The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence, William Lawrence [best book club books of all time .TXT] 📗

pot, which had all boiled away before the beef was done. However, the captain was impatient for his supper, so it was taken up to him as it was, the pot-cover serving as a dish and a wooden canteen as a plate. I put it before him with salt on the edge of the canteen, and I likewise got him a piece of bread, which by the time he had it was nicely soaked by the rain—indeed we had not a dry thread on us by this time. The next bother was for a fork: I had a knife myself, but had lost the fork, so I got a stick and sharpened it at one end and gave him that as a substitute, and was rewarded by his praising me for my good contrivance.

Colonel Thornton coming up meanwhile, he was invited by the captain to partake of some of the beef, and he gladly accepted, as he said he was very hungry; so another plate, knife, and fork were wanted. I borrowed my comrade the corporal's canteen and knife, and manufactured another fork like the former to serve for the colonel, and they both said the beef was very good, but not very well done, which it certainly was not, for though it went down sweet like most things in those times, the inside was certainly hardly warm.

The colonel sent me to the quartermaster for a canteen of rum, which was equivalent to three pints, for which purpose another canteen had to be borrowed, but when I returned to him with it he said, "That's right; now go and drink it." I took it off to my comrade, and we both sat down under our artificial wall close by our fire to try and enjoy ourselves as best the inclemency of the weather would allow us, keeping, however, near our officers' green-carpeted nature's dining-room, so that if we were wanted we could hear them call. But when they did so, which was in a short time, it was for us to clear away, with orders at the same time to keep the remainder of the beef for ourselves; so we removed our dinner traps, passing a good many remarks in a jocular spirit on our green pasture, wet cloth, and our scientific dishes, plates, knives, and forks, much to the amusement of the colonel and captain who were looking on, and then sat down to our own supper, which we very much needed. I remember remarking to my comrade that we had not done so badly over our cooking after all, but perhaps it was only the hunger that made us think so. After finishing our supper and drinking the greater part of our rum, which no doubt got to a certain extent into our heads and served to keep out the cold and wet and make us generally comfortable, we curled ourselves into our blankets and lay down on the wet ground to rest.

The rain descended in torrents all night and completely soaked us, but the morning broke out clear, and after we had disposed of the rest of our beef and rum, we joined all hands at work in wringing and shaking the water out of our blankets before putting them up into our knapsacks. We were obliged to do this while they were damp for fear of an attack from the enemy, it being a general rule to keep all in readiness; and, indeed, on this occasion it was not more than an hour after these preparations that the French assailed us. Not being willing to show fight, we retreated on that occasion, having nothing to attend to but ourselves and our kit, for we were without baggage and cannon. After a ten miles' journey or so we again halted expecting to be attacked again very soon, for which emergency we hastily prepared, needlessly, as it proved, however, for we eventually stopped here quietly for a month.

During this time that I have been speaking of the siege of San Sebastian had been going on, the town having up to this time been already attacked twice, but without success. Lord Wellington now ordered twenty men out of each regiment of our division to act in conjunction with the besiegers, and soon after they arrived, the order being given to attack, after about two hours' fighting they succeeded in capturing the town and driving the garrison into the castle, which was likewise obliged to surrender in about a week. Though there were many deaths occasioned in this siege, strange to say the whole twenty men of our regiment returned unhurt.

I remember during our stay here, our captain was fearfully troubled with the toothache. At last one night, after trying in vain to endure the pain, he came to me and said, "O sergeant, I am still troubled with the pain! What can you advise me for it?" I recommended him just to take a pipe of my tobacco, for I knew that would be a good thing for him, but he never could bear tobacco, so that it wanted a good deal of persuasion to at last make him consent to prefer the remedy to the pain. As he had no pipe of his own, I supplied him with the implement and some tobacco, and he began to smoke. But he had not been at it long before he said, "Why, sergeant, this will never do! The place seems whirling round. Here, take the pipe, for I feel precious queer; but my tooth is much better, and after all you are not such a bad doctor." He gave me half a pint of rum, and for a long time I heard nothing more of his toothache.

