During this whole fortnight the scarcity, or rather the absolute want, of provision continued. Scanty rations of goat-flesh were issued during this time; and a coarse kind of pea-flour, with bran and chopped straw, provided by the Commissariat, which the officers and men made into a kind of cake with water, and cooked on a camp-kettle lid or on a stone, was the only provision. Unless when the men found some ears of corn in a field, and by rubbing them in their hands and grinding the grains between stones, in this way supplemented the Commissariat allowance.
On the 12th the French picquets appeared on the heights opposite the bridge and the ford, but no shots were exchanged between them and the two companies of Riflemen always posted at the ford. And indeed then, as throughout the war in the Peninsula, the best understanding existed between the Riflemen on outpost duty and the advanced posts of the French; the officers frequently saluting each other. And so far did this go that the Riflemen, when ordered to advance to drive in the French picquets, used to hold up their rifles and tap the brass bullet-box in the stock of the Baker rifle then in use, to show their opponents that they were in earnest, and that their adversaries were to stand on their defence.
The insufficient food and the unwholesome position of their camp near the Bridge of Almaraz, in a damp situation, with poisonous vapours arising from vegetable matter decaying, and swamps half-dried under a burning sun, soon began to tell on the men of the Battalion; and fever and dysentery became prevalent among them.
At midnight on August 20 the Light Division marched from Almaraz and arrived at Deletosa on the following day, where a large portion of Sir Arthur Wellesley’s force was encamped. This and the whole British army (except the Light Division) marched on the 21st for Truxillo. On that evening the Battalion marched; and about midnight lay down with their arms until daybreak, when they started again for Caceres, where they arrived on the 23rd. And on the three following days they continued their march towards the Portuguese frontier, starting in the night and proceeding during many hours of the day. During this march the men suffered much both from the heat of the sun in a barren, treeless country, and the constant insufficiency of provisions. And it was not until they reached Valencia de Alcantara on the 26th, where they halted during the 27th, that they were able to procure bread, and the luxury of fruit and vegetables from the neighbouring gardens. Late on the 28th they started again, and marching during most of the night crossed the rivulet which here divides Spain from Portugal on the 29th, and proceeding by Maravão, after a march of many miles encamped at Castello de Vide, where the Battalion halted for a week. On September 7 they marched to Portalegre, where they halted two days, after which, resuming their march, they arrived at Arronches on the 10th, whence one more march on the next day brought them to Campo Major, their winter quarter, where they remained three months. During these, sickness and death ravaged the Battalion; fever, ague and dysentery, the fruits of exposure, of want, and of the proverbially unhealthy climate of Alemtejo, in which Campo Major is situated, sent numbers into hospital; and it is said[68] that nearly three hundred men of the 1st Battalion died during their stay there.
I now return to the narrative of the services of the 2nd Battalion, which we left at Hythe barracks; whence, after a rest of five months after the fatigues of Moore’s retreat, their losses being replaced by volunteers from the Militia, and their clothing and accoutrements renewed, they marched, about July 20, 1809,[69] about a thousand strong, under Colonel Wade, to Deal, and there embarked in the ‘Superb,’ 74, to join the expedition destined for Holland, under the Earl of Chatham. Subsequently they were shifted into the ‘Namur,’ on the 22nd, and formed part of the brigade of their former Lieutenant-Colonel, the Honourable William Stewart, with the 2nd Battalions of their constant companions in arms, the 43rd and 52nd. They sailed on July 30, and arrived off Flushing on the following day. Two companies were immediately detached to act with the force under Major-General Baron de Rottenberg; and on that night Lieutenant William Humbley, being in charge of an advanced picquet, while going his rounds, was informed by a peasant that a party of French soldiers were at that moment plundering his house. Humbley, with great promptness, suspecting that while intent on plunder the look-out would not be very good, at once took with him a corporal and eight men of his picquet; and, under the guidance of the peasant, the night being very dark, made his way to the house, about 200 yards from his post. They moved in perfect silence, and arrived at the place without a ‘qui vive’ from the only sentry there posted. Him a Rifleman knocked down at once with the butt of his rifle; the others instantly surrounded the house, and made prisoners the whole picquet, consisting of 2 sergeants, 2 corporals, and 20 privates. The officer in command of it alone escaping, by getting out of a back window, and in the darkness of the night getting away. The Riflemen broke the whole of the muskets of the French picquet, and conveyed their twenty-four prisoners into the British lines and forwarded them to head-quarters.[70]
The two companies to which Humbley’s picquet belonged, on the next day repulsed a sortie made from the place; and in this affair Humbley received a severe wound in the head from a musket ball, and 1 sergeant and 9 rank and file were also wounded.
