CHAPTER III.
Dayhad fully dawned when the general stir of the troops around me put an end to my repose. I opened my eyes, and remained for half a minute in a state of entire bewilderment, so new and so splendid was the prospect which met them. We had bivouacked upon a well-wooded eminence—standing, as it were, in the very centre of an amphitheatre of mountains. Behind us lay the beautiful little bay of Passages, tranquil and almost motionless, under the influence of a calm morning, though rendered more than usually gay by the ships and boats which covered its surface. In front, and to the right and left, rose, at some little distance off, hill above hill, not rugged and barren, like those among which we afterwards took up our abode, but shaggy with the richest and most luxuriant groves of plane, birch, and mountain-ash. Immediately beneath was a small glen, covered partly with the stubble of last year's barley, and still loaded with an abundant crop of unreaped Indian corn; whilsta little to the rear from the spot where I had slept, stood a neat farmhouse, having its walls hidden by the spreading branches of a vine, and studded with clusters of grapes approaching rapidly to perfection. In a word, it was a scene to which the pencil might perhaps do justice, but which defies all the powers of language adequately to describe.
I arose in the same enthusiastic frame of mind with which I had gone to sleep, and assigned myself willingly to the task of erecting huts for our own accommodation and that of the men—no tents having as yet been issued to us. This was speedily effected. Large stakes were felled and driven into the earth, between which, in order to form the walls, thinner and more leafy branches were twisted, and these being covered with twigs so closely wedged as to prove impervious to any passing shower, formed a species of domicile not perhaps very commodious, but extremely habitable. Such was our occupation during the greater part of the morning; and at night the corps lay down comfortably sheltered against dews and damps.
The following day was spent chiefly in purchasing horses and mules, which were brought in great abundance by the country people into the camp. For these we of course paid considerably more than their just value; but it was necessary to procure them without delay, as we were in hourly expectationof a move. Nearly a week elapsed, however, and we still remained in the same situation; nor was it till the evening of the 27th that the long-expected route arrived.
In the meanwhile I had not been idle, nor had I confined myself with any strictness within the bounds of the camp. Much of my time was spent in seeking for game of various kinds among the stupendous cliffs around—a quest in which I was not always unsuccessful. On other occasions I mounted my newly-purchased horse, and rode from point to point, wherever the hope of obtaining a better view of the glorious scenery of the Lower Pyrenees invited. Nor was the camp before St Sebastian neglected; to it I paid repeated visits, and perhaps I cannot do better, at this stage of my narrative, than give some account of the state in which I found it.
In a former chapter I stated that St Sebastian occupies a neck of land which juts into the sea, being washed on two sides by the waters of the Bay of Biscay, and on the third by the river Urumea. This stream, though inconsiderable in respect of width, cannot be forded, at least near the town, except at low tide. It therefore adds not a little to the general strength of the place. But the strength of the place depends far more on the regularity and solidity of its fortifications than on its natural situation.Across the isthmus, from the river to the bay, is erected a chain of stupendous masonry, consisting of several bastions and towers, connected by a well-sheltered curtain, and covered by a ditch and glacis; while the castle, built upon a hill, completely commands the whole, and seems to hold the town, and everything in it, at its mercy.
The scenery round St Sebastian is in the highest degree interesting and fine. As has been already mentioned, the ground, beginning to rise on all sides about a mile and a half from the glacis, soon becomes broken into hill and valley, mountain and ravine. Numerous orchards cover the lowest of these heights, with here and there a vineyard, a chateau, and a farmhouse intervening; whilst far away, in the background, are seen the rugged tops of the Quatracone and other gigantic mountains which overhang the Bidassoa, and divide Spain from France.
