The nine did as ordered which drew from El Navaja a deep growl. He reached for the sling of his own musket, but Miles was carrying his rifle cupped in his hand. Before El Navaja could lay a hand on the wood of his own musket as it swung to his front, he was staring down the barrel of Miles’ Baker, it cocked and ready with Miles’ very malignant right eye at the far end of it. In addition, if El Navaja wanted to enforce the handing over of a Baker, he had placed his men badly and not allowed for the fact that he was dealing with trained soldiers. Although fifteen in number, the guerrillas were grouped together and, with Miles coming to the “present”, the others, in less than a second had unslung their own rifles, cocked the hammers, and were at “stand to”, their weapons pointing forward, but not yet up at “present”. In addition, by instinct, the nine spread out to cover the group of Spaniards and prevent them deploying in any fashion. Ellis continued to slowly step backwards and his men followed, Miles still with his rifle pointing directly at El Navaja’s head, which held the guerrilla rigid; him not making any sound, save a growling, nor him making any move. As they walked backwards, Ellis felt the need to repeat Byford’s words, it might help.
“Gracias por su ayuda.”
Ellis and his men walked backwards, for 50, then 100 yards. The guerrillas made no move and Ellis was satisfied.
“Halt.”
They did.
“Keep your rifles in hand. Form two’s.”
This was quickly done, each man casting anxious looks behind him. Ellis took the lead, giving El Navaja a cheery wave in the hope that it may be returned. It was not. Ellis released a long breath.
“Could this get much bloody worse? Frogs to our front an’ those murderin’ Devils at our backs!”
He looked ahead for the best route in the hour of daylight left, whilst Davey looked behind.
“Sarn’t. They’re movin’. Goin’ back down the valley.”
Ellis turned to look for himself.
“What do you think that means?”
“Bugger all!”
***
A darkening dusk is a time for the gathering of evil spirits and so it proved for the followers of the 105th. Now rich with food and supplies and again marching ahead of their men, who were again some way back in the rearguard, they had made good progress and crossed the bridge at a place called Constantino, exchanging ribald comments with the Engineers there, these busy placing their charges to blow it up, but not too busy to examine newly arrived female company. Now they were all camped in a shallow valley, populated by a scattering of trees. Snow still fell and the wind still blew, but here there was wood for both fires and protection and the capable women soon made lean-to shelters as taught to Bridie by John Davey and soon copied by most others. The fires were cheerful and the children slept, right back in the lean-to where it was warmest.
The first they knew of approaching danger was a scream and a young girl, a teenager, came sprinting back into the light of their campfires. Malevolent shapes followed behind her, bulky, the shapes of men, and one, particularly large, was in the lead. Whilst the Reverend Chaplain Prudoe shrank back into his own shelter, having now zero confidence in his authority regarding deserters and scavengers, Chaplain’s Assistant Percival Sedgwicke swallowed hard and walked forward, towards the man who was evidently the leader and a man he recognised.
“What do you want? These are the followers of the 105th, their women and children. They should not be harmed!”
Seth Tiley did not even break stride, but marched up to Sedgwicke and pushed him back, not caring to even speak, but Sedgwicke managed to keep his balance as he slithered back on the ice and remained confronting Tiley, who overtopped him by more than two feet. The practising Christian inside him had come to the fore; charity was a duty, to even such as these.
“This is no way to go about this. We can give you a share of what we have and no-one gets hurt and we can all go our own way, under the protection of our Good Lord.”
The last words gave Tiley some pause, enough for a sarcastic laugh, before finally pushing Sedgwicke thoroughly aside.
“The 105th. It couldn’t be better!”
However, at that point his confidence took a severe knock. From his time in barracks he had come to know, if only from a distance, Mrs. Nelly Nicholls, and it was her voice he heard now, in its most harsh and grating form.
“You come any further into this camp, now, Seth Tiley and it’ll be the last thing you do on this Good God’s Earth!”
