The subaltern

by G. R. Gleig

A little to the right of my post were a couple of barricades, the one cutting off the main road, the other blocking up the entrance to a cross-street in the village. Beside these respectively stood a six-pounder gun. They were, I should conceive, about long pistol-shot from the walls of the castle, and formed our most advanced stations. Our line of sentinels ran through the churchyard and streets, winding away by the right and left as the shape of the place required; and they were planted as close to one another as the occurrence of trees, or other species of cover, would permit. For the French were no longer the magnanimous enemy we had found them in the open field. Every man, no matter whether a sentry or a lounger, who could be seen, was fired at; nor could the reliefs be carried on as under ordinary circumstances. No corporal's party marched round here, but the men themselves stole one by one to the particular spots allotted to them, those whom they came to relieve stealing away after a similar fashion. Yet even thus we seldom returned to the camp without bringing a wounded man or two back with us, or leaving a dead comrade behind.

At night the utmost vigilance was necessary. The enemy were so close to us that the slightest carelessness on our part would have given them free and secure access through our chain—a circumstance which rendered it impracticable for the vedettes to give sufficient warning to men who should not be at every moment in a state of preparation. No man slept, or so much as lay down. The privates stood round the embankment within the church, as if they had been all on watch; the officer crept about from place to place in front of it, or listened with deep anxiety to every sound. In these wanderings the conversation of the French soldiers could be distinctly overheard, so near were the troops of the two nations to each other, and so perilous, or rather so momentous, was the duty which we were called upon to perform.

CHAPTER XXIV.

The blockade of Bayonne being now decidedly converted into a siege, Sir John Hope very justly determined that every brigade of British and Portuguese troops—in other words, every brigade upon which he could at all depend—should take by turns a share in the fatigue and danger attendant upon the progress of operations. The tour of duty allotted to each was accordingly fixed at three days. In consequence of this arrangement, we, who had assumed the care of the works and outposts on the 4th, were relieved on the evening of the 7th; and, at an early hour on the morning of the 8th, once more turned our faces in the direction of the pine-wood. The tents which we had pitched in the vicinity of Boucaut were not, however, struck. These we left standing for the benefit of a brigade of Portuguese, which crossed the river to succeed us; and hence, instead of halting where we originally sojourned beside the pond, and under the shadow of the fir-trees, we pushed on as far as the outskirts of Anglete. The morning of the 8th chanced to be uncommonly dark and foggy. It so happened, moreover, that a man who had got drunk upon duty the night before was doomed to suffer punishment as early as circumstances would allow; and the battalion, having reached what was supposed to be its ground, formed square in a green field for the purpose. Partly in consequence of the density of the fog, which rendered all objects at the distance of fifty yards invisible, and partly because the country was altogether new to us, we lost our way. Our astonishment may therefore be conceived, when, on the clearing away of the mist, we found ourselves drawn up within less than point-blank range of the enemy's guns, and close to the most advanced of our own sentinels in this part of the line.

For a moment or two we were permitted to continue thus unmolested, but not longer. The breastworks in front of us were speedily lined with infantry; mounted officers arrived and departed at speed; a few field-pieces, being hurried through a sally-port, were posted upon the exterior of the glacis, and then a sharp cannonade began. It was quite evident that the enemy expected an assault; and the accidental appearance of two other British brigades, which chanced at the moment to pass each other in our rear, added strength, without doubt, to that expectation. The scene was highly animating; but the enemy's guns were too well served to permit our continuing long spectators of it. A ball or two striking in the centre of the square warned us to withdraw; and as we were clearly in a situation where we were never meant to be, as well as because no act of hostility was on our part intended, we scrupled not to take the hint, and to march somewhat more to the rear. There a certain number of houses was allotted to us, and we again found ourselves, for the space of four days, under cover of a roof.