The tents of the besiegers were placed upon the lower range of hills, about two miles and a half distant from the town. They were so pitched as that they should, as far as possible, be hidden from the enemy; and for the attainment of that end the uneven nature of the country gave great facilities. They stood, for the most part, among the orchards and in the valleys and ravines with which the place abounds. Leading from them to the firstparallel were cut various covered-ways—that is to say, roads so sunk in the ground as that troops might march along without exposing themselves to the fire of the enemy; and the parallel itself was drawn almost upon the brow of the ridge. Here, or rather in the ruined convent of St Bartholome, was established the principal magazine of powder, shot, working-tools, and other necessaries for the siege; and here, as a matter of course, the reserve or main body of the picket-guard was stationed.
The first parallel extended some way beyond the town, on both sides, and was connected with the second, as that again was with the third, by other covered-ways, cut in an oblique direction towards the enemy's works; but no sap had been attempted. The third parallel, therefore, completed the works of the besiegers, and it was carried within a hundred yards of the foot of the rampart. In each of these batteries were built, as well as on the brows of all the surrounding heights. As yet, however, they were masked by slight screens of sand and turf, though the guns were placed once more in many of them, and the rest were rapidly filling.
There is no species of duty in which a soldier is liable to be employed so galling or so disagreeable as a siege. Not that it is deficient in causes of excitement, which, on the contrary, are in hourly operation, but it ties him so completely down toone spot, and breaks in so repeatedly upon his hours of rest, and exposes him so constantly to danger, and that too at times and in places where no honour is to be gained, that we cannot greatly wonder at the feelings of bitterness which generally prevail, among the privates at least of a besieging army, towards the garrison which does its duty by holding out to the last extremity. On the present occasion I found much of that tone of mind among the various brigades which lay before St Sebastian. They could not forgive the French garrison, which had now kept them during six weeks at bay, and they burned with anxiety to wipe off the disgrace of a former repulse; there was, therefore, little mention made ofquarter, when the approaching assault chanced to be alluded to.
The governor of St Sebastian was evidently a man of great energy of mind, and of very considerable military talent. Everything which could be done to retard the progress of the siege he did. The breach which had been effected previous to the first assault was now almost entirely filled in. Many new works were in course of erection; and, which was not, perhaps, in strict accordance with the laws of modern warfare, they were erected by British prisoners. We could see these poor fellows labouring at their tasks in full regimentals; and the consequence was, that they were permitted to labouron without a single gun being turned against them. Nor was this all that was done to annoy the assailants. Night after night petty sorties were made, with no other apparent design than to disturb the repose and to harass the spirits of the besiegers; for the attacking party seldom attempted to advance farther than the first parallel, and was uniformly beaten back by the pickets and reserve.
During the last ten days the besieging army had been busily employed in bringing up ammunition, and in dragging into battery one of the most splendid trains of heavy ordnance which had ever at that time been placed at the disposal of an English general. On the evening of the 26th these matters were all completed. No fewer than sixty pieces of artillery, some of them thirty-two, and none of lighter metal than eighteen-pounders, were mounted against the town; whilst twenty mortars, of different calibres, prepared to scatter death among its defenders, and bade fair to reduce the place itself to a heap of ruins.
These arrangements being completed, it was deemed prudent, previous to the opening of the batteries, to deprive the enemy of a little redoubt which stood upon an island in the harbour, and in some degree enfiladed the trenches. For this service a detachment, consisting of a hundred men, a captain, and two subalterns, was allotted, who, filingfrom the camp soon after nightfall, embarked in the boats of the cruisers. Here the soldiers were joined by a few seamen and marines, under the command of a naval officer; and the whole having made good their landing under cover of darkness, advanced briskly to the assault. The enemy were taken by surprise; only a few shots were fired on either side; and in the space of five minutes, the small fort, mounting four guns, with an officer and thirty men, the whole of the garrison, fell without bloodshed into the hands of the assailants.
