CHAPTER XL. CAPTIVITY.
“Three hosts combine to offer sacrifice;
Their tongues prefer strange orisons on high;
Three gaudy standards flout the pale blue skies;
The shouts are France, Spain, Albion—Victory!”
Childe Harold.
Day broke through the stained windows of the church; and the cannonade, so fierce and incessant when I was being carried from the breach, died suddenly away and not a gun was heard. I inquired what might have caused this extraordinary silence, and learned from an hospital-assistant that an hour’s truce had been agreed on between the besiegers and besieged, to permit the wounded to be succoured, and allow helpless wretches who would otherwise have been drowned by the rising of the Urumea, to be carried beyond the influence of the tide, and taken either to the trenches or the town. On this work of mercy Cammaran was absent; and, as Mark Antony and myself were sufficiently recovered to converse, we began to make mutual inquiries touching our present position and future prospects.
“Upon my conscience,” observed the fosterer, “now that we have made the experiment, I can’t say that I can either discover the advantages your honoured father held out by letter, or the fun Mr. Crotty described by ‘word of mouth,’ as attendin’ these same sieges and assaults. To my mind Vittoria was the thing;—beautiful day-light;—your enemy decently before ye—if a man dropped, his comrades stepped over him as if they were treading upon eggs, and he was removed to the rear with every civility, to find a full flask on every body he turned over, if he only had the luck to be settled in a decent neighbourhood. Here—if this be fun, may the Lord deliver us from such fun in future! We are stuck down for two hours shivering in a ditch. Whiz! goes a mine—‘That’s our mine, and the signal,’ says one engineer—‘The divil welcome the news!’ says a second—and off we go blundering in the dark, the Lord knows where. Before we’re well in motion, bang goes another explosion! ‘That’s the enemy’s says another—and not a doubt about that, for up go the forlorn hope, body and bones. ‘Push on, lads,’ cry the officers;—one falls over a d——-d rock, another souses into a pool of water; on one side the French are firing like the divil—on the other, and I suppose, out of personal respect, our own batteries consider it a compliment to knock us over by the dozen. Well, we top the breach at last—and a beautiful prospect it is!—In front, a jump of twenty feet into a blazing house, or you’r shot down right and left, like crows in a wheatfield. “Arrah!” said Mark Antony, “if your father wrote every day in the week, not forgettin’ Sunday, the divil a such a night of pleasure will I put in if I can help it. But, Mister Hector, what do ye suppose they’ll do with us?”
“Why, possibly, keep us here for half our lives, and send us into France to put in the remainder of them pleasantly.”
“Ah, then, if they do,” said the fosterer, “they’r cuter * than they think. By all that’s beautiful!” and Mark flourished his sounder arm over the blanket,—“I’ll be off in a fortnight.”
Anglice,—more cunning.
“No, not so soon,” said a voice—laughingly; and Cammaran stepped from behind a wooden screen which had hidden him while approaching. At the same moment a salvo of artillery thundered from the Chofre battery—the guns of San Sebastian replied. The truce had expired—and the game of death had recommenced.
“So end civilities,” said the Frenchman; “still it is comfortable to know, that the calls of humanity have been attended to. I have applied for what you call in England ‘a billet’—that is, the commandant’s permission to reside during your convalesence in a private house, instead of being exposed, as you would be otherwise, to the inconvenience of a crowded hospital. For this indulgence I have given my parole, and that leaves you at liberty to visit any part of the city within the enceinte of the place when you are able to walk abroad. I know that my good friend here, even if leg and arm were not hors de combat as they are, would scarcely run away, when that act would compromise my honour.”
