CHAPTER X.
Advance in pursuit of the Enemy—Our Forces retreat, in order to counteract Soult's movements for the succour of Pamplona—Total defeat of Soult in the several Actions near Pamplona—Our Forces again advance—Come up with the retreating Enemy at the Bridge of Yanzi—The Enemy take up a position behind Vera—A considerable body of the Enemy attacked at the Pass of Eschallar, and forced to retreat.
We remained in bivouack all night where the battle had terminated; and did not begin to move till near mid-day on the 22d, when we set off in the track of the enemy, and at night reached Salvatiera, where King Joseph had slept the night after the action.
The poor beaten French must have had a long march after the fight, for this was probably sixteen or eighteen miles from Vittoria. We started early on the morning of the 23d, and very soon began to overtake the rear of the enemy. They now resorted to a system of retarding our march, at once both cruel and cowardly; every village they passed through they set on fire. Of course this caused us some delay, as the road generally ran through the middle of the village, and the country on each side was enclosed, but still nothing could justify such barbarity to the unoffending natives, who were thus deprived of house and home, and probably all they possessed in the world. We overtook their rearguard near a village about two leagues from Salvatiera. They attempted to make a stand while the village was in flames, but a shrapnell shell from our horse artillery set them instantly in motion. We came upon a considerable body of them again near the village of La Cunca, where we again cannonaded them, and where our people had some slight skirmishing with their rear.
We encamped for the night near this village, and again started after them in the morning early. My battalion led the column to-day, the post of honour. We had marched, I think, about eight or ten miles without overtaking any of the flying foe before us, but at last we came to an open country, that which we had traversed being pretty thickly enclosed, with bad roads and wet weather, which rendered marching very uncomfortable. Here a halt was ordered, as the enemy was in front in some force; here for the first time we got upon the great road leading from Pamplona towards Bayonne; and here, where it turned the corner of a mountain, forming a pretty acute angle, they had the only gun and howitzer they had saved from the fight in position, and ready to receive us. The men of my battalion, and a part of our 1st battalion, were ordered to put their knapsacks up behind the hussars of the German Legion, as it was not expected they would be wanted, and it thus rendered our people better able to run. The enemy appeared to have two battalions here, one of which remained on the great road near the two pieces of artillery, while the other moved off more to our right, down a valley which they imagined would, at the other end, let them out into the great road again.
We now began to move forward, and as I happened to be the first mounted person who left the enclosed road we had been in, I was honoured with the first shot from their gun, which, although a good shot, did me no injury. Our people now pushed on at them pretty smartly, which caused them, after firing a round or two more, to limber up and retire with their artillery, though they of course retired as leisurely as possible, to give time for their troops, whom they were covering, to get away. The skirmishing between them and our people continued for about two miles, they gradually retiring before us; but when they came to a sort of pass in the road, formed by two rocks nearly meeting in the middle, their bugles or trumpets sounded first the halt to their troops, and afterwards the advance upon us. We could not comprehend the meaning of this, till in a few minutes the battalion which we had observed go down towards the right, suddenly made its appearance out of a wood among our skirmishers. Of course a sharp contest now took place, and the firing on both sides became more brisk; this battalion, it appears, had miscalculated on getting out of the valley, down which it had retired, and had been compelled, at whatever risk, to make the great road again before they passed the rocks before mentioned; and in order to let it do so, the other skirmishers had advanced to cover its movement. This battalion suffered considerably before it reached the road, and we did not get off scot-free, having lost out of our five companies about twenty-four men.
Our artillery being pretty near at hand, Colonel Ross brought up two guns, and fired into their retreating column, doing considerable execution. We now moved forward in close pursuit of the enemy for about two miles farther, when a shot from Colonel Ross's guns having struck one of the leaders in their gun, and our people at this time pressing them so closely as not to give time to disentangle the dead horse, they unwillingly were compelled to throw their only gun into the ditch, and there abandon it. We continued the pursuit till we drove them under the walls of Pamplona, which I understand, poor wretches, they were not allowed to enter, on account of the scarcity of provisions in that fortress, and which after events proved was the case. We retired to the village of Aldava and others in the neighbourhood, where we remained for the night.
On the morning of the 25th, we advanced on the road to Pamplona, the enemy having all retired towards France, till we came within about one mile and a half of it, when we branched off to the left, and moved along a range of hills at about a mile distant from the works of the place, till we reached the town of Villaba, on the mountain-road from Pamplona to France; thus cutting off all retreat from the garrison, and thus in fact investing the place. During our movements to-day, my people being in the rear of the 17th Portuguese regiment, I was riding in company with my commanding-officer at the head of the battalion, when the horse of the Portuguese major threw out with both his hind feet with all his might, and struck me with one foot on my thigh, and the other on the calf of the leg. The blow was so severe that I nearly fainted, and was obliged to dismount and throw myself on the ground; but as no bones were broken, I gathered myself up again, and mounted and set off after the troops.