With Moore at Corunna by G. A. Henty (ebooks children's books free txt) 📖

the cavalry was a very useful one, for the English had with them only 180 mounted men; the country was entirely new to them, scarcely an officer could speak the language, and there was no means, therefore, of obtaining information as to the movements of the enemy. Moving forward through Batalha, and regaining the coast road at Alcobaca, the British forces arrived at Caldas on the 15th; and on the same day Junot quitted Lisbon with a force of 2,000 infantry, 2,000 cavalry, and ten pieces of artillery, leaving 7,000 to garrison the forts and keep down the population of the city. His force was conveyed to Villa Franca by water, and the general then pushed forward to Santarem, where he found Loison, and took command of his division.

The British advanced guard, after arriving at Caldas, pushed forward, drove the French pickets out of Brilos, and then from Obidos. Here, however, a slight reverse took place. Some companies of the 95th and 60th Rifles pressed forward three miles farther in pursuit, when they were suddenly attacked in flank by a greatly superior force, and had it not been that General Spencer, whose division was but a short distance behind, pressed forward to their assistance, they would have suffered heavily; as it was they escaped with the loss of two officers and twenty-seven men killed and wounded. Their rashness, however, led to the discovery that Laborde's force had taken up a strong position in front of the village of Rolica, and that he apparently intended to give battle there.

The next day was spent in reconnoitring the French position. It was a very strong one. Rolica stood on a table-land rising in a valley, affording a view of the road as far as Obidos. The various points of defence there, and on the flank, were held by strong parties of the enemy. A mile in the rear was a steep and lofty ridge that afforded a strong second line of defence. By the side of this ridge the road passed through a deep defile, and then mounted over a pass through the range of hills extending from the sea to the Tagus, and occupying the intermediate ground until close to Lisbon. Laborde's position was an embarrassing one. If he retired upon Torres Vedras his line of communication with Loison would be lost, if he moved to meet Loison he would leave open the direct road to Lisbon, while if he remained at Rolica he had to encounter a force almost three times his own strength.

Trusting in the advantages of his position, and confident in the valour of his troops, he chose the last alternative. Very anxiously, during the day, the British officers watched the French line of defence, fearful lest the enemy would again retreat. By sunset they came to the conclusion that Laborde intended to stay where he was, and to meet them. The French, indeed, had been so accustomed to beat the Spanish and Portuguese, that they had not woke up to the fact that they had troops of a very different material facing them.

"We ought to have easy work," Major Harrison said, as the officers gathered round the fire that had been built in front of the colonel's tent; "the people here all declare that Laborde has not above 5,000 troops with him, while, counting Trant's Portuguese, we have nearly 14,000."

"There will be no credit in thrashing them with such odds as that," Dick Ryan grumbled.

"I suppose, Ryan," Major Harrison said, "if you had been in Sir Arthur's place you would have preferred remaining at Leirya until Junot could have gathered all his forces, and obtained a reinforcement of some fifty thousand or so from Spain, then you would have issued a general order saying, that as the enemy had now a hundred thousand troops ready, the army would advance and smite them."

"Not so bad as that, Major," the young ensign said, colouring, as there was a general laugh from the rest; "but there does not seem much satisfaction in thrashing an enemy when we are three to one against him."

"But that is just the art of war, Ryan. Of course, it is glorious to defeat a greatly superior army and to lose half your own in doing so; that may be heroic, but it is not modern war. The object of a general is, if possible, to defeat an enemy in detail, and to so manoeuvre that he is always superior in strength to the force that is immediately in front of him, and so to ensure victory after victory until the enemy are destroyed. That is what the general is doing by his skilful manoeuvring; he has prevented Junot from massing the whole of the army of Portugal against us.

"To-morrow we shall defeat Laborde, and doubtless a day or two later we shall fight Loison; then I suppose we shall advance against Lisbon, Junot will collect his beaten troops and his garrison, there will be another battle, and then we shall capture Lisbon, and the French will have to evacuate Portugal. Whereas, if all the French were at Rolica they would probably smash us into a cocked hat, in spite of any valour we might show; and as we have no cavalry to cover a retreat, as the miserable horses can scarcely drag the few guns that we have got, and the carriages are so rickety that the artillery officers are afraid that as soon as they fire them they will shake to pieces, it is not probable that a single man would regain our ships."

"Please say no more, Major; I see I was a fool."

"Still," Captain O'Connor said, "you must own, Major, that one does like to win against odds."

"Quite so, O'Connor; individuals who may survive such a battle no doubt would be glad that it was a superior force that they had beaten, but then you see battles are not fought for the satisfaction of individuals. Moreover, you must remember that the proportion of loss is much heavier when the numbers are pretty equally matched, for in that case they must meet to a certain extent face to face. Skill on the part of the general may do a great deal, but in the end it must come to sheer hard fighting. Now, I expect that to-morrow, although there may be hard fighting, it is not upon that that Sir Arthur will principally rely for turning the French out of those strong positions.

