Saragossa: A Story of Spanish Valor

by Benito Pérez Galdós

The Imperial soldiers, panic-stricken with this violent assault, looked quickly for a way out of the house which had been taken room by room. We pursued them through passages and halls whose confused arrangement would craze the best military topographer. We finished them wherever we could find them, and some of them escaped, dashing in desperation out through the court-yards. In this manner, after reconquering one house, we reconquered the next one, obliging the enemy to restrict themselves to their old positions, which were the first two houses of the Calle de Pabostre.

Afterwards we removed our dead and wounded, and I had the sorrow of finding Augustine Montoria among the latter, although the gun-wound in his right arm was not of a serious nature. My battalion was reduced one-half that day. The unfortunates who had sought refuge in the upper room now wished to make themselves a little more comfortable in the lower rooms; but this was not thought practicable, and they were obliged to leave the place and look for an asylum further from danger.

Every day, every hour, every instant, the increasing difficulties of our military situation were aggravated by the sight of the great number of unburied victims of battle and of the epidemic. Happy a thousand times those who were buried in the ruins of the undermined houses, as happened to the valiant defenders of the Calle de Pomar, close to the Santa Engracia! The most horrible thing was a great number of the wounded piled up together, so that nobody could get at them to help them. There was no medical aid for a hundredth part of them. The charity of women, the zeal of patriotic citizens, the multiplied activity of the hospitals, really availed nothing.

There came a time when a sort of impassibility, a dreadful apathy, began to take possession of the besieged. We became used to the sight of a heap of dead bodies, as if they were so many sacks of wool. We were accustomed to see, without pity, great numbers of the wounded creeping and tottering to the houses, each one caring for himself as best he could. In the keenness of our sufferings, it seemed as if the usual necessities of the flesh had gone, and that we lived only in the spirit. Familiarity with danger had transformed our natures, infusing them apparently with a new element,—absolute contempt of the material, and indifference to life. Every one expected to die at any moment, without the idea disturbing him in the least. I remember hearing described the attack on the Trinitarios convent, made in the hope of snatching it from the French, and the fabulous exploits, the inconceivable rashness of that undertaking seemed to me natural and ordinary.

I do not know whether I have said that next to the Convent de las Monicas was that of San Augustine, an edifice of good size, with a large church, spacious cloisters, and vast transepts. It was inevitable that the French, now masters of Las Monicas, should show great perseverance in the effort to gain possession of this monastery, in order to establish themselves firmly and definitely in that quarter.

"Since we have not the luck to be in Las Monicas," said Pirli to me, "we will, to-day, give ourselves the pleasure of defending until death the four walls of Saint Augustine. As the Estremadurans are not sufficient to defend it, we are ordered in, too. And how about rank, friend Araceli? Is it true that we two young gentlemen have been promoted to be sergeants?"

"I don't know anything about it, friend Pirli," I answered; and it was true that I was ignorant of my elevation to the hierarchical altitude of a sergeant.

"Yes, indeed, the general says so; Señor de Araceli is first sergeant, and Señor de Pirli is second sergeant. We have worked hard enough for it. It's a good thing we have enough of our bodies left to hang the epaulets on. I heard that Augustine Montoria has been made a lieutenant for his gallantry inside the houses. Yesterday, at nightfall, the battalion of Las Peñas de San Pedro was reduced to four sergeants, a lieutenant, a captain, and two hundred men."

"Let us see, friend Pirli, if we cannot earn two more promotions apiece to-day."

"All that we have to do is to keep our skins whole," he answered. "The few soldiers of the Huesca battalion who survive think that they are all going to be made generals. There is the call! Have you anything to eat?"