Return to Vittoria—The mortality and state of the hospitals—Deaths among the medical officers—Scenes in the wards—Legion supposed to be poisoned—Don JosÉ Elgoez—His first ordeal—A discovery—Execution of the two bakers—Description of the “Garotta”—Legion march and counter-marches—Mode of warfare adopted by General Evans—Frequent desertion.

At our return, the fever still continued to rage most fearfully, and Vittoria resembled a city infected with the plague. The scenes in the hospital were truly appalling. The wards were so crowded, that suffocation must have been inevitable, but for the inclement season; which had free access through the wards, from the entire want of window-sashes, and in many instances doors, most of which had been destroyed by the monks—the former and forcibly ejected occupants. But this prevention of one evil only gave rise to another equally calamitous; as scarcely a patient escaped being frost-bitten. There was also a total absence of bedding of any kind, or even bedstead, and many a poor fellow, in the height of fever, was forced to content himself with loose straw, and nothing to cover him but a great coat or a rug; hence the scenes in the wards became disgusting in the extreme.

At length the medical men themselves began to feel the pestilence, and the casualties among them so reduced their number (for the most attentive suffered first) that the requisite attendance could not be given, and death strode amongst the sick unchecked. The delirious, the dying, and the dead, were all indiscriminately huddled together, and sometimes mixed up with their groans, might be heard the cries of some poor fellow undergoing a course, not of medicine, but of cat-o’-nine-tails, which in many instances were resorted to by the medical gentlemen to beat out what they could not cure. Many and many a sick soldier has been accused of skulking, while his thin, cadaverous, wan, fevered countenance alone has dared to belie the charge, made by his tyrants. But happily this was not general.

I remember going one day to the hospital to see my servant, a worthy, honest Yorkshireman, named Jackson, who at this time was also suffering under the dreadful malady. I had to pass through several wards before I arrived at that in which he was; such a sight I never witnessed before. The raving maniac, in all the degrees of delirium, made the room ring again, and effectually withstood any attempt on the part of the sick only, to keep them from annoying the sleeping.

I particularly noticed one, a sergeant-major, sitting upright on the mattress. He was haggard and worn to a skeleton, with a beard of at least three weeks’ growth. The wild and unsettled glance of his eye told at once, that the old soldier was delirious: his mind, however, was actively at work, and he was drilling an imaginary regiment, in the most pressing yet deliberate manner. I stood to listen to him. At length he was interrupted by a brother sufferer in an adjoining pallet. In an instant he summoned an hospital orderly and in the same imperative tone, bade him go immediately and bring the Provost, that he might inflict summary punishment on the delinquent, who had thus dared to commit such a breach of discipline, as to interrupt him in the performance of his duty. The orderly was actually on the point of obeying his orders, when I informed him his patient was not in his right senses.

The sergeant seemed a veteran, who had seen service; and from the manner in which he had delivered his word of command, was no doubt well qualified to put a regiment through its manoeuvres.

The mortality amongst the troops increased to a frightful extent in some regiments, as many as a dozen or fifteen dying of a day, and the duty of attending the dead to their last home became so fatiguing that it was at last done away with altogether. The bodies were carried from the hospitals in cart-loads. The surgeons staggered through sickness and laboured under a want of medicines. At length it was whispered about that the bread had been poisoned; finally the report became so loud, as to cause one general thrill of horror, and immediate steps were taken to discover the agents in so fiendish an affair.

At length private information having been given to the paymaster of the 7th regiment of the Legion he disguised himself, and went about making observations, which resulted in his taking prisoners some agents of Don Carlos, in the act of persuading our men to desertion; a woman also was amongst them, whose very pretty person was made use of to decoy them off our boundaries to the enemy; and it was further said, a conspiracy was traced to the house of a baker and his assistant, who up to this time had supplied the Legion with ration bread.

At all events, on the day in question, this pair of demons had already gone through an ordeal, sufficient to cure even Carlos of his villanies. Some of the Spanish troops for want of immediate rations applied to our commissariat, and having obtained permission to take their bread from our stores, they had received several hundreds of rations. In the course of the day, however, a number of their men were taken very ill, and many, even to sixty in number, it was reported, had died. Whether these deaths be true or not I cannot say, but the cause of their sudden illness was traced to Don JosÉ Elgoez, who was instantly brought bound to the Plaza and a piece of black bread, slung on a bit of string, being tied round his neck, the men commenced their retaliation.

