Chapter 5

A FURIOUS STRUGGLE

The time passed slowly. Skirmishing went on constantly. Both parties worked at their entrenchments. Shots were exchanged by the batteries from time to time. The soldiers were in better spirits, as a certain amount of the pay due was handed to them, and for a time even the grumblers were contented. Drilling went on regularly, and was done smartly and well. Sunday was the great day of the week. Spanish colours were hoisted early, and cannon fired a salute. The church bells began to ring, and every Spaniard, male and female, rich and poor, started by six o'clock for the Cathedral, which was so crowded that very many were forced to kneel outside on the plaza in front of it, the other churches being all taken up as magazines and storehouses. At seven o'clock the service was over, the shopkeepers began to open their stores, and country people and others thronged the great square.

Although firing went on as usual, sports were held down on the sands. When the market was cleared away, the plaza was soon filled with dancers, principally girls, who danced to the guitar. In the crowd were Spanish and English officers, grave dons, all the better class of the town, the women in their black silk dresses and mantillas, peasants, beggars, soldiers, and sailors. Many would stroll to the ramparts and watch the firing till eight o'clock, at which hour the Spaniards all went to bed, and the streets were quiet save for an occasional drunken soldier and the patrol parties.

Then there was another long interval without pay, which caused serious disaffection. Several of the regiments broke into open mutiny, and absolutely refused either to obey orders or to leave their barracks. Some of these mutinies lasted for a fortnight, and were caused partly by want of pay and partly because many of the men believed that they had enlisted only for a year, and, now that the period of their service was drawing to an end, considered that ships should be arriving to take them home.

The officers were greatly puzzled what to do. It was extremely doubtful whether any of the regiments that were still obedient would, if called upon to do so, fire upon the mutineers, and it was morally certain that if they did so the disaffection would be so great that the whole Legion would fall to pieces. The officers went about among the mutineers trying to get them to return to their duty. Some of the regiments were pacified by distributing small sums of money among them, others were reduced by stopping the supply of all rations, and gradually things settled down again.

The desultory fire that had been going on for so many weeks was succeeded, on the 1st of October, by a series of attacks by the Carlists.

Heavy firing broke out at three o'clock in the morning, shot after shot falling in the town, and so well aimed were they that none doubted but that the gunner was one John Wilson, a deserter from the Legion, who had once been in the Royal Artillery. There had been many desertions from time to time, and the Carlists were constantly shouting invitations to our men to come over to them, promising them good pay and good treatment--offers very enticing to men on small rations and no pay.

As the fire broke out columns of Carlist infantry advanced, driving the pickets before them. Some of these threw themselves into houses, and defended themselves against overwhelming numbers. The 3rd Regiment and the Rifles were the first to reach the scene of action, many of them running up in their shirts, or with their tunics all unbuttoned, having leapt to their feet, seized their rifles, and hurried off without a moment's delay. Drums were beating and bugles sounding all over the town, the non-commissioned officers turning the men out as fast as they could.

The officers were riding about and getting the men to fall in. As they arrived they were formed up behind walls and other shelters. The 3rd and the Rifles had checked the Carlist advance. As the 8th Regiment formed up, a cannon shot from the Carlist fort on the Ametza Hill fell close to a group of officers, many of whom were knocked down by the stones thrown up, and then went through the column, killing one man and knocking down half a dozen others. The men, however, laughed and joked among themselves. The next ball went right through the horse of a mounted officer, killed two soldiers behind him, and a woman who was out looking for her husband's body, having just got news that he had been killed.

Our artillery had now come on the scene, and, directed by Colonel Colquhoun, an admirable and scientific officer, soon got the range. He himself levelled one of the cannon at a column of Carlists a mile distant. The ball burst just at the right moment and committed great havoc, and the gunners of the other pieces in the battery, under his instructions, opened such a terrible fire upon the column that it broke and disappeared. He then laid three guns on the Ametza fort. They were fired simultaneously, and to the delight of the soldiers they burst on the parapet, carrying death and confusion among the gunners, and killing, among others, the deserter who had given them so much trouble. Up till ten o'clock the Carlists maintained the offensive, but at that hour the Lancers came on to the field. They charged in gallant style on the south-east side of the Ametza hill, and the Carlists gave way and ran until they reached their breastworks. Here it was impossible for the cavalry to follow, and they at once drew off under a very heavy fire. They then charged again and again at the various parties scattered over the plain, moving in as perfect order as if on parade, and doing great execution. But for the fact that the Spanish entrenchments were so extensive as to afford shelter for the scattered fugitives, the loss inflicted upon them would have been extremely heavy.

