The winter was long and tedious but, whenever the weather permitted, Terence set his men at work; taking them twice a week for long marches, so as to keep their powers in that direction unabated. The sandals turned out a great success. The men had no greatcoats, but they supplied the want by cutting a slit in the centre of their black blankets and passing the head through it. This answered all the purposes, and hid the shabby condition of their uniforms.
General Hill occasionally rode over to inspect this and the other Portuguese regiments encamped near them.
"That is a very good plan of yours, Colonel O'Connor," he said, the first time the whole regiment turned out in their sandals. "It is a much more sensible footgear than the boots."
"I should not have adopted them, General, if the men had had any boots to put on; but those they had became absolutely unwearable. Some of the soles were completely off, the upper leathers were so cut and worn that they were literally of no use and, in many cases. they were falling to pieces. The men like the sandals much better, and certainly march with greater ease. Yesterday they did thirty miles, and came in comparatively fresh."
"I wish the whole army were shod so," the general said. "It would improve their marching powers, and we should not have so many men laid up, footsore. I should say that the boots supplied to the army are the very worst that soldiers were ever cursed with. They are heavy, they are nearly as hard as iron when the weather is dry, and are as rotten as blotting paper when it is wet. It is quite an accident if a man gets a pair to fit him properly. I believe it would be better if they were trained to march barefooted. Their feet would soon get hardened and, at any rate, it would be an improvement on the boots now served out to them.
"I wish the other Portuguese regiments were as well drilled and as well set up as your fellows. Of course, your men don't look smart, at present, and would not make a good show on a parade ground; but I hear that there are a large quantity of uniforms coming out, shortly; and I hope, long before the campaign opens, they will all be served out. The British regiments are almost as badly off as the native ones. However, I suppose matters will right themselves before the spring; but they are almost as badly off, now, as they were when they marched into Corunna. The absurdity of the whole thing is that all the newly-raised Portuguese levies, who will certainly not be called upon to cross the frontier until next year, have got uniforms; while the men who have to do the work are almost in rags."
Two or three of the officers of the Fusiliers rode over frequently, to stop for a night or so with Terence; and the latter found time pass much more pleasantly than he had done before Ryan had joined him. During the day both their hands were full; but the evenings were very pleasant, now that he had Dick as well as Herrara to talk to. The feeling of the responsibility on his shoulders steadied Ryan a good deal, and he was turning out a far more useful assistant than Terence had expected; but when work was over, his spirits were as high as ever, and the conversation in Terence's tent seldom languished.
Spring came, but there was no movement on the part of the troops. Ney, with 50,000 men, began the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo in earnest. The Agueda had now become fordable; and Crawford, with his light brigade, 2500 strong, was exposed to a sudden attack at any time. On the 1st of June Terence received orders to march with his regiment to Guarda, where Wellington was concentrating the greater portion of his army; leaving Hill, with 12,000 men, to guard the southern portion of the frontier.
Both the Spanish and Portuguese urged the general to relieve Ciudad Rodrigo; but Wellington refused, steadily, to hazard the whole fortune of the campaign on an enterprise which was unlikely to succeed. His total force was but 56,000 men, of whom 20,000 were untried Portuguese. Garrisons had to be placed at several points, and 8000 Portuguese were posted at Thomar, a day's march from Abrantes, as a reserve for Hill.
It was not only the 50,000 infantry and 8000 cavalry of Massena, who now commanded in front of Ciudad Rodrigo, that he had to reckon with. Regnier's division was at Coria; and could, in three easy marches, reach Guarda; or in four fall on Hill at Abrantes; and with but 26,000 men in line, it would have been a desperate enterprise, indeed, to attack 60,000 veteran French soldiers merely for the sake of carrying off the 5000 undisciplined Portuguese besieged at Ciudad.
The Minho regiment had only received their new uniforms a month before the order came, and made a good show as they marched into Guarda, where Wellington's headquarters were now established. When Terence reported himself to the adjutant general, the latter said:
"At present, Colonel O'Connor, you cannot be employed in your former work of scouting. The French are altogether too powerful for a couple of battalions to approach them and, with 8000 cavalry, they would make short work of you. Crawford must soon fall back behind the Coa. His position already is a very hazardous one. It has therefore been decided to place 1500 of your men along on this side of the Coa and, with half a battalion, you will march at once to Almeida to strengthen the garrison of that place which, as soon as Crawford retires, is certain to be besieged. It should be able to offer a long and stout resistance.
"You will, of course, be under the general orders of the commandant; but you will receive an authorization to take independent action, should you think fit: that is to say, if you find the place can be no longer defended, and the commandant is intending to surrender, you are at liberty to withdraw your command, if you find it possible to do so."
