A Despite of Hornets

by Geoffrey Watson

  They finally found their charred remains, huddled together in the burnt-out shell of their chapel. It was evident that they must have been herded together and locked in by the soldiers before they set torch to the place. All the supplies of food and wine that were to have sustained the small community over the winter, had been taken to feed the occupying armies.

  There was nothing they could do but carry away what remains there were and bury them in the small cemetery overlooking the valley. It was while they were engaged in this gruesome task that they became aware that they were being watched. It brought home to Welbeloved that for once, he and his men hadn’t been as vigilant as they should have been. He had assumed that, because the soldiers had sacked the place and found they were not there, they would not be in a hurry to return.

  He may have been right in his assumption. It was only the young goatherd they had met when they were first searching for the place. Nevertheless, he immediately sent out scouts to cover the tracks into the valley.

  The goat boy was even more timid and would only speak to the Condesa. The French had also discovered and stolen most of his herd, but he himself had escaped capture, even though they must have known that he was about and probably watching as they pillaged and burnt. All he could tell them was that many green soldiers on horses had arrived as it was getting dark and had taken over the monastery and most of his goats at the same time. He had not dared to get very near, but even so had heard the screams of the brothers as they were tortured, maybe to reveal where they had hidden their religious treasures or provisions; maybe merely in revenge for casualties inflicted by Spanish irregulars.

  In the morning they rode away again, having set fire to as much of the building as they could and again he described the horrifying screams of the brothers trapped in the flames. The despoilers had casually ridden off only hours before Welbeloved and his party returned, and had been led by a big man on a big black horse. The child’s description was not detailed. He had noticed that the man was wearing green, although not the same sort of green as the others, but he had been wearing a shiny gold hat with a great resplendent red plume.

  This puzzled Welbeloved for a while until he remembered that the dragoons they had routed when they first entered Spain, wore helmets of polished brass. This would seem like shining gold to a poor peasant boy. It sounded like a good description of an officer of dragoons, but what was an officer of dragoons doing leading a company of chasseurs? Certainly chasseurs was what they were, from the boy’s general description of their dress. Vere’s greater knowledge of French uniforms probably provided the answer. He was certain that the helmet described so casually by the lad, was worn by the dragoons of the Imperial Guard. It was not unusual for high officers of this elite guard to be given command of detachments of less exalted units for particular duties.

  Whoever it was, this big man with the shiny gold hat, and whoever were the green horse soldiers, they had changed the attitude of Welbeloved’s men. He had suffered himself before now, and knew the ruthlessness and cruelty of many of the enemy. His men however, had only had limited contact, and even the rape of the peasant village at the beginning of their journey into Spain, had not affected them as had this savage and callous destruction of the small community that they had come to know and like.

  They had fought and killed French soldiers before now, in the line of duty, but always impersonally to a degree. There was nothing now that was impersonal about their attitude to the enemy. Their normal conversation was stiff with disgust and hatred and in future there would be little mercy shown to any Frenchman unfortunate enough to find himself within range and in the sights of their Fergusons.

  Although he wouldn’t admit it, it also affected Welbeloved’s feelings. He was frustrated enough; being confined to a passive role while Don Pedro recovered sufficiently. He was further irritated at having to make the decision to withdraw from his attempt to escape westward and then to find that men he had come to regard as friends, had been casually and brutally tortured and killed. It made him yearn to strike back in some way.

  He wrestled with the problem. His orders were paramount of course, but through no fault of his own he was being forced to lie low until it was safer for his protégés to make an escape sally. His whole nature rebelled at the idea of doing nothing when there were endless possibilities for creating trouble and confusion among the enemies all around him. He made up his mind to go to war.

  They had managed to salvage enough from the debris to construct a lean-to shelter big enough for all of them and the horses. That night he held a council of war with Vere, MacKay, the Condesa and Don Pedro.

  The Marqués was included because of his remarkable change of attitude. The brothers had tended him faithfully while his leg was healing and this in spite of his surly and ungracious manner. Father Ignacio in particular had nursed and bullied him to fitness again. He had appeared genuinely anguished when they had found the bodies and had insisted on helping to find and bury them, stopping his previously incessant complaining and becoming unusually quiet and thoughtful.

  He responded in monosyllables to most questions, but had been provoked into a brief, but violent diatribe against an enemy who could be so far removed from civilised behaviour as to perform such an outrage against old and holy men who were completely defenceless.

  Welbeloved welcomed the change of heart while mourning the reason, although he knew he would never feel able fully to trust him. Nevertheless he invited him to the discussion and informed them all about his decision to remain at the monastery for a few more days, now that the French seemed unlikely to return. Full vigilance and reconnaissance would be continued, and Don Pedro was to persist in his exercises to strengthen his leg. For himself, he would be taking Sergeant MacKay away for a day or so, thoroughly investigating the enemy positions and looking, not only for an easier escape route, but also for ways of making life unpleasant for the French.

  The only opposition he got to his proposals came from the Condesa, whose arguments appeared mainly based on an ill-concealed desire to accompany them. It took a great deal of tact from Welbeloved to persuade her that she was, perhaps, as yet insufficiently skilled for such an enterprise and would necessarily be a handicap to its successful outcome.

