A Despite of Hornets

by Geoffrey Watson

  Welbeloved eased the sodden neckcloth away from his throat. “My feelings too, Sergeant. Let’s have the men in extended order and advance slowly. Watch out for anything at all.”

  MacKay saluted and quietly ordered the advance. They walked their horses forward, peering through the tenuous veil of gusting snow crystals which constantly affected their visibility; sometimes two hundred yards, more often less than fifty.

  The low call from the right of the line was passed on by each man until it came to Welbeloved, who signalled a halt and trotted over, to find MacKay brushing snow from the body of a man, trapped by his legs under the stiff and frozen body of his horse. He looked up briefly as Welbeloved swung down beside him. Matter of factly. “Rifleman Sykes sir.” He continued to brush the snow away and called for help to lift the horse away from the body.

  Welbeloved circled the area slowly on foot while this was going on, and searched carefully for signs of other riders. Conditions were against him. The snow would have blown over tracks made by a squadron of cavalry. He did find Sykes’s Ferguson lying some distance away and examined it thoughtfully.

  MacKay stood up when he walked back to the body. “No sign of any wound sir. It looks as though the horse fell and broke its neck, trapping Sykes underneath. Both his legs are broken and he wouldn’t have been able to free himself. I would hazard a guess that he froze to death not very long ago. Where his legs have been under the horse, they haven’t had time to freeze rigid. Could have been an accident I suppose.” He didn’t sound convinced.

  Welbeloved handed him the rifle. Likely yew’re right Sergeant, but he must have been riding hard when it happened and he had his rifle out of its holster. Yew can see that it’s been fired recently.” He raised his head to the sky, listening for something, although he appeared to be sniffing the wind. “Leave him there for now and get the men moving again. I would guess he was either shooting at someone when he fell, or he was trying to warn the others. Either way, as yew remarked, we’ve got trouble up ahead.”

  They mounted again and moved forward steadily but cautiously, straining for the first sight of the monastery. The snow was still falling; a dry, fine snow now, that found its way under clothing and into eyes. Their horses hooves were muffled on the soft, white carpet, and sounds were muted and without direction.

  Intermittent cracks of rifles and muskets could now be heard, but it was difficult to say with any certainty where they were coming from. All that could be deduced was that both sides were firing at each other only when a target presented itself. They took this as an indication that there was a stand-off situation and that the rider that had galloped past them must have been going for reinforcements.

  They left their horses and stole up to the monastery on foot, taking advantage of the broken ground for concealment. Not that it was necessary when they got there. Their makeshift stable was crowded with many extra horses, wearing the shabraques of the chasseurs, who must have left them conveniently placed while they pursued the small party of Hornets on foot.

  The monastery itself was deserted. They stole silently through the ruins and found vantage points from where they could look in the direction of the gunfire. The first things they noticed were the bodies of four or five soldiers, all with a light dusting of snow, but all still visibly clothed in the green chasseur uniform. Corporal Atkins and his party had already given a good account of themselves.

  They had counted thirty chasseur horses back in the shelter. Simple arithmetic told them that there were at the most twenty-five Frenchmen attacking the Condesa, the Marqués and the surviving Hornets. Speed was now essential. They had to rout the besiegers before their messenger returned with overwhelming strength.

  Visibility was still poor. Nothing could be seen from their position in the monastery but broken ground rising into the swirling snow and mist. Even the occasional shot showed none of the tell-tale black smoke of the discharging powder. Welbeloved whispered brief instructions and his men spread out and advanced uphill towards the action.

  Mostly they worked together in pairs, each giving support to the other and Welbeloved found MacKay dogging his heels as he crept forward, steadily and silently. The line kept together for forty or fifty yards, the ground rising steeply and becoming more rocky. At the same time there was a slight break in the clouds of fine snow. The density became much less intense and the scene of conflict was revealed to them, almost like a scene from an old Greek play, with the French on stage, scattered and behind cover, and the Hornets up on the terraces, shooting down on any movement.

