The enemy had cleared away the rubbish some feet from a round tower, nearly in the centre, and on the crest of the great breach, which they maintained, and it was from this apparently trifling and unbreached spot that the troops sustained their principal loss—standing up to their knees in rubbish, and losing their lives without any probability of success. As the French, however, could not well fire on their left flank without hanging over the parapet, our soldiers were enabled to keep their station on the slope of the breach, at the expense of a great number of officers and men. Had the enemy been able to flank the slope of the breach, all the troops must have been annihilated. The slaughter, however, was so great, as to cause the most serious apprehension, and the wounded and dying were suffering dreadfully, and languishing in the most horrible torments, for want of water, without being again able to regain the trenches, owing to the cross-fire of musketry through which they had to run the gauntlet while advancing to the assault. With the exception of the guns in the castle, the enemy hardly fired any artillery from the walls, either from their being principally dismounted, or that they were unable to depress them sufficiently to do much execution. At this time hardly a word escaped the lips of the astonished spectators; and many of the women were drowned in tears at so doleful a spectacle.
At twelve o'clock General Graham, seeing affairs in this desperate state, ordered the guns from the batteries to open, to oblige the enemy to keep down, and to shield the troops for a short time, from their fatal bullets, and to give them a little breathing time, so as to enable the wounded who could yet walk to regain the trenches. The fire from the batteries was terrific, and the troops retired four or five yards down the slope of the breach, while the heavy shot passed over their heads, skimming the round tower, the ramparts and the crest of the breach with a precision truly astonishing, so that the enemy could not show their heads, or discharge a single firelock. Never was artillery better served, or opened at a more seasonable moment; and without doubt this was one of the principal causes of carrying the day; for indeed, had it not been for this seasonable relief, the troops must have been inevitably sacrificed by piecemeal. The volumes of smoke arose in dense clouds, and the reverberation was amazing. The iron balls rattled into the devoted town, unroofing the houses, knocking up the dust and rubbish, and thundering against the walls with a tremendous crash, as if the ramparts were cracking and every stone broken, and the whole tumbling into a mass of ruins. All the edifices seemed tottering to the very foundations, and it was as though every living creature within were about to be swallowed up in the vortex and buried amid the utter desolation.
When first the assault took place, the sun shone forth brilliantly; it was now twelve o'clock, and the clouds blackened and gathered together, foreboding the coming storm.
The blazing of the heavy artillery lasted more than half an hour, during which time General Graham let loose the volunteers and the reserve of the fifth division against the large breach and adamantine round tower. The Spanish girls near us ejaculated (while shedding a few pearly tears, and unfolding the little papers containing their sugar-drops,) "pobre Sebastiano! pobre Sebastiano!" We asked them why they did not say, poor soldiers,—"Oh si, si," answered they, "pobres soldados tambien!"
As soon as the fire of the heavy calibre had ceased, fresh efforts were made against the breach, and the sharp fire of the deadly small arms was resumed. At half past twelve o'clock a Portuguese regiment led on by Lieutenant Colonel Snodgrass[3] moved along the sands and began to ford the river Urumea, the water at low tide being at this spot about two hundred yards in width. As soon as they reached the middle of the stream, a gun from an embrasure exactly opposite to them discharged a round of grape shot, which fell into the middle of the column, and knocked the men down in every direction: some of them sank to rise no more, others floundered in the water, and called out for help in the most pitiable manner. The enemy fired a second discharge before the Portuguese could extricate themselves from the stream, (which reached up to the hips), and again inflicted dreadful havoc in their ranks. The smoke of the last round created considerable surprise among us, as it was of a reddish colour, as if red ochre had been mixed up with the powder. The excellent and steady conduct of the 13th regiment of Portuguese was beyond all praise. Having cleared the river they closed up, moved forward and ascended the small breach, eighty yards from the larger one.
At this time we also observed part of the 85th regiment a short distance out at sea (in large boats) apparently threatening the back of the rock, on which stands the Castle of La Motta, but this threat of escalading the rocks was relinquished owing to the impracticability of such an enterprise; the troops in the breaches became fixtures as before, and no further progress towards the capturing of the fortress appeared to be made. At last I saw several soldiers quitting the large breach and running to the right to assist the Portuguese at the small one; and a brave bugler sounded the advance several times. Confused cries of assembled voices echoed from the ramparts at that point, and we could hear sounds like the battering of firelocks against doors or barricades, intermingled with occasional firing of musketry. Still, no very serious impression was visible to us.
At one o'clock a violent explosion took place on the rampart behind the French traverse to the right of the large breach, and, before the fragments blown into the air had fallen, or the smoke cleared away, the troops nobly pushed forward, and, at the same time, the crowd of spectators on the hill rose simultaneously with joy beaming on every countenance; and when the hollow sounds of the firing were heard within the interior of the town, we became satisfied that the place was taken.—The explosion was supposed to be caused by accidental sparks, or loose cartridge paper falling on the train. Probably no one living knows the real cause. However, all the French soldiers near the spot were blown into the air, and fell singed and blackened in all directions; and the dead soldiers lay so thick on the slope of the breach that it looked, to the naked eye, as if the mass of troops were still stationary.
Soon after, we saw the French issuing from the town, and firing down upon the British troops from behind some old walls running in zig zags up the castle hill. There cannot be a shadow of doubt that the place would not have been carried, had it not been for the decision of General Graham, who, persisting in a constant attack to the last, kept the troops in that honorable post to take advantage of any contingencies that might chance to throw open the door to victory.
The enemy lost seven hundred men, prisoners taken in the town, who were unable to reach the castle. The fifth division and the volunteers from the British army lost two thousand men and officers killed and wounded; amongst the latter Generals Leith, Oswald and Robinson were wounded, and Colonel Fletcher commanding the engineers was killed by a musket ball, just before the assault took place.
At half past one p.m. a heavy mist began to fall, which caused us to bend our course towards Renteria, and, before we reached half a league, the rain descended in torrents; but none had fallen during the storming of the breaches.