twenty-four miles long, equally strongly fortified; the third line, which was to cover embarkation, enclosed an entrenched camp, with Fort St. Julian, a place of strength. In all there were one hundred and fifty redoubts, and six hundred guns; and British marines joined hands with the army and Portuguese in defence, while British gunboats guarded the flanks of the Torres Vedras lines. Behind them, in all, were 130,000 combatants, of whom 70,000 were regulars. Massena made sundry partial efforts against the lines, and then fell back on a fortified position at Santarem; while Junot, after capturing Badajoz and besieging Cadiz, had left Victor to continue the siege, and moved to join his chief; but he was turned back by the news that General Graham had, by transferring a force from Cadiz by sea, assailed the French lines at Barrosa. The Grenadiers, Scots and Coldstream Guards, and the 28th, 67th, 87th, and Rifle Brigade distinguished themselves in the battle, and Sergeant Masterton, of the 87th, captured the first eagle taken in the Peninsular War. Thus to their former nickname of the “Faugh-a-ballagh,” or “Clear-the-way Boys,” was possibly added that of the “Aiglers.” The battle had lasted but one and a half hours when the French retired. In the meantime, Massena was steadily getting weaker, while his immediate adversary was getting reinforced; and he therefore determined on a retreat, which was “marked by a barbarity seldom equalled, and never surpassed.”[39] Wherever they bivouacked, “the scene was such as might have been looked for in a camp of predatory Tartars, rather than in that of civilised people. Food and forage, and skins of wine, and clothes, and church vestments, books and guitars, and all the bulkier articles of wasteful spoil were heaped together in their huts, with the planks and doors of the habitations which they had demolished. Some of the men, retaining amidst this brutal service the characteristic activity and cleverness of their nation, fitted up their tents with hangings from their last scene of pillage, with a regard to comfort hardly to have been expected in their situation, and a love of gaiety only to be found in Frenchmen.” It was not for four days that Wellington was aware that the French were retreating; but as soon as he could concentrate, he commenced a pursuit, in which a series of brilliant skirmishes and rearguard actions were fought at Pombal, Redinha, Condeixa, Cazel Nova, and Foz d’Aronce. Beresford was detached to besiege Badajoz. At Sabugal, which Wellington describes as “one of the most glorious actions British troops were ever engaged in,” the 43rd, with four companies of riflemen, practically checked the whole of Regnier’s corps, with artillery and cavalry added, and even captured one of the enemy’s howitzers.