Eight or ten of the strongest men in the battalion, each armed with a long staff, were selected, and severally beat him over the back and shoulders, until the culprit dropped powerless and senseless on the ground. He was immediately taken from the scene to prepare for a second ordeal of a more awful character, as his assistant and himself were tried and sentenced to be strangled on the charge of having been in communication with the enemy, &c. During the interval that elapsed between the sentence and execution, great efforts were made by his fellow partizans to get him off. As much as thirty thousand dollars were offered as a ransom, but all his friends could do was unavailing, and the execution of both men took place in the space outside the new Plaza of Vittoria, before thousands of Spaniards, and the assembled Legion.

They were executed after the Spanish custom by the garotta. This appeared to me to be a much better mode of fulfilling the last sentence of law, than hanging or the guillotine, and not so disgusting. It was performed as follows: a platform was erected, about three feet high, in the centre of which two upright posts were fixed, with a seat in each, sufficiently elevated for the culprits to sit upon. To either post an iron collar was fitted, made so as to be opened or compressed on one side of the post, by a winch and screw on the opposite.

The fronts in which their necks were placed were so formed, as, by the relaxing or tightening of the screws, to cause a lingering or instantaneous death, I should say, as the sentence might dictate. As soon, however, as the executioner gave the first twist, he rather triumphantly bellowed out, “Viva!” and then finished the principal, who died in a more lingering manner than his second or assistant. Despite the gravity of the melancholy spectacle, I could not but listen with surprise to the attendant priests, who doubtless were Carlists, exhorting the departing spirits of the pair of prisoners, with the words: “Monta a el cielo! Monta a el cielo!” Go up to Heaven! Go up to Heaven!^[28]

Shortly after this our brigade was occasionally sent out to the adjoining villages, for the benefit of the air, and also to prevent the enemy from laying close siege to the town. Indeed, so daring were they, that they frequently at night would come even to the gates of the city, and fire at the first party they saw. This made our mode of warfare different to that to which I had been accustomed to during my former campaigns. Our present plan was to occupy the villages and houses in front of the enemy, and fortify them with loop-holes and barricades, to obviate the necessity of exposing our men to the attacks of an enemy rather more blood-thirsty than the gallant spirits under Soult and his predecessors.

This was a prudent step in General Evans, as the Carlists we found followed up their practice of stealing on us, under cover of the darkness, and sometimes under the fogs, which were very frequent, and so firing on our men. While on this out-post duty desertions became very frequent, which may be attributed to the offer of seven dollars to every foot-soldier, and twelve dollars to every horseman, who would go over, with arms and accoutrements, to Don Carlos. Amongst the number induced to accept those terms was a piper, well known as “Little Jemmy,” of the 6th Scotch, whose Highland costume and uncouth music at all times attracted a crowd of children about him. While on picquet we could hear Little Jemmy, on the Carlist outpost, playing “Over the waters to Charlie;” Jemmy’s music proved attractive, too, for numbers followed him, and with them a bugler of the Rifles. This fellow, for the same ends, also used regularly to sound the wine-call three times a day, as a contrast to our own, which was but once during the same period. Letters also were found at our advanced posts, written in English, and promising a return to England, through France, to those who would leave the ranks of the “foreign invaders,” (as they termed us). These persuasive offers were in too many instances successful.

Soon after, our brigade was removed to a small village, some short distance from Vittoria, near the main road, where I remember the French had made a gallant stand against the Light and third divisions. It was not unfrequent, during the hours of drill, to notice, here and there, bleached skulls scattered about, melancholy evidences of the sanguinary rencontre. I have often unconsciously watched, lest some clumsy fellow should disturb those weather-beaten relics; and turned to the olden scenes when, perhaps, their very owners fought beside me in many a bloody field, or helped to while away the moments by a camp fire with some humorous recital.

On one of these occasions our Bugle-Major, named M’Kay, and formerly a corporal in my own battalion, in which he had served during the whole of the Peninsular war, picked up one of the skulls and holding it in his hand whilst he closely and anxiously examined it, coolly turned to me, saying: “About this spot, Sir, we had several of our company killed, and amongst them my own comrade—poor Allan Cummings! He fell somewhere hereabout—who knows but what this may be his head.”^[29] The old soldier’s countenance spoke volumes, and he paused for several minutes, as if in earnest converse with the relic; at last he muttered out again, “Well, well! it matters little with the dead; but what remains of you, if this be yours, Allan, shall be made a foot-ball no longer!” saying which he nodded to one of the buglers, and both, with their swords commenced digging a hole, in which they deposited the supposed remains of his old comrade.

M’Kay little dreamt how soon his own and a similar fate awaited him, for he himself was shot some short time after, at Andoun; and singular to relate, one ball struck the Waterloo medal on his breast, and was immediately followed by a second, which finished his career altogether. Poor fellow! it was through my persuasion that he joined the Legion, he being at the time a Chelsea Pensioner.