Run Them Ashore (6 page)

Pringle focused his glass on one of the wagons. Something moved in it and he saw a man raise himself up. Dear God, it is wounded, he thought.

That moment a bugle sounded. The hussars spurred their mounts and shot forward, galloping down the length of the gully towards the more open valley. Crusaders screamed in rage at them and fired. One horse dropped, its rider cartwheeling high before slamming with sickening force against a boulder. Another rode on, saddle empty, and its rider staggered dazed along the path until a handful of Spaniards jumped down and clubbed him to death.

‘Bloody cavalry.’ Murphy’s tone was scathing. The horsemen left the infantry behind, and if Pringle could see that the hussars were doing no good where they were he could still imagine the despair of their comrades on foot as they saw the gaudily dressed cavalrymen escaping.

That escape was far from certain. As they came through the gully and the valley widened, first dozens and then hundreds of serranos spilled off the slopes and surged towards the fleeing horsemen.

‘Look, there is Don Antonio!’ Hanley had spotted the guerrilla leader leading a file of horsemen over one of the lower rises behind the French column and down into the valley. He halted some one hundred and fifty yards behind the convoy’s rearguard, and more and more horsemen formed around him. Pringle thought that there were at least sixty, with more coming all the time, and that must mean that other guerrilla leaders
had joined him as he had planned. Although scarcely regular cavalry – no two were armed identically and their horses were of all sizes – the mounted partisans threatened to ride down the French infantry, making the rearguard cluster together in a tight circle, bayonets ready to fend off the horsemen. So they stood and so they died, offering a target that even the wild crusaders would gradually whittle down. More and more of these risked jumping into the gully, pouncing on any isolated Frenchmen and shooting or knifing them.

‘Like watching a bird die,’ Murphy said softly.

Pringle glanced back at the sergeant, moved by the sadness in his voice. This was not the war that the officer knew, and he could not say that he liked to see it.

The trumpet sounded again, its notes urgent. Out in the wider valley, pursued by a loose crowd of serranos, the French hussars suddenly wheeled round and charged. The villagers stopped in their tracks, the cries dying in their throats. A few had loaded muskets and fired, but no horse or man fell. Pringle could imagine the drumming of hoofs, the hussars standing tall in their stirrups, cheering as they brought their curved sabres forward ready to lunge.

‘They won’t stand.’

Pringle saw that Murphy was right, and had the guilty sense that he was pleased to see the enemy soldiers gain their revenge. Already the serranos were turning to flee, but for many it was too late, and now the hussars were among them. They were too far away to hear the screams, but saw the curved sabres glittering as they chopped down. Bodies littered the valley floor behind the ragged lines of charging hussars.

The French chased the crusaders back to the mouth of the valley. Even then, a few enraged hussars tried to ride after them, only to be shot or cut from their saddles by the crowds that clustered in the broken ground. On the plain the hussars were masters, but they could not fight amid the rock-strewn hillocks and slopes. Again the trumpet sounded, and the forty or so hussars re-formed out of range of the peasants. They waited for a
while, heard the fire slackening from back down the valley and must have known what that meant. Their infantry had died or was dying and there was nothing they could do. Eventually the hussars wheeled again, and set off down the road towards the coast. They left more than twice their number of bodies dotted across the valley floor.

Pringle could see that it was nearly over. The circle of soldiers was now a pile of bodies, the few survivors being hunted out from their hiding places. He focused his glass on Don Antonio, and watched him lead his riders along the row of abandoned wagons. Behind the chief was one of the young women, her black cloak and clothes clear. He watched as a man stirred in the back of one of the wagons, pulling himself up with his arms clutching the wooden side. The girl produced a pistol, pressed it against the man’s chest and shot him.

On the slopes below them many of the women and other spectators were heading down towards the scene of victory. Most had long knives in their hands.

Billy Pringle snapped his glass shut. He did not want to see any more.

