The Romance of Modern Sieges. Gilliat Edward

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      “‘Oh, they are murdering us all!’

      “Looking up, I perceived a number of French Grenadiers, under a heavy fire of grape, sword in hand, stepping over the dead and stabbing the wounded. My companion was treated in the same manner. The sword, plucked from his body and reeking with his blood, was raised to give me the coup de grâce, when, fortunately, the uplifted arm was arrested by a smart little man – a sergeant – who cried out:

      “‘Oh, mon Colonel, êtes-vous blessé?’ and he ordered some men to remove me.”

      They raised the Colonel in their arms and carried him up the breach on to the ramparts. Here they were stopped by a Captain of the Grenadiers, who asked some questions, then kissed him, and desired the party to proceed to the hospital.

      They met the Governor and his staff on the way, who asked if the Colonel was badly wounded, and directed that proper care should be taken of him.

      After descending from the rampart into the town, as they were going along the street leading to the hospital, they were accosted by an officer who had evidently taken his “drop.” He demanded the Englishman’s sword, which was still hanging by his side.

      The reply came: “You have the power to take it, but certainly have no right to do so, as I have not been made a prisoner by you.”

      This seemed to enrage him, and with great violence of manner and gesture he unbuckled the belt and carried away the sword.

      Upon reaching the hospital, the Surgeon-Major was very kind in his manner. After he had enlarged the wounds, according to the French system, and then dressed them, the Colonel was carried across the street and put into a bed in one of the wards of the great hospital, which a soldier was ordered to vacate for his use. This man returned later in the day for his pipe and tobacco, which he had left under the pillow.

      In the course of the morning they were visited by the Governor, who made inquiries as to their wounds, and whether they had been plundered of anything; for a great number of English soldiers had been taken, and were lodged in the town prison. The only persons permitted to visit them were some staff-officers, a few Spanish ladies, and a Spanish barber. From the former the Colonel was made acquainted with all that passed in the British lines – at least, as far as the French could conjecture. Although boats arrived nightly from Bayonne, the other side of the frontier, bringing shells, medicine, charpie, or lint, engineers, etc., the garrison remained in great ignorance of the movements of the two armies. Soult kept sending word that he would soon come and raise the siege; thus, by promises of immediate relief, he kept up the spirits of the garrison. He also rewarded the gallantry of particular defenders during the assault and in the sorties by promotion, or by sending them the decoration of the Legion of Honour. In the French Army there seemed to have been a system of reward for good and gallant conduct by promotion into the Grenadiers or Voltigeurs, which had an excellent effect. A French soldier was extremely proud of his green, yellow, or red epaulettes. They were badges of distinguished conduct and only those who had shown great gallantry in action were admitted into their ranks. What with the success attendant upon the sorties and the numerous decorations which had been distributed among the officers and privates, such a spirit of daring had been created that the idea of a surrender was scouted by all.

      After the stones had been extracted which had been blown into his leg and thighs by the bursting of shells and grenades, the Colonel was enabled to move about and get into the gallery running round the courtyard of the hospital, and into which all the doors and windows of the rooms respectively opened. It was the only place where they were allowed to breathe the fresh air.

      One day, whilst sitting in the gallery, he observed a table placed in the balcony below him, on the other side of the courtyard. Soon he saw an unfortunate French gunner laid upon the table. They amputated both his arms, his hands having been blown off by an accident in one of the batteries. In the course of the morning, whilst conversing with the surgeon who had performed the operation, he told the Colonel that he had acted contrary to his instructions, which were never to amputate, but to cure if possible. When he was asked for the reason of such an inhuman order having been issued, his reply was that the Emperor Napoleon did not wish numbers of mutilated men to be sent back to France, as it would make a bad impression upon the people.

      “You must be a bold man to act in opposition to this order.”

      He replied: “Affairs are beginning to change, and, moreover, it is now necessary that the soldiers should know they will be taken proper care of in the event of being wounded, and not left to die like dogs. We send as many as we can at night to Bayonne by the boats; thus we clear out the hospitals a little.”

      In conversations with many of the officers they detailed acts committed by their soldiers in Spain so revolting to human nature that one refuses to commit them to paper. A chef de bataillon once asked him how the English managed with their soldiers when they wanted them to advance and attack an enemy.

      The reply was simply, “Forward!”

      “Ah! that way will not do with us. We are obliged to excite our men with spirits, or to work upon their feelings by some animating address; and very often, when I have fancied I had brought them up to the fighting pitch, some old hand would make a remark which in an instant spoilt all I had said, and I had to begin my speech all over again.”

      The Colonel asked how they managed to provision their men when they went out on expeditions that lasted ten or twenty days.

      The answer was: “Our biscuits are made with a hole in the centre. Each biscuit is the ration for a day. Sometimes twenty are delivered to each soldier, who is given to understand that he has no further claim on the commisariat for those days.”

      “But it is impossible for the soldier to carry twenty.”

      “We know that very well, but he has no claim; and how he lives in the meanwhile we do not ask. Perhaps he lives on the country.” In other words, he steals!

      In the hospital he was attended by a Spanish barber. As he could speak Spanish fluently, they had a good deal of talk. The barber used to tell all he heard and saw of what was passing both inside and outside the fortress. When he learnt that the Colonel was an engineer, he offered to bring him a plan of all the underground drains and of the aqueduct.

      The attendant, although a good-natured man, kept a sharp eye on the barber; so it was a difficult matter for him to give anything without being detected.

      At last, one morning when preparing to shave him, he succeeded in shoving a plan under the bedclothes. The Colonel seized the earliest opportunity of examining it, and from the knowledge he had before acquired of the place he soon mastered the directions of the drains, etc. From that moment his whole attention was fixed on the means of making his escape.

      He knew that the hospital was situated in the principal street, the ends of which terminated upon the fortifications bounding the harbour. If once he could gain the street he had only to turn to the right or left to gain the ramparts, and so make his escape from the town in the best manner he could.

      One evening just at dusk, when the medical men took leave of them for the night, one of them left his cocked hat on the bed. As soon as the Colonel noticed this he put it on his head, hurried downstairs, and made direct for the great door; but he found it so completely blocked up by the guard that, unless by pushing them aside, it was not possible to pass undiscovered. He therefore retreated upstairs in despair, and threw the hat down on the bed. Scarcely had he done so when in rushed the doctor, asking for his chapeau.

      They were more than once visited by the crews of the boats which arrived nightly from France. The sight of the prisoners seemed to afford the Frenchmen great gratification, СКАЧАТЬ