While Juanita was translating this into Spanish/English, the chasseurs were stripping off tunics, overalls and shakos. MacKay had decided that they could retain their shirts and breeches and boots for the ten-mile march to the next town. The partisans already had more uniforms than they could use and it was only to maintain the tradition the Hornets had started that they still bothered. There was though, a certain malice in letting them keep their boots. They were all designed for riding and the state of their feet after walking ten miles was likely to be as bad as if they had worn nothing at all.
The chasseurs buried their two dead and marched off eastwards. MacKay studied all the documents and decided to send them on after Welbeloved. If he could pass them on to Wellesley, they might know more about cracking the code than the Hornets did.
Rabuteau proved himself quite philosophical about his second encounter with the Hornets and the loss of his documents. He told them how angry Marshals Soult and Ney were about the failed assault on the camp. More so Marshal Ney, whose men they had been. Over six hundred French soldiers who would never be returning home. The main recipient of everyone’s displeasure however, was the officer in charge of the attack, a one-armed colonel of dragoons of the Imperial Guard named Roussillon, who would probably have been a general by now, but for his misfortune while commanding the cavalry in the ill-fated campaign to try and outflank Sir John Moore on the way to La Coruña.
Even then, it was the Hornets who had thwarted that attempt and caused him to lose his hand. MacKay pricked up his ears at the news. He was one of the few people who knew that it was Roussillon at the head of his dragoons who had murdered Welbeloved’s first wife and daughter in Italy. He also knew that it was the Condesa’s hasty shot that had hit Roussillon’s sword arm and saved Welbeloved’s life only six months ago.
The news that Roussillon had lost his hand in that encounter would be of interest to Welbeloved, but would not alter his resolve to destroy the man responsible for the cold blooded slaughter of his wife and child. He would be sure to get some satisfaction from the knowledge that it was his new wife who had crippled him and that the complete failure of the flanking attempt had marred his career and spoiled his prospects for promotion.
There was little more they could get out of Rabuteau and they sent him off riding after his trudging chasseurs. They even left him the new cheap sabre that he had acquired at Soult’s headquarters. If the sight of an almost untouched Rabuteau caused any adverse feelings among his thoroughly humiliated and footsore escort, MacKay was quite prepared to grit his teeth and suppress any remorse that perhaps he ought to feel.
The band, with their captured horses, made their way back to their temporary camp overlooking the town and spent the rest of the day resting, relaxing and observing the activity below. It was noticeable that his little group of Spaniards was in tearing high spirits, even though not one of them had fired a shot. The simple fact that they had helped capture twice their own numbers of invincible French soldiers, had done wonders for their self-esteem. Doing it with no casualties and with only three shots fired had taught them more about guerrilla warfare than their whole band had learned in the past year. MacKay was delighted with their disciplined performance.
The rest of the Hornets, including two of the convalescents, came in during the night and El Martillo with fifty of his men followed in the morning. At dawn, MacKay gathered all the Hornets together and told them what he intended for the following night, pointing out his objectives on a rough model he had made on a bare patch of sandy soil. Gomez with the five other Spaniards and the girls were included in the briefing and their part in the venture explained to them by Hickson. A rota was then set for them to watch the town, noting down particularly the number of armed men arriving and not leaving before dark.
When the rest of the partisans arrived he told them that it was his intention to take control of the town at four o’clock the next morning. Using Hickson again he explained exactly what he was expecting of them. The rest of the afternoon was taken up by going over and over their part in the attack and laying down rigid rules of behaviour that he expected of everyone who hoped to be associated with the Hornets in future actions.
Towards evening, all except the watchers double-checked kit and weapons then retired to rest; sleep if they could; until two o’clock when they would move out.
Diego Navarro, the blacksmith, was waiting at his forge. He greeted them quietly but like long lost brothers and led them to a large house built hard up against the outside of the town wall. It was only two floors high, but a window on the upper floor opened right by the wall, only ten feet from the top. The original mortar pointing between the stone blocks had long since disappeared, leaving plentiful finger grips for Thuner, who went up in seconds and secured a knotted rope at the top.
Ten minutes after entering the building the Hornets were spread along the crumbling walkway of the old battlements and could make their way to one of the sets of steps leading down into the town. Immediately splitting into five groups, they had twenty minutes to reach the five guarded gaps each had noted carefully the night before.
At four o’clock; according to their observations two nights ago; all the sentries would be relieved. Each group was charged with removing the ones on watch and then dealing with their replacements when they turned up to change places.
According to Navarro, there were up to a hundred and twenty men holding the castle. Half of them stood sentry in turn every night, with fifty occupying the guard room by the west gate and supplying watchmen for their own gate and the five gaps in the walls. The eastgate had its own small garrison of ten men.
MacKay saw his raiding parties off and made his own way towards the westgate, where there ought to be up to thirty men resting between their turns on watch duty.
One of the partisans went with each group of Hornets and watched with fascination and awe as they crept up on the unsuspecting men and dealt with them lethally, each in his own preferred way, before assuming their shakos and waiting for two more victims to walk into their arms in the dark.
