Twenty-Five Years in the Rifle Brigade

by William Surtees

During our stay in winter-quarters every exertion was made to put the troops in a proper state to take the field again, so soon as the season was sufficiently advanced. While we remained here also every sort of innocent amusement, at least generally innocent, was had recourse to, both by officers and men, not only to pass the time of inactivity with pleasure, but to keep up that readiness for action always so necessary in a state of warfare. We accordingly had races, balls, plays, and every other description of pastime our situation admitted of. We in Espija established what was termed a trigger club, each one in turn giving an entertainment at his house, and at which, as the name would imply, as much game was produced as our sportsmen could procure. The plays were generally held at Gallegos, the quarter of the 43d, and which were indeed got up in a surprising style, considering the means of doing so. A walking club was established in our 1st battalion, which was quartered at Alamada; we were of course frequently favoured with the company of its members, for they thought nothing of setting out, each with a long pole in his hand, and walking twenty or more miles to dinner. Thus harmony and a brotherly feeling was promoted amongst the officers of the division,—a thing of great moment where regiments have to act together, as well as pleasant to all parties. Some of our people also occasionally had a wolf-hunt, for these animals were quite numerous in this part of the country; nay, so bold were they when pressed with hunger, that they did not scruple sometimes to enter our villages, and devour whatever fell in their way that they could master. An officer of ours had an ass or a mule torn to pieces one night while standing in the yard behind his house. The mode of hunting them was, to have a certain number with arms stationed at the different passes in the wood, whilst a large party of drivers scoured the wood in line, driving every thing before them, when the animals, coming upon the armed people, were shot; but I do not think they were at all successful: it requires people accustomed to the business to enable them to kill many. There is a premium given for every wolf's head, but I forget how much it is.

I sometimes took a trip to the Azava, or the Agueda, on a fishing excursion; but I was ill off for fishing tackle: the hooks the Spaniards make are the clumsiest things imaginable, and would not, I am persuaded, be made with less dexterity by the natives of New Zealand. Those which we were forced to use for fly-hooks had a hole or eye at the top, like the crook which you will sometimes see in a butcher's shop, intended to be hung upon another, which was formed by turning the wire down again, and through this they run their line; besides, they almost invariably broke, and I have been wofully tantalized sometimes by having the hook break off the only fly that the fish were taking; notwithstanding, I caught some very fine trout in the Agueda, this river abounding with them. I sometimes also caught barbel in that river; but it was literally swarming with a sort of roach, or what some of our people called rock-fish: they generally feed from some stuff they find on the large stones. But as the season approached which was to call us to the field, a review of the whole division was ordered to take place on the plain of Espija, and which, I think, was as brilliant a spectacle of that description as it was possible for 5000 men to make. Every regiment was in high and complete order, the whole having by this time been fully equipped for the campaign: the movements, too, were beautiful, and executed with great precision and promptitude, and, as might be anticipated, called forth the unqualified approbation of our illustrious Chief.

A new and different arrangement was made this campaign with respect to both officers and men in their field-equipment. Experience had proved that constant bivouacking injured the men's health, as the mode they had adopted last year, though very ingenious, was not calculated to protect them sufficiently from exposure to the weather. They had last campaign been ordered each man to have loops sewed on at the corner of his blanket; thus, when in the field, two of these were united, and spread over two stand of arms set up at the ends for poles, and being fastened down at the other corners with bayonets, they formed a sort of tent, into which perhaps four men might creep; but then they had thus only two blankets to serve as a bed for the whole four men; consequently they would, in cold weather, be much exposed. This campaign each company received four tents; thus allowing about twenty men for each, and the officers of each company had one among them, and the field and staff officers in like proportion. These were carried on mules, which before had carried the camp-kettles; but these being exchanged for smaller ones, the men carried them in turns upon their knapsacks. Thus it rarely happened that the tents were not on the ground nearly as soon as the men; but strict orders were given always to encamp out of sight of the enemy, if practicable, that they might not be able to calculate our numbers. How very different from the ancient mode of encamping! each of which being more like a town laid out with regular streets, &c. &c. But war was a very different thing in those days, and could Marlborough have risen to see one of our straggling and irregular mountain camps, I know not what his feelings would have been: he would, I fear, have thought we had sadly degenerated.

All being now ready for opening the campaign, a part of the army, under Sir Thomas Graham, crossed the Douro low down in Portugal, and proceeded up the right bank, while we, with Sir Rowland Hill's corps, moved forward in the direction of Salamanca and Toro. On the 21st of May, our division broke up from its cantonments, and assembled at the village of St Felices el Chico, a few miles below Ciudad Rodrigo, each regiment having had the Agueda to ford in its march to this camp. Our division at this time consisted of the following corps:—viz. the 1st brigade, under General Kempt, was composed of the 43d regiment, 17th Portuguese, and the 1st and 3d battalions of my regiment; the 2d brigade, under General Skerrit, contained the 52d regiment, 1st and 3d Portuguese caçadores, and the 2d battalion of my regiment; one troop of horse artillery, under Colonel Ross, was attached to the division; the whole being under the command of General Charles Alten. On the 22d, we moved on to Martin del Rey, near the river Yeltes, by the side of which we encamped. On the 23d, we marched to and encamped near San Munoz, where the division had, I understand, suffered considerably during the retreat of last year, from the French having gained ground upon them, and severely cannonaded them from a height near this village. On the 25th, we moved on to Robliza, having halted the day before to enable the other division to come up with us. We next morning moved forward to the little river Valmuzo, a few miles on the Portugal side of Salamanca, and alluded to in my former advance. Here we halted for three hours during mid-day and cooked, and in the afternoon advanced to the ford of El Canto, on the river Tormes, and about two leagues below Salamanca. Here we encamped for the night, and remained next day also. Lord Wellington, with some cavalry we understood, had entered Salamanca, where only a small force of the enemy's cavalry had been found, and which retired immediately; but I believe some little skirmishing took place between the parties. On the morning of the 28th we forded the Tormes, and advanced towards Aldea Nueva de Figuera, which we reached late in the day, the distance being about twenty-four miles.