The special object of the Carlist attack had been the village and fort of Alza. This was defended by two Spanish regiments, one of the Legion, and a battery, and these repelled the attack with great slaughter.

A dog belonging to the Legion, which had taken part in every fight, always marching at the head of the regiment, distinguished himself greatly in this battle. Strangely enough he never barked except in face of the enemy. He had been twice wounded, and on this occasion, in company with a Spanish friend of his own species, advanced and retreated with the Lancers. They had gone on for some distance, where the balls were flying thick, but during one advance the Spaniard tumbled over and came back hopping on three feet. Briton looked back but would not retreat, and stood barking his defiance at the enemy. Presently a ball slightly wounded him in the throat. He returned to his companion, who was hobbling away, and tried to turn him, and repeatedly offered to lead another charge by advancing a short distance himself. Presently he got another wound on the head. The men lying in shelter called to him, and he came in and got his wound partially dressed, and then at once set off again. His Spanish friend had in the meantime been killed, and Briton, having in vain tried to make him rise, came back to the men and endeavoured to get them to go out and carry his friend in.

The National Guard of San Sebastian turned out well. They had no regular uniform, but carried a bandolier filled with cartridges, and their rifles; and many of their women, who came out with the men, took shelter in the woods and assisted in carrying in the wounded.

General Evans rode about with the greatest coolness through the heavy fire, but although hundreds of bullets were aimed at him he was only hit once through the ear.

So the fight continued all day until night put an end to it. No attempt was made to storm the Spanish position. As General Evans mentioned in his despatches, this could not have been effected without the loss of at least five hundred men, and the capture of the entrenchments would have been dear at the price.

After this battle there was an interval of quiet. Arrangements had been made by General Evans with the Spanish commanders that he would not take the offensive until they were ready to co-operate with him. The force was therefore again set to work to entrench, and as the men received a pint of wine and threepence three-farthings a day in addition to the usual twopence halfpenny, the service was a very popular one. The extra pay sufficed to keep the soldiers from grumbling, and the extra food that they were able to purchase put them into better condition.

One of the well-known figures in the town was General Jauregui. He had been in turn a shepherd, half-soldier, and half-guerrilla; but when the war broke out he raised a body of volunteers for the queen, and soon attained the rank of general. He was not liked by the officers under him, many of whom were nobles, but he was beloved by his men. He had many relations in the ranks, and was not ashamed to sit down and eat and talk with them. He possessed the rare peculiarity in a Spaniard of being fat.

Months passed; and not until the 9th of March did it become known that the advance was to take place the next morning. No secret was made of it, as the general's desire was that the Carlists should gather to resist him, for he wished to strike a heavy blow. Each man was given a peseta (equal to tenpence halfpenny) to buy tobacco and other necessaries, and the shops of the town were crowded all day with British soldiers. A good deal of the money was invested in chocolate, for it was thought probable that the battle would last more than one day, in which case rations would not be served out.

There was no going to bed that night. Fires were kept blazing everywhere, and cooking-pots were hung over them. Extra flints were served out, and new shoes for those in need of them, and men exchanged with each other the addresses of their relations in order that news might be sent to them if they were killed. All night the men sat and joked, until an officer went round and ordered them to fall in quietly. The Spanish regiments had already turned out and taken up their places, some on the glacis and some in close column behind one of the batteries.

As day broke, the men were called to attention, and almost simultaneously the batteries opened fire. A column marched against the Ametza with such resolution that its garrison evacuated it hurriedly, leaving many thousands of rounds of ammunition behind them. The fighting was desperate all along the line. One rocky hill was taken and retaken five times during the day. The terror of the scene was added to by the fact that the furze on the hills caught fire from the explosion of the shells, and many wounded were burned to death. Many of the places were thickly dotted with the red coats of the Legion.