On the following morning the corps left Guarda and, leaving a battalion and a half on the Coa, under Herrara; Terence, with 500 men, after a long march, entered Almeida that night. The town, which was fortified, was occupied only by Portuguese troops. It was capable of repulsing a sudden attack, but was in no condition to withstand a regular siege. It was deficient in magazines and bomb proofs; and the powder, of which there was a large supply, was stored in an old castle in the middle of the town. On entering the place, Terence at once called upon Colonel Cox, who was in command.
"I am glad that you have come, Colonel O'Connor," the latter said. "I know that Lord Wellington expects me to make a long defence, and to keep Massena here for at least a month but, although I mean to do my best, I cannot conceal from myself that the defences are terribly defective. Then, too, more than half my force are newly-levied militia, in whom very little dependence can be placed. Your men will be invaluable, in case of assault; but it is not assault I fear, so much as having the place tumbling about our ears by their artillery, which can be so placed as to command it from several points. We are very short of artillery, and the guns are well nigh as old as the fortifications."
"We will do our best, Colonel, in any direction you may point out; and I think that we could defend a breach against any reasonable force brought against it. I may say that I have been ordered, if the worst comes to the worst, to endeavour to make my way out of the town before it surrenders."
For a fortnight the place was left unmolested. Crawford's division still kept beyond the Coa, and his cavalry had had several engagements with French reconnoitring parties. On the 2nd of July, however, the news came that, after a most gallant resistance, Ciudad Rodrigo had surrendered; and it was now certain that the storm would roll westward, in a very short time. Massena, however, delayed strangely; and it was not until daylight on the 24th that a sudden roll of musketry, followed almost immediately by a heavy artillery fire, told the garrison of Almeida that the light division was suddenly attacked by the enemy.
Crawford had received the strictest orders not to fight beyond the Coa; but he was an obstinate man, and had so long maintained his position across the river that he believed that, if attacked, he should be able to withdraw over the bridge before any very strong force could be brought up to attack him. In this he was mistaken. The country was wooded, and the French march was unsuspected until they were close upon Crawford's force. The light division had, however, been well trained; indeed, it was composed of veteran regiments, and had been practised to get under arms with the least possible delay. They were, therefore, already drawn up when the French fell upon them and, fighting hard and sternly, repelled all the efforts of the enemy's cavalry to cut them off from the bridge. Driving back the French light infantry, the Light Division crossed in safety, although with considerable loss; and repulsed, with great slaughter, every attempt of the French to cross the bridge.
Almeida was now left to its fate. Again Massena delayed, and it was not until the 18th of August that the siege was begun. On the 26th sixty-five heavy guns, that had been used in the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, opened fire upon the town. The more Terence saw of the place, the more convinced was he that it could not long be held, after the French siege guns had been placed in position. Moreover, there was great lukewarmness on the part of several of the Portuguese officers, while the rank and file were dispirited by the fate of Ciudad Rodrigo, and by the fact that they had, as it seemed to them, been deserted by the British army.
"I don't like the look of things, at all," he had said to Bull and Ryan, the evening before the siege guns began their work. "In the first place the defences will crumble, in no time, under the French fire. In the second place, I don't think that the Portuguese, with the exception of our own men, have any fight in them. Da Costa, the lieutenant governor, openly declares that the place is indefensible, and that it is simply throwing away the lives of the men to resist. He is very intimate, I observe, with Bareiros, the chief of the artillery. Altogether, things look very bad. Of course, we shall stay here as long as the place resists; but I am afraid that won't be for very long.
"I was speaking to Colonel Cox this afternoon. He is a brave man, and with trustworthy troops would, I am sure, hold the town until the last; but, unsupported as he is, he is in the hands of these rascally Portuguese officers. I told him that, if he ordered me to do so, I would undertake with my men to arrest the whole of them; but he said that that would bring on a mutiny of all their troops; and this, bad as the situation already was, would only make matters much worse. I then suggested that, as the French are driving their trenches towards those two old redoubts outside the wall, I would, if he liked, place our force in them; and would undertake to hold them, pointing out that if they fell into the hands of the enemy they would soon mount their cannon there, and bring down the whole wall facing in that direction.
"He quite agreed with that view of the case, but said that it would be a very exposed position; still, as our fellows were certainly the only trustworthy troops he had, he should be very glad if I would undertake the defence at once, as the French were pushing their approaches very fast towards them. I said that I was sure we could hold them for some little time; and that, indeed, it seemed to me that the French intended to bombard the town rather than to breach the walls, knowing the composition of the garrison and, perhaps, having intelligence that their courage would be so shaken, by a heavy fire, that the place would surrender in a much shorter time than it would take to breach the walls. Accordingly, he has given me leave to march our men up there, at daybreak tomorrow; taking with us ten days' provisions.
