On the 3rd the British army began to fall back in consequence of information that Soult with a large force was moving towards the rear of the English with a view of cutting off their communications with Portugal. Before daybreak they marched and arrived at Oropesa, the 95th forming the rear-guard with the cavalry. On the 4th they crossed the Tagus by the bridge of Arzobispo. It was during this march that Craufurd, knowing that his Division were famishing, allowed them to kill any animals which might be in the woods in which they halted that evening. A large herd of pigs being discovered was instantly set upon by the hungry soldiers, killed, cut up and eaten in an incredibly short time. About midnight they started again, thus refreshed, and pushed forward to secure the bridge of Almaraz, the rest of the army moving on Truxillo. It was of vast importance to secure this bridge, as it was feared Soult might occupy it. The Light Division, therefore, was pushed on with great rapidity. The Riflemen marched for fourteen hours through a hilly and barren country, still without food, except a kind of pea parched by the sun, and wheat found in such fields as remained ungleaned; suffering also from want of water, the streams being almost all dried up; and on the evening of the 5th the Battalion bivouacked in some woods in advance of the rest of the Division. Before dawn on the 6th they resumed their march under a burning sun, and with the same scanty provision, and after fifteen hours’ march, during which there were many stragglers, faint from heat and want, they reached the bridge of Almaraz. Two companies of the Battalion were immediately sent on picquet at a ford a little below the bridge; and the remainder bivouacked near, in order to support the picquets in case of an attack. Here they remained till August 20, the Battalion being always in advance, and bivouacking in an olive wood near Rio Gardo, and furnishing the picquets at the ford. Every evening at sunset they moved out of the olive wood, and lay down with their arms on the bank of the river, and returned to the camp at sunrise. The remainder of the Light Division were encamped near the village of Las Casas del Puerto. During this whole fortnight the scarcity, or rather the absolute want, of provision continued. Scanty rations of goat-flesh were issued during this time; and a coarse kind of pea-flour, with bran and chopped straw, provided by the Commissariat, which the officers and men made into a kind of cake with water, and cooked on a camp-kettle lid or on a stone, was the only provision. Unless when the men found some ears of corn in a field, and by rubbing them in their hands and grinding the grains between stones, in this way supplemented the Commissariat allowance.