  With Vere in charge, Welbeloved was confident that both the Marqués and the Condesa would be as safe as it was possible to be in the circumstances, and he and MacKay set out at first light, to find their way around and through Marshal Soult’s pickets.

  They found them spread out over many miles of country, mainly holding the extended line of the river Carrion. All French armies lived off the country through which they were fighting and the longer they were in any particular area, the scarcer became supplies of food, drink and fodder, and the farther the foraging parties had to travel to feed themselves.

  Nearly twenty thousand men were spread along the seventy-five miles of the Carrion from its source down to Palencia, and Welbeloved guessed that there were armed parties seeking provisions up to fifty miles westward towards Leon and fifty miles eastward towards Burgos. There would soon be a circle of countryside one hundred miles wide, swept clear of food wine and fodder. Spaniards in the area would go hungry this winter. Those, that is, that survived the French attempts to relieve them of their supplies.

  Over the next two days, they lost count of the number of houses they passed that had been broken into and robbed, with citizens of all stations left destitute or simply tortured to extract the secret of their winter store of food

  On occasions their progress had been watched by scarecrow figures, daring themselves to attack in the hope of stealing whatever food they carried in their saddlebags. Not Frenchmen these, but Spanish citizens, dispossessed and banding together in a desperate attempt to find food to feed their families.

  The French didn’t see them though. They were always to be found in armed groups. No Frenchman these days travelled unaccompanied. Any that did simply never arrived. Marauding parties of des
perate men attacked any lone traveller and insufficiently well-guarded convoy. Welbeloved and MacKay could easily have fallen victim themselves but for their constant vigilance and the fact that they became aware of other travellers; particularly large bodies of men; well before they themselves could be seen.

  They questioned any Spaniard they found who didn’t flee in terror or who wasn’t in an armed and hostile party. These were few and far between, but they gradually began to build a picture, a more complete picture of the extent of the forces arrayed against them, and the area they covered.

  Part way through their third day, they were back in the valley near to where they had ambushed the coach. They were well concealed, watching a large group of ragged Spaniards busily taking up positions on both sides of the road, with the obvious intention of surprising someone travelling along it.

  There must have been thirty or more men lying in wait. They were wearing a motley mixture of dress, ranging from uniform tunics of a dozen different military units and two or three different nationalities. Intermixed were homespun peasant clothes and the remains of well-cut upper and middle class coats. Their arms too, varied from military muskets, pistols and carbines, to poacher’s guns and fowling pieces. A thoroughly villainous looking rabble.

  Nevertheless, the way they were concealing themselves in positions to dominate the road showed that they were not newcomers to the game of ambush. They were able to make use of the trees and undergrowth sloping up from the road, at a point where the passage was restricted by an outcrop of rock. Welbeloved remembered the spot. The coach had only just managed to squeeze through and there was room for three horses abreast at the most.

  He and MacKay made themselves comfortable in a position to observe. It was not yet clear whether the Spaniards were a band of irregular fighters harassing the French, or merely a gang of dispossessed and desperate men preying on anyone weaker than themselves. In times as troubled as these, many of the criminal elements were seizing their opportunity to pillage and plunder without fear of retribution. Even some of those patriots who were still using hit and run tactics against the French, were known to resort to armed robbery of their own countrymen when driven by hunger, greed, or even a desire to settle old scores.

  The weak sun had moved through several degrees and Welbeloved was almost dozing when he caught the first faint sounds of approaching riders, and he observed the men lying in wait cocking their weapons and wriggling into comfortable positions, ready to open fire.

  These riders though, were more cautious, hardened campaigners than others they had encountered. They recognised the narrowing of the road and the bend as a potentially ideal site for an ambush and treated it as such. The first sight Welbeloved had was of two men in sky-blue hussar uniform, with tall black shakos, trotting steadily through the narrow section of the road and round the bend. Their carbines were held ready and their eyes searched the trees on the slopes for any hostile movement.

  The Spaniards held their fire. They wanted to catch the main body and were not going to waste surprise and ammunition on two men. The first two hussars pulled their horses in to the side of the road, twenty yards past the bend and waited, still searching the slopes for movement. They were followed through by another two and then by a further two, all of whom spread out to cover the passage of the remainder who then started to file through without bunching, to make themselves less attractive as a large target.

  At this point the Spaniards lost patience and clouds of powder smoke rose from their positions in the trees, as they discharged their miscellaneous collection of weapons. The reply from the horsemen was immediate, both from the men already waiting and from the centre and rearguard on the other side of the bend. The hussar’s shooting was disciplined and in threes; one man firing while another loaded and the third man priming his weapon and searching for a target. This provided nearly continuous fire, aiming at the puffs of smoke from the Spanish guns, and the two Englishmen saw more than one Spaniard thrashing about from a well-aimed shot.

  One or two of the hussars had been hit, but in spite of the barrage of fire, there were as yet very few casualties and they continued to pass on through the gap in a disciplined manner as their companions kept the Spanish heads down.

  MacKay hissed with surprise beside him and Welbeloved looked where he was pointing. “That’s Major Anstruthers sir, being led along, tied to his horse! Not surprised they caught him. He even stands out among that crowd of popinjays.”

