CHAPTER XXIV.
The blockade of Bayonne being now decidedly converted into a siege, Sir John Hope very justly determined that every brigade of British and Portuguese troops--in other words, every brigade upon which he could at all depend--should take by turns a share in the fatigue and danger attendant upon the progress of operations. The tour of duty allotted to each was accordingly fixed at three days. In consequence of this arrangement, we, who had assumed the care of the works and outposts on the 4th, were relieved on the evening of the 7th; and, at an early hour on the morning of the 8th, once more turned our faces in the direction of the pine-wood. The tents which we had pitched in the vicinity of Boucaut were not, however, struck. These we left standing for the benefit of a brigade of Portuguese, which crossed the river to succeed us; and hence, instead of halting where we originally sojourned beside the pond, and under the shadow of the fir-trees, we pushed on as far as the outskirts of Anglete. The morning of the 8th chanced to be uncommonly dark and foggy. It so happened, moreover, that a man who had got drunk upon duty the night before was doomed to suffer punishment as early as circumstances would allow; and the battalion, having reached what was supposed to be its ground, formed square in a green field for the purpose. Partly in consequence of the density of the fog, which rendered all objects at the distance of fifty yards invisible, and partly because the country was altogether new to us, we lost our way. Our astonishment may therefore be conceived, when, on the clearing away of the mist, we found ourselves drawn up within less than point-blank range of the enemy's guns, and close to the most advanced of our own sentinels in this part of the line.
For a moment or two we were permitted to continue thus unmolested, but not longer. The breastworks in front of us were speedily lined with infantry; mounted officers arrived and departed at speed; a few field-pieces, being hurried through a sally-port, were posted upon the exterior of the glacis, and then a sharp cannonade began. It was quite evident that the enemy expected an assault; and the accidental appearance of two other British brigades, which chanced at the moment to pass each other in our rear, added strength, without doubt, to that expectation. The scene was highly animating; but the enemy's guns were too well served to permit our continuing long spectators of it. A ball or two striking in the centre of the square warned us to withdraw; and as we were clearly in a situation where we were never meant to be, as well as because no act of hostility was on our part intended, we scrupled not to take the hint, and to march somewhat more to the rear. There a certain number of houses was allotted to us, and we again found ourselves, for the space of four days, under cover of a roof.
We were thus situated when a messenger extraordinary arrived at the quarters of the commanding officer about midnight on the 11th of April, with intelligence that the Allies were in possession of Paris, and that Buonaparte had abdicated. It would be difficult to say what was the effect produced upon us by the news. Amazement--utter amazement--was the first and most powerful sensation excited. We could hardly credit the story; some of us even went so far for a while as to assert that the thing was impossible. Then came the thought of peace, of an immediate cessation of hostilities, and a speedy return to our friends and relatives in England; and last, though not with the least permanent influence, sprang up the dread of reduction to half-pay. For the present, however, we rather rejoiced than otherwise at the prospect of being delivered from the irksome and incessant labour of a siege; and we anticipated with satisfaction a friendly intercourse with the brave men against whom we had so long fought, without entertaining one rancorous feeling towards them. I fear, too, that the knowledge of what had passed in Paris caused some diminution in the watchfulness which we had hitherto preserved; at least I cannot account upon any other principle for the complete surprisal of our outposts in the village of St Esprit a few nights subsequently.
The messenger who conveyed this intelligence to us went on to say that Sir John Hope had despatched a flag of truce to inform the Governor of Bayonne that there was no longer war between the French and British nations. General Thouvenot, however, refused to credit the statement. He had received, he said, no official communication from Marshal Soult; and as he considered himself under the immediate command of that officer, even a despatch from the capital could have no weight with him unless it came backed by the authority of his superior. Under these circumstances no proposals were made on either side to cease hostilities, though on ours the troops were henceforth exempted from the labour of erecting batteries, in which it was very little probable that guns would ever be mounted. In other respects, however, things went on as they had previously done. The pickets took their stations as usual; all communications between the garrison and the open country was still cut off; and several families who sought to pass through our lines were compelled to return into the town. This last measure was adopted, as it invariably is when a city is besieged, in order not to diminish the number of persons who must be fed from the stores laid up in the public arsenals.