During the subsequent siege, a Rifleman named Jackman got close up to the walls of Flushing, and scooping out a pit with his sword, entrenched himself in it, and began to fire deliberately at the French gunners. He is said to have picked off eleven artillerymen, as they showed themselves at the embrasures; and having done so, he sprang out of his pit, ran across the open, and rejoined his Battalion unhurt.[71]
Five companies, with the rest of Stewart’s brigade, were not landed till the 9th, when they disembarked on the Island of South Beveland. The other companies, on the Island of Walcheren, took an active part in the siege operations until the capitulation on the 15th. During these operations the Battalion lost 11 rank and file killed, and Lieutenants Manners and Clarke, and 21 rank and file wounded. But the casualties from engines of war were trifling compared to the devastating effects of the climate of Walcheren and South Beveland. The officers and men were struck down by fevers; and on the 27th Stewart writes that the increase of the sickness in the 95th was at the rate of twenty cases daily. On September 8 the Battalion re-embarked, and this useless, abortive and mismanaged expedition came to an end. They landed at Dover on the 14th, and on the 18th the Battalion which had left Hythe barracks less than six weeks before, a thousand stalwart and hale men, staggered into them a gaunt and fever-stricken band of about seven hundred: many to be carried at once to hospital, and not a few to their grave. Thus in the space of nine months had the Battalion been twice more than decimated by fatigue, want and pestilence.[72]
The 1st Battalion having remained at Campo Major three months marched on December 12, forming the advance of the Light Division, to Arronches; and thence by Portalegre, Crato, Ponte de Sor, Abrantes and Punhete, to Thomar, which they reached on the 23rd. They continued their march through Leiria, Pombal, Condeixa, and arrived at Coimbra on the 29th, and halted there during the next day. Resuming their march on the 31st, they passed through Ponte da Murcella, to Venda and Gallizes, in which villages they were quartered on January 1, 1810, arrived at Celorico on the 3rd, and at Pinhel on the next day; and crossing the Coa on the 6th, occupied the villages of Villar Torpim, Regada and Cinco Villas. In this position, with occasional shifting of quarters with the other regiments of the Division, they continued during the remainder of January, February and the early part of March. The Riflemen, with a few German hussars, were the only troops pushed across the Coa to observe the French outposts at St. Felices, immediately opposite the bridge and pass of Barba del Puerco; the remainder of the army being quartered on the left bank of the Coa.
On February 27 Captain Creagh’s company was ordered to reconnoitre the village of Barba del Puerco, which he found occupied by a strong detachment of French cavalry; and after a skirmish with them fell back, according to his orders, to Escarigo, where he was joined by Captain Leach’s company, while a third was moved in support from Villar Torpim to Vermiosa. On the 28th Leach[73] made a fresh reconnaissance; and finding that the enemy had left Barba del Puerco, occupied it, sending a party to the bridge which spanned the Agueda at the foot of the pass. It was ascertained that the French occupied St. Felices with about 3,000 men of all arms, under General Ferey, having a picquet of cavalry and infantry at their side of the bridge. Thus it continued, three companies being posted in the village, and one on picquet at the bridge, on which were double sentries. At the same time the whole of the Battalion was pushed up to the Agueda, the whole line of which they (with the German hussars) occupied, with four companies at Villa de Ciervo on the left, one company at Almofela, and another at Escalhao on the right of the position of Barba del Puerco.