Run Them Ashore (19 page)

The fort’s heavy guns did not fire again, and as they went down the slope there was a steady thumping as the gunboats flung ball after ball at the east wall. Yet compared to artillery on land, their firing was slow. Then Williams remembered the cramped fight on the French gunboat at Las Arenas, and realised that it must be difficult to ram and load a gun in such a craft, even with the rails allowing it to slide back when it recoiled. Nor was the boat so steady a platform as land. When they did fire, he again saw only one hit on the wall itself, though another ball skimmed across the rampart and caused several of the defenders to throw themselves down behind the parapet.

‘Do you think this will work, Bills?’ Hanley asked, ever ready to rely on his friend’s military judgement over his own.

‘If we’re lucky, or the French are fools.’

They hurried on, and watched as the chasseurs extended in skirmish line and moved up the slope towards the castle. Half of each company remained in two ranks some fifty yards back as supports, and the 89th were a long musket shot behind them. Lord Turney rode boldly some distance in advance of the redcoats. The blue-coated chasseurs worked in pairs, as good skirmishers should, and in Williams’ opinion they did it well, not bunching up, and making as much use of the scrubby cover as they could. They closed to around one hundred yards and began to fire at the defenders behind the parapet.

Only then did the Poles reply. The two little cannon barked out first, and one burst of canister peppered the sand around a bush and left a chasseur screaming because his kneecap was smashed. Then a ragged volley of musketry hammered down
from the wall, flicking up more lumps of earth and making the chasseurs dive for cover. Williams did not see anyone fall.

‘Poor devil,’ Hanley muttered.

The general mistook the voice. ‘One cannot make an omelette, Mr Williams,’ he said in quick reproof, not bothering to finish the quotation. ‘You will understand that if you see a bit more service.’

Was that insult or ignorance of his record? Unlike the general, Williams had not served for decades, it was true, but Vimeiro, Corunna and Talavera were surely enough to count as considerable experience. He could scarcely act the schoolboy and plead that it was not he who had spoken.

Mullins darted him a sympathetic glance, and Hanley patted him on the arm apologetically.

After the first ordered shots, firing became more general, both sides firing as they loaded. The light cannon on the wall were well served and flung bursts of canister not only into the skirmish line, but also the supports. As the general and his staff watched one of the half-companies was struck, the two deep line rippling like a flag in the breeze. By the time NCOs had shouted and pushed the men back into place, two of the chasseurs were crawling back through the long grass and another lay unmoving. Men broke ranks to help the wounded men.

Lord Turney’s tanned face darkened in anger, and he turned back to his staff. ‘You, Mr Williams, stop skulking at the back!’ The general’s voice was harsh. ‘Tell those blackguards that only one man is to help a wounded comrade. The rest stay in the firing line or I’ll have the hides off their backs!’ He was pointing to the men in front and over to the right where half a dozen chasseurs were using a blanket to carry the soldier hit in the knee in the first volley. Another blue-coated soldier followed carrying his own and the man’s firelock.

Williams ran forward, wondering what language the men spoke. It was never pleasant to tell men to leave a comrade, but helping the wounded was an old dodge allowing men to retire to safety – and as often as not not return until the action was over. At this rate half a dozen hits would deplete a company so
that it became useless. In the 106th the bandsmen were used to carry back the wounded to the surgeons, but he doubted the regulation of the recently formed chasseurs had advanced so far.

‘Stop!’ he shouted as he ran up to them. ‘You!’ He pointed at one of the men at the head of the party. ‘Just you take him back! The rest of you go back to your company. Understand!’

A cluster of heavy grapeshot struck the ground just beside him, flinging sand high, along with a clump of grass ripped up by the roots. Half the chasseurs let go and flung themselves to the ground. Somehow Williams stopped himself from flinching and simply watched them. The man he had ordered to carry the wounded soldier did not move and for a moment watched the officer, until a sergeant arrived and shouted at them in a guttural language. Williams thought that it might be German, but the dialects often sounded so different that he could not be sure. The soldiers turned and began walking back to the firing line. As they went they unslung their muskets – the one carrying the injured man’s weapon laying it down beside him before he left. The officer helped the remaining chasseur to lift the wounded man and watched as he started off with him.

The sergeant gave the officer a curt nod.

‘Your name?’ Williams asked, trying to make the word sound how he thought it should in German.

‘Mueller,’ came the reply, so bland that he wondered whether it was assumed. There were streaks of grey in the chasseur’s brown hair, and a lined face which spoke of long years lived in the open. He had the air of a veteran about him, and Williams wondered how many armies the man had served in.

