Saragossa: A Story of Spanish Valor

by Benito Pérez Galdós

For this reason I cannot tell exactly on what day that took place which I am going to relate now; but if I am not mistaken it was on a day after the fight at Las Monicas, and somewhere, I should say, between the thirtieth of January and the second of February. We were occupying a house in the Calle de Pabostre. The French were in the one next to it, and were trying to advance through the inside of the block to reach the Puerta Quemada. Nothing can compare with the incessant activity going on there. No kind of warfare, no bloodiest battle on the open field, no sieges of a plaza, nor struggles in a street barricade can compare with the succession of conflicts between the army of an alcove and the army of a drawing-room, between the troops that occupy one floor and those which guard the one above it.

Hearing the muffled blows of the picks at various points, not knowing from what direction the attack might come, caused us some alarm. We went up into attics; we descended into cellars, and glued our ears to partition walls; we tried to learn the intentions of the enemy according to the direction of the blows. At last we noticed that the partition wall was being violently shaken near the very place where we were standing, and we waited fire in the doorway, after heaping up the furniture as a barricade. The French opened a hole, and presently began leaping over beams and broken fragments, showing an intention of driving us from the place. There were twenty of us, fewer of them, and they evidently did not expect to be received in such fashion, and retreated, returning soon with such reinforcement that we were in great danger, and obliged to retire, leaving five comrades behind the furniture, two of them dead. In the narrow passage we ran against a stairway up which we hurried without knowing where we were going, and presently found ourselves in a garret,—an admirable position for defence. The stairway was narrow, however, and the Frenchmen who tried to come up it died inevitably. So we remained for some time, prolonging the resistance, and encouraging one another with huzzas and shouts, when the partition at our backs began to resound with loud blows, and we saw immediately that the French, by opening an entrance through there, would catch us between two fires without means of escape. We were now thirteen, as two had fallen in the garret, severely wounded. Tio Garces, who was in command, shouted furiously: "By heaven, the dogs shall not catch us! There's a skylight in the roof. Let us go up through it to the tiles of the roof. Go on firing at whoever comes up to try and cut through it! The rest of you enlarge the hole. Away with fear, and viva the Virgin del Pilar!"

It was done as he commanded. This was to be a well-ordered retreat, according to the rules of war; and while part of our army was preventing the onward march of the enemy, the rest were occupied in facilitating the retreat. This able plan was put into execution with feverish activity, and very soon the hole of escape was large enough for three men to pass through at once, without the French gaining a single step during the time that we were employed in this way. We quickly got out on the roof. We were now nine. Three had been left in the garret, and another was wounded in trying to get out, falling still alive, into the hands of the enemy. On finding ourselves outside, we leaped for joy. We cast a glance over the roofs of the quarter, and saw at a distance the batteries of the French. We advanced on all fours for a good distance, exploring the lay of the land, leaving two sentinels in the gap to pop off a gun at any one who should seek to slip up by them. We had not gone twenty paces when we heard a great noise of voices and laughter which seemed to us to be French. And so it was; from a broad balcony those rascals were looking at us and laughing. They were not slow in firing upon us, but protected behind the chimneys, the angles and corners which the roof afforded, we answered them shot for shot, and replied to their oaths and exclamations by a thousand other invectives with which the lively imagination of Tio Garces inspired us. At last we retreated, jumping to the roof of the next house. We believed it to be in the hands of our own men, and we entered by the window of a little upper room, supposing that the descent from there to the street would be easy, and that there we should be reinforced for the conclusion of the adventure that had carried us through passages, up stairways, through garrets, and over roofs. But we had scarcely set foot there, when we heard in the apartment below us the sound of many blows on the wall.

"They are beating in there," said Tio Garces, and in a second the French whom we had left in the house next us had passed to this one, where they met comrades.

"Cuerno! Recuerno! Let us get out of this! The whole creation's down below there."

We passed on into another garret, and found our way to a ladder leading down to a large interior room, from whose doorway came the lively sound of voices, chiefly those of women. The noise of the fight seemed much further off, and we decided it must be at some distance. So we dropped down the ladder and found ourselves in a large room filled with old men, women, and children who had all sought refuge here. Many, lying upon rude mattresses, showed in their faces traces of the terrible epidemic, and one lifeless body lay on the floor, breath evidently having left it but a few moments before. Some were wounded, suffering cruelly and groaning unrestrainedly; two or three old women were weeping and praying. Occasionally voices were heard begging, "Water, water!" From where we entered, I saw Candiola at the end of the room, carefully depositing in a corner a quantity of clothes and kitchen utensils and crockery. With an angry gesture he drove away the curious children who wished to look over and handle the poor stuff. Anxious, eager only to heap together and guard his treasures without losing a fragment, he was saying,—

"I have already lost two cups. And I have no doubt whatever as to what has become of them. Some one of these people has taken them. There is no security anywhere; there are no authorities to guarantee to a citizen the possession of his property. Out of here, you unmannerly boys! Oh, we are hard pushed! Cursed be the bombs and the one who invented them! Soldiers, you have come in good time. Can you not have two sentinels placed here for me to guard these treasures which I have been able to save only with great trouble?"

My comrades laughed at such pretension, as may readily be believed. We were just about to go, when I saw Mariquilla. The poor girl was sadly changed from lack of sleep, much weeping, and the constant alarms. But the trouble of her brow, and that which looked forth from her eyes, only added to the sweetness of expression of her beautiful face. She saw me, and immediately came eagerly up to me, showing that she wished to speak with me.

"And Augustine?" I asked her.

"He is down there," she replied in tremulous tones. "They are fighting below. We who took refuge in this house have been apportioned to different rooms. My father came this morning with Doña Guedita. Augustine brought us something to eat, and put us in a room where there was a mattress. Suddenly we heard blows on the partition walls. The French were coming. The troops entered, and made us leave, carrying the sick and wounded to an upper room. They shut us all in, and then the walls were broken through. The French met the Spaniards then, and began real fighting. Yes, Augustine is below."