A Mild Case of Indigestion

by Geoffrey Watson

  Mercedes did not stop to watch them go. She was impatient to inspect the results of her experiment with the complicated series of mines and she was not disappointed. The whole of the overhang had gone, leaving a sheer cliff face and a twenty-foot gap where the track had been. It was as if a mighty chisel had swept down, taking the track away and leaving a pile of debris on the far side.

  Thuner professed confidence in being able to climb across and in the morning, they would tie a rope to him and rig up a rope bridge when he made it to the other side. They would have to get across to collect all the muskets and kit that the French had left behind. That was assuming they hadn’t thrown it all into the valley before they left.

  In time, the partisans would be able to build a wooden drawbridge and have a genuine citadel from which to carry the fight to their invaders. For now, the Hornets would be busy tending their weapons and melting down a lot of French musket balls to recast in their scissor moulds. They needed to replace the ones expended in today’s fracas.

  CHAPTER 7

  The guerrilleros had returned to their new citadel. Lopez had been sent to report on all that had happened since the Hornets had arrived and the one-time blacksmith, El Martillo [the Hammer] came to see for himself.

  The sight of all the muskets, carbines and military kit left by the French, reduced him to spluttering speechlessness. His whole group of sixty men and half that number of women returned the next day to find that every man could select a musket and full set of cartridge pouches from among the hundreds surrendered. They also had enough remounts to ensure that no one would need to walk when going out to harass the enemy.

  The destruction of the cliff and the track left them awe-struck. Even more so when they were shown the site of the mass grave and the number of bodies they were told it contained. However, the fact that the Hornets had allowed four hundred Frenchmen to return to their units was quite beyond their understanding. They put it down to some strange aberration of their new friends, who were, after all, heathens and Protestants: contradiction though that might be.

  It was more a matter of feeling sympathy and sorrow for the brave English, who deserved better than eternal damnation. Surely they couldn’t entirely be denied salvation when they were helping to fight the hated French? Everyone knew that they were atheists and Jews to a man.

  El Martillo was a pragmatist. Very few of his band had been soldiers and when Welbeloved suggested that half-a-dozen of the Hornets would be happy to train them to use their new muskets properly and improve their marksmanship until they were at least as good as the French, he was more than happy to agree.

  His followers were soon less happy. They were very enthusiastic at first, but their instructors were perfectionists and the partisans had probably never worked so hard in their lives, perfecting their loading technique and firing at large targets, time after time after time. Their shoulders were bruised black and blue. Their mouths were foul from chewing gunpowder, when biting the balls out of the cartridges and spitting them into the barrels.

  After three days, it was possible to guarantee that half of them would get the sequence correct every time and hit a man sized target three times out of four at twenty-five yards.

  Even Lopez was able to benefit. He was allowed to practice with one of the Fergusons while Rifleman Hallam was recovering from a close acquaintance with a lucky French musket ball, which went through the flesh of his fore and upper arm. It was likely to be three or four weeks before the damaged flesh and muscle tissue recovered sufficiently for him to be able to hold the gun again and MacKay immediately press-ganged a more than willing Lopez into the Hornets.

  He was proving to be an apt pupil and had taken over and modified one of the voltigeur uniforms. He made a green cap out of one of the spare ones, copying the pattern that the Hornets used. As the uniform was quite faded, it was almost as effective as the dull buckskin colour worn by the Hornets, particularly when draped with Hallam’s dull leather shoulder belt, holding his powder flask and ball pouch. Once the brass buttons were replaced by cloth covered ones, he could fade into the background as well as the rest of them.

  Having placed the guerrilla band on a more military footing and established sentry duties, Welbeloved got El Martillo to start them working to strengthen the defences along the rim. He began to feel confident that no French force would be able, successfully to storm the defences and decided it was time to go out and look for trouble. If he could intercept any military supplies such as gunpowder, ammunition etc., he was sure the Hornets and the guerrilleros could put them to much better use than the French.

  It was a ten mile ride to get out by what they called the back door and they were then on the other side of a small mountain range. MacKay took ten men and went east, while Welbeloved took another ten and moved west. It wasn’t his intention that Mercedes and Isabella should accompany him, but she did insist very sweetly and he knew that they were both as good as the men in all ways save sheer strength and athleticism. They were also very good at holding and herding the horses if the men had to go on foot.

  He began to have misgivings as they approached a junction where two valleys merged into one. It was also the confluence of two large winter streams that, with the coming of summer, had settled down to become pretty little brooks.

  There were many places in the hills and valleys nearby where crops could be grown and animals grazed. This had encouraged the village to grow large enough to merit a small wooden church. The fact that it was not yet noon and thick smoke was rising from the church, was enough to strengthen his misgivings to the extent that he dismounted the men and sent the girls off with the horses. They were to keep them out of sight while the Hornets spread out and advanced cautiously to find out what was happening.

  Small orchards of peach and apricot and rows of ancient olive trees covered the slopes immediately above the village. The Hornets slipped through these until they could look down on a tiny plaza with some of the more substantial buildings around it and a pretty little three-way bridge spanning the junction of the two streams.