Though there was peace in Paris, there was no peace before Bayonne. Our brigade having enjoyed its allotted period of rest, prepared to return to its camp beside Boucaut, for which purpose a line of march was formed on the morning of the 12th; and we again moved towards the floating bridge. As yet, however, our services at the outposts were not required; and as working parties were no longer in fashion, we spent that and the succeeding day peaceably in our camp. Not that these days were wholly devoid of interesting occurrences. During the latter a French officer arrived from the north, bearing the official account of those mighty transactions which once more placed his country under the rule of the Bourbons; and him we sent forward to the city, as the best pledge that could be offered for the truth of our previous statements, and of our present amicable intentions. Still General Thouvenot disbelieved, or affected to disbelieve, the whole affair; but he returned an answer by the flag of truce which accompanied the aide-de-camp, "that we should hear from him on the subject before long."
It will be readily believed that the idea of future hostilities was not, under all these circumstances, entertained by any individual of any rank throughout the army. For form's sake, it was asserted that the blockade must still continue, and the sentinels must still keep their ground; but that any attack would be made upon them, or any blood uselessly spilled, no man for a moment imagined. The reader may therefore guess at our astonishment, when, about three o'clock in the morning of the 14th, we were suddenly awoke by a heavy firing in front; and found, on starting up, that a desperate sortie had taken place, and that our pickets were warmly engaged along the whole line. Instantly the bugles sounded. We hurried on our clothes and accoutrements. The horses came galloping in from their various stables; the servants and batmen busied themselves in packing the baggage; and then hastily taking our places, we marched towards the point of danger, and were hotly and desperately in action in less than a quarter of an hour.
The enemy had come on in two columns of attack--one of which bore down upon the church and street of St Esprit; while the other, having forced the barricade upon the highroad, pressed forward towards the chateau where our mortar-battery was in progress of erection. So skilfully had the sortie been managed, that the sentries in front of both these posts were almost all surprised ere they had time, by discharging their pieces, to communicate an alarm to those behind them. And hence it came to pass that, amid the obscurity of a dark night, the first intimation of danger which the pickets received was given by the enemy themselves, who, stealing on to the very edge of the trench within which our men were stationed, fired down upon them. In like manner the sergeant's guard which stood beside the gun in the village was annihilated, and the gun itself captured; whilst the party in the church were preserved from a similar fate only in consequence of the care which had been taken to block up the various doorways and entrances, so that only one man at a time might make his way into the interior. It was, however, surrounded and placed in a state of siege, and gallantly defended by Captain Forster of the 38th Regiment and his men.
Just before the enemy sallied out, a French officer, it appeared, had deserted. Unfortunately, however, he came in through one of the more remote pickets, and hence those which were destined to receive the shock reaped no benefit from the event. His arrival at headquarters had, however, the effect of putting Sir John Hope on his guard; so that greater preparations to meet the threatened danger were going forward than we, on whom it came unexpectedly and at once, imagined. Five hundred men, for example, who formed a sort of reserve about a mile in rear of the outposts, were in full march towards the front when the firing began; and the enemy were in consequence checked before they had made any considerable progress, or had reached any of our more important magazines. The blue house, as we were in the habit of naming the chateau, was indeed carried; and all the piles of fascines and gabions, which had cost so much labour to construct, were burned; but besides this, little real benefit would have accrued to the assailants had the state of affairs been such as to render a battle at this particular juncture at all necessary or even justifiable.
Immediately on the alarm being given, Sir John Hope, attended by a single staff-officer, rode to the front. Thither also flew Generals Hay, Stopford, and Bradford; whilst the various brigades hurried after them at as quick a pace as the pitchy darkness of the night and the rugged and broken nature of the ground would permit. Behind them, and on either hand, as they moved, the deepest and most impervious gloom prevailed; but the horizon before them was one blaze of light. I have listened to a good deal of heavy firing in my day, but a more uninterrupted roar of artillery and musketry than was now going on I hardly recollect to have encountered.
