A Despite of Hornets

by Geoffrey Watson

  At a hundred and fifty yards, their success rate was slightly lower, but Welbeloved saw men falling as he scrambled down the slope, calling on the French survivors to stretch themselves on the ground face down, with their hands above their heads. Some of the soldiers were shooting back from the other side, but he was not concerned. It would be a very lucky shot for any musket at that distance.

  His confidence was almost fatal. He was shepherding the prisoners into a controllable group when his cap was plucked from his head. The crack of the bullet through the air was a millisecond later and caused him to duck instinctively, but it was the distinctive crack of the rifle over the other side of the gorge, which persuaded him to run for cover after the briefest, amazed hesitation.

  Over half the French were down on the far side, and the rest had run for safety; the comparative safety of the climb down to the village. Welbeloved risked poking his head out and ducked back quickly as a ball chipped the rock above his head. He looked for the telltale smoke and saw it dispersing by a cleft, higher up on the rock face.

  Others had noted the position as well. There was the faintest suspicion of a movement in the cleft and three shots rang out, followed by a scream of pain and the clatter of a rifle as it tumbled down the slope, followed by the figure of a grenadier, sprawling half in sight from the shelter of the rocks.

  Welbeloved recovered his cap and was ruefully examining the hole ripped in it, when Vere stalked up. “That sounded like one of our Fergusons over there sir?” He left it as a question hanging in the air and Welbeloved nodded agreement, holding up his cap. “I don’t doubt it for a minute, George. Question is, which one was it? They must have got one of our four comrades who were left in the village. It’s the only way they’d have got the correct shot for it.” He glanced round distastefully to hide his feelings. “Get this lot tidied up, George. Then come and join me on the slope leading up from the village. I’ve got a feeling that we’re going to have visitors soon. I want to have a good look at the paths they can use to come at us.” He strode away, worrying about the owner of the stray Ferguson.

  MacKay had anticipated him. He was climbing down a scree to the edge of the gorge when Welbeloved came up. “There are two ways they can get up here frae the south end o’ the gorge, sir.” He pointed down the slope, steep and rock-covered beneath them. “That’s the way they must hae used to get up here in the first place, and there’s another, harder climb, that ye canna see frae here. It leads up to where Lieutenant Vere was when the fight started. One man perched up there can cover it wi’ nae difficulty, and he’ll be able tae harass anyone on this slope as well.”

  Welbeloved gazed at the slope before him. It was steep enough to be difficult to walk up without using ones hands, and there were enough boulders and large stones to provide cover for marksmen supporting an attack. Much depended on how many men the French could bring to bear, and how many casualties they were prepared to take.

  Vere and MacKay stood by his side, waiting for his decision. “They know we’re here, Gentlemen. They’ve come all this way to try and catch us. I think they’ll come for us. Judging by the tracks, there could be several hundred of them. We’re in a better defensive position than last time, but I reckon there’s room for thirty abreast, which is greater odds than only six.”

  MacKay said nothing, but Vere was enthusiastic. “With our Fergusons, they’ll not get half way up the slope, sir. We’re almost unassailable and although there ain’t many of us, don’t forget that numbers ain’t everything. Remember Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans held off the entire Persian army at the Pass of Thermopylae.”

  Welbeloved grinned. “There’s a lot to be said for a classical education, young George, but tell me, what happened to yor friend and his Spartans in the end?”

  Vere’s face fell. “Ah yes, sir. I do seem to recollect that they all got killed.” MacKay had been listening carefully, but impatiently, to their conversation and broke in scornfully. “That’s of nae account surely sir. I mind being told this story when I was but a bairn, and it seemed tae me then, that ye couldnae expect anything more o’ them. They were only Greeks after a’.”

  Welbeloved watched Vere’s mouth fall open at this devastating logic and he gazed fondly at MacKay. To his mind, it epitomised the philosophy of the British fighting man; an utter conviction that they were equal to four or five times their number of any other nationality. It had taken his own people in America even to get near to denting this conviction. There again, he mused; the American settlers who had administered the lesson had all been British to begin with. Someone who’s parents or grandparents had had the determination to leave home and start life anew in a virgin country, seemed likely to be even more uncompromising in their attitudes.

  He smiled broadly. “I don’t think I can find anything to add to that sentiment, Sergeant.” He turned to Vere. “What is the situation with regard to powder and shot, George?”

  Vere looked thoughtful. “Before we started this little skirmish, all the men had a minimum of thirty rounds. I doubt whether anyone has used more than four or five. That means that no-one should have less than twenty-five. As for powder, most of them topped up from the kegs we captured last night and we’ve got more than enough with what we’ve taken from the Frogs here.”

  “Very good. Four or five hundred rounds between us. Make sure none of it is wasted. Send one man to guard the route we came in by and position everyone else as yew see fit. I’ll be on yor left where I can see the slope and keep an eye on the gorge. Some of the better shots had better be close to me. If I were the French commander I’d send a party up on the other side of the gorge to snipe at us from there.”

