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Salamanca. The day was one of great heat; the men were marching in close order; the sky was full of the dust of their march. But war has not often yielded a stranger sight. "Hostile columns of infantry, only half musket-shot from each other," says Napier, "were marching impetuously towards a common goal, the officers on each side pointing forward with their swords, or touching their caps and waving their hands in courtesy, while the German cavalry, huge men, on huge horses, rode between in a close compact body, as if to prevent a collision; at times the loud tones of command to hasten the march were heard passing from the front to the rear on both sides, and now and then the rush of French bullets came sweeping over the columns, whose violent pace was continually accelerated."

Thus moving for ten miles, but keeping the most perfect order, both armies approached the Guarena, and the enemy seeing the Light Division, although more in their power than the others, was yet outstripping them in the march, increased the fire of their guns and menaced an attack with infantry. The German cavalry instantly drew close round, the column plunged suddenly into a hollow dip of ground on the left, and ten minutes after the head of the division was in the stream of the Guarena. Again on the 20th, the same strange scene was witnessed. The two armies were marching at speed on

close and parallel lines of hills, Marmont striving to reach the ford of Huerta on the Tormes. The eager columns were within musket-shot of each other; the cavalry was watching for an opportunity to charge; where the ground gave the chance, a battery of horse-artillery would wheel round and unlimber, and pour grape into the flank of the opposite column. But the infantry, dust-covered and footsore, never halted. With sloping muskets and swinging gait they pressed forward at speed; the officers, "like gallant gentlemen who bore no malice and knew no fear," sometimes waving their hands to each other from either column.

But time was flying; Marmont's reinforcements were fast coming up, and Wellington, who could neither escape nor grasp his agile opponent, was meditating a retreat. For the first and only time in his life he was beaten in tactics! A letter to Castanos declaring Wellington's intentions to fall back on Portugal fell into Marmont's hands. The long strife in tactics had given the French general an exultant but misleading sense of superiority over the Englishman. That he should escape by a retreat was a thought intolerable to Marmont's fiery temper; and he gave Wellington what he wanted-the chance of a fair fight.

CHAPTER XXV

SALAMANCA

ORTH of Salamanca the Tormes forms a great

NORTH

loop, and on the night of July 18 Marmont had seized the ford of Huerta at the crown of the loop. He could march down either bank of the river to Salamanca. Wellington was in front of Salamanca, in a position perpendicular to the river, his left opposite the ford of Santa Maria, his right-thrust far out into the plain-touched, but did not occupy, one of a pair of rocky and isolated hills called the Arapiles. He thus stood in readiness for battle on the left bank of the river betwixt Marmont and Salamanca. On the right bank of that stream, opposite the ford of Santa Maria, was the 3rd division, strongly entrenched.

From these positions the wearied armies confronted each other for nearly two days; but on July 23 Marmont's reinforcements would be up, and Wellington decided he must retreat. This was exactly what Marmont feared, and he watched with feverish alertness for every sign that the British were falling back. On the 22nd the Frenchman made a

daring move. He marched straight down from the crown of the river-loop, seized the outer of the two hills we have described, and made a dash at the inner one. If he could seize both he would hold an almost unassailable position within easy striking distance of his enemy. Wellington, however, quickly sent forward some troops to seizę and hold the nearer Arapiles. The race was keen. The French reached the hill first, but were driven from it by the more stubborn British. These rugged hills, rising suddenly from the floor of the plain, were not quite 500 yards apart: and in an instant they were thus turned into armed and menacing outposts, from whose rough slopes two great armies, within striking distance of each other, kept stern watch.

Marmont could use the hill he held as a pivot round which he might swing his army, so as to cut the English off from the Ciudad Rodrigo road. Wellington, to guard against this, wheeled his lines round-using the English Arapiles as a hingethrough a wide segment of a circle, till his battleline looked eastward, and what had been his rear became his front. The English Arapiles, and not the ford of Santa Maria, thus became the tip of his left wing; his right, thrust out to the village of Aldea Tejada, barred the road by which Marmont might slip past to Salamanca. For hours the two armies stood in this position. Wellington's baggage and waggons meanwhile were falling back along the

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