Nelly Nicholls had stepped forward into the light of the nearest campfire and Tiley could see immediately what was giving such strength to her words. She was holding a musket up to her shoulder, cocked and pointed straight at him. With the return of the girl, she had immediately pulled it out from their travois. Tiley gave his best oleaginous smile, but the flickering yellow light of the fire leant it instead a sickening malevolence. His words were ingratiating, but any measure of conciliation they carried was lost in the malice of his tone of voice.
“Come on, now, missus. Words got around that you’ve been supplied. We only wants but a share. B’ain’t we human creatures such as yourselves?”
Nelly lifted the musket higher, then shouted as loud as she could.
“What would a gombeen gobshite like you know about being a human creature? We let you in, you and your shitecaked tripehounds, and you’d take every last bone and crumb.”
She paused to let her defiance fully sink in.
“Why don’t you take yerselves over to the French? See what you can rob from them, instead of leavin’ the likes of wimmin and children to starve and die! Get on over to them, they’ve as much as us. Take it off them, them as is tryin’ to kill our own men and husbands.”
Tiley was stood still, the threatening musket was enough to cause that, with the firelight glinting on its grey barrel and brass lock, but he knew that all he had to do was to hold this harridan in place and his men would soon engulf the camp from elsewhere. He smiled again and spoke further in his sickly tone.
“B’ain’t that musket gettin’ heavy, missus?”
That confident statement also took a bad knock, for Nelly did lower it to waist level and then stride forward to stand barely three yards from him, the musket muzzle but two yards from his copious stomach. Yet his confidence was still high.
“You don’t want to point that thing at me, Missus, ‘twill only make things ‘arder for you an’ these others round about.”
Nelly Nicholls looked up into his face; the firelight catching the grey of her stretched back hair.
“If it does, you’ll be the first to go! ‘Tis no good thing to die with a ball through your guts. ’Tis a bad way to go, I’m thinkin’.”
Tiley was waiting, confident that his men would soon be in amongst the camp, then he would dart forward and deflect the musket, when the attention of this warrior washerwoman was turned away, but, as he sensed his men moving forward, that hope also faded considerably. Another voice was shouting from the shadows of the camp.
“And you’ll not be the only one! And that ye all need to hear, ye gang of blackguard murderers?”
Bridie Deakin was stood off to the side and behind Nelly, a huge Dragoon pistol held out in front before her chest, held in both hands, and she was not alone, all the women had found their own similar weapon, distributed by Jed Deakin and the other husbands, French pistols salvaged off the field of Sahagun. Nelly alone had the strength to lift a musket, but a Dragoon pistol was well within the strength of all the women there, including Eirin Mulcahey. They were as numerous as the number on any skirmish line, all with pistols, all pointing out at the threatening shapes stood at the edge of the firelight. It was a tense standoff. Tiley’s band were hungry and desperate, but it meant death for many to attempt what they wished, that being to ransack the camp and take all they could carry.
Chaplain’s Assistant Sedgwicke had meanwhile hauled himself to his feet and gone to his own possessions to gather two haversacks, each with biscuit, meat and brandy. He took them
towards Seth Tiley, but Nelly Nicholls halted him several paces away from where Tiley was.
“You’ll hand over nothin’, Parson. Nothin’! Not one scrap! There’s plenty of hunger on down the road from here. You gives nothin’; not one bit to this piece of Devil’s shite!”
She hoisted the musket up to her shoulder again.
“Your choice, Tiley. You can die here, and some of these gobshites here with you. Those that don’t die will get some food from us here, but you’ll not be one of them! And that’s the God’s Honest Truth!”
Seth Tiley weighed up the odds. He was not a brave man; it was the cold calculation of the success of some robbery or similar crime that had kept him alive so far. Neither was losing face of any concern, he’d club into bloody pulp anyone who challenged his position as leader, but the sight of 30 women, perhaps more, all stood with good firearms pointing at him and his men changed the odds from short to long. He walked backwards, watching Nelly all the time, then, when in the darkness, he turned and disappeared into the snow. His men followed, but he led them away from the French, up towards the coast and the next town; Lugo, or so he believed.
