The Spanish Bride

Chapter Five. Winter Quarters

By the end of the month, the army was in its winter quarters, with Hill’s and division placed as far south as Coria, in Estremadura; and Cole’s 5th division as far north as Lamego, on the Douro. Lord Wellington’s headquarters were fixed at Frenada, a dirty little town only seventeen miles distant from Ciudad Rodrigo; and the Light division, with Victor Allen’s brigade of German horse, was posted, like a screen, in various villages on the Agueda, in Spanish territory. This was a cold, rather comfortless situation, but the Light bobs knew the locality so well that it was quite like home to them. The villagers gave them a warm welcome, inquiring after many men by name, and seeming really glad to see them again. The and brigade had its headquarters at Fuentes de Oftoro, a village which was still looking somewhat battered as a result of the battle which had raged round it eighteen months before. Vandeleur occupied the local Padre’s house, but Harry found a lodging at the other end of the village, in the cottage of a widower. There was some tolerable stabling near to this billet: an important consideration for a young gentleman owning six riding-horses and thirteen greyhounds.

Everyone felt more cheerful when the retreat was at an end, but the sickness in the army was appalling. The hospitals were, crammed with cases of dysentery and ague; and nearly every man was found to be suffering from an unpleasant form of frost-bite. George Simmons, who had been obliged to mount Joe on his own horse during the retreat, had his legs covered with bad patches. He had worn out the soles of his boots, trudging beside a sick brother, and his feet were in a sad way. He made far less fuss about his ailments than many who were not nearly as seriously affected; indeed, he seemed to worry far more about Joe’s dysentery. Poor Joe had been so ill on the march that had it not been for George’s care of him he must either have died or have fallen into the hands of the French. Joe was one of Juana’s protégés, and he used to lie and watch the door to see her come in, her cheeks and her curls wind-whipped, a basket on her arm containing delicacies she had cooked for him, and always a laugh in her roguish eyes. A visit from Juana, Harry’s sick friends said, did one more good than all the bark-wine the doctors made them swallow, Harry had many sick friends, and Juana spent her time cooking for them, and riding to the various villages where they were quartered. Charlie Eeles was down with dysentery; John Bell of the 43rd regiment; Jack Molloy; and any number of others. Harry, of course, was as well as ever he had been in his life, and sporting-mad. While Juana and the Padre cooked, he went out coursing every day. James Stewart had a pack of harriers, and asked Harry to act as his whipper-in; there were Harry’s own greyhounds; and, when these forms of sport began to pall, there was fox-hunting to be had with Lord Wellington’s pack. If you had a fancy for shooting, you could go with Jonathan Leach, and stand up to your middle in icy water, waiting for wild-duck; or try for woodcock anywhere in the vicinity of the Agueda; or practise your marksmanship on the white-headed vultures which seemed to hover day-long above Gallegos. It was a mistake, of course, to shoot this scavenger of the skies, but somehow the sight of these rather horrible birds tugging the putrid flesh from the carcases of the horses which lined the route of the army’s late march made the men feel an irrational anger. Wolf-hunts were popular amongst the rank-and-file. The country was infested with wolves; they used to sunk after a marching army, hidden by the never-ending gum-cistus, but howling incessantly at night, and always waiting for the chance of finding a wounded man on the road, or a shot horse.

There were five thousand men missing when the army went into winter quarters, and an overwhelming number of those still present were suffering from one form of sickness or another. Everyone thought that the hardships of the retreat had been aggravated by the inefficiency of the Commissariat, and the Staff generally, so that the Memorandum issued for the consumption of officers by Lord Wellington sent a storm of indignation through the army. His lordship, in the worst temper imaginable, had condemned every one of the regiments under his command on the strength of the excesses of a few which had come under his own eye. A Memorandum to officers commanding Divisions and Brigades, the document was headed, but there was not an officer in the army who had not a copy to read. The Light division officers, proudly showing a return of only ninety-six men missing out of five battalions, looked in vain for some acknowledgement of their devotion to duty. All they found was a bitter reference to the habitual inattention of officers of the regiments to their duties. ‘My God!’ Charlie Beckwith said, when Kincaid read this aloud.

‘Wait, that’s not all!’ said Kincaid. ‘You’ll be glad to know that the army has suffered no privation which but trifling attention on the part of the officers could not have prevented!’ ‘That’s one for the Commissary-General’s Staff,’ interrupted little Digby. ‘Quite true, too!’ ‘Not at all! It must be obvious to every officer that from the moment the troops commenced their retreat from the neighbourhood of Burgos on the one hand, and of Madrid on the other, the officers lost all control over their men,’

‘Ha!’ said Young Varmint. ‘Someone told him about the Enthusiastics getting drunk at Valdemero. Go on, Johnny! Any more tributes?’

‘Oh, the devil, this is too bad!’ George Simmons exclaimed, reading the Memorandum over Kincaid’s shoulder. ‘Just listen, you fellows!-I have frequently observed and lamented in the late campaign the facility and celerity with which the French cooked in comparison with our army.’

‘He has, has he?’ snorted Leach. ‘Well, if we could boil those damned kettles of ours on anything less than half a church door, we’d cook with facility and celerity too!’ ‘Wrong!’ said Kincaid. ‘The cause of this disadvantage is the same with that of every other-want of attention of the officers to the orders of the army and the conduct of the men. Now we know, don’t we?’

‘God, I think I’ll sell out!’ said Digby disgustedly.

‘My oath! I’m glad I’m not on the headquarters Staff!’ said James Stewart, taking the Memorandum out of Kincaid’s hand, and glancing through it. ‘I suppose the truth is that that pig-sticking affair annoyed him. He’s a bad-tempered devil.’

‘Daresay the lot he took to Burgos did misbehave themselves,’ said Leach. ‘That ought to be a lesson to him in future.’

‘What the hell does he mean by irregularities and outrages were committed with impunity?’ demanded Digby, in his turn seizing the document.

‘Horrid scenes at Torquemada,’ said Beckwith. ‘I heard about that.’ ‘Damn it, we had nothing to do with it!’

‘Much his precious lordship cares for that! Blast him, why should we worry? If he thinks he can find a finer set of fellows than our men, let him go and look for ’em! Who’s coming out after snipe?’