The fog being extremely dense, the night dark, and the French little more than two hundred yards from our advanced posts, we lay under arms the whole of the night. So very dark was it indeed, that on the skirmishers being called in, many of them did not really know which way to move to rejoin their battalions. In front, and on our left rank, numbers were, for hours after the action had ceased, bawling, some Français, others Portuguese. So completely were the poor devils at fault regarding the situations of their respective friends, that two French soldiers actually passed one of our piquets, and were made prisoners before they discovered their mistake.
At day-break on the following day, General Gazan made another attempt to regain the key of his position, but failing as before, he kept up a loose irregular firing till about seven o'clock, when, seeing he could make no impression in that quarter, he took advantage of the fog to retire with his corps into his own territory. Colonel Ashworth followed him some distance, and skirmished with his rear-guard till evening.
When General Gazan retired from the heights of Maya, General Stewart proceeded to look out for suitable ground for our brigade. In doing so, he spent fully two hours, there being no convenient spot but what had previously been occupied by the enemy. Before the General returned from his tour of inspection, a number had begun to grumble at the delay in placing us in camp. In this number was Captain H——s, of the 92d regiment, who would not give credit to the stories in circulation, relative to the not very praise-worthy habits of the French soldiery. Seeing that the Captain was not to be convinced, one of his brother-officers said to him in mere jest, "H——s, perhaps at this moment some of the gallopers may have already taken a fancy to you;" and then bending forward as if to examine whether such was not the case, he, to his own surprise, was able to convince the Captain of the fact by ocular demonstration. The Captain instantly sprung from the ground, and bounded along the heath like a deer for several hundred yards, stopping only twice to try whether an extraordinary shake of his polluted ankle would not assist him in getting rid of such vile intruders.
In the action of the 7th July, three Spanish peasants, inhabitants of Maya, joined our light troops, advanced into the very heat of the conflict, and fought with the most determined bravery, till one of them being killed, and another wounded, the third reluctantly quitted the scene of action to convey his friend back to his native village. Had the armies of Spain been composed of such men as these, the Peninsular contest would have been short indeed.
During the early French revolutionary wars, an opinion prevailed in the British army, that the French used poisoned balls. That this opinion still prevailed at the time of which I write, is evidenced by the fact, that on the evening of the 7th, I heard one of the 50th call out, as he passed us on his way to the rear, "I know I am a dead man, I have been wounded by a poisoned ball."
Conceiving it to be the duty of every officer in charge of a company to record every little anecdote, which can tend to illustrate the character or the men under their command, I cannot forbear to notice an act of coolness on the part of a young lad named M'Ewen, which cannot be too much admired. In the action of the 7th, a musket ball grazed his bonnet a little above the ear. Instead of alarming him, however, M'Ewen very coolly turned round his head to mark the progress of the bullet, and on seeing it bury itself in the earth a few yards in his rear, shook his head, and said, "O ye coaxing rascal."
Until we took possession of the heights of Maya, we really knew but little of the real discomforts of a camp. We had occasionally suffered severely from sleet, rain, and cold stiff gales, but such a thing as a hurricane was a total stranger to us. At Maya, however, our position was so exposed to the four wind's of heaven, that blow from whatever quarter it might, the wind always found us at its mercy. One evening, after we had retired to rest, our encampment was visited by a tremendous storm of wind and rain. The former howled, and the latter battered the slender sides of our tents with such fury, that many of them were blown down. Every precaution was instantly taken to keep the tent-poles and cords from snapping, but in many cases our efforts proved fruitless, for the wind continuing to increase for some time after, down came one tent, then another, and another, till more than a half of the whole were level with the ground. I had just fallen asleep, and was enjoying a very comfortable nap, when "Cast away, cast away!" from a well-known voice, rung in my ears, and roused me from my slumbers. I instantly started up, and fancying what had happened, pulled the strings of my tent, and gave the cast-away wanderer a hearty welcome. But scarcely had my friend recited his hair-breadth 'scape from suffocation, when appearances boded nothing favourable to the little vessel in which we were. Our servants did all in their power to keep the pole upright, but seeing that to be impossible, I ordered them to haul it down, and then, in company with my brother-sufferer, proceeded on a voyage of discovery.
We proceeded, in the first instance, to the tent of three friends, which being more favourably situated than ours, we hoped would afford us shelter. On arriving there, however, all was desolation. We made two or three other unsuccessful attempts to obtain a temporary shelter from the surly blast; but despairing of finding it, and the night being extremely dark, we finally resolved to seek protection under the brow of the hill, and wait with patience the coming of the morning light. Pursuing our way, without a light or a guide, we had considerable difficulty in reaching a spot, where, protected, we might sit and hear the storm expend its fury over our heads. At length we got under cover, but had not been half-an-hour in our new berth, when our feet became so benumbed with cold, that we found it necessary to move about to bring them again to their natural heat. Wrapt in our cloaks, and with the rain battering in our faces, we were jogging along towards our arms, when all at once we came upon a tent which had withstood the fury of the storm. We were desired to walk in, and accept of what accommodation the inmates had to spare. We did so, but finding the tent pretty well filled with others similarly situated with ourselves, I left my friend Captain H—— under cover, and after a little more trouble I found out the residence of an old friend, where I remained during the remainder of the storm.
When day dawned, nothing but desolation was to be seen in our camp. Out of fifty tents, few were standing, more than the half of them were complete wrecks, and a number of the others were seriously injured. The men's arms and accoutrements were greatly damaged, and a considerable portion of our ammunition was destroyed.