The subaltern

by G. R. Gleig

The governor of St Sebastian was evidently a man of great energy of mind, and of very considerable military talent. Everything which could be done to retard the progress of the siege he did. The breach which had been effected previous to the first assault was now almost entirely filled in. Many new works were in course of erection; and, which was not, perhaps, in strict accordance with the laws of modern warfare, they were erected by British prisoners. We could see these poor fellows labouring at their tasks in full regimentals; and the consequence was, that they were permitted to labour on without a single gun being turned against them. Nor was this all that was done to annoy the assailants. Night after night petty sorties were made, with no other apparent design than to disturb the repose and to harass the spirits of the besiegers; for the attacking party seldom attempted to advance farther than the first parallel, and was uniformly beaten back by the pickets and reserve.

During the last ten days the besieging army had been busily employed in bringing up ammunition, and in dragging into battery one of the most splendid trains of heavy ordnance which had ever at that time been placed at the disposal of an English general. On the evening of the 26th these matters were all completed. No fewer than sixty pieces of artillery, some of them thirty-two, and none of lighter metal than eighteen-pounders, were mounted against the town; whilst twenty mortars, of different calibres, prepared to scatter death among its defenders, and bade fair to reduce the place itself to a heap of ruins.

These arrangements being completed, it was deemed prudent, previous to the opening of the batteries, to deprive the enemy of a little redoubt which stood upon an island in the harbour, and in some degree enfiladed the trenches. For this service a detachment, consisting of a hundred men, a captain, and two subalterns, was allotted, who, filing from the camp soon after nightfall, embarked in the boats of the cruisers. Here the soldiers were joined by a few seamen and marines, under the command of a naval officer; and the whole having made good their landing under cover of darkness, advanced briskly to the assault. The enemy were taken by surprise; only a few shots were fired on either side; and in the space of five minutes, the small fort, mounting four guns, with an officer and thirty men, the whole of the garrison, fell without bloodshed into the hands of the assailants.

So trifling, indeed, was the resistance offered by the French garrison, that it disturbed not the slumbers of the troops in camp. The night of the 26th, accordingly, passed by in quiet; but as soon as the morning of the 27th dawned, affairs assumed a different appearance. Soon after daybreak, a single shell was thrown from the heights on the right of the town, as a signal for the batteries to open; and then a tremendous cannonade began. The first salvo was one of the finest things of the kind I ever witnessed. Without taking the trouble to remove the slight covering of sand and turf which masked their batteries, the artillerymen, laying their guns by such observations as small apertures left for the purpose enabled them to effect, fired upon the given signal, and so caused the guns to clear a way for themselves against future discharges; nor were these tardy in occurring. So rapid, indeed, were the gunners in their movements, and so well sustained their fire throughout all the hours of daylight on the 27th, the 28th, the 29th, and the 30th, that by sunset on the latter day not only was the old breach reduced to its former dilapidated condition, but a new and a far more promising aperture was effected.

In the mean time, the enemy had not been remiss in their endeavours to silence the fire of the besiegers, and to dismount their guns. They had, indeed, exercised their artillery with so much goodwill, that most of the cannon found in the place after its capture were unserviceable; being melted at the touch-holes, or otherwise damaged, from too frequent use. But they fought, on the present occasion, under every imaginable disadvantage; for not only was our artillery much more than a match for theirs, but our advanced trenches were lined with troops, who kept up an incessant and deadly fire of musketry upon the embrasures. The consequence was, that the fire from the town became every hour more and more feeble, till it dwindled away to the discharge of a single mortar from beneath the ramparts.

I have said that by sunset on the 30th the old breach was reduced to its former dilapidated state, and a new and a more promising one effected. It will be necessary to describe, with greater accuracy than I have yet done, the situation and actual state of these breaches.

