servant had gone back to seek among the snow for his wife and child.” Of this sad time he has preserved the following recollections:—“Never shall I forget the night which followed the abandoning of our position in front of Tugo. We marched through that city at dusk, and then blew up the bridge, which was to check for awhile our foe. In darkness, with no food, and after sleepless nights, with worn-out shoes, and thoroughly disgusted with always running off and not fighting, this army now fell into utter disorder. Starved as they were, the men soon became reckless, and all the regiments got mixed together; in short, the soldiers were desperate, in spite of the exertions of the few mounted officers. For my own part, I walked on, usually in my sleep, with the grumbling and tumultuous mass, until awakened by the loss of my boots in one of the numerous deep cuts across the roads, which were like quagmires, so that with my bare feet I had some twenty miles still to march. Many of the soldiers got away from the road to right and left. Marching all that dreadful night my young frame at last gave way, the more so as I was barefoot, cold, and starved, and already the great body of troops had got ahead of me. In short, I was now one of a huge arrear of stragglers when day broke and the little hamlet was in sight.

“Seated on a bank on the side of the road, and munching a raw turnip which I had gathered from the adjacent field, and just as I was feeling that I never could regain my regiment and must be taken a prisoner, a black-eyed drummer of the 96th came from the village, whither the young fellow had been to cater. Seeing I was exhausted, and almost as young as myself, and not yet a hardened old soldier, he slipped round his canteen, which he had contrived to fill with red wine, and gave me a hearty drink. He thus saved me from being taken prisoner by the French, who were rapidly advancing, and who, if they had had a regiment of cavalry in pursuit, might at that moment have taken prisoners, or driven into the mountains, a good third of the British forces.

“With the draught of wine I trudged on again, and came in, at eleven o’clock of the 10th, into the town of Betanzos, and rejoined my regiment, which had marched in about fifty men only, with the colours, though ere night it was made up to its strength of six hundred and odd men. This fact alone shows better than a world of other evidence, what forced night-marches with a starving and retreating army must infallibly produce. At Tugo the 36th regiment was fit to fight anything; in two days it was a rabble.

“Happily for me I tumbled into a shoemaker’s house. His handsome young wife washed my feet with warm water, and furnished me with stockings, while her husband came to my further aid with shoes. But my swollen feet had no time to recover. On the following day the whole army, such as it was, passed over the river, blowing up the bridge and taking up its last position.

“There, remnant as it was, the army formed a respectable line—Corunna within two miles of us, and our fleet ready to back us. Provisions and shoes were served out to us, and with such luxuries the bivouac, even in the month of January, was well borne. In truth, the army got into comparative good spirits, and on the 15th the French crossed the last bridge we had blown up, and were defiling at a respectable distance along our front. We were quite refreshed, and ready to repel them. The picquets, indeed, of our (Hope’s) division had a sharp encounter in that evening, and when looking through the colonel’s glass, I saw Colonel Mackenzie, of the 5th regiment, fall dead from his grey horse whilst leading an attack on two of the enemy’s guns.

“On the 16th, just after our frugal repast, and whilst leaning over one of the walls where we lay, my old colonel, after looking some time with his glass, suddenly exclaimed to me, ‘Now, my boy, they’re coming on;’ and when I took a peep to the hills beyond on the right and south-west, I perceived the glitter of columns coming out of a wood. Scarcely had the colonel given the word to fall in, when a tremendous fire opened from a battery of seventeen to twenty pieces, under cover of which the enemy was rolling down in dense columns from the wooded hills upon our poor fellows, who were in a hollow with their arms piled, like our own, until they were assaulted.

“For our cavalry was extinct, as the horses and men, as well as most of our artillery, were embarked on the 13th and 14th; yet never since Englishmen fought was there a more gallant fight than was made by the 4th, 42nd, and 50th regiments (Lord W. Bentinck’s brigade), who rushed on with the bayonet, and, supported by guards, held their own against a terrific superiority, until General Paget was ordered to move his brigade towards the enemy’s flank, and compelled them to withdraw; not, however, before poor Moore, galloping out from the town, fell while encouraging the troops, and Baird, who marched his division out of the town, had lost his arm. My own brigade had much less to do, our front line and picquets being alone engaged.

“As night fell, and after the firing had ceased, the enemy having returned to his own ground, we received the order to march into Corunna and embark. Our fires were left burning to deceive the enemy, and make him believe that he must fight us again next morning if he hoped to beat us.