t random amongst us. Poor Pig received
his death wound immediately, and my other accomplice, Bowden, became
missing, while I myself received two small slug shots in my left knee,
and a musket shot in my side, which must have been mortal had it not
been for my canteen: for the ball penetrated that and passed out,
making two holes in it, and then entered my side slightly. Still I
stuck to my ladder, and got into the entrenchment. Numbers had by this
time fallen: but the cry from our commanders being, "Come on, my
lads!" we hastened to the breach; but there, to our great surprise and
discouragement, we found a _chevaux de frise_ had been fixed and a
deep entrenchment made, from behind which the garrison opened a deadly
fire on us. Vain attempts were made to remove this fearful obstacle,
during which my left hand was dreadfully cut by one of the blades of
the _chevaux de frise_, but finding no success in that quarter, we
were forced to retire for a time.

We remained, however, in the breach until we were quite weary with our
efforts to pass it. My wounds were still bleeding, and I began to feel
very weak; my comrades persuaded me to go to the rear; but this proved
a task of great difficulty, for on arriving at the ladders, I found
them filled with the dead and wounded, hanging some by their feet just
as they had fallen and got fixed in the rounds. I hove down three lots
of them, hearing the implorings of the wounded all the time; but on
coming to the fourth, I found it completely smothered with dead
bodies, so I had to draw myself up over them as best I could. When I
arrived at the top I almost wished myself back again, for there of the
two I think was the worse sight, nothing but the dead and wounded
lying around, and the cries of the latter, mingled with the incessant
firing from the enemy, being quite deafening.

I was so weak myself that I could scarcely walk, so I crawled on my
hands and knees till I got out of reach of the enemy's musketry. After
proceeding for some way I fell in with Lord Wellington and his staff,
who seeing me wounded, asked me what regiment I belonged to. I told
him the Fortieth, and that I had been one of the forlorn hope. He
inquired as to the extent of my wounds, and if any of our troops had
got into the town, and I said "No," and I did not think they ever
would, as there was a _chevaux de frise_, a deep entrenchment, and in
the rear of them a constant and murderous fire being kept up by the
e