"He will, no doubt, advance directly against them with perhaps half his force, but the rest will move along on the top of the heights, and so threaten to cut the French line of retreat altogether. Laborde is, they say, a good general, and therefore won't wait until he is caught in a trap, but will fall back as soon as he sees that the line of retreat is seriously menaced. I fancy, too, that he must expect Loison up some time tomorrow, or he would hardly make a stand, and if Loison does come up, Ryan's wish will be gratified and we shall be having the odds against us.

"Then you must remember that our army is a very raw one. A large proportion of it is newly raised, and though there may be a few men here who fought in Egypt, the great bulk have never seen a shot fired in earnest; while, on the other hand, the French have been fighting all over Europe. They are accustomed to victory, and are confident in their own valour and discipline. Our officers are as raw as our men, and we must expect that all sorts of blunders will be made at first. I can tell you that I am very well satisfied that our first battle is going to be fought with the odds greatly on our side. In six months I should feel pretty confident, even if the French had the same odds on their side."

"The major gave it you rather hotly, Dick," Terence said to his friend, as they sauntered off together from the group. "I am glad that you spoke first, for I had it on the tip of my tongue to say just what you did, and I expect that a good many of the others felt just the same."

"Yes, I put my foot in it badly, Terence. I have no doubt the major was right; anyhow, I have nothing to say against it. But for all that I wish that either we were not so strong or that they were stronger. What credit is there, I should like to know, in thrashing them when we are three to one? Anyhow, I hope that we shall have some share in the scrimmage. We shall get an idea when the orders are published to-night, and shall see where Fane's brigade is to be put."

CHAPTER V ROLICA AND VIMIERA

At nine o'clock in the evening it became known that the general plan of attack predicted by Major Harrison was to be carried out. Some five thousand men under General Ferguson were to ascend the hills on the left of the valley, while Trant, with a thousand Portuguese infantry and some Portuguese horse, were to move on the hills on the right; the centre, nine thousand strong, and commanded by Sir Arthur himself, were to march straight up the valley.

Early in the morning the British troops marched out from Obidos. Ferguson's command at once turned to the left and ascended the hills, while Trant's moved to the west.

After proceeding a short distance, Fane's brigade moved off from the road and marched along the valley, equidistant from the main body and from Ferguson, forming a connecting link between them; and on reaching the village of St. Mamed, three-quarters of a mile from the French position, Hill's brigade turned off to the right. From their elevated position the French opened fire with their artillery, and this was answered by the twelve guns in the valley and from Ferguson's six guns on the heights. Fane's brigade, extended to its left, was the first in action, and drove back the French skirmishers and connected Ferguson with the centre. They then turned to attack the right of the French position; while Ferguson, seeing no signs of Loison's force, descended from the high ground to the rear of Fane, while the Portuguese pressed forward at the foot of the hills on the other side of the valley and threatened the enemy's left flank.

Seeing that his position was absolutely untenable, Laborde did not wait the assault, but fell back, covered by his cavalry, to the far stronger position in his rear. A momentary pause ensued before the British continued their advance. The new position of the French was of great natural strength, and could be approached only by narrow paths winding up through deep ravines on its face. Ferguson and Fane received orders to keep to the left, and so turn the enemy's right. Trant similarly was to push forward and threaten his left flank, while Hill and Nightingale advanced against the front.

The battle commenced by a storm of skirmishers from these brigades running forward. These soon reached the foot of the precipitous hill and plunged into the passes. Neither the fire of the enemy nor the difficulties of the ascent checked them. Spreading right and left from the paths they made their way up, and taking advantage of the shelter afforded by great boulders, broken masses of rock, and the stumps of trees, climbed up wherever they could find a foothold. The supporting columns experienced much greater difficulty; the paths were too narrow, and the ground too broken for them to retain their formation, and they made their way forward as best they could in necessary disorder.

The din of battle was prodigious, for the rattle of musketry was echoed and re-echoed from the rocks. The progress of the skirmishers could only be noted by the light smoke rising through the foliage and by the shouts of the soldiers, which were echoed by the still louder ones of the French, gathered strongly on the hill above them. As the British made their way up, Laborde, who was still anxiously looking for the expected coming of Loison, withdrew a portion of his troops from the left and strengthened his right, in order to hold on as long as possible on the side from which aid was expected. The ardour of the British to get to close quarters favoured this movement.

It had been intended that the 9th and 29th Regiments should take the right-hand path where the track they were following up the pass forked, and so join Trant's Portuguese at the top of the hill and fall upon the French left. The left-hand path, however, was the one that would take them direct to the enemy, and the 29th, which was leading, took this, and the 9th followed them. So rapidly did they press