As the attacking party amounted to five or six thousand men, and the force opposed to them fell somewhat short of one thousand, the latter were, of course, losing ground rapidly. The blue house was carried--the highroad, and several lanes that ran parallel with it, were in possession of the enemy--the village of St Esprit swarmed with them,--when Sir John Hope arrived at the entrance of a hollow road, for the defence of which a strong party had been allotted. The defenders were in full retreat. "Why do you move in that direction?" cried he, as he rode up. "The enemy are yonder, sir," was the reply. "Well, then, we must drive them back--come on." So saying, the General spurred his horse. A dense mass of French soldiers was before him; they fired, and his horse fell dead. The British picket, alarmed at the fall of the General, fled; and Sir John being a heavy man--being, besides, severely wounded in two places, and having one of his legs crushed beneath his horse--lay powerless, and at the mercy of the assailants. Captain Herries, his personal attendant on this occasion, did his best to extricate Sir John from his dilemma. He sprang from his horse, strove to drag the dead animal aside, and would not listen to the entreaties of his chief, who besought him to look to his own safety; and he paid the penalty of his devotion. The French continued to advance. They fired another volley at the retreating Guardsmen, a shot from which broke the bone of Captain Herries' leg close to the knee-joint. The young man fell, and was removed, together with his wounded General, a prisoner into the city.
Of this sad catastrophe none of the troops were at all aware, except those in whose immediate presence it occurred. The rest found ample employment, both for head and hand, in driving back the enemy from their conquests and bringing succour to their comrades, whose unceasing fire gave evidence that they still held out in the church of St Esprit. Towards that point a determined rush was made. The French thronged the street and churchyard, and plied our people with grape and canister from their own captured gun. But the struggle soon became more close and more ferocious. Bayonets, sabres, the butts of muskets, were in full play; and the street was again cleared, the barricade recovered, and the gun retaken. But they were not long retained. A fresh charge was made by increased numbers from the citadel, and our men were again driven back. Numbers threw themselves into the church as they passed, among whom was General Hay; whilst the rest gradually retired till reinforcements should come up, when they resumed the offensive, and with the most perfect success. Thus was the street of St Esprit, and the field-piece at its extremity, alternately in possession of the French and the English--the gun being taken and retaken not fewer than nine times between the hours of three and seven in the morning.
Nor was the action less sanguinary in other parts of the field. Along the sides of the various glens, in the hollow ways, through the trenches, and over the barricades, a deadly strife went on. At one moment the enemy appeared to carry everything before them; at another, they were checked, broken, and dispersed; but the darkness was so great that confusion everywhere prevailed: nor could it be ascertained, with any degree of accuracy, how matters would terminate.
At last day began to dawn, and a scene was presented of great disorder and horrible carnage. Not only were the various regiments of each brigade separated, but the regiments themselves were split up into little parties, each of which was warmly and closely engaged with a similar party of the enemy. In almost every direction, too, our men were gaining ground. The French had gradually retrograded; till now they maintained a broken and irregular line through the churchyard, and along the ridge of a hill which formed a sort of natural crest to the glacis. One battalion of Guards, which had retained its order, perceiving this, made ready to complete the defeat. They pushed forward in fine array with the bayonet; and dreadful was the slaughter which took place ere the confused mass of fugitives were sheltered within their own gates. In like manner a dash was made against those who still maintained themselves behind the churchyard wall; and they, too, with difficulty escaped into the redoubt.
A battle such as that which I have just described is always attended by a greater proportionate slaughter on both sides than one more regularly entered into and more scientifically fought. On our part, nine hundred men had fallen; on the part of the enemy, upwards of a thousand: and the arena within which they fell was so narrow that even a veteran would have guessed the number of dead at something greatly beyond this. The street of St Esprit, in particular, was covered with killed and wounded; and round the six-pounder they lay in heaps. A French artilleryman had fallen across it, with a fuze in his hand; there he lay, his head cloven asunder, and the remains of the handle of the fuze in his grasp. The muzzle and breech of the gun were smeared with blood and brains; and beside them were several soldiers of both nations, whose heads had evidently been dashed to pieces by the butts of muskets. Arms of all sorts, broken and entire, were strewed about. Among the number of killed on our side was General Hay; he was shot through one of the loopholes in the interior of the church. The wounded, too, were far more than ordinarily numerous: in a word, it was one of the most hard fought and unsatisfactory affairs that had occurred since the commencement of the war. Brave men fell when their fall was no longer of use to their country; and much blood was wantonly shed during a period of national peace.
