Random Shots from a Rifleman

by J. Kincaid

I am, nevertheless, one of those who would like to see the attempt made at an intermediate period. Breaches certainly serve the important end of distracting the attention of the garrison, and leading them to neglect other assailable points—though, whenever they have the opportunity of retrenching them, as at Badajos, they are undoubtedly the strongest parts of the works. I should therefore carry on the siege in the usual manner until about the time the batteries began to come into operation, and as it might then be fairly presumed that the garrison, by the regular order of proceedings, would be lulled into a notion of temporary security, I should feel monstrously inclined to try my luck. If it turned up trumps it might save valuable time and a thousand or two of valuable lives. If it failed, the loss would be in proportion; but it would neither lose time, nor compromise the result of the siege.

Colonel Jones, an able writer and an able fighter, in his particular department, would have had us do what his great guns ought to have done on that memorable night—namely, to have cleared away the defences on the top of the breach, which he affirms might have been done by the rush of a dense mass of troops. But had he been where I was he would have seen that there was no scarcity of rushes of dense masses of troops; but, independently of every other engine of destruction which human ingenuity could invent—they were each time met by a dense rush of balls, and it is the nature of man to bow before them. No dense mass of troops could reach the top of that breach.

Major (then Lieutenant) Johnston, of ours, who was peculiarly calculated for desperate enterprize, preceded the forlorn hope, in command of a party carrying ropes, prepared with nooses, to throw over the sword blades, as the most likely method of displacing, by dragging them down the breach; but he and his whole party were stricken down before one of them had got within throwing distance.

When an officer, as I have already mentioned, with a presentiment of death upon him, resigned a safe duty to take a desperate one—when my own servant, rather than remain behind, gave up his situation and took his place in the ranks—when another man of ours (resolved to win or to die,) thrust himself beneath the chained sword blades, and there suffered the enemy to dash his brains out with the ends of their muskets—these, I say, out of as many thousand instances of the kind which may be furnished, will shew that there was no want of daring leaders or desperate followers.

The defences on the tops of the breaches ought to have been cleared away by our batteries before the assault commenced. But failing that, I cannot see why a couple of six-pounders (or half a dozen) might not have been run up along with the storming party, to the crest of the glacis. Our battalion took post there, and lay about ten minutes unknown to the enemy, and had a few guns been sent along with us, I am confident that we could have taken them up with equal silence, and had them pointed at the right place—when, at the time that the storming party commenced operations, a single discharge from each, at that range of a few yards, would not only have disturbed the economy of the sword blades and sand-bags, but astonished the wigs of those behind them. As it was, however, when I visited the breaches next morning, instead of seeing the ruin of a place just carried by storm, the whole presented the order and regularity of one freshly prepared to meet it—not a sword blade deranged, nor a sand-bag removed!

The advance of the fourth division had been delayed by some accident, and the head of their column did not reach the ditch until our first attack had been repulsed, and when considerable confusion consequently prevailed.

The seventh Fusileers came gallantly on, headed by Major ——, who, though a very little man, shouted with the lungs of a giant, for the way to be cleared, to "let the royal Fusileers advance!" Several of our officers assisted him in such a laudable undertaking; but, in the mean time, a musket-ball found its way into some sensitive part, and sent the gallant major trundling heels over head among the loose stones, shouting to a less heroic tune—while his distinguished corps went determinedly on, but with no better success than those who had just preceded them, for the thing was not to be done.

After we had withdrawn from the ditch and reformed the division for a renewal of the attack, (it must have been then about two or three o'clock in the morning,) some of those on the look-out brought us information that the enemy were leaving the breaches, and our battalion was instantly moved forward to take possession.

We stole down into the ditch with the same silence which marked our first advance—an occasional explosion or a discharge of musketry continued to be heard in distant parts of the works; but in the awful charnel pit we were then traversing to reach the foot of the breach, the only sounds that disturbed the night were the moans of the dying, with an occasional screech from others suffering under acute agony; while a third class lying there disabled, and alive to passing events, on hearing the movement of troops, (though too dark to distinguish them,) began proclaiming their names and regiments, and appealing to individual officers and soldiers of the different corps, on whose friendly aid they seemed to feel that they could rely if they happened to be within hearing.