Looking down on the activity below, Welbeloved counted the number of troops drilling to the insistent calls of bugles. He pursed his lips thoughtfully and passed his glass over to Hickson who quickly came up with a figure that tallied with his own count. There were between a hundred and fifty and a hundred and eighty chasseurs drilling on the plain and two six-gun batteries of horse artillery engaged in their esoteric practices of galloping into position, unlimbering and aiming, then limbering up and galloping to other suitable areas and repeating the exercise.
If the gunners had based themselves anywhere near the chasseurs, there would be up to two hundred and fifty soldiers to subdue. MacKay and Tio Pepe would arrive tomorrow with forty Hornets, fifty Wasps and twenty picked guerrilleros. Welbeloved and his men made themselves comfortable and relaxed. Two of them would take turns watching and noting everything that the French did. What had started as a suitable training exercise for the Wasps and the partisans might become a mouthful, very difficult to digest.
All the drills and exercises were over by mid-afternoon and the various troops of chasseurs and batteries of guns returned to their billets and the routines that governed every soldier’s life. The gunners seemed to be occupying some buildings between the farm and the town, but it was impossible to see how close they were to each other, or exactly how the men were distributed among the various houses, barns and outbuildings.
There was only one thing to do. Welbeloved told Hickson to take the men back round the hill where they could have a fire for a hot meal. He beckoned to Thuner. “Come with me, Johnnie. We are going to go down and find out for ourselves, exactly where the Frogs have hidden themselves.”
Thuner looked delighted. They left their Fergusons with Hickson and set off down the hill, Welbeloved struggling to keep up with the Swiss, who thought he was being considerate by going much more slowly than his normal breakneck speed.
Few of the partisan bands had been in existence for much more than a year and they had not yet become bold or daring enough to go and seek out the enemy soldiers within their encampments and bases. They preferred instead to prey on stragglers or couriers or lightly guarded wagon trains.
This would explain why these chasseurs and gunners south of the mountains had made the least possible concession to military practice, by setting as few sentries as circumstances warranted. The two observers only located three chasseurs guarding the farm buildings and two gunners where the cannon were parked, dividing their attention between the guns and the billets. These were far enough from the farm for the sleeping gunners to be unaware of any small disturbance among the chasseurs and vice versa. Both sets of piquets would nevertheless have to be silenced before any attack on either could be made.
They trekked back to camp to compare notes and wait for reinforcements to arrive in the morning. Welbeloved only needed fifty horses. More would be welcome of course, but if he could steal fifty, the Wicked Wasps could all be mounted.
If it had only been a squadron as reported, he would have been ready to take his men down and commit robbery with violence. Instead, there were well over two hundred men and probably nearly three hundred horses, counting the men’s mounts and the gun and wagon teams.
The sensible alternative was to silence the sentries and drive off all the beasts that were not under cover in the stables and outbuildings. That way they would have secured their horses but without saddles and harness. It was a little like cutting out a dozen fat merchantmen from an enemy port and finding the cargoes unloaded and the sails sold off to pay the harbour dues.
In the morning, he still had no answer that was satisfactory, but by then, as so often happened, the question had changed. They watched from the Medellin as a small squadron of fifty chasseurs, escorting two light wagons, trotted off up the road towards Segurilla, following the Portina stream into the mountains.
The presence of the wagons suggested that this was a foraging party making a visit to villages, farms and small towns in the hills. Welbeloved’s lips tightened as he thought about the treatment that he had known meted out to villagers who were unwilling or slow to reveal their few stores of food and wine.
The eight Hornets saddled up and followed the chasseurs up the valley of the Portina at a sensible distance. As they rode, Welbeloved put himself in the middle and speculated out loud for the benefit of his men. “The Frogs are not expecting trouble because they are riding in two troops, in front of and behind the wagons. They haven’t bothered with a vanguard or rearguard, so they will be bunched up when and if they come upon the two men that Captain MacKay undoubtedly will have sent ahead of our lads. They should be coming this way any time now.
From here on upwards, it ain’t possible to get off the road for at least five miles. They have to go on or come back. My own guess is that if they see two horsemen galloping away, the troopers in front of the wagons will chase them. That will be foolish, and they will be sorry!”
That produced grins and chuckles all round. He went on. “Whatever happens next; if we hear the Fergusons talking, it is likely that some or all of the Frogs behind the wagons will be coming back this way. I don’t expect them to be moving slowly if they come!”
There were more grins at that. “There is nowhere safe to leave the horses here, so if we hear the Fergusons, put a hobble round their forelegs and trot on for a cable or more, then find cover to deal with however many may come. Keep on moving upward in cover but I don’t want any Frog getting past.”
After another ten minutes; just when Welbeloved had begun to imagine that MacKay had been delayed and was too far away to affect matters; they heard the first shots ahead of them. There was a short, ragged volley from muskets, followed not much later by the slightly more distinct cracks of the Fergusons mixed with the flatter sound of more muskets.
Welbeloved’s men dismounted and hobbled their horses, leaving them to graze and browse on the dry grass and shrubs at the side of the road. All eight trotted on easily up the track, ready at any second to seek cover in the rocks lining the rushing stream or by the steep slope on the other side of the road.
