All in Scarlet Uniform (Napoleonic War 4) (30 page)

‘His Excellency is right,’ said General Herrasti after listening to all the opinions. ‘These people have come to our land as invaders. They kill and they plunder at will.

‘Much of what the French prince says is true. They are breaking our defences and when they do assault it will be terrible. Soldiers who fight their way through a breach are little more than animals by the time they get into the city. I will hide none of these things from you.’ He looked around the table, staring at each face in turn, holding their gaze.

‘Yet we are not beaten. They have made a breach, but will not find it easy to attack. The glacis, ditch and earthworks are almost untouched. After forty-nine years in the service I know the laws of war and my military duty. The fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo is not in a state to capitulate and no breach is formed and sufficiently complete that makes it necessary. There may come a time when surrender will be necessary to save the people of this city. It is not yet. The English may still come, and I will send a new message to Lord Wellington today. If they do not come, it will not be our fault, and I will have no man say that the garrison and citizens of Ciudad Rodrigo did not do all that honour and love of their country demanded.

‘If you follow my advice then we shall reject this summons.’

They did not cheer. Instead the mood was one of cold determination, but all voted to support the general. Hanley wondered whether this was the moment when Velarde’s conspirators would have struck if he had been there to confirm their resolution. He tried to study the faces, but in truth was not even sure that the cautious men were disloyal. Perhaps the French would now realise that their agent was dead, or at least unable to fulfil his promises. Hanley had spent hours with the coded sheet and remained utterly baffled.

The next day, General Herrasti ordered every gun that could bear to concentrate on the French saps. Williams and Hanley watched through their glasses. Experience is a ready tutor, and the Spanish gunners were now more skilled in serving their pieces. They were more accurate, if not yet able to fire with the precise aim that came only from years of training and practice. The areas around the heads of the saps were deluged with shot, and enough struck squarely, flinging down the gabions and sandbags protecting them. Williams could only imagine the carnage at the head of those trenches.

Yet still the enemy edged closer, with trenches and batteries near the abandoned Convent of Santa Cruz, and a long sap crossing the Lesser Teson and creeping towards the ditch and glacis of the city. Their artillery switched its attention more to the suburb of San Francisco. Soon houses were burning, and the earth ramparts protecting the area were thrown down in many places. The biggest guns fired less often.

‘Perhaps they are running out of shot?’ suggested Hanley when Williams drew his attention to it. It surprised him that the Welshman could tell so much from the noise.

‘Or saving it for particular targets?’

That night the sound of digging was closer. The French slaved each night because darkness protected them from accurate shooting by the garrison. The next morning they could see the line of the Second Parallel, almost touching the slope of the glacis.

‘That’s the last obstacle!’ Williams said, pointing. ‘Damn it!’ he yelled, and jerked back from the edge of the embrasure as a voltigeur’s bullet smacked into the stonework inches from his head. More carefully he moved so that they could look down from the walls into the ditch. ‘Do you see the counter-scarp?’

‘Possibly, if I knew what it was.’

Williams chuckled. ‘You really will have to learn more about your profession one of these days. It is the outside face of the ditch. Here it is faced in stone and a steep, sheer drop. At the moment it would be difficult to jump down without risking broken legs and ankles. It would slow them down, if nothing else, and an attack that slows can readily falter. The French will want to tumble that wall into the ditch so that they can run down and be ready to climb the breach.’

That night the company was on duty, providing pickets and a reserve in the covered way behind the suburb. As senior officer Hanley was naturally in charge, and went forward at nine o’clock to report to the commander of the garrison in the San Francisco convent. The French howitzers and mortars fired for two hours after darkness fell, but then the bombardment slackened. It was not wholly silent, but the break from the explosions and flashes was almost more oppressive than the noise.

Hanley got lost in the maze of walled gardens between the suburb and the town, and now realised that he should have listened to Williams’ advice and taken a look in daylight. He walked for five minutes and then almost stumbled into a picket, prompting a flurry of raised weapons and surprised cries. Fortunately the sergeant and his five men were not nervous or over-vigilant and no one fired. Several bayonets were levelled at his chest, but the password and a ready explanation quickly confirmed that he was a friend.