‘Thank you,’ Williams said, and went forward to the nearest formed support.

‘One man only to help a wounded comrade,’ he called to the officer in charge. ‘General’s orders.’

‘Jolly good,’ the captain replied in a voice not suggesting great intelligence. He was taller than Williams, but as thin as a character from a cartoon, with a great bulging Adam’s apple and an unnaturally long neck. ‘Hear that, Sergeant?’

Mueller was there and bellowed at the men.

Lord Turney had not ordered him to do so, but his implied slights stung so bitterly that Williams felt obliged to take his message forward to the skirmish line. He jogged over the tussocks of grass, forcing himself to stay upright, even when he felt the wind of a ball slicing through the air just inches from his face. Here and there a corpse lay in the grass. One of the light guns barked, so close that the noise came almost at the same instant one of the skirmishers was flung back like a rag doll from behind the cover of a low hummock. Half of the man’s face was missing.

Closer to the fighting, Williams could hear the sharper cracks of rifles amid the near-constant crackling of musketry. He spotted an officer, standing in the shelter of a low bank topped by a wizened little tree, leaves and twigs continually plucked off by musket balls.

‘Orders from the general,’ Williams shouted as he came up. ‘Only one man to aid a wounded comrade.’

‘Really? What if he doesn’t want to?’ Hatch drawled, turning so that Williams saw his scarred face. The blue-coated officer stood looking to the side, forcing the other man to stand in front of him, all but his lower legs exposed to fire from the walls. Still smarting at the general’s barbs, Williams could not ignore the challenge and so stood there. A moment later a ball snapped just above his head.

‘Anything else?’ Hatch asked.

‘No, other than to keep the pressure on the enemy.’

The amusement in Hatch’s eyes was obvious. More leaves were plucked from the little tree and tumbled down on to his hat, but he did not move. ‘Oh, we are doing our best,’ he said.

Something slammed into Williams’ shoulder and he was flung to the ground. Hatch watched with interest, but no obvious emotion, as the other officer rolled on the sand. Reaching up, Williams felt his right shoulder. The gold-threaded wing which marked him out as an officer of a flank company was ripped open and gouged through by the line of a musket ball. Williams pressed with his fingers, but although the shoulder itself was
sore the skin was not broken. Lying down he was sheltered from fire and the temptation to stay for a moment would have been irresistible if Hatch had not been there watching. He got up, brushing sand off his jacket. Out of the corner of his eye he could see a jagged piece of the ripped shoulder wing sticking up and waving each time he moved.

‘Bloody awful shot,’ Hatch remarked.

‘It will break my tailor’s heart,’ Williams said, trying to push the torn wing back down because it was already irritating him.

Hatch was taking a long time to say anything, but his eyes never left the Welshman. Another ball flicked past his left thigh and slapped into the ground a yard away.

‘Really dreadful practice. Not like my fellows,’ Hatch said, and then raised his voice. ‘How much do I owe you now, Brandt?’

The chasseur corporal was crouched in a little gully on the far side of the tree, a rifle in his hand. Three other soldiers squatted close by, each loading weapons to pass to the corporal.

‘Six dollars,’ the corporal shouted.

‘Bloody liar,’ Hatch replied. ‘I’m sure it is only four.’

‘No, six dollars. Number three in the head.’

‘I’m paying him for the Frenchmen he kills,’ Hatch explained, still speaking slowly and watching Williams as he stood under fire. Then a blast of grape sheered a couple of branches off the tree so that they tumbled on to the lieutenant and he dropped, hunching up into a ball.

Williams grinned. ‘Good day to you, Hatch. I must tell the other companies.’ He walked away, and thought back to the time a gunner told him that the Royal Artillery ran towards their guns, but always walked away. It had always struck him as an admirable nonchalance.

A chasseur running up to reinforce the skirmish line dropped, his whole body suddenly loose as he fell on his face. The comrade running beside him stopped to stare down, and then gasped as a musket ball drove into his leg. Blood spread rapidly, darkening his blue trousers as he slumped down. None of the other foreign soldiers was near by, and Williams ran to help the man. The
wound was bleeding badly, and without anything else to use, he unrolled his sash and tied it higher up the thigh. A glance told him that the other chasseur was dead, and so he helped the wounded man up, and went back with him.

