The Spanish Bride (42 page)

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In January, upon its becoming known that General Skerrett was not going to return to his brigade, Colonel Colborne’s temporary command came to an end. He went back to his regiment, but the blow was a good deal softened by the appointment of Colonel Andrew Barnard in Skerrett’s room.

Colonel Barnard, who had commanded the entire division during the siege of Badajos, was a splendid soldier, and the most cheerful, hospitable fellow in the world, said his officers, affectionately welcoming him back. The wound in his chest was not by any means healed, but he said that he was in the best of health, and owed his life to the devoted attention of George Simmons. No one but George had been allowed to doctor him, and as soon as he could stand on his feet he had taken George with him to St Jean de Luz, where he had stayed for some time. George had actually dined at Lord Wellington’s table, so that it was a wonder, said his messmates, that he deigned to consort with his humbler friends any more. George received all the chaff with his placid grin, but said seriously that to gain the friendship of a man of Colonel Barnard’s ability would always be of use. Colonel Barnard had presented him with a handsome gold watch, especially sent from London, which George showed proudly to everyone; and in the New Year George was appointed to superintend the new Light division telegraph, at the Chateau d’Urdanches. ‘George, you’re becoming a great man!” his friends told him.

‘No, no!’ protested George. ‘Only I am determined to make my way in the army, and I cannot but be grateful for the chance which led to my being singled out.’

Brother Maud, returning from St Jean de Luz, whither his battalion had been sent to get new equipment, visited George in his log-house by the telegraph-post. He ate a tight little beefsteak with him, and went off with George’s good mule in exchange for his own broken-down pack horse. George’s friends thought that Maud’s visits closely resembled the descent of locusts upon the plain, but George was always glad to see his graceless brother, and could be relied upon to find any number of excuses for his predatory habits. With the appointment of Barnard to the command of the and brigade, the 1st Rifle battalion, of which he was Colonel, changed places with the and, an alteration which could not be other than agreeable to Harry, who belonged to the 1st battalion, and was delighted to have his particular friends in his own brigade.

In February, the weather unproved, and his lordship began to complete his arrangements for driving Soult out of Bayonne. His manoeuvres were very bewildering to Soult, a much harassed man. His Emperor had demanded three divisions from him, and Soult obediently sent them off. This left him in the uncomfortable position of being numerically inferior to Lord Wellington. He had been drilling conscripts throughout January, but even conscripts were hard to come by, since the young Gascons fled to the woods to escape being forced into the army. The Emperor’s advice to him was not at all helpful, and consisted largely of instructions to him to make the best of his situation.

It seemed to Soult that his adversary’s thrust must come somewhere between Bayonne and Port de Lanne, some thirty or more miles farther up the Adour; and he began to move troops eastward, with the intention of striking at Wellington’s flank when the attempt to cross the river should be made. That Wellington meant to cross below Bayonne, right at the river’s mouth, never occurred to him. When Wellington began to move eastward, with the greater part of his army, leaving only Hope with 18,000 English and Portuguese troops round Bayonne, the Marshal thought his reading of the situation correct, and obligingly drew off yet more of his troops from Bayonne.

Wellington had been forced to call up Freire’s and Carlos de Espana’s Spaniards to reinforce Hope. He had to feed them, of course, which he could ill-afford to do, but even that drain upon his magazines was preferable to letting them subsist on the country. On the 12th February, his lordship began his movement, with the object of pushing the enemy back from river to river until he should have manoeuvred him too far eastward to permit of his returning to the Adour.

It was not, however, until four days later that the Light division, forming, with the 6th, the rear of Beresford’s force, broke up from cantonments. They marched without the 1st Rifle battalion and the 43rd regiment, which had both gone off to St Jean de Luz to get new equipment, and they were extremely disgusted at not being in the van of the army. ‘A Rifleman in the rear is like a fish out of water,’ said Kincaid once.