A truce being concluded between General Colville, who succeeded to the command of the besieging army, and the Governor of Bayonne, the whole of the 15th was spent in burying the dead. Holes were dug for them in various places; and they were thrown in not without sorrow, but with very little ceremony. In collecting them together various living men were found, sadly mangled, and hardly distinguishable from their slaughtered comrades. These were of course removed to the hospitals, where every care was taken of them; but not a few perished from loss of blood ere assistance arrived. It was remarked, likewise, by the medical attendants, that a greater proportion of incurable wounds were inflicted this night than they remembered to have seen. Many had received bayonet-thrusts in vital parts: one man, I recollect, whose eyes were both torn from the sockets and hung over his cheeks; whilst several were cut in two by round-shot, which had passed through, yet left them breathing. The hospitals, accordingly, presented sad spectacles; and the shrieks and groans of the inmates acted with no more cheering effect upon the sense of hearing than their disfigured countenances and mangled forms acted upon the sense of sight.
It is unnecessary to remind the reader that, whilst our column of the army was thus engaged before Bayonne, Lord Wellington, following up his success at Orthes, had gained the splendid victory of Toulouse. As an immediate consequence upon that event, the important city of Bourdeaux was taken possession of by Lord Dalhousie, and declared for Louis XVIII.; and farther conquests were prevented only by the arrival of Colonels Cook and St Simon--the one at the headquarters of Lord Wellington, the other at those of Marshal Soult. By them, official information was conveyed of the great change which had occurred in the French capital. An armistice between the two generals immediately followed; and such an order being conveyed to General Thouvenot, as he considered himself bound to obey, a similar treaty was entered into on our side of the theatre of war. By the terms of that treaty all hostilities were to cease. The two armies were still, indeed, kept apart; nor was any one from our camp allowed to enter Bayonne without a written pass from the adjutant-general. Foraging parties only were permitted to come forth from the place at stated periods, to which limits were assigned, beyond which they were prevented from penetrating. Yet the truce was regarded by both parties as an armed one. After so recent an instance of treachery, we felt no disposition to trust to the word or honour of the French governor; and the enemy guessing, perhaps, what our feelings were, did not pretend to trust us. On each side, therefore, a system of perfect watchfulness continued. We established our pickets and planted our sentinels with the same caution and strictness as before; nor was any other difference distinguishable between the nature of those duties now and what it had been a week ago, except that the enemy suffered us to show ourselves without firing upon us. So passed several days, till, on the 20th, the war was formally declared to be at an end.
CONCLUSION.
Little now remains for me to add. My tale of war and its attendant dangers and enjoyments in this part of the world is told; and I have nothing left to notice except a few of the most prominent of the adventures which befell between the period of my quitting one scene of hostile operations and my arrival at another. These are soon narrated.
Early on the morning of the 28th of April 1814, the whole of the Allied troops encamped about Bayonne drew up, in various lines, to witness the hoisting of the white flag upon the ramparts of that city. The standards of Britain, Spain, Portugal, and of the Bourbons, already waved together from the summit of every eminence in our camp. Up to this date, however, the tricolor still kept its place upon the flagstaff of the citadel; to-day it was to be torn down, and the "drapeau-blanc" substituted in its room. To us, no doubt, the spectacle promised to be one of triumph and rejoicing; for we thought of the gigantic efforts of our country, which alone, of all the nations in Europe, had uniformly refused to acknowledge the sovereignty of the usurper; but by the French it was very differently regarded. Even among the country people not a spark of enthusiasm could be traced; whilst by the garrison no secret was made of their abhorrence of the new state of things, and their undiminished attachment to their former master. But there was no help for it. "La fortune de la guerre," said a French officer to me one day, as we talked of these matters; but he shrugged his shoulders as he spoke, and gave no proof that he was satisfied with its results.
We had stood in our ranks about an hour, dressed in our best attire, and having our muskets loaded with powder only, when a signal-gun was fired from one of the batteries of the town, and a magnificent tricolored flag, which had hitherto waved proudly in the breeze, was gradually lowered. For perhaps half a minute the flagstaff stood bare; and then a small white standard, dirty, and, if my eyes deceived me not, a little torn, was run up. Immediately the guns from every quarter of the city fired a salute. By such of our people as kept guard at the outposts that day, it was asserted that each gun was crammed with sand and mud, as if this turbulent garrison had been resolved to insult, as far as they could, an authority to which they submitted only because they were compelled to do so. On our parts the salute was answered with a _feu-de-joie_ from all the infantry, artillery, and gunboats; and then a hearty shout being raised, we filed back to our respective stations and dismissed the parade.
