Zaragoza. English

by Benito Pérez Galdós

  CHAPTER VIII

  The following day, the twenty-second, Palafox said to the messenger whocame under a flag of truce from Moncey to propose terms of surrender.

  "_I do not know how to surrender. After death, we will talk aboutthat._"

  He followed this with a long and eloquent article which was publishedin the "Gazette;" but, according to general opinion, neither thatdocument nor any of the proclamations which appeared with the signatureof the commanding general were his own composition, but that of hisfriend, Basilio Boggiero, a man of great judgment, who was often seenin situations of danger, in the company of patriots and militaryleaders.

  It is excusable to say that the army of the defence was very muchinspired by the glorious action of the twenty-first. It was necessaryto give expression to this ardor, to arrange a sortie, and so in effectit was done; but it happened that all wished to take part in this atthe same time, and it was necessary to bury the dead. The sorties,arranged with prudence, were expedient; because the French, extendingtheir lines around the city, were preparing for a regular siege, andhad begun upon their outer works.

  The district of Saragossa contained many people, which seemed to thecommon mind a great advantage, but which seemed to the intelligent agreat danger, because of the immense destruction of human life whichhunger would quickly bring,--hunger, that terrible general who isalways the conqueror of overcrowded besieged cities. Because of thisexcess of people, the sorties were timely.

  Renovales made one on the twenty-fourth with the troops of the fortressof San Jos?, and cut down an olive grove which hid the works of theenemy.

  Don John O'Neill made a sally from the suburb on the twenty-fifth withthe volunteers of Aragon and Huesca, taking the chance of advantagefrom the enemy's lack of preparation, and killing many of the enemy'smen.

  On the thirty-first was made the most telling sally of all, striking intwo distinct places and with considerable forces. During the early partof the day we had divided to perfection the works of the first Frenchparallel, thrown up about three hundred and twenty yards from thewalls. They were working actively, not resting by night, and we couldsee that they had signals of colored lanterns along the whole line.From time to time we discharged our guns, but we caused very littledestruction. If troops were especially needed for a reconnoissance,they were despatched in less than no time.

  The morning of the thirty-first arrived, and my battalion was chargedto be ready to march upon orders from Renovales to attack the enemy intheir centre, from the Torrero to the Muela road, while General Butrondid the same by the Bernardona, that is to say, by the French left,sallying with sufficient forces of infantry and cavalry by the gates ofSancho and Portillo.

  In order to distract the attention of the French, the general commandedthat a battalion should be divided into skirmishing parties by theTenerias, calling the attention of the enemy in that direction. In themean time, with some of the soldiers of Olivenza and part of those ofValencia, we advanced by the Madrid road straight towards the Frenchlines. The skirmishing parties were on both sides of the road whenthe enemy became aware of our presence, and now we were quicker thandeer in doing up the first troop of French infantry which came to meetus. Behind a half-ruined country house some fortifications had beenthrown up, and they began firing with good aim and much slaughter. Foran instant we remained undecided, then some twenty men of us flankedthe country house, while the rest followed the high road, pursuing thefugitives; but Renovales dashed forward and led us on, cutting down andbayoneting those who were defending the house. At the moment when weset foot within the first defence I noticed that my rank was thinnedout. I saw some of my companions fall, breathing their last sighs. Ilooked to my right, fearing not to find my beloved friend among theliving; but God had preserved him. Montoria and I were unharmed.

  We could not spend much time in communicating to each other thesatisfaction that we felt at finding ourselves still alive, becauseRenovales gave orders to follow on, in the direction of the line ofintrenchments that the French were raising. We abandoned the high roadand made a deflection, turning to the right with the intention ofjoining the volunteers of Huesca, who were attacking by the Muela road.

  It may be understood by what I have related that the French did notexpect that sortie, and that, taken completely unawares, they wereholding there, besides the scanty force that kept the works, theengineers occupied in digging the trenches of the first parallel. Weattacked them vigorously, turning upon them a murderous fire, improvingthe minutes well before the dreaded reinforcements should arrive. Wetook prisoners those whom we met without arms; we shot those who hadthem. We took the picks and spades,--all this with unequalled energy,animating one another with fiery words, exalted above all by thethought that they were watching us from the city.