  From the rock behind which Welbeloved and MacKay crouched, they could see at least half the French force, who were now sandwiched between the two groups of Hornets. A quick glance to right and left confirmed that the rest of his force was in position to devastate the chasseurs from the rear. If they opened fire now it would be a massacre, and he was suddenly very tempted to avenge the deaths of the old monks, but controlled his feelings.

  The French were quite unaware of their presence, concentrating on the force to their front. He rose to his feet unnoticed, signalling to his men to hold their fire, but to show themselves with rifles levelled. He cupped his hands to his mouth ans bellowed. “Soldiers of France! Throw down your guns or die!”

  The chasseurs looked behind them for the first time. Most of them, realising the menace of the rifles aimed at them, remained very still. Others reacted instinctively, either by scrambling to find cover from the new threat, or by whirling round and raising their carbines.

  Seven or eight shots came from the waiting Hornets and half-a-dozen chasseurs fell. Then those who had sought cover from the new threat had exposed themselves to the party on the hill, who immediately picked each one off before they could hope to find a target.

  All the rest yelled for quarter and threw down their muskets, holding their hands in the air and scrambling to their feet, their faces twisted with terror. They were herded together, only fifteen of them and marched back to the monastery. Welbeloved set two of his men to examine the bodies to find if any were still alive and if so, to get them into shelter, while he turned to greet his rescued party under Corporal Atkins who were scrambling down the slope to join him.

  The Condesa was the first to reach him, her face glowing with life and looking more like a young boy, agog with excitement, than the stately and dignified aristocrat he had first encountered in Madrid. She rushed up to him breathlessly. “You always arrive at the most opportune moment, Captain. We weren’t expecting you back for another two days at the earliest, and I was beginning to wonder how we would be able to hold out that long.”

  Welbeloved smiled at her fondly. “Fate took a hand, Condesa. We captured some despatches that changed all our plans. We would have had to move out today, whatever the case, but we must now be gone even more quickly. This place will be swarming with Frogs within the next hour or so and I want to be well clear before they arrive.”

  He turned as the Marqués came hobbling up. “I am happy to see yew are so much more agile, Don Pedro. It really is just as well, Señor. I have to ask yew to prepare yorself to leave immediately. The French have sent a messenger for reinforcements and they’ll be arriving post haste.” The change in Don Pedro’s behaviour and attitude was now noticeable. He nodded politely and hobbled off straightaway, remarking, “In that case Capitano, I must prepare my mounted throne.”

  The Condesa and Welbeloved exchanged a wry smile at this, then hurried down the slope after him. They paused only to tie and blindfold the prisoners, to stop them observing the direction they took on departure. Three badly wounded French men were made as comfortable as possible.

  Gathering all their possessions and securing the Marqués on his special saddle, they rode out of the valley for the last time, leading the chasseurs horses, laden with carbines and all the powder, ammunition and rations that they had been carrying.

  They stopped only to collect the body of Sykes. His warning shot had been heard by an alert sentry at the monas
tery and had given them just enough time to evacuate before the French arrived. Now, he would be buried as soon as they were clear of the area and free of interference from the approaching cavalry. Welbeloved would have him buried, wrapped in his blanket. He wanted his uniform and would insist that Don Pedro should inherit it. Of the party on the hill, the only one visible had been the brightly clad Marqués. From now on, Welbeloved intended that he should be as anonymous as the rest of the Hornets. Perhaps he would even allow him to carry Sykes’s Ferguson. The man’s attitude seemed set firmly and uncompromisingly against the French invader, and making him one of the Hornets, even if only in an honorary capacity, just might imbue him with some small portion of their esprit de corps.