From this date till the general breaking up of the camp, nothing like friendly or familiar intercourse took place between us and our former enemies. We were suffered, indeed, by two at a time, to enter the city with passports; and some half-dozen French officers would occasionally wander down to Boucaut and mingle in the crowd which filled its market-place. But they came with no kindly intention. On the contrary, all our advances were met with haughtiness; and it seemed as if they were anxious to bring on numerous private quarrels, now that the quarrel between the countries was at an end. Nor were these always refused them. More duels were fought than the world in general knows anything about; and vast numbers were prevented only by a positive prohibition on the part of the two generals, and a declaration that whoever violated the order should be placed in arrest and tried by court-martial.
We were still in our camp by the Adour, when various bodies of Spanish troops passed through on their return from Toulouse to their own country. Than some of those battalions I have never beheld a finer body of men; indeed, many of them were as well clothed, armed, and appointed as any battalions in the world. But they were, one and all, miserably officered. Their inferior officers, in particular, seemed to be mean and ungentlemanly in their appearance; and they possessed little or no authority over their men. Yet they were full of boasting, and gave themselves on all occasions as many absurd airs as if their valour had delivered Spain and dethroned Napoleon.
Like my companions, I embraced every opportunity that was afforded of visiting Bayonne, and examining the nature of its works. Of the town itself I need say no more than that it was as clean and regularly built as a fortified place can well be, where the utmost is to be made of a straitened boundary; and houses obtain in altitude what may be wanting in the extent of their fronts. Neither is it necessary that I should enter into a minute description of the defences, sufficient notice having been taken of them elsewhere. But of the inhabitants I cannot avoid remarking that I found them uncivil and unfriendly in the extreme, as if they took their tone from the troops in garrison, and were nowise thankful that events had preserved them from the horrors of an assault.
Our visits to the town, which were not very frequent, inasmuch as they generally subjected us to insult from a brutal garrison, we varied with other and more agreeable occupations. The trout began to stir in the Adour, and the fishing-rods of such as came provided with tackle of the sort were brought into play. A race-course was marked out on the sands, near the river's mouth, and the speed of our horses, we ourselves riding, was tried with excellent effect. We established balls in the village, whereat the bands of the different regiments performed; and ladies of all ranks--from the towns and villages near--favoured us with their company. But never could we thaw the ice that seemed to have gathered round the hearts of the French officers. They embraced every opportunity of bringing on personal quarrels, and, as I have already hinted, though reluctant to accede to the matter at the outset, we came by degrees to see the necessity of indulging them; and I am inclined to think that they sometimes got enough of it.
Such was the general tenor of my life from the 20th of April till the 8th of May. On the latter day the regiment struck its tents, and marched one day's journey to the rear, where it remained in quiet till the arrival of the order which sent it first to the neighbourhood of Bourdeaux, and afterwards to North America.
* * * * *
Thus ends the narrative of the adventures of a single year in the life of a subaltern officer. Whatever may be thought of it by the public, it has not been compiled without considerable satisfaction by the narrator; for the year referred to is one on which he now looks back, and probably shall ever look back, with the melancholy satisfaction which accompanies a retrospect of happiness gone by. If ever there existed an enthusiastic lover of the profession of arms, I believe that I was one. But the times were unfavourable; and he must live for very little purpose who knows not that enthusiasm of any kind rarely survives our youth. I loved my profession as long as it gave full occupation to my bodily and mental powers; but the peace came, and I loved it no longer. Perhaps, indeed, the kind of feeling which I had taught myself to encourage was not such as, in the present state of society, any prudent person is justified in encouraging; for I care not to conceal that the brightest hopes of my boyhood have all faded, and that manhood has produced none capable of taking their place. The friend who shared with me so many dangers and hardships fell at my side by the hand of an unworthy enemy. The walk of life which I pursued for a while so merrily has been abandoned; my sabre hangs rusty upon the wall; and my poor old faithful dog is gathered to her fathers. She lies under the green sod in a little lawn, on the surface of which she used to stretch her limbs many a day in the noon-tide sun, after age had begun to stiffen them. Well, well, all this is as it ought to be. It is quite right that we should learn the folly of fixing our affections too strongly upon anything in a scene so shifting and uncertain as human life; and I suspect that there are few persons who are not taught that lesson, at least occasionally, long before their prime be past.