‘Dark night, Lieutenant,’ said the sergeant, a short, cheerful fellow, whose tone hinted that officers were not safe let out on their own. ‘You have come too far to the left. Much further and it might have turned nasty. Listen for a moment.’

Hanley let his breathing steady, did as he was told, and then gasped nervously. The French sounded as if they were just a few yards away. He could hear the spades thunking into the earth, the pickaxes striking stone, the tipping of spoil, and over it all the murmur of voices and softly spoken orders.

‘If you’d gone much further you would have changed armies,’ said the sergeant.

‘How close are they?’ Hanley found himself whispering.

The sergeant grinned, teeth white in the soft light of the waxing moon. ‘Sounds closer than it is at night. It’s at least a long musket shot, and perhaps a bit more. They’re up on the Lesser Teson.’

He gave Hanley directions, and almost to his own surprise the officer made no more mistakes and reached the convent, where he spoke to the commander and listened to the reports from the sentries and patrols. The French were close, but had been for days. There seemed to be nothing untoward.

Hanley decided to retrace his steps, rather than risk getting lost again. When he came towards the picket, he called out the password and waited for the response. Nothing happened. He walked forward slowly, and again gave the watchword. Then his foot struck something. It was one of the recruits, and the whole front of the white waistcoat he wore as uniform was dark with blood. Hanley dropped to a crouch, staring around him. The smell of fresh blood was strong and rank in his nostrils.

The sergeant and his men were all dead, the NCO still with a Frenchman’s short sword thrust upwards into his stomach and under his ribcage. Several of the others had their throats cut like the first man he had found. From up on the Lesser Teson, the noise of digging and quiet talk still wafted down.

Hanley’s heart was pounding again. This was so sudden. After days inside a besieged town, he had become used to the sight of the French near by, but the same complacent spirit had killed the sergeant and his men. The officer looked around him, trying to pierce the darkness. Reaching down, he pulled his pistol from where it was tucked into his sash. Apart from that he had his sword.

There was no sign of the French. Hanley thought back to the hill at Talavera when he had become caught up in a night attack. He wished that Dobson was at his side this time as well, for the veteran always seemed to know what to do.

A Spanish howitzer fired from an emplacement set into the earthworks by the ditch. The noise and flame were startling, but at least they gave his reeling mind a better sense of his bearings. Keeping at a crouch, he half walked, half jogged back towards where he guessed the company were. The Spanish shell prompted the French to return the compliment. A mortar gave its dull boom and a great shell arched high, trailing sparks to land three or four hundred yards away near the cathedral. Even at that distance the explosion of the big shell made him flinch.

He stopped, and as he looked around again he just made out a darker shade to the night over on his left. Hanley dropped to one knee, knowing it was easier to see anything against the sky, and wondered whether all he had seen was one of the garden walls. Then it moved, and there was the sound of shuffling feet. There were men, certainly dozens and perhaps over a hundred. No Spanish should be moving in the dark.

Hanley eased the hammer back on his pistol, and the click as he cocked it like a brass tray dropping on an empty stage. The French – he was sure they must be French – kept going away from him. He did not worry about aiming, but simply levelled it generally in their direction. He needed to make noise and hope to surprise the French into firing and revealing themselves.

Lieutenant Hanley pulled the trigger, snatching at it a little so that the muzzle jerked up as the hammer slammed down and sparked. Nothing happened, and the main charge did not ignite. Hanley cursed silently, and ruefully remembered Pringle’s expression after his second pistol misfired during the duel.

The French seemed to be going away from him, heading for the convent, and he guessed that must be the target of the attack. He was about to shout when half a dozen muskets banged.

‘
Vive l’empereur!
’ the French cheered. More muskets flamed into the night and in the flashes he could see distinct silhouettes as the French soldiers surged away from him towards the looming shape of the convent.

