With the British Legion: A Story of the Carlist Wars

by G. A. Henty

"How long shall I be kept here?"

"It will depend how quickly the bones knit. I should say that you ought to stay for at least three weeks; but possibly you may go on before that, provided you take matters quietly. I shall, of course, bandage you up so tightly that they cannot shift unless you give yourself a wrench."

Arthur was detained ten days, but at the end of that time he insisted on proceeding. He was tightly enveloped in broad bandages, and, as he said, felt as if he were in a stiff pair of stays. He promised the surgeon that he would not let his horse go beyond a walk. However, they accomplished the journey to Saragossa at a pretty fair rate, travelling from eight to nine hours a day, making an average of twenty-five miles. By the time they got there Arthur no longer felt any acute pain, and was confident that the bones were healing. However, he resolved to follow the surgeon's advice and not attempt to remove the bandages for another month.

He found Saragossa a scene of great preparations. Espartero had determined not to move, as Oraa had done, with an insufficient siege-train, and during the months of comparative inactivity he had collected a battering train of forty pieces, of which eight were 24-pounders, twelve 16-pounders, ten mortars, and ten howitzers. Each gun was provided with a thousand rounds of ammunition.

Besides the siege-train he had also with him three field batteries armed with heavy guns. Transport had been collected with immense difficulty, for to carry the ammunition alone five hundred carts and two thousand mules were required, besides the waggons of the commissariat train and those for regimental transport. The force that was to accompany these amounted to twenty thousand men, while some eight thousand others were posted on the road and as garrisons in various villages. On the 18th of May the battering train moved forward, and was followed the next day by the main body. The first division advanced to the height of San Marcos, within sight of Morella. The main body with the head-quarters and artillery halted a few miles short of this on the heights above Pobleta.

During the night the weather changed suddenly. A very heavy snow-storm set in, and several men and mules were frozen to death. There was no change on the next day, but on the 23rd the army again advanced, and arrived early in the afternoon within range of the fort of San Pedro. It halted about two thousand yards from the town on its north side. The fort stood on a commanding height and was surrounded by a deep ditch. On its south and west sides it was inaccessible; on its north front it was well covered by a glacis. Its only exposed face was visible from another height, called San Marcos, at a distance of a thousand yards on the same level on the opposite side of the valley. Owing to the distance at which San Pedro stood from the city, Cabrera had since the last siege erected another strong redoubt called La Querola to protect the communications. He had made a great mistake, however, in not erecting another fortification on the heights facing La Querola. The two would have protected each other, and their fire crossing the road between them would have enabled them to hold out, even against the powerful artillery brought against them, for at least a fortnight.

Cabrera, however, who was no engineer, instead of covering the approaches with fortifications, had wasted much time in forming entrenchments in the town which would be of little or no use after an entry was once made. He himself was still suffering from the effects of the wounds Arthur had inflicted upon him, and was unable to undertake the defence of the place; and when the besieging army drew near he left the town with some eight thousand men in order to harass communications, and interfere as far as possible with the progress of the siege.

Espartero found that it was necessary to take La Querola before the city itself could be attacked, because it commanded the road by which the siege artillery was brought up. There was too, in the valley along which the road ran, an aqueduct which supplied the city with water, and behind this a large body of troops could form up without being seen from the city.

It was also desirable that this should be effected because the weakest part of the wall was between the castle and the gate of San Miguel; and were a breach effected there, the whole of the interior entrenchments would be commanded from it. The army encamped in front and on the flanks of San Pedro, the stores and heavy guns being placed on the height of San Marcos. On the 24th of May the engineers commenced an approach against the north front of San Pedro, and the artillery on the opposite height opened fire upon it. The work of the sappers was arduous; an incessant musketry fire was kept up upon them, and the ground was so rocky that it was very difficult to obtain shelter. Finding, therefore, that the approach could not be made in a regular way, the sappers went forward at a run to within two hundred yards of the fort, and then covered themselves by hurriedly throwing up a stone wall.

Behind this they kept up so rapid and heavy a fire that they silenced that of the defenders, and during the night carried forward the work to within a hundred yards of the wall, and completed a little battery of three 16-pounders, which were to fire at the very small part of the work which was not covered by the glacis. They opened fire at daybreak, but did very little damage. It was otherwise, however, on the eastern side, where the wall was so effectually pounded by the heavy guns on the opposite heights that the whole of the parapet on that face was destroyed, and there was therefore no shelter for the defenders. Some of the light troops, seeing this, crept up close to the ditch. The defenders, thinking that an assault was intended, rushed to oppose them, but suffered terribly from the fire from San Marcos.