  CHAPTER 15

  They had been struggling through thick, wet snow for three days. Their pace had had to be held down to the fastest that Don Pedro could endure. In general, he bore the ordeal stoically enough. Certainly there was the occasional complaint, when he was being urged to hasten through a particularly deep drift, or up a rutted mountain track, but in comparison with the old Don Pedro, the improvement was wondrous to see. Some of the veteran grousers among the Hornets had far more to say for themselves.

  The redheaded Irishman, O’Malley, riding behind MacKay, was as always, one of the most vocal. Their path led upwards through a shallow valley, where the snow had blown to fill the lower parts of the track with drifts, sometimes three or four feet deep. After dismounting for the tenth time to trample a path through a particularly extensive drift, his plaintive voice could be heard carrying on an endless and one-sided conversation with the unresponsive MacKay.

  “BeJasus, Sergeant dear, oi wouldn’t be knowin’ where you’ll be leadin’ us all, but to be sure, you’ll be savin’ the heathen Frenchies any amount o’ bother. T’is yourself that’ll be killin’ us, without puttin’ any of the divils to the trouble of loadin’ their bondooks.”

  MacKay ignored him completely, but Rifleman Evans; staunch friend of O’Malley though he was; could never resist a dig. “If it wasn’t that all your strength was pouring away through that big gob of yours, Paddy O’Malley, wouldn’t it be another half mile farther along you’d be by now?”

  O’Malley peered at him balefully, through eyebrows encrusted with snow and face now scarlet with cold and exertion. “What, moight oi ask, would a Welsh, brothel-bred mongrel loike yourself be knowin’ about the true expression of an Oirish gentleman’s feelin’s. Furst off, you haven’t the alacrity of mind to appreciate the sublety of my tongue. It’s all due to the narrow upbringin’ you had to suffer in those valleys o’ yours, so it is.”

  Evans’s voice moved higher up the register whenever he got excited. Much more now and he could have sung soprano in his native choir. “See you here, boyo, I’ll have you know the Welsh language is richer and finer than anything you bog-trotting, potato-chewing savages have any knowledge of. Why look you, you even have to listen to Latin instead of your own unpronounceable speech, when you pray to all those idols and saints you go on about.”

  “Ah there’s a thing now, Dai darlin’. Idjication in the Latin’s a wonderful thing. See now, oi can go into iny o’ the Catholic churches, all over the world, so oi can, and oi can understand the priest, even though he has not a word o’ the Oirish or the English. Sure, is that not the true standard of a civilised bein’?”

  MacKay had had enough. “Shut your noise, the pair of you. Any Frog within a mile will be hearing your senseless chatter. Save your breath for something worthwhile.”

  Evans shut his mouth, but O’Malley had to have the last word. “Silent as the grave oi’ll be, Sergeant dear. Only tryin’ to enlighten the poor craicher, so oi was.”

  “Shut it O’Malley!” There was a glint in MacKay’s eye and the Irishman subsided into inaudible mutterings.

  Welbeloved had been listening to the exchanges with silent amusement. The two men were as unlike in temperament, upbringing and outlook as it was possible to be, given that they were both members of that Celtic culture, driven westwards by successive waves of Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Danes, for centuries since the Romans had abandoned Britain. Perhaps there were traces of Viking blood in the redheaded Irishman, but they were both mostly descended from the original tribes of the British Isles. Indeed, there could be truth in the saying that Irishmen were Welshmen who could swim.

  Firm friends they were nevertheless, but with an irrepressible urge to argue and find fault with each other’s origins and traditions. Should anyone else, however, have the temerity to join in, they would be met with a united and determined front; each supporting the other’s point of view, which they had been demolishing enthusiastically, only minutes before. No-one, other than themselves, was allowed to criticise anything Welsh or Irish within their hearing.

  Now, on the morning of Christmas day, they were all looking down across a broad valley, possibly a mile across from side to side. A road ran north and south through these gentler, but still formidable hills at the eastern end of the Cantabrian mountain chain. With the fickleness of the climate in this area, the heavy snow had changed to heavy rain, and had already revealed traces of green, appearing through the rapidly shrinking white carpet.

