Send Me Safely Back Again (40 page)

‘Watch where you’re going!’ yelled an ensign with green facings on his jacket.

‘Bloody Dons!’ commented a sergeant, the head of his half-pike thrust into the ground as he leaned over to fill his canteen.

‘Stop that fellow!’ called Baynes, but whether deliberately or not the merchant was some way behind. Soldiers looked up. It was hot and all suspected the battle would soon resume. No one
was in a hurry to rush and obey the orders of strangers, and especially a civilian.

Hanley reined in, his horse half turning and throwing up a spray of dust as it stopped. He kicked his feet free of the stirrups and sprang down, drawing a pistol from his belt. The hammer slid back into place with a click and he folded his left arm so that he could rest the barrel to aim carefully.

The ensign saw what he was doing. ‘Hey there, steady on. No need to start trouble when the Frogs are friendly.’

Baynes came up behind him.

‘Be careful,’ the merchant said, ignoring the snub-nosed young officer.

Hanley had never killed anyone, and rarely fired a weapon in anger. He hoped he was not about to find out what it felt like.

Velarde was forty yards away, a great distance for a pistol, even one like this whose barrel was rifled.

A French sergeant was staring at him, hands twitching as he held his musket, and it was clear the man was ready to act and tell his men to fight if the English broke the unofficial truce. The man did not care about arguments between allies.

Hanley fired, and felt the strong kick of the carefully loaded pistol.

Velarde jerked with the blow, hand going back to press against the top of his left thigh.

‘That was either a very good or a very poor shot,’ said Baynes. The French sergeant had his musket almost up to his shoulder, but when the English officer held up his hands he told his men to stand down.

‘It was luck,’ said Hanley. He put a foot in the stirrup and grabbed the top of the saddle.

‘Yes, well, I believe a man could still take that either way.’ Baynes tried to catch his eye and was pleased when Hanley turned and looked at him, his expression betraying no emotion. ‘It should help him to convince them.’

‘And if he does not?’ asked Hanley.

‘Well then, I should imagine a bullet in the bum will be the least of his worries, don’t you?’

‘The north,’ said King Joseph firmly. ‘Attack straight up the valley on the left of their position and then swing round to destroy the rest of their army. It is simple. If we attack the hill we give the advantage to the English. Why take more losses? If you must fight then outflank them.’ The King smiled, his round face intelligent and full of concern. ‘But I really do not see why we need fight at all.’

Espinosa had rarely seen the King so firm in an opinion on a military matter. His chief of staff, Marshal Jourdan, repeated the same advice.

‘We do not need to fight, but surely a flanking attack is the only sensible way if we do.’ General Sebastiani was just as cautious, leaving Marshal Victor heavily outnumbered. The King of Spain and the French commanders stood on the lower hill, and could clearly see the British troops on the high ground to the west and in the plain below them.

‘The Emperor would want us to attack,’ said Victor, playing a strong card. He had always been known for his optimism. The title Duke of Belluno, an Italian town whose name literally meant ‘beautiful moon’, was said to be a pun by the Emperor’s sister on his old nickname of ‘Sunshine’. She disapproved of the shape of Marshal Victor’s legs in the court dress of breeches and silk stockings.

‘My brother would want us to win,’ said Joseph. In truth it was hard to know what his younger brother wanted, save that it would always be more than was humanly possible. ‘If we pull back behind the River Alberche – to the very position chosen with such skill by the Duke of Belluno – we shall repulse any attack they make. It was your plan just five days ago and should be our plan now.’

Espinosa could feel the caution growing stronger, the vacillating King ready to avoid taking the risk of fighting. He wondered whether he should show them the copies of the dispatches
brought back by Velarde. Surely the real ones must have arrived by now?

An ADC galloped up the hill to join them just moments later. Papers were passed to a senior staff officer, and then to Marshal Jourdan. Junior men waited uneasily, not knowing what they would be called upon to make happen as soon as a decision was reached. Jourdan handed the letters to Victor and then whispered the contents to his own master.

‘Is there now any doubt as to what we must do?’ asked Marshal Victor once the report had circulated. ‘Soult is late, and your capital in danger, sire. We must crush the English here, this very afternoon, and drive off the Spanish so that you can return and deal with the army coming from the south. The English are the key. Your brother says that. Destroy them and your kingdom will be safe.’

Espinosa hoped he would not tip the balance too far, but decided it was worth causing one more worry for Marshal Jourdan.

‘There is another English force to the north-west of Madrid. Small, my lord, but with enough men to take the city even if they cannot hold it long.’

‘You know this definitely?’ asked Joseph, when told the news.

‘Yes, sire. One of my men rode across from the enemy this afternoon to tell me. He risked his life and was wounded during his escape.’

‘Badly?’ Joseph’s face radiated genuine concern. Espinosa knew him to be a sensitive, intelligent and kindly man, even if he had the morals of a Bonaparte.

‘Uncomfortably, sire.’

King Joseph chuckled. ‘Oh dear. Well, we must be sure to decorate him. Where is he now?’

‘Having his wound dressed.’

‘Good. See that he has everything he needs to make him comfortable.’ A true monarch, Joseph readily dismissed the matter from his mind. ‘Well, gentlemen, that leaves us no other choice. We will fight, but shall we manoeuvre around their left
or attack from the front?’ Espinosa noted that the certainty of earlier was gone. The decision made, the King appeared to lose interest in the detail.

‘There is no time, sire. The day is already half spent. Part of my corps will advance through the valley to the north, but the main attack must come against their centre and it must be made with all our strength. Nothing must be held back. The English are raw soldiers and badly led. We surprised them twice yesterday. Pound them with our guns for an hour and then we will march through them, shatter them and take that damned hill. If we can’t do that, then we ought to give up soldiering!’