The formed supports of the chasseurs were by now mostly fed into the skirmish line, but the squat figure of Sergeant Mueller still had half a dozen men with him and sent one to relieve Williams of his burden. Lord Turney was no more than thirty yards away, leaning from his horse to speak to Major Grant of the 89th. The general flashed an angry look at Williams when he saw him aiding a wounded soldier, but then jerked back on the reins as the major shuddered, limbs shaking from the strike of two or three heavy balls of grapeshot. Lord Turney’s bay reared away, until a firm hand and a smack of his whip brought the beast back round.

By the time Williams reached them Mullins and two soldiers with the black facings of their regiment were clustered around the major. Grant had lost part of his jaw, had an arm broken and mangled, and a deep wound just above the hip. A sergeant and two more soldiers from his regiment ran up, and soon transferred the softly moaning major on to a blanket. The rules for officers were seldom the same as those for men, and the elderly major was carried away, the men trying to keep the motion as gentle as they could.

Mullins saw the questioning look on Williams’ face and shook his head.

‘We must try an escalade,’ Lord Turney said. Some of the major’s blood had spattered across his leg and the general looked puzzled when he noticed it.

‘There are no ladders, my lord,’ Mullins said in a flat tone.

The general stared at him, and then seemed at last to recover himself. ‘No, of course not. In that case, Williams, you will run back to the chasseurs and have their companies pull back to that line.’ He waved his whip at a position some two hundred yards from the fort. ‘You see? Good, now hurry, sir, hurry!’

As Williams ran off, he heard the general giving a string of orders.

‘Mullins, come with me. We need to ensure the security of the flank. Where is Harding?’

Williams ran on into the smoke and noise.

14

H
anley watched the hull of the frigate disappear behind the smoke of her guns as the
Topaze
delivered a broadside, beginning at the bow and each cannon firing in turn. At around five o’clock she and the other larger ships had arrived and begun to take station. There was a slackening in the bombardment as the gunboats formed a new line and other boats rowed over to bring them fresh supplies of powder and shot. By half past the frigate was ready and the gunboats had formed line abreast and rowed in far nearer to the shore than they had come before. When the
Topaze
fired, so did the heavily armed brig
Encounter
. Neither could get close in, and although some shot struck the wall, he could see no sign of serious damage. Soon the frigate aimed higher, trying to strike the parapet and the men behind it. Hanley had focused on one of the Poles when he was smashed into a spray of red and pitched down into the courtyard.

The gunboats were closer and had heavier guns so were able to do more damage, and they seemed to be concentrating on the enemy battery. There were already several small holes in the low wall protecting the guns. For a while these fell silent, but later they opened up once more, and since then had fired steadily. Amid the rolling thunder poured in from the sea, Hanley could distinctly hear the curious, almost ringing discharge of the old guns in the castle. Time and again they struck the water close to one of the gunboats in the line. He chanced to be looking directly at one when its bow was struck squarely by a heavy shot, punching through the timbers and flinging fragments of wood, gun carriage and flesh in a ghastly and lethal explosion. As
Hanley watched through his glass the boat slid beneath the water, the weight of the gun unbalancing it as the sea flooded through the hole in its side. One moment there was a boat and some two dozen crew working oars and cannon, and then nothing apart from debris and a discoloured patch amid the waves. He thought he saw one man swimming away from the ruin, but that was it.

Beside him the partisans were restless. They had come in answer to the call, but apart from their polite welcome the British general had not asked them to perform any service. While it was entertaining enough to watch their allies bombard the enemy in the castle, all of them felt that they could be of far more use than this.

‘Shall we go to the general?’ It was the third time someone had asked the question.

Hanley sighed, disliking the answer as much as his audience. ‘We were sent here and asked to wait. I am sure Lord Turney will be eager to send for you all, very soon.’

He folded his little glass and put it in his haversack. Another shot from the castle struck true, cutting a swathe through the crew of a gunboat, and Hanley was glad that he had not been watching it through his telescope. It was all too easy to imagine the carnage.

‘Hanley!’ A voice called – a voice which for all its huskiness seemed out of place in such surroundings. Paula Velasco and her sister were leading their horses across the sandy hill towards them. Both were clad in their usual black, from boots to the wide-brimmed hats, the only colour provided by the bright red scarf each had looped at her neck.

Hanley stood up, smiling in welcome.

‘My husband sends his greetings,’ Paula said. ‘This morning we drove off the cattle kept outside the fort and killed a couple of their sentries.’ One of the other partisans had said something about this, but had not known which band had done it. ‘Most of the men are getting them away, and El Blanco has gone to scout the road between Mijas and Alhaurin. He says you will stir up a hornet’s nest, my friend.’ The young woman was clearly
amused, and both she and her sister showed obvious delight at the pounding of the castle. Hanley had never seen Guadalupe so animated.

