But whatever accounts may be given of the horrors which attended and immediately followed the storming of Badajoz, they must fall far short of the truth; and it is impossible for any who were not present to imagine them. I have already mentioned that neither the regiment to which I was just appointed nor that which I had just left was at the siege. I therefore could have had but little influence in controlling the frenzied military mob who were ferociously employed in indiscriminate carnage, universal plunder and devastation of every kind. Three times I narrowly escaped with life for endeavouring to protect some women by conveying them to St. John’s Church, where a guard was mounted. On one occasion, as Huddleston and I accompanied two ladies and the brother of one of them to the church mentioned, we were crossed by three drunken soldiers, one of whom, passing to our rear, struck the Spanish gentleman with the butt-end of his firelock on the back of his head, which nearly knocked him down. On my censuring the fellow’s daring insolence in striking a person in company with two English officers, another of the men was bringing his firelock to the present, when I holloaed out loudly, “Come on quick with that guard.” There was no guard near, but the ruse luckily succeeded, and so quickly did the soldiers run away that I felt convinced that their apparent intoxication was feigned. On another occasion a sergeant struck me with his pike for refusing to join in plundering a family; I certainly snapped my pistol in his face, but fortunately it missed fire or he would have been killed. However the danger which he so narrowly escaped brought him to his senses; he made an awkward apology and I considered it prudent to retire. By such means as these, by the risk and humanity of officers, many women were saved. We did not interfere with the plundering; it would have been useless. [Sidenote: HELL-HOUNDS OF SAVAGE WAR.]