So trifling, indeed, was the resistance offered by the French garrison, that it disturbed not the slumbers of the troops in camp. The night of the 26th, accordingly, passed by in quiet; but as soon as the morning of the 27th dawned, affairs assumed a different appearance. Soon after daybreak, a single shell was thrown from the heights on the right of the town, as a signal for the batteries to open; and then a tremendous cannonade began. The first salvo was one of the finest things of the kind I ever witnessed. Without taking the trouble to remove the slight covering of sand and turf which masked their batteries, the artillerymen, laying their guns by such observations as small apertures left for the purpose enabled them to effect, fired upon the given signal, and so caused the guns to clear a way for themselves against future discharges; nor werethese tardy in occurring. So rapid, indeed, were the gunners in their movements, and so well sustained their fire throughout all the hours of daylight on the 27th, the 28th, the 29th, and the 30th, that by sunset on the latter day not only was the old breach reduced to its former dilapidated condition, but a new and a far more promising aperture was effected.
In the mean time, the enemy had not been remiss in their endeavours to silence the fire of the besiegers, and to dismount their guns. They had, indeed, exercised their artillery with so much goodwill, that most of the cannon found in the place after its capture were unserviceable; being melted at the touch-holes, or otherwise damaged, from too frequent use. But they fought, on the present occasion, under every imaginable disadvantage; for not only was our artillery much more than a match for theirs, but our advanced trenches were lined with troops, who kept up an incessant and deadly fire of musketry upon the embrasures. The consequence was, that the fire from the town became every hour more and more feeble, till it dwindled away to the discharge of a single mortar from beneath the ramparts.
I have said that by sunset on the 30th the old breach was reduced to its former dilapidated state, and a new and a more promising one effected. Itwill be necessary to describe, with greater accuracy than I have yet done, the situation and actual state of these breaches.
The point selected by Sir Thomas Graham as most exposed, and offering the best mark to his breaching artillery, was on that side of the town which looks towards the river. Here there was no ditch, nor any glacis; the waters of the Urumea flowing so close to the foot of the wall as to render the one useless and the other impracticable. The whole of the rampart was consequently bare to the fire of our batteries; and as it rose to a considerable height, perhaps twenty or thirty feet above the plain, there was every probability of its soon giving way to the shock of the battering guns. But the consistency of that wall is hardly to be imagined by those who never saw it. It seemed as if it were formed of solid rock; and hence the breach, which, to the eye of one who examined it only from without, appeared at once capacious and easy of ascent, proved, when attacked, to be no more than a partial dilapidation of the exterior face of the masonry. Nor was this all; the rampart gave way, not in numerous small fragments, such as might afford a safe and easy footing to those who were to ascend, but in huge masses, which, rolling down like crags from the face of a precipice, served to impede the advance of the column almost as effectuallyas if they had not fallen at all. The two breaches were about a stone's-throw apart. Both were commanded by the guns of the castle, and both were flanked by projections in the town wall. Yet such was the path by which our troops must proceed, if any attempt should be made to carry the place by assault.
That this attempt would be made, and that, too, on the morrow, every man in the camp was perfectly aware. The tide promised to answer about noon, and noon was accordingly fixed upon as the time of attack; the question therefore arose, who, by the morrow's sunset, would be alive to speak of it, and who would not. While this surmise very naturally occupied the minds of the troops in general, a few more daring spirits were at work devising means for furthering the intended assault, and securing its success. Conspicuous among these was Major Snodgrass, an officer belonging to the 52d British regiment, but in command, on the present occasion, of a battalion of Portuguese. Up to the present night only one ford, and that at some little distance from both breaches, had been discovered. After carefully examining the stream through a telescope, and from a distance, Major Snodgrass had conceived the idea that there must be another ford, so far above that already known as to carry those who should cross by it at once to the foot ofthe smaller breach; and so entirely had this persuasion taken possession of his mind, that though the moon was in her first quarter, and gave considerable light, he devoted the whole of the night of the 30th to a personal trial of the river. He found, as he expected, that it was fordable at low water immediately opposite to the smaller breach, for he crossed it in person, the water reaching but little above his waist. Nor was he contented with having ascertained that fact; he clambered up the face of the breach at midnight, gained its summit, and looked down upon the town. How he contrived to elude the vigilance of the French sentinels, I know not; but that he did elude them, and that he performed the gallant act which I have just recorded, is perfectly well known to all who served at this memorable siege.
