Saragossa: A Story of Spanish Valor

by Benito Pérez Galdós

"Mother, it is nothing," Manuela said soothingly, covering her with whatever came first to her hand; "we are only going into the street because it seems as if the house is going to fall down."

The old woman did not speak. She could not speak. The two girls had taken her in their arms; but we took her in ours, charging them to bring our guns and whatever clothing they could save. We passed out into a court which opened into another street where the fire had not yet reached.

CHAPTER XVIII

The French had taken possession also of the battery of Los Martires. That same afternoon they were masters of the ruins of Santa Engracia and the convent of Trinitarios. Is it conceivable that the defence of one plaza continued after all that surrounded it was taken? No, it is not conceivable; nor in all military prevision has it ever been supposed that after the enemy had gained the walls by irresistible superiority of material strength, the houses would offer new lines of defence improvised on the initiative of every citizen. It is not conceivable that one house taken, a veritable siege must necessarily be organized to take the next one, employing the spade, the mine, the bayonet,—devising an ingenious stratagem against a partition wall. It is not conceivable that one part of a pavement being taken, it would be necessary to pass opposite to it to put into execution the theories of Vauban, and that to cross a gutter it would be necessary to make trenches, zig-zags, and covered ways.

The French generals put their hands to their brows, saying, "This is not like anything that we have ever seen. In the glorious annals of the empire one finds many passages like this: 'We have entered Spandau. To-morrow we shall be in Berlin.' That which had not yet been written was this: 'After two days and two nights of fighting, we have taken house No. 1 in the Calle de Pabostre. We do not know when we shall be able to take No. 2.'"

We had no time for rest. The two cannons that raked the Calle de Pabostre and the angle of the Puerta Quemada were left entirely without men. Some of us ran to serve them, and the rest occupied houses in the Calle de Palomar. The French stopped firing against the buildings which had been abandoned, repairing them and occupying them as rapidly as they could. They stopped up holes with beams, gravel, and sacks of wool. As they could not traverse without risk the space between their new quarters and the crumbling walls, they commenced to open a ditch and zig-zag from the Molino of the city to the house which we had occupied, and of which now only the lowest story offered any lodgment. We knew that when once masters of that house they would try, by tearing down partition walls, to gain possession of the whole block. In order to prevent this, the troops which we could spare were distributed through all the buildings in danger of such attack. At the same time our troops were raising barricades at the entrances of the streets, availing themselves of the rubbish and fragments in their work. We toiled with frenzied ardor in these various tasks. The fighting was least difficult of all. From inside the houses we threw down over the balconies all the furniture and movables. We carried the wounded outside, leaving the dead to the same fate as the buildings. Indeed, the only funeral honors that we could pay them was to leave them where they would not be disturbed. The French worked also to gain Santa Monica, the convent situated in a line with Las Tenerias, a little to the north of the Calle de Pabostre; but its walls offered a strong resistance, and it was not as easy to take as the fragile houses which the booming of the cannon caused to tremble. The volunteers of Huesca defended it vigorously; and, after repeated attacks, the besiegers left the assault for another day. Having gained possession only of a few houses, they remained in them when night came, like rabbits in a warren. Woe to the head that appeared at a window! The neighboring walls, the roofs, the skylights were filled with attentive eyes that saw the least carelessness of a French soldier, and guns were ready for him.

When night came, we began to make holes in the partition walls in order to open communication between all the houses in the same block. In spite of the incessant noise of the cannon, we could hear within the buildings the picks of the enemy occupied in the same sort of work as ourselves. As the architecture was fragile, and almost all the partition walls were of earth, we had in a short time opened passages between many houses.

About ten o'clock at night, we found ourselves in one which we knew must be very near that of Manuela Sancho, when we heard, through unknown conduits, through cellars and subterranean passages, a sound which we realized must be the voices of the enemy. A terrified woman came up a ladder and told us that the French were opening a gap in the wall of the room below. We descended instantly. We were not yet all in the cold, narrow, dark place, when at its mouth a gun was fired at us, and one of our companions was slightly wounded in the shoulder.