The fight continued all day, and the troops lay down and slept on the ground they had won. Upwards of a thousand had fallen; and the Carlists must have suffered much more severely, for they had been exposed to the fire of artillery while they themselves had no guns in action. The next day passed quietly, the artillerymen being occupied in getting their guns up on to the height they had won. On the second day after the battle, in spite of a pouring rain the advance began again. The artillery cleared the way, turning the Carlists out of the houses they occupied; the troops crossed the river by a bridge of boats, and moved on without serious opposition, and were glad when the order came to halt and occupy the houses of the deserted village.

A little beyond the village there was a hard fight the next day, but at night the troops fell back to the houses they had occupied in the morning. The rain still came down. On the following morning at twelve it cleared. The Carlists lay concealed until the columns got very near to them, and then opened a tremendous fire. At three o'clock the engagement had become general. Some of the troops fired away all their ammunition and then charged with the bayonet, before which weapon the Carlists always fell back, although they would stand against the heaviest musketry fire. The strongest point of defence of the Carlists was the Venta Hill. Round this the battle raged all day, and in the afternoon it was decided to make a final attempt to take it.

The 8th Regiment of the Legion was in camp, and was about to start on the attack when General Evans rode up.

"You cannot go on with your one regiment, Colonel Hogg," he said; "there will be some more up very shortly."

"Oh, allow me, general, to go on!" Colonel Hogg said. "I am sure we can get through the breastwork;" and then, turning to the regiment, which was in close column, said: "Men, would you rather go on by yourselves, or wait for others to come on to help you? We have a chance here that we will not divide with another regiment."

The men answered with a tremendous cheer.

"Go on, then, brave fellows!" General Evans said; and the regiment advanced. The artillery were hard at work, and the scream of the rockets sounded over the din of the musketry and guns. The regiment with a loud cheer emerged from the cover which concealed them, and as they did so a blaze of fire ran along all the enemy's defences. The four mounted officers galloped at their head. Every man cheered as he ran down into a road and then up again through hedges and across broken ground. A storm of bullets swept through them, and the guns on the heights played upon them with grape, but fortunately most of the missiles went overhead. They reached the first barricade. The colonel was the first to mount it, and some others climbed up; but the majority were so out of breath with their shouting and the pace at which they had run that they were forced to pause. The barricade was built of turf, and was too steep to be climbed; but the men set to work to tear it down with their hands, and soon made a passage through which they could pass.

There was no active opposition here, for our guns sent their shells so thickly among the Carlists that it was impossible for them to withstand them. As the 8th poured through, they found the ground nearly covered with dead. The bugles now sounded a halt, but the men were not to be restrained, and eagerly pressed forward till they reached the top of the hill, which the Carlists had evacuated as they neared it. Here a battery of four guns was taken, and the flag flying above them hauled down. In the battery were found two barrels, one of wine and the other of spirits, and a tremendous rush took place. While the men were frantically fighting, there was an explosion and a shout of "There is a mine underneath!", and a frightful rush to got away from the spot took place. In the midst of this a soldier calmly walked forward and filled his canteen and that of two of his comrades. This action considerably reassured the others, and the panic soon abated when it was found that there were no more explosions. It turned out afterwards that the man who had shown such coolness had not been able to get near the casks, and had quietly taken out some of his ammunition from his cartridge-box, laid it on the ground under the feet of those fighting to get at the liquor, and shaken out the fire from his pipe on to it. However, the contents of the casks were soon finished. The regiment was then re-formed, and as it was dark they lay down in the fields. They had won their way thus far, but they had reached their limit.

The news of the fighting had been carried by active men all over the country. It was evident that the farther advance of the Legion would place them in possession of the main road to France, and reinforcements were called up from all sides. Already Evans was opposed by a force far more numerous than his own, and when the news of his advance arrived every Carlist within fifty miles was on the road. Espartero, who was with his army round Bilbao, had promised to march, and General Saarsfield, who commanded another royal army, was also to have moved, so as to occupy the enemy's attention, but neither had done so. The Carlist army had been, a week before, withdrawn from before Saarsfield, and during the night of the 15th, ten thousand men slipped away from the force facing that of Espartero and crossed the mountains to assist their friends.