So passed the night of the 30th, an interval of deep anxiety to many—of high excitement to all. Many a will was made, as soldiers make their wills, ere sleep closed their eyes. About an hour before day the troops were, as usual, under arms; and then the final orders were given for the assault. The division was to enter the trenches about ten o'clock, in what is called light marching order—that is, leaving their knapsacks, blankets, &c., behind, and carrying with them only their arms and ammunition; and the forlorn-hope was to move forward assoon as the tide should appear sufficiently low to permit their crossing the river. This post was assigned to certain detachments of volunteers who had come down from the various divisions of the main army, for the purpose of assisting in the assault of the place. These were to be followed by the 1st, or Royal Regiment of Foot; that by the 4th; that by the 9th; and it again by the 47th; whilst several battalions of Portuguese were to remain behind as a reserve, and to act as circumstances should require. Such were the orders issued at daybreak on the 30th of August; and all who heard prepared cheerfully to obey them.
It is a curious fact, but a fact it is, that the morning of the 31st rose darkly and gloomily, as if the elements had been aware of the approaching conflict, and were determined to add to its awfulness by their disorder. A close and oppressive heat pervaded the atmosphere; lowering and sulphureous clouds covered the face of the sky, and hindered the sun from darting upon us one enlivening ray, from morning till night. A sort of preternatural stillness, too, was in the air; the birds were silent in the groves; the very dogs and horses in the camp, and cattle on the hillside, gazed in apparent alarm about them. Moreover, as the day passed on, and the hour of attack drew near, the clouds gradually collected into one black mass directlyover the devoted city; and almost at the instant when our troops began to march into the trenches, the storm burst forth. Still, it was comparatively mild in its effects. An occasional flash of lightning, succeeded by a burst of thunder, was all that we felt, though this was enough to divert, in some degree, the attention of many from their own more immediate circumstances.
The forlorn-hope took its station at the mouth of the most advanced trench, about half-past ten o'clock. The tide, which had long turned, was now fast ebbing; and these gallant fellows beheld its departure with a degree of feverish anxiety, such as he only can imagine who has stood in a similar situation. Not on any previous occasion since the commencement of the present war had a town been assaulted by daylight; nor, as a necessary consequence, were the assailants in a condition to observe distinctly beforehand the preparations which were making for their reception. There was, therefore, something not only interesting but novel in beholding the muzzles of the enemy's cannon, from the castle and other batteries, turned in such a direction as to flank the breaches; while the glancing of bayonets, and the occasional rise of caps and feathers, gave notice of the line of infantry which was forming underneath the parapet. And that no evidence might be wanting of the vigilancewherewith all ranks among the enemy were animated, officers might be seen, here and there, leaning their telescopes over the top of the rampart, or through the opening of an embrasure, and prying with deep attention into our arrangements.
Nor were our own officers, particularly those of the engineers, idle. With admirable coolness they exposed themselves to a dropping fire of musketry, which the enemy at intervals kept up, whilst they examined and re-examined the state of the breaches—a procedure which cost the life of as brave and experienced a soldier as that distinguished corps has produced. I allude to Sir Richard Fletcher, chief engineer to the army, who was shot through the head only a few minutes before the column advanced to the assault.