  Welbeloved grunted. “Hold yor comments Sergeant. Let’s take a hand. Shoot his horse and then concentrate on anyone who tries to hold him.”

  From then on, everything seemed to move at a vastly increased pace. MacKay aimed carefully and shot Anstruthers’s horse through the head. The rearguard of the hussars came through the gap in a rush and two men dismounted quickly and dragged him clear, trying to make him mount behind another rider. Welbeloved shot one of the two men and the other abandoned Anstruthers to wrench off the fallen man’s sabretache and leap back into his saddle, pulling his horse around to gallop after the rest of the troop, who were now cantering out of range up the road.

  If it hadn’t been so obvious that the hussar considered the sabretache more important than Anstruthers, Welbeloved would have let him go, but if it was so imperative that whatever it contained should be saved, he was just as determined that he was going to see it. MacKay must have had the same feeling, as both rifles spoke together and the hussar was swept out of his saddle to lie sprawled in the road, the sabretache flying into the scrub at the side.

  The Spaniards were starting to stream down onto the road, the more agile already squabbling over the right to strip the few bodies and casually slitting the throats of any still alive. One man ran over to Anstruthers with his knife held ready, only to be halted in his tracks by a roar of voluble Spanish from the Major and a further bellow from the swarthy leader of the party, who was standing screaming at his men and waving his musket furiously.

  The urgency of his commands caused those who could, to run for cover once more, as the hussars, who had regrouped, came bursting down the road with sabres drawn and smashed into the half-dozen who had either ignored their leader or had been too slow to respond to his command.

  The firing from the ambush was now desultory and it was the deadly fire from MacKay and Welbeloved which caused the French to withdraw once more, leaving another five men twitching on the ground, joining the six Spaniards who had been sabred down. Anstruthers had very sensibly lain where he had fallen during this last charge and he now rose slowly and painfully to his feet as Welbeloved walked slowly down to join him, leaving MacKay still concealed to watch proceedings.

  He quickly cut the ropes still binding his wrists together and stood watching him beating the dust and dirt from his gorgeous uniform, waiting for the Spaniards to approach closer. This they did, keeping a wary eye on the road for the reappearance of the hussars. Their approach was threatening, weapons pointed at the two men, but curiosity and puzzlement holding them back from any overtly hostile act.

  They stood aside as their leader stepped down onto the road. He was a barrel shaped man with tight black curly hair and an old scar running from the corner of his mouth to just under his left eye, distorting both and giving him a permanently sneering expression.

  He was brandishing a large pistol menacingly and demanding to know why he shouldn’t shoot them both as the French scum they obviously were. Anstruthers evidently spoke Spanish fluently, but was still rather dazed and the man suddenly snarled something in rapid Spanish at Welbeloved, at the same time cocking his pistol, raising it and pointing it directly at his head.

  MacKay was a first class marksman and was only thirty yards away. Nevertheless there was something theatrical about the shot that smashed the pistol from the Spaniard’s hand, but it would have taken the most consummate actor to duplicate the amazed and horrified expression on his face.

  Welbeloved took advantage of the shocked silence to thrust his face to with
in inches of the Spaniard’s and swear at him in his broken Italian-Spanish, gesticulating forcefully to bring home to the man that the ball could just as easily have gone straight through his heart.

  Scarface retreated a couple of paces before his anger and Anstruthers quickly joined in to explain who he was. Then after a slight hesitation he made a brief introduction of Welbeloved. The Spaniards by now realised that they were not French and he heard several of them muttering ‘los Ingleses’ to each other, and another expression which he was unable to understand, but which caused Scarface to look at him with something like awe and burst into rapid speech to Anstruthers, which Welbeloved was far too slow to understand.

  Whatever it was, Anstruthers looked curiously at Welbeloved, and speaking slowly in Spanish to enable him to follow, confirmed to the Spanish that he was indeed the leader of the famous ‘Avispónes Morenos’ who had become such a legend throughout Spain for their daring defiance of whole French armies.

  He switched to English and turned to Welbeloved. “It would seem, m’dear feller, that you’ve made yourself into a cross between Robin Hood and El Cid. All those little skirmishes, as you so delicately called them, have lost nothin’ in the tellin’ and the word has spread like a fire in a hayrick. Apparently every Spaniard in the country is talking about los Avispónes Morenos, the brown hornets that appear out of nowhere and sting the French to death.”

  Welbeloved had no time to absorb this fantastic tale. Now that it had been confirmed that he was indeed the leader of this mythical band, the guerrilleros were crowding round like children, shouting questions, fingering his uniform and staring at his Ferguson. It was the deadliness of the rifle, which had added fuel to the brush fire of stories that were circulating.

  Scarface himself was one of those indulging his enthusiastic curiosity, until he suddenly remembered his position and drove everybody away to round up the few riderless horses and strip and search the bodies for arms, ammunition, booty, clothes, boots and anything that could be of use. They were desperately short of everything. Large cuts of meat were hacked from the dead horses and the whole band worked quickly to get everything they could before the French could organise themselves and return in force.