True Soldier Gentlemen
Napoleonic War [1]
Adrian Goldsworthy
Hachette Littlehampton (2011)
* * *
Tags: Historical fiction
A brilliant new Napoleonic military fiction series from one of the UK’s brightest young historians. The year is 1808, and Hamish Williams is a ‘gentlemen volunteer’ in the 106th regiment of foot, a man serving with the ranks but living with the officers, and uncomfortable in both worlds: looked down on by those with the money or influence to buy their rank, and distrusted by the common soldiers who know he is not one of them.
But Williams is determined to prove by deeds alone that he is a man worthy of advancement, and when the 106th embarks for Portugal to begin what will become known as the Peninsula War against Napoleon, he knows his chance of glory is at hand. Soon he is receiving a sharp lesson in the realities of war, as the 106th undergoes a bloody baptism at the hands of the French - and he realises that his single-minded devotion to honour may not, after all, be the quickest route to promotion.
Combining the vivid detail of a master historian with the engaging characters and pulsating action of a natural storyteller, TRUE SOLDIER GENTLEMAN is the first volume in what promises to be a classic series.
Also by Adrian Goldsworthy
Antony and Cleopatra
The Fall of the West: The Death of the Roman Superpower
Caesar: The Life of a Colossus
In the Name of Rome:
The Men Who Won the Roman Empire
The
Complete Roman Army
Cannae: Hannibal’s Greatest Victory
The Punic Wars
Roman Warfare
The Roman Army at War, 100 BC-AD 200
To Georgina, Kate, and Rosie, Andrew, Julian,
and Kevin, with thanks
Contents
Also by Adrian Goldsworthy
Epigraph
PART ONE: Madrid, 2nd May 1808
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
PART TWO: Portugal, August 1808
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
EPILOGUE
HISTORICAL NOTE
Copyright
Hark, now the drums beat up again,
For all true soldier gentlemen,
Then let us ’list and march, I say,
Over the hills and far away.
Over the hills and o’er the main,
To Flanders, Portugal and Spain,
King George commands and we’ll obey,
Over the hills and far away.
Over rivers, bogs and springs,
We shall live as great as kings,
And plunder get both night and day
When over the hills and far away.
Over the hills and o’er the main,
To Flanders, Portugal and Spain,
King George commands and we’ll obey,
Over the hills and far away.
We then shall lead more happy lives,
By getting rid of brats and wives,
That scold on, both night and day,
When o’er the hills and far away.
• • •
First included in a 1706 play as a satire on soldiers; by the end of the eighteenth century the song had become a favourite march of the British Army.
PART ONE
Madrid, 2nd May 1808
PROLOGUE
William Hanley watched the pride of imperial France ride up the Alcala. It was a magnificent sight, and the Englishman could not resist stopping to watch the soldiers pass. He had seen them before, had watched the parades since the French had first arrived in Madrid several weeks ago, and had even chatted to some of the officers. They had come then as allies, but now things were different, and the horsemen clattering along the paved road were moving with grim purpose. Hanley had taken care to crouch down behind a small cart left at the mouth of an alleyway. This was not a day to be too visible.
First came the Mamelukes, a strange legacy of Napoleon’s Egyptian adventure. They did not wear strict uniform, although most had red fezzes surrounded by great white turbans and immensely baggy scarlet trousers. They carried curved scimitars, had pistols at their belts and wide-mouthed blunderbusses hanging from their saddles. From the beginning the people of Madrid had hated and feared them. Women had fled to the opposite side of the street when they passed. Men spat at their shadows and crossed themselves. The Mamelukes looked like an oriental fantasy, but to Spaniards they had stepped straight out of old nightmares from the time when the Moors had ruled most of Spain and trampled the Church beneath them.
Next came the Chasseurs. Once known as the Guides, they had guarded General Bonaparte since his Italian campaigns, and still remained his favourites. Napoleon was far away in France, but that did not make these tough old soldiers any less determined. Veterans to a man, they were immaculately turned out in their green jackets and overall trousers. The jackets were heavily braided, with brass buttons like the ones running along the seams of their overalls. They were light cavalry, so were mounted on modestly sized horses and carried curved sabres. Hungarian Hussars had set the fashion for European light horsemen more than a generation ago, and so each Chasseur had a send jacket, known as a pelisse, which they wore draped over their left shoulder. The pelisses were red, again heavily braided and also trimmed with black fur which matched the round fur caps each man wore on his head. Tall green and red plumes nodded with the motion of the horses.
The last men were larger and rode bigger and darker horses. These were the Empress Josephine’s Dragoons, dressed in dark green jackets with white waistcoats and breeches. Their boots came up to the knees and were polished like black mirrors. Each dragoon wore a high brass helmet bound with a mock leopard-skin turban. They had dark horse-tail crests and high white plumes. A long straight sword rested on each shoulder.