We were thus situated when a messenger extraordinary arrived at the quarters of the commanding officer about midnight on the 11th of April, with intelligence that the Allies were in possession of Paris, and that Buonaparte had abdicated. It would be difficult to say what was the effect produced upon us by the news. Amazement—utter amazement—was the first and most powerful sensation excited. We could hardly credit the story; some of us even went so far for a while as to assert that the thing was impossible. Then came the thought of peace, of an immediate cessation of hostilities, and a speedy return to our friends and relatives in England; and last, though not with the least permanent influence, sprang up the dread of reduction to half-pay. For the present, however, we rather rejoiced than otherwise at the prospect of being delivered from the irksome and incessant labour of a siege; and we anticipated with satisfaction a friendly intercourse with the brave men against whom we had so long fought, without entertaining one rancorous feeling towards them. I fear, too, that the knowledge of what had passed in Paris caused some diminution in the watchfulness which we had hitherto preserved; at least I cannot account upon any other principle for the complete surprisal of our outposts in the village of St Esprit a few nights subsequently.

The messenger who conveyed this intelligence to us went on to say that Sir John Hope had despatched a flag of truce to inform the Governor of Bayonne that there was no longer war between the French and British nations. General Thouvenot, however, refused to credit the statement. He had received, he said, no official communication from Marshal Soult; and as he considered himself under the immediate command of that officer, even a despatch from the capital could have no weight with him unless it came backed by the authority of his superior. Under these circumstances no proposals were made on either side to cease hostilities, though on ours the troops were henceforth exempted from the labour of erecting batteries, in which it was very little probable that guns would ever be mounted. In other respects, however, things went on as they had previously done. The pickets took their stations as usual; all communications between the garrison and the open country was still cut off; and several families who sought to pass through our lines were compelled to return into the town. This last measure was adopted, as it invariably is when a city is besieged, in order not to diminish the number of persons who must be fed from the stores laid up in the public arsenals.

Though there was peace in Paris, there was no peace before Bayonne. Our brigade having enjoyed its allotted period of rest, prepared to return to its camp beside Boucaut, for which purpose a line of march was formed on the morning of the 12th; and we again moved towards the floating bridge. As yet, however, our services at the outposts were not required; and as working parties were no longer in fashion, we spent that and the succeeding day peaceably in our camp. Not that these days were wholly devoid of interesting occurrences. During the latter a French officer arrived from the north, bearing the official account of those mighty transactions which once more placed his country under the rule of the Bourbons; and him we sent forward to the city, as the best pledge that could be offered for the truth of our previous statements, and of our present amicable intentions. Still General Thouvenot disbelieved, or affected to disbelieve, the whole affair; but he returned an answer by the flag of truce which accompanied the aide-de-camp, "that we should hear from him on the subject before long."

It will be readily believed that the idea of future hostilities was not, under all these circumstances, entertained by any individual of any rank throughout the army. For form's sake, it was asserted that the blockade must still continue, and the sentinels must still keep their ground; but that any attack would be made upon them, or any blood uselessly spilled, no man for a moment imagined. The reader may therefore guess at our astonishment, when, about three o'clock in the morning of the 14th, we were suddenly awoke by a heavy firing in front; and found, on starting up, that a desperate sortie had taken place, and that our pickets were warmly engaged along the whole line. Instantly the bugles sounded. We hurried on our clothes and accoutrements. The horses came galloping in from their various stables; the servants and batmen busied themselves in packing the baggage; and then hastily taking our places, we marched towards the point of danger, and were hotly and desperately in action in less than a quarter of an hour.

The enemy had come on in two columns of attack—one of which bore down upon the church and street of St Esprit; while the other, having forced the barricade upon the highroad, pressed forward towards the chateau where our mortar-battery was in progress of erection. So skilfully had the sortie been managed, that the sentries in front of both these posts were almost all surprised ere they had time, by discharging their pieces, to communicate an alarm to those behind them. And hence it came to pass that, amid the obscurity of a dark night, the first intimation of danger which the pickets received was given by the enemy themselves, who, stealing on to the very edge of the trench within which our men were stationed, fired down upon them. In like manner the sergeant's guard which stood beside the gun in the village was annihilated, and the gun itself captured; whilst the party in the church were preserved from a similar fate only in consequence of the care which had been taken to block up the various doorways and entrances, so that only one man at a time might make his way into the interior. It was, however, surrounded and placed in a state of siege, and gallantly defended by Captain Forster of the 38th Regiment and his men.