It would be difficult to convey to the mind of an ordinary reader anything like a correct notion of the state of feeling which takes possession of a man waiting for the commencement of a battle. In the first place, time appears to move upon leaden wings; every minute seems an hour, and every hour a day. Then there is a strange commingling of levity and seriousness within himself—a levity which prompts him to laugh he scarce knows why, and a seriousness which urges him from time to time to lift up a mental prayer to the Throne of Grace. On such occasions little or no conversation passes. The privatesgenerally lean upon their firelocks, the officers upon their swords; and few words, except monosyllables, at least in answer to questions put, are wasted. On these occasions, too, the faces of the bravest often change colour, and the limbs of the most resolute tremble, not with fear, but with anxiety; while watches are consulted, till the individuals who consult them grow weary of the employment. On the whole, it is a situation of higher excitement, and darker and deeper feeling, than any other in human life; nor can he be said to have felt all which man is capable of feeling who has not gone through it.
Noon had barely passed, when, the low state of the tide giving evidence that the river might be forded, the word was given to advance. Silent as the grave the column moved forward. In an instant the leading files had cleared the trenches, and the others poured on in quick succession after them. Then the work of death began. The enemy having reserved their fire till the head of the column gained the middle of the stream, opened with deadly effect. Grape, canister, musketry, shells, grenades, every species of missile, in short, which modern warfare supplies, were hurled from the ramparts, beneath which our gallant fellows dropped like corn before the reaper; insomuch that, in the space of two minutes, the river was choked up with the bodies of the killed and wounded, over whom, without stoppingto discriminate the one from the other, the advancing divisions pressed on.
The opposite bank was soon gained, and the short space between the landing-place and the foot of the breach cleared, without a single shot having been returned by the assailants. But here a very alarming prospect awaited them. Instead of a wide and tolerably level chasm, the breach presented the appearance of an ill-built wall, thrown considerably from its perpendicular, to ascend which, even though unopposed, would be no easy task. It was, however, too late to pause; besides, men's blood was hot, and their courage on fire; so they pressed on, clambering up as they best could, and effectually hindering one another from falling back, by the eagerness of the rear ranks to follow those that were in front. Shouts and groans were now mingled with the roar of cannon and the rattle of musketry; our front ranks, likewise, had an opportunity of occasionally firing with effect, and the slaughter on both sides was dreadful.
At length the head of the column forced its way to the summit of the breach, where it was met in the most gallant style by the bayonets of the garrison. When I say the summit of the breach, I do not mean that our soldiers stood upon a level with their enemies, for this was not the case. There was a high step, perhaps two or three feet perpendicular,which the assailants must needs surmount before they could stand face to face with the garrison, and a considerable space of time elapsed ere that object was attained. For bayonet met bayonet here, and sabre sabre, in close and desperate strife, the one party being unable to advance a foot, the other making no progress in the endeavour to force them back.
Things had continued in this state for nearly a quarter of an hour, when Major Snodgrass, at the head of the 13th Portuguese regiment, dashed across the river by his own ford, and made for the lesser breach. The attack was made in the most cool and determined manner; but here, too, obstacles almost insurmountable opposed themselves; indeed it is highly probable that the place would scarcely have been carried at all but for the adoption of an expedient never before tried in modern warfare. The general commanding ordered the guns from our own batteries to fire upon the top of the breach. Nothing could exceed the beauty and correctness of the practice. Though the shot passed within a couple of feet of the heads of the British soldiers who stood nearest to the enemy, not an accident occurred; while, from the murderous effect of the fire, the French suffered terribly.
The cannonade had been kept up but a few minutes when a sudden explosion took place, such as drowned every other noise, and apparently confounded,for an instant, the combatants on both sides. A shell from one of our mortars had burst near the train which communicated with a quantity of gunpowder placed under the breach. This mine the French had intended to spring as soon as our troops should have made good their footing, or established themselves on the summit; but the fortunate accident just referred to anticipated them. It exploded while three hundred grenadiers, theeliteof the garrison, stood over it, and instead of sweeping the storming party into eternity, it only cleared a way for their advance. It was a spectacle as appalling and grand as the imagination can conceive, the sight of that explosion. The noise was more awful than any which I have ever heard before or since; while a bright flash, instantly succeeded by a smoke so dense as to obscure all vision, produced an effect upon those who witnessed it which no powers of language are adequate to describe. Such, indeed, was the effect of the whole occurrence, that for perhaps half a minute after not a shot was fired on either side. Both parties stood still to gaze upon the havoc which had been produced, insomuch that a whisper might have caught your ear for a distance of several yards.
