While the cannons on the Mediodia were throwing bombs into the centre
of the city, the cannon on the east side were discharging solid balls
upon the weak walls of Las Monicas, and the fortifications of earth and
brick of the oil mill, and the battery of Palafox. Very soon the French
opened three great breaches, and an attack was imminent. They defended
themselves in the Goicoechea mill, which they had taken the day before,
after it had been abandoned and fired by us.
Certain of victory, the French ran forward over the plain, having
received orders to attack. Our battalion occupied a house in the Calle
de Pabostre, whose walls had been spiked along their whole length. Many
peasants and various regiments were keeping watch in the Cortina, fiery
of courage and with not the least terror before the almost certain
likelihood of death, hopeful of being useful in death also, helping to
stay the enemy's advance.
Long hours passed. The French questioned with the artillery to see
if they were driving us out of the suburb; the walls were gradually
being destroyed; the houses were being shaken down with the dreadful
concussion; and the heroic people, few of whom had broken fast even
with a bit of bread, were calling from the walls, saying that the enemy
was coming. At last, against the right of the breach in the centre
advanced strong columns sustained by others in the rear. We saw that
the intention of the French was to possess themselves at all hazards
of that line of crumbling bricks which some hundreds of madmen were
defending, and to take it at any cost. Death-dealing masses were hurled
forward, the living columns passing over the dead.
Let it not be said to make our merit less that the French were not
fighting under cover. Neither were we, for none of us could show his
head above the broken wall and keep it on. Masses of men dashed against
one another, and bayonets were fed with brutal anger upon the bodies of
enemies. From the houses came incessant fire. We could see the French
fall in heaps, pierced by lead and steel, at the very foot of the ruins
they were seeking to conquer. New columns took the places of the first,
and in those who came after, brutalities of vengeance were added to
prodigies of valor.
On our side the number of those who fell was enormous. The dead were
left by dozens upon the earth along that line which had been a wall,
but was now no more than a shapeless mass of earth, bricks, and
corpses. The natural, the human thing would have been to abandon such
positions, and not try to hold them against such a combination of force
and military skill. But there was nothing of the human or the natural
here. Instead, the power of defence was extended infinitely, to limits
not recognized by scientific calculation, beyond ordinary valor. The
Aragonese nature stood forth, and it is one which does not know how to
be conquered. The living took the places of the dead with a sublime
aplomb. Death was an accident, a trivial detail, a thing of which no
notice should be taken.
While this was going on, other columns equally powerful were trying to
take the Casa de Gonzalez, which I have before mentioned. But from the
neighboring houses, and the towers of the wall, came such a terrible
fire of rifles and cannons that they desisted from their attempt. Other
attacks took place, with better results for them, at our right, toward
the orchard of Camporeal and the batteries of Los Martires. The immense
force displayed by the besiegers along one line of short extent could
not fail to produce results. From the house in the Calle de Pabostre,
close to the Molino of the city, we were, as I have said, firing upon
the besiegers, when behold the batteries of San José, formerly occupied
in demolishing the wall, directed their cannons against that ancient
edifice. We felt that the walls were trembling; the beams were cracking
like the timbers of a ship tossed by a tempest; the wood of the walls
was cracking too in a thousand fragments. In short, the place was
tumbling down.
"Cuerno, recuerno!" exclaimed Uncle Garces, "what if the house falls
down upon us!"
The smoke of the powder prevented us from seeing what was going on
without or within.
"To the street! To the street!" cried Pirli, throwing himself out of a
window.
"Augustine! Augustine! where art thou?" I called to my friend. But
Augustine did not appear. In that moment of alarm, not finding either
doorway or ladder to descend, I ran to a window to throw myself out;
and the spectacle which met my eyes obliged me to draw back without
strength or breath. While the cannons of San José were essaying on
the right to bury us in the ruins of the house, and seemed to be
accomplishing it without effort, in front of and towards the gardens of
San Augustine, the French infantry had succeeded at last in penetrating
the breaches, killing those unhappy creatures scarcely to be called
men, and finishing those who were already dying, for indeed their
desperate agony could not be called life.
From the neighboring alleys came a horrible fire. The cannons of the
Calle de Diezma took the place of those of the conquered battery. But
the breach taken, the French were securing themselves on the walls. It
was impossible for me to feel in my soul a spark of energy on beholding
such stupendous disaster.
I fled from the window, terrified,--beside myself. A piece of the wall
cracked and fell in enormous fragments, and a square window took the
shape of an isosceles triangle; through a corner of the roof I could
see the sky. Bits of lime and splinters struck me in the face. I ran
further in, following others, who were saying, "This way! this way!"
"Augustine! Augustine!" I called again. At last I saw him among those
who were running from one room to another, going up a ladder which led
to a garret.
"Are you alive?" I asked him.
"I do not know; it is not important," he answered.
In the garret we broke through a partition wall, and passing into
another room, we found an outside staircase. We descended and came to
another house. Some soldiers followed, looking for a place to get into
the street, and others remained there. The picture of that poor little
room is indelibly fixed in my memory, with all its lines and colors,
and flooded with plentiful light from a large window, opened upon the
street. Portraits of the Virgin and of the saints covered the uneven
walls. Two or three old trunks covered with goat-skin stood on one
side. On the other side we saw a woman's clothes hanging upon hooks and
nails, and a very high but poor-looking bed, although the sheets were
fresh. In the window were three large flower-pots with plants in them.
Sheltered behind them were two women firing furiously upon the French
who occupied the breach. They had two guns. One was charging, the other
firing. The one who was firing had been stooping to aim from behind the
flower-pots. Resting the trigger a minute, she lifted her head a little
to look at the field of battle.
"Manuela Sancho," I exclaimed, placing my hand upon the head of the
heroic girl, "resistance is no longer of any use. The next house is
already destroyed by the batteries of San José, and the balls are
already beginning to fall upon the roof of this. Let us go."
She took no notice, and went on shooting. At last the house, which
was even less able than its neighbor to sustain the shock of the
projectiles, quivered as if the earth trembled beneath its foundations.
Manuela Sancho threw down her gun. She and the woman who was with her
ran into an alcove, where I heard them crying bitterly. Entering, we
found the two girls embracing an old crippled woman who was trying to
get up from her bed.
"Mother, it is nothing," Manuela said soothingly, covering her with
whatever came first to her hand; "we are only going into the street
because it seems as if the house is going to fall down."
The old woman did not speak. She could not speak. The two girls had
taken her in their arms; but we took her in ours, charging them to
bring our guns and whatever clothing they could save. We passed out
into a court which opened into another street where the fire had not
yet reached.