All in Scarlet Uniform (Napoleonic War 4) (44 page)

The mood had been gloomy before Hanley left them to meet Baynes and report at headquarters to Murray. They were all proud men and they worried that the war was lost. Williams doggedly claimed that they would win in the end, but even he did not seem to base this on anything other than blind faith. Hanley was not sure that he was yet sufficiently convinced by Baynes to sway them. Perhaps he would say something when they approached the city and saw the lines of forts.

Something had changed, for the gloom now seemed worse than when he had left. Two arrivals had probably done little to help. From nowhere Ensign Hatch had appeared, his face horribly scarred from the wound he had taken in the face at Talavera. He hated Williams, although none of the others understood quite why. With him was Major Wickham, whose well-cultivated good looks only made the ensign seem all the uglier. The major had served in staff postings for some time, but now it seemed both were to return to the 106th. Wickham showed no great enthusiasm for this, and dinner had obviously been an uncomfortable affair for everyone. Williams was sunk more deeply into gloom than Hanley had seen him since the previous year when they had feared half the regiment – and Jane MacAndrews – lost at sea.

Pringle, happy now that he had his spare glasses from his valise, tried to explain when he and Hanley shared a cigar and a glass of brandy together after the others had gone to sleep.

‘Garland is dead,’ he said flatly. ‘The wound turned bad and he just died.’

‘I am sorry.’

Pringle gave a humourless laugh. ‘Might just as well have shot him last year.’ He drank deeply and then refilled his glass.

‘Then you would probably have hanged, and perhaps others of us as well.’ Hanley stared at his friend until Pringle sensed the scrutiny and looked up from his drink. ‘And it would still be Miss Williams, mother of a bastard child, and not the poor widow Mrs Garland and her son. Believe me, I know something of this and would not wish it on anyone.’

Billy Pringle sighed, and then he put down the glass firmly and reached for another cheroot. ‘Better for me,’ he muttered, and lifted the lighted taper to its tip.

‘So is that the cause of Bills’ melancholy?’

Pringle blew on the cheroot until it glowed properly. ‘No. In fact for all that he says I suspect it is a small part of it. He has had other news, in a joyous letter from Miss MacAndrews telling of her good fortune. A relative has died in America.’

‘An ill wind,’ Hanley said tartly.

‘In this case it has made her a more than moderately wealthy young lady.’ He blew out a thin cloud of tobacco smoke with obvious relish.

‘Is that not good news?’

‘You know Bills,’ Pringle explained. ‘He says she is now far above him, and that he would seem a fortune hunter if he pursued her.’

‘It is scarcely a new affection.’

‘Indeed, indeed, but he talks of honour and how he must do the decent thing, and then walks around with a face like sour milk, spreading sunshine all around.’

‘Ah, a matter of honour,’ said Hanley, shaking his head.

They did not speak for a while. Pringle drank no more and they both took pleasure in the cheroots. Then suddenly Hanley raised his glass.

‘Here’s to Christmas at home,’ he said.

Pringle was jerked from his thoughts, but then smiled at the old toast. ‘I suspect “with the regiment” is more likely.’

Hanley thought for a moment. ‘I am beginning to wonder if that is the same thing,’ he said. ‘I certainly do not have another one.’

L
ike its predecessors,
All in Scarlet Uniform
is a work of fiction, but the setting is based on the real events of 1809–10 and I have tried to make the background as accurate as possible. The 106th Regiment of Foot is an invention, unconnected with the real unit bearing that number which briefly existed in the 1790s. I have done my best to make the fictional characters of this fictional regiment behave in a way true to life for the era. All the major engagements in the story – the night attack at Barba del Puerco, the siege and skirmishes around Ciudad Rodrigo, the botched cavalry raid at Barquilla, and the desperate rearguard action at the Côa – occurred very much as described, many of the small details coming from eyewitness accounts.

