‘We could bring you enough new muskets for everyone, and more ammunition.’ Hanley responded quickly, while Pringle was too busy thinking how obvious this was and was depressed that no one had thought of it in planning their mission.
‘You could, but could you also assure me that there would always be enough, wherever and whenever I needed them? I cannot amass great stores or magazines and leave them in a safe place, because there are no safe places. I must always be able to move. Do you see?’
‘Yes,’ Hanley said, and Pringle nodded in agreement.
‘Good, then next time bring me loose powder, lead for balls, good flints – you English make the best – and shoes. Sometimes they are more important than guns. If you want to bring muskets, pistols and ammunition then bring me Spanish or French ones. You understand?’
‘Yes, I believe we can help you in that way.’ Hanley looked pleased by El Blanco’s confidence in receiving aid from the British in future.
‘Good. Now come with me and I will show you what we do.’ Pringle was surprised at the prospect of moving so suddenly. He was even more surprised when Don Antonio spun around and kissed the boy who had giggled.
‘Good God,’ Billy said before he could stop himself, but it was a long embrace and a good minute before the couple parted. Don Antonio’s lover smiled and then spoke in a light voice so obviously female that at last he understood.
‘Good God,’ he said more softly this time, baffled that he had not seen the two ‘boys’ for what they were from the very beginning. In spite of the short hair they were obviously young women, and pretty women at that, even if the silent one had no softness about her gaze.
‘May I present my wife, Paula, and her sister Guadalupe.’ The British officers bowed again. The sister gave the slightest acknowledgement, while Don Antonio’s wife presented her hand to be kissed.
‘They fight with you?’ Pringle could not help asking after the pleasantries had been exchanged.
‘With me sometimes,’ the chieftain said lightly, ‘but I am pleased to say that usually they fight for me. Now, gather your things and we shall go.’
Dawn was still a few hours away when the whole troop filed out of the dell by a different, even narrower and more difficult path than the one they had used to come in. Guerrillas who knew the way led the riding mules for the three redcoats. More mules and a number of horses were waiting in a little valley outside, as were more fighters. Altogether there must have been some fifty men in the band, half of them mounted. Don Antonio had a beautiful Andalusian, and stopped to talk to the animal and caress its face before he mounted. The two girls rode smaller ponies, and both sat easily in the saddle, riding astride like men, their booted feet in the big stirrups favoured in the south.
Pringle had ridden with guerrilleros before, and so the quiet efficiency of the group did not surprise him. There were no shouted orders, no formality, but the whole band moved with a sense of purpose. Carlos Velasco rode with the two British officers and explained that when they arrived his cousin had been out scouting after reports that a French column was making for a pass a few leagues away. Now he had returned, assured by the leaders in the nearest villages that men were gathering to mount an ambush. El Blanco would help them, and hoped that two or three other bands would join him – he mentioned a number of names, all of which were new to both Pringle and Hanley.
‘It would be good to meet with them,’ Hanley said.
‘If they come. I think they will, but you can never be sure,’ Carlos explained. That was the big difference with the north. There many partisan leaders led bands numbering hundreds, sometimes even thousands, formed as the little groups coalesced into ever bigger commands. Here in the south that had not happened. Pringle did not know whether this was a reflection of the rugged landscape in Andalusia or the independent temperament of its inhabitants.
‘Are the serranos coming out in great numbers from the mountain villages?’
‘Serranos?’ Carlos looked puzzled for a moment. ‘Ah, I understand, you mean the mountain folk. They call themselves crusaders. After all, this is where the last Moors were chased from the soil of Spain.’
Pringle wondered whether all of them had gone. Some of the locals were much darker complexioned than other Spaniards. Still, the little they had seen of the land had an exotic look, which he thought might resemble North Africa, and perhaps the impression was simply the natural consequence of similar climate. He had enough sense to realise that proposing either idea was scarcely tactful and so kept silent.
