The Spanish Bride

6

The volley from the British troops was answered by the crash of such a fire as even the most hardened soldiers had never before experienced. A flame, darting upward, disclosed to the besiegers the horrors that lay before them. The storming-parties were some of them swarming down the ladders, and some, too impatient to await their turns, leaping down on to the hay-bags dropped into the ditch to break their fall. There, fourteen feet below the lip of the glacis, every imaginable obstacle, from broken boats to overturned wheelbarrows, had been cast to impede the progress of the attackers. All amongst them, wicked little lights burnt and spluttered. George Simmons, trying to stamp out one of these, was jerked away by a friend. ‘Leave it, man! leave it! There’s a live shell connected with it!’ The roar of an explosion drowned the words; somebody screamed, high and shrill above the uproar; a fire-ball was thrown from the ramparts, casting a red light on the scene. Men were pouring down the ladders into the inferno of bursting shells in the ditch; within a few minutes the ground was further encumbered by scores of dead and dying men; and the most horrible stench of burning flesh began to be mingled with the acrid smell of the gunpowder. Every kind of missile seemed to rain down upon the stormers. The air was thick with splinters, and loud with the roar of bursting shells, and the peculiar muffled sound of muskets fired downwards into the ditch. The Engineers, whose duty it was to lead the storming-parties, were shot down to a man. The troops, choked by the smoke, scorched by the flames, not knowing, without their guides, where to go, charged ahead to the one breach they could see, only to fall back before defences more dreadful than they had ever encountered. The breach was covered from behind by a breastwork; the slope leading up to it was strewn with crowsfeet, and with beams, studded with nails, that were hung from the edge of the breach. The men struggled up, fast diminishing in number as man after man was shot down by the steady fire maintained by the defenders behind the breastwork. But when the obstacles on the slope had been passed, the breach was found to be guarded by a hideous chevaux-de-frise of sword-blades stuck at all angles into heavy timbers that were chained to the ground. Those behind tried to thrust their foremost comrades forward; someone flung himself down on to the sword-blades in a lunatic endeavour to make of his own writhing body a bridge for the men behind him. It was in vain. While his brains were beaten out by the butts of French muskets, the storming-party was hurled back in confusion, into the indescribable hell below. Powder-barrels, rolling down upon them, exploded with deadly effect; from the breastwork the exultant French were shouting mockery and abuse, while they poured in their volleys.

The trench was crowded not only with the dead and the wounded but with the troops which still poured down into it. Harry Smith, unscathed, was hurled against someone by the bursting of a shell, and found it to be an acquaintance from the 4th division. He shouted above the din: ‘What the devil are you doing here?’ for it had been decided that the 4th division was to wheel to the right, to attack the breach in the Trinidad bastion. ‘We couldn’t do it! The trench is flooded!’ screamed the man in his ear. ‘Half of us were drowned! There’s a cunette, full of water!’

‘My God, then the divisions are mingled!’ gasped Harry, realizing now why the ditch was so packed with struggling red-coats.

He was thrust on to the foot of a ladder. Here, on the dead ground, a man lay crumpled up, with his hands pressed to his chest. The leaping flames in the ditch showed Harry a face he knew. It was livid, but the eyes were still intelligent.

‘Smith! Help me up the ladder! I’m done for!’

‘Colonel Macleod! Oh no, dear fellow!’ Harry cried flinging an arm round him. ‘I am, I tell you! Be quick!’

Half-supporting, half-carrying him, Harry got him up the ladder. He was groaning, but managed to say: ‘The 4th are mingled with ours!’ ‘I know it! It’s that cursed inundation! There, my poor friend, God be with you! I must go back!’

He left the wounded man, and swarmed once more down the ladder. The 4th division, finding the trench dug below the Trinidad bastion impassable, had instinctively swerved to the left, and were almost inextricably mixed with the men of the Light division. The most appalling confusion reigned; a lane of fire now separated the attackers from La Trinidad; little parties of troops, rallying round isolated officers, again and again charged up the slope of the breach, only to fall back before the ghastly chevaux-de-frise at the top. Mistaking an unfinished ravelin for the breach in the curtain wall, a heroic band charged up it, only to find a waste of earthworks lying still between them and the wall of the town.

Harry fought his way to where Barnard, by superhuman endeavour, was separating his own division from the 4th. The Light fell back to the ladders, overwhelmed by a fire no troops could withstand. Harry, almost swept off his feet, saw the face of little Frere of the 43rd regiment, ghastly in the glare of the fire-balls. They were forced on together to the ladders. ‘Let’s throw them down! The fellows shan’t get out!’ shouted Harry.

A wild-eyed, tattered private behind him heard, and roared: ‘Damn your eyes, if you do, we’ll bayonet you!’

Harry’s sash was loose, and got caught in the ladder. An angry growl, and the gleam of the threatened bayonet set him insanely laughing. He tore his sash free, and went on up the ladder, thrust forward by the irresistible surge of men behind him.

At the top, the surviving officers were re-forming their men, who, indeed, wished only for a breathing-space before plunging again into the ditch below. A brigade of Portuguese of the 4th division came up at the double, and went down into the ditch with an intrepidity that put renewed courage into the Light division.

Again and again the troops struggled through the reeking ditch to the slope of the breach, and up it to the defences at the top. “Why don’t you come into Badajos?” mocked the French.

