Run Them Ashore (34 page)

‘No point treating that lot,’ the surgeon announced, and had half the wounded laid out in a line while he treated the few who had any hope of survival. Hanley spoke to the handful of unwounded, and some of them shook as he spoke to them. They all told the same story. There was a brigade at Medina Sidonia, so substantial a force that Marshal Victor was bound to come to its aid if the Allies attacked.

The plan seemed to be working, until it became clear that it was no longer the plan. La Peña had changed his mind, and had decided to march instead back towards the coast, heading towards Victor’s main force at Chiclana. Hanley was there when General Graham used all his charm and diplomacy to persuade the captain general to press on to Medina instead. Don Manuel would not be shifted, and his only concession was to delay the march from 5 p.m. to eleven. A second meeting and even longer bargaining postponed the movement until six the next morning, an hour before sunrise. In the event there were more delays and they did not start until eight. Hanley could only wave when the
whole army marched back along the track, watched by the Flank Battalion, which had been left behind as rearguard.

A few cavalrymen appeared about a mile away on the heights to the north, too far to pick out the details, although no one was in any doubt that they were French. As the army swung southwest to take the road running along the edge of the lagoon, the horsemen shadowed them, more appearing as the day went on. At one point they came closer – Hanley remembered MacAndrews telling him that if you could see faces and cross-belts with the naked eye then they were within half a mile. That was not all he saw. Leading one of the patrols was an infantry officer riding a grey. Even at that distance his green coat was a good deal lighter than those of the dragoons beside him.

‘Sinclair,’ he said to the general.

‘Impudent fellow, ain’t he?’ Graham replied. ‘But there is nothing we can do about him at present. If I send out the hussars they will not catch them and there are not enough of our own horse to shield the whole column.’

There was the same stop-start progress until the latest stop stretched into a half-hour. Graham rode forward to discover the delay.

‘The causeway is lost,’ La Peña announced. They were at the point where the road went along a narrow piece of solid ground between a river and the lagoon. Today the land was flooded and it was invisible, the wind making waves across the surface of a veritable lake. A few of the stakes marking the causeway stood out of the water at crooked angles, but most had gone, rotted or swept away by the flood, and there were not enough to give a good idea of the route.

‘We are searching for a crossing point,’ the captain general assured his British subordinate. All around, the leading Spanish battalions had spread out on the low rises either side of the track before it came to the water. Some were standing, some sitting as they waited. A few were wading out into the water, carrying boots and stockings and with their trousers rolled up. They went with great care, for it was too cold for any sane man to relish
being drenched. Hanley saw one officer being carried on the back of a sturdy private, the gallant leader of men complaining like a dowager if any water splashed on to him. There was no sense of urgency, no officer taking charge.

General Graham said nothing, and simply set his horse straight at where he guessed the trackway led through the water. The staff followed, although Hanley had trouble persuading his gelding to risk stepping into the lake. For the next ten minutes they all rode up and down, the flood past the horses’ bellies and soaking their boots where it was deeper. It was a couple of feet less deep and the ground far more firm when they struck the causeway. The general was busy calling out soldiers from the waiting battalions. The Spanish infantry came willingly, striding into the cold water, and then standing to mark the causeway. Hanley thought that they were happy to be doing something. There seemed a far greater sense of purpose among the soldiers and junior officers than among their commanders.

Soon the infantry were marching across by companies, and Graham cheered them on and joked with them in Spanish as he sat on his horse, the waves lapping against its chest. La Peña sent one of his aides out to say that he was worried that the causeway would not carry guns, given that it was being churned up by the men’s feet. Graham sent one of his staff to hurry the closest British battery to the spot. It took twenty minutes, and the escorting party of riflemen from the 95th were sweating from keeping pace. At the general’s command the greenjackets went through the water, keeping step as if on parade even where it reached their waists. The artillery drivers used their whips to push the trace horses into the flood, and soon the first and the second teams of six horses, a limber and a gun were through to the other side. The next one skidded when a horse took fright, and the nine-pounder cannon lurched off the causeway, a wheel sticking fast in the mud as it sloped away.

The grey-haired general was at the spot in a moment, kicked his feet free of the stirrups and jumped down into the water. By the time Hanley and the rest of his staff joined him Graham
was grinning at an Irish bombardier as they both pushed with all their strength to shift the wheel. A couple of Spanish ADCs arrived, their gold-laced blue jackets quickly soaked and covered in mud as they too strained to push the nine-pounder. The commander of the leading division was now wading along the causeway, chivvying his men to keep moving. Senior officers and artillerymen clustered around the nine-pounder, straining until they felt it move, and with a jolt the gun rolled back on to the causeway. The bombardier whooped and slapped one of the Spanish ADCs on the back. Hanley was worried for a moment, but then the aristocratic young man gave the NCO a polite bow and went off to remount.

