Run Them Ashore (28 page)

‘All that would be a sacrifice to no useful gain. If the smuggler needs thirty thousand more soldiers then he must find them elsewhere. I cannot give up all the ground we took at the start of this year. Andalusia will be the heart of the new Spain and we must show that it will remain ours. I could perhaps assemble twenty thousand men for a few weeks, but not for any longer. There are too many threats which cannot be ignored – Romana inside Portugal, Blake in Murcia, and the British and Spanish at Cadiz and Gibraltar. We have beaten Blake and last month a few companies of brave Poles routed a landing force ten times their number – thanks in part to the cunning of the
chef de battalion
.’ Soult waved his hand at an officer wearing the green-faced yellow coat of the Irish Legion – or mere regiment as it was supposed to be called these days. Two battalions of them were with Massena’s army and Dalmas had seen a little of them. As far as he could tell few of the soldiers had any connection with Ireland and the regiment had become a useful dumping ground for foreigners of all descriptions who had no other place in the army. Many of the officers were Irish, hated the English, and spent most of their time duelling, usually with each other.

‘We must hold what we have and that means having enough
soldiers to chase away the raids that will keep coming. We cannot expect to be as lucky as Sebastiani assures me we were at Fuengirola. We must also press the siege of Cadiz. If we can take it then the last vestige of a rebel Spanish government will be gone. That might be the very blow that frightens the English into their ships. What else would the Prince of Essling have me do?’

Major Bertrand hesitated, and then his words were halting. ‘The Prince asks for all aid …’

‘Attack in the south.’ Dalmas was the most junior in rank in the entire room and yet spoke with confidence, and if some of his ADCs were horrified Soult looked pleased at his interruption. ‘Take those twenty thousand men and strike hard and fast against Romana. Take Badajoz, take Elvas if you can, and open the southern road into Portugal. That would give Milord Wellington plenty to think about.’

‘As easy as that.’ The marshal gave a rare smile. ‘Thrash an army and take two strong fortresses.’

‘Do any one of those things, Your Grace, and it would help Massena. Do three and it might well win the war.’

‘Leave us,’ Soult commanded, and gestured for only his chief of staff to stay, along with Dalmas and the
chef de battalion
in the green coat.

‘What you suggest is the best we can do in a bad situation, and so we must try to make it happen. Dalmas, you are now attached to my staff as supernumerary. Ney says that you are clever and know how to fight, but he is an Alsatian and they are all mad, so I will judge for myself. We do not have enough men to do these things and to protect all that we must hold. So you need to help me confuse the enemy so they do not see this and hit us hard where we are weak – and then I need you to find me ways into Cadiz, and Badajoz, and Jerusalem and any other damned place that springs to mind.

‘Good, now I will let you arrange that for me and I am going to church.’ Soult and his chief of staff left, but a moment later the marshal of France’s head reappeared around the doorway.

‘Oh, I forgot. Dalmas, you are promoted to major in the
Thirteenth Cuirassiers, whoever and wherever they are. Effective from the start of the month, so I shall expect you to earn your higher pay. And don’t trust this Irish rogue – he has a commission from King George!’

‘Truly?’ Dalmas asked as the door slammed closed again.

‘Truly. Although the old bugger hasn’t paid me for months.’ The French was good, but there was a slight overemphasis that betrayed the Englishman – or in this case presumably the Irishman. ‘But it means they think I am on their side and so I tell them things and let them send me money and muskets and anything I ask for.’

‘Perhaps we should ask for the keys to the back door at Badajoz?’

‘Might be worth a try, but in my experience the key is usually made from gold. There’s enough men out there thinking that the war is lost and that they had best make their peace with King Joseph and make sure they are wealthy enough to enjoy the rest of their lives. When we can, we have been sneaking money into Cadiz to pay a fair few who might be persuaded to join us. Would have been a lot more,’ the Irishman added ruefully, ‘but the English Navy decided for no reason at all to raid an out-of-the-way little fishing port named Las Arenas just at the time when a little ship was bringing us a cargo of gold.’

‘Did they know what they were doing?’

‘Didn’t look like it. They just swept in and took that, although they burned or left other vessels. We nearly got it back, but they were lucky and got away. By now they’re even luckier and some fat admiral is a richer man by far. Still, it slowed our work.’

Dalmas rubbed his chin. ‘Money might help at Badajoz. The governor is good, but one or two of his senior officers are less honest men from what I hear. It would be nice if the governor would drop dead, but these old birds tend to be tough.’

