All in Scarlet Uniform (Napoleonic War 4) (24 page)

Herrasti kept the guns firing all day, for this was the time when the workers were most vulnerable. Some balls and shells killed or maimed, and others smashed the rampart and so delayed the time when the parallel would be completed and offer them good protection. The governor sent out a sally, and if it was quickly driven off then it added to the sense of striking back. A proclamation was made announcing that the English would soon be coming to drive the French away. Pringle and the other redcoats were cheered more than usual when they went through the streets.

On the following days the guns thundered on in a slower, steadier pounding of the French siege works. Each morning, as early as their duties permitted, Pringle and Williams went up to the walls on their own, and from one of the little turrets too small to mount a gun they stared at the enemy works and tried to spot the changes. The pace was slow.

‘I remember my father talking about battles at sea,’ said Pringle once, as he watched a tiny lizard standing stock still on the top of the battlement, obviously convinced that this made it invisible. He lost his train of thought, wondering how all this seemed to animals and why they did not all have the sense to go somewhere less dangerous. The French skirmishers still sniped at the walls, although periodic sallies were keeping them back, and the governor had mounted more guns down in the earthworks protecting the ditch to contest that area. Frequent raids from the gardens and Convent of Santa Cruz had also prompted the enemy to start digging another ditch facing this threat.

‘We are quite a long way from the sea.’ Williams broke the news as gently as possible.

‘Damned good thing too! My apologies, my dear fellow, I wandered off for a moment. No, it was simply that the thing that most puzzled me as a boy was the time everything took. Father would speak of sighting the French, and so they would beat to quarters and do all sorts of other splendidly nautical things, but then the captain would order a hot breakfast served to everyone while they waited.’

‘Very civilised, the Navy.’

‘Weevils in the food give the place a certain distinction, I suppose. But it all seemed to happen so slowly. They’d spend hours watching each other, working for wind, and sometimes it was even days before they closed and fought. Didn’t ever think I’d be part of something even slower.’

‘They’ve started saps,’ said Williams after a few minutes staring through his glass. ‘Two of them.’

‘May I see?’

‘Look for where most of the shot is striking.’ The Spanish gunners must have already seen the same thing and were aiming at the heads of the trenches as they were dug. The French would have put gabions there as the men struggled to deepen and improve the ditch behind, but a clear strike would knock these down and plunge into the knot of workmen as they toiled.

The next day, Pringle was unable to join Williams on the walls until after he had attended a meeting summoned by the governor. As they climbed up into the little turret, Billy had still not worked out how to tell his friend the sickening news, and so for a while he delayed and they just scanned the siege works.

‘Saps are closer,’ Williams noted quickly.

A musket ball chipped the stonework where the lizard had posed the day before and Pringle was relieved that the little chap was not in evidence today. He hoped he was all right.

‘They’re closer too,’ the Welshman added, referring to the French skirmishers.

‘The governor found out from a prisoner that they are a special battalion, the
chasseurs de siège
, formed from the pick of the voltigeur companies.’ Pringle passed on the information flatly.

‘That’s good. Be a shame to be shot by someone who isn’t a good soldier.’

Pringle sometimes forgot how much time Williams had spent around Dobson. He cleared his throat. ‘I’ve got some bad news, Bills,’ he said.

Williams took his eye from the glass and looked at his friend.

‘Who?’ he asked, and clearly expected to hear that one of their men had fallen.

‘Not that. It’s just that I’m leaving.’

‘That sounds like good news,’ Williams said, and obviously meant it.

‘Only me,’ Billy spoke bitterly. ‘Not you, not Dobson, Murphy and Rose, or our boys. Just me.’

‘Still good news. I was not intending to say anything, but your snoring lately …’ Williams was grinning. They had shared a room since they arrived in Ciudad Rodrigo, apart from the nights when Pringle had gone to visit his ‘friend’, but that had only happened once in the last week.

‘The governor has written to Lord Wellington and wants to send a British officer to report on the seriousness of the situation. I said that he should send you, but he insisted that a captain would carry more weight.’

