Second siege of Badajoz—A reconnoissance—Death of Captain Patten—Attacks on Fort San Christoval—Their failure—Causes of their failure—Gallant conduct of Ensign Dyas, 51st Regiment—His promotion by the Duke of York.

Badajoz was laid siege to for the second time on the 30th of May 1811; on that day the investment of the town on the left bank of the Guadiana was completed, as was also that of the fort of San Christoval on the right bank; and the trenches before both were opened that night.

This was my first siege, and the novelty of the thing compensated me in some degree for the sleepless nights I used to pass at its commencement; but habit soon reconciled me, and I could sleep soundly in a battery for a couple of hours at a time. Nothing astonished me so much as the noise made by the engineers; I expected that their loud talking would bring the enemy’s attention towards the sound of our pick-axes, and that all the cannon in the town would be turned against us—and, in short, I thought every moment would be my last. I scarcely ventured to breathe until we had completed a respectable first parallel, and when it was fairly finished, just as morning began to dawn, I felt inexpressibly relieved. The 7th Division was equally fortunate before San Christoval.

As soon as the enemy had a distinct view of what we had been doing, he opened a battery or two against us, with, however, but little effect, and I began to think a siege was not that tremendous thing I had been taught to expect; but at this moment a thirty-two pound shot passed through a mound of earth in front of that part of the parallel in which I was standing (which was but imperfectly finished), and taking two poor fellows of the 83rd (who were carrying a hand-barrow) across their bellies, cut them in two, and whirled their remnants through the air. I had never before so close a view of the execution a round shot was capable of performing, and it was of essential service to me during this and my other sieges. It was full a week afterwards before I held myself as upright as before.

By ten o’clock in the morning our line of batteries presented a very disorganised appearance; sand-bags, gabions, and fascines knocked here and there; guns flung off their carriages, and carriages beaten down under their guns. The boarded platforms of the batteries, damp with the blood of our artillery-men, or the headless trunks of our devoted engineers, bore testimony to the murderous fire opposed to us, but nevertheless everything went on with alacrity and spirit; the damage done to the embrasures was speedily repaired, and many a fine fellow lost his life endeavouring to vie with the men of the Engineers in braving dangers, unknown to any but those who have been placed in a similar situation.

It was on a morning such as I am talking of that Colonel Fletcher, chief officer of Engineers, came into the battery where I was employed; he wished to observe some work that had been thrown up by the enemy near the foot of the castle the preceding night. The battery was more than usually full of workmen repairing the effects of the morning’s fire, and the efforts of the enemy against this part of our works were excessively animated. A number of men had fallen and were falling, but Colonel Fletcher, apparently disregarding the circumstance, walked out to the right of the battery, and, taking his stand upon the level ground, put his glass to his eye, and commenced his observations with much composure. Shot and shell flew thickly about him, and one of the former tore up the ground by his side and covered him with clay; but not in the least regarding this, he remained steadily observing the enemy. When at length he had satisfied himself, he quietly put up his glass, and turning to a man of my party who was sitting on the outside of an embrasure, pegging in a fascine, said, “My fine fellow, you are too much exposed; get inside the embrasure, and you will do your work nearly as well.”—“I’m almost finished, Colonel,” replied the soldier, “and it isn’t worth while to move now; those fellows can’t hit me, for they’ve been trying it these fifteen minutes.” They were the last words he ever spoke! He had scarcely uttered the last syllable when a round shot cut him in two, and knocked half of his body across the breech of the gun. The name of this soldier was Edmund Man; he was an Englishman, although he belonged to the 88th Regiment. When he fell, the French cannoniers, as was usual with them, set up a shout, denoting how well satisfied they were with their practice!

