We may feel shocked at the excesses which our soldiers committed after the storming of such towns as Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos. Folk sitting by their quiet firesides may wonder how sane men can be so dead to the higher and better feelings of humanity; but when the fever of war is followed by the poison of drink, it is no wonder if the minds of rude men are thrown off their balance. War is a most awful thing to witness, and many officers have declared to the writer that, had they known what war meant in all its dreadful reality, they would not have been so eager in their youth to join the army. All the more reason is there that every youth in our islands should be compelled by law to learn the use of the rifle, that when the time comes--as come it will--when an invader shall set foot upon our shore, we may not be helpless and unarmed. Perhaps it is necessary that we should sometimes hear the horrid truth about war; we may thus be stimulated to use a little self-denial for our country’s security, when we realize that life is not made up of games and money-making, and when we can see what our fatherland would be to us, devastated by a savage enemy, with farms and barns blazing, women and children starved to death, towns sacked and plundered, and the honour of old England trodden beneath the foot of a foreign invader. The story of these sieges has many lessons--military, ethical, and economic. Let us at least learn one--the duty that is incumbent upon all of us, men and boys, to defend mother and wife and child. CHAPTER VI A PRISONER IN ST. SEBASTIAN (1813) The _coup de grâce_--The hospital--A cruel order--An attempt at escape--Removed to the castle--The English at the breach--Many are wounded--French ladies sleep in the open--A vertical fire--English gunners shoot too well--A good sabre lightly won. Colonel Harvey Jones, R.E., has left us an interesting account of the siege of St. Sebastian by the British forces. The town, situated close to the French frontier, just south of the Pyrenees and by the sea, contains 10,000 inhabitants, and is built on a low peninsula running north and south. The defences of the western side are washed by the sea, those on the eastern side by the river Urumea, which at high-water covers 4 feet of the masonry of the scarp. The first assault in July failed. Colonel Jones was wounded and taken prisoner. His diary begins: “After witnessing the unsuccessful attempts of Lieutenant Campbell, 9th Regiment, and his gallant little band to force their way on to the ramparts, and their retreat from the breach, my attention was soon aroused by a cry from the soldier who was lying disabled next to me: “‘Oh, they are murdering us all!’