"I said that if he had trouble with the other Portuguese regiments I would, on his hoisting a red flag on the church steeple, march in at once to seize and shoot the leaders of the mutiny, if he wished it. Of course, one of my reasons for wanting to take charge of the redoubts was that we should have more chance of withdrawing, from them, than we should of getting out of the town, itself, in the confusion and panic of an approaching surrender."
Bull and Ryan both agreed with Terence and, at daybreak the next morning, the half battalion marched out, relieved the Portuguese troops holding the two redoubts, and established themselves there. They had brought with them a number of intrenching tools, and were accompanied by an engineer officer. So, as soon as they reached the redoubts, several parties of men were set to work, to begin to sink pits for driving galleries in the direction of the approaches that the French were pushing forward; while others assisted a party of artillerymen to work the guns. Some of the best shots in the corps took their places on the rampart, and were directed to maintain a steady fire on the French working parties.
The roar of cannon, when the French batteries opened fire on the town, was prodigious; and it was not long before it was evident that there was no present design, on the part of the French, to effect a breach.
"I expect they have lots of friends in the town," Terence said to Dick Ryan, as they watched the result of the fire; "and they make sure that the garrison will very soon lose heart. Do you see how many shots are striking the old castle? That looks as if the French knew that it was the magazine. They are dropping shell there, too; and that alone is enough to cause a scare in the town, for if one of them dropped into the magazine, the consequences would be terrific. They are not pushing on the trenches against us with anything like the energy with which they have been working for the past week; and it is certainly curious that they should not keep up a heavier fire from their batteries upon us, for it is evident that they cannot make an assault, on this side of the town, at any rate, until they have captured our redoubts."
"I wish we were well out of it," Ryan exclaimed. "It is quite certain that the place must fall, sooner or later; and though we might beat the French back several times, it must come to the same, in the end. The thing I am most concerned about, at present, is how we are to get away."
"I quite agree with you, Dick; and you know, we have had several looks at the French lines, from the roof of the church. Their batteries are chiefly on this side of the town; but most of their troops are encamped on the other side, so as to be in readiness to meet any attempt of Wellington to succour the place; and also to show the garrison that there is no chance, whatever, of their being able to draw off. We agreed that the chances would be much better of getting out on this side than on the other."
"Yes; but we also agreed, Terence, that there would be a good deal more difficulty in getting safely back; for practically the whole of their army would be between us and Wellington."
"It will be a difficult business, Dicky, whichever way we go; and I suppose that, at last, we shall have to be guided by circumstances."
In a very short time, fires broke out at several points in the town. The guns on the walls made but a very feeble reply to the French batteries; and one or two bastions, where alone a brisk fire was at first maintained, drew upon themselves such a storm of missiles from the French guns that they were soon silenced.
"It is quite evident that the Portuguese gunners have not much fight in them," Bull said.
"I am afraid it is the disaffection among their officers that is paralysing them," Terence said. "But I quite admit that it may be good policy to keep the men under cover. They really could do no good against the French batteries; which have all the advantage of position, as well as numbers and weight of metal; and it would certainly be well to reserve the troops till the French drive their trenches close up. If I thought that the silence of the guns on the walls were due to that, I should be well content; but I am afraid it is nothing of the sort. If the French keep up their fire, as at present, for another forty-eight hours, the place will throw open its gates. The inhabitants must be suffering frightfully. Of course, if Colonel Cox had men he could thoroughly rely upon, he would be obliged to harden his heart and disregard the clamour of the townspeople for surrender; but as the garrison is pretty certain to make common cause with them, it seems to me that the place is lost, if the bombardment continues."
In a short time, seeing that the working parties in the enemy's trenches made no attempt to push them farther forward, Terence withdrew the men from their exposed position on the ramparts--leaving only a few there on the lookout--and told the rest to lie down on the inner slopes, so as to be in shelter from the French fire. Bull was in command of the force in the other redoubt, which was a quarter of a mile away. The redoubts were, however, connected by a deep ditch, so that communication could be kept up between them, or reinforcements sent from one to the other, unobserved by the enemy, except by those on one or two elevated spots.
All day the roar of the cannon continued. From a dozen points, smoke and flame rose from the city, and towards these the French batteries chiefly directed their fire, in order to hinder the efforts of the garrison to check the progress of the conflagration.
Just after dark, as Ryan and Terence were sitting down in an angle of the bastion to eat their supper, there was a tremendous roar; accompanied by so terrible a shock that both were thrown prostrate upon the ground with a force that, for the moment, half stunned them. A broad glare of light illuminated the sky. There was the rumble and roar of falling buildings and walls; and then came dull, crashing sounds as masses of brickwork, hurled high up into the air, fell over the town and the surrounding country. Then came a dead silence, which was speedily broken b............