Owing, however, to the difficulty of the country, and our not having proper means of transportation, we were obliged to set fire to the bread, of which there was a great quantity, although it was the very substance of which we were so much in need. It went very much against our will, but that being the order it had to be attended to; not, however, before some of our men had stocked themselves with a portion that could reasonably be moved. Then having placed the ammunition together and extended a long train so that at any time it might be easily blown up, we retired some distance and waited for the reappearance of the enemy, who, most likely thinking we had abandoned some of the carts, were not long before they came back in strong force; and on their nearing the fatal machine the train was fired and a great number of them were soon launched into the air. We retreated after that as quickly as possible to Pampeluna out of reach of the enemy, falling back that day at least twenty miles; a hard day's work indeed, but not thought much of in those times, when equally hard days were so often passed through, especially in a hasty retreat or on a well-fought battlefield.
We again encamped for nearly a week, during which time we amused ourselves in throwing up huts for officers' quarters, cooking-houses, and the like; and we had settled down so nicely that we had almost begun to think we were to be stationed there for at least six months. But on the very next Sunday we found that we were mistaken and that our hopes were to be disappointed. A square had been formed into which a parson entered to read prayers and preach, and a drum being placed for his books and a knapsack for him to kneel on, he had proceeded with the service for some little time, when all of a sudden up he jumped with his traps and made a bolt, before any one had hardly time to see the cause, amid the applause and laughter of the whole of the troops at his running, which was as fast as his legs could carry him, and looked then as if the poor man might be going on even till now. They used to say that the three scarcest things to be seen in an army were a dead parson, drum-major, or a woman: the explanation of this was to be found in the fact that they were none of them often to be seen on a battlefield; and I think in this case our parson must have told and frightened all the others in the kingdom, for never after that did we have any service in the field.