Alongside the fictional characters are many real people, and perhaps the most remarkable of these are Marshal Ney and Brigadier General Craufurd. Ney, who had a ruddy complexion and not the red hair often claimed, was later dubbed the ‘bravest of the brave’ by an emperor fond of such tags. This was after the retreat from Moscow, when the marshal had held together the rearguard, carrying and using a musket just like an ordinary soldier. Later, the Emperor blamed Ney for the failure of the Waterloo campaign, in part to cover up his own mistakes. Ney’s repeated – and ultimately fruitless – cavalry charges against the squares of Wellington’s infantry have contributed to the image of a man braver than he was prudent, a common enough failing for the hussar he had once been.

This is not quite the whole story. In his earlier campaigns Ney showed considerable skill and subtlety, and he would do so again when his corps formed the rearguard to Masséna’s army in 1811. Yet there is no doubting his hot temper, and this made the marshal unpredictable, and an extremely difficult subordinate. At one point in 1810 he tried to incite Junot to join him in rejecting Masséna’s orders and effectively leading a mutiny. Fortunately for both of them, Junot had enough sense to refuse. On a smaller scale of disobedience, Ney began the bombardment of Ciudad Rodrigo two days early in spite of an explicit instruction to wait. As in the story, he turned his reconnaissance towards Almeida into a full attack on the Light Division. If he had not, then no doubt critics would accuse him of missing an opportunity, for he came close to inflicting crippling losses on the British and Portuguese regiments.

Craufurd should not have fought the battle. Wellington had sent repeated orders over the preceding week for him to withdraw the Light Division to the western bank of the River Côa. Instead he lingered, and then seems to have procrastinated on the day itself, leaving his withdrawal until it was almost too late. The words quoted by Baynes in the Epilogue were written by Wellington and reflected his opinion. He had asked specifically for Craufurd and given him the plum command of the Light Division over the heads of more senior generals. Throughout he kept faith with his difficult subordinate and was surely vindicated by the results. Craufurd had managed the outpost line with tremendous skill – it was used as a model for training the army in such work well into the nineteenth century. For all his hot temper, ‘Black Bob’ was a serious soldier, well versed in theory. He was able to speak to the hussars of the KGL in their own language, was willing to spend hours in the saddle visiting and placing pickets, and created a system whereby the depths of rivers were monitored on a daily basis to know when fords were usable.

Much of the business of maintaining an army’s outpost was a question of guessing the enemy’s next move, and each side sought to bluff and confuse. On more than one occasion Craufurd deployed the entire division in a single line to make it seem that they were merely the front of a much larger force. The French were experienced and dangerous opponents and we should not forget the skill with which they observed the Light Division and concealed their own intentions. Yet in the end, the Allies were on the defensive, and Craufurd’s men kept the enemy at a distance for months on end, maintaining communications with Ciudad Rodrigo for a long time even as the French began the siege. The French were never able to surprise and take any of the Light Division’s outposts. Much of the credit must go to the skill of the 1st KGL Hussars, and the regiments of the Light Division, but the control and regulations imposed on them by Craufurd played a big part.

Respected by the ordinary soldiers, the general was not popular with his officers, who were inclined to speak of his tyranny and were rapid to blame him for the near disaster at the Côa. Probably his mistakes were a natural consequence of meeting the enemy’s bluffs and feints over so many long weeks. It was a bad misjudgement, and the memory of his surrender in South America may well have gnawed at him and further sapped his judgement on the day. The quality of his regiments got him out of the fix and he was never again to place himself in so bad a situation. Craufurd’s ability as a battlefield commander is debatable. That he was clearly the best available commander for leading the army’s outposts, rearguard and vanguard is hard to doubt.

In 1810 the chief burden of resisting the French fell for the first time on Wellington’s army. Spanish fortunes were at a very low ebb, especially after Soult overran much of the south. Their armies were the shattered remnants of too many defeats, and the greater part of the country, including almost all important cities, was under French control. It took immense optimism – and often a good deal of pride and sheer stubbornness – to keep fighting when the war seemed lost. Yet this is precisely what so many Spaniards did. Herrasti represents one side of this. Old by the time the war began, he was a career soldier who found himself in charge of an outdated fortress with an inadequate garrison and at times a turbulent population. The British were inclined to doubt his resolution, but they were proved wrong. Ciudad Rodrigo resisted stubbornly, and although the French were sometimes dismissive of the skill of the defenders, the fortress held them up for precious weeks. It required a great expenditure of ammunition and material as well as considerable suffering and loss for their soldiers working to dig the parallels and saps. Herrasti and most other Spaniards felt bitter when their efforts were not rewarded by Wellington marching to save the city. He was not strong enough to do this, and wisely did not attempt it, but that was much easier to see with hindsight.