Williams grinned.

‘Spare me the joke,’ said Pringle, although he broke into a smile for a brief moment. ‘I really am very sorry.’

‘It is an order. Really, do not concern yourself, and I still think it is excellent news. When you get a chance, write to Anne and say that I am well.’

And inside a doomed fortress, thought Pringle. There was one more thing, and the mention of Williams’ sister made him feel more awkward, even though he doubted his friend yet sensed his interest in Anne as anything more than friendly. ‘I must ask a favour.’

‘Of course.’

‘If things turn bad, would you do what you can to protect Josepha?’ Pringle had spoken a little to Williams of the girl, and although his puritanical side did not quite approve, the Welshman remained a true friend.

‘Won’t Don Julián’s men do that?’

‘I am going out with El Charro and his lancers tonight. The governor has decided that cavalry and their horses are so many useless mouths during a siege and would be of more use on the frontier.’

‘Sensible decision,’ Williams said, adopting what he clearly felt was a wise expression. ‘Of course, I will do whatever I can.’

‘Thank you.’

The bell in the cathedral chimed twice. The sound was a little muted near the castle, but tonight there was not much firing from the walls to drown the sound. It was dark, for the sky was cloudy and already a faint drizzle was falling. Pringle’s nose was full of the smell of damp horses and leather. He glanced behind him at the column of almost a hundred riders in the weird harlequin combinations of uniform worn by Don Julián’s lancers. He could not see the colours in the dark, but men had coats, hats and weapons of every shape and size. A man walked past, checking that rags were properly tied over the hoofs of each little horse to muffle their sound.

The governor stood at the side of the square, the bishop beside him, and Billy caught a muffled ‘Go with God’ as they conferred with El Charro, and then the guerrilla leader walked his horse over to join him.

‘Time to go,’ he said.

They began to move. Men were waiting holding torches to guide them through the streets. The Gate of San Jago near the river had stood open each day and night for more than a week, and now they walked their horses through the archway. It was strange how immediately the air felt more open than in the streets of the city.

‘If anything happens and you get lost, then it’s to the right on the far bank and then south-west.’

‘Thanks,’ said Pringle.

‘I promised Hanley.’ Billy caught the glint of El Charro’s smile.

Still walking their horses, the column went along the sunken way inside the ditch until this ran out and they came to open ground beside the River Agueda. The river was wide and although full it flowed nearly silently.

The lancers halted for a moment in front of the low Roman bridge while a sentry reported. Early on in the siege, the French had taken the suburb on the far bank. In the daytime, they did not maintain any outposts in the field ahead of the houses and gardens, but there were expected to be pickets at night.

A softly given order and the hundred horsemen set off, still keeping to a walk. The sound changed as the animals’ feet came on to the stone surface of the bridge, but the horses either had wrapped feet or were unshod ponies and it was no more than a soft drumming. It still seemed loud enough to Pringle, as did the inevitable creaks of harness and saddle as men shifted their weight and the gentle thumps of equipment shaking with the motion. Yet the discipline of El Charro’s men impressed him. They worked well as a team, and if the style was different from a well-run battalion – it was at once less formal and yet blatantly autocratic – it clearly served them well.

Halfway across the bridge and still silence. The fine rain had stopped, and a slow drift of wind uncovered a thin crescent moon. Pringle could see the shapes of rooftops in the suburb of Santa Marina, and the memory came to him of Williams complaining about the Spanish fondness for religious names, and Billy knew that it was a sign of his nervousness whenever he started remembering such ridiculous things. He had to stifle an urge to laugh. His right thigh began to twitch and he was half tempted to pull the leg free from the stirrup and flex it, but knew that he could not risk anything so stupid when his very life might depend on keeping a good seat.

‘Qui vive?’

The shout came from ahead, on the far bank; they were almost at the end of the bridge already. Without an order the lancers went into a trot, Pringle’s horse copying the others before he had asked it.

‘
Qui vive?
’ Pringle pitied the poor sentry and wondered whether the second challenge was a rigorous obedience of orders or a desperate hope that someone would answer ‘
Amis!
’

A shot split the darkness.

