suggest your line of retreat.... Your march, as proposed (i.e. via the Guadarrama) at least as far as Villacastin, would be secure, whereas that by Talavera, &c., would not, till you shall cross the Tagus. Do not order the bridge at Almaraz to be taken up or destroyed, till you are certain you do not want it.’[131] The dispatch ended by directing Hill to bring on with him Carlos de España’s, Morillo’s, and Penne Villemur’s Spaniards, but to order Freire, Elio, and Bassecourt to join Ballasteros by the route of Toledo, while the Empecinado had better go to his old haunts in the mountains beyond Guadalajara. This was a most alarming dispatch for Hill. Just as he had assumed his fighting position, and was expecting to be attacked by Soult on the following day, he received orders to retire without a moment’s delay. And what was worst of all, he was told that the line of retreat indicated to him would not improbably prove dangerous or impossible, and that he might, within the next day or so, get a counter-order, directing him to retire by the line of the Tagus and Almaraz, since a junction with Wellington behind the Adaja might prove impossible. But a retreat across the front of the enemy, on the route Navalcarnero-Talavera-Almaraz, would clearly be most dangerous, since the left wing of the Army (the Light Division, D’Urban, Alten and the Spaniards) would have forty miles to march before they were clear of the advancing columns of the French, debouching from Aranjuez. And to make matters worse, the enemy was terribly strong in cavalry, and the countryside south of Madrid was very favourable to the mounted arm. If the army should march at once for the road by the Guadarrama, and when it had reached the neighbourhood of Madrid or the Escurial should get the news that the route to Villacastin and Arevalo had been blocked, it would be almost impossible to turn off on to the Tagus line or to make for Almaraz. The only chance left would be to take the bad mountain-road to Avila, and thence to the upper Tormes, a choice that no officer could contemplate without dismay in October.