Surtees was occupied in a more benevolent work. Directly the place was in our hands, he and Percival, who was in command of the 3rd Battalion, set about finding and removing the wounded of the Regiment. This was an arduous work; for the wounded were numerous, and their claims for assistance incessant. And Percival was lame, from his wound at Sobral, and not well able to move about; yet they were obliged to carry the wounded themselves; for of the soldiers they called on to help them many were drunk; and even those whose help they secured, soon went off to share in the rapine of the town. Many are the heartrending details Surtees relates; and many are the horrors he and all the Riflemen who were present record of the plunder of the town. No doubt the men were furious with the inhabitants, who had here assisted the French, while at Rodrigo they had resisted them; no doubt they were frenzied with the difficulty of the assault, and savage at the wholesale slaughter of their comrades. These envenoming motives, added to the usual and (so to say) admitted license in a town taken by storm, have made the sack of Badajos one of exceptional violence. Yet all that men could do to resist it was done. Barnard, commanding the Division, opposed not only his commands but even his great personal strength to the plunderers. He endeavoured to prevent the men from entering the town; but they rushed past him, and while striving to wrest a musket from a soldier of the 52nd, he fell and was very nearly thrown into the ditch. He then, with others, went into the streets, and strove to check the madness of his men; but in vain. Cameron, as I have said, got the men of the 1st Battalion together after the assault and kept them formed on the ramparts till between nine and ten; he then thanked them for their conduct throughout. ‘And now, men,’ he added, ‘you may fall out and amuse yourselves; but I expect you all to be in camp at tattoo to-night.’ It was a vain hope; and it was two days before the absentees returned, and discipline was restored.