sidney smith
on the 18th, at daybreak, while the army was crossing the little stream of the kerdaneah, on a bridge thrown over it during the night, bonaparte, accompanied only by roland de montrevel, the sheik of aher, and the comte de mailly, whom he was utterly unable to reconcile to his brother's death, do what he would, ascended a little hill not far from the town to which he had laid siege.
from its summit he could see the whole country, including not only the two english vessels, "tiger" and "theseus," rocking upon the breast of the sea, but also the troops of the pasha, occupying all the gardens around the city.
"let all that rabble be dislodged from those gardens," he said, "and driven back into the town."
as he had addressed no one in particular, all three young men started off like three hawks in pursuit of the same prey. but he cried in his harsh voice: "roland! sheik of aher!"
the two young men, when they heard their names, stopped their horses, which were tugging at their bits, and returned to their places beside the commander-in-chief. mailly went on with a hundred sharpshooters, a like number of grenadiers and voltigeurs, and spurring his horse to a gallop, charged at their head.
bonaparte had great confidence in the omens of war. it was for that reason that he had been so greatly displeased with croisier's hesitation during their first engagement with the bedouins, and had reproached him so bitterly for it.
he could see the movements of the troops through his glass, which was an excellent one, from where he stood.[pg 595] he saw eugene de beauharnais and croisier, who had not dared to speak to him since that unfortunate day at jaffa, take command, the former of the grenadiers and the latter of the sharpshooters, while mailly, with the utmost deference to his companions, led the voltigeurs.
if the commander-in-chief was looking for a ready omen he should have been content. while roland was impatiently gnawing at his silver mounted riding-whip, and the sheik of aher on the contrary was watching the fray with all the patience and calmness of an arab, bonaparte saw the three detachments pass through the ruins of a village, a turkish cemetery, and a little wood whose freshness plainly showed that it was watered by a spring, and hurl themselves upon the enemy in spite of the brisk firing of the arnauts and the albanians, whom he recognized by their magnificent gold embroidered costumes and their long silver-mounted rifles, and rout them at the first charge.
the firing on the french side began vigorously, and continued with increasing vigor, while above it they could hear the loud explosion of the hand-grenades, which the french soldiers threw with their hands, and with which they tormented the fugitives.
they all arrived about the same time at the foot of the ramparts; but the posterns being closed behind the mussulmans, and the walls being enveloped with a girdle of fire, the three hundred frenchmen were forced to beat a retreat, after having killed about one hundred and fifty of the enemy.
the three young men had displayed marvellous gallantry, and had performed prodigies of valor in their emulation of each other.
eugene had killed an arnaut, who was a head taller than he, in a hand-to-hand encounter; mailly had approached within ten paces of a group which was making a stand, had discharged both barrels of his pistol at them, and had then rejoined his own men with a single bound. croisier, for his part, had sabred two arabs who had attacked him at the same time, cutting open the head of one[pg 596] of them and breaking the blade of his sabre in the breast of the second, and had returned with the bloody hilt dangling from his wrist.
bonaparte turned to the sheik of aher and said: "give me your sword in exchange for mine." and he detached his own sword from his belt and handed it to the sheik.
the latter kissed the hilt, and hastily handed him his own.
"roland," said bonaparte, "go and present my compliments to eugene and de mailly; as for croisier, you will simply say to him: 'here is a sword which the commander-in-chief has sent you. he has been watching you.'"
roland set off at a gallop. the young men to whom bonaparte had sent these congratulations leaped in their saddles for joy, and embraced each other. croisier, like the sheik of aher, kissed the hilt of the sword which had been sent him, threw away the scabbard and broken hilt of the old one, and put the one bonaparte had given him at his belt, saying: "thank the commander-in-chief for me, and say to him that he will have reason to be satisfied with me at the first assault."
the entire army had gradually ascended the hill where bonaparte was stationed like an equestrian statue. the soldiers shouted with delight when they saw their comrades drive the maugrabins before them as the wind scatters the sand of the sea. like bonaparte, the army could see no great difference between the fortifications of saint-jean d'acre and those of jaffa; and, like bonaparte, they did not doubt that the city would be taken at the second or third assault.
the french were ignorant that there were two men within the walls of saint-jean d'acre who were worth more in themselves than a whole army of mussulmans.
they were sidney smith, the english admiral who commanded the "tiger" and the "theseus," which were gracefully cradled on the waters of the gulf of carmel, and colonel phélippeaux, who had charge of the defensive[pg 597] works and the fortress of djezzar the butcher. phélippeaux had been bonaparte's friend and schoolfellow at brienne, his rival at college and in his mathematical successes. fortune, chance, or accident had now cast his lot among bonaparte's foes.
sidney smith, whom the exiles of the 18th fructidor had met at the temple, had by a strange freak of fate escaped from his prison and reached london, where he resumed his place in the english army just at the time of bonaparte's departure from toulon.
it was phélippeaux who had undertaken the rescue of sidney smith, and he had succeeded in his daring enterprise. false orders had been prepared, under the pretext of removing the captive from one prison to another. a stamped fac-simile of the minister of police's signature had been obtained at a heavy price. from whom? from him perhaps; who knows?
under the name of loger, and attired in an adjutant-general's uniform, sidney smith's friend had presented himself at the prison and exhibited his false order to the clerk. he examined it closely, and was forced to admit that it was correct in every particular. but he said: "you will need a guard of at least six men for a prisoner of such importance."
the pretended adjutant-general said: "for a man of such importance i shall need only his word." then, turning to the prisoner, he added: "commodore, you are a military man as well as i; your parole, that you will not seek to escape, will suffice for me. if you will give it i shall need no escort."
and sidney smith, like the honorable englishman that he was, would not lie even to escape. he replied: "sir, if it will satisfy you, i will promise to follow you wherever you may go."
and adjutant-general loger escorted sidney smith to england. these two men were now turned loose upon bonaparte.