One evening, while we were occupied in the usual way in the trenches, a number of us stood talking together; several shells fell in the works, and we were on the alert a good deal in order to escape from them. A shell on a fine night at a distance is a pretty sight enough, but I, for one, never liked too near a view of it. We were on this night kept tolerably busy in avoiding those that fell amongst us; one, however, took us by surprise, and before we could escape, fell in the middle of the trench; every one made the best of his way to the nearest traverse, and the confusion was much increased by some of the sappers passing at the moment with a parcel of gabions on their backs. Colonel Trench of the 74th, in getting away, ran against one of these men, and not only threw him down, but fell headlong over him, and sticking fast in one of the gabions was unable to move. As soon as the shell exploded, we all sallied forth from our respective nooks, and relieved Colonel Trench from his awkward position. “Well,” said Colonel King, of the 5th, “I often saw a gabion in a trench, but this is the first time I ever saw a Trench in a gabion.” Considering the time and place the pun was not a bad one, and made us all laugh heartily, in which Colonel Trench good-humouredly joined.

Not long after this a round shot carried away the arm of a soldier of the 94th. Dr. O‘Reily of my corps, happening to be the nearest medical man, was awoke out of a sound sleep by his orderly sergeant, and having examined the stump, amputated the fractured part. O‘Reily was one of the most eccentric, and at the same time one of the pleasantest fellows in the world. He delighted in saying extraordinary things in extraordinary places, and it was amusing to those who knew him well to see his countenance after saying something out of the common way before a stranger. In the present instance, after having wrapped his boat-cloak about him, and settled himself in the same position he had been in before he performed the operation on the 94th man, he, with the most profound gravity of manner, asked the sergeant if he recollected the state in which he had found him? “Indeed, sir,” replied the orderly with a broad grin, “your honour was fast asleep, snorin' mighty loud.”—“Well then, sir, if you return here in five minutes, in all human probability you will find me in precisely the same situation,” and he immediately fell asleep, or feigned to do so.

On the evening of the 5th I was sent in advance with a covering party of forty men; we were placed some distance in front of the works, and as usual received directions to beware of a surprise. Our batteries were all armed, and a sortie from the garrison was not improbable; the night was unusually dark, and except an occasional shell from our mortars, the striking of the clocks in the town, or the challenge of the French sentinels along the battlements of the castle, everything was still.

A man of a fanciful disposition, or indeed of an ordinary way of thinking, is seldom placed in a situation more likely to cause him to give free scope to his imagination than when lying before an enemy on a dark night; every sound, the very rustling of a leaf, gives him cause for speculation; figures will appear, or seem to appear, in different shapes; sometimes the branch of a tree passes for a tremendous fellow with extended arms, and the waving of a bush is mistaken for a party crouching on their hands and knees.

I don’t know why it was, but I could not divest myself of the idea that an attack upon our lines was meditated. I cast a look at my men as they lay on the ground, and saw that each held his firelock in his grasp and was as he should be; half an hour passed away in this manner, but no sound gave warning that my suspicions were well founded. The noise of the workmen in the trenches lessened by degrees, and as the hour of midnight approached there was, comparatively speaking, a death-like silence. I went forward a short distance, but it was a short distance, for in truth—to say the least of it—I was a little “hipped.” I even wished the enemy would throw a shot or two against our works to give a fillip to my thoughts. Heavens! how I envied the soldiers, who slept like so many tops and snored so loud. I went forward again, but had not proceeded more than about one hundred paces when I heard voices whispering in my front, and upon observing more minutely in the direction from whence the sounds proceeded, I saw distinctly two men. The uniform of one was dark; the other wore a large cloak, and I could hear his sabre clinking by his side as he approached me.

