A Mild Case of Indigestion

by Geoffrey Watson

  A Mild Case Of Indigestion

  Geoffrey Watson

  Napoleon’s Spanish Ulcer

  Book 2

  Copyright © 2012 Geoffrey Watson

  All Rights Reserved.

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  PROLOGUE

  H.M. Brig-of-War Daphne moved south, close-hauled into a stiff breeze, with the coastal mountains of northwestern Spain looming over the larboard bow in the rapidly fading light of a late May evening. Her Master and Commander, Captain Edward Parsons eyed the setting sun almost sitting on the horizon over the starboard quarter and called for the canvas to be reduced to topsails, driver and jibs.

  Only five months had passed since the battered British army of Sir John Moore had turned at bay at La Coruña and given a bloody nose to the pursuing French soldiers of Marshal Soult; winning sufficient time to embark the remains of the tattered force before the overwhelming numbers of the French, following on behind; could force them into a humiliating defeat and surrender.

  After the evacuation, the jubilant French had flooded eastwards and southwards to consolidate their hold on Galicia, Asturias and northern Portugal. They also had the imperative need to feed themselves; something that Napoleon and his Marshals required them to do almost entirely from the countries they conquered or through which they passed.

  A mountainous country like Spain had always had problems producing enough food for its own people. Now, thousands of scavenging soldiers would ensure that any winter stores of food would vanish like snow in summer. Whole provinces would go hungry until the harvests, later in the year.

  Parsons had no desire to alert an angry garrison in any of the coastal towns. The less the French knew about his mission, the better for everyone’s peace of mind. He did however have quite a number of horses to land and he needed to come alongside a jetty to achieve that. Any jetty would do, as long as there was enough water alongside for his Brig to swim. It would therefore be necessary to land a small party to find out where this could be done without interference.

  Welbeloved and his Brown Hornets; the Avispónes Morenos that had become part of Spanish folk law during the autumn and the terrible winter retreat to La Coruña; were returning to the Iberian Peninsular.

  In April, Lt. General Sir Arthur Wellesley had also returned to Lisbon, to take command of the tiny British army and whatever Portuguese regiments that could be raised. Together, they had fewer than forty thousand men, whereas Napoleon’s armies in Iberia counted more than ten times that number. Wellesley’s limited objectives were to try and clear the French from Portugal and then seek government permission to lend support to any Spanish attempts to fight their common enemy.

  On the face of it, it was an almost impossible task. He had not only to face French armies of over ten times his own strength, but they were the armies that had already decisively crushed all the European armies sent against them.

  Wellesley commanded what was effectively the only British army available. If it were to be beaten decisively, only the Royal Navy would stand between his country and French conquest.

  There were many in England who thought he might last as long as Sir John Moore had before having to evacuate. Few gave him longer. He was going to have to hoard his soldiers’ lives like a miser.

  He had only three real advantages. He had already beaten the French at Vimeiro the previous year and was confident that his men would win on anything like equal terms.

  He could rely on the Royal Navy to keep his army supplied with all its needs.

  The French could never concentrate more than a fraction of their total force against him. Their army groups had to disperse to hold down all regions of this hostile and mountainous land. Any concentrated force over fifty thousand had to keep moving to fresh regions or face starvation in a very short time. Throughout Spain there were groups of armed and desperate men who had joined together to fight the invaders in a guerrilla or little war. Very quickly it became almost impossible for parties of French soldiers less than fifty strong, to move about the country without being attacked.

  CHAPTER 1

  Captain Welbeloved R.N. relaxed and sat back, watching with fascination mixed with enormous satisfaction and pride, as his bride of only a few weeks completely dominated the assembled company. The Alcalde and leading citizens of the town and fishing port of Ribadeo were seated together around the large table spread with the remains of the banquet { mostly fresh fish in view of French depredations }thrown in honour of their visitors.

  Mercedes would of course have been received with deference in her own right as the Condesa de Alba. However her recent exploits against the French in this very area, in concert with Welbeloved and the Brown Hornets had established her as much of a legend as the Hornets themselves, throughout the northern provinces of Spain and down into León and Castille.

  Following their wedding in February, she had casually informed him that he would of course be accorded the courtesy title of Conde whenever they were in Spain. This had come as a surprise. He was an ex-American loyalist, born in Maine, and the elevation both amused and embarrassed him. It also caused her to laugh delightedly when he enquired whether he should be known as El Conde Bienquerido. Her assurance that he would always be her well beloved lord was a treasured memory; particularly when he recalled the way she had promptly set out to prove her contention in a very personal and amorous way.

  He looked around the table at the worthies and their ladies hanging on every word she said, while he was able to sit quietly and consider his next moves. The party landed from Daphne had slipped into the town to find that the French had been moving out of Asturias and Galicia during the last week and heading south. No one knew why, although the country all around had by now been swept bare of all food except the fish brought in by the still considerable fleet of fishing boats.

