While the combat of Venta del Pozo was in progress the main body of the army had been resting in and about Torquemada, undisturbed by any pursuit, so well had the rearguard played its part. Next morning (October 24th) it marched off and crossed the Carrion river by the bridges of Palencia, Villamuriel, and Dueñas. Behind this stream Wellington was proposing to check the enemy for at least some days. He chose it, rather than the Pisuerga, as his defensive line for tactical reasons. If he had stayed behind the Pisuerga, he would have had the Carrion and its bridges in his immediate rear, and he was determined not to fight with bridge-defiles behind him. In the rear of the Carrion there were no such dangerous passages, and the way was clear to Valladolid. It was fortunate that, after the lively day on the 23rd, the French made no serious attempt at pursuit upon the 24th, for there were many stragglers that morning from the infantry. Torquemada was the centre of a wine-district and full of barrels, vats, and even cisterns of the heady new vintage of 1812; many of the men had repaid themselves for a twenty-six mile march by over-deep potations, and it was very hard to get the battalions started next morning.[98] Napier says that ‘twelve thousand men at one time were in a state of helpless inebriety:’ this is no doubt an exaggeration, but the diaries of eye-witnesses make it clear that there was much drunkenness that day. Wellington’s new position extended from Palencia on the Carrion to Dueñas on the Pisuerga, below its junction with the first-named river. He intended to have all the bridges destroyed, viz. those of Palencia, Villa Muriel, and San Isidro on the Carrion, and those of Dueñas and Tariego on the Pisuerga. He placed one of the Galician divisions (Cabrera’s) in Palencia and south of it, supported by the 3/1st from the 5th Division. Another Galician division (Losada’s) continued the line southward to Villa Muriel, where it was taken up by the 5th Division--now under General Oswald who had recently joined. The 1st, 6th, and 7th Divisions prolonged the line down the Pisuerga. Behind the rivers, all the way, there was a second line of defence, formed by the dry bed of the Canal of Castile, which runs for many miles through the valley: it was out of order and waterless, but the depression of its course made a deep trench running parallel with the Carrion and Pisuerga, and very tenable. It must be noted that Palencia lay to the wrong side of the Carrion for Wellington’s purpose, being on its left or eastern bank. It had, therefore, either to be held as a sort of _tête de pont_, or evacuated before the enemy should attack. The Spanish officer in command resolved to take the former course, though the town was indefensible, with a ruinous mediaeval wall: he occupied it, and made arrangements for the blowing up of the bridge only when his advanced guard should have been driven out of Palencia and should have recrossed the river.