He thanked her and made a decision. ‘We should go to the general.’ Faint cheers came from the other partisans.

It took a while to find Lord Turney. Captain Hall was on the hilltop nearest to the castle marking out positions for the guns if they were ever brought ashore, so they went there first. He sent them further back to the Toledo Regiment and it was there that they caught up with the commander, waiting with a few of his staff as a huddle of Spanish officers held a debate.

‘Damn them, do they expect the war to stop for a day because of the Sabbath?’ Hanley heard the general speaking with considerable anger to Captain Mullins. ‘They pulled the same superstitious nonsense at Talavera.’

Hanley had been at Talavera, which the general had not, and knew that the story was untrue, but he had heard plenty of British officers willing to repeat the lie that the Spanish army did not fight on Sundays.

‘They regret the lack of opportunity for a divine service,’ the captain said.

‘As do I, but where the hell do they expect me to find a priest?’ Lord Turney noticed Hanley and the guerrilleros coming towards him. Distaste and annoyance flashed across his face before he mastered himself.

‘My lord, I have fresh reports from the partisans,’ Hanley said in Spanish, aware that the general was fluent. ‘Don Antonio Velasco sends important messengers to us and is even now leading a patrol along the road to Alhaurin.’

‘Most useful, I am sure, and in due course I will attend to them. At the moment I am engaged in convincing our allies of the need to watch that road, and secure it against any French advance. That is if these …’ Lord Turney stopped short, taken aback as he stared at the two figures in black, no doubt noticing that their shapes were not those of boys.

‘Captain Hanley, you should introduce me.’

Hanley named the Spanish ladies to the general, who had dismounted and was extremely gallant, kissing their hands and paying compliments to their looks and courage, and the great reputation of Don Antonio himself.

‘There are sixty French in Mijas, and some three hundred in Alhaurin, about one third of those dragoons,’ Paula Velasco reported with assurance. ‘That was yesterday, but I doubt that the numbers have changed much. Don Antonio rides to watch them, and will also send men to the Malaga road, where there were several thousand soldiers. He should join us some time tonight, or send word if it is better for him to stay where he is.’

Lord Turney beamed at the young women. ‘You should be one of my officers, dear lady, for never have I heard a more suitable report. However, numbers of the enemy are always hard to judge.’

‘You doubt my word.’ There was anger in the voice.

The general’s smile did not waver in the slightest. ‘My dear lady, a thousand pardons. Not the slightest disrespect was intended. But a commander of an army must treat all news with a degree of caution, and not rush to change plans without need. You have my thanks as well as my undying admiration.’ He reached for her hand again, caught it before the lady could withdraw, and bowed to kiss it once again. ‘I look forward to meeting your husband, for it is obvious that he is the most fortunate of men.’

Even Paula Velasco smiled at that, but then the general excused himself and beckoned Hanley to follow him.

‘Most charming, but this is scarcely the time or place for such things,’ Lord Turney said. ‘It might be more useful if the fellow had come himself with all his partisans.’

Hanley was at a loss to imagine what forty or fifty irregulars could add to the efforts of a brigade of infantry faced with a staunchly held castle. ‘I believe it is a mark of faith, sir,’ he suggested. ‘Sending his wife to us as messenger.’

‘Depends how much he likes his wife. Not sure sharing a bed with an amazon might not pale after a while!’ The general snorted with laughter. ‘But that is of no matter. We need to get these fellows moving.’

In fact Lord Turney was able to convince the officers of the Toledo Regiment without needing Hanley’s assistance.

‘Feel like a stroll, Mullins?’ Lord Turney asked the brigade major once the Spanish colonel had agreed to send four of his six companies.

‘Of course, my lord. Happy to oblige.’ Hanley thought the man looked weary, but could hardly admit this to the general.

‘Take Hanley with you,’ the general added. ‘He can make sure everyone understands what is happening. I’ll give you two companies of the chasseurs as well. Take them a few miles up the road and find a good place to hold off any French column in case that young lady’s husband is right and there are more of them about than we expected. Mijas is four or five miles away, but you should not need to go that far.’

‘I think I know the spot, my lord,’ Hanley said. ‘Around half a mile before the village where two of the tracks meet. It is overlooked by a round hill.’

‘Good man. That sounds perfect.’

‘I suspect that some of the partisans know the land better.’

‘Leave ’em here. They don’t really understand soldiering. Besides,’ the general added with a twinkle in his eye, ‘you never know.’