There was no mist this morning, and they rode, winding through valleys and over some gentler hills, until the sky grew ever more pink, and the sun rose magnificently over the crests ahead of them. Soon afterwards Pringle spotted something white in the grass beside the path they were following. Closer up he saw it was the naked body of a man, birds pecking at his eyes and the marks of wounds all over his chest. A few scraps of torn uniform were scattered near by, enough to show that he was a French officer.
‘They caught him last night. Must have thought he had a better chance of sneaking past without an escort.’
One of the guerrilleros spat at the corpse as he rode past. Another jabbed with his lance.
‘Not fit to be dung on the soil of Spain,’ the man said.
Carlos looked down at the body with no sign of emotion when they passed.
‘He was carrying orders confirming that the convoy is on its way, coming from Ronda and going to the coast. They wanted the garrisons there to send out a force to meet them.’ He gave a wicked grin. ‘I fear they will be disappointed. But it is their own fault. Sending no more than two hundred men to escort a convoy!’
‘What is the convoy carrying?’ Pringle asked, suddenly curious.
‘Who can say? Supplies perhaps, or men from the hospital?’ The guerrilla was matter-of-fact, but Pringle felt a chill at the thought of ambushing sick and wounded men. Please God, let it be supplies, he wished.
Soon afterwards they saw the first ‘crusaders’, a dozen or so men in broad sombreros and green velvet jackets, gaudy with silver buttons and colourful lace. Several had fine white stockings under the cross-lacing of their sandals.
‘They like to put on their finest clothes to kill the French,’ Carlos said. The men carried all sorts of weapons from captured muskets to ancient fowling pieces. More and more villagers were gathering, some groups numbering robed friars and monks among them, with a cluster of fifty or so all following a banner depicting the Virgin. A few carried nothing more than a pitchfork or scythe as a weapon, a couple merely bags full of heavy stones, but most had some form of firearm. Soon there were hundreds of them, swarming across the hillsides. There were women and children among them, most unarmed, but a few with muskets, and all in all it was unlike any army Pringle had ever seen, including the guerrilla bands of the north.
The mounted partisans soon split off under the leadership of El Blanco. Pringle was sorry to see the two girls go with him, although as they trotted away the motion was certainly a pleasing one, their hips and thighs rising and falling. It was strange to see women’s legs as they rode, at once unnerving and arousing.
Carlos Velasco led the men on foot and took the redcoats with him. He left them up on a high crest, with a fine view down to where a deep valley opened into a wider plain.
‘You are here to watch,’ he said firmly. ‘So wait until we return.’ Then he took his men down the slopes and left them. Knots of crusaders moved past them, following the guerrilleros down the hillside. A few of the priests, some older men and most of the women and children settled down to sit as spectators on the slope, creating a strange air of festival.
Nothing happened for some time, and Pringle felt the lack of sleep catching up with him. Sergeant Murphy looked as fresh as always, and Hanley was keyed up with the excitement he sensed around them, but Billy was weary and they raised no objection when he wrapped himself in his cloak and went to sleep.
Murphy shook him awake. ‘I thin
k you will want to see this, sir.’
The sun was a good deal higher and so he must have been asleep for more than an hour. Pringle took a sip of water from his canteen, and splashed some more over his face. He rubbed his chin, regretting that it was raw with stubble and that there was no time to shave, and went up to where Hanley sat on a rock, nibbling at a pastry.
‘There are some more in the basket,’ he said.
Pringle did not feel hungry and simply sat down beside his friend. ‘It seems an odd way to witness a battle.’
‘Though with much to recommend it,’ Hanley said cheerfully.
To their left the valley curved towards them, for several hundred yards running through a steep gully. Above it were rocky slopes, often rising to little crests and peaks and filled with the dark shapes of the crusaders. After that the path weaved around between low hillocks, coming towards them, until it abruptly went down into the bottom of the much wider valley heading towards the sea. From this distance the Mediterranean looking a barely deeper blue than the sky. Pringle followed a big bird of prey as it cruised high, climbing on the hot air currents and scanning the land beneath for prey.