MacKay had watched as the ten men of the new detail had ambled sleepily past on the way to meet their fate. They were so complacent and inattentive that he felt sure that he could have attacked and killed at least half of them before they realised their peril. He stared at the gatehouse in the quarterlight. The sky to the east was just beginning to suggest the approach of the sun. There were three figures to be seen dimly, possibly a sergeant or corporal with two sentries.
All the sentries at the gaps in the walls had been despatched with barely a struggle and El Martillo’s men poured through the two entrances nearest to the eastgate. It was their responsibility to kill or capture the ten men guarding the gate, while the Hornets dealt with the small remaining garrison at the westgate.
MacKay’s men made their way through the town to join him. They brought half-a-dozen shakos with them and ambled towards the guardroom in imitation of the way the outgoing detail had gone on duty, with their rifles slung on their shoulders.
Having seen their dim shakoed outline, the corporal gave his attention to other things and a line of lantern light appeared as he opened the door to go inside. He was assisted in this by MacKay’s arm round his neck and the point of his knife pricking him just above his kidney.
The other two sentries were swiftly dealt with and the Hornets crowded in after him to see a long room lit by a single lantern and with two rows of sleeping men lying side by side along each side wall.
There had been little noise, but the scuffle had attracted some attention, and cries of alarm awakened more of them to grope for their weapons and kit. MacKay looked for Thuner and found him at his elbow. “Tell them to be silent and lie still or be shot!” Thuner complied, translating the order, and with eight or nine rifles pointing at them there was immediate compliance.
Just as they were and leaving their weapons, they were taken one by one out of the guardroom and directed through the gate and over
the bridge with the promise that fifty vengeful guerrilleros would be hunting them as soon as it was fully light.
Most of them had been sleeping without their boots on, though this seemed to make little difference to the speed with which they disappeared from sight. They were on the other side of the river from the castle, but MacKay didn’t think they would manage to seek sanctuary there, other than through the gate within the town walls. Not that he was concerned. Thirty unarmed men would be more of an embarrassment than a help to the occupiers of the castle, who as yet seemed unaware that the town had slipped from their control.
He knew that there were fifty or sixty men still left in the stronghold and he left Hickson to position the men in cover at the sides of the road, down which any sally from the castle would have to come. For the moment he was more concerned with how the Spaniards were behaving in the plaza.
Yesterday’s count of wagons in the town gave a total of thirty, fully laden, going west and a dozen, presumably empty, going east. A quick calculation produced a figure of eighty, armed wagon drivers and thirty to forty escorts. As soon as it was light, over a hundred armed men would be out and about, checking on their mounts and draught animals and he really did want the partisans out of sight before the French came flooding out onto the plaza.
He had stressed to El Martillo that no shots were to be fired when silencing the sentries and so far he had heard none. All the Spanish were now veterans of combat and it had been evident in the way they had carried themselves that they were confident and less likely to get excited and do something stupid.
He took Thuner with him to speak French and entered the plaza to find it deserted, or apparently so. They both stopped and observed. MacKay used his telescope to take advantage of whatever ambient light there was. He saw that the horses in the paddock were restless and then studied the wagon park, snapping the glass shut with a grunt of satisfaction. All the wagons facing the sides of the plaza away from the church had their complement of men in or behind them, waiting for the sun and the French to put in an appearance. El Martillo’s men had accomplished the first part of the plan perfectly.
They found the leader of the partisans on the outer edge of the parked wagons and moved in beside him, just as the light became good enough to see all parts of the plaza clearly enough for the Fergusons to become deadly again. MacKay was well aware that the guns on all sides of him were not rifles, but all the guerrilleros had been practising their marksmanship under the critical eyes of some of his best men and the distance from the wagons to the edge of the plaza was no more than thirty yards. Even a French musket in skilled Spanish hands should hit a man at that range.
He placed a hand on El Martillo’s shoulder. “The French sentries gave your men no trouble then, Señor?” The Spaniard gave a gap-toothed grin. “They hardly made a sound, Teniente. It was so easy. Some of my men thought they were expert with their knives until your Irishman, Ryano showed them how to fight when he was teaching your putas. Then they practised his way and the French all died in less than half a minute.”
MacKay grimaced. He hadn’t really expected the Spanish to give their hated enemy time to surrender. “ I hope, Señor, that they will be disciplined in the next half hour. They will outnumber you by more than two to one and it is better to frighten them into surrendering than to have to fight a pitched battle.”
El Martillo looked at him gravely. “You have proved that your ways are successful, Teniente. I have them all hidden on the two sides of the plaza and in these wagons. As we agreed, you will give the commands and they will obey.” His eyes took on a wicked gleam. “Who knows? If this is successful, I might even use your method after you have left us to join El Conde Welbeloavedo.”
They grinned at each other then ducked down as the first of the soldiers appeared after a medley of loud soldierly noises from the houses used as billets. As they were a miscellaneous collection of chasseurs, dragoons and wagon drivers, the loud yells were presumably non-commissioned officers standing in for the trumpeters or drummers who routinely sounded reveille.
