I remained three days in camp before there was a possibility of my being conveyed into the hospital at Badajoz, during which I had an opportunity of hearing of the casualties that occurred. The number of men killed, wounded, and absent was such, that the company could not muster a dozen men on parade for three days afterwards. Parties were sent to the breaches to bury the dead, which now began to smell most dreadfully; but we could not collect men enough to perform that duty. My poor old Captain, Major O’Hare, was amongst the slain, and had received not less than ten or a dozen balls through his body. While in hospital, here as in other places, we were intermingled with the French prisoners who, sick and wounded, were placed indiscriminately in the wards with the British. In that in which I myself lay, and in the next bed, there was a smart young fellow, a Frenchman, with whom I became intimately acquainted. Indeed, he could speak a little English, which he had acquired during a short stay as prisoner in England, whence he had been exchanged to be again captured. He was recovering fast from a gun-shot wound he had received in his shoulder. During one of our evening chats, he gave me an account of his escape from Almeida, which he had assisted in defending, and afterwards in blowing up and evacuating. “A few evenings,” said he, “previous to our determination to evacuate the fortress, an officer from Massena entered the town, under the disguise of a peasant, with orders to the Governor to undermine and blow up the walls, and cut his way with the garrison through the British lines. The distresses of the besieged had been so excessive, that the message was received with delight. We had seen and felt innumerable hardships, and had been so reduced by famine, as to have been obliged, for food, to slaughter even the horses and mules. On receipt of the order, General Bernier, who commanded, and who had already escaped from the British, he having broken his parole while prisoner with the English some years before, was even more anxious than ourselves, as he well knew had he been retaken, in all probability he would have been shot. In our dilemmas, he drew from us an oath to die or effect our purpose. As a first step, we were for several days employed undermining the walls, which were soon hollowed and loaded in fourteen different places, all communicating with each other by trains of gunpowder.