But ‘sufficient for the day is the evil thereof’ was no doubt the reflection of Rowland Hill, a pious man well acquainted with his Bible. He had for the present a clear order to march for the Escurial, the Guadarrama, and Arevalo. That it might be cancelled if certain circumstances, over which he had no control, should occur on the Douro, was an unpleasant possibility, which did not come into consideration on the 29th of October. Accordingly he gave orders for instant retreat. There was little immediate danger to his left wing, since the French column in front of it, at Fuente Dueñas, had to pass first the defiles of the Tajuna and then those of the Jarama, and all the bridges on both were destroyed or ready for destruction. The right wing was in a much more delicate situation, since it was separated from Soult at Aranjuez only by the Jarama. The outposts of the two armies were in close touch with each other at the Puente Larga, with nothing but the river between; and the 4th Division at Añover had to pass behind the force holding the Puente Larga in order to get into the Madrid road. Supposing that bridge were forced too soon, Cole would be driven off in an eccentric line of retreat toward Toledo and Talavera. While, therefore, all the rest of the army was set in motion for the Escurial at dawn on the 30th, Skerrett was ordered to stand still at the Puente Larga, and to hold it at all costs till the rest of the allied right wing should have got clear. Meanwhile the troops about Alcalá (the Light Division, España and Morillo) marched round the north side of Madrid without entering the city, and continuing their course all day and part of the night, were on the upper Manzanares, about the palace of El Pardo by 12 p.m. At the same time the troops about Valdemoro (3rd Division, Hamilton’s Portuguese, and the bulk of the cavalry) retired past the south side of Madrid, and reached Aravaca, on its west side two miles out, by night. Here Hill established his head-quarters. The 4th Division, from Añover, which had the longest march of all, had been started off before the bulk of the army, on the night of the 29th, not at dawn on the 30th like the rest. It fell into the main road at Valdemoro before daybreak, much fatigued; while halting there the weary men discovered more wine than was good for them--the population had fled and left their cellars exposed for the first comer. There was a terrible amount of drunkenness, and so much straggling, when the division marched off at noon, that many hundreds of men, hidden in houses in a state of absolute incapacity to move, were left behind[132]. The division, minus its drunkards, joined the rest of the right wing at Aravaca that night. Cole remained behind himself--while his troops marched on--to supervise the defence of the Puente Larga. He had been told to take on Skerrett’s brigade as a part of his division till further orders, and naturally stopped with the rearguard.