Chapter 2: Portugal and Spain

I do not intend chronicling the campaign in the Iberian Peninsula, although it brought fame and fortune to Arthur Wellesley and added fresh lustre to the reputation of the British army. There are those far mightier with the pen than I to describe the battles, so I shall just touch on the points of the campaign were I was involved.

The 69th arrived too late for the Talavera campaign, and so spent our first six months in Portugal getting more intimately acquainted with the topography of that pleasant land — we dug and dug, and then we dug some more, until we had constructed great earthworks, supported by strong points, crammed with artillery.
Safely ensconced behind these fortifications, known as The Lines of the Torres Vedras, the British army built up its strength and trained the Portuguese, who would become our valued partners in the fight against Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France.
The illustrious Emperor was known as Boney to the irreverent British soldier, who had given their own commander, Wellesley, the less than flattering nickname of Nosey, or Conky, on account of the size of noble lord’s patrician nose.

In the meantime the French starved to death, in a land stripped bare of all sustenance before the arrival of the invaders, outside the fortifications. Eventually the French withdrew from their positions, and we chased and harried them out of Portugal, and then followed them into Spain.
Over the next two years I marched many miles but saw little action., however it was during this time I reacquainted myself with map making.

A year before I left the King’s School a party of surveyers arrived in Grantham, and asked permission to camp on Greenaway land.They were part of the Ordnance Survey of England, and I was fascinated when they set up theodolites, and measured angles, then, by the use of Trigonometry, a subject I was making heavy weather of in my studies at school, calculated the distances between points, and heights of hills Their measurements and calculations allowed the drafting of highly accurate maps, and I was entranced how the application of trigonometry helped to produce these marvellous documents.With the help of those surveyers I grasped the theory and method of trigonometry, and realised the use to which it could be applied. My school teacher was both amazed and pleased by my burgeoning academic achievement, and urged me to study further the making of maps. The survey party allowed me to help in setting up the theodolite, and pegging out the measuring poles, even using a compass to take bearings.
When the survey party completed their task they moved on, but before leaving presented me with a compass, which became my most treasured possession.
However, it was not until night marches in Portugal and Spain that my skill in discerning the correct route to take, by use of the compass, became important. Captain Merryweather appointed me the Company Pathfinder, and both he and Colonel Bywaters used the rough maps I drew. I felt a certain satisfaction to be contributing to the war effort if not actually engaged in battle.

Our brigade was not called upon at the battles of Busaco, Alemeida, or at Feunto de Orontes, but instead assigned to guard the artillery train and the baggage train. Occasionally we would be employed on outpost and skirmishing duties, where we exchanged shots and insults with those French regiments engaged in a similar occupation.
This lack of martial activity was a great disappointment to me, as I fervently desired a battle, where I could gain the attention of my superiors by my action, and thus achieve promotion.
My first real taste of battle was at the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo in 1812.
Our men called the town The Red City, partly because of the colour of the stone built houses, and partly for the amount of blood shed, by those poor souls who fought to overcome the fortress, and those equally poor souls who tried, unsuccessfully, to prevent us.

Here was my chance to shine, and I volunteered for the Forlorn Hope, the band of men who led the storming party through a breach, or in this case over the walls of a redoubt which was a part of the outer defences of the city.
Fortune favoured me, and I was rewarded for being the first man over the wall of the Redoubt of San Francisco. I did not start up the scaling ladder as the first man, but as those ahead of me were killed and fell I found myself alone on the top rung of the ladder. Several Frenchies tried to stop me from progressing any further, but I was armed with an axe, which I wielded so successfully I managed to stay alive until more of my compatriots of The Forlorn Hope joined me on the battlements, and we prevailed.
Fortuitously, as I was laying about me with the axe, scattering Frogs left right and centre, General Wellesley was peering through his telescope and saw my valiant deed.
“Who is that Berserker?” He exclaimed, “if he survives the day then send him to me!”
After the battle, with me still smeared and reeking with the blood of several decapitated Frenchmen, General Wellesley granted me a battlefield commission. I was promoted to Lieutenant, and became an Officer and a Gentleman.

There is more to becoming an officer than merely having the regimental tailor sew the epaulettes denoting my new rank onto my tunic. In the first place an officer’s tunic is made from a finer blend of wools than the coarser material of the tunics worn by the other ranks, and is dyed scarlet rather than madder red. The regimental tailor was quite able to run me up a set of new uniforms from the superior cloth, at a price I would find difficult to pay. However several officers in our brigade had succumbed to ‘camp fever’, which is ever prevalent on campaign, and I managed to purchase, at a very good price, a set of uniforms belonging to one of those deceased officers. Fortunately for me the original owner had been a member the 11th Regiment of Foot, whose regimental facings, i.e. the colour of the collar and cuffs on the tunic, were the same Lincoln Green as worn by the 69th.The colour of the regimental lace was different, but that was swiftly changed. After the tailor had made a few alterations the uniforms fitted as if made for me alone.

It is the mark of an officer and a gentleman that he wears a sword. The only bladed implements I had ever carried was a scythe and a sickle, and of course an axe. I well knew how to handle a quarter staff, as we youths of Lincolnshire take a delight in the fighting with quarter staves at competitions, so I was quite well versed in the footwork which would be involved in sword play, but had never stood ‘en garde’.
Major Boothby Graffoe, the second in command of the battalion, gave me some basic instruction in handling a sword. This comprised of me learning how to salute with a sword, and the correct sequence in drawing and replacing a sword in the scabbard. There are also particular signals, given by the officer using his sword, which communicates orders to the rank and file; i.e. when rallying the men in defence, or leading and encouraging the men in attack. Major Graffoe had me practice these exercises until my arms ached, however when it came to sword play he advised me thus.
“Stick to your musket and bayonet, Greenaway; you would be run through in a trice should you come up against even the most novice of swordsmen!”

My new company commander, Captain Gurney Slade, held no opinion as to what method I should use to kill Frenchmen, just as long as I killed plenty of them. I took him at his word, and although I gave the signal to attack by waving my sword, when we closed with the enemy I unslung my Brown Bess, fitted my bayonet and fought like a common soldier. No one looked askance at my ungentlemanly conduct, except of course those unfortunate Frenchmen I skewered on the end of my bayonet.
Although, after my commissioning, my father furnished me with a small monthly allowance I was always short of funds. It took plenty of guineas to live in the style an officer and gentleman is expected to live, even in the field, and it was only at the sack of Badajoz I acquired enough booty to allow me to live tolerably well for the rest of the campaign.