  Both men saluted smartly and set about organising their defence. Welbeloved settled himself overlooking the road, behind a rock giving some shelter from hostile fire from across the gorge. He made himself comfortable, calculated the range of various prominent features on the slope to his right, and patiently awaited the arrival of the enemy.

  CHAPTER 21

  The French were veteran and professional soldiers. They reacted quickly to the noise of the firing above them. Almost before the Hornets were settled there was a movement on the slope below them. The shakos of the voltigeurs moved from cover to cover, the men working in pairs, feeling out the way and attempting to harass their enemy in the tradition that the French armies had developed over fifteen years of successful battles.

  They came flowing up the slope, ready to engage and distract; softening up the enemy in preparation for the more direct assault by the heavier troops: the Grenadiers! Shock troops of the Imperial army.

  No further orders had been given to the Hornets. They had been told to make every shot count and they waited patiently until the screen of skirmishers was within fifty yards before they began to pick off their targets. The voltigeurs had to expose themselves while slipping from cover to cover and the opening shots caught three of them in the open, sending them tumbling back down the slope.

  Their response was immediate. A storm of shot, directed at the smoke from the Fergusons, kept the Hornet’s heads down while twenty or thirty blue-clad figures rose from concealment and dashed for cover farther up the slope. Many of them didn’t make it, but those that did took over from their comrades, firing at the powder smoke above them, while their friends plunged forwards and upwards past them, attempting to gain more ground from which to launch another thrust.

  This time however, they were not advancing against inaccurate musket fire, but against rifles in the hands of experts. Fully half of the advancing men were tumbled back down the slope on the second foray, and the remainder sought whatever protection they could, from where they could snipe upwards at the concealed Hornets. It was a game they couldn’t win. Welbeloved’s men were all expert marksmen and had the enormous advantage of dominating the ground with weapons of great accuracy. They settled down to winkle out the voltigeurs whenever they exposed themselves.

  Nevertheless, in spite of the number
of bodies sprawled across the slope and huddled in abandoned attitudes where they had tumbled at its base, there were twenty or thirty men now hidden within fifty yards. They were all shooting at any powder smoke, hoping to hinder the reaction of the Hornets to the column of grenadiers that had formed up below, and were now scrambling upwards in a mass assault, ten to fifteen men wide.

  The outcome was utter carnage. The Hornets maintained a steady but devastating fire on the leading troops, every shot finding a target and smashing them back into their comrades pressing up behind. Within seconds there was a wall of bodies for the troops behind to climb, and as they scrambled over, they also were mown down into the path of the rest.

  Within a minute, the attack faltered and broke. The grenadiers went stumbling and leaping wildly back, followed quickly by the surviving voltigeurs, harried all the way by the rifles of the Hornets.

  On the other side of the gorge, Welbeloved could see another party of French, scrambling as they climbed upwards towards the rim. He and Evans exercised their marksmanship on them, bringing down half-a-dozen and harrying the rest until they reached the top, when he directed the attention of the rest of his men towards them. The full fury of the Hornets was now turned on them and only four or five survivors went rushing and tumbling back down the scree to safety.

  A hush fell over the scene, and then gradually they noticed the noises from below. The whimpers and screams of the wounded men and the yells of those trying to restore a semblance of order from the chaos. The crack of a single rifle on the heights above them, reminded Welbeloved that MacKay had posted a rifleman to guard the only other possible way up. No doubt the French had sent a party to try and turn their flank. A casual wave in response to a shouted enquiry, showed that the situation was well in hand. It was the first and only shot from that direction. The enemy had retired to lick his wounds.

  It said a great deal for the pride and discipline of the French, that after the first bloody repulse, their officers were able to force them back into another attack. Two hours after the first attempt the voltigeurs were back. Neither they nor the grenadiers approached as confidently as before and all retreated precipitously after the first two files were hurled back into those following. They left behind them a bigger heap of dead and dying men.

  It was the last attempt on their stronghold. The slaughter had been terrible and entirely one-sided. The better part of one hundred men lay scattered over the rocks on both sides of the gorge, and piled into moaning heaps at the foot. After so many years of fighting, Welbeloved was hardened to the sights and sounds of death, in whatever form, but even he was sickened by the useless sacrifice of brave men, and the heaps of the slain laid out in front of them.

  He forced his mind away and made himself think of the consequences if Tasselot’s men were allowed to achieve their goal. He hardened his resolve to continue to inflict as much damage as he could on the troops below him, before they could march away and rejoin their comrades. He had, he realised, reversed the trap. The French were now unable to reach him, but they couldn’t retreat either, unless they went out of the mountains the way they came in, through the gorge.

  The Hornets now commanded the heights above the gorge and could fire down on the ranks as they marched out. He spread his men along the lip of the gorge, from where they could see the whole of the road and waited. The more damage he could do to this detached force, the more dispirited they would be when they finally reached safety. That in turn ought to affect the morale of the rest of the army. If he couldn’t stop them completely, he could be at least a running sore in their side, to weaken and debilitate their efforts.

