Part 9

I went into the town through the breach, in the evening, and there witnessed the true horrors of war; the soldiers were, for the most part, half drunk--all were busy plundering and destroying: every thing of value was ransacked--furniture thrown out of the windows--shops rifled--packages of goods torn open and scattered about--the streets close to the breach, as well as the breach itself, covered with dead and wounded:--over these bodies, of necessity, I passed on my way. As few women were in the town, the horrors attending the sex under such circumstances were also few; and the attempt at ill-treating a female on the day subsequent to the capture of the town, was summarily punished by Lord Beresford on the spot. It was thus: although plunder was nearly subdued on the day after entering San Sebastian, yet stragglers were prowling about in spite of all efforts to prevent further mischief: a woman was looking out of a window on the first floor of a house, and I saw a drunken Portuguese soldier run into the passage directly below where the woman was. Lord Beresford happened to be walking a little before me in a plain blue coat and cocked hat, accompanied by another officer: his Lordship saw the Portuguese running into the house, and presently we heard the screams of a female--the woman had gone from the window. Lord Beresford instantly followed the Portuguese, and in a few minutes brought his senhorship down by the collar; then with the flat of his sword gave the fellow that sort of a drubbing which a powerful man, like his Lordship, is capable of inflicting. Under the circumstances I thought it well bestowed, and far better than trying him by court martial.

I understood that when the troops got into the town, the French retreated behind their barricades in the streets, made with barrels of sand and clay; from whence they fired at their pursuers, and when driven from one, fled to the next, until they gained the Castle-hill. It is thus the French generally fight against our troops--they take every advantage of screening themselves from shot, and but on very few occasions stand up man to man with the bayonet.

The town was dreadfully injured by shot, shell, and the destructive fury of our troops:[9] but by no means so dilapidated as Flushing was. A great number of the inhabitants had left San Sebastian previous to its blockade, and the few respectable families who remained, fled to the Castle along with the French.

For several days after the storming, soldiers and sailors were to be seen strutting about the roads outside the town in masquerade--some in silks and satins--others as pedlars selling their plunder to the people who came from Passages to see the wreck of San Sebastian: the roads were like a fair; and the humour of the Portuguese and our sailors glossed over the horrors of the time with strange mirth. In general the sailors were habited in old fashioned silk gowns and petticoats, put on over their tarry jackets; while on a battered sail-cloth hat, Jack sported a Spanish veil. The garrison in the Castle held out a week, but at the end of that time surrendered: the number marched out was, I believe, 1,800.

From the fall of San Sebastian, until the invasion of France in the month following, nothing particular took place, and the army reposed in the luxuriant valleys of Navarre. Here both officers and men enjoyed themselves in quiet: they had plenty of provision--plenty of forage for the horses--a profusion of fruit and excellent wine--the weather was delightful, and the country the most picturesque on earth. However, little more than a month passed over before the army crossed the Bidassoa, driving the enemy from their frontier, and our successful commander established his head quarters at _St. Jean de Luz_. I had been quartered at Tafalia from a week after the siege until the fall of Pamplona, and that being the only fortress to impede the operations of the army--from its being occupied by the enemy--it is not unlikely that its fall was the signal for the invasion of France.

On the surrender of Pamplona, the French garrison were permitted to march out, with closed knapsacks. They were escorted by the Spaniards through Tolosa to Passages for embarkation as prisoners of war; and, unhappily for many of them, they found the difference between Spanish and British foes on that miserable occasion.

It was cold weather when the garrison marched out: they were disarmed of course. The French governor and several of the superior officers were allowed to ride their own horses, and suffered nothing more severe than mere insults from their escort, the Spaniards. Far different was it with the men: every species of brutality was practised against them short of open massacre. The road from Pamplona to Tolosa is one of the widest and best in Spain, not very inferior to any in Great Britain: it takes a course through valleys along the sides of an immense mountain for a considerable way, and, frequently, over patches of fertile country--the whole abounding in foliage. Occasional villages present themselves at a few miles distant from each other, and now and then a farm house or two opens upon the traveller’s view in some wild spot.

