The Cavaliers of Fortune; Or, British Heroes in Foreign Wars. James Grant

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СКАЧАТЬ and three privates. Cameron deeply regretted the loss of his men. The first who died was a fine young clansman, whom he had brought with him from Lochaber, and he attended his funeral in the churchyard of a neighbouring village. After addressing the soldiers on the merits of the deceased, "Cover him up with the greenest sods," said he, "for he was a brave lad, a good soldier, and true Highlander!"

      On its return from this disastrous service, his battalion occupied Woodbridge Barracks in England. At this time an Englishman obtained an ensigncy in the corps, which Cameron considered an innovation; for while, on one hand, he disliked the French, from old associations, on the other, he was not, for the same reason, over partial to Englishmen, and was wont to affirm, "that a Southern in the kilt reminded him of a hog in armour." Unfortunately for himself, Ensign Mudge (for such was the name of the new acquisition) had no particular love for the kilt, at which he railed on all occasions, in very coarse terms, and once particularly at an Artillery hall in Woolwich, which so roused Cameron's Highland ire, that he vowed, "if such remarks were ever made again by Ensign Mudge, he would bring him to a general court-martial!" At this time, the officers of the 42nd wore the kilt constantly by their own desire.

      Undeterred by Cameron's threat, Mudge wrote to the Commander-in-Chief, stating that his health would not permit him to wear a dress so unchristian and uncivilized. Sir David Dundas addressed an answer, not to him, but to Fassifern, stating that his Majesty had no further use for the services of poor Mr. Mudge, on whom this result, which Cameron and his Highlanders hailed with satisfaction, fell like a thunderclap.

      While at Woodbridge, he invited to the mess Dr. Moore (the venerable father of the hero of Corunna), who afterwards addressed to him a letter, expressing his high sense "of the kind and social reception" he had met with from him and his officers. After this, in July, 1810, the battalion marched to Canterbury, previous to embarkation for Spain; Cameron obtained a short leave of absence, and so much had he become attached to the corps, that he wept when he left it even temporarily. On revisiting his native glen, his aged father, then in his seventieth year (the old laird was born in 1740), expressed great reluctance to part with him again, for, like a true Highlander, he had some dark forebodings of the future.

      His three sisters were married: Mary, to M'Donald of Glencoe; Jean, to Roderick M'Neill of Barra; and Catherine, to Cluny M'Pherson; his eldest brother Duncan was practising as a writer to the signet, in the capital; and Peter, the second, was away to India in command of the Balcarras. The old laird was almost alone at Fassifern; he represented to the colonel, that, though he was only thirty-nine years of age, he had received two wounds, from one of which he still suffered; that he had been many times engaged with the enemy, and had seen enough of war. He urged him to settle at home and to marry; offering him his second estate of Arthurstone, in Angus; but the love of his profession was too strong in the heroic heart of Cameron, and he rejoined his battalion, then under the command of Major Archibald M'Donell (of the family of Keppoch), at the far-famed Lines of Torres Vedras.

      To make his regiment as efficient as possible, he ordered that no officer who had been less than ten years in the service should ride on the march; this diminished the number of useless horses which every regiment then possessed; while to increase the number of bayonets, he turned the whole of the band into the ranks; thus, throughout the whole Peninsular War, he retained only the bagpipes, drums, and fifes. His regiment belonged to the 1st Brigade, or General Howard's, in the 2nd Division of Infantry, or Lord Hill's, with the 50th, under Colonel Stuart, and the 71st Highlanders, under Colonel Cadogan, with both of whom his fiery temper and jealousy on points of etiquette soon involved him in a coolness that lasted till they were both removed by death. The Highlanders entered Spain by the way of Albergaria, and their peculiar garb soon changed the constant cry of "Live the English," to "Viva los Escotos! Viva Don Juan Cameron, y sus valiante Escotos! Viva!"

