The captain of our company remained lifeless also upon the pavement. We retired in disorderly fashion to various points separated from one another, not knowing who would command us. Indeed, the initiative of each one, or of each group of two or three, was the only organization then possible, and no one thought of companies or of military rank. All were obedient to one common purpose, and showed a marvellous instinctive knowledge of rudimentary strategy which the exigencies of the struggle demanded at every moment. This instinctive insight made us understand that we were lost from the time that we got into the chapels on the right, and it was rashness to persist in the defence of the church before the great numbers of the French who now occupied it. Some of our soldiers thought that with the benches, the images, and the wood of an old altarpiece, which could easily be broken to pieces, we ought to raise a barricade in the arch of our chapel, and defend ourselves to the last; but two Augustine fathers opposed this useless effort.
“My sons, do not trouble yourselves to prolong the resistance which will only destroy you, and give our side no advantage,” said one of them. “The French are attacking this moment by the Calle de las Arcadas. Hasten there, and see if you can not harass them; but do not imagine that you can defend the church profaned by these savages.”
These exhortations decided us to leave the church. Some of the Estremadura men remained in the choir, exchanging shots with the French, who now filled the nave. The friars only half-fulfilled their promise of giving us something for which to sing “Gaudeamus.” As a recompense for having defended their church to the last extreme, they were giving us some bits of jerked beef and dry bread, without our seeing or smelling the wine anywhere, in spite of our straining our eyes and our nostrils. But to explain this, they said that the French, occupying all the upper part, had possession of all the principal storehouse of provisions. Lamenting this, they tried to console us with praises of our good behavior.
The failure of the wine made me remember the great Pirli. I happened to recollect that I had seen him at the beginning of the battle. I asked for him, but nobody could account for his disappearance. The French occupied the church, and also some of the upper part of the convent. In spite of our unfavorable position below, we were resolved to go on resisting; and we bore in mind the heroic conduct of the volunteers of Huesca, who defended Las Monicas until they were buried beneath its ruins. We were maddened, and believed ourselves disgraced if we did not conquer. We were impelled to these desperate struggles by a hidden, irresistible force which I cannot explain except as the strong tension and spiritual exaltation springing from our aspirations towards the ideal.
An order from outside stopped us, dictated doubtless by the practical good sense of General Saint March.
“The convent cannot be held,” it was said. “Instead of sacrificing men with no advantage to the city, let all go out to defend the points attacked in the Calle de Pabostre, and the Puerta Quemada, where the enemy are trying to advance, conquering houses from which they have been repulsed various times.”
We therefore left San Augustine. While we were passing through the street of the same name, parallel with the Calle de Palomar, we saw that they were throwing hand-grenades among the French established in a little opening near the latter of these two streets. Who was throwing those projectiles from the tower? In order to tell it more briefly, and with greatest eloquence, let us open the history and read: “In the tower six or eight peasants had placed themselves, having provided themselves with provisions and ammunition to harass the enemy. They continued to hold it for some days without being willing to surrender.”
There was the glorious Pirli! Oh, Pirli, more happy than Tío Garces, thou dost occupy a place in history!
XXIII
Incorporated into the battalion of Estremadura, we went along the Calle de Palomar into the Plaza de la Magdalena, whence we could hear the roar of battle at the end of the Calle de Puerta Quemada. As we have said, the enemy tried to take the Calle de Pabostre in order to get possession of Puerta Quemada, an important point whence they could rake with their artillery the street of the same name towards the Plaza de la Magdalena. As the possession of San Augustine and Las Monicas permitted them to threaten that central point by the easy way to the Calle de Palomar, they already considered themselves masters of the suburb. In fact, if those in San Augustine managed to advance to the ruins of the Seminary, and those of the Calle de Pabostre to the Puerta Quemada, it would be impossible to dispute with the French the quarter of Las Tenerias.
After a short time they took us to the Calle de Pabostre, and as the battle of the outside and inside of the buildings and of the public