More than two hours passed in this dreadful slaughter. The dead lay thick by the breach, and were trodden underfoot amongst the burning debris in the ditch. Between the attacks, which were launched now by dwindling bands of soldiers rallying round any officer who still survived, and could still lead his men, the troops stood immobile, enduring doggedly the fire from the ramparts. There was no thought of retreat; a sullen fury possessed the men; the horrors of the assault, which at first had shocked, now aroused only the most primitive instincts in even the mildest breasts. Humanity seemed to have deserted the eyes that glared up under the leathern peaks of shakos to the ramparts; the fire-balls and the rockets fitfully illumined faces that were rendered unrecognizable not so much by the smoke that had blackened them as by the rage that wiped out every other emotion, and transformed good-humoured countenances into strange masks of animal hatred. When the hail of missiles drove the besiegers to the ladders, they went up them only to re-form, and come on again. The main columns of the two divisions had been pouring reinforcements into the ditch for over an hour; Harry Smith, scorched, filthy with mud and blood, but untouched either by musketry or shell-fire, thought that he and little Frere must be the only two officers of the original storming-party who were not dead or wounded. Of his own regiment, officer after officer had fallen, some dead, some mortally wounded, some able to drag themselves out of the ditch to the rear. At midnight, a Staff-officer had galloped up to Barnard with Lord Wellington’s orders for the Light division to draw off, but neither Barnard nor the men who followed him would give way. Again they attacked, and again they were driven back, always in diminishing numbers. A little before daylight, when the exhausted troops had drawn back beyond the glacis, Lord Fitzroy Somerset, Wellington’s Military Secretary, rode up, and encountering Harry, called out: ‘Smith, where’s Barnard?’ ‘I don’t know,’ Harry answered. ‘He’s alive, that’s all I can tell you. By God, this is a hellish night’s work!’

‘I know, I know, everything has miscarried! Picton was too soon, and Leith was late. You are the only troops that kept to the right time.’

‘Well,’ said Harry, dog-weary but still game, ‘what did you expect? We are The Division, aren’t we?’

Lord Fitzroy, a Guardsman, smiled, but only said: ‘His lordship desires the Light and 4th divisions to storm once again.’

‘The devil!’ Harry said. ‘Why, man, we’ve had enough! We’re all knocked to pieces!’ ‘I daresay,’ Fitzroy answered in his quiet way, ‘but you must try again.’ ‘If we couldn’t succeed with two whole, fresh divisions, we’re likely to make a poor show of it now!’ Harry snapped back, letting his quick temper ride him for a moment. It was soon over; before Fitzroy could speak, he had smiled, and added: ‘But, by Jupiter, we will try again, and with all our might! Yet one of our fellows was sent off not five minutes ago to inform his lordship we can make no progress.’

Fitzroy said nothing; officer after officer had come up to Lord Wellington, where he stood above the quarry, watching the waste and the failure of his main attack, always with the same report to make: that the divisions were suffering terrible losses; that there were not officers enough left to lead the men; that the rope-parties could not drag away the chevaux-de-frise of sword-blades, or the stormers penetrate beyond it. When he received the last report of failure at the breaches, his lordship was standing with two only of his aides-de-camp: Lord March, and the young Prince of Orange. March was holding a flaming torch which cast its glare on to his lordship’s haggard face. It looked ghastly, the jaw a little fallen, yet the expression was as firm as ever. His lordship, aware of someone standing behind him, turned, and laid a hand on the man’s arm. ‘

Go at once to Picton, and tell him he must try if he cannot succeed on the Castle!’ he said quickly.

There was a moment’s hesitation; the gentleman addressed said with a strong Scotch accent: ‘My lord, I have not my horse, but I will walk as fast as I can, and I think I can find the way. I know part of the road is swampy.’

Lord March shifted the torch; its glow showed Wellington the face of Dr James McGrigor, Chief of the Medical Staff. He removed his hand. ‘No, no, I beg your pardon! I thought it was De Lancey.’

‘My lord, I am ready to go.’

‘No. It is not your business to be running errands.’

A little commotion was heard; someone was urgently calling: ‘Where is Lord Wellington?’ ‘Here! here!’ shouted the group round his lordship.

A mounted Staff-officer pushed up to them through the surrounding gloom. ‘My lord, the Castle is your own!’

The grim jaw seemed to shorten. Wellington shot a question at the officer, who answered exultantly: ‘My lord, Sir Thomas Picton, and, I believe, the whole division are in possession!’ ‘Good God, is it possible?’ exclaimed the Prince of Orange.

‘Go back to Sir Thomas, and desire him to push down into the town!’ said Wellington. ‘The Light and 4th must assail the breaches once again. You, sir, get back to your division, and desire Colonel Barnard to make another attempt. Inform him that General Picton is in, and will go to his assistance through the town. Send for my horse, March, and for yours and the Prince’s too!’

The officer from the Light division saluted and wheeled his horse: as he rode off, he was joined by a Quartermaster of the 95th regiment, who had been standing all the time quite close to Wellington. Together they made their way back to where the Light division, withdrawn from the glacis, were lying beside their arms, officers and men together, in bitter silence.

The news that the 3rd division had taken the Castle was received with sullen disbelief. It was some minutes before Quartermaster Surtees could convince the soldiers of the famous Light division that the 3rd had succeeded where they had failed. To men who had tried so long and so unavailingly to fight their way past impregnable breaches, it seemed impossible that any troops could have entered Badajos. But a bugle-call, sounding within the town, corroborated the incredible tidings. Receiving the order to reform, and assail the breach again, the men, who had staggered exhausted down the glacis a short time before, leapt to their feet again with their weariness and their hurts forgotten, got into formation, and went forward with a will. They trod over their own dead, and mounted the breach, under a slackened fire. There was now very little resistance from the defenders; sounds of fierce fighting within the walls could be heard; the weakened Light and 4th divisions passed the breach almost unopposed, and established themselves upon the deserted ramparts. ‘By the living God, we’re in!” gasped Charlie Eeles, tattered, blood-stained, and reeling with fatigue.