On the following morning I happened to observe an officer of the French army moving at some distance in front of our lines, having hanging from his pocket a fine watch-guard, which particularly took my attention and which I thought at the time would look very well on me; and being more daring than wise, I crawled towards him with my musket loaded, and when near enough as I thought to him, I fired; but it did him no mischief and only made him take himself off at once. I nearly got into a scrape through it, however, for I was fired at myself in return, the bullet fortunately only taking the butt end off my musket. I turned to run off, and another shot hit the knapsack on my back, but I soon got out of reach of their shot again, luckily, as it happened, without any injury; but it must have been a near thing, for when I next opened my knapsack, I found the ball had gone through the leather and my thickly-folded blanket and had at last been stopped by the sole of a shoe, and was lying there as flat as a halfpenny and about the same size.
The same day we were joined by the Fifty-third regiment Lord Wellington having sent it on to relieve us in case of another attack from the enemy. They offered to occupy our heights, so that we might fall back to the rear, but our captain would not consent to that; "For," as he said, "my men have fought well to defend their position, and I think they will be strong enough to keep it." He proposed, however, that they should keep out an outlying picket, so that we could take our rest, which would be the best way of relieving us, and their commander readily agreed to do so.
Thus we passed two or three days, both armies remaining inactive. Then one day a French officer was seen coming up the mountain, having laid down his sword, so our captain sent a lieutenant who could talk good French to meet him and see what he wanted. He found that he wished to know if we would allow him to send for their wounded, so an agreement was entered into that we should take all their killed and wounded halfway down the mountain, and that they should meet us there with ours in return. This plan was soon carried out; and when we had buried our dead, the wounded were conveyed to hospitals appropriated to them at the nearest convenient place.