Hill’s flanking force, on the left of the Allied line, had the honour of beginning the movement; and it was not until the French General Harispe, retreating first to Le Palais on the line of the Bidouze, and then to the line of the Saison, at last was driven to a position behind the Gave d’Oloron, that Beresford received orders to march. The and division, and old Picton’s 3rd, advancing north of Hill, were having all the sport, said Beresford’s men. But everything was working out just as his lordship had meant it to. The whole of Clausel’s force had been obliged to fall back behind the Gave d’Oloron, from Peyrehorade to Narreux, a front of thirty miles; and on the 18th February, it was learned that two out of the three divisions left to guard Bayonne had been ordered to march east.

Beresford was told to push on. He marched with Vivian’s and Lord Edward Somerset’s cavalry brigades flung out in front of his infantry. The Enthusiastics, and the 7th (whom men of the older divisions unkindly called the Mongrels), followed the cavalry; the Light division came next; and the 6th, bringing up the extreme rear, had not as yet overtaken the force. The Light division, ordered to halt for a day at La Bastide Clarence, on the Joueuse, heard of Hill’s fights at Garris, and Arriverayte, and growled. Hill was rolling up the French in famous style; Picton was pressing forward; and the Division, the very spearhead of attack, was kept kicking its heels twenty and more miles in the rear.

The weather was stormy, and very cold. Lord Wellington snatching a day to visit Sir John Hope, found big seas breaking on the coast-line, and Admiral Penrose unable to bring his chassemarées, which were to form a bridge across the Adour, into the mouth of the river. That was vexatious, but his lordship remained calm, unlike Marshal Soult, who was talking rather wildly of being opposed by an army of a hundred thousand men. The Marshal, very much puzzled by his lordship’s manoeuvres, had already made up his mind to abandon the line of the Gave d’Oloron, and to fall back behind the Gave de Pau, with the strong position of Orthez in his rear.

On the 21st of the month, Wellington was with Hill, at Garris; on the following day, the Light and 6th divisions were directed to fall in with Hill’s force.

Soult, who had expected Beresford to attempt to cross at Urt, was still more puzzled by the news of this change. What, he demanded fretfully, did Wellington intend? Did he mean to march on Toulouse by way of Pau and Tarbes? The augmentation of Hill’s force pointed to such a movement, but it would be very rash, and would gravely imperil his communications with his coastal base. ‘I am astonished at the idea!’ said the Marshal. ‘Whatever happens, I have made arrangements to mass my troops and attack him if a favourable opportunity offers.’ That his lordship had never yet offered anyone a favourable opportunity for attacking him, occurred to more than one of the Marshal’s Staff; but that his lordship was intending to do nothing but to roll up the French army, and to possess himself of Bayonne, no one seemed to suspect.

On the 24th February, the heads of the Allied columns appeared before the Gave d’Oloron, on a fifteen-mile front The water in the river was waist-high, and icily cold, but by evening four out of the five divisions had crossed with no other loss than a few deaths by drowning. Only Picton pressed on too far, and lost eighty men in an unnecessary skirmish, a circumstance not altogether displeasing to the Light division. ‘Old Picton attacking where he ought not!’ said the Fighting division’s bitterest rivals scornfully.

Soult fell back behind the Gave de Pau, concentrating his army at Orthez, a position Lord Wellington himself might have chosen, since it was admirably placed on a height, and easily defensible.

Hill detached the 1st Caçadores from Barnard’s brigade, and threw them into the suburb of Depart. ‘Orthez,’ said Harry, ‘will remain in my memory as the battle where I lost the Caçadores, and couldn’t find them again.’

The next day was spent by the Allied army in moving into position. Beresford, whose divisions had become, instead of Hill’s, the flanking force, was ordered off on a long march, to turn the French right, and the Light Bobs were once more told to follow him. ‘Follow?’

said an indignant private in the 52nd. ‘What does old Hookey take us for? A set of St Anthony’s pigs?’

At daybreak the division crossed the river by a pontoon bridge, and marched over ground which seemed to be made up of banks and ditches and occasional quagmires. As they moved on the right of the 3rd division, Picton rode up to Barnard on one of his cobs, and demanded roughly: ‘Who the devil are you?’

‘We,’ said Barnard, who was perfectly well known to Picton, ‘are the Light division.’ ‘If you are Light, sir, I wish you’d move a little quicker!’ snarled Picton. ‘Alten commands,’ replied Barnard in the coolest of voices. He added kindly: ‘But the march of infantry is quick time, and you cannot accelerate the pace of the head of the column without doing an injury to the whole. Wherever the 3rd division are, Sir Thomas, we shall be in our places, depend upon it!’