4

A
n hour or so later, some seventy miles further east along the coast and about five miles out to sea, Lieutenant Williams sat once again in the black-painted gig and enjoyed the momentary calm now that they were in the lee of the other ship. Up close the frigate looked immense, and at one hundred and forty-six feet seven inches it was almost half as long again as the
Sparrowhawk
. It towered above them, its three great masts so high that the men in the tops looked liked dolls. Williams wondered how they managed on a calm day, let alone in any sort of blow.

‘Lively now, show them how it’s done,’ hissed the coxswain to the gig’s crew as they worked the oars. ‘Keep it steady.’ Although it was not obvious, all of them knew that they were being watched, every action examined and dissected in the eager hope of seeing an imperfection, anything to confirm this ship’s company’s belief in its own superiority.

Captain Edward Pringle seemed oblivious, but once again everyone knew that he was missing nothing. Formally his rank was Master and Commander of the eighteen-gun
Sparrowhawk
, but convention dictated that he be called captain. The frigate’s captain was a true captain, a post captain, confident that, so long as he remained alive and avoided disgrace, he would one day hoist his pennant as an admiral. Both sorts of captain wielded far more power than their namesakes in the army, and even a commander like Billy Pringle’s older brother ranked as a major. On board their own ship, a captain’s will was law in a way unimaginable in the army.

‘She is a handsome craft and a sweet sailor,’ Edward Pringle
said, breaking the silence he had maintained as they rowed over in answer to the signal ‘Officers to repair on board’. Williams still did not know why he was included in the party, his only guide a gruff ‘You may be of some use’ from
Sparrowhawk
’s captain.

The gig lurched as they once again felt the swell, but Williams made himself look up at the stern gallery of the ship. It was painted black, decorated in white and gold, and with the name
TOPAZE
painted in immaculately even and perfectly rounded golden letters above the row of seven windows.

‘Say what you like about the French, but they build damned fine ships.’ The captain smiled at Williams’ evident surprise, almost the first trace of humour he had shown in their brief acquaintance. ‘We had her from them back in ninety-three. Have even built some thirty-twos following her lines, but they never quite look the same. Too cramped, of course, far too cramped for comfort on a long voyage, but truly beautiful.’

Williams was unsure that he would employ the word, and yet could see the elegance of the
Topaze
’s lines and appreciate the training, ritual and taut discipline which kept a working and fighting ship in such a state of neatness and order. He could also, even though they were now windward of her, still catch a trace of the smells of fresh paint, tar and all the odours inevitable on even the cleanest of ships when more than two hundred men lived so close together.

Born in Cardiff, a few years later Williams’ widowed mother had taken the family to Bristol, with its far bigger port, and had run a boarding house, mostly for the masters and mates of merchantmen who had no family. Later still, he became an apprentice clerk in a shipping office, and so the world of cordage, canvas, spars and chandlers’ supplies was one he knew well. Although being on the coast was familiar and reassuring, Williams did not especially like the sea – or perhaps it was better to say that it seemed not to care for him – for he felt queasy at the gentlest motion and had suffered greatly on the transport ships which had carried the regiment to war and home again. It was far better aboard the
Sparrowhawk
, and he guessed that men-of-war
were generally better handled and more stable than the old tubs hired to move soldiers. The milder waters of the Mediterranean no doubt also played a part, for, apart from one squall, the winds had been light. Williams could not yet claim to have embraced life at sea, but had to admit that this recent voyage was at least tolerable, rather than a prolonged test of endurance which he wished only to end.

‘Gently now.’ Without another order, the coxswain brought the boat alongside. The crew shipped oars, and after the softest of bumps the man in the bow fastened a long boathook into a ring on the frigate’s side. Captain Pringle was already on his feet and went up the steps cut in the side of the
Topaze
with practised ease. He was a small man, thin of face and narrow of lip, so unlike his big, plump younger brother that Williams struggled to see any similarity. When he mentioned this to his friend, Billy had joked that ‘Yes, it was a puzzle, but they do say I have a quite startling resemblance to the old baker’s boy!’ It was hard to imagine the older brother making any joke, let alone one with such vulgar implications. At twenty-eight, Edward Pringle looked older, although some of this was the air of stern omniscience he assumed as captain of his own ship. He also looked capable, and in this regard at least the brothers were alike.

