The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence by William Lawrence (fiction novels to read TXT) 📖

in the place at a house occupied by a widow and her daughter, who were very kind to me during my stay there, which was for about a fortnight. Then I received intelligence that a hundred and fifty others were well enough to rejoin the army, so I asked the doctor if I might accompany them. He told me that my wounds were not yet sufficiently set for me to undertake the journey; but I was by this time sick of hospitals, physics, Estremoz, and the lot of it, and was mad to get back to my regiment, so I went to the captain, who was still lying wounded in the hospital, and asked him to speak to the doctor to let me go. The result was that next morning I again saw the doctor, who said I could go, but I must abide by the consequences myself, as he would not be answerable for my safety; so about three days after that our little group started on the way to the army, which had meanwhile moved northward from Badajoz to Salamanca, about two hundred miles distant, which we found rather a tedious march in our then condition.

I had not been many days at Salamanca before a fever broke out, which I caught very badly, and so was ordered back into hospital at Ciudad Rodrigo, along with a number of fellow troops who were troubled with a like malady with myself. On my arrival at the hospital, my hair was cut off by order of the doctor, and my head blistered; and I had not been there many hours before I became quite insensible, in which state I remained more or less for three months, which brought on great weakness. I received kind treatment, however, from the doctor and our attendants, and was allowed to eat anything my fancy craved, and amongst other things, without having to resort to any contrivance as at Estremoz, I could get wine.

After being in hospital nearly two months longer, my strength had come back enough to allow me to be removed out of the town to a convent, the very one before mentioned which I had helped to storm when we were throwing up batteries for the assault of the town. There I found a number like myself who had lately recovered, and amongst them some of my own comrades of my own regiment, which made the time pass more lively than if we had been all strangers. By the time my strength was sufficiently recruited to again permit me to go on active service, November had again come round, so that from the time of receiving my wound at Badajoz, at least seven months had passed away before I was free from sickness and in a proper condition to again join my regiment.

The army, including my regiment, had been all this time actively employed at Salamanca, Madrid, and Burgos, and after going through many long marches and retreats, had again formed at Salamanca, up to which place the enemy had closely followed them. But owing to the season being too bad now to carry on the war, both sides felt more disposed to remain inactive for the remainder of 1812, so Lord Wellington determined on putting his army in cantonments; and in proceeding to carry out that design, for the enemy had now abandoned following up his retreat, he touched at Ciudad Rodrigo, which afforded a fine opportunity, which I willingly took, of rejoining my regiment.

I found that our regiment had taken at the famous battle of Salamanca a splendid drum-major's staff from the enemy, which was stated to be worth at least £50, and it must have come in very useful, for ours was terribly worn and knocked about, being very old, having been itself taken from the French in Holland, during the commandership of the Duke of York.

Soon after I rejoined, we crossed the Agueda into Portugal again, to take up our winter quarters in that country. Although it was not many leagues from Ciudad Rodrigo to where our cantonments were to be, yet that small march seemed to be almost going to knock me up, for my leg did not seem altogether strong enough to bear much marching, both of the slug shots having entered the sinew under the knee, and while we were engaged in this march it was kept constantly on the move. However, after we had settled down for about three weeks, I began to feel more like myself, and was therefore enabled to take my regular amount of duty.

But after we had been in cantonments some four or five weeks, I was on sentry one day, when to my great surprise, a comrade came to relieve me some time before my usual time had expired, which made me think something must be wrong: so, of course, wishing to know something of the matter before I felt disposed to leave guard, I asked the man what it was all about, and he told me that I had been made a corporal in the seventh company. I would at the time have much rather remained a private in my own company than be made a corporal and be transferred to the seventh; it was certainly better as far as pay went, for I received seventeen pence, whilst before I had received only thirteen pence per day; but I was far from feeling at home in this company, as I lost all my old companions; and not only that, but I then stood six feet one inch high, whilst not one man in that company stood more than five feet seven inches. I made my complaint to the captain, who promised that as soon as there was a vacancy, I should go back to my old company, and that cheered me up a little, but made me look with intense anxiety for the change back again.