Captain General La Peña watched.

It was midnight before the army halted. Everyone was soaked and there was no hot food – indeed little enough food of any sort. News arrived that the garrison of Cadiz had launched its sally on the previous night as arranged, since the message telling them that the army would not be in position on time had yet not reached the city. ‘They took the French by surprise and overran their first line, but then French reserves struck back and they were tumbled back to the Isla,’ an ADC told Hanley.

The captain general proposed another night march, but Graham and his own divisional commanders convinced him that the men were exhausted and in need of rest. They spent a cold night with no fires and only the wet ground as a bed. On the next day scouting patrols were sent out, and Hanley rode with the general on a reconnaissance of his own. French dragoons were about, and although they kept their distance he spotted Sinclair more than once. Confusion over who was to give the orders meant that no cavalry had been sent out to look at the ground or search for the enemy, but La Peña proposed dividing the army so that the British marched on one road and the Spanish on another, nearer the coast.

‘It will help us to move faster,’ he said, but Graham was unconvinced, and so Hanley went out with two of the ADCs and
was able to confirm that the road allocated to the British was impassable to artillery and difficult for everyone else.

On the way back they weaved between the fir trees of a straggling forest. Hanley’s gelding was close to exhaustion, and soon lagged behind the thoroughbreds of the other two officers. It was a gloomy day, the light in the wood poor, and so it was a shock when he came to a clearing and found Sinclair sitting on his horse.

The Irishman was alone, but he was also quicker off the mark and whipped a pistol from one of his saddle holsters before Hanley had even got his fingers around his sword hilt.

‘Why, it is Captain Hanley. Good afternoon, sir,’ Sinclair said with a pleasant smile. He pulled the hammer back and the click seemed appallingly loud in the stiller air under the trees. ‘I take it you are not surprised to see me in this uniform? You certainly seem unimpressed.’

‘We know you are a traitor.’ The words sounded foolish and rather pompous, but it was hard to think of anything to say. At this range the man could not miss.

‘The pistol is another clue, I suppose. Good little British officers are not meant to point weapons at one another, except of course in a matter of honour. As to treachery, does that not depend on your point of view? Would you believe me if I said that I have held true to a cause all my life, or would you prefer to hear that I sold my own mother into slavery to buy a bottle of brandy? What does it matter what you choose to think of me?’

There was the sound of hoofbeats near by, but Hanley could not tell more than that they were somewhere ahead and had no idea whether it was one of the ADCs or a Frenchman coming to find Sinclair.

‘I don’t think I’ll kill you today,’ Sinclair said, and backed his grey horse away.

‘Conscience?’ Hanley asked, and tried to edge his sword out so slowly that the other man would not see it move. His heart was pounding and his throat dry as sand-paper, but he tried to keep his voice steady.

Sinclair levelled the pistol at the Englishman’s head. ‘Maybe that, or maybe they are not paying me enough.’ He wheeled the horse and sent it cantering away among the trees. He was gone by the time one of the staff officers appeared.

‘Thought we’d lost you, old boy.’

‘I’m still here,’ Hanley replied, and followed him back to the army. His back was drenched in sweat that had not come from the day’s hard riding.

The idea of splitting the army was discarded at Graham’s insistence, and at five in the afternoon of 4th March the Spanish once again led the column off. They were heading for Conil, a village on the coast about eight miles away. The British general was worried by a night march so close to an enemy whose precise strength and location were unknown, but Captain General La Peña dismissed his concerns.

‘We shall keep Marshal Victor guessing,’ he declared. ‘And by tomorrow we will have him trapped between us and Cadiz, or force him to leave the road open.’

Hanley could see that General Graham was unconvinced, and understood why. It was very hard to see how the French would be trapped unless they wanted to be. Nor was it easy to understand what would have been achieved if they were able to march straight to the Isla and Cadiz without fighting. He thought back to Fuengirola, and that nagging sense that no one in charge was quite sure what they were hoping to achieve.

Soon all the aggravations of the earlier night marches returned, the immediate personal discomfort and annoyances driving away the bigger concerns.