  It was doing nothing however, to help the extended column of troops, fighting their way north along the unmade road, half a mile away and four or five hundred feet below their present position. The rain had turned the road into a quagmire in the footsteps of the first five hundred mounted men. The thousands of horses and foot soldiers that were following, were wading knee-deep through cold, wet, clinging mud, made all the worse for the rutted surface underneath, cut up by the hooves of the horses, the wheels of the heavy wagons and the guns of the two batteries of artillery in the middle of the column.

  Welbeloved studied the marching troops carefully, impressed in spite of himself over the simple fact that Napoleon could, quite casually, detach five thousand men from forces that he was gathering to confront an enemy army. Five thousand men represented almost one fifth of the total British force, and yet the French generals would hardly notice that it was gone; and all for an outflanking move that was no more than a possibility when the orders were given.

  Now this force was hurrying to put itself into a position where it could prevent the British army from escaping. If they were able to capture La Coruña from the small garrison before Sir John could get there, the Royal Navy would be unable to use the port to evacuate the troops, who would either have to fight to the death with their backs to the sea, or surrender ignominiously.

  He closed his glass with a snap and waved the men on. They were moving cautiously along the high ground, parallel to the road and keeping pace with the column, in spite of the numerous stream-filled gullies cutting across their line of advance.

  His thoughts were almost entirely occupied with schemes for some action that could be effective in delaying these troops; mostly he rejected them as soon as the ideas were born. At odds of over two hundred and fifty to one, almost any idea that occurred was immediately seen to be entirely impractical and foolhardy. He rode in silence, hunched up inside his cloak against the pouring rain, letting MacKay guide the party.

  Seeing his mood, the others left him alone. The weather was enough to inhibit conversation, but there were one or two nudges and glances in his direction. “The Captain is brewin’ up some devilment for they Frenchies,” was the expressed opinion. They were more than content to wait until he gave the word and then follow with absolute faith in the success of whatever plan he devised.

  After a few miles it became increasingly difficult to maintain a constant watch on the marching troops. The valley sides became narrower and steeper, with more streams and gullies to negotiate and detour. Troops of light cavalry, trotting as a screen on the flanks of the army, were another problem. These horsemen were maintaining a normal distance from the main column, but the geography of the terrain was forcing the Hornets closer to the road and great care had to be taken not to be seen.

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p; By mid afternoon it became obvious that, unless General Tasselot was planning on making forced marches for all of the several hundred miles to La Coruña, the French would be halting to bivouac within the next couple of hours. They had already been struggling since dawn in the most arduous and unpleasant of conditions, and would be too exhausted to continue if they were not allowed some rest soon. Welbeloved guessed that they would halt well before dark and resume their march at first light. The fact that it was Christmas day might also encourage Tasselot to allow them to relax for an extra hour or so.

  He spurred his horse alongside MacKay. “Let’s break away now Sergeant. Find somewhere to make camp, get some hot food inside the men and let them sleep for a few hours. Yew and I will come back and have a look at the Frogs when they settle down for the night. If they bivouac soon, I’ve got an idea that might be worth taking farther.”

  They had to move back from the line of march some half-hour’s ride before they could find a suitable defensible position, where they could have a large warming fire, without the danger of being noticed by patrolling French cavalry. Welbeloved and MacKay stayed long enough to eat a quick meal, then set off once more to watch the column.

  By the time they got back into a position to observe only a small part of the procession, it became clear that Welbeloved’s guess was correct. The French had halted for the night and had spread out over the valley floor and along the banks of the now considerable stream, flowing rapidly in the same direction as their march.

  Knowing that any halt would mean that the troops would immediately spread out over the surrounding countryside in search of supplies of firewood and anything else that took their fancy, the two men tethered their horses and worked their way forward cautiously on foot.