The enemy having crossed the plain took up a strong position on some heights at the extremity of it; but while Lord Wellington was making dispositions to attack them, darkness came on; and the Riflemen bivouacked that night on the plain. The French cannonaded the bivouack from the height, but the fire was almost harmless; and as the troops did not move from the ground on which they had bivouacked, it gradually ceased. And in the night the enemy abandoned the position and continued their retreat; pursued in the morning by the Riflemen, who halted that night at Lannemazen. The next day they proceeded, still in pursuit, to Castelnau. And starting early in the morning of the 24th, halted that night at L’Isle-en-Dodon. And on the next day (moving on Toulouse) reached Mont Ferrand. On the 27th they advanced to the village of Tournefeuille, a little beyond which the enemy still held some ground, occupying some hedges and enclosures, in front of a bridge about half a mile from the village. The 3rd Battalion and a Portuguese regiment were ordered to dislodge them. And the Riflemen extending to the left while the Portuguese moved on the road, the French gradually fell back towards the bridge and crossed it, taking the road to Toulouse; and the Riflemen did not pursue. The loss was trifling. But a most curious circumstance occurred during this skirmish. A Rifleman of the name of Powell was shot in the mouth, the ball knocking several of his teeth out. One of these struck a Portuguese and wounded him in the arm. The surgeon of the 43rd who happened to be at hand, dressing the wound of the Portuguese, found in it not a bullet but a tooth. On this the cry went among the Riflemen that ‘The French were firing bones and not bullets.’ On enquiry being made and the relative positions of the Portuguese soldier and Powell being ascertained, no doubt remained that his tooth had caused the wound. Powell was afterwards killed by a cannon-ball near New Orleans. I relate this extraordinary circumstance on the authority of Surtees, who was near Powell at the time he was wounded, and who minutely examined into the circumstances at the time. I ought to add that I have invariably found Surtees’ statements corroborated in every particular by the relations or journals of others; and as he was a man of strong religious impressions his veracity cannot I think be questioned. On the 29th the Regiment moved forward to near Toulouse, and occupied some villages and châteaux in the neighbourhood. On the 31st the engineers attempted to throw a bridge over the Garonne above its junction with the Ariège above the town, and the Regiment was assembled to pass it; but the number of pontoons being insufficient, and it not being possible to construct a bridge on trestles, they returned to their cantonments. But it would seem that the 3rd Battalion did cross (ferried over probably)[136] and were left as a picquet in one of the villages on the bank.[137]