“Oh—by this book;” exclaimed the fosterer, raising himself upon his elbow—“we’re fairly ruined, Hector avourneeine! Here we’re regularly on the langle. Arrah—Mister Cammaran, dear, I know ye meant it for the best—but, why the divil did ye make a bargain of the kind? De ye think ye could get dacently out of it? Och—if we were only back in the country we were in, when we first became acquainted with that Empecinado, as they call him—it was no sayin’ what luck might turn up still. This moment, going to be hanged—the next, drinking as if ye were at a priest’s funeral. ‘Turn him out to be shot,’ was the order one minute—while, ‘turn him for brandy and water,’ was the next. One minute you wern’t master of a scultogue—the next ye were riding in the saddle of a French marshal. Of all the inns I ever stopped at, I never met any where they pay scores as they do in Spain. You go to bed in peace and quietness, and you’re bundled out before you’re well asleep, to be told, that you must light your way through a yard-full of hussars, and swim a river afterwards that would give a water-dog rheumatism for life. You stop at the next public house, and receive all manner of civility. Of course, you’re expected to pay up. Not at all: one black look from an ill-visaged gentleman who accompanies you; and the account is rubbed off the slate in a jiffy. Excepting there was over much shooting and hanging—a pleasanter excursion I never would desire—but, may the Lord forgive us! we were not sufficiently thankful at the time.”
“Well,—my dear friend,” said Captain Cammaran, with a smile. “My engagement is only binding while you are invalided. When perfectly recovered, my parole is easily recalled—and I have no doubt you will be very comfortable in La Mota. Plenty of fresh air—and free liberty to seek any corner you may fancy, as the least unlikely for a shell to drop upon. In the mean time, I recommend you to accept the billet I have obtained—and by the way, in the house of a Spaniard in worse odour with the old commandant than Don Francisco La Pablos, you could hardly have been established. But I have already ordered apartments to be prepared, and will see that every attention shall be paid to you. This place will be presently intolerable, and the sooner you remove to your new quarters all the better.”
The last remark was unhappily correct. The church filled rapidly with the wounded. Every minute fresh sufferers were brought in—and the scene of butchery—merciful and necessary—which commenced, was to us, particularly disgusting. It was wonderful how differently men submitted to sad alternatives,—death or amputation. One, an officer of faultless symmetry, sternly rejected the advice of his kind attendants. “Nothing but the removal of the fractured limb can save you—you will die, otherwise,” said the French surgeon. “Well—be it so,” returned the sufferer calmly, “death is preferable to deformity. Lose no time with me—you may be serviceable to my poor comrade.” Immediately beside him, a young lad was stretched—I should say he was not nineteen—-a fine, florid, healthy looking Englishman. His wound had been a severe contusion—and a passing observation of the French surgeons, announced that his was a hopeless case. And yet, death visited him in mercy. He appeared to undergo no pain—and in fancy, conversed with a “darling mother” and his “little sister,” as he termed them—babbled about green fields and expired with a smile upon his lips, under the firm belief that he had returned to the home he loved, and was re-united to those dear objects whom he idolized.
I never felt myself more relieved, than when a French fatigue-party came, to remove, me on a stretcher. Weak from loss of blood—dispirited at the painful recollection that I was now about to undergo imprisonment, to whose duration none could name the limit—every thing around was calculated to increase those feelings of despondency. The gloomy building seemed desecrated by the purposes it had been turned to—and where the faithful had worshipped, the penitent had told the tale of sin and shame, and been forgiven—where love had been hallowed by holy rite, and supplications for the soul’s weal of the departed had arisen—in that the temple of peace, war’s horrid consequences were exhibited—and, in all the terrible variety which attends on death by violence, many a spirit was escaping from its mortal coil.
The house where I was about to take up my residence was situated close to the harbour, and, being at a distance from the breaches, was consequently, out of the fire of the besiegers. As we passed through the streets, I could not but remark the melancholy and deserted appearance that all around presented. The shops were unopened—the private dwellings jealously closed up—and the terrified inhabitants seemed not yet satisfied that the assault had failed, and danger was over for the present. When we reached the domicile of La Pablos, we found that our arrival had been duly announced. We were admitted into a narrow court-yard—and at the door of his mansion, the owner was waiting to receive us.
The appearance of my future host was not particularly prepossessing. Although stricken in years, his carriage was lofty and unbroken—and the expression of his countenance seemed that of a proud and daring spirit, obliged to bend for a time to circumstances, and stoop to a thraldom from which it secretly recoiled.
The Spaniard showed the way in—and I was placed on a comfortable bed, in an apartment very clean, but very plainly furnished. At the opposite side of the hall, a room had been provided for Mark Antony—for whose transit to these his new quarters, after I had been safely deposited, the stretcher and fatigue party were despatched.