Espartero himself had ridden, when he heard of the progress that Evans was making, to see with his own eyes how matters were going on. The fighting had again begun, and the Carlists had already been driven back into the town of Hernani, when Don Sebastian, one of the sons of Carlos, arrived with ten thousand infantry and three hundred cavalry. These marched out, column after column, and the vast superiority of numbers enabled them to not only show in force in face of the allied army, but to threaten both its flanks. For a time the Legion and its Spanish allies held their ground firmly, but they had considerably more than twice their number opposed to them, and the flanks were gradually driven in towards the centre. The Rifles, who were on one flank, had fought with obstinate bravery; and on the other, two Irish regiments stubbornly faced an overwhelming force of Carlists, and were engaged in a hand-to-hand fight with them. Colonel Cotter, of the 9th Cork, was conspicuous for his gallantry. Alone he rode repeatedly into the leading Carlist ranks, until he was completely surrounded and fell fighting to the last.

The 6th, 7th, and 8th Regiments, who were in reserve, were soon drawn forward into the fight. The 6th were first called up. The whole of the Carlist cavalry dashed forward to attack the leading company, which alone was available to meet them, but were received with such a tremendous volley that they were driven backward in great confusion, with immense loss. Two howitzers of the Marine Artillery sent showers of grape among them, and of the fine regiment which had advanced, a shattered group of fugitives returned. The Carlists, working round, threatened the artillery, and these were only saved by desperate charges of the Lancers and the staunchness of two companies of the 6th. The Spanish regiments fought but badly, and by their retreat exposed the Legion to a heavy cross-fire, which compelled them to fall back. The 8th, the last regiment of the reserve, who had been lying concealed in a hollow, were then called up. Two hundred of the wounded had been left behind in a large house, and these, as the Carlists advanced, were bayoneted to a man. The 8th went boldly forward, and, answering nobly to Colonel Hogg's call upon them to charge, rushed under a tremendous fire to a wall, on the other side of which a strong force of the Carlists stood, while many were already crossing it.

The 8th dashed forward and bayoneted all who had crossed the wall, and for a time fought the Carlist battalion crowded behind it; but other troops were pushing on both to the right and left, so, threatened on both flanks and with an overpowering force in front, the 8th sullenly fell back. Broken up into parties, they still fought desperately, and were only saved by a furious charge by the Lancers. The Carlists, unprepared for cavalry, broke in confusion, and thus the survivors of the 8th were able to draw off. The regiments of Chapelgorris had distinguished themselves during the day. They had refused to be brigaded with the other Spanish regiments, but fought by the side of the British with the most desperate valour; they were indeed almost annihilated. Nevertheless, the few survivors of these and the 8th nobly beat back an attack of the Carlists. There was a regiment of Royal Marines on the ground, but these were prevented by Lord John Haye, who commanded them, from taking any prominent part in the fight, and they lost but eighteen men wounded and none killed, while the Legion had lost very many hundreds, two or three regiments being almost wiped out. The retreating force passed the height of Venta, which they had so gallantly won four days before, and only halted when they reached the lines they had occupied previous to the 10th.

Arthur had borne his full share in the incidents of that terrible day. He had fought as fearlessly as the best, and had brought the remains of his company out of the fray, his captain being among the many officers who had fallen. So great had been the slaughter that he found himself at the end of the day high in the list of lieutenants. He had received three wounds, but all were slight. He had broken his sword in a hand-to-hand encounter with a Carlist officer, but had ended the fight by striking his opponent full in the face with the pommel, and stretching him senseless on the ground. When they reached the lines he went across to Roper's company, and to his great pleasure found that his friend had escaped with only a bullet through his arm.

"This has been a dreadful day, Mr. Hallett!"

"A terrible day, Roper! Three to one against us, I should say there were."

"But we made a stiff fight of it, sir; and the Legion has a right to be proud of itself. If the Spanish regiments had not given way, I think we might have held our own with them."

"I doubt whether we could in any case, Roper. They were altogether too strong for us. Still, we should have done better if the Spaniards had stood, and might at any rate have retired in good order to the Venta Hill, and held that against any attack the Carlists might have made. I hope I shall never see such fighting again."

"The same here," Roper said. "I think a thousand of us can do fairly well against two thousand of the Carlists; but when it comes to twenty thousand against about four thousand, the odds are too great altogether, for no one can say that the Carlists don't fight well. It was lucky, sir, that the Lancers arrived when they did, for I don't think any of us would have got away alive if it hadn't been for them. I quite made up my mind that we had all got to go down, when they came thundering up."