We stayed here, as I said before, about a month, and then again moved on after our enemy, our cavalry, pontoon bridges, and artillery coming on by the most convenient passes of the mountains. While on the march we often had slight skirmishes with the enemy, but no regular pitched battle until we came to the Nivelle, where Soult had taken up a strong position. There our army halted in line, determined to attack and proceed if possible into France, as nothing more remained to be done in the Peninsula, Pampeluna having been obliged, owing to shortness of provisions, to surrender on the last day of October.

The Third, Fourth, and Seventh divisions, under Marshal Beresford and their respective generals, occupied the right centres of the line. We commenced the attack early on the 10th of November on a village which was defended by two redoubts. One of these our division took under General Cole, driving the enemy to some heights in the rear, where we again attacked them and drove them over the Nivelle.

After this we went into cantonments for a few weeks, but owing to the unsettled state of the French army who had attacked our left, and then, having failed, had proceeded against our right which was commanded by Sir Rowland Hill, Lord Wellington ordered the Sixth and our division to reinforce the right. We only arrived there, however, just in time to hear that the action was all over, the defeat of the enemy and their enforced retreat still further into their own country having been accomplished without our assistance.

CHAPTER XIX.

Advance to Orthes — Lawrence moralizes again on the vicissitudes of war — Losses of his own regiment during the campaign — Proclamation by Lord Wellington against plunder — Passage of the Adour — Battle of Toulouse — Casualties in Lawrence's company — Sad death of a Frenchman in sight of his home — The French evacuate Toulouse — News arrives of the fall of Napoleon — Lawrence on ambition — The army ordered to Bordeaux to ship for England.

After remaining inactive for the most part during the rest of 1813 and until the February of the next year, we again made an attack on the French, who were lying near a village of which I do not remember the name, and drove them behind a river. There they took up a fresh position, but retained it only two or three days, again shifting and opening a way for us to proceed on our way to Orthes.

And so after nearly six years of deadly fighting, we had got clear out of Spain and Portugal and carried the war into our enemy's very kingdom. Portugal and Spain had long had to contain the deadly destroyers, but now the tide was changed, and it was the inhabitants of the south of France who were for a time to be subjected to the hateful inconveniences of war. They had little expected this turn in their fortunes: Napoleon had even at one time had the ambitious idea of driving us out of the Peninsula, but he now found us forcing his own army into its own country: he had at one time thought that he would subdue Europe, but had while labouring under that error been subdued himself.

And all this was very much to our gratification, for we had long been looking forward to this result, being entirely sick of Spain. As for those places which had become so famous through us, we could not help thinking and referring back to the many comrades we had left there in their cold graves. Since our regiment had left for Ireland on this expedition nine hundred strong, fifty-one hundred men had joined us from our depôt, but at the time of our march to Orthes we did not in spite of this number more than seven hundred. I do not mean to say that we lost all these in battle, though I can safely say we did the greater part, either killed or badly wounded: but of course many must be reckoned who fell by disease, or as some did from their own drunkenness or gluttony, assisted by the inclemency of the climate; nor must those skulkers, of whom there must have been so many through the whole campaign, be forgotten.

Lord Wellington had watched with hatred the many excesses committed by the enemy on the Portuguese and Spanish inhabitants during the late campaign, and had determined, now he had carried the war into France, to set them for the future a better example; and accordingly he issued a proclamation that no plundering was to be carried on, on pain of death, which was much to the credit of our noble commander.

We arrived in France at a wrong time of the year to see its beauties, but from what I could then judge it abounded in elegancies and varieties of taste, such as vineyards, oranges, pomegranates, figs, and olive-trees to any extent, not altogether unlike the productions of Spain.

On nearing Orthes, we found the French had taken up a very strong position on a range of fine heights stretching from Orthes to St. Boes, and we were ordered in conjunction with the Seventh division to cross a river and attack the latter place, which had one of the heights occupied by the enemy at the back of it, giving them a commanding view of the place. Some delay was occasioned at the river, for there being no bridge, a pontoon was obliged to be thrown across; but this being accomplished, our divisions were soon over it, and being joined by a brigade of cavalry and artillery, we formed line and marched on St. Boes. The village was stoutly defended by the enemy, who on our nearing them fired briskly at us, for a long time standing their ground and trying hard to retain their charge; but they soon found they had sharp taskmasters to deal with, for our troops of