Here the Battalion remained for about a month, during which time Craufurd did not allow his Division to be idle, but frequently took it out for drill and exercise. During the time it remained here the Battalion suffered much from the baneful climate of the Alemtejo; and fever, ague and dysentery were rife amongst the officers and men. To add to the discomfort of this camp, it was infested with snakes, scorpions and other reptiles; yet it is strange that among so many men occupying it, no fatal or serious accident ever occurred from this nuisance, at least among the Riflemen.
At last, on July 21, they were released from the life, to them after active service, so monotonous and every way so disagreeable; and on that day marching about a league and a half only, bivouacked, and on the next day marched into Portalegre. On the 23rd they proceeded to Castello de Vide, where they occupied several quintas round the town. Thence they marched northward by much the same route by which they had moved to the Alemtejo, passing Niza on the 29th, and on the next day crossing the Tagus at Villa Velha, by a pontoon bridge, and bivouacking in an olive-grove. Thence to Castello Branco on August 1, to Lausão on the 2nd, Bemposta on the 3rd, Mauras on the 4th, whence they moved to the neighbouring heights on the 6th, and continued their march towards the northern frontier of Portugal on the 7th. On the 10th the Battalion crossed the Agueda at the ford of Vado de Carros, and occupied the villages of Martiago with the right wing, and Langella with the left. On the 11th they started, with Lord Wellington, to make a reconnaissance on Ciudad Rodrigo. On their approaching it some hundred infantry with a few field-guns, came out of the town, but did not venture beyond the protection of the guns of the place. The reconnaissance having been effected, the Riflemen returned to their cantonments.
During the march from the Alemtejo the men of the Battalion had suffered much from the heat, and many of the marches had to be performed in the evening, or before sunrise, or during the night. On August 21 the four companies of the 3rd Battalion which had been at Barrosa, joined the Light Division, and a fifth company, which, as has been mentioned, was attached to Sir Brent Spencer’s Division at his request, as a Colonel Commandant of the Regiment, also joined, thus forming five companies of the Battalion, under the command of Colonel Barnard. They were placed in Beckwith’s brigade of the Light Division. About the same time another company of the 2nd Battalion, which had embarked at Portsmouth on July 5, and had landed at Lisbon on the 14th, under the command of Captain Hart, also joined the Light Division.
Sickness, no doubt contracted in the Alemtejo while encamped on the Caya, still made great ravages among the troops of the Light Division; three officers and many men of the Regiment having died while it occupied these cantonments on the Agueda.
At the end of August the Regiment (or at least the 1st Battalion) marched to Villa Rejo, on the 28th to Zamarra, and on the 29th to Atalaya.
On that evening George Simmons was sent forward with a company, and a corporal and three men of the German hussars, with orders, by moving through a woody country and by a circuitous route, to strike on the road leading from Salamanca; and then to proceed at his discretion, in order to ascertain, if possible, whether any convoy was on its way to throw provisions into Ciudad Rodrigo. He reconnoitred Tenebrun, and bivouacked for the night in a wood.
The next morning he moved to Boca de Carro and S. Spiritus, and ascertained from Don Julian Sanchez’s guerillas that a convoy had left Salamanca for Ciudad Rodrigo, but had been compelled to return, several parties of guerillas having formed across the road and attacked it. The company therefore returned to its quarters at Atalaya.
On September 9, Leach with his company and one of Portuguese Caçadores was sent over the Sierra de Gata to occupy two villages, Las Herrias and Aldea Juella, in the heart of the mountains, to observe some roads by which it was thought that Marmont might attempt to move light cavalry or infantry, and to obtain information as to the movements of the enemy. Here they remained a fortnight, daily patrolling and reconnoitring, but unable to ascertain anything of the enemy’s doings.
Marmont having determined to throw provisions into Ciudad Rodrigo, assembled his whole army and crossed the mountains from Plasencia. The Regiment, as part of the Light Division, was posted on the heights near Horquira. The enemy’s cavalry watched them, and entered Atalaya on September 23. Here the Riflemen remained three days; and on the 25th the combat at El Bodon took place between the Hon. General Colville’s brigade and the enemy’s cavalry. At this time the Riflemen were on the right bank of the Agueda, occupying the line of the Vadillo, a tributary flowing through a rocky channel into the Agueda, and falling into it about three miles from Rodrigo. Their position was a most dangerous one; for unless the troops on the left bank of the Agueda could hold the French in check they would have been cut off. Their safety was further endangered by the obstinacy of Craufurd; who though he received orders to retire, and join the rest of the army at or near Guinaldo, at two o’clock in the afternoon of the 25th, marched only to Cespedosa, one league from the Vadillo. On the next morning, however, at daybreak, they marched; and crossing the Agueda by a ford, and taking a circuitous route joined the 3rd and 4th Divisions near Guinaldo about three o’clock in the afternoon.
On that night the whole army retired, leaving the Light Division as a rear-guard. The Riflemen having made up their fires to deceive the enemy, and to lead them to believe that they were still in bivouack, followed about midnight. They marched through Casillas de Flores to Forcalhos, and were on the march during the whole of the 27th, with the exception of a short halt. General Craufurd having remained behind with a troop of cavalry to reconnoitre, was sharply pressed and pursued by the enemy’s chasseurs, and came galloping into the middle of the Riflemen with the enemy’s troopers at his heels. But the Riflemen, throwing themselves into rocky ground and cover, which fortunately was on each side of the road, soon brought the French cavalry to a check; but these dismounting and acting as infantry skirmishers, a smart skirmish took place between some companies of the Regiment and these dismounted men, which continued the greater part of the day. In the evening the Regiment joined the other Divisions at Aldea de Ponte.