[pg 598]
phélippeaux undertook the defence of the fortress as we have said; sidney smith was to provide the arms and the soldiers.
and there, where bonaparte expected to find only a stupid turk in command, as at gaza and jaffa, he found all the science of a compatriot, and all the hatred of an englishman.
that same evening bonaparte ordered sanson, the chief of the engineering brigade, to reconnoitre the counterscarp. the latter waited until it was very dark. it was a moonless night well suited to such operations. he set out alone, traversed the ruined village, and the gardens from which the arabs had been dislodged and driven in the morning. seeing a black mass ahead which could be nothing else than the fortress, he got down on his hands and knees to feel the ground step by step. just as he discovered a more rapid angle which made him believe that the moat was without facing, he was discovered by a sentinel whose eyes were probably accustomed to the darkness, or who in common with other men shared that propensity of the animals which enables them to see in the dark.
his cry "who goes there?" rang out in the darkness.
sanson did not reply. the cry was repeated a second, then a third time; a shot followed, and the ball shattered the outstretched hand of the general of the engineers. in spite of his terrible sufferings the officer made no sound; he crawled back again, thinking that he had studied the moat sufficiently, and made his report to bonaparte.
the trench was begun on the following day. they took advantage of the gardens which were the ancient moats of ptolemais, whose history we will relate later, as we did that of jaffa.
they used an aqueduct which crossed the glacis, and in ignorance of the fatal support which djezzar possessed to the undoing of the french, they gave the trench but three feet of depth.
when the giant kléber saw the trench he shrugged his[pg 599] shoulders and said to bonaparte: "that is a fine trench, general: it will scarcely reach to my knees."
on the 23d of march sidney smith captured the two large vessels which were bringing bonaparte his heavy artillery and the army its supplies. the french watched this capture without being able to prevent it, and found themselves in the strange position of besiegers being fought with their own weapons.
on the 25th they made a breach and attempted an assault, but were stopped by the counterscarp and the ditch.
on the 26th of march, the besieged, led by no less a personage than djezzar pasha himself, attempted a sortie to destroy the works which had already been begun. but being charged with the bayonet, they were at once repulsed and were obliged to retreat within the gates of the city.
although the french battery consisted of only four twelve-pounders, eight eight-pounders and four howitzers, this feeble battery was unmasked on the 28th, and made a breach in the tower against which the principal attack was directed. although of heavier calibre than those of the french, djezzar's cannon were silenced by the enemy, and the towers offered a practicable breach at three o'clock in the afternoon.
a cry of joy burst from the french when they saw the wall crumble and caught a glimpse of the interior. the grenadiers, who had been the first to enter jaffa, excited by the memory, and thinking that it would be no more difficult to take acre than it had been to take jaffa, asked with one accord to be allowed to enter the breach.
bonaparte had been in the trench with his staff ever since the morning; yet he hesitated to give the order for the assault. however, egged on by captain mailly, who told him that he could no longer restrain the grenadiers, bonaparte decided, and, in spite of himself, the words escaped him: "well, go then!"
the grenadiers of the sixty-ninth brigade, led by mailly, dashed at once into the breach; but to their great astonish[pg 600]ment where they had expected to find the slope of the moat, they found an escarpment twelve feet high. then came the cry, "ladders! ladders!"
ladders were thrown into the breach, the grenadiers leaped from the top of the counterscarp down to them, and mailly seized the first ladder and threw it into the breach; twenty more were at once placed beside the first one.
but the breach was filled with arnauts and albanians, who fired at close range, and even rolled down stones upon their assailants. half the ladders were broken, and in falling carried down those who had mounted upon them. mailly was severely wounded and fell from the top to the bottom of his. the fire of the besieged was redoubled; the grenadiers were obliged to retreat, and to use the ladders with which they had hoped to scale the breach to climb up the counterscarp again.
mailly, who was wounded in the foot and could not walk, begged his soldiers to take him with them. one of them put him on his shoulders, and fell with a bullet through the head a moment later. a second took up the wounded man and carried him to the foot of a ladder where he fell with a broken thigh. eager to put themselves in safety, they abandoned him, and they could hear his voice crying, while no one stopped to reply to him: "at least make an end of me with a bullet, if you cannot save me."
poor mailly had not long to suffer. the moats were no sooner evacuated by the french soldiers than the turks swarmed down into them, and cut off the heads of all who were left.
djezzar thought to bestow a suitable gift upon sidney smith; he had all these heads put in a sack and sent to the english commodore. sidney smith merely looked sadly at the ghastly trophy and said: "this is what it means to be allied with barbarians."
