The infantry already began to experience the annoyance of long marches, severe weather, and a very indifferent commissariate. To march over cut-up roads, and through an exhausted country, where no friendly place of strength protects, no well-supplied magazine refreshes, soon harasses the over-loaded soldier. But that, when accomplished in the dead of winter,--in cold and darkness, sleet and rain,--was enough to have subdued the spirit of any army but a British one, retiring under every privation, and with seventy thousand veteran troops marching on their flanks and rear. The army reached Benevente on the 27th--and the crossing of the Esla,[57] though exceedingly troublesome, was effected with inconsiderable loss. The roads were wretched, the weather bad, and the French pursuit marked by the fiery character of their emperor. He crossed[58] the Carpenteras, regardless of obstacles that would have discouraged the boldest--and, in a hurricane of sleet and hail, passed his army over the Guadarama, by a rout declared impracticable even to a mountain peasant. This bold operation, worthy of the conqueror of Italy, was followed up by an immediate advance. On the 26th the main body of the British continued retreating on Astorga,--the bridge across the Esla was destroyed--and the night of the 27th passed over in tolerable quiet. In the morning, however, the French were seen actively employed. Five hundred cavalry of the guard tried for the ford above the ruined bridge, found it, and passed over. The pickets forming the rear-guard at once confronted them,--and, led on by Colonel Otway, charged repeatedly, and checked the leading squadron. General Stuart put himself at the head of the pickets, while Lord Anglesea rode back to bring up the 10th. Charges were made on both sides; the pickets gave ground--the French advanced, but the 10th were speedily at hand, and came forward. The pickets rallied,--they cheered and cut boldly in at speed--the French were overthrown and driven across the river, with the loss of their Colonel (Le Fevre), and seventy officers and men. This brilliant encounter had the results that boldness wins. The French kept a respectful distance, and thus, the column was enabled to gain Astorga without further molestation. But the danger was momently increasing. From prisoners taken in the cavalry affair on the Esla, it was ascertained that, on the preceding evening, the head-quarters of Napoleon’s own corps were but sixteen miles from the bivouacs of the British--and to reach Villa Franca before the French was imperatively necessary. On that event how much depended,--for on the possession of that road, in a great degree, would rest the safety or destruction of the British, as it opens through a defile into a country that for miles renders cavalry movements impracticable, and entirely protects the flanks of a retiring army.