Boys of the Light Brigade: A Story of Spain and the Peninsular War

by Herbert Strang

"Then I will get you to arrange with the men so that they take turn and turn about. And by the way, two short tunnels must be cut between the Casa Vallejo and the house next it on this side—the Casa Hontanon, is it not? Those houses are not so capable of defence as this is, but we must do what we can to beat the enemy there also."

Pulgar at once set off to arrange with the workmen, while Jack proceeded to organize the garrisoning of the houses. Except for a few shells thrown over the ramparts nothing had been done by the French since the explosion of the previous evening. The barricades in the streets and lane were held by men of the Valencia regiment; Jack selected other men from the same regiment, and some of the best of the guerrilleros, and thus formed three companies of twenty men each to garrison the three casas, Vega, Tobar, and Vallejo. Fifty men were held in reserve in the Casa Alvarez.

As the day wore on, Jack found that the tunnelling proceeded more rapidly than he had expected. Working on a more definite plan than hitherto, the men saw that their chances of seriously checking the French advance were much greater, and dug and carried with a dogged perseverance that gave Jack a new respect for the Spanish character. By the evening the short holes under the party-walls nearest the French were ready for the charges. Thinking it advisable to see for himself what had been done, Jack crawled through one of the tunnels with a lighted candle, feeling the oppression of the dank confined air. He saw by the dim light that the sides and roof were roughly shored up with timber, and that, as he had wished, there was a slight slope upwards, so that the head of the tunnel was only about four feet from the surface. At the end he listened for the sound of the French miners, who, he guessed, were approaching, but hearing nothing concluded that they were not as yet so far advanced with their work.

Returning to the rear end of the tunnel, he arranged for a heavy charge of powder to be placed in position with the fuses. When this had been done it was time to "tamp" the tunnels—fill them up again with earth to a distance greater than the depth of the mines below the surface. This was necessary, or when the explosion took place it would exhaust its force along the open tunnel instead of in the upward direction intended. But Jack decided not to do any tamping until he was sure that the French had driven their galleries so close to his own that the explosion of his own mines would destroy the enemy's. If he found that the French tunnels were to the right or left of his own, so far away that his explosion would not greatly affect them, he would have to await the French explosion and then use his own mines to repel the attack on the buildings that would instantly follow.

Late at night Antonio the guerrillero, who had been one of the most enthusiastic of the workers, reported that at the farther end of the short tunnel into the Casa Vega he had heard the faint sound of picks. Jack instantly crawled into the tunnel to listen for himself. Undoubtedly the man was right. Giving orders that men should take turns to watch all through the night at the tunnel head, he went to bed after midnight, tired out with the day's exertions.

Before he fell asleep his mind ran over the strange events with which the last two days had been crowded. In particular he reflected on the story he had heard from Juanita, and could not help wondering at the extraordinary mischances which had befallen her affairs. The letter confided to Palafox must have contained instructions in regard to the property which old Don Fernan had preserved somewhere for his daughter, and had been written as a precaution in case anything happened to his trusted servant José. Some perverse fate seemed to have decreed that José should die and the letter be lost simultaneously. And then his thoughts turned to Miguel. His story about the projected marriage was clearly a sheer fabrication; but it showed what his intentions were. He meant to take advantage of Juanita's orphaned condition to coax or cajole her into a marriage, and thereby to secure the property which he knew must be hers. It seemed improbable that he could have learnt where her father had stored his wealth; it might be that he supposed Juanita knew. His sudden nocturnal appearance in Saragossa, with a story of overpowering a sentry, was in itself very suspicious. Could he be playing a double game? At any rate Jack felt that he must be on his guard, on behalf of Juanita as well as himself; that Miguel would not hesitate to injure him he had now little doubt.

These thoughts, however, were banished by the important work of the next day. At dawn he learnt that hour by hour during the night the approach of the French had been more distinctly heard. All that morning he paid frequent visits to the Vega tunnel, and about eleven o'clock he felt sure, from the direction and the proximity of the sounds, that the French miners had arrived at a point in a line with the head of his gallery. The mining continued; it would take them between six and seven hours to reach the wall. Leaving Don Cristobal in charge, with instructions to keep as vigilant a look-out as ever, Jack went to see how the Y-shaped mines from the cellars of the Casa Alvarez were progressing, and then made a general round of the district. Several times during the day he had heard the sound of explosions in other parts of the city, but had been too busy to enquire about what was happening. He learnt now, however, that a block of houses twenty yards nearer the Coso, in the direction of the Franciscan convent, had been carried by the French, by which means they had extended their attacking front by nearly three times that distance. He heard also that trenches had been opened against the Jesus Convent, in the suburb of San Lazaro, across the river. It was evident that the enemy were at last arranging for a determined attack in that quarter, where they had done little since the early days of the siege. The possession of San Lazaro would enable them to harass the whole north side of the city, the only portion that hitherto had been immune, and where, consequently, the greater part of the stores was collected and the mass of the fever-stricken inhabitants huddled together.

About six o'clock he was recalled to the Casa Vega by the news that the French gallery had reached the wall and the tunnelling had ceased. It would take them some four hours, Jack conjectured, to tamp their mine; when that was done they would no doubt retire from the tunnel, and it would then be safe for the Spaniards to tamp their mine in turn. If they started to do so earlier, the sound would betray them. At ten o'clock all sounds from the French end had ceased; then Jack, after allowing a short interval, set his men to perform the tamping. Working without relaxation, they completed the task by two in the morning. Within four or five hours the French would explode their mine beneath the wall.

The first thing Jack did on being awakened by Pepito half an hour before dawn was to enquire whether any sounds of the French progress had been heard in the Casas Tobar and Vallejo. In the former he learned the mining had been heard for several hours; in the latter there had been no sounds at all. Satisfied that immediate work would only be required in the Casa Vega, he proceeded to get his men into order.

His plan, carefully thought out on the previous day, was to withdraw his garrison from the Casa Vega, leaving only one man to fire the mine; otherwise a large number would be uselessly sacrificed. The inrush of the French after the explosion of their mine was to be the signal for the firing of his own, and that in turn the signal for a sortie of the whole of his available force. By this means he hoped to drive the French back to such a distance that he could discover and blow up the galleries they were driving into the Casa Tobar, and probably into the Casa Vallejo also.