‘Hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait,’ he found himself muttering again and again as the column kept halting, sometimes every few minutes. He had not had time to mention the encounter with Sinclair, but since the French would have to be blind not to have a fair idea of where the Allies were going it probably did not matter.

The men in the lead took the wrong path in the darkness. Hanley told the general that he was sure they had left the path to
the coast so that the British were heading directly for the main French camp. Graham halted his own troops and rode to see La Peña and sort out the confusion.

‘
Voilà ce que c’est que les marches de nuit
,’ the general said in exasperation when they reached the Spanish commander, and Hanley wondered whether La Peña spoke French. If so, then he did not appear moved by the rebuke. One of the Spanish ADCs insisted that this was the wrong road and the British were on the right one. Hanley insisted the opposite, as did the local guides, and eventually this fact was accepted by everyone. There was more argument about what to do, until after a good half-hour fresh orders were agreed.

With the sun rising, the army marched on towards the enemy.

27

W
illiams felt the noon sun on his face and was glad of its warmth. His leg was troubling him, and felt stiff, the wound to his hip throbbing as if it might burst open again after the succession of night marches on slippery tracks. It was pleasant to be warm and have nothing to do.

‘The firing has stopped,’ remarked Lieutenant Black, the senior lieutenant in the first battalion of the 106th and acting commander of the Light Company in the absence of Major Wickham. The latter had secured a staff posting with one of the brigade commanders in Wellington’s army and had left for Lisbon before the Flank Battalion was formed. The Light Company boasted an ensign, but he had fallen sick and was in hospital at Gibraltar, and so Williams was attached to assist Black.

‘Dons must have pushed the French back,’ Billy Pringle said. The noise of fighting coming from the direction of Cadiz had got quieter in the last hour or so, which suggested that the advance guard had forced the French back. He was lying on the grass, a rolled cloak as a pillow and his hat pulled down over his face.

‘There is no need to look quite so interested,’ Black told Pringle, and began to prod him with his boot.

‘God save us from restless and imprudent youth.’ Pringle tipped his hat up with his finger and peered myopically at the lieutenant. His glasses were folded neatly in his inside pocket to keep them safe while he rested. ‘Not in your way, am I?’

Black grinned, but was still restless and soon began to pace up and down, watched with tolerant amusement by the men of
his own company and the grenadiers. The lieutenant had gained his promotion from ensign by volunteering from the militia and bringing thirty recruits with him. Four years on, there were still a dozen of these men with the Light Company. Black was a capable and popular officer, who had served in Portugal and on the retreat to Corunna. Around half of the men of his company had come through those campaigns, and even more of the grenadiers of the 106th had served there and at Talavera. The redcoats sat or lay along the slope of the low ridge, enjoying a rare moment of idleness. To their right were the two companies of the 9th Foot with yellow facings on their jackets, and on the other side was the contingent from the 82nd, also with yellow cuffs and collars.

‘Can you not stand still and dream of all the captains who may get shot before the day is out?’ Ensign Dowling suggested. He and Lieutenant Richardson were under Pringle’s command.

‘Thank you for such a kind and disloyal thought,’ their captain told them. ‘Now stop chattering and let me return to dreams of wine, women and song.’

‘Cheer up, my lads,’ Richardson said, and Dowling giggled. Major MacAndrews’ recent obsession with ‘Hearts of Oak’ had become a joke in the 106th and now in the Flank Battalion as a whole.

Pringle glared at him. ‘Haven’t you got a hoop to play with, boy?’ Richardson was twenty, but his curly hair and smooth, innocent face made him look younger. Dowling was only eighteen, was born with heavy jowls and the serious frown of an ancient, and still acted like an infant. Williams knew that Pringle was fond of them both, rather in the manner of an indulgent man who kept puppies.

It was good to be back with the battalion – or at least its flank companies. The rest of the 106th was half a mile away with Wheatley’s brigade. There had not been much time or leisure to speak to his friends, although Pringle had assured him that he knew of no engagement involving his brother. ‘Would not put it past the rogue to try, but I am positive that Miss MacAndrews has superior taste.’

A nagging doubt remained, at least when the fatigue and the throbbing in his leg gave him any time to think about the world beyond this hillside and the here and now. His head kept telling him that a battle was likely today, since otherwise he could see little point to the whole expedition. The rest of him felt sluggish, as stiff in spirit as his leg was physically. There was none of the familiar tension, fear and excitement mingling until all a man wanted was for the waiting to be over, whatever the horrors to follow. Hatch, Guadalupe and the months with the partisans seemed distant memories. Williams wished he felt some of Black’s impatience, for at least it seemed to keep the man busy.