"It was indeed a most fortunate thing, Roper. During the last part of the day I had been fighting with a musket among the men, for I broke my sword, and pistols are of no use in a fight like that. Well, I am going off now to see if I can be of any good in the hospital; the surgeons must have their hands more than full."

Arthur's offer of aid was thankfully received, and he worked all night, assisting the surgeons by holding the patients while the amputations were being carried out, handing them sponges and hot water, and generally aiding them in their operations. When morning came he was so fatigued that he made his way with difficulty to his quarters in the town, where he flung himself down to snatch a few hours' sleep.

There was a great hush over the camp during the day. Then only, as the men wandered about asking questions concerning missing comrades, did the full extent of the disaster that had befallen them make itself felt. The gaps in the ranks were terrible. Their missing comrades were all gone, for the Carlists had given no quarter. Even if not seriously wounded, all who fell into their hands were either shot or bayoneted by them. It was hard, after having fought their way victoriously for three days, that such a misfortune should befall the Legion! Their one consolation was that every man had done his duty, not one had turned his back to his foe.

The gaps among the officers had been terrible. Several of the regiments had lost all their field-officers; others had suffered greatly. Deep were the execrations upon the Spanish generals, who should have detained the Carlist armies facing them, but who by their lethargy had allowed some twenty thousand men to slip away and join those with whom the Legion had been so successfully engaged; and not a few of the men would willingly have obeyed an order to attack the Spanish regiments, who had deserted them as soon as the fighting began.

At first it was anticipated that the Carlists would take advantage of their success and attempt to capture San Sebastian and there was a general hope that they would do so, for all felt confident that they could resist any attack that might be made. The entrenchments were very formidable, and a number of heavy guns were mounted upon them. The guns of the ships, too, would give their support.

But the Carlists were well satisfied with their success. The greater portion of the troops that had come from Durango, and the force opposed to Espartero had marched away again, leaving only a sufficient number to oppose any further attempt on the part of the defenders of San Sebastian to take the offensive.

Of this, however, there was but little prospect. Scarce three thousand five hundred out of the ten thousand men of the Legion were fit for service; disease and battle had accounted for the rest. Besides, of the two years for which they had enlisted there were but a few months to run. Had they been treated well, by far the greater portion would willingly have remained. At first they had felt but small interest in the struggle in which they had enlisted. Most of them were ne'er-do-weels--men who had been glad to accept any offer with the prospect of giving them a living; the Christinos were no more to them than the Carlists. Now the case was altogether different--the Carlists had become their personal enemies. They would not have come to hate them for their doings in a fair fight. But the fact that they massacred every man who fell into their hands, whether wounded or not, had raised in the minds of the soldiers a feeling of undying hatred and a burning desire for revenge. They had not received the treatment they had a right to expect. They had never been properly fed since they landed; they were still months in arrears of their pay, and then only irregularly received the wretched pittance of twopence halfpenny a day. If the Spanish government had deliberately set themselves to drive the regiments into mutiny, they could not have gone about it better, and it was certain that when the time expired few indeed would consent to remain any longer in the ranks.

The officers were no less indignant than the men. Their pay was nine months in arrear, and those who had no means of their own had only subsisted by the assistance of others better off than themselves. Considering what they went through, it was almost a matter for surprise that the whole Legion did not embrace the offers of the Carlist emissaries, who were constantly at work trying to sap their loyalty to the Christino cause, and go over in a body to the Carlist lines. After the reverses that had befallen them, the Spanish government seemed more indifferent than ever to their sufferings; only very occasionally, ridiculously small amounts were sent to them, sufficient to pay the soldiers a few pesetas apiece. In these circumstances it was not surprising that the drill became slack and discipline relaxed. The officers, deeply indignant, could not bring themselves to be severe upon the soldiers, who suffered even more than themselves, and so took no notice of minor acts of insubordination.

Shortly after the battle Arthur had received his usual quarterly letter from his uncle. "My dear Arthur," it ran, "herewith I enclose order as usual on Messrs. Callao, of San Sebastian, for thirty pounds. We are all very glad to find that you have passed through the last battle without serious wounds. You have been most fortunate in that respect. Your term of service will end in a few months' time, and we trust that at its conclusion you will return home. I am afraid that after the life you have been leading we can hardly hope that you will resume your studies--indeed, it would not be reasonable to expect it. Still, you might travel or otherwise employ yourself a great deal better surely than in getting yourself shot at, and that in a cause which--although no doubt you now feel some interest--cannot affect you in the same way as if you were fighting for your own country.