Hanley ran back towards the glacis and ditch. He could hear shouts, and he bawled out the password. A deep voice called the order to hold their fire, and he recognised it as Sergeant Rodriguez’s. Without really knowing what he was doing, he had found his way back to the company.

‘Get down, sir!’ Dobson bellowed, and Hanley found himself responding to the NCO’s tone before the words really registered. He dropped into the cold grass.

‘Fire!’ Williams shouted, and the company sent a volley towards the French, the balls snapping in the air as they passed over Hanley’s head. ‘Come on, William,’ his friend called.

Hanley pushed himself up and sprinted towards them as the recruits reloaded. Beside them another company fired, the muskets squibbing off in dribs and drabs rather than as one roaring discharge.

No shots came back.

‘Must be relying on the bayonet,’ Williams said with more than a trace of admiration. He turned as a Spanish major ran up behind him. ‘Are we going forward, sir?’

‘No. Stay in your position. There are too many of them out there.’

Shots came from the convent and the nearby hospice, the sound sometimes echoing from the courtyards and the little walled gardens. There were shouts and screams.

‘Look, sir!’ That was Corporal Rose, who seemed to see unusually well at night. Hanley saw the gleam of bayonets and shadows coming towards them.

‘Present!’ Williams shouted. ‘Aim low!’ he added in Spanish.

‘Fire!’ The volley punched into the night and for a moment Hanley clearly saw the line of French soldiers in their bright white cross-belts.

‘Sorry, William, I seem to be taking over,’ Williams said apologetically.

‘Keep them at it,’ Hanley said.

The French had pulled back some way, so that they could only just be seen as a deeper shadow in the night. Then a building flamed into light over to the right and as the fire blossomed Hanley could see the line of soldiers more clearly.

‘A company,’ Williams said before Hanley had finished counting. ‘Perhaps another behind.’ The French still did not fire. ‘They’re up to something.’

Shouts and a burst of firing came from further down the glacis on their right.

‘Sods have broken through on our flank!’ shouted Dobson, who was stationed at that end of the company.

‘Back to the town!’ shouted the Spanish major. ‘Or we’ll be cut off!’

The recruits looked nervously over their shoulders, shuffling as they reloaded.

‘Stand fast!’ Rodriguez shouted.

‘Give them one volley, and then we go back,’ Williams ordered. He glanced at Hanley for a moment, who saw that they were ready.

‘
Vive l’empereur!
’ The French ahead of them were advancing again, marching forward in order. There was a flicker of red gleams as their bayonets came down to the charge, catching the glow of the burning house.

‘Present!’ Hanley shouted, but his voice cracked and he had to cough. ‘Present!’ he repeated. The small line brought their muskets up to their shoulders. Hanley was sure he saw the French hesitate for an instant, stopping in their tracks.

‘Fire!’ The volley came almost as one, stabbing into the night.

‘Now back!’ he called. ‘Back!’ The sergeants added their shouts and the recruits doubled back down into the covered way and along towards the gate. Hanley waited for a moment and as the smoke thinned he saw that the French line had stopped, with two men down, one of them screaming in agony.

Then the enemy came forward again and he fled.

Williams and the sergeants rallied the men in front of the gate. They were held there with another company for an hour, but the French made no effort to come further and eventually they were dismissed to get two hours’ sleep before they were needed again.

No one cheered the redcoats as they walked through the dark streets. Soldiers and civilians alike looked too tired to care or hope.

Hanley was struggling to keep his eyes open when they reached their billet. He felt exhausted, his mind and senses unclear, so that it was an effort simply to walk.

The door of their room was open, and suddenly Hanley was coldly awake. The cots were tipped on their sides, chairs and table knocked over, and papers strewn about the floor. Williams’ Bible was lying open on its face, several pages torn from it. That sight seemed to upset him more than the chaos.

‘Damn,’ he said, fishing among the debris for the pages of a long letter he was writing to Miss MacAndrews in the hope of being able to send it one day. ‘You’d think you would be safe from thieves here.’

Hanley searched carefully. The pouch of letters he had taken from Velarde was still there, but empty. Carefully he hunted for the contents and found everything.