The Cavaliers of Fortune; Or, British Heroes in Foreign Wars. James Grant
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what the devil are you about? Do you wish the ninety-second to return your fire?"
Fort Napoleon was stormed in gallant style. Captain Candler, of the 50th, was shot through the head; but the French were driven towards the tête-du-pont. Then Cameron entered it with them pell-mell, with bayonets charged, muskets clubbed, swords and sledge-hammers. But the commandant of Fort Ragusa, on the opposite side, cut the pontoon bridge, and thus the whole garrison of Fort Napoleon found the deep Tagus before them, and the foe behind.
Eager to capture Ragusa, many of Cameron's men flung themselves into the river, and daringly swam across. Privates Gall and Somerville were the first men who brought over the pontoon bridge. On gaining possession of the platforms, which were literally ankle-deep in brains and blood, the 1st brigade slued round the cannon upon the French, and blew their heads off in scores, as they crowded into the square of the little fortress, where the 71st Highlanders captured a standard of the Corps Etranger.
The dead, 436 in number, were thrown into the ditch; the ramparts, with eighteen cannon, were hurled over them; the stone towers were blown up; the barracks and storehouses burned down; and the whole place laid bare. In the general pillage which ensued, a Highlander became mutinous to Cameron, who raised his claymore to cut him down; but the descending blow was turned aside by a sergeant, named Taylor, who kindly interposed his pike between them. Even when the gust of passion passed away, Cameron could not forgive the affront of Taylor's interference before his men, and was headstrong enough to resent it in the following manner: When the sergeants drew lots for the command of a firing party to shoot a deserter at Coria, Taylor escaped this hateful ballot, but nevertheless Cameron ordered him to take charge of the execution. Taylor gave him a glance full of reproach, and burst into tears, yet he obeyed, and shot the culprit dead. Then Cameron repented the casual malevolence which is sometimes to be found even yet among the Celts, when an affront has been given them. At Merida, he was pall-bearer during the grand military funeral generously bestowed on the commandant of Almarez, who had been slain there by an officer of the 71st Highlanders, and who was buried with the honours due to a British officer of the same rank.
Cameron's native dislike to receive orders from seniors, his jealousy of the 71st, and Old Half-hundred, involved him in many quarrels with Colonels Cadogan and Stuart, and even in an angry correspondence with Wellington. It was then currently rumoured in the Highland regiments, that the great Duke had some dislike to their nation. The Gordon Highlanders added, that he viewed coldly old Sir William Stuart, Fassifern, and Major Mitchell, from whom they averred that he withheld many honours to which they were entitled. What amount of truth these rumours contained, it is now impossible to learn. High words ensued on one occasion between the colonel and his great leader, to whom he said:—
"My Lord Marquis, thank God! I am beholden to no man for my bread—not even to the service, for I have a comfortable home to retire to whenever I please."
The real source of this bitterness of feeling is unknown; but it continued during the whole war.
On one occasion his pride revolted at General Howard for keeping the regiment too long under arms before inspection! and he sent Lieutenant Grant to the Brigadier's billet with a brief message, "that the regiment awaited him."
On another occasion, it chanced that by mistake he and a Spanish colonel were billeted on the same mansion, and as it was thought too small to accommodate both, he resolved to turn out the Don who was already in possession of the premises. On Cameron arriving with the colours, which were borne by his cousin, Ewen Ross, and another ensign, and were escorted by four sergeants with their pikes, the Spanish colonel appeared in the doorway with his Toledo drawn and pistols cocked. Fassifern drew his claymore. "Forward, gentlemen," said he; "at all risks I command you to lodge the colours!"
The sergeants charged with their pikes, and we know not how the affair might have ended, had not Villamur's corps of Spanish horse turned the corner of the street; this forced the rash chieftain to parley with the cavalier, and share his quarters in peace.