Williams could not actually see the captain climb on to the deck, but heard the pipe whistling. Lieutenant Reynolds,
Sparrowhawk
’s only other officer, went next, just a little more slowly, even though the stocky, red-faced man must have been at least forty, his dark hair streaked with grey. Things were better than in the past, but even so unlucky and poorly connected officers in His Majesty’s Navy could find promotion painfully slow, even in comparison to the army. The coxswain gestured for Williams to go next, just in case the soldier had forgotten the proper order of things. He had come clumsily down into the boat, foot slipping on one of the steps, and was determined not to make a similar mistake. Deliberation was likely to make things worse, and so he tried not to think, bounding from the boat and trusting to instinct.

His left knee struck hard against the timbers of
Topaze
and bounced out, his other foot was waving in empty space, while both hands clawed at the same step. Somehow one boot and then the other found toeholds and then he began to climb.

‘Ruddy lobsters,’ a voice whispered faintly from among the gig’s crew.

‘Hush, damn your eyes,’ the coxswain said almost as quietly.

Williams ignored them and climbed. As he came nearer the top the side of the ship curved steeply inwards, another feature of French design which came as a great relief to the redcoat officer. Finally on deck, he found himself marvelling at the sheer bulk of the mainmast just ahead of him and the sense of being almost enclosed in endless webs of rigging and ropes. They were led aft towards the quarterdeck, where presentations were made to Captain Hope, his two lieutenants and a very young lieutenant of marines. Williams was glad that he had had time to don his good jacket, white breeches and boots, for this was a smart gathering. It was widely believed that the Royal Marines were always especially keen to outshine any redcoats from the army, and at least today he was able to give a good account of himself.

With introductions made, they processed down a companionway on to the gun deck. Williams had already passed several of the stubby carronades, the barrel half the length of a cannon, but far thicker and throwing two or three times the weight of shot. At close range these heavy smashers were devastating, but on the gun deck
Topaze
had conventional twelve-pounders, as big as the biggest cannon ever used by the army in battle. There were thirteen on either side, and these could throw their shot a mile or more. It was a humbling thought that even this fifth-rate ship, too small to serve in the line-of-battle of a great fleet action, could still fire a greater weight of shot than all the field guns of Lord Wellington’s army lined up wheel to wheel.

Topaze
’s guns were silent at the moment, barrels black and carriages red-brown with recent paint, and it was not really the heavy armament which made a man-of-war so different from a merchant ship or transport. For Williams it was partly the Navy’s
dedication to – even obsession with – cleanliness. As they came down from the quarterdeck he saw dozens of sailors crouching, pulling at ropes to drag holystones – heavy blocks of Portland stone several feet in length – to grind the sand sprinkled on the planking of the lower deck, rubbing it smooth.
Sparrowhawk
holystoned the deck only on Sundays and Thursdays – the noise and sacred respect given to the work made it impossible even for passengers to ignore – and so he guessed Captain Hope must have a different routine on his ship. Everything was neatly stowed, where possible scrubbed, painted or polished until it shone, and there was also an abundance of everything. The ropes on a merchantman almost always looked old, their owners even less keen than their Lords of the Admiralty to spend money keeping their ships in trim. There was an abundance too of people, and in the end this for Williams was the key distinction. Men-of-war were crowded, bustling places in a near-constant state of activity – indeed, of many distinct activities carried on side by side. A merchant ship never had a big enough crew to attend to so many different things.

It was a world of its own, Williams decided, and one in which he remained a stranger, with a constant sense that he was in the way. No one said anything to him as they went through the doors, in his case instinctively ducking for he had more than once hit his head on the low doorways of
Sparrowhawk
. He was relieved to find that the frigate offered far more space, and when they came to the captain’s day cabin, it seemed spacious indeed, bright sunlight coming through the stern windows he had seen from outside as they had rowed across.

