Return to Vittoria—The mortality and state of the hospitals—Deaths among the medical officers—Scenes in the wards—Legion supposed to be poisoned—Don José Elgoez—His first ordeal—A discovery—Execution of the two bakers—Description of the “Garotta”—Legion march and counter-marches—Mode of warfare adopted by General Evans—Frequent desertion.
At our return, the fever still continued to rage most fearfully, and Vittoria resembled a city infected with the plague. The scenes in the hospital were truly appalling. The wards were so crowded, that suffocation must have been inevitable, but for the inclement season; which had free access through the wards, from the entire want of window-sashes, and in many instances doors, most of which had been destroyed by the monks—the former and forcibly ejected occupants. But this prevention of one evil only gave rise to another equally calamitous; as scarcely a patient escaped being frost-bitten. There was also a total absence of bedding of any kind, or even bedstead, and many a poor fellow, in the height of fever, was forced to content himself with loose straw, and nothing to cover him but a great coat or a rug; hence the scenes in the wards became disgusting in the extreme.
At length the medical men themselves began to feel the pestilence, and the casualties among them so reduced their number (for the most attentive suffered first) that the requisite attendance could not be given, and death strode amongst the sick unchecked. The delirious, the dying, and the dead, were all indiscriminately huddled together, and sometimes mixed up with their groans, might be heard the cries of some poor fellow undergoing a course, not of medicine, but of cat-o’-nine-tails, which in many instances were resorted to by the medical gentlemen to beat out what they could not cure. Many and many a sick soldier has been accused of skulking, while his thin, cadaverous, wan, fevered countenance alone has dared to belie the charge, made by his tyrants. But happily this was not general.
I remember going one day to the hospital to see my servant, a worthy, honest Yorkshireman, named Jackson, who at this time was also suffering under the dreadful malady. I had to pass through several wards before I arrived at that in which he was; such a sight I never witnessed before. The raving maniac, in all the degrees of delirium, made the room ring again, and effectually withstood any attempt on the part of the sick only, to keep them from annoying the sleeping.
I particularly noticed one, a sergeant-major, sitting upright on the mattress. He was haggard and worn to a skeleton, with a beard of at least three weeks’ growth. The wild and unsettled glance of his eye told at once, that the old soldier was delirious: his mind, however, was actively at work, and he was drilling an imaginary regiment, in the most pressing yet deliberate manner. I stood to listen to him. At length he was interrupted by a brother sufferer in an adjoining pallet. In an instant he summoned an hospital orderly and in the same imperative tone, bade him go immediately and bring the Provost, that he might inflict summary punishment on the delinquent, who had thus dared to commit such a breach of discipline, as to interrupt him in the performance of his duty. The orderly was actually on the point of obeying his orders, when I informed him his patient was not in his right senses.
The sergeant seemed a veteran, who had seen service; and from the manner in which he had delivered his word of command, was no doubt well qualified to put a regiment through its manœuvres.
The mortality amongst the troops increased to a frightful extent in some regiments, as many as a dozen or fifteen dying of a day, and the duty of attending the dead to their last home became so fatiguing that it was at last done away with altogether. The bodies were carried from the hospitals in cart-loads. The surgeons staggered through sickness and laboured under a want of medicines. At length it was whispered about that the bread had been poisoned; finally the report became so loud, as to cause one general thrill of horror, and immediate steps were taken to discover the agents in so fiendish an affair.
At length private information having been given to the paymaster of the 7th regiment of the Legion he disguised himself, and went about making observations, which resulted in his taking prisoners some agents of Don Carlos, in the act of persuading our men to desertion; a woman also was amongst them, whose very pretty person was made use of to decoy them off our boundaries to the enemy; and it was further said, a conspiracy was traced to the house of a baker and his assistant, who up to this time had supplied the Legion with ration bread.
At all events, on the day in question, this pair of demons had already gone through an ordeal, sufficient to cure even Carlos of his villanies. Some of the Spanish troops for want of immediate rations applied to our commissariat, and having obtained permission to take their bread from our stores, they had received several hundreds of rations. In the course of the day, however, a number of their men were taken very ill, and many, even to sixty in number, it was reported, had died. Whether these deaths be true or not I cannot say, but the cause of their sudden illness was traced to Don José Elgoez, who was instantly brought bound to the Plaza and a piece of black bread, slung on a bit of string, being tied round his neck, the men commenced their retaliation.
Eight or ten of the strongest men in the battalion, each armed with a long staff, were selected, and severally beat him over the back and shoulders, until the culprit dropped powerless and senseless on the ground. He was immediately taken from the scene to prepare for a second ordeal of a more awful character, as his assistant and himself were tried and sentenced to be strangled on the charge of having been in communication with the enemy, &c. During the interval that elapsed between the sentence and execution, great efforts were made by his fellow partizans to get him off. As much as thirty thousand dollars were offered as a ransom, but all his friends could do was unavailing, and the execution of both men took place in the space outside the new Plaza of Vittoria, before thousands of Spaniards, and the assembled Legion.