  They all lay relaxed in the weak sunlight that was filtering through the clouds above. It was a welcome relief after so many days of rain and damp, and was strong enough to cause steam to rise from their clothes and the drying rocks. The valley above the village would be a suntrap, accelerating the formation of mist from the warming sun. He could see tendrils drifting up from below. He frowned and looked again. That was too thick for the tenuous mist likely at this time of day. It was also becoming thicker and darker. He ran to the edge of the gorge and stared down at the village, from which dense clouds of smoke were beginning to rise.

  The French commander had found a possible answer to his problem, although thoughts of vengeance had no doubt figured in his action. He had set fire to the houses in the village and already the light wind blowing down from the mountains, was carrying the smoke through the gorge, obscuring the road from the watchers above. At any time now, the French would start their retreat, under cover of the rolling clouds of smoke. Certainly, the Hornets could fire down into the smoke, but without visible targets, they were unlikely to be more than a nuisance.

  The smoke was now becoming thicker and darker, rising above the lip of the gorge, but with much of it being channelled naturally along the whole length of it, filling it from side to side and drifting away and dispersing when it reached the lower exit. He raced along the rim, calling to the men. From below they could hear the sound of men and horses in motion, hurrying through the narrow valley to safety.

  Quite close to the rim there was a substantial rocky outcrop and he set the men to work, desperately loosening whatever large rocks they could. One in particular was almost separated already, split by a large crack. It was about the size of a man, and they worked at it frantically until it suddenly tore loose and fell into the smoke below them, bouncing off the sides of the gorge and loosening other rocks that rained down after it onto the hidden road.

  The chorus of cries and screams provided proof that the French were already crowding the road, though the Hornets paid no heed, being immediately occupied prising loose other boulders all the way along the rim and hurling them down blindly into the smoke onto the heads of the escaping troops. The yells, screams and cries of men and horses suggested panic and chaos, and the sudden thunder of hooves indicated that the cavalry were bolting away from the avalanche of rocks, as quickly as they were able.

  Welbeloved ran to the downward end of the gorge and watched as the flood of horsemen erupted from the confines of the rocks and galloped clear; sunlight glinting on their polished helmets and metal harness buckles.

  They reined in two or three hundred yards from the end of the gorge and he studied them through his glass. Even though they had had no part in the fight for the heights, they looked as though they had been in action. Several had helmets missing and even as he watched, a dragoon put a pistol to the head of his mount and put it out of its misery.

  Slowly he swept his glass across the group and felt his lips draw back in a rictus of pure malevolence. Sitting rigid in his saddle, staring back at him as if aware of his gaze, was the man who had been dogging his steps for the last month, the man whose ruthlessness and cold-blooded cruelty had already left its mark on him. With Colonel Roussillon commanding this party, he shuddered to think of the fate of any of his friends, or any of the villagers who had had the misfortune to be captured.

  He stayed watching for the next hour, while the last of the infantry straggled out to join the horsemen, many of them helping injured comrades and all of them looking the worse for wear. Nowhere among the throng could he see any sign of prisoners. It looked very much as though any that had fallen into French hands were no longer alive.

  Mindful of the Spanish cavalry, waiting somewhere in ambush, and determined to still further weaken the enemy, he waited only until they had formed up again and started their march to rejoin their comrades. Then he led the Hornets down from the heights, stalking the French column, dogging their tracks like a pack of wolves following a herd of deer.

  They were having to travel carefully in order to keep their presence hidden from their quarry, but the Hornets had no difficulty keeping pace. The French had formed themselves into three companies of foot; two of grenadiers and one voltigeurs; with two squadrons of dragoons some way in front. The infantry were marching quite slowly, so that their walking wounded could be assisted to keep
up.

  Maybe it was because of this that the gap between the cavalry and the foot soldiers grew far too great. Anstruthers timed his ambush perfectly, and executed it as if from a manual of military tactics.

  Perhaps the two French squadrons had relaxed their guard after escaping from the attentions of the Hornets, but they were suddenly horrified to see an equal number of wild horsemen sweeping in from their right flank and only a few hundred yards away. They responded quickly. There was barely enough time, but hours of drill brought them the discipline to face the challenge, sabres drawn and braced to meet the shock of the charge.

  Too late, they realised that an equal force had erupted from cover on their left and that they were much closer than the others were. Most of them didn’t even notice. They were still facing the first challenge when they were hit like an avalanche in the rear, seconds only before the full weight of the first charge hammered into their front, catching them like a slab of meat between the teeth of a shark, and rending them into pieces with the same brutal efficiency.

  The noise was like a hundred blacksmith’s hammers all working at once, as sabres rose and fell. The Spaniards still had their point to prove, and their hatred of the invader was vented with every swing of their swords and every scream of their battlecry.

  It was bloody but brief. Caught completely by surprise and by double their own weight of numbers, the French went down like ninepins. A very few broke from the fray and fled; the rest were cut down or swept from their saddles as the Spaniards drove through them, formed up again and returned to finish what they had begun.

  It had all happened so quickly that the three companies of infantry had had no chance to lend their weight to influence the outcome. They did however, respond rapidly enough to march into a defensive formation, each flank bristling with muskets with bayonets fixed. This was the sort of warfare for which they had been trained, and they responded, almost with relief to something they understood.