***
MacKay had been treating the journey as another training exercise for the Wasps and Tio Pepe’s small band. Two Hornets were out in front as a vanguard, followed by Sergeant-Major Atkins and a mixed troop of Hornets and Wasps. MacKay and Tio Pepe, proudly carrying the Condesa’s Ferguson, were at the head of twenty guerrilleros. A small rearguard of Hornets trailed a quarter of a mile behind the main body of Wasps and Hornets, split into troops of twenty men.
They had only just started down the defile, following the swollen winter torrent of the Portina, when the two men of the vanguard came racing back. They had been as cautious as their training had taught them and had retired promptly when the cavalcade was first sighted. The track at this height was winding and the French were not yet in sight. There was also a very good chance that the two scouts hadn’t been spotted.
Atkins rapped out a series of commands. His mixed troop dismounted and rushed to hide themselves on both sides of the road, down in the streambed and up on the rocky slope where the defile was starting to open out at the top of the rise.
The two scouts continued up the slope, driving all the horses before them through the files of men approaching. MacKay dismounted and got Tio Pepe and his men to let their horses go with the rest, while they formed two ranks across the road with Tio Pepe at one end and MacKay at the other.
It was at that moment that the chasseurs came into sight and found the road blocked by a small drab band of guerrilleros about three hundred yards ahead, with the last of their horses being driven out of view, a hundred yards farther on.
They halted abruptly while an officer rode up to the front to see for himself. What he saw looked too good to be true and could well be a trap. The despised partisans weren’t capable of anything so devious though, were they? Surely such a small number couldn’t be dangerous?
The laborious process of turning the wagons around on the
narrow track and the thought of the shame if they were to be sent packing by a bunch of tattered peasants, probably produced the decision that MacKay had been hoping for. The troop of two dozen men loaded their carbines and started to advance cautiously, scanning the slopes and stream bed for danger.
The Wasps had been drilled in the techniques of concealment that the Hornets had perfected, but were still novices. MacKay had no doubt that too close an inspection would give some of them away. He shouted across. “Tio! Por favor, have your men fire a volley and then run away in terror for fifty yards, then form up again. If any of them get past my hidden men, feel free to kill them.”
His spanish must be improving, as there was quiet laughter from the waiting Spaniards. Tio Pepe realised immediately what was required and made the front rank kneel so that all the weapons could fire together.
At two hundred and fifty yards, it would be a lucky shot that hit anything, but he gave the orders calmly and clearly. “Select your target! Take aim! Fire!!” The volley was just right; ragged but not too ragged and peering through the powder smoke, one of the horses was down.
Then the partisans broke and ran. It was most impressive. If they had rehearsed the move they could not have done it better. The chasseurs lost all sense of caution. A bugle sounded a simple call and the whole troop broke into a disciplined canter, carbines returned to their holsters and sabres drawn.
A second, more urgent, call came but before they could progress to the charge, two thirds of them were blasted from the saddle. Those still alive were at the rear and the excitement of the chase turned to terror as all their comrades in front of them went down and the track ahead was suddenly filled with horsemen bearing down on them. The few seconds that it took them to decide to turn and run for it were enough for the gunmen in ambush to reload. Twenty seconds after the first shot there wasn’t a single survivor and a crowd of Hornets, Wasps and guerrilleros were streaming down the trail toward the wagons and the French rearguard that had been unable to ride past them before disaster had struck.
A long blast on MacKay’s whistle halted the dash down the trail. He had expected the rest of the chasseurs to run, but they were made of sterner stuff. Someone had taken charge and skewed the wagons across the track to make a barrier, from behind which poked the muzzles of up to thirty carbines.
Quickly, MacKay drove all the mounted men away from within range of the carbines and looked at the collection of footsoldiers that was available to him. The twenty picked men that Uncle Pepe had brought along had the first of the breechloaders issued to the partisans. No doubt it would work wonders for their morale to be trusted to stalk the men behind the wagons. Similarly, the ten Wasps that had made up the vanguard had tasted blood and were eager to continue.
He set them all loose to get as close as they could and called for Luis Lopez and Tio Pepe. He pointed to the steep slope that would be an almost vertical cliff face in another half mile. “Do you think you can get up there, Luis, and make your way along over those wagons?” Lopez seemed merely to glance up. “It is no problem, Señor, I go now?”
MacKay turned to Gomez. “You are a hunter in these mountains, Tio. Can you follow Lopez along that slope and help him shoot down on the French?” A fleeting grin from Tio Pepe. “With the greatest of pleasure, Capitano MacKay.”
While the two men went up the steep slope like mountain goats, he called for Evans. “I estimate twa hundred yards tae those wagons, Dai. Do you fancy a few shots frae here, tae see if your arm and shoulder are fully recovered? Or is it really your shoulder that is troubling you noo? I hae heard that Mistress Evans has been disturbing your rest.”
Evans went bright red but was not to be made fun of. “Marvels it is my wife has done with my shoulder, Sir. Some special unguent she has from the doctor and rubbing it into my back twice a day she is. Wonderful it is for my muscles.”