At the instant I do not know what sum I would have considered too great to have purchased my ransom and placed me once more at the head of my men. I need scarcely say that I regretted the step I had taken, but it was too late. The figures continued to advance towards the spot where I was crouched, and were already within a few paces of me. I did not know what to do; I dreaded remaining stationary, and I was ashamed to run away—there was not a moment to be lost, and I made up my mind to sell my life dearly. I sprang up with my drawn sabre in my hand, and called out as loud as I was able (and it was but a so-so effort), “Who goes there?” My delight was great to find, in place of two Frenchmen (the advance, as I expected, of several hundred), Captain Patten of the Engineers attended by a sergeant of his corps; he held a dark lantern under his cloak, and told me he had been on his way to reconnoitre the breach in the castle wall, but that he thought it as well to return to the first covering party he should meet with in order to get a file of men which he proposed taking with him to within a short distance of the breach. I was just then in that frame of mind from my own little adventure to approve highly of his precaution, and I gave him a couple of what our fellows (the Connaught Rangers) used to call lads that weren’t easy, or, to speak without a metaphor, two fellows that would walk into the mouth of a cannon if they were bid to do it.

Previous to this I had passed an uneasy night, but I was now filled with much anxiety for the fate of Captain Patten and my own two men. They had left me about a quarter of an hour when a few musket-shots from the bastion nearest the breach announced that the reconnaissance had not been made unnoticed by the enemy; and shortly after, the return of my soldiers confirmed the fact.

It appeared that upon arriving within pistol-shot of the wall Captain Patten motioned to the men to lie down, while he crept forward to the breach; he had succeeded in ascertaining its state, and was about to return to the soldiers, when some inequality in the ground caused him to stumble a little, and the noise attracted the notice of the nearest sentinel, whose fire gave the alarm to the others. One of their shots struck Captain Patten in the back, a little below the shoulder, and he survived its effects but a few hours. Thus fell a fine young man, an ornament to that branch of the service to which he belonged, and a branch which in point of men of highly cultivated scientific information, as well as the most chivalrous bravery, may challenge the world to show its superior.

The fire against the castle was continued on the following day, the 6th, with much effect, and the batteries in front of San Christoval had not only overcome the fire of that outwork, but towards midday the breach was judged assailable. At nine o’clock at night one hundred men of the 7th Division, commanded by Major Macintosh of the 85th Regiment, advanced to the assault; the forlorn hope, consisting of six volunteers, and led on by Ensign Joseph Dyas of the 51st Regiment, who solicited this honour, headed the attack.

The troops advanced with much order, although opposed to a heavy fire. Arrived upon the glacis, they speedily descended the ditch, and the forlorn hope, accompanied by an officer of Engineers, pressed on to the breach. They had scarcely arrived at its foot when the officer of Engineers was mortally wounded, and Ensign Dyas was in consequence the only person to direct the men at the breach; for the main body, including the commanding officer, attempted to mount what appeared to them to be the breach, but what was in reality nothing more than an embrasure which had been a good deal injured by the fire of our batteries. Some of the foremost succeeded in planting ladders against its rugged face, but their efforts were baffled by the exertions of the French engineers who, notwithstanding our fire of grape and musketry, had contrived to clear away the rubbish from the base of the wall; and the ladders were in consequence not of a sufficient length to enable the men to make a lodgment. A quarter of an hour had now elapsed, during which time several fruitless attempts had been made to enter the fort; and Major Macintosh, with his few remaining men, succeeded with difficulty in reaching their own lines, which they had left but a short time before with feelings of a very different description. None of the party could give any account of Ensign Dyas—indeed, how could they? for the storming party had never seen the forlorn hope from the moment they descended the ditch! As is common in such cases, there were many who said they believed that he, individually, was the last living man in the ditch, and it was a generally received opinion that Dyas had fallen. Major Macintosh, in company with a few friends, was sitting in his tent talking over the failure of the attack, and regretting, amongst others, the loss of this officer, when to his amazement he entered the tent not only alive but unhurt. This brave young fellow, after having lost the greater part of his men, and finding himself unsupported by the storming party, at length quitted the ditch, but not until he heard the enemy entering it by the sally-port.