A single French gun fired from the top of the hill. The shot bounced on the slope below Sir Arthur Wellesley and his staff and then skidded just to the right, frightening some of the horses.

‘Is General Anson in position?’ asked Sir Arthur.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Murray, his glass fixed on the light dragoons moving to the far end of the valley to the north.

‘And the Spanish?’

‘Occupying the far side of the valley now, Sir Arthur.’ The general had decided that his left looked vulnerable. He had no infantry to spare, but General Cuesta immediately responded to his request and sent Spanish battalions marching north behind their ally to reinforce the position. Cavalry regiments were following, to bolster the numbers of the British horsemen moving into the mouth of the valley. Almost as appreciated was a battery of twelve-pounder cannons, twice the weight of anything the British had with them. The oxen drawing two of these big guns were at that moment being goaded up the slope of the Medellín.

‘I believe we are ready,’ said Sir Arthur.

The signal gun reloaded, the sixty French guns thundered out a new salvo. Most were aimed at the men on the plain where there was no cover, but a dozen or more still pounded the Medellín itself.

‘Give the order to lie down.’ His brigade commanders would
probably already do this on their own initiative. The order was simply to make sure that it was done and he lost no men unnecessarily. Almost no armies in the world let their men lie down to shelter from artillery fire because it smacked of cowardice and they were not sure the men would be willing to get to their feet and fight when the time came. Sir Arthur thought such ideas folly and had no doubts about the fighting spirit of his men.

The cannon thundered across the valley.

‘God help us,’ said a staff officer under his breath. Clouds of smoke began to drift towards the Portina stream once again.

Hanley waited for his chance to speak to Murray.

‘May I return to my battalion, sir?’

‘If you wish. We should not need you.’

‘Feeling guilty?’ asked Baynes. ‘It is not a useful emotion.’

Murray glared at the merchant, who could not understand how a soldier felt.

Hanley simply shrugged, and set his horse off downhill.

26

‘A
nd the soldiers likewise demanded of him saying, “And what shall we do?”’ intoned Billy Pringle as they sat around the dying fire. He had a mug of tea in his hand, and knew that Private Jenkins was pretending to clean Pringle’s sword while watching his officer to see that he drank.

Williams took up the quote. ‘And he said unto them, “Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely, and be content with your wages.”’

‘That last would be so much easier if we were actually paid,’ said Truscott.

‘Yes, the doing violence to no man may also prove a little hard to achieve today,’ added Pringle. He took a sip, grimaced, and passed the mug to Williams.

‘Well, at least we should not have any trouble to avoid making false accusations,’ said Williams, before taking a good few gulps of the tea. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Jenkins smiling encouragingly at the setting of so good an example to his own officer.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ declared Truscott. ‘I believe friend Pringle here is getting heavier.’

Pringle had lifted a bowl and was spooning up the contents with the greatest reluctance. They had been issued grain, but there were not enough mills and so most had boiled it like rice. It was better than no food at all, or at least that was what they had to tell themselves. The captain’s distaste was obvious.

‘More tea?’ said Williams maliciously.

‘Looks like the French are eating rather better.’ Truscott set
down his cup and pointed with his one arm towards the enemy lines, where smoke rose from thousands of cooking fires. ‘Nice of them to stop the battle for lunch.’

Hopwood had overheard them. ‘Would it not have been more fitting to speak of gentlemen in England now a-bed et cetera?’

‘A-bed at two in the afternoon?’ said Williams. ‘The lazy dogs.’

‘What I would not give for a feather bed,’ said Pringle wistfully, ‘and a good plum pudding.’

‘And?’ Truscott expected more.

‘I am too tired and hungry for the and!’

The drums began to beat.

‘Stand to!’ bellowed Sergeant Major Fisher.

Pringle took one more tiny sip of tea to please his servant and tossed the rest into the dry grass.

The 3rd Battalion of Detachments formed line two deep at the rear of the brigade. Ahead of them were the 1/45th with their deep green regimental Colour and facings, and farther to the left the 2/31st with buff-coloured facings and a yellow flag. The brigade – Major General MacKenzie’s own, although he now also commanded the division – had crossed the Portina and then not reformed into the correct order, so that the senior corps, the 31st, was not in the place of honour on the right. The 3rd Battalion were the most junior even of the temporary regiments in the army. They would normally be in the centre of the brigade, but today the general had decided to form a second line and this had fallen to their lot. Williams remembered how on so many occasions he had tried to explain the rules of seniority to Hanley. It was doubtful his friend even now comprehended the matter, but it was really so absurdly simple. He wondered where Hanley was; it would have been good to see him. Truscott and Pringle no doubt felt the same. A man liked to have his friends near by on a day like this.

Ahead of the brigade were two battalions of His Majesty’s Foot Guards and he was sure they never questioned the system,
or their own place at its summit. The Guards were forming with a good deal more formality and shouting than a line battalion. They were excellent soldiers, but somehow strange and alien. Williams knew that Bonaparte recruited his own Imperial Guard from the ranks of the rest of the army. It was hard to imagine such a system working with King George’s men.

The Guards were the rightmost – and so senior – part of the First Division, whose remaining three brigades took the front line up on to the slopes of the Medellín. General Hill’s Second Division remained on the Medellín itself. They had repulsed the night attack and the one this morning. From the distance Williams and the others had seen little of the fighting. It was said that there were heavy losses, although those of the French were higher.

‘Battalion will incline to the right by companies. Forward march!’ The sergeant major’s voice carried with ease and brooked no argument. Each company wheeled on its right marker, and turned to face ninety degrees so that now instead of a line they were in a column of eight small lines all facing to the right.