It took half an hour to organise the little column before they moved off, the chasseurs extended as skirmishers to the front. Hanley noticed Lieutenant Hatch leading one group and returned the languid wave. Lord Turney had withdrawn all save one company from the attack on the castle and was leaving the Navy to batter it. The wind had picked up, and Hanley’s last glance at the sea showed white waves rather than the glassy calm of earlier.

As they reached the road junction, the two sisters appeared. Nothing was said, but he presumed they had not cared for the general’s company, or for the assumption that he could order them around. He was about to speak to them when he noticed Mullins arguing with the Spanish major in charge of the troops from the Toledo Regiment and hurried over.

‘They want to take the village,’ Mullins said with more than a hint of despair.

Hanley listened as the Spanish officer explained that it would be a better position to block the road, and that the houses would give them shelter for the approaching night. He translated for Mullins, who insisted that the general had not instructed them to go so far. They could see Mijas ahead of them, its whitewashed houses casting long shadows in the setting sun. There was a solid-looking wall surrounding it, and no sign of the enemy.

‘There are French there,’ Paula Velasco said, trotting up behind them. She spoke with absolute assurance, as if stating the obvious.

‘Can you see them?’ he asked.

The young woman pulled the brim of her hat down to shade herself against the dying sun. ‘I do not need to. There are sixty or maybe a few more.’

The Spanish major was not impressed. ‘We have five hundred. Your Germans can guard the flanks, but we are going straight across the plain and into that village.’

Mullins did not have the rank to order his ally, and lacked the energy to protest. ‘Come on, Hanley, let us sort out the chasseurs to give best support.’

The sun was a red ball amid waves of pink and red cloud by the time the Toledo Regiment advanced against the village. They had formed line, six deep to give weight to the advance, and the major swept his sword down as he led them marching straight at the walled village. At one hundred yards the first few muskets popped from loopholes in the dry stone wall. A man in the front rank was hit, his head snapping back with the impact.

The major held his sword high and shouted out the order to charge. The regiment cheered and the men ran forward, bayonets coming down. A line of twenty or more men stood up from behind the wall. It was a small volley, but one of the Toledo Regiment was dead and three more stretched on the grass crying out in pain. The major shuddered as he was nicked in the arm, but kept on running. More muskets fired from loopholes and two more Spanish soldiers fell.

‘Fire!’ Mullins screamed at the nearest chasseurs. ‘Fire and advance! Drive those rogues back behind their wall.’

Rifles cracked and the men ran forward to kneel again some ten yards ahead. Beside them a man waited until they had loaded before firing again.

The line of Poles behind the wall seemed to waver, but it was only to duck down so that a second rank could stand and present muskets. The volley punched at the charging Spaniards, and a few more fell and the rest stopped. The major yelled at them to come on, imploring and cursing. One man fired, his musket still thrust out towards the enemy. Several more raised them to their shoulders and pulled the trigger, and then all along the now scattered line men fired.

Hanley did not see any of the Poles fall, but it was hard to see most of them at all, especially now thick smoke blanketed the line of the wall. Chasseurs fired with musket or rifle, and the Toledo Regiment was reloading, ignoring the pleas of its major. The men would not move, and so they loaded and fired and loaded and fired into the smoke, sending bullet after bullet into the thickening cloud. Now and then one would fall, struck by a ball, but on both sides it was mainly chance whether a shot struck home.

‘Charge!’ Mullins shouted, and Hanley followed him, struggling to draw his sword, which wanted to stick in the scabbard. A dozen or more of the chasseurs followed them. The captain led them to the right of the Spanish line, heading towards a low building outside the wall of the village. One of the chasseurs cried out as he was hit in the leg, but managed to limp on.

Hanley was breathing hard when they reached the shelter of the building. Mullins gestured to a chasseur to be ready and then launched a kick at the door, making it fly open. He charged in, sword and pistol in hand, but the dark inside of the building was empty. Outside, Hanley peered around the corner, saw Polish infantry no more than twenty yards away and ducked back just in time to avoid the two bullets which smacked into the wall where his head had been. Mullins came out again, and in spite
of his gestures pushed him aside and looked around the corner. Most of the Poles must have been reloading because it was a good twenty seconds before a ball pecked the stone just above his head and the captain sprang back. The closest chasseurs grinned and the officer could not help giving a wry smile.

The Toledo Regiment continued to fire as fast as they could. Now and then a man dropped, but for all the fury the return fire from the village did not slacken. As the sun vanished behind the hills it became dark quickly, so that each shot was a great flame in the night.