I was on my route from Tafalia, in company with a brother officer; and then returning to the front. We slept one night in a village within a mile and a half of Pamplona, as one of our halting places; and next day in passing the town we saw a considerable body of Spanish troops--principally cavalry--drawn up; and, on enquiry, learnt that they were waiting to receive the French garrison, which were then about to march out as prisoners of war. In a few moments the French appeared and were placed in column to proceed thus on their route to Tolosa. We marched with them all that day, conversing with the governor--a gentlemanly and pleasant officer--who expressed his fears of ill treatment for his men, regretting that it was not by the English that they were escorted. It came on to snow severely about four o’clock in the afternoon, and promised a most miserable night to the poor prisoners, as they had a full league farther to go before they could get under cover; and they were far less able to bear fatigue than the Spaniards who escorted them; for they had been half starved in the garrison--provisions having been exhausted:--the governor declared that they had all been subsisting for twelve days previous to surrender, on four ounces _of horse flesh_ per day to each man, and that the horses killed for that purpose were the private property of the officers.

We rode along with the column until dark, when we left it to take up our quarter for the night at a farm-house, which we saw on the left, in a valley, at the distance of about a quarter of a mile. Here we passed the time pleasantly, having met with hospitable people who accommodated us with what we wished. My friend had purchased a brace of woodcocks in the village where we slept on the previous night, and my servant was busy cooking them: while we sat at the fire along with the farmer, his wife and three children, enjoying ourselves with a glass of good Tafalia wine, about seven o’clock, a youth who was in the employ of the farmer, lifted the latch, and entered, covered with snow; his face was as white as his clothes, and he evidently laboured under extreme terror. His master demanded what was the matter--in the Basque language, which we did not understand, and which is the language of the country people in that quarter: the boy, in the most apparently incoherent manner, spoke for several minutes, shuddering as he spoke. We supposed that he had encountered a mountain ghost in full costume; but the master explained in Spanish the cause of his servant’s fright to be nothing etherial. He said that the boy had been returning from a neighbouring farmer’s house, and was crossing the main road in the snow, when he stumbled over something, and fell; it was quite dark; at first he thought it was a _Borachio_,[10] or a sack of corn that thus tripped him, and put down his hand to it. He felt it warm, and on closer examination found it to be a dead body quite naked, and bleeding warm blood from the throat and breast, with which the boy’s hands were covered. He ran towards a gap to get into the field which led him towards his master’s, and in climbing up, his foot slipped by occasion of the snow, and down he fell into the ditch upon another dead, naked, and bleeding body! At first I was at a loss to account for this extraordinary affair, but the Spaniard, who was a shrewd man, soon awakened me to the cause. “They are French,” said he;--“French prisoners killed by the soldiers of the escort, for their knapsacks and clothes.” A shudder of horror passed through the nerves of both my friend and myself. At first we thought of proceeding on after the column, and to remonstrate with the Spanish Commanding-officer; but a moment’s reflection showed us the uselessness as well as danger of such an undertaking: we therefore contented ourselves with condemning the dastard villany of the action, and in plans of preventing the like outrages for the remainder of the march.

The next morning we mounted our horses a little after daylight, and proceeded to the main road in order to pursue our route to Tolosa, and there the scene which opened upon us was one of the most heart-sinking nature: at least thirty bodies were scattered along the road, for the distance of about two miles; most of them stabbed in the breast, side, and abdomen--others with their throats cut; and some who had not died of their wounds were gasping in death, hastened by the extreme inclemency of the weather to which they had been exposed the whole of the night--and all completely naked! We stopped with one young man who could just speak a little; I put my canteen to his lips, and he swallowed a mouthful of brandy, which for a moment lighted up the expiring spark of life. The suffering victim told us that the Spanish soldiers stabbed him in the breast when it became quite dark. He said that happening to be on the flank of the column, and being a little tired and weak, he straggled out from it a moment, when one of the Spaniards dragged him into the ditch and plunged his steel into his body; then took off his knapsack and clothes, leaving him naked as he was, exposed all night to the snow and sleet. We threw our blankets down, and lifted him upon them--the blood gushed out afresh from his side. We immediately commenced to carry him back to the house we had slept in the preceding night; but before we had gone many yards with the unhappy soldier, he died.

