Beira, came into the town. By an unfortunate accident an explosion of an unsuspected magazine took place, just as the French prisoners were being marched out, and some of them and of their escort were killed[197]. The storming regiments made a strange spectacle as they left the town. ‘As we marched over the bridge dressed in all varieties imaginable, some with jack-boots on, others with white French trousers, others in frock-coats with epaulettes, some even with monkeys on their shoulders, we met the 5th Division on their way to repair the breaches. They immediately formed upon the left of the road, presented arms, and cheered us. I was afterwards told that Lord Wellington, who saw us pass, inquired of his staff, “Who the devil are _those_ fellows[198]?”’ [194] See his _Life and Letters_, p. 396. [195] Kincaid, _Adventures in the Rifle Brigade_, p. 117. [196] Leach’s _Sketches in the Life of an Old Soldier_, p. 250. For an amusing story about a plundering Connaught Ranger who came down a chimney, see Grattan, p. 162. He tried to propitiate the officer who found him by presenting him with a case of surgical instruments. Kincaid speaks of worse than plunder--armed violence and some cases of rape. [197] So Napier and most other authorities. John Jones, however, says that the explosion was not accidental, but deliberate--some English deserters had hidden themselves in a small magazine under the rampart. ‘These desperate men, on seeing an officer approach, deeming discovery and capture inevitable, and assured that an ignominious death would follow, blew themselves up in the magazine. The explosion first found vent through the door, and shot the refugees up into the street, some alive, but so mutilated, blackened, and distorted, as to be painful to behold.’ [198] Costello (a Light Division narrator), pp. 151-2. The garrison, out of a little under 2,000 men present when the siege began, showed 60 officers and 1,300 rank and file of unwounded prisoners. Eight officers had been killed, 21 wounded, and about 500 rank and file, mostly on the day of the assault. The artillery and engineers suffered most--of 8 artillery officers in the place 5 were killed or wounded, of three engineer officers two fell.