Today ‘El Charro’ is probably more famous than the elderly governor. The guerrillas then and now had a glamour lacking in the regular army so often beaten in the field. On the other hand, his career highlights the fact that almost all successful partisan leaders eventually turned their bands into something almost indistinguishable from regular units. Named a brigadier in the army, Don Julián Sánchez García led his regiment of lancers for years, more often than not operating with Wellington’s army. On their own the guerrillas made life very difficult for the French, but could never drive them from a region through their efforts alone.

Josepha was also real, although I have brought her story forward by a year and introduced Pringle as an added complication. Betrothed to Don Julián Sánchez, she ran off and lived with the German commissary officer Augustus Schaumann and also Edward Cocks of the 16th Light Dragoons, who appears briefly in the story. In each case she hoped for marriage, since the prospect of wedding the guerrilla leader was clearly unattractive. Her father protested to Wellington, who ordered Schaumann to return her to her family. The German claimed that she went back with her virtue intact, but this seems unlikely. Cocks’ diary makes it clear that their relationship was most certainly physical, and although he does not seem to have planned marriage, he was deeply upset when she left him. Her ultimate fate is unknown, but she did not marry El Charro. I could not resist including something of the story on the basis that truth is so often far more unlikely than fiction.

Almost as unlikely – at least to many people on all sides – was the possibility that the French would not reoccupy all of Portugal by the end of 1810. After the Talavera campaign ended in disappointment and retreat, the situation in the Iberian peninsula looked distinctly bleak for the Allies. The position in central Europe was even worse. Austria had broken the peace with France in 1809, and after some early successes had suffered defeat at Wagram and surrendered. Britain’s government had dithered over providing direct support to Austria, and finally launched the expedition to Holland and landed a large army on Walcheren Island. It was too late to help the Austrians. The army captured Flushing, but suffered appalling losses to ‘Walcheren fever’, which killed or crippled many men who had survived the harsh retreat to Corunna. It is possible that more than one disease was to blame, but malaria played a part and many victims would suffer repeated attacks long after they thought that they had recovered. After a while, Wellington asked that no more regiments that had served on the expedition be sent to him in Spain because the soldiers’ health was so poor. This was at a time when he was desperate for reinforcements.

With Austria crushed, there was no prospect of Prussia or Russia risking another war with France, and every reason to believe that Napoleon would go to Spain and complete his victory there. His marriage alliance with Marie Louise of Austria – made possible by the divorce of Josephine – suggested that the French Emperor might well crown his dramatic rise with permanent success. Sir John Moore’s opinion that Portugal could not be defended was widely held, and there was talk of abandoning the country and sending the remaining British troops to Cadiz in the hope that this could become the base for an eventual reconquest of Spain. Letters and diaries of many of Wellington’s officers from late 1809 and 1810 confidently predicted the forced evacuation of the country. Similar views were expressed in Parliament, and this was a sensitive subject for a newly formed administration – the last having collapsed in the acrimony following the Walcheren fiasco.

Wellington disagreed, and although he made preparations to evacuate the army if it proved necessary, he also began work on the now famous fortified Lines of Torres Vedras protecting the Lisbon peninsula. His strategy accepted that the French would occupy much of Portugal, but that they would be unable to force the lines as long as these were supported by his army. It also required immense sacrifice from the people of Portugal, who were ordered to leave their homes and take or destroy food and anything else likely to be useful to the invaders. The French were to be presented with a land stripped bare, and compulsion was employed to enforce the strict regulations. It is well known that Marshal Masséna and his officers were surprised to be confronted by the Lines of Torres Vedras, for none of their spies had told them of the fortifications. They were far more surprised – and usually impressed or outraged or both – at the ruthlessness of Wellington’s plan and the rigour with which he followed it.