      This was when following up the retreating Massena. Notwithstanding all efforts of that general to restore the barbarities of ancient warfare, much good feeling prevailed between the French and British when out of the field. Of this, one anecdote will suffice.

      A French picket in front of Cameron's regiment, were about to slay a bullock for their dinner, when the animal broke loose, and dashed across the neutral ground, where a Highlander killed it by a single ball, and his comrades proceeded immediately to cut up their prize in view of the hungry and disappointed foe, who sent over two soldiers, waving white handkerchiefs. Under these extempore flags of truce, they brought a message from their officer, saying that he was "sure Scottish soldiers were too generous to deprive his men of the only provisions they had seen for some days." The Highlanders sent them back with half the beef, several loaves of bread, and a bottle of rum. After this, they became so familiar that some of our pickets went over and drank with those of the enemy, until Wellington's order forbade it as unsafe and improper.

      Cameron distinguished himself by his activity, at the head of his gallant Highlanders, in all the arduous operations of that sanguinary war. He led his regiment at Fuentes d'Onor, where it was on the right, covering a brigade of nine pounders, when it endured a severe cannonade, and had thirty-seven officers and men killed and wounded. Major Peter Grant had his arm torn off by a cannon-shot, but he survived to die lately, at a good old age, amongst his kindred in Strathspey.

The regiment was then 897 strong. Cameron was at the second siege of Badajoz, and at the surprise of Gerard's division, on the 28th of October, 1811, when, on a dark, rainy morning, and under cover of a dense mist, Sir Rowland Hill's troops attacked the village of Arroya del Molinos, or the Mills-of-the-King. In this brilliant affair, Fassifern attacked the two retreating squares of the French with his Highlanders, and breaking through one, sword in hand, formed on the other side of the Puebla, and completed the overthrow of Marshal Gerard, who had all his artillery, baggage, money, officers, horses, and 1,400 men taken. In the charge through the village, Cameron received a wound in the sword hand, and Captain M'Pherson, with whom he fought the duel at Gibraltar, was shot by his side. On this occasion the Highlanders had a parody made on the old song of "Johnny Cope," for Gerard, until he heard the pipers of the 92nd playing that popular air, believed the attack to be a mere exchange of shots between his videttes and the guerillas. Cameron's wound was a narrow escape, and is thus mentioned by an eye-witness:[5]

      "The captain of the grenadier company having been wounded early in the action, the senior lieutenant, on assuming the command of it, made a false movement; on perceiving which, the colonel, greatly irritated, repeated his former orders in a voice of thunder, and, as was his usual custom when displeased, struck his left breast with his right hand, which then grasped the hilt of his sword. The last syllable of his orders had just been delivered, when a bullet, despatched by one of the enemy's riflemen, struck the first joint of his middle finger, shattered the bone, passed through the handle of the sword, and struck his breast so violently, that he relinquished the command of the battalion to Major Mitchell, in the full conviction that the ball had passed into his body. On being undeceived, the gallant colonel instantly rejoined his battalion, and, with his middle finger dangling by a small piece of skin only, remained at the head of his Highlanders to the close of the engagement."

      When the French were completely driven out, and when Hill's division was on the march for San Pedro, Cameron, who had lost much blood, was conducted by Ewen M'Millan to a house in Arroya, to have the wound dressed, and the finger, which yet dangled by a sinew, cut off. On entering, they found it occupied by a noisy and tipsy party of Spanish dragoons, who, notwithstanding the rank and wound of Fassifern, endeavoured to eject him. High words ensued, and a dragoon dared to aim a blow at his head with a sabre. Cameron instinctively raised his wounded hand for protection, and had his right arm cut to the bone. Rendered furious by the sight of his master's blood, M'Millan levelled his musket at the head of the insolent Spaniard, and would have shot him dead; but Cameron, who was aware that the Conde de Penne Villamur's dragoons occupied the whole village, exclaimed—

      "Desist, Ewen, for God's sake do not fire!" and struck up his foster-brother's musket, the bullet from which pierced the СКАЧАТЬ