Adventures in Holland and at Waterloo; and Expedition to Portugal

by Thomas Knight

There was a very old mansion belonging to a gentleman, nearly about the middle of where the action took place, with an immense draw-well erected, very much in the old English style, and a very large wheel for the water to be drawn up by a mule. The well ledge was thrown up, and the dead bodies cast into the well, in order to make a clearance.

On the 29th of September we had another general engagement. We turned out at the break of day, and had a great deal of very heavy firing. The Light Company was extended under a wall of the breastworks; and we kept up a strong fire for seven hours, never shifting our position. The Tachedores of the enemy were very numerous, and very close to us; if we had thrown a stone we could have struck them with it. Captain Mitchell had been speaking to me respecting the engagement; he was appointed from the colonel to take the command of the company, as the captain was not well enough to attend, owing to the wounds he had received through both calves of his legs. I fired sixty-three rounds, and, while loading the sixty-fourth, I got a severe wound through the groin. I fired the sixty-fourth round, but, while loading the sixty-fifth round, I felt quite exhausted, and fell up against the wall. The captain said, “You are wounded, Knight.” I hobbled away to the rear as well as I could. I had about half a mile to go. I was very much exhausted as I crawled, or rather hobbled, along on one leg, the other hanging down useless. On getting into the entrance of the town, I saw a troop of cavalry sitting on their horses—in a little lane off the main road. The officer rode over to me and said something in Portuguese that I did not understand. In the meantime, while I was sitting down talking to him as well as I could, a muleteer came along; the officer spoke to him, and he lifted me on a mule and took me to the General Hospital, where I lay seven hours during that day before the ball was extracted.

The doctor was with a man extracting a ball from his shoulder; the man said he was not able to go through the pain and punishment. With all the attendance of the doctor, he could not keep him steady, so as to extract the ball. The doctor had to leave him. I called out as well as I could for some one to come and attend on me; he came forward and turned the sheet off me, found where the ball was laying, and ordered four men to be in readiness to assist in keeping me down. I told him I did not require any holding at all, saying I was quite capable of undergoing the punishment. As I was propped up in the bed, the pillow being high, I could discover all he was doing. He made a cut of about an inch; the second time he cut the same, just as I began to feel the effect of it; the third cut he made at me came on the ball; he put the instrument in and pulled it out; it was as flat as a penny piece, for it had struck against a rock before it had struck me. The instrument reached from one part to the other, right through my groin. As we were engaged that day we had blue cloth pantaloons on; and the doctor tried if any blue cloth had gone with the ball; but when he found the pantaloons were under my pillow, and that the piece had not been cut out by the ball, and that it lay down neutral after the ball had been extracted from me, I felt quite easy. My wounds were dressed on both sides with lint, and a bandage round to keep it on, so as to bring the discharge from it, every twenty-four hours. I lay in that awkward position for seven weeks before they put the regular dressing on me to heal the wounds.

I lay eleven weeks altogether in the general hospital, and was then removed to the regimental hospital appointed for the battalion. I was carried there by four men on a stretcher. They put me into the non-commissioned officers room, and there I remained for seven weeks.

The doctor came round the hospital and shook hands with the patients, informing us that he was about to go to Great Britain. He shook hands with me personally, and said, “I think you have received too severe a wound to recover; I do not think you will recover it.” We never saw anything of him after he left us; another doctor took his place. I said that I would be glad to see myself once more all right. The doctor allowed each sick individual four ounces of wine per day. In the course of a very short time after his departure I began to gather a little more strength.

The inhabitants of the town were very liberal in bringing us the best of nourishment, as they doted on the English, who were their chief support in protecting the town from the enemy.

There was a sergeant in the next bed to me, named Schofield, a grenadier sergeant; he often looked over to me and said, “How do you feel, corporal?” I told him I felt pretty middling at times. He asked me if I would take a drop of wine. I used to make the reply that I thought I could; and he would hand me a drop that often enabled me to have a sleep. At this time I was getting well round. When the bottle was empty, the sergeant managed to fill it again. I think the wine was my chief support. One day I hobbled out of the bed into the kitchen to take a smoke. I was quite unable to come up again, and I was helped up by two men belonging to the hospital. A few days afterwards I began to think I was capable of getting up, and the sergeant and myself used to walk together daily, for an hour or so, which I thought was a very great benefit to me; and by degrees I became quite capable of walking in the town. The little wine I took daily was the chief support I had. My wounds began to heal quickly, and soon I was able to leave the hospital.

The sergeant joined his company, and I was attached to the Scotch battalion, as I was incapable of doing service under the command of my old captain of the British battalion, Captain Shaw, then colonel of the Scottish brigade. I drew rations until further orders; we were then lying where the Scotch took up their position at Lord Della’s.

One morning I was toasting a piece of pork that had been served out to me in ship’s rations, with biscuit to catch the fat of the pork, when all of a sudden the enemy’s pickets reinforced and rode back the Scotch pickets. I jumped up—unable to run much as my sinews at the knees were very stiff—and hobbled away down the lane; the musketry and the big guns were in full play. Colonel Shaw coming up the lane on a mule, ordered the Scotch to come rightabout and charge the pickets of the enemy—I heard them clicking-clacking bayonets against bayonets; they kept up a sharp fire. The Scotch drove the enemy back to head quarters, where they lay for about a month.

There was nothing worth while speaking about after that took place; I retired to Oporto and drew my rations, as usual, from the commissary’s stores, and resided with the quarter-master in an apartment formerly belonging to the British battalion. I used to walk about Oporto, noticed by the inhabitants, having possession on my breast of the Craftic order, of the Town sword, and the Waterloo medal being very much noticed. I very often got gifts from them, and was very well supported; the quarter-master sergeant asked me one morning if I would be a servant to him; I replied, “By all means,” and there I remained until a passage was provided for me to go home to Great Britain. During the short period that I was servant to the quarter-master, I fell very ill, and had to be taken back to the hospital. Owing to the cholera having broken out, I lay some time in the hospital, my head was shaved, and I was fortunate enough to be placed in a bed near the door, where I had the benefit of the sweet air playing on me, it being very hot weather at the time. When I recovered I went out of the hospital and took up my old position along with the quarter-master I had been living with, who was very glad to see me.