‘There they are!’ Murphy was standing behind them, pointing at the approaching French column. Pringle took out his telescope, pushed his spectacles up on to his forehead and peered through the lens. It was a shame Williams was not here, since his glass was more powerful, but even with the limited magnification, he could see a group of French cavalrymen coming along the narrow valley towards the gully. They wore black shakos, brown jackets and sky-blue trousers, and even though he could not see the details of their uniform he knew that they were hussars. Ahead of them a few men walked on foot, infantry skirmishers to protect the column.
Puffs of smoke appeared all along the hillside, the dull reports following on a few moments later as the sound reached them. The crusaders, eager to punish the hated enemy, had opened fire at absurdly long range. Pringle did not see any Frenchmen fall, but it did not really matter at this stage. El Blanco and the other partisans planned to attack the French from the rear. Unable to retreat, the little column would have to push ever deeper into the valley.
It did not happen quickly. The French skirmishers fanned out and popped back at the serranos as they hid behind rocks, while the Spanish replied. A dozen or so of the infantrymen charged at the nearest hillock. All but a few of its occupants fled, and the handful who stayed were shot down or stabbed by the angry attackers. Then the Frenchmen on the little hilltop were deluged with fire, unable to move higher up. In the meantime the column pushed forward. Pringle counted around fifty hussars in the lead.
‘They are the Second Regiment, the Chamborant Hussars,’ Hanley said. ‘I remember them from Medellín,’ he added, recalling that ghastly day when the Spanish cavalry broke and the French horsemen rode down the unprotected infantry, slaughtering thousands.
This was bad cavalry country, and as the hussars rode into the gully it became impossible for them to fight back. The crusaders were able to get close, firing again and again, and in spite of all their attempts no rider could make his horse climb its steep sides. Some of the hussars squibbed back with pistols or carbines, but they could see no more than the heads and shoulders of their tormentors. Pringle saw the first horses and riders fall. Some infantrymen were also down. He watched one man writhing in agony, saw another run out to his aid, but then the second man was down as well, lying unmoving like a sack of old clothes in the middle of the path.
The main part of the column was visible now, a dozen or so wagons. A score of infantry marched in formation ahead of them, wearing the sandy-coloured light coats so beloved of the French line regiments. Twice as many brought up the rear and a few dozen were scattered protectively on either side of the wagons. As they came towards the gully the firing redoubled. More and more men dropped, the tails of their long coats flapping. The men at the front had broken up, spreading out to seek what little cover there was.
‘Poor bastards,’ Murphy said softly. Pringle nodded. Like the sergeant he found himself instinctively siding with the beleaguered infantry.
‘Well, they should not have come, should they.’ Hanley spoke with surprising brutality.
Pringle focused his glass on one of the wagons. Something moved in it and he saw a man raise himself up. Dear God, it is wounded, he thought.
That moment a bugle sounded. The hussars spurred their mounts and shot forward, galloping down the length of the gully towards the more open valley. Crusaders screamed in rage at them and fired. One horse dropped, its rider cartwheeling high before slamming with sickening force against a boulder. Another rode on, saddle empty, and its rider staggered dazed along the path until a handful of Spaniards jumped down and clubbed him to death.
‘Bloody cavalry.’ Murphy’s tone was scathing. The horsemen left the infantry behind, and if Pringle could see that the hussars were doing no good where they were he could still imagine the despair of their comrades on foot as they saw the gaudily dressed cavalrymen escaping.
That escape was far from certain. As they came through the gully and the valley widened, first dozens and then hundreds of serranos spilled off the slopes and surged towards the fleeing horsemen.
