heer last night:
it's your turn now!' The general smiled, took off his hat, and said,
'Here, then, you drunken set of brave rascals--hurrah! we'll soon be at
Badajoz.'" A prophecy which was not long unaccomplished. With all
deference to Mr Grattan, we cannot but think that the Eighty-eighth were
very appropriately placed under Picton's orders. Excellent fighting men
though they were, they certainly, according to their champion's own
showing, needed a strict hand over them. We should like to know how they
would have got on under such an officer as Mr Grattan tells us of, who,
when in command of a regiment, came to mess one day in very low spirits,
because, having sent his adjutant to inquire of an ensign why he did not
attend parade, the ensign returned no answer, and, on subsequently
meeting his commanding officer, cut him dead. The colonel told the story
at the mess-table, and concluded by saying, "I thought nothing of his
not answering my message, but I cannot express how much I am hurt at the
idea of his cutting me as he did when I wished to speak to him!"
Field-officers of such susceptible feelings, and such very loose ideas
on the subject of discipline, were not plentiful in the Peninsula, and
this one, we are given to understand, did not long retain his regiment.
He would hardly have done at the head of the high-spirited Connaughters.
But if Picton's severity to the men of the Eighty-eighth may be
justified, his neglect of the officers is far more difficult to excuse.
"_Not one of them was ever promoted through his recommendation._" The
conduct of Lieutenant Mackie at Ciudad Rodrigo was chivalrous in the
extreme. General Mackinnon--who commanded the brigade and was blown to
pieces at its head by the explosion of a mine--wished to confer a mark
of distinction on the gallant Eighty-eighth, and ordered that one of its
subalterns should lead the forlorn-hope. The moment this was announced
to the assembled officers, "Mackie stepped forward, and lowering his
sword, said, 'Major Thompson, I am ready for that service.'" Mackinnon
had promised a company to the forlorn-hope leader, if he survived. But
it must be observed that Mackie was senior lieutenant, and consequently
sure of early promotion. The Eighty-eighth was to be in the van at the
assault, and the probabilities were that at least one captain would be
knocked off. Or, if not that day, it would happen the next. So that
Mackie, in volunteering on the most desperate of