“I will send you some linen—and that is more than many of our people could afford. In turn of duty, the escort of the convoy which marched for France on the 19th fell to my lot—and bitterly I lamented that I was not fated to witness the defeat, which we all considered as so certainly attendant on Lord Wellington’s advance upon Vittoria. The thing seems incomprehensible—and even yet we regard the king’s disaster almost as a dream. Well—let it pass—c’est fortune de guerre. The Emperor’s lieutenant is in the Pyrenees—and now, my Lord Wellington, look sharp!”
“Might not that cautionary hint, my dear Cammaran, be equally serviceable to your friend, the Duke of Dalmatia?” I replied, with a smile.
“No—no. From secret intelligence which has reached the fortress, a very few days will end your leader’s visionary prospects. What! enter France—carry the war over the frontier, and pollute the sacred soil! The thunderbolt is charged—and the hand is already present that will hurl it. But I must go. Duty will engage me the whole day, but in the evening I will visit you.”—Then turning to our host, Cammaran commended me and my companion to his especial attention.
“Let nothing in this case be wanted, Senhor—you stand already not very favourably with the Governor. Adieu, for a time, my friend”—and pressing my hand, the Frenchman took his departure.
I never saw a countenance on which scorn, hatred, and revenge, seemed struggling for mastery, until I noticed that of Don Francisco. When the door of the court-yard closed, he poured forth a torrent of anathemas—then turning to me, his features instantly relaxed—and approaching my couch he took my hand in his.
“Stranger, you are welcome. The name of Englishman I respect—and the Spaniard is an ingrate who does not. If my manner in receiving you was not as warm as it might have been, ascribe it to the true cause—the pestilential presence of yonder foreigner. The sight of these insolent oppressors turns my blood to gall—their very language is discord to my ears—I hate them with all a Spaniard’s hatred. But why display impotent rage in words?—‘Tis womanly—yet still, while the hand dares not strike a blow, the tongue finds some relief in venting the feelings of a surcharged breast—a maddened brain—in curses.”
I looked at La Pablos. His features were convulsed with passion. I had heard that many severities had been exercised by the French during the Peninsular conflict—and I concluded that Don Francisco had been one of the unhappy Spaniards who had suffered from the oppression of the invaders. The arrival of the fosterer, for that time, ended our conversation—the host quitting me to attend to this his second guest, and minister to the wants of Mark Antony.
Four days passed away—I had sufficiently recovered to be enabled to leave my room; and, leaning on the arm of a French soldier, who was daily in attendance on me by a special order from the Governor, I walked for a short distance every morning on the ramparts which overlooked the bay. My wound, though severe at the time that I received it, was one that healed rapidly—the bullet having slanted from the rib it struck against, and instead of taking what would have been otherwise a mortal direction, it inflicted a painful, but fortunately what proved a superficial injury, The fosterer was also convalescent—the ball had passed through his thigh without injuring the bone in its transit—his arm healed rapidly—and in a few days more the learned leach who attended us, announced that Mark Antony would be, as the fosterer termed it himself, “right upon his pins again.”
So far we had reason for self-gratulation—and as far as kindness from the host, and constant attentions on the part of Cammaran would go, we had no reason to complain of our captivity. But other circumstances allayed the satisfaction we should otherwise have felt—for every day the prospect of deliverance became more distant, and matters assumed a gloomier aspect.
Lord Wellington, on hearing of the miscarriage at San Sebastian, came down from the covering army to ascertain the causes of the failure, and, as it was reported, to adopt immediate means to remedy the disaster, and make himself master of the place. But, alas! our hopes that the speedy capture of the city would restore us to liberty again, ended on the morning of the 27th. Overnight, the batteries had been disarmed and the guns removed to Passages—the siege was turned into a blockade—and taking advantage of the confusion, the garrison sallied from the horn-work, surprised the soldiers in the trenches, and carried back more than two hundred prisoners. Rumour also was busy on the wing. It was said that Soult had already taken the offensive—that the allied forces in advance, had been attacked, defeated, and driven back—and an order, directing Sir Thomas Graham to march on the Bidassoa with all his disposable troops, confirmed the unwelcome news.