Let it not, however, be supposed, that he who thus expresses himself must therefore be discontented with his lot, or that he murmurs against the Providence which has cast it for him. By no means. If in my new mode of existence there be less of excitement and of wild enjoyment than in my old, at least there is more of calm and quiet gratification. Other ties, likewise, are around me, different in kind, indeed, but not less tender than those which time has severed; and if there be nothing in the future calculated to stir up ambitious longing, there is still sufficient to defend against discontent. At all events, I am certain that my present occupations are such as will prove more permanently and vitally beneficial to others than those which preceded them; and let me add, that a man need not be accused of fanaticism who is convinced that to look back upon a life not uselessly spent is the only thing which will bring him peace at the last.
But enough of moralising, when, in the Minstrel's words, I wish to such as have honoured my tale with a perusal--
"To all, to each, a fair good-night, And pleasing dreams, and slumbers light."
POSTSCRIPT.
Soon after the first appearance of "The Subaltern" in 'Blackwood's Magazine,' there were published, in the same able work, lines to the memory of my faithful dog, which sorrow for the loss of a creature so dear to me had called forth.
They do not appear to myself to be worthy of republication; but as others have thought differently, I cannot refuse to give a place to them in a volume which, indirectly at least, has told how long and how faithfully Juno served me. I therefore subjoin
MY DOG'S EPITAPH.
Sleep on, sleep on, thou gentle one! Light lie the turf upon thy breast; Thy toil is o'er, thy race is run-- Sleep on, and take thy rest! In vain for thee were the 'larum note Poured from the bugle's brazen throat-- The rolling drum thou heedest not, Nor noise of signal-gun. Let charger tramp or warrior tread Over the place of thy narrow bed, They will not wake thee from the dead-- Thy mortal strife is done!
Sleep on, sleep on, thou faithful slave! Unmindful though thy master keep His vigils by thy nameless grave, And think of thee and weep; Not even his voice, beloved of yore, That stirred thee when the cannon's roar Hath failed to rouse, shall rouse thee more Out of thy slumbers deep! No more for thee his whistle shrill Shall sound through wood, o'er moor and hill-- Thy cry is mute, thy limbs are still In everlasting sleep! Sleep on, sleep on! no morrow's sun Shall light thee to the battle back; Thy fight hath closed, thy laurels won, And this thy bivouac. On tented field or bloody plain, For thee the watch-fire flares in vain-- Thou wilt not share its warmth again With him who loved thee well; Nor when with toil and danger spent, He rests beneath the firmament, Thine eye upon his form be bent, Thou trusty sentinel!
Sleep on, thou friend and comrade tried, In battle, broil, and peaceful bower! Thou hast left for once thy master's side, But never in danger's hour. Not thus inactive wert thou laid, On that night of perilous ambuscade, When levelled tube and brandished blade Were at thy master's throat; Then fierce and forward was thy bound, And proud thy footstep pressed the ground, While the tangled greenwood echoed round With thy loud warning-note.
Sleep on, sleep on! it is not now The soldier's cloak, a covering meet For that kind head--no more art thou Couched at a soldier's feet. What boots it thee if storms be high, Or summer breezes fan the sky? Unheeded both will pass thee by, They cannot reach thee there; Hunger and thirst assail thee not-- Peril and pain alike forgot-- Be foul or fair thy master's lot, That lot thou canst not share.
Then sleep; though gladly would I give Half of the life preserved by thee, Couldst thou, once more, my comrade, live Thy short space o'er with me. Vain wish, and impotent as vain; 'Tis but a mockery of pain, To dream that aught may bring again The spirit that hath flown. But years steal by, and they who mourn Another's fate, each in his turn Shall tread one path, and reach one bourne,-- Then, faithful friend, sleep on!
THE END.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.