On the day following, our paymaster was encircled by a group of officers, who were listening to his odd remarks, relative to warfare. He declared that he hated bullets and swords, but with fists he flattered himself he was able to cope with, and would not turn his back on any man. "Oh!" said he, "how I should like to see a fine boiled leg of pork, and a pease pudding, smoking before me; why the very thought makes me ravenous, and I could eat any thing, from a gnat to an elephant; yes sir, I could eat an elephant stuffed with militiamen!" Then with both hands, pulling his cheeks, his breeches and his waistcoat, for in quarters he actually wore the identical dress he had joined the regiment in; "Look at these," said he, "why they fitted me as tight as a drum before I came to this cursed country; and look at them now! Well, only let me get my wife on my knee by my comfortable fire-side once more, and, if ever I leave old England again, may I be ——! and as my poor brother did die, I wish he had taken his departure before he ever persuaded me to enter the army!"
CHAPTER VI.
The author is attacked by illness—Miseries of military travelling in that condition—Quarters at Celorico—The author's difficult recovery—Grievous sufferings endured by the soldiers affected with fever in the sickly season—Death of the Paymaster—The author rejoins his Division—Movements of the French—A clerical case of disaster—The contested mattress—A dance—Expensive celebration of Christmas—Story of the German suttler—Village and neighbourhood of Fuente de Guinaldo—Theatrical representations by the English officers.
Three days after our long reconnoissance I became blind with ophthalmia, was seized with violent rheumatic pains in the soles of my feet, and took to my bed. My legs and knees swelled to an enormous size, first turning red, then blue, and I was no longer able to move.
Many other officers became sick, and were ordered to the rear. I for one, mattress and all, was shoved into a Spanish car. Our feelings during the passage of the Agueda were indescribable.—Ye invalids, stretched on your beds of down! comfort yourselves; submit to your pains with Christian philosophy, and bless your lucky stars that you did not belong to the army of Portugal. Rejoice that your very lives are not shaken out of you by such ups and downs; first over one rock, then over another, and dragged along by bullocks sometimes forced into a run, owing to the steepness of the adamantine roads. I could no longer bear the terrible pain. In my shirt, with my legs enveloped in bandages of the car, I begged and entreated to be lifted out, being quite helpless and blind. To get on a mule's back was quite out of the question, my legs and knees were so inflamed. At length some sick soldiers offered to try and carry or rather drag me from rock to rock. First I got a jolt on one side, then an unintentional bump on the other; the men were exhausted; and I entreated them to hold up my feet, (while my head lay in the road), for I could not bear them on the ground. At the end of the second day's tormenting journey, we entered Castel Nero. The cars were drawn round a stone fountain, and while waiting for our billets from the Juez de Fora, the howling of wolves was distinctly heard in all directions, amid the surrounding woods and rocks.
For five burning days we travelled from morning until nightfall at the rate of a mile an hour. Each night I was dragged out of the car, mattress and all, shoved into some horrible recess that was almost alive with vermin, and replaced in my uneasy vehicle in the morning for the continuation of the journey. On the fifth day, when within two leagues of Celorico (the place of our destination), we drew up, as Major Ellers of our regiment requested that he might rest for a short time, since he could no longer bear the jolting of his vehicle; in a few minutes however he expired, and his body was carried forward and interred.
The heat of the weather was almost past endurance. On our arrival at Celorico, with an empty room for my quarter and the floor for my resting place, I remained sixty days nearly immoveable, my only covering a filthy blanket, which had been stained all over from my mule's sore back. On the journey it had been placed under the animal's pack saddle to save its back, by day, while in turn I had the benefit of it as a covering by night. In this miserable plight, what with bleeding and blistering, and long confinement, I had become a perfect skeleton, and reduced to the most wretched condition. Five medical officers came to hold a consultation at the foot of my mattress, and, having examined my now lank legs, and big feet, they assured me, that they could not hold out any hope of a speedy recovery, and even doubted whether I should ever again be enabled to straighten my right leg, the knee of which had become contracted during the pains of my rough journey. The staff doctors held out every inducement to persuade me to go to England, by first offering a spring waggon to convey me to Lisbon. My suffering had been great, my arms hung nearly useless by my side, my legs refused their office: yet I still cherished the hope, that they would again, carry me forward. Doctor Mac Lean most kindly pressed me to acquiesce in their advice, but without effect: (poor gentleman—I understood he died a few days subsequently of a fever!)—how could I leave the army, whom I found amongst mountains feeding on hard biscuit and drinking rum impregnated with the mosquitoes? A pretty warlike story to recount at home! The very thought was frightful! More bleeding and blistering were therefore resorted to, by which means, added to a good constitution, at the expiration of another month I was enabled with the assistance of crutches to reach my window, the trellis work of which being thrown open offered me ineffable delight at once more enjoy the sight of a few living objects in the street.
The rain now fell in torrents for days together, and thousands of British and Portuguese soldiers (now crowding the churches which had been converted into hospitals) were dying by hundreds, of fever produced by the sickly season. The excruciating torments, suffering and privations of the common soldiers were such, that an adequate description is impossible,—many of them lingering in raging fevers, stretched out on the pavement, the straw that had been placed for their comfort, having worked from under them during their agonies, while hundreds of flies settled on and blackened their dying faces: and so stationary did these tormentors become, that those who still maintained sufficient power were obliged to tear them from off their faces, and squeeze them to death in their hands. Cars piled up, and loaded with the remains of these unfortunate victims to disease, daily passed through the streets for the purpose of pitching their bodies into some hole by way of interment. The medical officers were overpowered by the numbers of sick, and also fell ill themselves, so that it was a total impossibility, notwithstanding their strenuous efforts, to surmount all difficulties, and to pay that attention to all that could have been wished. The very hospital orderlies were exhausted by attending, burying, and clearing away the dead. These scenes of misery cannot be fancied: the sick pouring into the town, lining the streets, and filling every house, set at nought all theoretical conception.