  A road led down from the plaza to join a bigger highway of packed dirt, coming up one side of the large valley and following the gentle slope down the other. The church was built on the flatter ground where the two roads met and was now blazing furiously with nobody attempting to do anything to fight the flames.

  Some explanation for this came to view when Welbeloved’s glass showed a small meadow just beyond and to the rear of the houses in the plaza. A group of horses was casually feeding on the grass. They were all wearing dark green shabraques and military saddles and looked to be unattended until two green-clad soldiers stepped into view, carrying armfuls of material which they dropped on a pile and went back the way they came.

  They looked like dragoons except for their headgear. Then he realised that they had hidden their polished helmets in canvas covers to protect the gleaming surface.

  It looked very much as though a foraging party of dragoons had come upon a previously undiscovered village and were in the process of looting it thoroughly. He shuddered at the thought of what might have happened at the church. Some of the French had a dreadful reputation for savagery in their dealings with people who objected to being plundered.

  He passed the glass to Sergeant Atkins, pointing out the meadow where the horses were grazing and where the French seemed to be piling their spoils. “I can’t see how many horses are there, Atkins. I don’t know how many dragoons there are in the village, but I’d bet on at least thirty. Take four of the men and circle round to the left. If yew get the chance to run off the horses, take it. If yew can catch any of the dragoons on their own, kill them but don’t shoot while they don’t know we are here. I shall circle round to the right and if neither of us can do anything useful, we’ll rendezvous at that clump of olive trees above the meadow. Is that clear?”

  “Aye, Sir. No shootin’ ‘til we ‘as to, then move towards the sound of the Fergusons, if we can, when it does start.
”

  He touched four shoulders and the men rose and followed him. Welbeloved beckoned the rest and moved down into the stream bed, following it until he could climb out at the other side about fifty yards farther on. There was cover available all the way in a circle round the burning church until they could drop into the bed of the main stream, not far below the meadow where the horses were grazing.

  The men spread out under the cover offered by the bank and he used his glass again to view the village from the other side. This time he saw more of the dragoons. They seemed to be using the largest of the houses now facing him across the plaza and were coming and going casually but steadily. The ones going in always making way for another coming out, who then went exploring for loot in the other buildings. No Spaniards were visible anywhere.

  He swung his glass back and did a quick count of the horses. There were nearer forty than thirty, but he noticed that half-a-dozen had carriers instead of saddles, which meant that his estimate of the number of dragoons was reasonably accurate. He moved the lens back to the village just in time to see a laden dragoon emerge from between the houses, straight into the arms of Sergeant Atkins. He revised his estimate downward by one.

  The incident gave him an idea. He brought the glass back and focussed carefully on the horses; moving from one to the other and grunting with amazed satisfaction.

  The one inflexible rule that he enforced on the Hornets when on active service was, never, ever do anything at any time without having their weapons instantly available. He had even had special slings fitted so that people like Thuner could use both their hands and have their Ferguson strapped to their back.

  The French hadn’t heard of Welbeloved’s Law. They had blithely assumed that they had quelled all resistance in the village and most of their carbines were holstered again by the saddles on their mounts while they attended to their looting.

  He jumped to his feet, calling to his five men. “Let’s go! The cretins have left most of their carbines with their horses. Keep close and make for the plaza. They look to be gathered mainly at that big house now facing us.

  They walked along the bank of the stream towards the backs of the houses facing the plaza. Two more dragoons walked into the meadow carrying plunder and were despatched by Atkins and his men as soon as they left the shelter of the village. Welbeloved called the sergeant over and told him of his discovery of the carbines on the horses. “Send two of yor men to move the horses into the trees at the top of the meadow, then spread yorselves out and shoot anyone trying to escape in this direction. We are going to find out what they are doing in yonder large house and if it is what I suspect, things are likely to get messy.”

  Atkins trotted off, calling to his men. Welbeloved’s small squad crept between two houses and hurried across the bridge onto the plaza. There they stopped, moving apart and facing the door of the house that was proving so popular with the French. There were four dragoons waiting to go in and another just about to step into the street.

  Welbeloved growled: “As yew stand, take yor targets from left to right. Shoot them!” The Fergusons spat viciously before he finished speaking and all five dragoons fell. “Bennett and Masters! Double round the back and make sure no-one gets out that way.”

  They were off like hares, disappearing behind the house before a horde of thoroughly alarmed dragoons erupted into the street to be welcomed by the deadly fire of Welbeloved and the remaining three Hornets.

  The first four went down immediately and the rest paused momentarily, horrified at the sight of so many bodies and not sure where the bullets were coming from. The hesitation was fatal as it allowed time for the Hornets to reload and four more collapsed, while the rest climbed over each other to get back inside.

  Two more shots were heard at the back of the house and two more in the direction of the meadow. Then there was silence until a carbine was pushed out of the window and fired wildly in the direction of the bridge.

  Evans had been waiting for some such attempt and the two shots were almost as one. The carbine clattered onto the ground outside.