‘I have a man who might be of use. He deserted from the English at Fuengirola, and from us before that, and I suspect from half the armies of Europe. But he’s a killer if ever I saw one, and
a fine shot. The English gave him one of their rifles, so now he’s deadly at two or three hundred yards – or so he claims.’

‘Could be useful, if the chance arises and we can get him into the right place – if and if and if …’ He trailed off.

‘I know,’ the Irishman said. ‘Oh, and I haven’t introduced myself, so had better remedy that. The name is James Sinclair, and it’s an honour to meet you, Major.’ The Irishman grinned as he held out his hand. ‘Now it seems to me that the best way we can start is to make some mischief. The partisans are the eyes and ears of the British and Spanish alike, so let us see if we can make them blind and deaf. Now it just so happens that as a brave and handsome officer of the British army, I have visited a fair few of their bands in the mountains. Some of the chiefs will kill anyone if they are paid. With them, a couple of battalions and a regiment of cavalry, I think we could give them a very hard time.

‘So while I see about that, how about you go and take a look at Badajoz?’

‘A good start,’ Dalmas said. ‘A very good way to start.’

‘An even better way is to find something to drink and raise a glass to mischief.’

Dalmas laughed. ‘Mischief and money,’ he said.

21

T
he year did not end well. Massena’s army sat at Santarem and showed no signs of retreating. Wellington remained behind the shield of his forts and half the officers in his army sent letters home which ended up in the London newspapers and predicted the inevitable evacuation of Lisbon. Hanley knew that Napoleon in Paris and even his brother Joseph in Madrid got most of their news about what their own armies were doing from the English papers. Irregulars harassed stragglers and detachments and it was rarely safe for French messengers to move without an escort of at least a regiment. Yet the French still occupied almost all of Spain and Portugal and neither the partisans nor the remaining active armies had any prospect of driving them off. The newspapers did not seem to realise that it was a great achievement for the mauled Spanish armies to remain in the field and to fight on. Expecting great victories was to expect the moon, and yet when Hanley read the papers, usually within a week of their being printed, he felt that they were describing a different war.

At Cadiz the French laboured on their batteries and siege works or built gunboats and landing vessels so that they could contest control of the bays. Admiral Keats responded by adding to his own fleet of gunboats and harrying the French whenever they put out any distance from the bank.

‘On the fourteenth the admiral thought that the little ships of each side would fight a grand fleet action,’ Chaplain Wharton told Hanley during one of his visits late in November. ‘But the French decided on discretion and rowed back into the inlets to hide.’ The mouth that seemed so large in his thin face broke into
a roar of laughter. ‘Who knows, perhaps in a few weeks we shall have our Trafalgar!’

‘It does put me in mind of Carthage,’ Hanley said, ‘in the last war.’

‘Ah yes, with fleets built by both sides to contest the great harbours of that city. If I recollect much the same happened with Caesar in Alexandria. Odd how the great seafaring powers can be reduced to fighting at such a Lilliputian level.’ The talk of Carthage led them to a pleasingly diverting half-hour speaking of Cadiz and its Punic origins, and then of the wider influence of all the peoples who had passed through Spain. ‘Physically there seems little trace of the Visigoths,’ Wharton said, ‘at least assuming they were of the usual Germanic stock.’

They were interrupted by a midshipman sent by the admiral and were called on deck, but during the long bombardment of one of the French building yards, there was some opportunity to renew their discussion. By the time Hanley visited the flagship again, the French had gained an advantage.

‘Unable to bring their fleet together by sea,’ Wharton explained, ‘they have dug a canal and concentrated them in perfect safety by this means or by dragging them over the land on rollers. Rather unsportingly they have taken to working during the night, which makes it hard to see them.’

Between them, they tried to organise a group of spies to go and observe the enemy works, but some were prevented from landing and the remainder found it almost impossible to evade detection in a landscape full of busy French troops. When none had yielded anything of value and two were caught and hanged on the shore, they decided that the cost was not worth the negligible gain.

Hanley was beginning to wonder whether the same might prove true of their work with the guerrilleros along the coast, and felt that each report he gave in Cadiz was more pessimistic than the last. At the end of November several French columns launched fast-moving drives through the main passes in the mountains. The enemy had obviously learnt from early mistakes,
for they seized the most formidable positions before sufficient serranos could arrive to hold them off. A lot of the crusaders were killed, and far more driven off and dispersed. Smaller parties fanned out from the main columns, and some of these were Spanish irregulars who knew the country well, and these were ruthless in their depredations. By Christmas two partisan chiefs had been captured and another killed. Several more bands were dispersed or forced to flee so far into the mountains that they abandoned their supplies and could not strike back for some time to come.