Picton looked as though he would burst a blood-vessel, but since Barnard had really left him nothing to say, he contented himself with swearing loudly enough to be heard by several interested privates, and rode off.

Too hot to hold, he is,’ remarked one of these. ‘He’d swear through an inchboard!’ ‘Ah, well! Got his men cut up, he did, poor old bastard!’ said a more tolerant gentleman. ‘No wonder he’s hot!’

By the time the division reached its post by a Roman Camp facing the village of St Boes, over a mile to the west of Orthez, the battle had been in progress for some while, and the Light Bobs, for a long time, had nothing to do but to watch the stubborn fighting on the ridge. That Wellington, who was observing the battle from a commanding knoll in their immediate front, might be keeping them in the rear on account of both brigades being short of a regiment, occurred to no one; and by the time the Enthusiastics, having won a part of St Boes after a very sanguinary struggle, were driven back in a little disorder, the weakened Light division was fairly dancing with impatience. However, just as everyone had reached the stage of explaining to his neighbour how the action ought to have been fought, General Alten rode up to Colborne, who was talking to Kempt, and told him to go on and attack. The 52nd regiment, moving forward in column of threes, was naturally delighted, but Kempt, demanding: ‘And I, General? am I not to go on?’ was so mortified that he growled to Colborne: ‘Confound the old fellow! God forgive me!!

‘Hallo, Colborne!’ called out Wellington, when the regiment passed him. ‘Ride on and see if artillery can pass there!’

Colborne galloped towards the marsh, and returned presently with the news that anything could pass.

‘Well, then, make haste!’ said his lordship. ‘Take your regiment on and deploy into the plain. I leave it to your disposition.’

So the 52nd went forward until they reached the ridge, where they met the 4th division, in disorderly retreat. Sir Lowry Cole, looking for support, and rather agitated, hustled his horse up to Colborne, saying: ‘Well, Colborne, what’s to be done? Here we are, all coming back as fast as we can! What’s to be done, eh? What would you do?’

‘Have patience, and we shall see what’s to be done,’ replied Colborne, who, never losing a jot of his own calm, had very little sympathy to spare for more excitable men. Picton’s division was scattering on the left: one of his Adjutants came riding up, quite as flustered as Cole, to know what he was to do. Colborne said: ‘Deploy into the low ground as fast as you can.’

While this was being done, the 52nd marched down the hill as though on parade, waded through the marsh under a heavy fire which, happily, passed mostly over their heads, and went up the hill in famous style.

‘The most majestic advance I’ve ever seen!’ Harry declared.

Foy’s men certainly agreed with him. Even as Marshal Soult was reported to be slapping his thigh, and exclaiming gleefully: ‘At last I have him!’ Foy began to fall back before the 52nd’s irresistible advance. The 4th and 3rd divisions, united by Colborne’s operations, recovered from their repulse, and surged forward; the French were dislodged from the height, leaving open the narrow pass behind St Boes, and Wellington flung into it the 7th division, with Vivian’s horse, and two brigades of artillery.

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His lordship wrote in his dispatch that the attack led by the 52nd regiment had given the Allies the victory.

‘He could not help saying that,’ Colborne remarked, with rather a wry smile. Indeed, his lordship’s unenthusiastic dispatches, with their coldly favourable mention of senior officers (whether they had acquitted themselves well, or had behaved in a fashion which led his lordship to give it as his private opinion that they were mad) were a source of much discontent in the army. The fact was that his lordship, whose censure was masterly, had never learnt how to praise.

But the army forgave him his grudging approval on this occasion, for his lordship had actually been hit during the battle. As he always exposed himself in the most reckless fashion, it was surprising that he had never been hit before; but he had not, so that his men had come to think him invulnerable. But at Orthez, just as he was laughing at General Alava for being unseated by a hit from a spent shot, he himself was badly grazed on one hip. General Alava said that it served him right, and that he deserved to be wounded, for mocking at the misfortunes of others.