The darkness returned. All was as it had been before Tiley’s arrival, all bar the women still pointing deadly weapons out into the dark void beyond the light of their campfires. Nelly Nicholls found that she could not move. It took Chaplain’s Assistant Sedgwicke to come over to her and prise her fingers from the barrel and the finger guard.
“I’ll take that, Mrs. Nicholls. You’ve been very brave and done very well. We’re all very proud of you.”
It needed Beatrice Prudoe to come and wrap a blanket around her shoulders before she could walk unaided from the spot, back to her own campfire.
***
The same night was surrounding Ellis and his small command. He would not let them stop but ordered them to march on, even though their progress was more like a stumble through the darkness, through the trees and rocks and up and down the gullies and clefts. Ellis and Davey agreed that making camp by any measure close to El Navaja was too great a risk. They may lose their way in the dark and aim off away from their army, but that risk was as nothing compared to the risk of the guerrillas finding their camp and cutting all their throats. With a growing dawn, Ellis ordered them to climb, to gain height. What they may see may cause them to retrace their steps, but he hoped to see campfires lit for breakfast and their effort was rewarded. They had not strayed too far from their army’s route, for below and over to the right could be seen bright dots, growing in number as fires were lit. What they did not know was if the fires were British or French, but at least their task was defined and simple, to get ahead of whoever was now enjoying a hot breakfast. There was further reward; their height was a ridge that extended off in their best direction and so they progressed on, along its length. Spivey suggested that they link arms to prevent slipping on the smooth ice beneath the latest snow, ice formed from snow melted then frozen, and thus they progressed in close company, like some odd form of green and red caterpillar, but their passage remained clear across the pristine whiteness.
Once into the trees Ellis granted a period of rest. A fire was lit inside a dense group of thick trunks and they shared their food, Joe Pike being required to put slightly more into the communal pot, as he had been given extra by Mangara’s ‘girls’. Ellis looked at the sky through the tangled, but bare branches, above him.
“I never thought I’d want it to snow, but I do now.”
His wish would not be answered, at least not in the immediate future. If anything the sky was clearing to give weak sunlight, as an improvement on the merely better daylight of the day before.
“Our tracks are still out there, leading to here. I’ll not count on that El Navaja not being one vengeful bastard, enough to take the trouble to follow us all the way.”
He sighed and scratched his head, then took his share of the hot food. Davey finished his mouthful.
“He won’t want to be too close to the French. He’ll know, that what he does to them, they’ll do to him, if they catch him.”
The others looked at him, as he developed his thought.
“If we march on, keeping as close to the French as we dare, him and his crew will keep off and, if he is that determined, he’ll have to waste time worrying about French cavalry. If it’s just us and them workin’ this through, they’ll track us and kill us. These are their mountains, but if he has to worry about the French, on top, that’ll be to our good.”
It was Newcombe who now spoke.
“Too close to the French, you Redcoats will stand out like a beacon, and the French cavalry will sweep us up!”
Ellis finished his mouthful.
“Right, you’re right, but we all has an army blanket. It’s grey, so from now on we all march with that wrapped round us. No bad thing anyway, not in this cold!”
Newcombe had more to say.
“Our green lets us blend in enough, and ’tis awkward marching, holding a blanket round yourself.”
Ellis was aroused. He would indulge either of the other two riflemen, but not this one, so full of himself.
“Then tie the top two corners with string, or make a hole in each corner to go on your buttons. Either will serve! I thought you Rifles was chosen for initiative!”
He leaned forward.
“Each of us wrapped in grey, we’ll just look like a group of rocks from a distance. That makes sense to me, what about you, John?”
The ex-poacher nodded and grinned.
“Grey’s a good colour if you don’t want to be seen. As good as dark green, I’d say, probably better.”
Ellis now treated Newcombe to a hard stare.
“So that’s my order, Chosen Man!”
