Soult, who had expected Beresford to attempt to cross at Urt, was still more puzzled by the news of this change. What, he demanded fretfully, did Wellington intend? Did he mean to march on Toulouse by way of Pau and Tarbes? The augmentation of Hill’s force pointed to such a movement, but it would be very rash, and would gravely imperil his communications with his coastal base. ‘I am astonished at the idea!’ said the Marshal. ‘Whatever happens, I have made arrangements to mass my troops and attack him if a favourable opportunity offers.’ That his lordship had never yet offered anyone a favourable opportunity for attacking him, occurred to more than one of the Marshal’s Staff; but that his lordship was intending to do nothing but to roll up the French army, and to possess himself of Bayonne, no one seemed to suspect.

On the 24th February, the heads of the Allied columns appeared before the Gave d’Oloron, on a fifteen-mile front The water in the river was waist-high, and icily cold, but by evening four out of the five divisions had crossed with no other loss than a few deaths by drowning. Only Picton pressed on too far, and lost eighty men in an unnecessary skirmish, a circumstance not altogether displeasing to the Light division. ‘Old Picton attacking where he ought not!’ said the Fighting division’s bitterest rivals scornfully.

Soult fell back behind the Gave de Pau, concentrating his army at Orthez, a position Lord Wellington himself might have chosen, since it was admirably placed on a height, and easily defensible.

Hill detached the 1st Caçadores from Barnard’s brigade, and threw them into the suburb of Depart. ‘Orthez,’ said Harry, ‘will remain in my memory as the battle where I lost the Caçadores, and couldn’t find them again.’

The next day was spent by the Allied army in moving into position. Beresford, whose divisions had become, instead of Hill’s, the flanking force, was ordered off on a long march, to turn the French right, and the Light Bobs were once more told to follow him. ‘Follow?’

said an indignant private in the 52nd. ‘What does old Hookey take us for? A set of St Anthony’s pigs?’

At daybreak the division crossed the river by a pontoon bridge, and marched over ground which seemed to be made up of banks and ditches and occasional quagmires. As they moved on the right of the 3rd division, Picton rode up to Barnard on one of his cobs, and demanded roughly: ‘Who the devil are you?’

‘We,’ said Barnard, who was perfectly well known to Picton, ‘are the Light division.’ ‘If you are Light, sir, I wish you’d move a little quicker!’ snarled Picton. ‘Alten commands,’ replied Barnard in the coolest of voices. He added kindly: ‘But the march of infantry is quick time, and you cannot accelerate the pace of the head of the column without doing an injury to the whole. Wherever the 3rd division are, Sir Thomas, we shall be in our places, depend upon it!’

Picton looked as though he would burst a blood-vessel, but since Barnard had really left him nothing to say, he contented himself with swearing loudly enough to be heard by several interested privates, and rode off.

Too hot to hold, he is,’ remarked one of these. ‘He’d swear through an inchboard!’ ‘Ah, well! Got his men cut up, he did, poor old bastard!’ said a more tolerant gentleman. ‘No wonder he’s hot!’

By the time the division reached its post by a Roman Camp facing the village of St Boes, over a mile to the west of Orthez, the battle had been in progress for some while, and the Light Bobs, for a long time, had nothing to do but to watch the stubborn fighting on the ridge. That Wellington, who was observing the battle from a commanding knoll in their immediate front, might be keeping them in the rear on account of both brigades being short of a regiment, occurred to no one; and by the time the Enthusiastics, having won a part of St Boes after a very sanguinary struggle, were driven back in a little disorder, the weakened Light division was fairly dancing with impatience. However, just as everyone had reached the stage of explaining to his neighbour how the action ought to have been fought, General Alten rode up to Colborne, who was talking to Kempt, and told him to go on and attack. The 52nd regiment, moving forward in column of threes, was naturally delighted, but Kempt, demanding: ‘And I, General? am I not to go on?’ was so mortified that he growled to Colborne: ‘Confound the old fellow! God forgive me!!

‘Hallo, Colborne!’ called out Wellington, when the regiment passed him. ‘Ride on and see if artillery can pass there!’

Colborne galloped towards the marsh, and returned presently with the news that anything could pass.

‘Well, then, make haste!’ said his lordship. ‘Take your regiment on and deploy into the plain. I leave it to your disposition.’

So the 52nd went forward until they reached the ridge, where they met the 4th division, in disorderly retreat. Sir Lowry Cole, looking for support, and rather agitated, hustled his horse up to Colborne, saying: ‘Well, Colborne, what’s to be done? Here we are, all coming back as fast as we can! What’s to be done, eh? What would you do?’

