Held Fast For England: A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) by G. A. Henty (reading a book .TXT) 📗

made a strong point of it that the garrison consisted only of a hundred and fifty men; which certainly accounts for our success, for it is no use having guns and walls, if you haven't got soldiers to man them.

"The Prince of Hesse was left as governor; and it was not long before his mettle was tried for, in October, the Spanish army, with six battalions of Frenchmen, opened trenches against the town. Admiral Sir John Leake threw in reinforcements, and six months' provisions. At the end of the month, a forlorn hope of five hundred Spanish volunteers managed to climb up the Rock, by ropes and ladders, and surprised a battery; but were so furiously attacked that they were all killed, or taken prisoners. A heavy cannonade was kept up for another week, when a large number of transports with reinforcements and supplies arrived and, the garrison being now considered strong enough to resist any attack, the fleet sailed away.

"The siege went on till the middle of March, when Sir John Leake again arrived, drove away the French fleet, and captured or burnt five of them; and the siege was then discontinued, having cost the enemy ten thousand men. So, you see, there was some pretty hard fighting over it.

"The place was threatened in 1720 and, in the beginning of 1727, twenty thousand Spaniards again sat down before it. The fortifications had been made a good deal stronger, after the first siege; and the garrison was commanded by Lieutenant Governor Clayton. The siege lasted till May, when news arrived that the preliminaries of a general peace had been signed. There was a lot of firing; but the Spaniards must have shot mighty badly, for we had only three hundred killed and wounded. You would think that that was enough; but when I tell you that the cannon were so old and rotten that seventy cannon, and thirty mortars, burst during the siege, it seems to me that every one of those three hundred must have been damaged by our own cannon, and that the Spaniards did not succeed in hitting a single man.

"That is mighty encouraging for you, Mrs. O'Halloran; for I don't think that our cannon will burst this time and, if the Spaniards do not shoot better than they did before, it is little work, enough, that is likely to fall to the share of the surgeons."

"Thank you," Mrs. O'Halloran said. "You have told that very nicely, Teddy Burke. I did not know anything about it, before; and I had some idea that it was when the English were besieged here that the Queen of Spain sat on that rock which is called after her; but I see now that it was Ferdinand's Isabella, and that it was when the Moors were besieged here, hundreds of years before.

"Well, I am glad I know something about it. It is stupid to be in a place, and know nothing of its history. You are rising in my estimation fast, Dr. Burke."

"Mistress O'Halloran," the doctor said, rising and making a deep bow, "you overwhelm me, entirely; and now I must say goodnight, for I must look in at the hospital, before I turn in to my quarters."

Chapter 8: The Siege Begins.

On the 19th of June General Eliott, accompanied by several of his officers, paid a visit to the Spanish lines to congratulate General Mendoza, who commanded there, on the promotion that he had just received. The visit lasted but a short time, and it was remarked that the Spanish officer seemed ill at ease. Scarcely had the party returned to Gibraltar than a Swedish frigate entered the bay, having on board Mr. Logie, H.M. Consul in Barbary, who had come across in her from Tangier. He reported that a Swedish brig had put in there. She reported that she had fallen in with the French fleet, of twenty-eight sail of the line, off Cape Finisterre; and that they were waiting there to be joined by the Spanish fleet, from Cadiz.

The news caused great excitement; but it was scarcely believed, for the Spanish general had given the most amicable assurances to the governor. On the 21st, however, the Spaniards, at their lines across the neutral ground, refused to permit the mail to pass; and a formal notification was sent in that intercourse between Gibraltar and Spain would no longer be permitted. This put an end to all doubt, and discussion. War must have been declared between Spain and England, or such a step would never have been taken.

In fact, although the garrison did not learn it until some time later, the Spanish ambassador in London had presented what was virtually a declaration of war, on the 16th. A messenger had been sent off on the same day from Madrid, ordering the cessation of intercourse with Gibraltar and, had he not been detained by accident on the road, he might have arrived during General Eliott's visit to the Spanish lines; a fact of which Mendoza had been doubtless forewarned, and which would account for his embarrassment at the governor's call.

Captain O'Halloran brought the news home, when he returned from parade.

"Get ready your sandbags, Carrie; examine your stock of provisions; prepare a store of lint, and plaster."

"What on earth are you talking about, Gerald?"

"It is war, Carrie. The Dons have refused to accept our mail, and have cut off all intercourse with the mainland."

Carrie turned a little pale. She had never really thought that the talk meant anything, or that the Spaniards could be really intending to declare war, without having any ground for quarrel with England.

"And does it really mean war, Gerald?"

"There is no doubt about it. The Spaniards are going to fight and, as their army can't swim across the Bay of Biscay, I take it it is here they mean to attack us. Faith, we are going to have some divarshun, at last."

"Divarshun! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Gerald."

