It was too late now to change the route for the rest
of the army. Nearly half the force had already
started on the road to Almeida, and the supplies for
their subsistence had been collected at that town.
Therefore it was necessary that the main body of the
infantry should travel by that road, while three thousand
were to act as a guard for the artillery and cavalry
on the other route.
THE ADVANCE
“It is enough to drive Sir John out of his senses,”
the colonel said, as the news was discussed after
mess. “These people must be the champion
liars of the world. Not content with doing nothing
themselves, they seem to delight in inventing lies
to prevent our doing anything for them. Who ever
heard of an army marching, without artillery and cavalry,
one way, while these arms travelled by a different
road entirely, and that not for a march of twenty
miles, but for a march of three hundred? One battery
is to go with us. But what will be the use of
six guns against an enemy with sixty? Every day
the baggage is being cut down owing to these blackguard
Portuguese breaking their engagements to furnish waggons,
and we shall have to march pretty nearly as we stand,
and to take with us nothing beyond one change of clothes.”
Loud exclamations of discontent ran round the table.
It was bad enough that in the midst of a campaign
waggons should break down and baggage be left behind,
but that troops should start upon a campaign with scarcely
the necessaries of life had caused general anger in
the army; and no order would have been more willingly
obeyed than one to march upon Lisbon, shoot every
public official, establish a state of siege, and rule
by martial law, seizing for the use of the army every
draught animal, waggon, and carriage that could be
found in the city, or swept in from the country round.
The colonel had not exaggerated matters. The number
of tents to be taken were altogether insufficient
for the regiment, even with the utmost crowding possible.
The officers’ baggage had been cut down to twenty
pounds a head—an amount scarcely sufficient
for a single change of clothes and boots. Even
the amount of ammunition to be taken would be insufficient
to refill the soldiers’ pouches after the supply
they carried was exhausted.
The paucity of baggage would not have mattered so
much had the march begun at the commencement of summer,
instead of just as winter was setting in. In
the former case, men could have slept in the open air,
and a solitary blanket and one change of clothes would
have sufficed; but with the wet season at hand, to
be followed by winter cold, the grievance was a very
serious one. Terence had already learned that
the brigade was to march in two days, and that the
great bulk of the baggage was to be stored at Torres
Vedras, which was to be occupied on their leaving by
some of the troops that would remain in Portugal.