The intelligence that Napoleon’s lieutenant had actually commenced operations to relieve Pampeluna and San Sebastian, and afterwards celebrate his maker’s birth-day in Vittoria, was perfectly correct. On the same morning and hour, while we had made our sanguinary and unsuccessful attempt upon the fortress, Soult commenced his daring operations, by driving in the pickets and scaling the pass of Altobisco.
Although desperately outnumbered, the allies held their mountain position most obstinately—and for hours the combat raged with unabated fury, among wild and Alpine heights five thousand feet above the level of the sea. This protracted defence allowed time for others of the allied brigades to come, while a dense fog prevented the French marshal from executing the general attack he intended to have made with overwhelming numbers. Cole held his position with comparatively little loss—and when night came, finding his right turned at Orbaiceta, he cleverly retreated during the darkness, carrying ten thousand men safely through mountain passes, which rendered a regressive movement in the face of thirty thousand French bayonets a delicate and dangerous attempt. The position of Roncesvalles was consequently abandoned—and the first great effort from which Soult had expected far different results, left him with the allied brigades still like lions in the passes, and seven leagues of Alpine country interposed between him and Pampeluna, the grand object of his operations.
On the morning of the 26th, the French marshal resumed the offensive. A day of occasional combats and severe marching, while the English generals slowly and steadily fell back, produced no greater results than those attendant upon yesterday. Night came—and Soult, with altered convictions as to the probability of eventual success, waited for morning to try his fortunes in the field anew.
The third trial was certainly more propitious. The Aretesque and Maya passes were attacked in great force, and, aided by a partial surprise, the French were enabled to drive the pickets back upon their supports,—and eventually, but after the most desperate fighting, the allied position was won. Four Portuguese guns were captured—and the French, elevated by this success, pressed the reduced battalions, who still retired, but slowly and sullenly, blocking up each ridge or pass they defended with the bodies of the dead and dying. At six o’clock, completely worn out with fatigue, their numbers reduced to a third, their ammunition almost expended, the rocky heights of Atchiola were about to be abandoned—but at the moment, a brigade of the seventh division came opportunely up—the battle was sternly renewed, and the French forced to retire from the disputed mountain, and occupy the pass of Maya which they had won so dearly. In these sanguinary and protracted combats, Soult, with an expenditure of fifteen hundred men, gained a few miles of mountain and four disabled guns—a miserable trophy for such a waste of blood.
Nothing could surpass the triumph of the garrison when the intelligence of the marshal’s advance was confirmed—and the affairs of these three days mountain warfare were grossly mistated. Roncesvalles and Linzoain were described as brilliant actions—glorious to the arms of France; while Maya was exaggerated into a crowning victory.
But the hours of Soult’s temporary success were numbered. On his return from San Sebastian, Wellington heard of the French attack on the evening of the 27th, and hurrying forward to San Estevan, which he reached the morning of the 28th—there ascertained the true position of affairs. His plans were formed with his accustomed rapidity and decision—and he determined to concentrate in front of Pampeluna, and retreat by the valley of the Lanz.
In the meantime, the fortress profiting by the cessation of the investment, received ample supplies of stores and ammunition by sea from France, and in return transmitted back the sick and wounded, thus getting relieved of the most troublesome incumbrance with which a beleaguered city is incommoded. New defences were planned and executed—former damages repaired—the works were generally strengthened—the magazines stored with powder and provisions—and San Sebastian was, in this interval, rendered stronger than when the besiegers first broke ground.
All these events to me held out a melancholy prospect. It was already intimated that on the first favourable opportunity the prisoners would be forwarded to France—and in that case, captivity and the war would be coeval. A yearning after home momentarily increased. Isidora was ever present—and I cursed the hour that, for the bauble, fame, I had quitted the land of liberty and love. Mark Antony bore thraldom even more impatiently than I. He cursed France, Spain, and Portugal in a breath—read a letter from the rat-catcher once a day—and another, I fancy from the lady of his love, “every minute i’ th’ hour.”
“What the devil are we to do, Mark?” I inquired, after we had groaned in unison until both were weary of complaining.
“Do!” exclaimed the fosterer, “Give the thieves leg-bail, and ‘cut our lucky’ the first opportunity.”
There was wisdom in Mark Antony’s advice, and I determined to follow it.