‘It seems El Lobo is a wolf in truth,’ Sinclair said when Hanley met him not far from the mountain-top town of Ronda, ‘and his pack of wild beasts are ravening across the land in the service of King Joseph.’

Hanley was used to the Irishman’s taste for the dramatic, but in this case there seemed some justification, and it made the night seem darker and more sinister. It was a sorry tale to hear, although Sinclair spoke as lightly as always.

‘I was at the camp of El Pastor’s band five days ago, when the man and half a dozen of his ruffians rode in and asked to share the warmth of the fire.’ There was a famous El Pastor – the shepherd – further north, but among the little groups of fighters in Andalusia there were several chiefs whose nicknames aped those of more celebrated partisans.

‘Of course, I know the man, have spent time with him, and trusted the bugger, so when El Pastor was none too friendly I launched into a great speech about how we are all on the same side and should be friends. They still weren’t keen, but I used my Irish charm and after a while we were all sitting down and drinking. My, those mountain folk can take their wine, and that’s an Irishman who says it, but after a while El Pastor
passed
out’ – the irony was heavy – ‘and most of his band were so merry they didn’t know what was going on.

‘That’s when they did it, for all the while the rest of the wolves had gathered, and a few of the ones with El Lobo had sidled up to the sentries. They cut their throats, and El Lobo just stood up
and shot a man through the chest, as easily as kiss my foot, and his ruffians came on at a rush, shooting and slashing. There wasn’t a chance, not a chance in hell, of doing anything to stop them.’

Hanley looked down into the valley below and saw a great tongue of flame leap up from the lower slopes of the far side.

‘That’ll be Don Antonio Velasco’s house. Well, one of his houses, for the family is rich – or was before a lot of it was confiscated.’

‘They seem to know just where to hit us.’

‘Well, did you think they were fools, and would never learn from their mistakes?’ Sinclair said. ‘But I don’t think burning down the family home will make El Blanco love the French, do you?’

‘I’m not sure he has much cause to love the British either these days.’

‘Don’t follow you, old boy. I know he has never cared much for old James Sinclair, but since I cannot claim such an opinion is unique, I have never held it against him, or thought it extended to a universal hatred of Britannia as a whole.’

Hanley did not care to talk about the attack on the partisan chief’s wife. He had not met with Don Antonio since it had happened – the one arranged meeting proving impossible when a French patrol camped around the inn where they were to talk. There were rumours that his wife had vanished, and Hanley did not know what to make of them. She had certainly been hurt in the fall, possibly badly, and perhaps was still recovering in the convent or some other safe place.

Sinclair watched him, clearly eager to press the matter, and so Hanley instead asked the obvious question. ‘It is fortunate indeed that you escaped the attack, is it not, Major? Or is this no more than further proof of the good fortune of the Irish?’

‘That it was, and no doubt of it, and I have found it odd that you have not asked.’ Smiling, the Irishman turned round, lifted up his coat tails and bent over. A long line of fresh darns stretched across the seat of his trousers. ‘I nearly did not get away, and El Lobo gave me this cut across the buttocks to remember him by.
Can’t say it is the stuff of heroic poetry, and I dare say it won’t be a story I’ll tell my grandchildren around a crackling fire, but all in all a sword-slice to the bum for Sinclair is a narrow enough escape from a decidedly nasty situation. Can’t say I’ve enjoyed riding much – or for that matter sitting down – in the last few days. Sadly the road to glory seems an uncommonly bumpy one!’

Sinclair pressed him to have more supplies sent. ‘To start rebuilding what we have lost,’ he said, but his reports were not encouraging. One of his sources did tell him about a wounded British officer hiding with one of the bands, but when Hanley rode to the area and made contact he discovered that it was Captain Miller of the 95th. The man had a gift for working with the guerrilleros, and it was good to confirm that he was well on the road to recovery after suffering a bad kick from a horse, but the brief hope that he had been wrong and that Williams was still alive died and plunged him into deeper despair.

Hanley was back in Cadiz at Christmas – his third Christmas since becoming a soldier and letting the war absorb his life. As usual he called on Major MacAndrews’ family, but found the experience even less comfortable than before. He was sure his friend would have wanted him to be a support, and so he did his best even though he came to hate the awkward sessions sitting in the parlour and trying to think of diverting things to say. In the past he had enjoyed Miss MacAndrews’ company, for she was lively, had wide interests and a considerable talent for making herself agreeable – most of all to gentlemen, listening and laughing when it was flattering, then talking or teasing lightly. Now the spark seemed to have gone, and if her mother managed to stir up the embers at times, it was rarely for long, and usually only when she made her daughter play or sing. Hanley was forced to venture a song or two to her accompaniment, and that was not pleasant for his voice was a thin one and he had always done his best to shun invitations to sing.

