Results of the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo—The town revisited—Capture of deserters—Sale of the plunder—Army rests in cantonments—An execution of deserters—A pardon that came too late.

The fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo fell on the eleventh day after its investment; and taking into account the season of the year, the difficulty of the means to carry on the operations, and the masterly manner in which Lord Wellington baffled the vigilance of the Duke of Ragusa, the capture of Rodrigo must ever rank as one of the most finished military exploits upon record, and a chef d'oeuvre of the art of war. Our loss was equal to that of the enemy; it amounted to about one thousand hors de combat, together with three generals; of the garrison but seventeen hundred were made prisoners, the rest being put to the sword.

So soon as my regiment reached the village, I obtained leave to return to Rodrigo, for I was anxious to see in what situation the family were with whom I, in common with my companions, had passed the preceding night. Upon entering the town, I found all in confusion. The troops ordered to occupy it were not any of those which had composed the storming divisions; and although the task of digging graves, and clearing away the rubbish about the breaches, was not an agreeable one, they nevertheless performed it with much cheerfulness; yet, in some instances, the soldiers levied contributions upon the unfortunate inhabitants,—light ones it is true, and for the reason that little remained with them to give, or, more properly speaking, withhold. But the Provost-Marshal was so active in his vocation that this calamity was soon put a stop to, and the miserable people, who were in many instances in a state of nudity, could without risk venture to send to their more fortunate neighbours for a supply of those articles of dress which decency required. Upon reaching the house I had rested in the evening before, I was rejoiced to find it uninjured, and the poor people, upon once more seeing me, almost suffocated me with their caresses, and their expressions of gratitude knew no bounds for our having preserved their house from pillage.

Having satisfied myself that my padrona and her daughters had escaped molestation, I took my leave of them, and once more visited the large breach. On my way thither I saw the French garrison preparing to march, under an escort of Portuguese troops, to the fortress of Almeida; they were a fine-looking body of men, and seemed right well pleased to get off so quietly; they counted about eighteen hundred, and were all that escaped unhurt of the garrison. At the breach there were still several wounded men, who had not been removed to the hospitals; amongst them was a fellow of my own corps, of the name of Doogan; he was badly wounded in the thigh, the bone of which was so shattered as to protrude through the skin. Near him lay a French soldier, shot through the body, quite frantic from pain, and in the agonies of death. The moment Doogan observed me, he called out most lustily, “Och! for the love of Jasus, Mr. Grattan, don’t lave me here near this villain that’s afther cursing me to no end.” I observed to Doogan that the poor fellow was in a much worse state than even himself, and that I doubted whether he would be alive in five minutes. At this moment the eyes of the Frenchman met mine, “Oh! monsieur,” exclaimed he, “je meurs pour une goutte d’eau! Oh, mon Dieu! mon Dieu!”—“Now,” ejaculated Doogan, addressing me, “will you believe me (that never tould a lie in my life!) another time? Did you hear him, then, how he got on with his mon dew?” I caused Doogan to be carried to an hospital, but the French soldier died as we endeavoured to place him in a blanket.

I quitted the breach, and took a parting glance at the town; the smell from the still burning houses, the groups of dead and wounded, and the broken fragments of different weapons, marked strongly the character of the preceding night’s dispute; and even at this late hour, there were many drunken marauders endeavouring to regain, by some fresh act of atrocity, an equivalent for the plunder their brutal state of intoxication had caused them to lose by the hands of their own companions, who robbed indiscriminately man, woman, or child, friend or foe, the dead or the dying! Then, again, were to be seen groups of deserters from our army, who, having taken shelter in Rodrigo during the winter, were now either dragged from their hiding-places by their merciless comrades, or given up by the Spaniards, in whose houses they had sought shelter, to the first officer or soldier who would be troubled, at the moment, with the responsibility of taking charge of them.

In the midst of a group of a dozen men, deserters from different regiments, stood two of the Connaught Rangers. No matter what their other faults might be, desertion was not a species of delinquency they were addicted to; and as the fate of one of these men—indeed both of them, for that matter—was a little tragical, I purpose giving it a nook in my adventures. The two culprits to whom I have made allusion were as different in their characters as persons; one of them (Mangin) was a quiet well-disposed man, short in stature, a native of England, and, as a matter of course, a heavy feeder, one that could but ill put up with “short allowance,” and in consequence left the army when food became as scarce as it did in the winter of 1811. The other, a fellow of the name of Curtis, an Irishman, tall and lank, was, like the rest of the “boys” from that part of the world, mighty aisy about what he ate, provided he got a reasonable supply of drink; but as neither the one nor the other were “convenient” during the period in question, they both left an advanced post one fine night, and resolved to try the difference between the French commissariat and ours. This was their justification of themselves to me, and I believe, for I was not present at it, the summum bonum upon which the basis of their defence at their trial rested. There were also six Germans of the 60th Rifles in the group, but they seemed so unnerved by their unexpected capture that they were unable to say anything for themselves.