These men were La Garde Impériale – not ornamental toy soldiers, but hard-fighting regiments recruited from veterans. They had left behind some infantrymen who could not keep up. The men who had ridden over the enemy at Austerlitz and Eylau did not need the help of mere conscripts. The Guardsmen were perfectly turned out. Only the strictest NCO could (and no doubt would) have found fault with them if they had been at this moment on the Field of Mars in Paris. They made a spectacle of colour, all set off by the backdrop of the pale brown stone of the grand houses along the Alcala. Yet combined with the beauty of the scene was a sense of menace and brutal self-confidence.
It was that savage intent combined with swagger which Hanley knew he could never capture on canvas. For years he had dreamed of being an artist, had studied and practised. He knew he was not good enough, was doomed to be able to recognise great art, but never to create it himself. He could imagine mixing the colours, reproducing both the detail of the background and
the soldiers, their horses and equipment with great accuracy and precision. Yet his picture would still be utterly lifeless.
Anyway, that dream was gone – had died at the same time as his father. He had never met his father, had seen him only twice and then from a distance. It was not that different with his mother. She was an image of beauty, but he could remember just a handful of occasions when they had been together. Mary Hanley had only been beginning to make a name for herself on the stage when she fell pregnant. It was an interruption to her career, and meant a rapid severance of relations with her lover. Hanley’s father never openly acknowledged his bastard, but granted him an allowance. A year later Mary became mistress to another man, who made it clear that she would never be allowed to have the child with her. The boy was left with her own mother, who did the best she could. Hanley received an education, and when he grew older was allowed to travel and study art and antiquities. His allowance was moderate, but now it had come to an end. His father was dead, and his half-brothers had no intention of subsidising the product of an indiscretion.
A shot was fired, echoing off the houses. Hanley could not see where it had come from, did not see horse or man fall, but it jerked him from his reverie. Orders were shouted, and the French horsemen broke into a trot. It was also time for him to go. Madrid was tense today. The French had systematically removed Spain’s Royal Family, spiriting them away into captivity, but the attempt to take one of the young princes this morning had led to a riot. Hanley had already come a long way through the city and could sense the growing anger. People he had passed had called out ‘Today is the day!’ and ‘We strike soon!’, or simply muttered ‘Death to the French’.
The Englishman was leaving Madrid, but first he must say one last goodbye. Maria Pilar was a dancer with the ballet, a small, sad and very pretty girl who had been his model and then lover. ‘Mapi’ – her stage nickname whintol her friends used – had enjoyed cooking and cleaning for him, creating a home she had never had before. It had taken him a while to realise how important he was to the Spanish girl. Now he must tell her that he was going away and that she could not come. Mapi would not argue, and in many ways he feared even more her mute acceptance of the parting, the quiet sorrow that he would see in her clear brown eyes. It was true that her prospects in Britain would be poor, but he knew that really he longed to be free of her cloying affection. Hanley did not especially like himself for this, and it was harder now to hide behind ideas about a creative soul needing to be free of all attachments.
His money had almost gone – buying a horse to take him north to the coast had taken much of it – and he could not stay in Madrid. The way things were going it would anyway not be healthy to stay there as an Englishman. So far his pretence of being an Irish exile had satisfied the Frenchmen he had met, but that was unlikely to last. Ironically enough Hanley’s only income now came from his half-pay as a junior officer in the British Army. His father had secured his commission when he was just ten, back in the days before such abuses were banned. Hanley had never seen his regiment, had never served a day with the army, and even now had no desire to do so. Hopefully he could find something better than this last resort when he returned to England. Still, in the unlikely event that his status was discovered, it would scarcely help to persuade the French that he was merely an artist, with scant interest in politics and in fact a strong sympathy towards France and her empire.
As Hanley threaded this way through the narrow alleys of Madrid he heard sporadic shots. Within half an hour he had passed half a dozen corpses. Four were French soldiers, very young and thin. One had tried to grow a pathetic moustache, but now lay stripped of all his uniform apart from a dirty white shirt which was covered in a mass of dark, almost black, blood from his cut throat. The fourth Frenchman was older, grey haired and fat. He still wore his officer’s uniform as he hung with his arms and legs nailed to the large timber gates at the back of a nobleman’s house. His jacket had been ripped open and his chest was a mass of congealed blood over which the flies buzzed thickly. Hanley could not tell whether the man had been dead before whoever had done this had fastened him to the gates. He was not sure he wanted to know and so hurried on, rushing away from the sight as well as the stench, which made him gag. A little farther on were two Spaniards, one with a hole neatly in the centre of his forehead and the other with stab wounds in the belly. From now on the few live people he met said nothing, but hurried on their way.
