Run Them Ashore (25 page)

A familiar rattling sound brought his thoughts back to the task in hand, and he saw that some sixty or seventy Polish infantry were formed in a line three ranks deep and had just brought their muskets up to their shoulders. A third of the men were behind the flanking rampart of the battery, the rest standing in the grass. Standing tall on the rampart itself was an officer, and Williams heard him shout out the order and saw the sword sweep down before the line vanished behind smoke. A captain of the 89th walking on the extreme flank of the line let out a piercing shriek as a ball drove into his groin. Two men next to each other in the same company were pitched back at the same instant, one hit in the chest and the other with a gaping hole where his left eye had been. A dozen men dropped all along the line and the formation seemed to quiver.

‘On, Eighty-ninth, charge, charge!’ Lord Turney pointed his sword up the hill and ran at the enemy, drawing out the word into a cry of rage.

The redcoats cheered, and Williams found that he was shouting as well, and so were the other staff officers. He sprinted forward, realised that he had not drawn his sword and fumbled with the hilt as he ran. The Polish skirmishers were going back, and the line was wavering, for they were being charged by three times their own numbers, but the lieutenant yelled at them and they steadied, lowering their muskets to the charge.

Barely three yards away the redcoats hesitated, halting and staring at the men in their blue jackets with yellow fronts. Polish and British soldiers eyed each other nervously, not knowing what was going to happen, teetering between surging forward and running away. The redcoats were in a line much wider than the men in blue, and on the flanks it slowed to a walk, but kept going forward.

‘On, lads!’ Lord Turney shouted, his voice mingling with that
of the Polish officer as he urged his men onwards, and then he rushed up the slope of the rampart.

‘Come on!’ Williams yelled, and other officers took up the shout and went with him to join the general, and then the whole line surged into a fresh charge. The line of men in blue wavered and some of them began to go back. The general was hacking at the Polish lieutenant, and his parry unbalanced the young officer so that he fell back into the battery. Williams was ahead of the others, and one of the enemy skirmishers suddenly stood up from behind a boulder and thrust with his bayonet at the officer, ripping his breeches as it broke the skin on his left leg. The Welshman jabbed at the man, forcing him back. His leg was painful even though it was little more than a scratch, and he followed up with a lunge which flicked over the man’s musket and bayonet and drove into his side. He wrenched the weapon free, drawing back to make a fresh attack, but the man had dropped his firelock and was clutching at the blood welling from the wound.

Williams ran on. The Poles ahead of him were all in flight and so he headed left towards the battery where some of the enemy fought on. He could hear shouts, grunts of effort and the dull impact of blows with butt and bayonet as he ran towards the low rampart, and then flame ballooned up from inside and he was knocked over, the wind taken from him.

He stared at the sky for a moment, but did not think himself hurt and pushed himself back up. The remaining Poles were streaming back from the battery, leaving half a dozen wounded or dead from the fighting and another three moaning and badly burnt because the fuse which they had lit to blow up half the reserve powder proved shorter than expected.

‘Well done, lads, well done,’ Lord Turney called out to the men. ‘That’s the stuff to serve ’em! Captain, form the companies in line ahead of the battery.’ The general pointed with his sword to where he wanted them to rally, at an angle so that they looked towards any French reinforcements coming down the main road
towards these hills. Down the slope, the Polish company was reforming out of musket range, rallying on their supports.

‘Ah, Williams, good man.’ Lord Turney appeared genuinely pleased to see the Welshman. ‘Go to the Spanish and ask the colonel to bring his regiment up on our left. They should occupy that hilltop.’ He gestured at a height about a quarter of a mile to their flank. The ground in between was mostly lost in the folds of the rolling line of hills. ‘It is the one with the two olive trees. They will see it clearly as they approach.’

As he set off, Williams heard another man being sent to bring the chasseurs up on the right, and yet another dispatched to fetch the artillerymen back, for the attackers had left some ammunition unscathed, though the neat piles of canister rounds and shot were strewn about where they had been kicked over. The Poles had either not carried spikes or preferred to keep the guns for their own use.