Newcombe looked down at his food and Ellis considered the matter settled. With the food consumed, Byford was now rummaging about in his pack and he brought out what looked like a large watch with a flat glass face. He held it out for Ellis.
“My brother gave me this, before I left.”
He gave a small laugh.
“He was the only one who would speak to me. It’s a compass.”
Ellis held it in his hand staring at the swinging needle as Byford continued.
“The silver end of the needle always points to North.”
Miles now joined in.
“So how does that ’elp?”
“The route to Corunna is roughly North West. If we get lost or aren’t sure, then if we keep that needle pointing off to our front right, we’ll be, more likely than not, going in the right direction.”
Ellis looked in Byford’s direction, puzzled and perplexed, but he nodded all the same.
“Right, every little help. Can I hang onto this?”
“Certainly, Sarn’t. I hope it does help.”
Ellis nodded his thanks, now plainly grateful, but Miles delivered his usual verdict on such sophisticated contributions from such as Byford.
“Book learned bastard!”
However, he was temporarily appeased when, as they all arranged their blankets over their shoulders, Ellis came to stand beside him.
“This is the first chance I’ve had to say thanks, for putting a stop on that El Navaja, when he was pulling round his musket.”
Miles looked at him, suspiciously and with thinly disguised animosity. There was no love lost between these two.
“Well, all right. But perhaps you’ll remember that, next time you finds a dirty button!”
Ellis nodded.
“I will. For the first, but not for the second.”
With that, they parted company, for Ellis to lead them out of their cleft, then onto the flat uplands, him regularly consulting Byford’s compass.
***
The sounds of conflict were far behind them and it was to the rumble of distant cannon fire that the 105th crossed Constantino bridge, watched by a squad of Engineers standing guard over what looked like a collection of thin black ropes, laid over a piece of wagon tarpaulin. Tha
t the ‘ropes’ led under the bridge told all, for the Engineers had finished their preparations to blow up the bridge; they were fuses. Their Officer, a Captain, approached Lacey. He looked clean, well clothed and well fed, not at all like someone who had endured almost two weeks of hard retreat.
“Excuse me, Sir, but we have been told that a regiment and a battery are yet to come. After you, that is, Sir. Can you confirm, please?”
Lacey dismounted his horse. He was as weary and careworn as he looked, the almost continuous conflict and tension of the past week were taking their toll, but he faced the Captain, returned the salute, and spoke civilly.
“I can. The battery, as you say, for that’s what you can hear, are behind us, also the 52nd. I suspect them both to be here with the fall of darkness.”
He felt it to be only polite to divulge more.
“That is how it works, you see. We hold them off, with guns and infantry, and then take ourselves off, when night falls. It seems to be working quite well, so what would be useful is if you could find some way of lighting up this place, torches or lanterns or watchfires. Not all may come by the road, you see, Captain. An aiming point would get them to your bridge that much quicker.”
“Yes Sir. I’ll see to it.”
“Your orders are to blow the bridge when the guns and the 52nd are back across?”
“Correct, Sir.”
Salutes were exchanged and no more said, so Lacey followed his men to their position 100 yards beyond the bridge. Already they were making camp and lighting their cook fires, which made Lacey realise that his request to the Captain may have been superfluous, but it would do no harm.
Carr, Drake and Shakeshaft simultaneously slumped down onto a low stonewall and watched Morrison achieve a blazing fire in the space of a minute, then to prepare the ingredients for their evening stew. Drake, ever cheerful, watched the pot fill up.
“And what’s on the menu this evening, then, Chef de Cuisine Corporal Morrison?”
Morrison permitted himself a smile. He liked Drake, in fact he had a lot of time for all three, but Carr had spent the last two days in a very black mood, still depressed by the loss of 11 good men. Today was the 5th; he had lost his men on the 3rd, but it was Lieutenant Drake that was asking, and Morrison was a cook of some experience.
Close to the Colours (105th Foot. The Prince of Wales Own Wessex Regimen Book 2) Page 34