We lost no time in proceeding onwards to overtake the column, and we came up with it in about two hours. The poor jaded prisoners looked at us as if they thought we could protect them from their abominable persecutors, and many of them begged our interference, and corroborated what the dying soldier told us. We heard the same melancholy complaint from the French commandant and his officers. He said he remonstrated with the commanding-officer of the Spaniards, but was answered that the men should keep close in the column, and then they would not be exposed to the danger of being murdered! My friend and I immediately rode up to the Spanish officer in command, and represented the horrid scene which was acted on the preceding night; but instead of a humane and soldier-like consideration of the report, he cooly observed that _he_ did not see them doing it, and that the prisoners must be more careful not to straggle. I asked him to investigate the matter, and concluded by hoping that the horrors of the night before would not be renewed that night. My friend added, that it was a disgrace to the name of a nation to murder their prisoners thus. He said he could not help it, and that these things must happen in spite of the officers. We plainly saw that those men, who from their rank should have been supposed to have known better, were indirectly as much of the base assassin as the wretches they commanded: however, I believe they were not the _regular_ troops of the line, but the militia of the province. God forbid that all the Spanish army were such as this sample! For the sake of human nature, I hope they were not. The Spaniards had certainly suffered much from the French invading army; but nothing should have operated so disgraceful a crime in them, as to murder the helpless prisoners _entrusted to their protection_. The British soldiers, with all their faults, never stained the name of their country with conduct like this: they have pilfered--they have plundered--they have rioted in drunkenness and debauchery; but they never _struck a prostrate foe_: they were the most formidable enemies to the French in Spain; but they were the first to whom the fallen of that nation looked to for protection--and not in _vain_--except in one _grand instance_ * * * But in this, thank Heaven! the _Nation_, although bearing the blame, _unjustly bears it_; for _it was the act of its evil director, and wholly unsanctioned by the hearts of its people_.

We obtained a sort of promise, however, from the Spanish officers, not again to allow such conduct as disgraced the preceding night; and having cautioned the French in the rear to keep close together, we went to our quarters in a little village, with some hopes that the murderers would not again go to their infernal work; but we were disappointed; for next morning the front room of the cottage in which we passed the night, was filled with Spanish soldiers at day-break, (for it happened to be a sort of wine-house,) and every one of them had a knapsack or two which they took from the French on the preceding evening: and no doubt for every knapsack which we counted, there was a murdered prisoner. We were horror-struck when we beheld them, and spoke in very decided terms of the brutality of the soldiers; but they only replied by recommending the English officers to mind their own men, and let Spaniards do as they liked!--nay, they made no secret of their atrocity, but boasted to each other of the manner in which they selected the prisoners who carried the largest knapsacks, and of the celerity with which they detached them from their comrades and slaughtered them. These wretches held a sort of fair or market in front of this cottage, selling the clothes and contents of the plundered knapsacks to the peasants of the village.

This proved to be the last day of slaughter for the poor unhappy prisoners; for they arrived at Tolosa that evening by four o’clock, and their further march was only to Passages (one day’s march) where they were to embark. My friend and I, however, to guard against further outrage, reported the affair to the Spanish authorities at Tolosa, who, although promising to effectually prevent a recurrence, _excused_ the murderers by saying, “that they had not received a shilling pay for two years; and this,” said they, “is owing to these infernal French.” There would have been some reason in this, if the murdered had been the men who designed and moved the Spanish invasion; but these unhappy prisoners were as much the victims of it as the Spaniards themselves.

I now proceeded to my quarters at _Urogne_, beyond the Bidassoa, between _Fontarabia_ and _St. Jean de Luz_. From the appearance of the town, the armies must have had severe fighting there: the houses were all in ruins, and no inhabitants to be seen: here I remained until the advance of the army to its ultimate conquest at Toulouse, which began the winter’s campaign in France.--But, as the crossing of the Bidassoa, properly speaking, was the end of the _Last Campaign in the Peninsula_, I must with it conclude this sketch--on which I have already, perhaps, dwelt too long.

NIGHTS IN THE GUARD-HOUSE.

No. V.

“Holloa! what is that, sentry?”

“They are firing on the hills, sir.”

Out ran Sergeant Dobson from the guard-house, and looked through the dark towards the point from which he supposed the muskets had been fired.

“They are at it, sure enough,” said he--“Pop!--there they go. Is that a house o’ fire?”

“I think it is, sir,” replied the sentry.