‘Something’s up,’ the lieutenant said. ‘Bramwell is coming over.’ Even Pringle began to stir.

‘Form your companies. We are to move to the top of the hill,’ the acting adjutant of the Flank Battalion told them.

‘And what then?’ Black asked.

‘Major MacAndrews will inform you once he returns from meeting with General Graham.’ Lieutenant Bramwell of the 82nd struck Williams as a good officer, but he was not an affable man and gave every impression of seeing his new role as a sacred trust.

The officers walked to their companies and found the sergeants waiting for them, ready to turn their instructions into reality. Grenadiers and light infantrymen stirred, some knocking out their pipes, a few moaning in a half-hearted manner. Many had to be shaken awake, having fallen asleep almost as soon as they lay down on the grass. Within a couple of minutes all six companies were formed up and then the battalion marched to the top of the ridge. They did not have far to go, because the high ground, with its straggling bushes, low trees and red-brown sandy soil, was no great height.

‘Hanley tells me the locals call it “Cerro del Puerco” – the Pig’s Hill,’ Williams told Black when the battalion halted near a half-ruined farmhouse on the top of the highest part of the low ridge. ‘It’s supposed to look like a hog’s back.’

The lieutenant grinned. ‘Typical bacon-bolter of a grenadier
to be thinking of food,’ he said. Williams remained a stranger to the Light Company. The light bobs and the grenadiers were the elite companies of a battalion, and existed in a perpetual state of rivalry as cordial as most civil wars. At times they might unite to prove their superiority to the other eight companies of the 106th, just as they would in turn join with those same men to disparage the rest of the army. His orders were obeyed, but a few days was far too little to admit Williams into the family of the company. The men were less free in speaking to him than they were to Black, and he was unsure whether or not he had the confidence of the sergeants, especially Sergeant Tom Evans, the short, heavy-browed man with a fiery temper who was the biggest character in the Light Company.

Evans was from North Wales, a man whose English was spoken from the back of his throat in the way of those who grew up speaking Welsh. Williams doubted that his being half Scots, half Welsh and from Cardiff would encourage any fellow feeling. There were a few other Welshmen in the Light Company, just as there were only a handful in the other parts of the 106th, in spite of its official designation as the Glamorganshire Regiment. Only one of his fellow countrymen – a rogue with ginger hair named Pryce – belonged to the dozen or so intimates of the sergeant. All were men who fought hard and lived as well on campaign as was permitted through cunning and an utter disregard for the property of anyone outside the Light Company.

‘What’s for dinner today, Pryce?’ Black asked the light infantryman as he and Williams walked along the rear of the company.

Pryce shook his head.

‘Sorry,’ Black said. The officers kept going on their way to report to MacAndrews. ‘Oh, that is bad,’ the lieutenant added when they were further along. ‘If that parcel of rogues are going without then I dare say we officers will fare even less well. Let the men rest, Sergeant.’

‘Sir.’ Sergeant Evans was in his place at the far left flank of the company’s line.

‘Light Company!’ His voice did not sound as loud as that of
many NCOs, and yet the words carried clearly. ‘Light Company, fall out.’ Two ranks of redcoats turned to the right as one man, and then their shoulders slumped and each shape slipped from the formality of parade. The same order was being given to the other companies and soon the five hundred men of MacAndrews’ battalion sat or lay on the ground, a low murmur of conversation rippling along like a light wind through the grass. Within minutes a good third of the men were asleep. They were wise to regain as much strength as they could, but even so Williams never liked to see soldiers asleep in the daytime, for unconscious men too easily fell into postures very much like those of the dead.

Major MacAndrews waited for his officers not far from the old farmhouse, the sunlight gleaming on the great sweep of blue Mediterranean over to the west. The major stood beside his horse, nuzzling its head.

‘As you can see, our battalions are now setting out to follow the Spanish,’ he said. Most of Wheatley’s brigade had already vanished under the cover of the pine forest ahead of them. Dilke’s brigade was following, a succession of scarlet columns threading along the track into the trees.

The major stepped past his mount’s head and pointed down the coast. ‘They are moving to take up a new position there, where you can see that spike above the beach. That is another of these towers.’ A round tower, its top decayed with long years, stood on the slope of the hill near the sea. ‘This one is the Torre de la Barrosa and that is the Torre Bermeja. Beyond that is the road to Chiclana and beyond that is the Isla and Cadiz itself. General La Peña’s Spanish have driven the enemy back from their works nearest to Cadiz. Some of the garrison of that city have thrown a bridge of boats across the inlet and joined up with our vanguard. The French – from what I hear, about a division in strength – have retired along the road to Chiclana to a stronger position, and thus the path to Cadiz itself is open.’ He paused, looking from face to face to gauge whether or not they had understood him. Since no one was disposed to ask a question, he went on.