Captain Hope came swiftly to the matter in hand, assembling them around the long table on which a number of charts were spread and weighted down.

‘Gentlemen, as you know, tonight I intend to raid the harbour at Las Arenas.’

Williams had not known, but since he was supposed to be on shore with the others there was no reason for anyone to have told him. No one else gave the slightest hint of surprise. Instead
they had the same predatory eagerness of the young captain. All of the officers, save for the marine – a gap-toothed fellow named Jones, whose mouth hung permanently open – had spent the greater part of their lives at sea. Captain Hope was twenty-three and had been made post more than two years ago. Reynolds had told him this, in a tone mingling admiration with the bitter disappointment of a man who had been a lieutenant for more than a decade. A post captain would rise steadily in seniority, but the prospects of a lieutenant put on shore on half-pay were a good deal less rosy.

‘I had hoped the
Rambler
would have reached us, but there is no sign of her, and we must seize this opportunity while it is offered.’ Williams had heard mention of the other brig, and understood that she and
Topaze
frequently cruised together.

‘We cannot wait. At dawn this morning I stood off and took a look at the place and the harbour was busy. There are usually half a dozen or so privateers there, but today there are twice as many masts as usual. Some may be prizes, some merchantmen supplying Bonaparte’s army, but there is a schooner and a couple of xebecs I am sure belong to Bavastro.’

That caused a stir, and Hope let them smile and chatter.

‘He is an Italian rogue,’ Reynolds said to Williams. ‘Keeps a squadron with letters of marque and preys on shipping all along the coast of Spain. They do say Napoleon has given him medal after medal.’

‘Yes, we all know that rascal, and it seems the report that some of his men have come farther west than usual is true. I have seen the schooner before, although have never been close enough to catch her. She is pierced for twelve guns, although who knows how many she actually mounts.’

‘Can we be sure they are still there?’ Edward Pringle asked.

‘A good question, and as you would guess I cannot give a certain answer. Most must be, or we would have seen them leave.
Rambler
should be coming from east-nor-east down the coast, so there is always a chance that she will catch any of them trying to slip out that way. But if we wait longer then the odds are that
more of them will get away, and so many fast, small craft will be the devil of a job to catch.

‘Therefore we shall go in tonight in boats, cut out as many as we can and burn the rest. We shall need both your boats, Captain Pringle, as well as our own. There are two batteries guarding the harbour, and we must deal with them. Now you have all done this sort of thing before, so I do not need to tell you that we must move fast and everyone must know the tasks they are to perform.’ The young captain paused for a moment, smiling. ‘My apologies, Mr Williams, I am speaking out of turn and forgetting that you are not a mariner. It is perhaps unfair to ask you this in company, but from what Captain Pringle has told me, it appeared safe to anticipate your answer. With
Rambler
still absent and several prize crews not yet returned, we have fewer officers than I would like, and it is leaders we need on a night like this. Would you do us the honour of joining our little enterprise?’

It was a courteous enough request, but the unfairness was also obvious as the others all turned to look at him. Sergeant Dobson had strong opinions about volunteering and would no doubt stretch the boundaries of discipline to their limit in expressing them. The veteran had an equally strong sense of pride and a decidedly tribal attachment to the reputation of the company, the battalion and the army as a whole. Expecting and sympathising with the complaints, Williams knew that there was no real choice, both because of their duty and his confidence that a request could surely become an order if required. All that remained was to accede with grace.

Williams straightened up, coming to attention. ‘It will be an honour to serve under your command, sir,’ he said, and then bowed.

‘Excellent.’ Captain Hope looked genuinely pleased. ‘I trust we shall provide you with a diverting evening. Even if boarding ships is new to you, much of the fighting will be on shore and I doubt very much that you have much to learn on that score.’