On our route we came up with the French at Thomar, but on our appearance they retreated to Espinal, a short distance off Pombal, and took up a strong position between these two latter places. We followed them up and combined ourselves again into one body. At Pombal the French had tried, but in vain, to retain the old castle situated there, and some slight skirmishing had taken place between them and some of our light troops. At Redinha the third, fourth, and light divisions attacked the enemy's left, and after a stout engagement we compelled them to retire upon their main body, and being likewise attacked on the right, their whole body was thrown into retreat on Condexo. On our appearance there, they set fire to the place, and again retreated; their object in burning such a little town being probably to prevent our cavalry, cannon, and ammunition from following them up too closely. We were, however, delayed but a very short time, for we marched through the burning town, certainly not letting the grass grow under our feet, as the ground was much too hot. It appeared once to have been a beautiful town, but after this it was one sad mass of ruin.
The French proceeded from this place to Casal Nova, but were so quickly followed up that Picton's division overtook them and nearly captured their leader. Next day we came up with the enemy, posted in a strong position at Casal Nova, and on the 14th of March the light division attacked them and obliged them to retreat to a neighbouring height, whence after another attack they again found it best to retire on Miranda de Corno. Part of our division was in this engagement, and I never saw cannon play with better or more deadly effect on any body of men than ours did on the enemy, situated as they were on the heights of Casal Nova. Yet they left very few dead or wounded on the field; I think they must have carried most of them away, as the ground was strewn with muskets and swords.
The thing I noticed most particularly in this fight was the singular death of a man in our regiment, who was named William Halfhead, but considering the size of his head, which must have gone a very great way towards filling half a bushel measure, it was wrongly so, and he was the sport of the whole regiment, who named him Bushelhead. His head was indeed so large that he had to have two caps to make him one. This poor fellow was standing within five yards of me when a shot from the enemy's cannon took this same head clean off. I heard one of the men exclaim, "Hullo, there goes poor Bushelhead," and that was all the sympathy he got.
One division, under General Cole, proceeded after the enemy to Panella, where it was joined by another, under General Nightingale, and on the enemy seeing how closely they were followed they retreated from Miranda de Corno, setting fire to that town also. We again fell in with them on the banks of a river near the village of Poz de Aroce, where a brisk attack was made on them by the British, and they were driven from the river in great confusion with a loss of some four hundred men or more. It has been reported that numbers were even killed by their own side, through the darkness of the night and the confusion arising from their not having expected an attack then.
We encamped there one day, and then again pursued the enemy, coming up with them where they were posted behind the river Alva. There they had sent out four or five hundred foragers in search of provisions: and indeed they must have wanted them badly, for even we that had come from the land of plenty at Torres Vedras were at that time in great want. We did not, however, let them stay there long enough for the suppliers to return, for we opened fire on them, and forced them to retreat to Moira, leaving their foraging parties to the mercy of the English and Portuguese, most of them sooner or later falling into our hands. We crossed the Alva on a floating bridge and halted near Moira, as the enemy had now retreated to Celorico; but here Lord Wellington was obliged to stay the pursuit through want of provisions.
On hearing of the state of Badajoz he had already determined to send reinforcements to that place, so our division and one of the Portuguese under General Hamilton, with a brigade of cavalry, were directed to march southward again and invest Badajoz before that place's defences could be repaired by the enemy. Accordingly, on the 17th of March, our divisions crossed the Tagus at Tancos, whence we advanced to Portalegre, halting there for about two days.
Here I think I ought to relate an incident just to show that the English often committed depredations on the inhabitants almost as bad as the enemy. We are often too prone to see other people's and nations' faults, whilst if our own had but the light thrown on them, they would often come up to, if not exceed, those of our adversaries.
We, at least my company, were billeted in a chapel, at night lying on straw, which in the morning had to be rolled up neatly in our blankets so as to make the place look comfortable during the day, a separate lot of straw being allowed for every two men. Very close to this chapel there was situated a farmyard, inhabited by a quantity of pigs: and pork being a thing which the company had not tasted for some time, we made up our minds to have a treat. So one of our number was chosen to steal a pig, being, I suppose, one whose fingers were thought well adapted to the purpose. He pitched on a very novel plan of proceeding, for, taking a sergeant's pike, he stuck the pig with it, and then escaped till the poor animal had died; on which, not being long afterwards, we conveyed it to the chapel.
We thought that we had done this all unobserved, but the farmer had either watched our movements, or must have seen the blood and gone to count, and so missed the pig, and we soon saw that all was not to pass off so nicely as we expected, for presently he put in an appearance at the chapel too. Finding, however, that we were too strong for him, and seeing nothing of the missing pig, he went off and reported the circumstance to our colonel.
Meanwhile we lost no time in making our plans for a place of security for our prize. At first we thought of our straw beds, that is, of wrapping the pig in the blanket, but our afterthoughts told us that that would not be safe. At one end of the chapel, however, there was a large statue of the Virgin Mary, having on a robe with a long train, and it was under this train that we concealed our prize in the best possible manner, so as to baffle any chance of detection by the appearance of the train being altered. And sure enough, it proved to be the safest place we could have hit upon for our desired end, for very soon in came the farmer with a priest, and the first thing they did was to make their obedience to the monument, whilst we were all the time laughing in our sleeves to think how they were likewise honouring the pig.