The state of stupefaction into which they were at first thrown did not, however, last long with the British troops. As the smoke and dust of the ruinscleared away, they beheld before them a space empty of defenders, and they instantly rushed forward to occupy it. Uttering an appalling shout, the troops sprang over the dilapidated parapet, and the rampart was their own. Now then began all those maddening scenes which are witnessed only in a successful storm, of flight and slaughter, and parties rallying only to be broken and dispersed; till, finally, having cleared the works to the right and left, the soldiers poured down into the town.
To reach the streets, our men were obliged to leap about fifteen feet, or to make their way through the burning houses which adjoined the wall. Both courses were adopted, according as different parties were guided in their pursuit of the flying enemy; and here again the battle was renewed. The French fought with desperate courage; they were literally driven from house to house, and from street to street; nor was it till a late hour in the evening that all opposition on their part ceased. Then, however, the governor, with little more than a thousand men, retired into the castle, whilst another detachment, of perhaps two hundred, shut themselves up in a convent.
As soon as the fighting began to wax faint, the horrors of plunder and rapine succeeded. Fortunately there were few females in the place; but of the fate of the few which were there, I cannot evennow think without a shudder. The houses were everywhere ransacked, the furniture wantonly broken, the churches profaned, the images dashed to pieces; wine and spirit cellars were broken open; and the troops, heated already with angry passions, became absolutely mad by intoxication. All order and discipline were abandoned. The officers had no longer the slightest control over their men, who, on the contrary, controlled the officers; nor is it by any means certain that several of the latter did not fall by the hands of the former while vainly attempting to bring them back to a sense of subordination.
Night at last set in, though the darkness was effectually dispelled by the glare from burning houses, which one after another took fire. The morning of the 31st had risen upon St Sebastian as neat and regularly built a town as any in Spain: long before midnight it was one sheet of flame; and by noon on the following day, little remained of it except its smoking ashes. The houses being lofty, like those in the Old Town of Edinburgh, and the streets straight and narrow, the fire flew from one to another with extraordinary rapidity. At first some attempts were made to extinguish it, but these soon proved useless: and then the only matter to be considered was how, personally, to escape its violence. Many a migration was accordinglyeffected from house to house, till at last houses enough to shelter all could no longer be found, and the streets became the place of rest to the majority.
The spectacle which these presented was truly shocking. A strong light falling upon them from the burning houses disclosed crowds of dead, dying, and intoxicated men huddled indiscriminately together. Carpets, rich tapestry, beds, curtains, wearing apparel—everything valuable to persons in common life—were carelessly scattered about upon the bloody pavement; whilst, from the windows above, fresh goods were continually thrown, sometimes to the damage of those who stood or sat below. Here you would see a drunken fellow whirling a string of watches round his head, and then dashing them against the wall; there another, more provident, stuffing his bosom with such smaller articles as he most prized. Next would come a party rolling a cask of wine or spirits before them, with loud acclamations, which in an instant was tapped, and, in an incredibly short space of time, emptied of its contents. Then the ceaseless hum of conversation, the occasional laugh and wild shout of intoxication, the pitiable cries or deep moans of the wounded, and the unintermitted roar of the flames, produced altogether such a concert as no man who listened to it can ever forget.
Of these various noises the greater number begangradually to subside as night passed on; and long before dawn there was a fearful silence. Sleep had succeeded inebriety with the bulk of the army. Of the poor wretches who groaned and shrieked three hours ago, many had expired; and the very fire had almost wasted itself by consuming everything upon which it could feed. Nothing, therefore, could now be heard except an occasional faint moan, scarcely distinguishable from the heavy breathing of the sleepers; and even that was soon heard no more.