The point selected by Sir Thomas Graham as most exposed, and offering the best mark to his breaching artillery, was on that side of the town which looks towards the river. Here there was no ditch, nor any glacis; the waters of the Urumea flowing so close to the foot of the wall as to render the one useless and the other impracticable. The whole of the rampart was consequently bare to the fire of our batteries; and as it rose to a considerable height, perhaps twenty or thirty feet above the plain, there was every probability of its soon giving way to the shock of the battering guns. But the consistency of that wall is hardly to be imagined by those who never saw it. It seemed as if it were formed of solid rock; and hence the breach, which, to the eye of one who examined it only from without, appeared at once capacious and easy of ascent, proved, when attacked, to be no more than a partial dilapidation of the exterior face of the masonry. Nor was this all; the rampart gave way, not in numerous small fragments, such as might afford a safe and easy footing to those who were to ascend, but in huge masses, which, rolling down like crags from the face of a precipice, served to impede the advance of the column almost as effectually as if they had not fallen at all. The two breaches were about a stone's-throw apart. Both were commanded by the guns of the castle, and both were flanked by projections in the town wall. Yet such was the path by which our troops must proceed, if any attempt should be made to carry the place by assault.

That this attempt would be made, and that, too, on the morrow, every man in the camp was perfectly aware. The tide promised to answer about noon, and noon was accordingly fixed upon as the time of attack; the question therefore arose, who, by the morrow's sunset, would be alive to speak of it, and who would not. While this surmise very naturally occupied the minds of the troops in general, a few more daring spirits were at work devising means for furthering the intended assault, and securing its success. Conspicuous among these was Major Snodgrass, an officer belonging to the 52d British regiment, but in command, on the present occasion, of a battalion of Portuguese. Up to the present night only one ford, and that at some little distance from both breaches, had been discovered. After carefully examining the stream through a telescope, and from a distance, Major Snodgrass had conceived the idea that there must be another ford, so far above that already known as to carry those who should cross by it at once to the foot of the smaller breach; and so entirely had this persuasion taken possession of his mind, that though the moon was in her first quarter, and gave considerable light, he devoted the whole of the night of the 30th to a personal trial of the river. He found, as he expected, that it was fordable at low water immediately opposite to the smaller breach, for he crossed it in person, the water reaching but little above his waist. Nor was he contented with having ascertained that fact; he clambered up the face of the breach at midnight, gained its summit, and looked down upon the town. How he contrived to elude the vigilance of the French sentinels, I know not; but that he did elude them, and that he performed the gallant act which I have just recorded, is perfectly well known to all who served at this memorable siege.

So passed the night of the 30th, an interval of deep anxiety to many—of high excitement to all. Many a will was made, as soldiers make their wills, ere sleep closed their eyes. About an hour before day the troops were, as usual, under arms; and then the final orders were given for the assault. The division was to enter the trenches about ten o'clock, in what is called light marching order—that is, leaving their knapsacks, blankets, &c., behind, and carrying with them only their arms and ammunition; and the forlorn-hope was to move forward as soon as the tide should appear sufficiently low to permit their crossing the river. This post was assigned to certain detachments of volunteers who had come down from the various divisions of the main army, for the purpose of assisting in the assault of the place. These were to be followed by the 1st, or Royal Regiment of Foot; that by the 4th; that by the 9th; and it again by the 47th; whilst several battalions of Portuguese were to remain behind as a reserve, and to act as circumstances should require. Such were the orders issued at daybreak on the 30th of August; and all who heard prepared cheerfully to obey them.

It is a curious fact, but a fact it is, that the morning of the 31st rose darkly and gloomily, as if the elements had been aware of the approaching conflict, and were determined to add to its awfulness by their disorder. A close and oppressive heat pervaded the atmosphere; lowering and sulphureous clouds covered the face of the sky, and hindered the sun from darting upon us one enlivening ray, from morning till night. A sort of preternatural stillness, too, was in the air; the birds were silent in the groves; the very dogs and horses in the camp, and cattle on the hillside, gazed in apparent alarm about them. Moreover, as the day passed on, and the hour of attack drew near, the clouds gradually collected into one black mass directly over the devoted city; and almost at the instant when our troops began to march into the trenches, the storm burst forth. Still, it was comparatively mild in its effects. An occasional flash of lightning, succeeded by a burst of thunder, was all that we felt, though this was enough to divert, in some degree, the attention of many from their own more immediate circumstances.