  The brig had been moved into the estuary and tied up alongside the jetty while Parsons had driven his people to unload the horses and riflemen, swill and pump the vessel clean, sway up the great guns from the hold and secure them back in the spaces that had been used to stable the horses on the voyage from England. The sooner she was a fighting vessel once more, the happier Parsons would be.

  The rest of the cargo was also brought ashore and moved into the storage provided by the Alcalde. Ramon Hickson, half-Spanish and built like a bull, would now celebrate his recent promotion to Corporal by being left in charge as acting quartermaster. He would issue the muskets, ammunition, clothing and equipment in strict accordance with written instructions from Welbeloved, to be presented by chosen partisans, once they had committed themselves wholeheartedly to fighting the French invaders.

  Welbeloved hoped to make this the first permanent depot to be set up to service the partisan groups around Spain. The first of such bands that the Hornets had met up with last autumn had been little better than brigands, preying on French and Spaniards alike merely to remain alive. When he had led them to capture horses, arms and equipment from the French; he had set them up with the means to fight and organise th
eir resistance. Now he was bringing arms, ammunition and equipment, courtesy of the British Government, to supply to the guerrilleros whenever he could satisfy himself that they wouldn’t become just another band of robbers.

  The locals had already told him of an active group close at hand in the mountains south of the town, led by someone styling himself El Marquisito. The Alcalde had been almost approving of these wild men: an indication perhaps that they were supporting rather than harassing the local population. He speculated on whether there was any connection with the Marqués de San Palo. He had left the Marqués here last January and he had then indicated that he would be moving south together with the several hundred Spanish infantry and cavalry who had elected to stay on when the British army had been evacuated.

  His own men had been recruited mostly from the Marines and the Navy, although he had been quite happy to seek out suitable material from farther afield to make up the numbers of the small company now in training with Captain Lord Vere back in Scotland. They were all officially classed as Marines. The Army had decided that it would rather not have anything to do with them since one of their original patrons, the Duke of York had been forced to resign over the scandal of his mistress selling cheap commissions to her friends and admirers.

  The Navy Board now held them on their books as ‘Employed on a Particular Service.’ Welbeloved, who also held a mainly honorary rank as Colonel of Marines, was quite content with this arrangement, which gave him freedom of action, not subject to interference from anyone other than the Admiralty and Admiral Harrison in particular, the original sponsor of his project.

  He now commanded the thirty proven and deadly fighters who were presently with him, and another thirty being put through the toughest training he could devise in Scotland; by Lord Vere, his second in command, and Sergeant (ex-Corporal) Dodds assisting.

  Hopefully, most of the trainees would survive the regime they were undergoing at the moment and join him in Spain within the next month or so. In the meantime, the original company, with Corporal Atkins now made up to Sergeant and Lieutenant MacKay, formed the core of his fighting strength. MacKay had been with him in most of his adventures since the siege of Acre almost ten years ago now. One of his hardest tasks had been to persuade the six-foot Scottish marine to accept his well-deserved commission. He had long been most reluctant, but now seemed to be coming to terms with his elevation to gentleman.

  As a boy, Welbeloved had followed his father, who acted as a scout for Captain Patrick Ferguson in the American wars. This officer had patented and equipped his own company with an excellent breech-loading rifle for use against the rebels with their local long-barrelled Kentucky and Lancaster Valley rifles. Welbeloved had inherited the rifle when his father was killed and had since prevailed upon the Nock Company of London to make further small batches for the special unit he had raised.

  To his sorrow, he had also seen what excellent targets the red coats of the English soldiers had made for the backwoodsmen of the colonists. The uniforms of his men reflected his experience. They were woven in the same colours as the buckskin coats of the American snipers and the men were trained as hunters who should never be seen by their ‘prey’. A kind of super light-infantryman who had quickly become, of necessity, a cavalryman as well.

  On their first visit to Spain it had become obvious that they needed to become more mobile. It was a large mountainous country and they had very quickly acquired horses to enable them to strike at the enemy over much greater distances.

  The unwilling donors in the first place, had been a troop of dragoons. It was their dark green shabraques and riding cloaks that his men had retained, together with their long cavalry swords in case they had to fight from horseback. They still wore their flat bonnets although these had since been reinforced with a boiled and hardened leather inner cap. A simple profile outline of a hornet with sting extended had now been adopted as their badge, placed on the side of their bonnets and embroidered on the rear corners of the shabraques.

  Altogether; when compared with mounted soldiers of any army in the world; as drab and inoffensive a crew as ever a Frenchman might have nightmares about. Difficult to see in most types of countryside, the thirty men together could deliver over one hundred aimed shots every minute against any enemy foolish enough to attack them. Each marksman could be relied on to hit a man-sized target up to four hundred yards distant, which ability was shared by the Condesa and Isabella, her maid/companion, both of whom had had ample practice last autumn against the troops of General Tasselot.