  In this attack we were fortunate, for while we were destroying thoseat work on the intrenchments, the troops who had made the sortie onthe left were carrying on a successful struggle with the detachmentswhich the enemy had in the Bernardona. While the volunteers of Huesca,the grenadiers of Palafox, and the Walloon guards defeated the Frenchinfantry, the squadron of Numancia and Olivenza cavalry cautiouslyemerged through the Puerta de Sancho, and making a wide d?touroccupied the Alagon road on one side, and the Muela on the other,exactly when the French drew back from the left to the centre, in needof greater auxiliary forces. Finding themselves in their element, ourfiery cavalry sprang forward, destroying whatever was encountered inthe way, and then the disgraced infantry, who were fleeing towardsTorrero, fell, and were trampled underfoot.

  In their dispersion, many fell beneath our bayonets, and if theirdesire to flee from the horses was great, great also was our anxietyto receive them in manner worthy of our swords. Some ran, throwingthemselves into the trenches, not being able to jump over them; otherssurrendered at discretion, throwing down their arms; some defendedthemselves with heroism, permitting themselves to be slain beforegiving up; and at the last there failed not a few who, shuttingthemselves up in the brick kiln filled up with boughs and timber,set fire to it, preferring to die by roasting, rather than be takenprisoners.

  All this which I have related in detail passed in a very shorttime, while the French commander, having seen enough in this hour,detached sufficient forces to hold back and punish our too audaciousexpedition. They beat the drum in Monte Torrero, and we saw a greatforce of cavalry coming against us; but we who were with Renovales hadhad our desire, the same as those with Butron, and were not obliged towait for those horsemen who arrived at the end of the action; so weretired, giving them from a distance a "Good-day" of the most sharp andpointed phrases in our vocabulary. We still had time to make uselesssome pieces placed ready for employment on the following day. We took amultitude of tools and spades, and we destroyed in all haste whateverwe could of their intrenchments without losing hold upon the dozens ofprisoners, of which we had taken up a collection.

  Juan Pirli, one of our companions in the battalion, was carrying hometo Saragossa the steel helmet of an engineer for the admiration of thepublic, and also a frying-pan in which were still the remnants of abreakfast begun in camp before Saragossa and ended in the other world.

  We had had nine killed and eight wounded in our battalion. WhenAugustine rejoined me near the Carmen gate, I noticed that one of hishands was stained with blood.

  "Are you wounded?" I asked, examining the hand. "It is nothing morethan a scratch."

  "It is a scratch," he replied; "but it was not made by ball, lance, norsabre, but by teeth, because when I gripped that Frenchman who liftedup his pick to brain me, the damned fellow set his teeth into my handlike a dog at bay."

  When we entered the city, some by the Puerta del Carmen, some by thePortillo, all the pieces of the redoubts and forts of Mediodia poureda fire against the columns which were coming after us. The two sortiescombined had done damage enough to the French. In addition to losingmany men, a small part of their intrenchments had been made uselessto them, and we had possessed ourselves of a c
onsiderable number oftheir tools. Besides this, the official engineers that Butron took withhim on that daring venture had had time to examine the works of thebesiegers, and measure them, and could give descriptions of them to thecommanding general.

  The rampart wall was invaded by the people. They had heard within thecity the shooting of the skirmishes, and men and women, old people andchildren had run out to see what glorious action was bulletined on theplaza. We were received with exclamations of rejoicing, and from SanJos? all the way to the Trinitarios, the long line of men and women,looking towards the battlefield, climbed upon the walls, and clappingtheir hands at our arrival, waving their handkerchiefs, presented amagnificent sight. After the cannon sounded, the redoubts togetherpoured a fire upon the field that we had just abandoned, and theirvoices seemed a triumphal salvo, as it mingled with the huzzas andshouts of joy.

  In the surrounding houses, the windows and balconies were filled withwomen, and the interest or curiosity of some of those in the streetswas such that they went into the hurrying crowd in numbers, and up tothe cannons, to congratulate the brave souls and soothe with kind wordstheir nerves, high strung with the noise of artillery, which is unlikeanything else in the world. It was necessary to command the multitudeto depart from the fortress at the Portillo. The crowd in the SantaEngracia gave that place the aspect of a theatre, of a public festival.The fire of the cannon ceased at last, having no more need to protectour retreat, and the Castle Aljaferia alone sent an occasional shotagainst the works of the enemy.

  In reward for our action on that day it was granted us on the next towear a red ribbon on the breast by way of decoration; in justice to thehazards of that sortie, Father Boggiero told us, among other thingsuttered by the mouth of our general, "Yesterday you marked the last dayof the year with an action worthy of yourselves. At the sound of thebugle your swords leaped from their scabbards and struck to the groundhaughty heads humbled by your valor and patriotism. Numantia! Olivenza!I have now seen that your light horse will know how to preserve thehonor of this army and the enthusiasm of these sacred walls! Wear theseblood-stained swords that are the sign of your glory and the protectionof your country."