"According to other accounts, and from letters I have seen from other members of the Legion, you must have been suffering great hardships. No doubt at San Sebastian these have been less cruel than they were at Vittoria; still, they have been severe. You tell us very little about them, and, as I say, it is from other sources that I form this opinion. We are all obliged to you for always writing directly after a battle, for we are in a state of considerable anxiety until we hear from you, as of course no details of casualties are published; and in the interval between the first report of the fighting and the receipt of your letter we are all very unsettled, and your cousins' studies are greatly deranged.

"We all talk and think of you very frequently, and I am afraid that we are inclined to pride ourselves on having a relative who has won his commission and distinguished himself in Spain. Still, my dear lad, I do hope that if the term of service of the Legion is to be extended--and I think that it probably will be--you will not be among those who remain in the service. The risks appear to be enormous. More than half the Legion are by this time either dead or invalided home. I ask you, what can compensate a man for running such risks, especially when, as in your case, he is not driven by straitened circumstances to incur it? You have done well; you have, so to speak, won your spurs. It will be something to look back upon all your life. Surely that is good enough. Your first enlistment was, to my mind, a wild and foolish business; but I own that, annoyed as I then was, I should be still more so were you to repeat the mistake.

"Pray think this over seriously. Remember, pecuniarily you have no need whatever to remain in the Legion. You tell me that you have still most of the money I have sent you lying by. You have but three more years to wait till your majority, when you will receive three hundred pounds a year, and, if necessary, I can add something to this amount.

"Your cousins insist that you must be now almost a man, as you say that you are over six feet, and no doubt the life that you have led must have aged you a good deal and, I hope, taken some of your foolish recklessness out of you. They have asked me to say that they hope you won't bring home a Spanish lady as a wife, and I have assured them that, although I consider you capable of many follies, I feel convinced that you will not commit such a crowning one as that. They and my wife all send their love, and their earnest hopes and prayers, in which I join, that you will come home safe and sound to us.

"I remain, my dear Arthur,
"Your affectionate Uncle."

To this Arthur replied:--

"My dear Uncle,

"Many thanks for your letter and remittance. As to what you say about my continuing my term of service, in the event of the Legion as a whole re-enlisting for a further term, I cannot promise to take any particular course at present. You say that I can have no interest in the cause for which I am fighting. I can assure you that we have a very vivid interest in it. I grant that that was not the case at first, and that we looked upon it in the mere spirit of adventure; but that is all changed. The Carlists are not like civilized enemies; they behave rather like wild beasts. They give no quarter, and every poor fellow who falls into their hands--officer or soldier--is shot or bayoneted at once. Even the wounded are slaughtered ruthlessly.

"Now you can very well imagine the state of fury and hatred excited by such doings. The war has become a war of revenge, and men, when they go into battle, hope that if they are hit it will be by a fatal shot, and not by one which will lay them helpless on the ground, with the certainty of being shot or bayoneted in cold blood unless the Carlists are beaten and we hold the ground on which we have fought. I don't say that this is entirely the fault of the Carlists, for in the early part of the war the Christinos were just as bad, from what I hear. However, that is the state of things now; and if the Legion were but well treated, I think there is scarcely a man who would not willingly extend his term. The fact that I have been promoted is another reason why I might be tempted to go on. Of course it will make no difference to me afterwards whether I hold the rank of lieutenant or colonel at the end of the war; but now that I have gone into the thing I want to see the end of it.

"However, I do not think that you need feel uneasy on that score, for I am convinced that, when the term has expired, the greater part of the Legion will take their discharge. Their treatment has been so scandalous that I believe that if the order was given for the Legion to march to Madrid, fight their way through all obstacles, and hang every member of the government, they would receive it with joy.

"As to what the girls say about a Spanish lady, assure them that though I am really a man in stature and strength I am still a boy at heart, and am no more affected by the pretty graces of some of the Spanish girls than if they were dolls. They are very jolly to chaff with, but certainly, in my case, nothing to make love to. I hope that by the next time I write I shall be able to tell you I have got my company. With love to you all,

"Yours affectionately,
"ARTHUR HALLETT."