The Sergeant now ran to a rising ground, behind the guard-house to satisfy himself, by taking an observation. It was a dark, cold, windy night, and the flames from a burning house upon a hill, about half a mile in front of the spot where the sergeant stood, spread a glare of red and white light upon the objects immediately around it, which had a sublime effect. The sergeant could plainly distinguish the figures of soldiers, between him and the flames, running until they disappeared in the darkness of the valley over which the flames waved; and he was now convinced that a desperate resistance must have been made to the party, that was sent to support the excise-officers, in taking possession of a private still, which had long been at work in the house now burning in sight of the sergeant.

The house where the illicit still produced its periodical flow of potyeen, was an old strong stone building, of three stories high, and partly in ruin. The lands upon which it was situated, and of which it had been once the manor-house, were “in chancery,” and the only inhabitants it possessed, were a sort of steward and his family, who received no pay for his services, except his house-room and firing, with leave to grow potatoes in the garden, and feed a cow on the estate--sometimes, perhaps, a pig or two. The agent of the estate seldom visited the ruin, unless when he took a shooting excursion; and then he did not trouble himself much with the old steward’s means of living. To make up for all deficiencies in salary, the occupier of the house, in conjunction with others, set up “a bit of a still,” as he termed it, and supplied thereby a considerable part of the neighbouring people, with potyeen and broken heads for several years, under the very noses of the excise-officers, who were either too wise, or too blind to take notice of the matter. The rumour was not without foundation, which hinted that several mugs and canteens of the old steward’s _best_, found their way into Ballycraggen guard-house. This, however, was only rumoured, and never happened to arrive at the ears of the officers then quartered in the town; for had that been the case, Corporal O’Callaghan, Private Mulligan, Jack Andrews, and even Sergeant M’Fadgen himself, would have got into a bit of a hobble, as sure as potyeen is good whiskey. But not a word more about that--let the officers find such things out--I’ll never “peach,” upon good soldiers. If they did take a drop while on guard, it was only to keep the frost out of their stomachs--(and as Mulligan says,) nobody ever saw them “a bit the worse o’ dthrink.”

The burning of the house was going on rapidly--the flames encreasing in strength, and streaming along the hill, over high pines and thick bush wood. The whole of the guard were at the front of the guard-house, observing the progress of the fire, when the glistening of the firelocks with fixed bayonets caught their attention, rising from the valley below them; and, through the faint and red light, they could perceive they were some of their own regiment who approached.

The guard immediately got under arms, to receive them. The challenge was given--the watch word passed--and the party commanded by Ensign Morris, halted in front of the guard-house, and delivered to the sergeant of the guard (Dobson) two prisoners--one slightly wounded by a shot in the arm.

The Ensign gave orders that they should be kept in the guard-house until morning, and left Corporal Callaghan with two men, to strengthen the guard: after which, he gave the word to his party, “Right face,”--“March;” and proceeded to the head-quarters of the regiment.

The prisoners were two labourers who belonged to the still, and the only two of its defenders who were taken.

“Well, my gay fellows, you gave us a purty bit o’ business to-night--eh?” growled Corporal O’Callaghan, when all were seated in the guard-house. “Look at that,” continued he, taking off his cap, and showing them a hole made by a bullet; “look at that, ye spalpeens. Which o’ ye did that?”

“Neither of us, plase your honour!” exclaimed both the prisoners; “we never fired a shot, at all, at all.”

“That’s a lie, old chap,” replied one of the soldiers who had escorted them; “that’s a lie; for I’ll take my affadavy I saw your infernal face looking out of the window when the fire first broke out; and if I’m not very much mistaken, it was this musquet that pinked your arm when you were running up the hill.”

“Whoever _did_ pink my arm, as you call it, I wish’d o’ Christ I had him on the top o’ Faudrick’s Hill,--he with his firelock, an’ I with my pitchfork; I’d make him know his Lord God from Tom Bell.” This was the reply of the wounded man, who became evidently agitated with rage as he concluded.

“Well, my boys,” observed Corporal Callaghan, “it’s all over now; you are prisoners, and one o’ you is wounded. The business is over, so say no more about it.”

“Yes, yes,” said Sergeant Dobson, “say no more about it;--but, Corporal, tell us how the matter went.”