  At that time, they had worn uniforms taken from two of the Hornets who had been killed. Now they were dressed in similar fashion, with modestly divided skirts instead of the standard trousers of the men

  Welbeloved had been adamant that the Condesa should not return to Spain before the French had been expelled. He now admitted that in this laudable and sensible ambition he had not taken into account the forceful personality and determination of his new bride. Indeed, he should have known all about this from the very first moment he met her, when she was driving gangs of volunteers to erect defences against the French around Madrid.

  She had pointed out, quite reasonably, that a general from the invading forces had taken over her lands and estates in Spain. Moreover, when he was eventually driven out, which she had every intention that he should be, there was every likelihood that a member of a duplicitous local junta would seize his chance and her birthright in her absence.

  Anyway, he really ought to concern himself more, as the estates in question were just as much his as hers, since he had foolishly agreed to marry her. “Is that not right, my dearling?”

  The fact that he was wealthy enough from prize money to have a small estate of his own in England, was of no consequence whatever and typical of a man’s illogical reasoning. Mercedes was therefore now glorying in the adulation of the entire Corporation of Ribadeo and their wives, while her maid was devoting herself to scheming how to wrap the large docile bulk of Corporal Ramon Hickson round her tiny finger.

  The corporal seemed strangely willing to let himself be manipulated by the scheming minx, and the fearsome fighter became as placid as a gelded bull whenever she was close by. One of the reasons why Welbeloved was leaving him in charge of the depot was in order to separate them for a while. Mercedes was no help at all. She seemed almost to encourage the girl, a kind of woman to woman bond that her husband; a mere man; could not possibly be expected to understand.

  Lieutenant Hamish MacKay, seated across the table from the Condesa, watched her effortless control of the social scene. This was his very first attendance at such an occasion and he had been in some trepidation about how he should behave and how his fellow guests would react to an officer who in naval terms, had come up through the hawsehole.

  He now wondered why he should have been so concerned. Being Spanish, the guests were quite unaware of the social distinctions in British society and regarded him without exception as an heroic figure come to help drive out the hated invaders. The wives, in particular, looked upon his tall figure and craggy features and vied with each other to catch his eye and gain his approval, much to the amusement of the Condesa, who had always had an almost maternal interest in him.

  The gathering was breaking up and Welbeloved was talking quietly in his ear. “Better to get back down to the quay, Hamish. The horses need some gentle exercise after their confinement. Why don’t yew and Atkins take a couple of parties on a gentle reconnaissance around the town, just to make sure the Frogs haven’t left any stragglers behind? I want to move south at first light.”

  “Aye aye sir. I was sure that was what you would want. The men are waiting for me to get back to have a wee trot roond the toon. Be back in three or four hours if you’ll excuse me noo.”

  Welbeloved beamed. MacKay was normally a man of few words and the fact that he had so quickly assumed the responsibility of his new rank and was using his brains to anticipate Welbeloved’s wishes, confirmed his decision to ha
ve him commissioned.

  “Away with yew then. I’ll arrange stabling and billeting in the Alcalde’s warehouse for when yew all get back.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Riding south, up the valley of the river Eo, should have been as pleasant and relaxing as could be expected in the middle of enemy occupied territory. Instead, the winds sweeping in from the Atlantic over the mountains were bringing storm clouds hurrying eastwards. As is the way with storm clouds crossing mountains, they were shedding their moisture. Mostly, it seemed, on the heads of the small squadron of horsemen moving steadily up the valley and into the hills, which would become the Sierra de Meira in the next ten miles.

  The little town of Meira was another twenty miles along the road towards the walled town of Lugo, where Sir John Moore had made a brief halt during his retreat to the sea. If the French had indeed evacuated the area, Welbeloved intended to rest in Meira for the night. The forty-mile climb from Ribadeo was little enough as a day’s ride for horse soldiers, but would be enough for their mounts, only now free from ten days confined aboard ship.

  Assuming that the local guerrilleros of El Marquisito were reasonably well organised, they ought to be aware that a group of strange cavalrymen was travelling south, and a night stop at Meira would give them an opportunity to make contact.

  However, if the Hornets were taken for another troop of Frenchmen, then life could become very interesting. This was why Welbeloved was swearing quietly to himself. Given better visibility, he was confident that his men would quickly become aware of any observers in the hills along the road. In these conditions of intermittent pouring rain, his advance guard had to pay the closest attention to any possible ambush sites within a hundred yards of the road. The nature of the terrain meant that there were plenty of those and the consequent delays could keep them on the road until dark.

  Worst of all, really heavy rain took the modern soldier straight back to the days before bows and arrows. No flintlock could be relied upon to work in a downpour; leaving hand to hand combat as the only remaining option. For a specialised unit that relied on its devastatingly superior firepower, torrential rain was the greatest leveller of all. It was also the most uncomfortable. Even the superb riding cloaks they wore eventually became saturated along with the rest of their clothes.