"Well, my dear, what have I come into the army for? To march about for four hours a day in a stiff stock, and powder and pigtail and a cocked hat, and a red coat? Not a bit of it. Didn't I enter the army to fight? And here have I been, without a chance of smelling powder, for the last ten years. It is the best news I have had since you told me that you were ready and willing to become Mrs. O'Halloran."

"And to think that we have got Bob out here with us!" his wife said, without taking any notice of the last words. "What will uncle say?"

"Faith, and it makes mighty little difference what he says, Carrie, seeing that he is altogether beyond shouting distance.

"As for Bob, he will be just delighted. Why, he has been working till his brain must all be in a muddle; and it is the best thing in the world for him, or he would be mixing up the Spaniards and the Romans, and the x's and y's and the tangents, and all the other things into a regular jumble--and it is a nice business that would have been. It is the best thing in the world for him, always supposing that he don't get his growth stopped, for want of victuals."

"You don't mean, really and seriously, Gerald, that we are likely to be short of food?"

"And that is exactly what I do mean. You may be sure that the Dons know, mighty well, that they have no chance of taking the place on the land side. They might just as well lay out their trenches against the moon. It is just starvation that they are going to try; and when they get the eighteen French sail of the line that Mr. Logie brought news of, and a score or so of Spanish men-of-war in the bay, you will see that it is likely you won't get your mutton and your butter and vegetables very regularly across from Tangier."

"Well, it is very serious, Gerald."

"Very serious, Carrie."

"I don't see anything to laugh at at all, Gerald."

"I didn't know that I was laughing."

"You were looking as if you wanted to laugh, which is just as bad. I suppose there is nothing to be done, Gerald?"

"Well, yes, I should go down to the town, and lay in a store of things that will keep. You see, if nothing comes of it we should not be losers. The regiment is likely to be here three or four years, so we should lose nothing by laying in a big stock of wine, and so on; while, if there is a siege, you will see everything will go up to ten times its ordinary price. That room through ours is not used for anything, and we might turn that into a storeroom.

"I don't mean that there is any hurry about it, today; but we ought certainly to lay in as large a store as we can, of things that will keep. Some things we may get cheaper, in a short time, than we can now. A lot of the Jew and native traders will be leaving, if they see there is really going to be a siege; for you see, the town is quite open to the guns of batteries, on the other side of the neutral ground.

"It was a mighty piece of luck we got this house. You see that rising ground behind will shelter us from shot. They may blaze away as much as they like, as far as we are concerned.

"Ah! There is Bob, coming out of his room with the professor."

"Well, take him out and tell him, Gerald. I want to sit down, and think. My head feels quite in a whirl."

Bob was, of course, greatly surprised at the news; and the professor, himself, was a good deal excited.

"We have been living here for three hundred years," he said, "my fathers and grandfathers. When the English came and took this place--seventy-five years ago--my grandfather became a British subject, like all who remained here. My father, who was then but a boy, has told me that he remembers the great siege, and how the cannons roared night and day. It was in the year when I was born that the Spaniards attacked the Rock again; and a shell exploded in the house, and nearly killed us all. I was born a British subject, and shall do my duty in what way I can, if the place is attacked. They call us Rock scorpions. Well, they shall see we can live under fire, and will do our best to sting, if they put their finger on us. Ha, ha!"

"The little man is quite excited," Captain O'Halloran said, as the professor turned away, and marched off at a brisk pace towards his home. "It is rather hard on these Rock people. Of course, as he says, they are British subjects, and were born so. Still, you see, in race and language they are still Spaniards; and their sympathies must be divided, at any rate at present. When the shot and shell come whistling into the town, and knocking their houses about their ears, they will become a good deal more decided in their opinions than they can be, now.

"Come along, Bob, and let us get all the news. I came off as soon as I heard that our communication with Spain was cut off, and therefore it was certain war was declared. There will be lots of orders out, soon. It is a busy time we shall have of it, for the next month or two."

There were many officers in the anteroom when they entered.

"Any fresh news?" Captain O'Halloran asked.

"Lots of it, O'Halloran. All the Irish officers of the garrison are to be formed into an outlying force, to occupy the neutral ground. It is thought their appearance will be sufficient to terrify the Spaniards."

"Get out with you, Grant! If they were to take us at all, it would be because they knew that we were the boys to do the fighting."

"And the drinking, O'Halloran," another young officer put in.

"And the talking," said another.

"Now, drop it, boys, and be serious. What is the news, really?"

"There is a council of war going on, at the governor's, O'Halloran. Boyd, of course, and De la Motte, Colonel Green, the admiral, Mr. Logie, and two or three others. They say the governor has been gradually getting extra stores across from Tangier, ever since there was first a talk about this business; and of course that is the most important question, at present. I hear that Green and the Engineers have been marking out places for new batteries, for the last month; and I suppose fatigue work is going to be the order of the day. It is too bad of them choosing this time of the year to begin, for it will be awfully hot work.

"Everyone is wondering what will become