‘Have patience, and we shall see what’s to be done,’ replied Colborne, who, never losing a jot of his own calm, had very little sympathy to spare for more excitable men. Picton’s division was scattering on the left: one of his Adjutants came riding up, quite as flustered as Cole, to know what he was to do. Colborne said: ‘Deploy into the low ground as fast as you can.’

While this was being done, the 52nd marched down the hill as though on parade, waded through the marsh under a heavy fire which, happily, passed mostly over their heads, and went up the hill in famous style.

‘The most majestic advance I’ve ever seen!’ Harry declared.

Foy’s men certainly agreed with him. Even as Marshal Soult was reported to be slapping his thigh, and exclaiming gleefully: ‘At last I have him!’ Foy began to fall back before the 52nd’s irresistible advance. The 4th and 3rd divisions, united by Colborne’s operations, recovered from their repulse, and surged forward; the French were dislodged from the height, leaving open the narrow pass behind St Boes, and Wellington flung into it the 7th division, with Vivian’s horse, and two brigades of artillery.

3

His lordship wrote in his dispatch that the attack led by the 52nd regiment had given the Allies the victory.

‘He could not help saying that,’ Colborne remarked, with rather a wry smile. Indeed, his lordship’s unenthusiastic dispatches, with their coldly favourable mention of senior officers (whether they had acquitted themselves well, or had behaved in a fashion which led his lordship to give it as his private opinion that they were mad) were a source of much discontent in the army. The fact was that his lordship, whose censure was masterly, had never learnt how to praise.

But the army forgave him his grudging approval on this occasion, for his lordship had actually been hit during the battle. As he always exposed himself in the most reckless fashion, it was surprising that he had never been hit before; but he had not, so that his men had come to think him invulnerable. But at Orthez, just as he was laughing at General Alava for being unseated by a hit from a spent shot, he himself was badly grazed on one hip. General Alava said that it served him right, and that he deserved to be wounded, for mocking at the misfortunes of others.

‘Wounded? Pooh! Nothing of the sort!’ said his lordship.

However, the abrasion made him very lame for several days, and it was evident that it hurt him a good deal to mount his horse. He would not admit it, of course; and so far from lying up for a time, he undertook a long ride, which he need not have done, to visit Lord March, desperately wounded, and carried off to the rear in the middle of the battle. The 52nd were mourning March as dead already, and were heartily sorry for it. They had not much acquaintance with him, since he had always been employed on Lord Wellington’s personal Staff; but in the New Year he had made up his mind that it was time he learned his duties as an officer of the line; and had given up his Staff appointment to join the regiment. He was a charming young man, and when he fell, Major George Napier was so distressed that, leaving his brother William to hold March’s head on his knee, he dashed off to tell Colborne, who said unemotionally: ‘Well, I can’t help it. Have him carried to the rear.’ Harry, meanwhile, had raced off to bring up a surgeon. He thought March pretty far gone, and was horrified to see the surgeon poking his finger into the wound to trace the course of the ball. Fitzroy Somerset had ridden up with March’s brother, Lord George Lennox, and was very much upset, but March, digging his nails into the palms of his hands, said faintly, but with great firmness: ‘Maling, tell me if I am mortally wounded, because I have something I wish to impart to George.’

‘If you will be very quiet, you will do very well,’ replied the surgeon gruffly. But he told Harry that he did not see how March could recover, a piece of intelligence which eventually reached Lord Wellington’s ears, and sent him off on that imprudent ride. ‘People who say the Peer has no heart know nothing of the matter!’ Harry told Juana. ‘Only fancy his riding all that way to visit poor March! Dr Hare, who has March in charge, told me that the Peer came in in the middle of the night, limping awfully, and upon hearing that March was asleep, just kissed his brow, and went away again, taking care not to waken him!’ ‘Well, that was very kind of him, certainly,’ said Juana in a practical voice, ‘but tell me, Enrique, have you found the Caçadores yet?’

‘Oh, my God, no!’ groaned Harry.

He did not find them for two days, so inextricably mixed with the 6th division had they become. Barnard (the best of Brigadiers, Harry swore) only laughed; and when Harry came in wet, and cold, and triumphant one evening, and said: ‘Eureka!’ he replied in the most unceremonious way: ‘What, have you found those damned Portuguese at last? By God, we must crack a bottle on it!’