Hanley was with the Toledo Regiment, talking to the colonel and a couple of mounted guerrilleros. It made it easier to pass on the general’s orders, and the Spanish officer readily agreed, and said he knew the spot the English lord wanted him to hold.

‘You should tell the general of this, Bills,’ Hanley said. ‘These partisans report seeing a patrol of French dragoons on the outskirts of Fuengirola village, and a column of infantry on the main track crossing the hills.’

‘Sebastiani?’

‘They think not, and say they are the garrison of Alhaurin. A few hundred at most.’

‘You had better come back with me,’ Williams said, and started on yet another run up the steep little hills. As they got closer they saw that Lord Turney was on the right of the re-formed 2/89th, staring through his glass at the castle.

‘Infantry, coming over the hills!’ One of his staff pointed to the left, but Hanley and Williams were still a short way down the slope and could not see what he was looking at.

‘They must be Spanish,’ they heard the general say as they ran
up. ‘Ah, is the Toledo Regiment moving to cover our flank?’ he asked as he saw them.

‘Yes, my lord, but …’

The general did not let Hanley finish. ‘Yes, that is right, then, they will be Spanish. Were they in blue?’

‘Yes, my lord,’ the ADC replied.

‘Then they are the Toledo Regiment.’

‘Excuse me, my lord,’ Hanley said, ‘but reports from the partisans say that several hundred French infantry and cavalry are advancing on our left. They have seen dragoons in the village.’

Lord Turney frowned and appeared puzzled. ‘No, it is too early for Sebastiani to be here even if he has made the fastest of marches. They must be mistaken.’ The general started walking along the front of the line of redcoats. ‘Come, we had better make sure that our allies go to the right place and stay there.’

‘The partisans believe that the men are the garrison of Alhaurin, my lord,’ Hanley said as they followed.

‘Nonsense, Sinclair’s reports placed barely a company there. They must be seeing things. At most it is a patrol and nothing to concern us for the moment until their main force arrives in a few hours.’

‘Look, there they are!’ Williams had spotted a little column in dark blue jackets and trousers moving along the top of the hill with the two olive trees. The officers stopped, just a few yards beyond the left of the 89th’s line.

‘Yes, they are the Spanish, just where they should be – and a damned sight faster than I expected.’ Lord Turney sounded pleased that the day was at last going as planned. He stared at the distant infantrymen, squinting in an effort to focus. ‘Yes, blue and yellow, that is the Toledo Regiment. And the damned fellows aren’t staying where they should be so they must be Spanish!’ The general snorted with laughter as the little column kept marching off the top of the hill and down out of sight.

‘They’re Poles,’ Williams said, with more certainty than he felt and forgetting the proper courtesies.

‘Damn your impudence.’ Lord Turney’s tanned face went a darker shade. ‘And damn your presumption.’

‘My apologies, my lord, but I am sure that those men wear the same uniform as the ones who sallied out to take the battery. It is like that of the Toledo regiment, but not the same.’

‘Don’t be a fool, no one could make such a distinction at this range.’ Lord Turney smiled at the captain of the left-hand company of the 89th and called to him, ‘Hold your fire, we have Spanish coming in from the left.’

The head of the column breasted a hillock some eighty yards away. The men had round-topped shakos like the Spanish and bluecoats, but now that they were close Williams could distinctly see the yellow fronts.

‘My lord.’ Hanley’s voice quavered. He was facing away, down the slope to where the head of the Toledo Regiment was beginning its climb up on to the high ground. ‘The Spanish are over there.’

The general opened his mouth, his face flushed even darker, and then stopped as he saw the much bigger column ascending the hill. Williams was watching as the nearer men responded to an order and deployed into line.

‘Eighty-ninth! Enemy on the left.’ If the general had been wrong, still it was impressive how quickly he reacted. ‘Captain, wheel your company and follow me.’ The senior captain was in front of the line and now looked in this direction. ‘The rest of the battalion is to conform!’ the general called to the man.

Then a great shout came from over on the right. A few muskets banged from the distant chasseurs. Williams could not see their target, but guessed that the men who had sallied from the castle were advancing again.

‘Williams, make sure the Eighty-ninth form to support Captain Keith’s Company.’ Williams noticed the general’s care in using the name of the commander of the nearest company. ‘Hanley, run back to the Toledo Regiment and implore them in God’s name to hurry.’