‘Come, you must, Captain Hanley, for we insist upon it,’ Mrs MacAndrews declared, and as usual would not be gainsaid. ‘Why, I am instructing even the major to practise.’

Thus Hanley sang, and it was even more of a relief when he was able to excuse himself to go to his meeting on the flagship. Edward Pringle arrived as he left, and it seemed the naval officer was a frequent visitor whenever
Sparrowhawk
stopped at Cadiz. In the hallway leading to the stairs Hanley heard Miss MacAndrews laugh – a light, genuinely happy laugh of a kind he had not heard for months. Then he caught a pleasing tenor voice launching into ‘Annie Laurie’ and felt the resentment surge up within him as he damned their joy, which seemed treacherous to the memory of his friend.

‘You seem on edge, my dear fellow, quite on edge.’ Wharton brimmed over with sympathy and for the moment was simply the kind, harmless country parson and not the admiral’s chief of intelligence. ‘Are things truly so bad?’

‘They are far from good,’ he replied, shaking off the mood, and told of the recent French attacks, the activities of turncoats like El Lobo, and the losses to the guerrilleros. ‘Without the organised and more skilful bands it is becoming harder for the peasants to gather and perform the bigger ambushes. From all I hear, the French convoys are getting in and out of Ronda and the other mountain garrisons with little or no difficulty.’

‘Some large-scale advances by our armies would no doubt help,’ the chaplain told him. ‘Whether Romana, Blake or some of the brigades at Gibraltar. Something like Lord Turney’s expedition, but with greater fortune. As I am sure you are aware, the governor and other great men who dispatched him have been busily writing reports which allot the general all of the blame. You would know better than I whether this is fair, but I would judge it inevitable when he is a captive and they are not. However, from all that I have heard no criticism has been aimed at your own corps or Major MacAndrews. He is shortly to take the One Hundred and Sixth to Tarifa, both to guard it and to launch raids against the French outposts.’

‘Will they be there long?’ Hanley asked, thinking of the major’s family and feeling an unexpected and very strong desire to remove them from this city and the visits of Billy Pringle’s
brother. Tarifa lay inland a short distance from Gibraltar, but he was not sure whether it was sufficiently secure for MacAndrews to summon his family.

‘A month or two, I should think, and they will be contributing in their small way to giving the French a few problems and forcing them to pull men away from the mountains to meet such fresh threats. There is talk of a larger expedition from Cadiz itself where the Navy would land a force several times the size of the Malaga expedition. General Graham is keen, but as yet has struggled to persuade the Spanish and we should need them to find the necessary numbers.

‘In the meantime there is talk of a smaller raid, intended as a diversion so that the Spanish can secure the main crossing from the Isla to the mainland. I believe your battalion will play a role in this, although in the main it will be a Spanish affair. We should also endeavour to encourage and supply the irregulars. A stock of arms and powder is being gathered. Would it be best if you were landed first, so that you could arrange where they are to be dropped and ensure men and mules are waiting?’

Hanley nodded. He had hoped for a rest, but this afternoon had left a sour taste in his mouth, and, even though he knew he was being unfair, he no longer cared to stay in Cadiz.

‘
Sparrowhawk
will carry you – Captain Pringle has had plenty of practice in this business.’ Hanley smiled in satisfaction, which Wharton no doubt saw as a mark of confidence. ‘However, you shall not go for several days, and I trust that you will be able to carry some good reports with you.’ Wharton beamed at him, once again the meek country parson. ‘Admiral Keats has arranged a little present for Marshal Victor.’

On Christmas night, the entire squadron of British gunboats gathered together with the Spanish ones in the bay. At one o’clock in the afternoon of Boxing Day, when the tide was at its height, the Spanish began a bombardment of the fort at San Luis, which protected the main concentration of French vessels. Bomb ships fired at other forts to keep them occupied, and then
the British gunboats led in more boats packed with marines and sailors to burn the enemy’s little fleet.

Hanley watched from the shore outside the city, early on spotting Edward Pringle and Miss MacAndrews and joining them. ‘It would help my understanding to be guided by your experience, Captain Pringle,’ he announced with the most innocent expression he could muster.