Until it occurred, however, I had to change my abode, and live with four privates of the same seventh company in a private house, the landlady of which kept as nice a pig in her sty as I had ever seen in the Peninsula. Close by our quarters was the officers' mess-room, the sergeant of which had offered our landlady sixteen dollars for her pig; but the old woman would not take less than eighteen; so instead of giving that he offered the four men billeted with me the sixteen dollars to steal it for him, in return for the old lady's craftiness, as he had offered quite the fair value. The deed was done that very night, the pig being conveyed out of sight to the mess room; and in the morning, when the old lady had as usual warmed the pig's breakfast, she found to her surprise the sty empty.

She soon made a terrible noise over the affair, and immediately suspected the man who had offered to buy it; which soon got to his ears, and obliged him to make away with it for a time, for fear of being searched; so he got some of the men to heave it over a wall at the back of the mess-room. The four men who had stolen it soon got scent of this, and wishing to serve the sergeant out for his meanness, and likewise have some of the pig, they went, unbeknown of course to him, and cut off about a quarter of it, which they appropriated to our own use, and brought back to be cooked in the old woman's house; so that the sergeant had better have given the two more dollars, and come by the whole pig honestly after all.

Some difficulty was experienced by my fellow-lodgers in cooking their portion, as the landlady had generally before got their food ready; but this was at length accomplished in our own private room, with a kettle that we had borrowed from the old lady herself. I likewise had a taste of the poor woman's missing pig, which we found to be very good and acceptable. Fortunately, she never suspected us at all, but often talked to us during our stay there, of her sad loss; and indeed she was in general very kind to us, often going so far as to give us some dried chestnuts, of which she had an abundance, for a treat.

After about three months' stay in this place, during which time my captain to my great satisfaction found an opportunity of putting me back to my own company, we marched to other quarters about three leagues off, in a village which had been for the most part deserted, and there we were cantoned, chiefly in empty houses. Whilst we were here, a very interesting piece of excitement took place, in which one of the officers of our company, a lieutenant, was the chief actor. He was an Irishman, and being likewise a Catholic, had been in the habit whilst staying at our late quarters of visiting a Catholic chapel; and there he had seen and fallen in love with a Portuguese general's daughter. Correspondence and meetings had followed, unbeknown to the girl's parents, but owing to our shifting our cantonments, some difficulty had arisen in the way of their engagements, and so I suppose they thought it best to arrange one final one, or at any rate one of which the memory was to last some time. One night, therefore, he proceeded with two of our company to the lady's house, where all arrangements had been previously made for conveying her from her private window into her lover's arms, ready to elope with him.

These arrangements consisted of a ladder to be placed at a window, and the goods that she intended taking to be ready on the back of a horse, and were all carried out by two of the domestic men-servants who had been bribed, and who also undertook to keep a good look-out until the eloping party had got quite clear. But, as it proved, a worse set of people could not have been entrusted with the matter, for no sooner had they received their money, and the little company had set out from the house on their way to the officer's quarters, than the two foolish Portuguese servants immediately raised an alarm, and a party of six, including these very servants, was sent in pursuit.

They soon overtook the travelling party, which was obliged to walk slowly owing to the horse laden with the goods; and the pursuers being armed with sticks, an altercation consequently took place, in which the Portuguese succeeded in capturing the horse and baggage; but the officer fought bravely for his spouse and was well backed up by his men, so that he succeeded in carrying her off at any rate. One of the Portuguese, however, lost two fingers in the affray, which was an unfortunate circumstance, and after things had come to this crisis, they left off their pursuit and went home contented in having captured the horse and baggage. The lieutenant then succeeded in getting the lady to the cantonments without any further molesting, and on the following morning he took her to a neighbouring chapel and married her.

But the matter was not to rest here; for next morning the old general wrote to our colonel on the subject, and said he intended to take proceedings against the lieutenant for stealing his daughter, as he called it. Our colonel informed the lieutenant that he was to consider himself a prisoner, as in such times as these he ought to be thinking of something else but marriage; but after a fortnight's consideration the general gave in, and made it all up with his new son-in-law, who was released and likewise