The 89th’s left-flank company had wheeled to face the Polish
line. The other three were beginning to move as sergeants called out orders and jostled men into place. Lord Turney stood beside Keith.

‘Forward march!’ The general gave the order in an imperious voice, easily carrying over the surge of gunfire from the right. Once again the redcoats stepped out, although this time they were advancing on a larger force, at least until the other companies came up. The Poles had come on again, but now halted, some sixty yards away. In a ripple of movement which made it look as if they were turning to the right, the two hundred men brought their muskets up.

Lord Turney and the single company kept going, not checking for a moment, but then there was flame and smoke and a sound like thick fabric ripped by giant hands, and the two-deep line of redcoats jerked and shuddered as the volley slammed into them. Keith was down, wounds in both legs and his shoulder. Three of his men were dead, a dozen or more wounded and moaning.

‘Charge, boys, charge!’ Unscathed, Lord Turney sprinted at the enemy, his ornate sword held high. The two staff officers still with him and fifteen of the redcoats followed him, and Williams was amazed it was so many. Their cheer was thin, and the rest of the men looked around them, wondering what to do. The next company stopped in its tracks, frozen in mid-wheel.

‘Get moving,’ Williams shouted as their sergeants began to bark at them, but the men shuffled and some did not move at all. Beyond them, the line of blue-coated chasseurs was breaking apart as more and more men streamed in a mass back down the slopes towards the beach. One of the redcoats from the company, frozen in the act of wheeling, turned and tried to run, but a sergeant took him by the shoulder and shook the man.

Lord Turney and his little band had reached the Polish line, and the enemy stood, baffled at being attacked by so few. Lord Turney sliced with his sword, and around him several blue-coated soldiers reeled back, clutching at wounds. Some of the redcoats stabbed with their bayonets, and then the spell was broken and the Poles broke formation as they clustered around them. The
rest of the line, a good one hundred and fifty men, charged forward, led by two mounted officers, and they roared as they came, bayonets reaching for the enemy.

‘Present!’ The captain of the next company of the 89th ordered his men to prepare to fire, even though only about a third of them were able to see the enemy properly. Men brought their muskets up and there was a series of clicks as hammers were pulled back to full cock.

‘Fire!’ he shouted, and muskets slammed back into shoulders as the men pulled triggers. It was a ragged volley, much of it going wide or high, and one of the balls by ill fortune struck one of Lord Turney’s little group squarely in the back. Two Poles were down, but the rest streamed forward, the three-deep line spreading out as they came.

Most of the redcoats fled. Some were too slow and meekly dropped muskets or raised them upside down to surrender as the Poles reached them. A few fought, and one man yelled as he ran his bayonet into an enemy’s chest and then screamed when the man’s comrade knocked him to the ground and then took careful aim, waiting for a moment before thrusting through one of his eyes to kill him.

Williams ran with the others, hoping that they could restore order nearer to the beach. The last he had seen of Lord Turney, the general had been clubbed to the ground and so he was either dead or taken. For a moment he hoped the Toledo Regiment might survive the rout and drive the enemy back, but the deluge of red- and blue-coated men fleeing back to the beach swamped the Spanish and they too dissolved into flight. Nearly a thousand men flooded down the rolling hillsides towards the beach, chased by less than a third of their number. They ran in silence, and most of those in the lead had dropped weapons and heavy packs so that they could run faster. Men from all three regiments mingled together, and as he ran Williams saw no one he recognised.

It was not good cavalry country, and the small squadron of French dragoons did little more than watch. The Polish infantry followed at a distance, nervous in case the enemy realised just
how few men had beaten them, but some were already back in the battery position and began turning the guns towards the beach.

Williams headed to the right, hoping to get clear of the crowd and have a better chance of doing something. A chasseur barged him out of the way, and he slipped in the sand and fell, landing awkwardly on the leg grazed by the bayonet. Feet trampled him, the men blank-faced as they rushed as fast as they could, but then the press thinned. He pushed himself up and scrambled on to the top of a low hillock on the edge of a deep gully.