While we lay at El Canto, a few of our officers visited Salamanca, in hopes of meeting some of their old friends of last year; but not a viva greeted their ears on entering the city; a sort of suspicious look of recognition was all they could obtain from those people, who had received us only last summer with such extravagant demonstrations of joy. No doubt they had been made to suffer for their former expressions of attachment to us, for the French had in almost every place their partisans, who doubtless would not fail to give them, on their return, an account of the manner in which the English had been received, and the contributions would be laid on accordingly.

We remained at Aldea from the 28th May to the 2d of June, waiting for information from the corps under Sir Thomas Graham, it being intended to form a junction at or about Toro, where it was expected the enemy had a considerable force; this was distant from us about thirty miles. While we continued here, I took a trip to Sir Rowland Hill's division, where I had a townsman, an officer in the 28th, but had not the satisfaction of seeing him. I had other friends in that division, however, with whom I and my companions spent the day in great harmony and satisfaction, and at evening returned to our camp, about four miles distant, highly gratified.

On the 2d of June, we set off early in the morning, and arrived at Villa Buena about mid-day, where we halted for three hours to cook and refresh, after which we continued our march towards Toro, which we reached in the evening, but the enemy having destroyed the bridge across the Douro at this place, we encamped for the night in some fields on the left bank of the river. We learnt here that the hussars attached to Sir Thomas Graham's division had attacked a corps of French cavalry soon after their having quitted Toro, and with whom a very smart affair had taken place, the enemy being completely routed, and about 150 prisoners taken from them. Our cavalry, I believe, lost an officer on this occasion, who fell into the hands of the enemy. Nothing could exceed the miserable appearance of the horses taken from the French on this occasion; they appeared really half starved, although at this season there was plenty of green forage to be had; they must either have been sadly neglected, or have been doing exceeding hard duty.

The bridge having been rendered passable for the men, the division crossed on the following morning, the horses and mules fording the river. We left Toro immediately, and moved on in pursuit of the enemy, and encamped that night at Terra Buena. On the 4th, we reached the convent of Espinar, and encamped on a height just over it. It was a most picturesque and beautiful piece of country around this convent, but itself appeared to have been lately rendered uninhabitable. I believe the monks had been driven away by the French, but not a soul remained to enquire of; all about the building was desolation. We next day advanced to the village of Muderra, and on the 6th to Amperdia, and on the 7th we marched through the city of Palentia, and encamped outside the walls, on the banks of the river Carrion.

Here the inhabitants evinced the same degree of enthusiasm on our entrance as we had been accustomed to witness in other large towns, till the French had taught them a little more circumspection, and which the good people of Palentia would have been most probably fully taught, had these good friends of theirs ever got possession of their city again. Some time after we had pitched our camp, and were strolling about the city, the lifeguards entered, and were of course saluted with repeated vivas. One of the men, a rather country-looking young fellow, cried out, "Ay, the folks be always glad to see we lifeguards," happily supposing, no doubt, that they were intended as a particular compliment to his corps alone. All the country through which we had marched for several days past, was one continued plain of waving corn, mostly wheat of the very finest description. There are no hedges or dikes, but, as before noticed, only landmarks to divide the different fields, so that its appearance is like an immense sea, stretching as far as the eye can reach, the long corn undulating with the wind as the waves in the ocean.

On the 8th we marched forward and encamped at the village of Tamara, the weather having, from being exceedingly fine, and indeed rather hot, set in extremely wet and cold, and thus rendered marching very unpleasant. We next day reached La Peña, (the name, it may be remembered, of the Barossa Spanish hero,) the weather continuing very coarse and stormy. On the 10th we continued to advance, and marching through the village of Framosa, and passing over a canal which crosses here, we halted for the night on the right bank of the river Pisuerga, near the village of Lantadilla. In all these late movements, we had experienced a great deficiency of fuel for cooking and drying our clothes when wet, neither forest nor bush-wood being to be seen for days together, and indeed scarcely one solitary tree to be met with—nothing but corn; so that we were occasionally compelled to resort to the cruel and unchristianlike expedient of pulling down houses to obtain the timber with which they were built for the purpose of cooking, or we must have eaten our food raw. This, however, was done in a regular and systematic order, the Alcalde of the village pointing out such of the houses as were to be doomed to the fire, and the troops taking no more than was absolutely necessary. It is astonishing to me how the natives themselves exist for want of this article of first necessity.