On the 7th, 8th, and 9th the fire against San Christoval was continued with increased vigour, and on the latter day it was resolved that the attack of it should be a second time made that night. A superior number of troops to those which failed on the 6th, but still inferior to the garrison of the fort, were selected for the attack, and the command given to Major Mac Geechy, an English officer in the service of Portugal, who volunteered this duty—Dyas again leading the forlorn hope. As before, the troops advanced under the fire of every gun that could be brought to bear upon them, and with much spirit descended the ditch. A little disorder amongst the men who carried the ladders caused some delay, but the detachment pressed on to the breach without waiting for the reorganisation of the ladder men. The soldiers posted on the glacis, by their determined fire, notwithstanding their exposed situation, forced the enemy to waver, and if ever there was a chance of success, it was at this moment. Dyas and his companions did as much as men could do, but in vain. Their efforts were heroic, though unavailing; the spot was strewed with the dead and dying; the breach was packed with Frenchmen, and the glacis and ditch covered with our dead and disabled soldiers. Major Mac Geechy fell pierced with bullets, and almost all the party shared his fate. Ensign Dyas was struck by a pellet^[15] in the forehead, and fell upon his face, but, undismayed by this, he sprang up and rallied his few remaining followers, but in vain. This heroic intrepidity deserved a better fate, but his efforts were paralysed by the obstacles opposed to him, and Dyas was at length reluctantly obliged to abandon an enterprise, on the issue of which he had a second time chivalrously, though unsuccessfully, staked his life. As before, he was the last to leave the ditch, and with much difficulty reached our lines. His mode of escape was as curious as it was novel. One of the ladders that could not be placed upright still hung from the glacis on the pallisadoes; this he sprang up, and in an instant he was upon the glacis, where he flung himself upon his face. The Frenchmen upon the walls, seeing him fall at the moment of their fire, shouted out “Il est tuÉ, en voila le dernier!”

Dyas, perfectly collected, saw that his only chance of escape was by remaining quiet for a short time, which he did, and then seizing a favourable moment when the garrison were thrown off their guard by the silence that prevailed, he jumped up, and reached our batteries in safety. He and nineteen privates were all that escaped out of two hundred, which was the original strength of the storming party and forlorn hope.^[16]

It may, perhaps, be asked by persons unacquainted with these details, what became of Ensign Dyas; and they no doubt will say what a lucky young man he was to gain promotion in so short a time; but such was not the case, although he was duly recommended by Lord Wellington. This was no doubt an oversight, as it afterwards appeared, but the consequences have been of material injury to Ensign, now Captain, Dyas. This officer, like most brave men, was too modest to press his claim, and after having served through the entire of the Peninsular war, and afterwards at the memorable battle of Waterloo, he, in the year 1820—ten years after his gallant conduct—was, by a mere chance, promoted to a company, in consequence of the representation of Colonel Gurwood (another, but more lucky, forlorn-hope man) to Sir Henry Torrens.

Colonel Gurwood was a perfect stranger (except by character) to Dyas, and was with his regiment, the 10th Hussars, at Hampton Court, where Sir Henry Torrens inspected the 51st Regiment. Colonel Ponsonby and Lord Wiltshire (not one of whom Dyas had ever seen) also interested themselves in his behalf; and immediately on Sir Henry Torrens arriving in London, he overhauled the documents connected with the affair of San Christoval, and finding all that had been reported to him to be perfectly correct, he drew the attention of His Royal Highness the Duke of York to the claims of Lieutenant Dyas.

His Royal Highness, with that consideration for which he was remarkable, immediately caused Lieutenant Dyas to be gazetted to a company in the 1st Ceylon Regiment.

Captain Dyas lost no time in waiting upon Sir Henry Torrens and His Royal Highness the Duke of York. The Duke received him with his accustomed affability, and after regretting that his promotion had been so long overlooked, asked him what leave of absence he would require before he joined his regiment. Captain Dyas said, “Six months, if His Royal Highness did not think it too long.”—“Perhaps,” replied the Duke, “you would prefer two years.” Captain Dyas was overpowered by this considerate condescension on the part of the Duke, and after having thanked him, took a respectful leave; but the number of campaigns he had served in had materially injured his health, and he was obliged to retire on the half-pay of his company.