‘Look, there is Don Antonio!’ Hanley had spotted the guerrilla leader leading a file of horsemen over one of the lower rises behind the French column and down into the valley. He halted some one hundred and fifty yards behind the convoy’s rearguard, and more and more horsemen formed around him. Pringle thought that there were at least sixty, with more coming all the time, and that must mean that other guerrilla leaders had joined him as he had planned. Although scarcely regular cavalry – no two were armed identically and their horses were of all sizes – the mounted partisans threatened to ride down the French infantry, making the rearguard cluster together in a tight circle, bayonets ready to fend off the horsemen. So they stood and so they died, offering a target that even the wild crusaders would gradually whittle down. More and more of these risked jumping into the gully, pouncing on any isolated Frenchmen and shooting or knifing them.
‘Like watching a bird die,’ Murphy said softly.
Pringle glanced back at the sergeant, moved by the sadness in his voice. This was not the war that the officer knew, and he could not say that he liked to see it.
The trumpet sounded again, its notes urgent. Out in the wider valley, pursued by a loose crowd of serranos, the French hussars suddenly wheeled round and charged. The villagers stopped in their tracks, the cries dying in their throats. A few had loaded muskets and fired, but no horse or man fell. Pringle could imagine the drumming of hoofs, the hussars standing tall in their stirrups, cheering as they brought their curved sabres forward ready to lunge.
‘They won’t stand.’
Pringle saw that Murphy was right, and had the guilty sense that he was pleased to see the enemy soldiers gain their revenge. Already the serranos were turning to flee, but for many it was too late, and now the hussars were among them. They were too far away to hear the screams, but saw the curved sabres glittering as they chopped down. Bodies littered the valley floor behind the ragged lines of charging hussars.
The French chased the crusaders back to the mouth of the valley. Even then, a few enraged hussars tried to ride after them, only to be shot or cut from their saddles by the crowds that clustered in the broken ground. On the plain the hussars were masters, but they could not fight amid the rock-strewn hillocks and slopes. Again the trumpet sounded, and the forty or so hussars re-formed out of range of the peasants. They waited for a while, heard the fire slackening from back down the valley and must have known what that meant. Their infantry had died or was dying and there was nothing they could do. Eventually the hussars wheeled again, and set off down the road towards the coast. They left more than twice their number of bodies dotted across the valley floor.
Pringle could see that it was nearly over. The circle of soldiers was now a pile of bodies, the few survivors being hunted
out from their hiding places. He focused his glass on Don Antonio, and watched him lead his riders along the row of abandoned wagons. Behind the chief was one of the young women, her black cloak and clothes clear. He watched as a man stirred in the back of one of the wagons, pulling himself up with his arms clutching the wooden side. The girl produced a pistol, pressed it against the man’s chest and shot him.
On the slopes below them many of the women and other spectators were heading down towards the scene of victory. Most had long knives in their hands.
Billy Pringle snapped his glass shut. He did not want to see any more.
4
An hour or so later, some seventy miles further east along the coast and about five miles out to sea, Lieutenant Williams sat once again in the black-painted gig and enjoyed the momentary calm now that they were in the lee of the other ship. Up close the frigate looked immense, and at one hundred and forty-six feet seven inches it was almost half as long again as the Sparrowhawk. It towered above them, its three great masts so high that the men in the tops looked liked dolls. Williams wondered how they managed on a calm day, let alone in any sort of blow.
‘Lively now, show them how it’s done,’ hissed the coxswain to the gig’s crew as they worked the oars. ‘Keep it steady.’ Although it was not obvious, all of them knew that they were being watched, every action examined and dissected in the eager hope of seeing an imperfection, anything to confirm this ship’s company’s belief in its own superiority.
Captain Edward Pringle seemed oblivious, but once again everyone knew that he was missing nothing. Formally his rank was Master and Commander of the eighteen-gun Sparrowhawk, but convention dictated that he be called captain. The frigate’s captain was a true captain, a post captain, confident that, so long as he remained alive and avoided disgrace, he would one day hoist his pennant as an admiral. Both sorts of captain wielded far more power than their namesakes in the army, and even a commander like Billy Pringle’s older brother ranked as a major. On board their own ship, a captain’s will was law in a way unimaginable in the army.
Run Them Ashore Page 5