“Start exercising them then on they Frogs doon there. I don’t need tae be told how guid the Spanish lassies are at rubbing aching muscles.”
Evans had been loading his Ferguson with his usual dexterity while they had been exchanging this badinage. He now selected a suitable position and set about shooting anything that moved behind the barrier.
This was developing into a very good training exercise for the partisans and the Wasps, as the weapons used by both sides were practically identical. The carbines of the chasseurs were, after all, only a shortened version of the standard 1777 musket that Roberto had modified.
The superiority of the converted weapon was demonstrated very quickly. The French found that any head that they exposed when firing their carbines stood a very good chance of being hit. Even the act of loading was fraught with danger, when arms were waving ramrods about and nearly thirty men were trying to crouch together behind just two wagons. The only sign of their assailants was the scattered clouds of powder smoke dissipating rapidly in the mountain breeze.
A dozen men were already out of action when Lopez and Tio Pepe began firing down on them from their hidden perches on the rock face above. Whoever was left in charge gave the despairing order to grab a horse and make a break for safety. As soon as they stood and ran they became targets for everyone with a loaded weapon. This included Welbeloved’s party who had crept behind them to within fifty yards, without being seen and was just about to join in the slaughter anyway.
Slaughter, it certainly had been. Only ten men were still alive, all wounded so badly that even if Surgeon-Lieutenant Grainger had stayed with them, he would have been hard put to save them. As he had left with the last party for Portugal, all they could do was make them as comfortable as possible and leave them where they were.
CHAPTER 23
Welbeloved had nearly enough horses to make the Wasps completely mobile, but now that fifty of the chasseurs were missing from the Garrison, he was that much more confident about taking on the remainder.
The means to do so were at hand and straining at the leash. A much stronger blow to the enemy had to be made immediately. This sort of opportunity very rarely came twice and the complete elimination of a squadron of chasseurs would concentrate the minds of the French commanders on perils they had not yet dreamed of.
Everything salvageable from the corpses was loaded onto one of the wagons and five of the Wasps were detailed to drive it and all the undamaged horses back to Santiago del Valle. Everyone else went to sit on the Medellin and study the farm, barns and other buildings occupied by the chasseurs and the gunners.
Most of the Wasps and Hornets had already seen the farm buildings where the wounded had lain and many of the Wasps had seen it from within and without, due to the Surgeon-Major’s enlightened policy of carrying them outside into the shelter of the trees.
Nevertheless, everyone paid careful attention when Welbeloved gave detailed descriptions of everything they had discovered from their reconnaissance on the previous night. Hickson translated for the benefit of the guerrilleros, most of whom had visited the town, but never before looked at it with the eyes of a soldier.
Preparations started at dusk. Four platoons were formed, each with ten Hornets, ten or eleven Wasps and four or five guerrilleros. Atkins and Hickson would lead two of the platoons, reporting to MacKay and Welbeloved respectively, leading the other two. Tio Pepe would stay with Welbeloved. MacKay and Atkins would lead half the men against the gunners, while Welbeloved and Hickson would encircle the chasseurs, ready to move in once the gunners had been dealt with; or to contain them within their billets if things went wrong.
The Hornets took the initiative, showing the others how to prepare for night operations, with black faces and all equipment muffled against noise. Nobody could teach Tio Pepe about stalking and hunting game in his mountains, but he was learning a great deal this night about stalking the most dangerous animal of all.
MacKay and Atkins moved off with their two platoons, followed closely by the rest. They moved towards the town with Thuner guiding the leaders so that the approach to the chasseurs and the gunne
rs would be from the direction where the loom of the town walls gave a much darker background to hide the attackers.
The night was dark. Cloud obscured the sky and a thin drizzle that had been promising all afternoon, made them glad that their breech and lock mechanisms were swathed in oiled cloth. The rain was helpful in that any sentries would be more interested in keeping dry than in keeping a good lookout. It was unhelpful and uncomfortable for anyone having to crawl through mud and wet vegetation and to become thoroughly saturated in the process
As before, there were only two piquets for the gunners and three guarding the chasseurs. None of the horses was outside in the cold and damp, possibly because there was room to spare now that fifty of them were on their way to Santiago del Valle.
The attackers crept to within yards of the piquets and waited patiently until the guard was changed at around eight o’clock. On the previous night they had changed the sentries every two hours. Welbeloved had planned to wait for the ten o’clock changeover and quietly remove both incoming and outgoing sentinels at once, before mounting the attack when there should still be lights in the various billets, but when many of the occupants would be getting ready for their night’s sleep.
The time between the two changes would undoubtedly be damp and uncomfortable, but would enable everyone to identify the individual buildings and the number of soldiers using them.
MacKay’s fifty were detailed to deal with the gunners first. They watched the three buildings that they were going to have to enter and made notes of who was using each one. The first was the main house. It was a substantial building of two stories, with entrances back and front. The officers and senior sergeants were using it as a billet and mess. The back of the house was flanked by a coach house and stables and another building that had most likely been the quarters where the servants lived.
A Mild Case of Indigestion Page 26
