Thus the old Governor, by starving himself, taught his men how to bear starvation. After that a soldier, however pinched, would hardly dare to complain.
He might not indeed care for himself, but he could not help caring for those dependent on him. The cruel hardship of it was that the suffering fell not on the soldiers alone, but on women and children. The Governor had tried, as far as possible, to send away all non-combatants. But it was not always easy to separate families. There were soldiers' wives, who clung to their husbands all the more because of their danger. If a Scotch grenadier were to have his legs carried off by a cannon-ball, or frightfully torn by a shell, who could nurse him so well as his faithful wife, who had followed him in the camp and in the field? And so, for better, for worse, many a wife, with the courage of womanhood, determined to share her husband's fate. It was a brave resolution, but it only involved them in the common distress. There were so many more mouths to feed, when the supply even for the soldiers was all too little. The captain who has recorded so faithfully the heroisms and the privations of the siege, says:
"Many officers and soldiers had families to support out of the pittance received from the victualling office. A soldier and his wife and three children would inevitably have been starved to death had not the generous contribution of his corps relieved his family. One woman actually died through want, and many were so enfeebled that it was not without great attention they recovered. Thistles, dandelions, and wild leeks were for some time the daily nourishment of numbers."
Another account tells the same pitiful tale, with additional horrors:
"The ordinary means of sustenance were now almost exhausted, and roots and weeds, with thistles and wild onions, were greedily sought after and devoured by the famished inhabitants.
"Bread was becoming so scarce that the daily rations were served out under protection of a guard, and the weak, the aged, and the infirm, who could not struggle against the hungry, impetuous crowd that thronged the doors of the bakeries, often returned to their homes robbed of their share."[6]
"Ancell's Journal," kept during the siege, thus records the impressions of the day:
"It is a terribly painful sight to see the fighting among the people for a morsel of bread at an exorbitant price; men wrestling, women entreating, and children crying, a jargon of all languages, piteously pouring forth their complaints. You would think sensibility would shed a tear, and yet when we are in equal distress ourselves our feelings for others rather subside."
While this slow and wasting process of starvation was going on, the garrison were in a fearful state of suspense. Sometimes it seemed as if England had forgotten them, but again came tidings that the nation was watching their defence with the utmost anxiety, and would speedily send relief. The time of waiting seemed long as the months passed—summer and autumn and part of winter, and no help appeared. The blockade began in June, 1779, and it was January, 1780, before the fleet of Admiral Rodney, after gaining a battle over the Spanish fleet off the coast of Portugal, bore away to the south. To those who were watching from the top of the Rock, probably no event of their lives ever moved them so much as when they first caught sight of the English ships entering the Straits of Gibraltar. Men, women, and children, wept aloud for joy, for the coming fleet brought them life from the dead. And when it anchored in the bay, and the ships began to unload, they brought forth not only guns and ammunition, but more priceless treasures—beef, pork, butter, flour, peas, oatmeal, raisins, and biscuits, as well as coals, iron hoops, and candles! Revelling in such abundance, could they ever want again? It was indeed a timely relief, and if the fleet could have remained, it might have put an end to the siege. But England was then carrying on wars in two hemispheres; and while the French fleet was crossing the Atlantic to aid the American colonies in gaining their independence, she could not afford that her largest fleet should lie idle in the Bay of Gibraltar. As soon, therefore, as the stores could be landed, Admiral Rodney returned to England. The Governor seized the opportunity to send home great numbers of invalids and women. It was necessary that the garrison should "strip for the fight," as there were darker days to come.
Gibraltar had been saved from the jaws of famine by the arrival of the English fleet. But as soon as it left, the Spanish ships remained masters of the bay, and the blockade was closer than ever. The garrison had had a narrow escape. That it might not be caught so again, the Governor, with his Scotch thrift, put his men upon a new kind of service, quite apart from military duty. The Rock is not wholly barren. There are many nooks and corners that are bright with flowers, and anything that the earth can yield will ripen under that warm southern sky. Accordingly the soldiers, in the intervals of firing the big guns, were put to do a little gardening; and turned patches of ground here and there to cultivation; and where the hillside was too steep, the earth was raised into terraces and banked up with walls, on which they raised small quantities of lettuce or cabbages; so that afterward, although they still suffered for many of the comforts, if not the necessaries, of life, they never came quite so near absolute starvation.