The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence, William Lawrence [best book club books of all time .TXT] 📗

gates of the town were closed every night at sunset and not opened till daylight in the morning, and then feeling that we could make ourselves quite at home. The inhabitants were meanwhile not altogether deprived of their livelihood, as our general issued a proclamation that they should open their shops and carry on their business as usual: and if any declined to open, he was kind enough to send parties to do it for them.

During the time that we lay there, which I should think was at least five months, the only things that occurred that could be called out of the way were, I am sorry to say, of rather an unpleasant nature. One thing was that a sergeant and corporal of the Spanish army came in disguise and tried to enlist any of our men who would join their service; and unfortunately a sergeant named Goodfellow, one of my own regiment, accepted their proposals, tempted by the heavy bounty they offered. But while passing out of the town in disguise with the Spaniards, he was met and recognized by the general himself and his staff: a most unlucky encounter for the three runaways, for they were brought back again and put under charge immediately, and a court-martial ordered on them next day. Our colonel, however, implored so hard for our sergeant's life on account of the regiment's late good conduct in the field, that the general granted it, and changed his sentence to one of transportation for life: but the Spaniards were not quite so leniently dealt with, for they were tried and hanged, to make sure that they could not repeat their mischievous practices.

We also found among the prisoners an Irishman who had somehow got away from us over on to the wrong side, and had been fighting against us. He was tried and sentenced to be hanged, and we all had to march up next day to witness his execution and take example from it. But his life was not destined to end here, for the rope was not altogether a strong one, and he was fortunate enough when he fell to break it. Directly his feet touched ground, he begged hard for mercy: and the rope had made such a terrible mark on his neck that I suppose the general thought he had been hanged enough: so he was sent into hospital, and when he recovered, transported for the rest of the life that had thus been given back to him. While he was on his way down the town to go on board the vessel, I should think that if he had one dollar given him, he had at least half a peck, though I do not expect they would be much use to him where he was going to. I never heard any more of him, but I don't suppose many men could say that they had been hanged and then transported afterwards.

Another case of desertion was that of an officer's servant, who went away with the greater part of his master's clothes, taking with him likewise a Spanish lady; he was lucky enough to get off safe, and nothing was heard of him afterwards. This was not at all a rare temptation, though, that was put in our soldiers' way; for I was myself offered a fortune by a Spanish gentleman, together with his daughter, if I would desert and remain in the country. Whenever he met me about he would treat me to anything I liked to name, which I sometimes found very acceptable, and he would often give me money as well, in hopes of gaining me over in time. He had more chances of making up to me, for I forgot to mention that I had received a slight wound in the left leg in storming the town, which kept me limping about and partially disabled from duty for nearly a fortnight; but I don't think he would have minded his daughter not marrying me in particular, so long as he could persuade some one. But he happened one day to leave his horse tied up close to our main guard while he went into a kind of public-house, and occupied himself treating some of our men; and the fact being discovered by those outside that his stirrups were of solid gold, when he came out again one of them was missing. It must have weighed at least a pound, so naturally he thought it worth while reporting the circumstance to the colonel, and a search was made; but no clue could be found to the missing stirrup, so he had to ride away as best he could with only the other one; so he only came off a loser in the end, and he never got his daughter married after all.

After staying in the town for the time stated, a thousand of us were despatched up the river Rio de la Plata to a small place called Colonia, where an army of Spaniards about four or five thousand strong was lying. We landed with ease, and the enemy retreated out of the place after firing a few shots, leaving it in our hands, so that we again found ourselves for a time in comfortable quarters. We placed pickets of two or three hundred men round the place, and fixed a chevaux de frise in the gate, formed of very sharp and pointed swords stuck very thickly into a beam which was made to turn on its axis: rather an awkward instrument to face if one is not used to it. Duty at this place was rather hard, owing to there being so few of us, and such a number on picket or at work building some batteries for our better protection.