After the night of blood at Almarez, Cameron and his Highlanders marched by Fuente del Maistre, Los Santos, the hill of Albuera, and many other places, bivouacking with their brigade wherever night found them, preparatory to the attack on the forts at Salamanca, and the battle there, which was fought, while Hill's division covered Lord Wellington's rear. After joining the grand army on these contested plains, the Highlanders were reviewed by their great general. Rations had been served out that morning; the sheep-heads had been assigned to the 92nd, and when they marched past by open column of companies, every sixth man carried a sheep's head in his left hand.
When Wellington entered Madrid, the Highlanders of Cameron for one night occupied the Escuriel, in the chapel of which the remains of a king and queen of Scotland (Malcolm III. and St. Margaret) are said to lie, having been conveyed to Spain in 1560. After Cameron marched to Aranjuez, his cousin, Ewen Ross, had a narrow escape from a terrible death. Having been ordered to the rear with sick and wounded from the brigade, and having no less than twelve waggons-full of officers, he reached Badajoz, after encountering many difficulties, and there found that various outrages committed by the detachment of Lieutenant H——, of the 28th, were laid to the charge of his party, such as shooting and plundering the paisanos, robbing them of burros, wine, and provisions. Lack of Spanish prevented the gallant Highlander from explaining that he was not the guilty person; and the Marquis del Palacio, governor of Badajoz, illegally tried him by a Spanish court-martial, and unscrupulously sentenced him to death! Then fearing to carry this sentence into execution, he sent him, under an escort of Portuguese horse, to Elvas, where an English officer saved him from a rabble who were bent on his destruction, and he was enabled to rejoin Cameron in safety. On this march he saved from starvation Mr. Irvine, the poor volunteer, whom he found in a state of destitution near Truxillo.
Cameron and his Highlanders endured great misery on the disastrous retreat from Burgos. Deprivation of food reduced the poor men almost to skeletons; their uniform was worn to rags; many were barefooted, and shirtless. Undeterred by the cruel exhibition of a soldier hung daily at the head of the column (for of twenty men under sentence of death for plundering, one was thus sacrificed every day), the 92nd shot some wild pigs in a wood through which they passed. Big Dugald Campbell, one of their favourite officers, drove his long claymore through the body of a boar which he pursued through the thicket, and claimed from some cazadores. This prize he shared with Cameron and other officers; but the affair drew forth a most severe reprimand from head-quarters, and this was at a time when a duro was given for a handful of oats or nuts, and when some of the officers had no other food for six-and-thirty hours than a few mushrooms or acorns.
Fassifern's regiment formed part of the small force which was left with General Howard to secure Wellington's retreat, by defending the old ruined town of Alba at the passage of the rapid Tormes. There the 50th, 71st, and 92nd made a gallant stand on the 8th of November, 1812. After a long and fatiguing march, and just when about to receive a little ration of dry bread—the first food after three days of starvation—the appearance of the whole pursuing French army under Joseph Bonaparte, summoned the brigade to man the old and shattered walls of Alba—a relic of the Moorish wars—while the sappers undermined the bridge of the Tormes. Two green hills overlooked the town and river. Between these and the wall, within pistol-shot of the 92nd Highlanders, a French staff-officer, mounted on a white charger, had the temerity to ride leisurely reconnoitring, and followed by an orderly on foot. Twenty Highlanders levelled their muskets to shoot this daring fellow, but the chivalric Cameron cried aloud:
"Recover your arms there! I will by no means permit an individual to be fired on!"
This officer who acted so boldly, and thus escaped so narrowly, proved to be no other than Marshal Soult, who, in ten minutes after, ordered eighteen pieces of cannon up to the heights, from whence they poured 1300 rounds of shot and shell on the brave brigade of Howard. This was endured until the 13th, by which time Cameron lost forty-two men killed and wounded. At daybreak, on the morning of the 14th, a despatch arrived from Wellington, directing Howard to abandon Alba, as the French cavalry, 3000 strong, had forded the river above the town and turned his flank. A Spanish garrison was left in the old castle of the Castigador de Flamencos—the walls were abandoned, and the bridge blown up. Lieutenant John Grant