  Welbeloved had been doing simple arithmetic in his head. He wasn’t sure exactly how many of the horses had worn saddles. Not many more than thirty he was certain. He could see thirteen bodies by the door and Evans had just shot the carbine wielder. Atkins had disposed of three and there had been two shots at the back of the house and two more in the meadow. If he heard a shot he was quite confident that there was a body, and his calculation told him that there were no more than ten or eleven, either in the house or still engaged in looting the other houses.

  Any sensible officer who had lost two-thirds of his force would try and negotiate, but not if he thought he was up against Spanish partisans. The last thing any French soldier would do was surrender to the guerrilla bands and suffer a prolonged and painful death.

  O’Malley had been keeping his wits about him and watching all round. He suddenly swung his rifle round, nearly taking Welbeloved’s head off, and fired at a dragoon who had stepped from a house not twenty yards away. The carbine he was aiming hit the ground and he fell on top of it.

  “Well done O’Malley. I’m glad someone was awake. Keep yor eyes open, everyone.”

  “T’ink nuttin’ of it, Sor. T’was my own head I was savin’, to be sure. After all, Dai Evans here can only t’ink of wan t’ing at a toime.”

  The two were the best of friends, but forever arguing about every thing. Welbeloved stepped in to stop a heated rejoinder from Evans.

  “It was my fault as much as anyone, O’Malley, but that is no excuse for trying to shoot my ear off!”

  “Dat was not my intention at all, Sor. It was your head between me an’ the target, so it was.”

  It was time to stop the repartee and Welbeloved saw movement in the doorway. “Watch yor front, everybody!” Three women were thrust out of the door, followed by an officer and two men, all holding the women by the hair and with the officer and one of the other men holding pistols to their heads. The officer was shouting something that Welbeloved was in no mood to translate.

  “Evans! Take the man with the pistol! I’ll take the officer. Only shoot when yew can see enough to kill him. Yew other two can shoot any bit of the other man that yew can see after we’ve dealt with the men with the pistols.” He offered up a quick prayer to the Goddess that the men would not be distracted by the fact that all the women were completely naked.

  His was probably the easier shot as the officer showed almost the whole of his face while he shouted and the range was less than forty yards. He squeezed the trigger gently and the shouting stopped abruptly.

  Evans could only see part of the face of the soldier and that was partly obscured by the pistol he was holding to the woman’s head. He wasn’t reckoned the best shot in the Hornets for nothing though. His ball hit the barrel of the pistol and smashed it backwards into the face of the dragoon, leaving him twitching and jerking on the ground.

  The third man gave his hostage a savage push and rushed back to the safety of the door. Two balls from O’Malley and Ryan threw him onto the heap of corpses already lying there.

  Welbeloved was on his feet, bellowing in his now quite fluent Spanish at the three women, trying to get them to run towards him and out of the line of fire. They staggered to their feet and stumbled along together; a tall, sturdy girl helping to support the other two.

  Sergeant Atkins and two of his men trotted over the bridge driving a couple of dragoons in front of them. “Caught another one trying to escape down the stream bed, Sir. He’s dead. Then I had the horses brought back to the meadow and we went hunting in the village. These two gave up as soon as they saw us and I think they said that there ain’t any more in the village except those you are playing with now.”

  “That’s well done, Sergeant. Get these two stripped and on their faces and tie their hands. Then send someone to fetch the Condesa as quickly as yew can.

  He turned to the three women who had almost reached him. The
tall girl, he noticed, was very well formed and would have been pretty but for a terribly bruised and swollen face. “Keep them moving Señora. Take them down by the stream in case the French still have any guns.”

  She looked at him calmly as she helped the others past. “They don’t have any more guns, Señor. You killed the man with the musket and the two with pistols. There are only three or four left in there and I would like you to take them and give them to me before they are killed. Also I am not married; I am Señorita.”

  Welbeloved saluted gravely. “Thankyou for telling me Señorita. I have sent for my wife to help, so please go down by the stream and wait for her.”

  He turned back. “Let’s go and get them, men. Load and fix bayonets. If they are holding sabres, shoot them. If they surrender, take them outside, strip them and tie them. Ryan! Go round and in through the back door, collecting Bennett and Masters on the way. Same rules apply, but bring out all the women yew find and take them over to the lass down there by the stream. Collect any clothes yew can find, even the Frog uniforms. Anything for them to cover themselves again.”

  Ryan trotted off around the back and Welbeloved and the six Hornets advanced rapidly on the front of the building, fully alert in case the señorita had been mistaken about the guns.

  The door was ajar and Atkins was the first through, kicking it open and finding a dragoon just inside with his sabre raised ready to try and decapitate him. Atkins had also guessed what the dragoons had been doing, having been with the Hornets when they had first been sent to Spain and had come across a similar atrocity. He ‘accidentally’ aimed low and shot the man in the belly, stepping across his writhing body ready to plunge his bayonet into the next man.

  The other three turned and ran to the back just as that door crashed open and Ryan thrust his bayonet viciously into the guts of the leading man. The other two dropped their sabres and screamed for quarter. They were led outside, made to strip and lie face down on the ground.