Note 930 — SECTION XXXVIII: CHAPTER IV

Wellington described his ride to Larpent, his Judge-Advocate General, a week later, in the following terse language (Larpent, p. 242): ‘At one time it was rather alarming, certainly, and a close run thing. When I came to the bridge of Sorauren I saw French on the hills on one side, and it was clear that we could make a stand on the other hill, in our position of the 28th, but I found that we could not keep Sorauren, as it was exposed to their fire and not to ours. I was obliged to write my orders accordingly at Sorauren, to be sent back instantly. For if they had not been dispatched back directly, by the way I had come, I must have sent them four leagues round, a quarter of an hour later. I stopped therefore to write accordingly, people saying to me all the time, “The French are coming!” “The French are coming!” I looked pretty sharp after them every now and then, till I had completed my orders, and then set off. I saw them just near the one end of the village as I went out of it at the other end. And then we took up our ground.’ Wellington then added, in a confidential moment, that there need have been no fuss or trouble, if only Cole had kept sending the proper information on the 26th and 27th. If only his intention of going right back to Pampeluna had been known earlier, the 6th and 7th Divisions could have been up on the 27th, and Hill’s corps too, which had been kept at Irurita and Berueta for 36 hours, because the situation in the south was concealed by Cole’s reticence. ‘We should have stopped the French much sooner.’