MacKay eyed the crowd that left the billets and breathed a sigh of relief. He would have laid a bet on his forecast, but it was a relief to be proved correct. All the French were wearing their undress, or working uniform, but only the cavalrymen were carrying their weapons. The drivers from the wagon train only used theirs for protection and their muskets were very likely stored handily in their wagons ready for instant use when they were on the move.
Suddenly, the odds had swung in favour of the guerrilleros and he pointed out the danger men to El Martillo, who passed on the information to all his men in the wagons.
MacKay waited until the French were ten yards from the horses and wagons before making a move, then he leapt into the open, followed by Thuner and bellowed, “Halte!” in his best seaman’s voice. A quick guess told him that at least half the French were now out of their billets and in the plaza.
The French out in front of the pack stumbled to a halt immediately and those behind cannoned into them. At the same time, the Spanish in and behind the wagons poured out and formed a line with all their muskets pointed at the milling mob of soldiers. This was the signal for the partisans hidden at the sides of the plaza to rush out and do likewise.
The morning routine for the French had been completely ruined. There was a menacing line of guns on three sides of them and a brown-clad maniac, Thuner, in front of them, yelling at them to drop the guns that most of them hadn’t got, and lie down. And that, in the most incomprehensible dialect that most of them had ever heard.
Only two of the dragoons made any effort to resist, bringing their carbines up to the aim. El Martillo had been waiting for this and barked an order. Four Spanish muskets fired and could not miss at twenty yards. There was a mass movement of the French to fall on the ground and for those with carbines, to throw them away.
So far so good. As agreed, El Martillo bellowed at his flank men and joined them as they ran behind the prone bodies towards the billets which still contained thirty or forty of the enemy.
Most of these had to be drivers, but ten to fifteen cavalrymen were unaccounted for and one of the houses erupted into powder smoke as the partisans ran towards it. Two of them fell, but El Martillo gave an enormous shout and hurled himself at the half open door, smashing it fully open and disappearing inside, followed by half a dozen of his men.
All the other billets emptied rapidly; frightened men with their hands in the air came stumbling out and were herded to the middle of the plaza and made to lie down.
Not for long though. MacKay didn’t want a hundred Frenchmen around, even if unarmed, when the garrison at the castle finally woke up to the situation in the town. Every French soldier in the plaza was checked cursorily for weapons then rushed to the westgate and ejected over the bridge, to follow the sentinels on the road to Orense. By the time that El Martillo emerged from the house again, noticeably without any prisoners, the plaza was empty, but there were bugles sounding from the castle. Very quickly, a column of blue-clad infantry emerged and quick-marched down the hill.
MacKay had planned to use the firepower of the Hornets for just such a scenario and they were hidden alongside the road up to the point where it opened out onto the plaza. This was however, a marvellous opportunity to test the combat steadiness of the partisans. He got El Martillo to rush them across the plaza and form two lines, twenty yards from the point where the French column would open out to try and form a line of its own.
He bellowed at the Hornets to hold their fire until the first Spanish volleys and turned his attention back to the Spanish chief, who had already formed two lines of twenty or more men, all checking that their muskets were loaded and ready.
He stood by El Martillo, speaking in a normal voice, but loudly. “The French column is only six or seven men wide. I would wait until you see them open out to double that number, then fire a volley from your front rank. Second rank steps forward and fires on your command, when you judg
e the target is big enough.”
The Spaniard nodded his agreement and bellowed his instructions to his men. MacKay thoughtfully took his arm and pulled him behind his front rank. “Not a good place to be Señor, however good your men become.” El Martillo flashed his crooked toothed grin but his eyes never left the front of the French column.
His instructions were simple but effective. “Prepare to fire!” as the head of the column reached the plaza. “Fire!” as the first files opened out. “Second line forward! Prepare to fire!” A long pause while he waited for the third and fourth files to step over their fallen comrades. “Fire!” and the rear of the column turned and ran, then threw themselves flat as the Fergusons on both sides of them opened fire.
The timing was perfect and opportune, as the first rank, having discharged their first volley had not been ordered or trained to reload immediately and two effective volleys was all they could manage under the pressure of combat. But, that would change with experience.
Thuner and MacKay ran towards the disorganised French, yelling “Rendez-vous! Throw down your arms! Surrender!” The Fergusons fell silent and the Spaniards were still attempting to reload.
Only twenty Frenchmen staggered to their feet, hands raised in shock and amazement. Maybe sixty men had started down the hill and two Spanish volleys had killed or wounded nearly half of them, while the Hornets had accounted for the rest at point blank range.
The Spaniards were now approaching rapidly, intent on further mayhem. They were pulled up short by bellows from El Martillo, telling them that as they were now proven soldiers they would act like them by protecting the prisoners and tending the wounded. MacKay got him to reduce their excited numbers by sending twenty of them, hotfoot to take possession of the almost empty castle and round up any senior officers and support staff.
A Mild Case of Indigestion Page 14