At the picket-house, which was some distance from the town, there lived a soap-boiler and tallow-chandler, who was very kind to us while we were there on duty, killing a bullock almost every night for our use, as he only required the skin and tallow, and any one may suppose that two hundred hungry men knew what to do with the rest of it. An incident took place during our stay at his house which will show how well disposed he was towards us. We had passed a very quiet week there, when one night the Spaniards passed our picket secretly in the darkness, fired a volley into the town, and then immediately retreated. Our picket only just managed to get through safely into the town, leaving one of our men asleep in the picket-house, and he must certainly have met his death if he had been caught there singly; but the tallow-chandler, though himself a Spaniard, concealed him under a quantity of dry hides while the enemy were scouring the place in search of stragglers, and so saved his life. In consequence of this surprise, still heavier duty was afterwards put upon us, the picket having to be augmented to prevent further annoyance.

Two or three days after this had occurred the tallow-chandler was sent for to join the Spanish army, no doubt because their general suspected him of favouring the English; but he would not go until he had obtained our colonel's advice, which was that he should go by all means, and if he could conveniently come back with full particulars of the enemy's strength he should be rewarded. As far as I can remember, he had been away about ten days, when he again made his appearance with the requisite information. What reward he got I cannot say, but as the result of his tidings, about two or three days afterwards we were called under arms at midnight and supplied with half a pound of beef for each man; the order then being given to return to our lodgings for two hours, and at the end of that time to fall in again. Meanwhile a number of sailors came from on board our ships to take charge of the town during our absence, we being now bound for some place as yet unknown to us.

A little after two in the morning we left the town with an Indian for our guide. We asked in the best manner that we could where we were going to, but all we could understand from him was that we were on the way to fight some Spaniards, which of course we had pretty well guessed before, and that we should have some four or five thousand of them to encounter. This last bit of news made us think that we were going to have hard nuts to crack, but we found them a very cowardly sort of folk to deal with, for after marching some five or six miles, we despatched skirmishing parties, who fell in with their picket and took a few prisoners, and soon made the others retreat without doing anything further than to send up some rockets to alarm the body of the enemy.

We marched on still further till we came nearly up to them, when we found a river in our way; fortunately it was not very deep, so we waded through it under a fire from the Spanish cannon, which killed two of our men while in the act of crossing; and as soon as we were over we formed line and advanced towards the enemy, who lay on some fine rising ground in our front. They had some few pieces of cannon with them, and opened the first fire with both cannon and musketry, but every shot seemed to rise over our heads, and I don't think that volley killed a man. We were up and at them like dragons, wounding and taking their general with about a hundred and fifty other prisoners; likewise a stand of colours, three pieces of cannon, and their baggage. Moreover, we found a nice breakfast cooking for us in the shape of fowls, geese, turkeys, beef, rice, and calavancos, (though the latter were rather too warm with cayenne pepper and garlic,) all of which the enemy had had to leave in his hurry, and which came in very acceptably at the end of a long march.

The colonel ordered everything to be taken from the prisoners we had made, as that was how he had been served himself when he had been taken prisoner at Buenos Ayres, so we set to clearing them of all they possessed, their money, which amounted to about two thousand dollars, their clothes, and even their boots. I had a very narrow escape while the plunder was going on. I entered one of the enemy's storehouses, at one end of which a quantity of bullocks' hides were lying, at a sufficient distance from the wall to allow a man to pass or hide behind them; and there beside the heap stood a Spaniard whom I knew well, as he had sold cakes to us while we were at Colonia, and who now offered me a pot of honey to eat. I had my misgivings, however, so made motion for him to eat first, for fear of poison; and at the same time, casting my eye to the left, I saw a Spaniard emerge from between the hides and the wall with a pistol, which he levelled at me. I became pretty active, as may be supposed under the circumstances, and managed to guard it off; but the shot whizzed very close to my head nevertheless, which made me very much enraged with the man, and determined he should not escape. Unfortunately for him, one of our dismounted cavalry, an Irishman, came in, and on my telling him there was a Spaniard behind the hides, who had just fired a pistol at me, "Tare an' 'ounds," says he,