‘Go!’ yelled El Charro, and the lancers gave their horses their heads. Pringle’s borrowed mount lurched as it quickened pace and he bounced uncomfortably for a moment before it fell into a nice rhythm.

There was a scream as the French sentry was spitted on one of the long lances, the guerrilla expertly using his own momentum to flick the point free and ride on. Beside him another man with lesser skill drove his spear so deeply into a second infantryman that the point came through the man’s stomach and stuck fast, so he let it go and rode on.

More shots came, this time in a little volley, and Pringle guessed that this was the supports for the sentries, and again he felt sorry for the sergeant and ten or twenty men who found themselves at night suddenly faced by scores of wild devils on horseback.

‘Go!’ called El Charro again. It was not a formed charge, but a deluge of galloping horsemen. Pringle saw that one man was already down, his horse shot, but El Charro had ordered his men not to stop for anyone and no one paused to help him. Men who fell were to find their own way out or back to the town – or try to take a Frenchman with them before they died.

They were past now, but shots pursued them, and Pringle heard a scream as a rider was shot through the body and tumbled from the saddle. There were shouts too, and a bell ringing, which must be an alarm. On they went, still galloping, and now they were on a wide earth road.

Pringle was near the head of the pack, and saw the sudden burst of flame stabbing at them as a cannon fired from just beside the road. Almost instantly there was a deep growling tear as a ball punched the air. The rider beside him vanished from the waist up, his chest, arms and head disintegrating and spraying blood, flesh, bone and pieces of clothing all around. Billy was drenched with still-warm blood and something heavier slapped against his cheek.

More flames, from a volley this time, and there were screams of pain from men and horses. Riders were down, and all were slowing. Billy Pringle’s mount lurched again, dropping its shoulder, and he almost lost balance, but the speed had gone from the column.

‘Go! Kill them all!’ El Charro’s voice carried over the confusion. As more muskets flared, Billy saw the guerrilla leader gallop straight at the line of French soldiers, his sabre gleaming red as it caught the light of a fire. A French officer rode to meet him, the man much bigger than the guerrilla leader.

‘El Charro! El Charro!’ His men shouted their leader’s name and drove their big spurs deep to bloody their horses’ flanks, and the animals surged forward again. Lance points dropped into the attack.

Don Julián dodged the officer’s thrust, and cut once, tumbling his opponent with ease. The French infantry wavered, some beginning to run, and the guerrilla leader was now in among them, horse rearing to pummel with his front hoofs, while the rider cut down precisely to left and right.

Then the lancers arrived. Pringle was in the middle of the mass and could see little. There was the clatter of blade on blade, some shots, the discharges almost blindingly bright, and the thud of points driving into flesh and bullets striking home. More horses were down, and Billy’s mount was kicked by an animal thrashing out in its agony, but there seemed to be no serious harm done.

‘Go!’ yelled El Charro once more.

The column was moving on. Pringle had come near the head again. He had never seen a Frenchman up close, and now the enemy was gone. At least, they were gone for the moment.

Don Julián’s lancers rode on into the night.

H
anley did his best to appear interested in the stall-owner’s boasts.

‘It is the finest ivory,’ the little man maintained, ‘from China itself.’ His smile radiating honesty with such fervent intensity that even had Hanley not known that neither statement was true he would still have been reluctant to trust the man.

He was in the market again, waiting and feigning interest because Langer had brushed past him in warning. It was the second time already today and that was worrying. He did not think the Swiss was the type of man to start at shadows.

‘No thank you,’ Hanley said to the trader, but then asked to look at a poorly painted metal figure of the Madonna simply to keep the fellow talking. The one statue occupied the trader’s rapturous enthusiasm for the rest of the ten minutes, encouraged by no more than one or two gestures of continued interest. Hanley bought the piece in the end, paying more than it was worth, and as he walked away he smirked at the thought that if they were being watched the stall-owner might well find himself arrested by the French for passing something to an English spy.