On lying down on the bed prepared for me, I was guilty of a piece of simplicity, which I had ample occasion to repent before I left the place. I took all my clothes off, and sent them to be dried by the people of the hospital, but they were never returned to me. I was in consequence forced to keep my bed for the three days I remained prisoner in Bergen-op-Zoom.
The hospital was crowded with the wounded on both sides. On my right hand lay Ensign Martial of the 55th regiment, with a grape-shot wound in his shoulder, of which, and ague together, he afterwards died at Klundert. On my left, in an adjoining room, lay poor General Skerret, with a desperate wound through the body, of which he died next night. It was said that he might have recovered, had it not been for the bruises he had received from the muskets of the enemy after he fell. This story I can hardly credit. However that may be, there is no doubt we lost in him a most gallant, zealous, and active officer, and at a most unfortunate time for the success of the enterprise. On the opposite side of the hospital lay Capt. Campbell, of the 55th regiment. He had a dreadful wound from a grape which entered at his shoulder and went out near the back-bone. He was gifted with the most extraordinary flow of spirits of any man I have ever met with. He never ceased talking from sun-rise till night, and afforded all of us who were in a condition to relish any thing, an infinite deal of amusement. I had told Campbell of the trick they had played me with my clothes, and it immediately became with him a constant theme for rating every Frenchman that passed him.
In the course of the next day a French serjeant came swaggering into the hospital, with an officer's sash tied round him, and stretched out to its utmost breadth. He boasted that he had killed the officer by whom it had been worn. Twice a-day two of the attendants of the hospital went about with buckets in their hands, one containing small pieces of boiled meat, which was discovered to be horseflesh by the medical people, while another contained a miserable kind of stuff, which they called soup, and a third contained bits of bread. One of the pieces of meat was tossed on each bed with a fork in passing; but the patient had always to make his choice between flesh and bread, and soup and bread, it being thought too much to allow them soup and meat at the same time. I was never so much puzzled in my life as by this alternative. Constantly tormented with thirst, I usually asked for soup, but my hunger, with which I was no less tormented, made me as often repent my choice. While we lay here we were attended by our own surgeons, and had every attention paid to us in this respect that we could desire.
In the mean time arrangements were entered into with Gen. Bizanet, the French commander, for an exchange of prisoners, and in consequence the last of the wounded prisoners were removed in waggons to Rozendaal, on the third day after we had been taken. On this occasion I was obliged to borrow a pair of trowsers from one of the soldiers, and a coat from my neighbour Martial, of the 55th, who being a tall man and I rather little, it reached half-way down my legs. Altogether I cut rather an odd figure as I started from the hospital. My regimental cap and shoes had, however, escaped the fate of my other habiliments, so, considering circumstances, matters might have been worse. But, one trial to my temper still remained which I did not expect: the old rascal, to whom I delivered my clothes when I sent them to be dried, had the unparalleled impudence to make a demand on me for the hospital shirt, with which, in place of my own wet one, I had been supplied on entering the hospital. I was so provoked at this unconscionable request, that I believe I should have answered him with a box on the ear, but my only available hand was too well employed at the time in supporting my trowsers. There was still another reason for my objecting to his demand: before I was taken prisoner, while lying in the vessel, I had managed to conceal some money which happened to be in my pockets on going to the attack; this I had carefully transferred, with due secrecy, to the inferior margin of the hospital shirt in which it was tied with a garter, when we were preparing to leave the place. This treasure, though not large, was of some importance to me, and I determined that nothing short of brute force should deprive me of it. My gentleman, however, pertinaciously urged his claim to the aforesaid garment, and a violent altercation ensued between us, in which I had an opportunity of showing a proficiency in Dutch swearing, that I was not aware of myself till this moment. My friend Campbell came up at last to my assistance, and discharged such a volley of oaths at the old vampire, that he was fairly beaten out of the field, and I carried away the shirt in triumph.
We were marched out of the town by the Bredagate to Rozendaal, a distance of about fifteen miles, where we arrived the same night. The French soldiers who had fallen in the conflict had all been removed by this time, but, as we proceeded, escorted by the victors, many a ghastly corpse of our countrymen met our half-averted eyes. They had all been more or less stripped of their clothing, and some had only their shirts left for a covering, and were turned on their faces. My heart rose at this humiliating spectacle, nor could I breathe freely until we reached the open fields beyond the fortifications. All who were unable to march were crowded into the waggons which had been prepared for them, while those who were less disabled straggled along the road the best way they could. As may be supposed, there were no needless competitors for the waggon conveyance, for the roads were rough, and every jolt of the vehicles produced groans of agony from the wretched passengers.
On arriving at Wouw, which I took in my way, I explained my absence from the regiment to the satisfaction of the commanding officer. I soon heard of the fate of poor Bulteel, (2nd Lieutenant 21st Regiment,) who fell during this ill-starred enterprise, by a cannon-ball, which carried off the top of his head. Never was a comrade more sincerely lamented by his messmates than this most amiable young man. His brother, an officer in the Guards, whom he had met only a few days before, fell the same night. The captain of my company, and kind friend, M'Kenzie, had his leg shattered by a shot on the same occasion, and I was informed that he bore the amputation without suffering a groan to escape from him. Four others were more slightly wounded. The dead had all been collected in the church, and a long trench being dug by the soldiers, they were all next day deposited in the earth without parade, and in silence. In a few days I proceeded to Rozendaal, where, for the present, the prisoners were to remain.
At this place I had more cause than ever to feel grateful for the kindness of my Dutch landladies and landlords; the surgeon who attended me finding it necessary to put me on low diet, and to keep my bed, the sympathy of the good people of the house knew no bounds; not an hour passed but they came to inquire how I was. So disinterested was their unwearied attention, that on leaving them I could not induce them to accept the smallest remuneration. After some time we went to Klundert, where we were to remain until our exchange should be effected.
Before concluding my narrative of the unfortunate attack on Bergen-op-Zoom, the reader may expect some observations relative to the plan of attack, and the causes of its ultimate failure; but it should be remembered, before venturing to give my opinions on the subject, that nothing is more difficult for an individual attached to any one of the different columns which composed the attacking force, than to assign causes for such an unexpected result, particularly when the communication between them has been interrupted. In a battle in the open field, where every occurrence either takes place under the immediate observation of the General, or is speedily communicated to him, faults can be soon remedied, or at least it may be afterwards determined with some degree of accuracy where they existed. But in a night-attack on a fortified place, the case is very different. As the General of the army cannot be personally present in the attack, any blame which may attach to the undertaking, can only affect him in so far as the original plan is concerned; and if this plan succeeds so far that the place is actually surprised, and the attacking force has effected a lodgment within it, and even been in possession of the greater part of the place, with a force equal to that of the enemy, no candid observer can attribute the failure to any defect in the arrangements of the General. Nothing certainly can be easier than, after the event, to point out certain omissions which, had the General been gifted with the spirit of prophecy, might possibly, in the existing state of matters, have led to a happier result; but nothing, in my humble opinion, can be more unfair, or more uncandid, than to blame the unsuccessful commander, when every possible turn which things might take was not provided against, and while it still remains a doubt how far the remedies proposed by such critics would have succeeded in the execution.