Towards evening I reached the village which my regiment occupied. An altered scene presented itself. The soldiers busied in arranging their different articles of plunder; many of them clad in the robes of some priest, while others wore gowns of the most costly silk or velvet; others, again, nearly naked; some without pantaloons, having been plundered, while drunk, of so essential a part of their dress; but all, or almost all, were occupied in laying out for sale their different articles of plunder, in that order which was essential to their being disposed of to the crowds of Spaniards which had already assembled to be the purchasers; and if one could judge by their looks, they most unquestionably committed a breach in their creed by “coveting their neighbours' goods.” And had the scene which now presented itself to our sight been one caused by an event the most joyous, much less by the calamity that had befallen the unfortunate inhabitants of Rodrigo, to say nothing of the human blood that had been spilt ere that event had taken place, the scene could not have been more gay. Brawny-shouldered Castilians, carrying pig-skins of wine on their backs, which they sold to our soldiers for a trifling sum; bolero-dancers, rattling their castanets like the clappers of so many mills; our fellows drinking like fishes, while their less fortunate companions at Rodrigo—either hastily flung into an ill-formed grave, writhing under the knife of the surgeon, or in the agonies of death—were unthought of, or unfelt for. Sic transit gloria mundi! The soldiers were allowed three days congÉ for the disposal of their booty; but long before the time had expired, they had scarcely a rag to dispose of, or a real of the produce in their pockets.

A few days sufficed for the reorganisation of the soldiers after they had disposed of their hard-earned plunder, and we were once more ready and willing for any fresh enterprise, no matter how difficult or dangerous. Badajoz was talked of, but nothing certain was known, and the quiet which reigned throughout all our cantonments was such as not to warrant the least suspicion that any immediate attack against that fortress was contemplated by the Commander-in-Chief.

On the sixth day after our arrival at Atalaya, we were again in motion; the village of Albergaria was allotted for our quarters, and a court-martial was ordered to assemble for the trial of the deserters from our army found in Rodrigo. The men of the 60th, and the two men of the 88th (Mangin and Curtis) were amongst the number. The court held its sitting—the prisoners were arraigned, found guilty, and sentenced to be shot! All were bad characters, save one, and that one was Mangin. He received testimonials from the Captain of his company (Captain Seton—ever the soldier’s friend) highly creditable to him, and Lord Wellington, with his accustomed love of justice, resolved that his pardon should be promulgated at the time of the reading the proceedings and sentence of the court-martial. Three days after the trial it was made known to the prisoners, and the army generally, that they were to die the following morning.

At eight o’clock the division was under arms, and formed in a hollow square of small dimensions; in the centre of it was the Provost-Marshal, accompanied by his followers, with pick-axes, spades, shovels, and all the necessary etceteras for marking out and forming the graves into which the unfortunate delinquents were to be deposited as soon as they received the last and most imposing of military honours—that of being shot to death! In a few moments afterwards the rolling of muffled drums—the usual accompaniment of the death-march—was heard, and the soldiers who guarded the prisoners were soon in sight. The division observed a death-like silence as the prisoners defiled round the inside of the square; every eye was turned towards them; but Mangin, from his well-known good character, was an object of general solicitude. The solitary sound of the muffled drums at last died away into silence; the guard drew up in the centre of the square, and the prisoners had, for the last time, a view of their companions from whom they had deserted, and of their colours which they had forsaken; but if their countenances were a just index of their minds, they seemed to repent greatly the act they had committed! The three men of the 60th were in their shirts, as was also Mangin of the 88th, but Curtis wore the “old red rag,” most likely from necessity, having, in all human probability, no shirt to die in—a circumstance by no means rare with the soldiers of the Peninsular army.

The necessary preliminaries, such as reading the crime and finding the sentence, had finished, when the Adjutant-General announced the pardon granted to Mangin, who was immediately conducted away, and placed at a short distance in rear of the division; the rest staggered onward to the spot where their graves had been dug, and having been placed on their knees, their legs hanging over the edge of the grave, a bandage was tied over their eyes. The Provost-Marshal then, with a party of twenty musketeers, their firelocks cocked, and at the recover, silently moved in front of the prisoners until he reached to within five paces of them, and then giving two motions of his hand—the one to present, the other to fire—the four men fell into the pit prepared to receive them. The three Germans were dead—indeed they were nearly so before they were fired at! and if the state of their nerves was a criterion to go by, a moderate-sized popgun would have been sufficiently destructive to have finished their earthly career; but Curtis sprang up, and, with one of his jaws shattered and hanging down upon his breast, presented a horrid spectacle. Every one seemed to be electrified, the Provost-Marshal excepted; he, I suppose, was well accustomed to such sights, for, without any ceremony, he walked up to Curtis, and with the most perfect composure levelled a huge instrument (in size between a horse-pistol and blunderbuss) at his head, which blew it nearly off his shoulders, and he fell upon the bodies of the Germans without moving a muscle.

This ceremony over, the division defiled round the grave, and as each company passed it the word “eyes right” was given by the officer in command, by which means every man had a clear view of the corpses as they lay in a heap. This is a good and wholesome practice, for nothing so much awakes in the mind of the soldier, endowed with proper feeling, the dishonour of committing an action which is almost certain to bring him to a disgraceful end, while it deters the bad man from doing that which will cost him all that he has to lose—for such persons have no character—his life. It was ten o’clock before the parade broke up, and we returned to our quarters, leaving to the Provost-Marshal and his guard the task of filling up the grave. Several Portuguese peasants crowded near the fatal spot, and so soon as all danger was passed, they flocked to witness the interment, making, all the time, divers appeals to the Virgin Mary; but whether these were intended for the preservation of the souls departed, or their own bodies corporate, I neither knew nor inquired.

Mangin, the man who had received his pardon, was still in a state of stupor. After the lapse of an hour or so his Captain went to see him; but the shock he had received was too severe; he had not nerve to bear up against it; he replied in an incoherent manner, soon fell asleep, and awoke an idiot! Every effort that could be made by the medical men, and every assurance of favour from his Captain, proved vain—he became a palpable, irreclaimable idiot, and shortly afterwards died of convulsions.