Maria Pilar was not at her lodgings, nor at the house where one of her friends lived. Hanley spoke to the girl, a desperately thin, hollow-eyed creature whose racking coughs betrayed the sickness that would kill her before she was twenty. She seemed to look accusingly at him as she told him that Mapi had gone with a group to the Puerta del Sol to ‘show the French’. The sick girl said that she would have gone too, but that it had not been a good night. Surprising himself, Hanley gave her some of the few coins he had left. She hesitated for a long moment before taking them.
Hanley headed towards the grand square at the heart of Madrid. The streets were strangely empty, but the noise grew. A crowd was chanting and there were more gunshots. Then for a moment everything became silent.
In the Puerta del Sol Marshal Murat, Grand Duke of Berg and brother-in-law to the Emperor, confronted the angry crowd. As always his uniform was a riot of colour, for he took care to set off his good looks with a uniform outshining that gave her audiest hussar. Years before Murat had led the horsemen who had followed up Napoleon’s whiff of grapeshot with a vicious charge against the Paris mob and so saved the Directory. Now he repeated the exercise in another capital city.
Cannon fired, the metal canisters bursting open at their muzzles and spraying dozens of musket balls into the packed crowd. Infantrymen added their volleys, filling the square with echoing noise, black smoke and blood. Then the Guard Cavalry charged, swords and sabres thrusting and hacking as the crowd panicked and people started to run.
When Hanley turned into one of the larger side streets he collided with a fleeing man. He was short, thickset and wild eyed, and his flailing elbow struck the Englishman hard and winded him. Hanley struggled both to breathe and to stay upright. The Spaniard’s red headscarf fell off and fluttered down beside him, but the man kept running, looking neither right nor left. Many more people came after him, their faces pale and blank. Some were women, but none were Mapi. Hanley leaned against a wall and let the fugitives flow past him. Behind them were others, coming a little more slowly. A few carried knives or ancient muskets, and one had a sword. This man was old, and his coat of yellow silk was rich in lace and had last been fashionable thirty years ago. There was blood on his right leg and he was limping along, supported by a plump friar. Two younger men walked behind the nobleman and his priest, both with fowling pieces, and they turned now and again to watch behind them. Suddenly one of the pair shouted and an instant later fired, flame and black smoke gouting from the muzzle of his firelock.
The French cavalry were silent as they galloped into the street. Their formation had long gone, but the Chasseurs came in a dense group led by a tall officer with a blond moustache. There was blood splattered on the chests of the horses and on the men’s legs. Their curved sabres chopped and thrust down with the precision of long practice. The officer beheaded the first of the nobleman’s attendants, riding a little past the retreating man before slicing back with massive force. A fountain of blood pumped up from the severed neck as the body pitched forward. His sergeant killed the other attendant with far less effort by a thrust of his sabre’s razor-sharp point into the man’s neck. He let the momentum of his horse free the blade from the clinging flesh, and it was just a few seconds before he dealt with the priest in the same way.
The nobleman managed to parry the officer’s first wild cut, but he screamed in pain as he had to put his weight on to his wounded leg. The Frenchman cut down again, severing the old man’s thin arm a few inches from the wrist. The nobleman’s sword dropped to the ground with his ha
nd still grasping the hilt. Reining back, his horse’s hoofs skidding for a moment on the flagstones, the officer stood up in his stirrups and cut down again, almost chopping the old man’s head in two.
The Chasseurs flooded along the street, blood spraying as the sabres rose and fell. There were no orders, and no words spoken, the horsemen merely grunting with effort as they drove steel into flesh and through bone. Even the screaming had stopped, and to Hanley that only made the scene more horrific. He stared for a moment, fascinated, as he saw the green-uniformed horsemen slowing down to give themselves time to kill.
Then Hanley turned and ran. He no longer knew what he was doing and just fled, his bag banging against his back with the motion. There were hoof-beats behind, closing with him as he ducked around a corner. He had enough control to turn again, sprinting for an alleyway. A man appeared there, wearing a dark waistcoat over a light brown shirt and raising a wide-mouthed blis buss. The muzzle looked massive and Hanley saw the man open his toothless mouth in a tight smile and threw himself forward, knowing the scream he heard now was his own. Then there was a massive detonation, the noise magnified in the narrow alleyway, and the sense of a force punching the air above him. He rolled as he fell, losing his bag, but turning over to look behind him. A horse was rearing in pain, one of its eyes destroyed, and its rider’s face was a mass of shattered bone and blood where he taken the full force of the scrap iron and nails fired from just a few feet away. The man could not scream, but made an unearthly moaning sound as his hands went up to clutch at his appalling wound. His sabre still hung from his wrist strap.
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