Our colonel, who had been riding in front, dashed round and put himself at our head.
“Charge, boys!” and quick as the flash of his sword in the sun, he was in the midst of the enemy.
We followed him with a ringing cheer. I was half beside myself with excitement. The rattle of the musketry and the smell of powder were intoxicating. Suddenly I was blinded. A warm spurt that I knew instinctively was the blood of a wounded comrade hit me in the eyes. I put up my hand; then I felt a sharp pang, and remember nothing more of the combat.
I learned afterwards that it lasted only a few minutes. The miquelets were driven off, leaving many dead and wounded on the field, and they vanished almost as quickly as they had appeared.
We had only two killed and three or four wounded, of which I was one. I was hit in the breast.
When I came to myself I was in hospital, and learned that the colonel had been frequent in his inquiries, as had also O’Kelly, who had distinguished himself in the repulse of the enemy.
My wound was rather serious; however, I expected to be up and about in a few months. But in this I was disappointed, for when it was nearly healed, owing to my headstrong ways, as I insisted on leaving my bed too soon, it broke out afresh, so it came to pass that I missed several engagements, notably the raising of the siege of Palamos by the Duke of Vendome, in which our regiment took part, defeating the combined Spanish and English forces, and the subsequent defeat of the Spanish cavalry under the Prince of Hesse Darmstadt, who had fought at the Boyne. Like every other Irishman I would have given one of my eyes for a blow at the English enemy; but the day was to come.
Well, well; all this was a good many years ago. I was a stripling then. I am an old man now; but I am not writing a history of my life, and, indeed, I began this story not intending to speak much of myself, but only to relate a curious incident which made a very deep impression on me that time has not yet wholly effaced, but old men are apt to be garrulous, and old soldiers like to talk of the
“Battles, fortunes and sieges through which they have passed.”
While I was lying ill of my wound outside Ostalric, I was attended by one of the men of Dillon’s regiment who also had been wounded, though slightly, in the affair, and who I learned afterwards had begged permission to attend me as a special favour. He was as tender to me as a woman could have been, but he was curiously reserved, seldom speaking except when spoken to, and there was a sad look in his eyes which scarcely left them even when he smiled, which he rarely did, provoked by some sally of mine. He was a brave man they told me afterwards—they who themselves were brave—fought like a devil, they said, and was never wounded except in that affair of Ostalric, and that was when trying to save me, who was nearly trampled to death when I fell.