After I had recovered from the shock, I joined in the pursuit of the enemy, who once or twice attempted to make a stand, but we were close at their heels, so they thought it better to pursue their way at an accelerated pace, covered, however, by some battalions of light troops, who displayed considerable coolness. The French descended the heights, at the foot of which stands the pretty little town of St. Jean de Luz, with its white houses. Our battalion was hotly following, engaged in sharp skirmishing, when our gallant Colonel, Sir Andrew Barnard, who was very conspicuous during the day, on a brown long-tailed horse, received a shot in the breast. On running up to him, which I did with several other men, we perceived him spit blood, but he would not dismount. One of our buglers supported him on his horse, while another led it to the rear. Immediately after this occurrence, my attention was attracted by seeing the 52nd regiment charge up the side of a hill on our right, and take a fort. Shots are very strange things, and fly fast: a Sergeant Watts, of the Rifles, at this moment, received a ball in the head, being next to him, he laid hold of me with both hands, at the same time calling out—“Am I dead? Am I dead?” Poor fellow! he was mortally wounded, and it was with difficulty I could extricate myself from his deadly grasp. The French, after a severe loss, made good their retreat across the river that leads to St. Jean de Luz. With our usual luck we took up our camp on the side of a bleak and barren hill for the night. After this we got into better quarters on the other side of the river. This was at a château called Arcangues. We were as usual in the immediate front of the enemy, and our outlying sentinels and theirs were little more than thirty yards apart. While here, such a good feeling reigned among the French and our men, that they frequently went into each other’s picquet houses—terms of intimacy which they extended to neither the Spanish nor Portuguese troops, for whom they expressed an unmeasured contempt. But this state of things at our outposts was too subversive of discipline to be tolerated by those in command, and of course was only done upon a reliance of mutual honour on the sly; still it exhibits a pleasing picture of the absence of all revenge and prejudice on either side among men of opposing interests. This feeling, however, could not stay the effusion of blood that was still to be shed. CHAPTER XXI.