‘For the moment, the baggage of the entire army is in front of this hill, waiting to follow when the tracks are clear. The cavalry under General Whittingham protects them, and guards the coast road and our own flank. Two Spanish regiments, the Walloon Guards and Ciudad Real, are here, waiting with us on Barrosa Hill, although for the moment they will stay on this northern slope. Gentlemen, we are the rearguard. This hill is the strongest position for miles around, and if anyone put guns up here they could dominate the plain and the coast road. Our guns have gone, so we are to stay here and make sure the French don’t try putting some of their own pieces up on top. I am assured that three more Spanish battalions are on their way to reinforce us.’

This time when the major stopped there were questions.

‘How long will we be up here?’ a captain from the 9th Foot asked.

‘Until they tell us otherwise. I was unable to gain more information and apparently the situation ahead of us remains uncertain.’ The major put sufficient emphasis on the last word to make his low opinion of such vagueness very clear.

‘Any news of food, sir?’

‘I regret to say no news and no food.’

‘What about the French?’ said the commander of the 82nd’s Light Company, and from the expression on his face it was obvious Billy Pringle had been about to ask the same thing.

‘With the exception of the troops forced back by the Spanish, no one appears to have any idea where the rest of them are. Hence General Graham’s insistence that we hold on to the high ground.

‘We may as well take full advantage of the chance to rest. I want a corporal’s piquet from each of our three corps alert and on the far slope. Mr Williams, you will arrange that and stay with them until relieved. Keep a good watch, and report if you see hide or hair of a Frenchman. I’ll come and inspect you presently.’

As the officers dispersed, they saw a column of Spanish infantry coming back down the coast road to reinforce them.
MacAndrews was especially pleased to see a half-battery of guns moving with them.

By half past twelve Williams had his line of sentries stationed in pairs along the edge of the ridge looking back the way they had come. It was Pryce of the Light Company who first spotted the French dragoons.

‘Cavalry, sir!’ he said in a voice that was oddly high pitched.

They were at the end of the ridge, furthest from the sea, and the horsemen had emerged from the fringe of the great pine forest, some way to the east. There were only a few of them, a thin line of vedettes scouting for the main force, but they trotted out from the trees and soon a formed body of a squadron emerged.

‘You.’ He turned to the other redcoat. ‘Run back to Major MacAndrews and tell him that there is at least a squadron of French dragoons coming towards us. Stop,’ he commanded, as a second column followed the first. ‘At least a regiment in strength.’

The man ran off.

‘Well done, Pryce,’ he told the Welsh soldier.

‘Sir.’ The man seemed unmoved by the compliment, but Williams was sure men served better when their officers knew them by name, and were as ready to praise as reprimand. He wished he had his long glass, and thought for a moment how upset his mother would be at the news of its loss. She had saved from her meagre funds to buy it from a pawnshop. It was intended to be mounted on a tripod, and in truth was too big and bulky for a soldier to carry, but Williams had grown used to it and come to appreciate its high magnification.

The French cavalry were out in the open, easy to see on ground broken by a few folds and dotted with occasional pines and cork trees. They were not coming closer to the ridge, but feeling their way towards the coast road. A third squadron had followed the others, and Williams guessed that there were some three hundred and fifty to four hundred of the green-coated cavalry advancing to the sea. These days many dragoons had taken to wearing cloth covers over their brass helmets, hoping
to hide the glint of brass and so make it easier to surprise wary Spanish irregulars, but this regiment was not hiding itself today. Even without his glass Williams could see the light catching on well-polished Grecian helmets, the long black horsehair crests streaming behind whenever a man pushed his horse into a trot. This regiment had red fronts to their dark jackets.

MacAndrews arrived, and with him were Whittingham and two Spaniards in the dark blue and heavily laced coats of senior officers. Yet the Englishman outdid them for gaudiness, his collar and cuffs a riot of gold embroidery, the white plume running along the top of his cocked hat thicker than theirs, and his horse a good few hands taller. Whittingham wore the red cockade of Spain rather than the black of Britain, and Williams wondered what rank he had held in King George’s army before he was elevated so high in the Spanish service.