No, they were not exactly where they had been three summers ago. This time they were before the walls rather than within. Hervey could not help but smile at the realization, chilling though it was. In truth, however, it was not quite as it seemed, and he knew it – they all knew it. Sir Arthur Wellesley was a hunting man; he was now thoroughly acquainted with his hounds and his huntsmen, and he had the measure of his quarry at last. After Talavera, elevated in the opinion of his army (and by the King to Viscount Wellington), he had secretly constructed the lines of Torres Vedras in case he would have to defend Lisbon. Then for twelve months he had dashed about La Mancha as the Spanish junta collapsed, so that the following October, when he perceived he could rely on Spanish support no longer, he withdrew to the lines, breaking his pursuer, Marshal Masséna, by scorching the earth for fifty miles so that for a whole month Masséna’s men sickened and starved within sight of the lines before turning-tail back for Spain.
And so the third year, 1811, had begun with high hopes. They had soon been dashed as the French captured Badajoz and the other border fortresses, closing the door into Spain again. Wellington had lost no time, however, investing Badajoz within two months. But the siege had failed, and a second a month later. Winter quarters, still at the border, still no nearer Joseph Bonaparte’s capital, had been cold and bitter indeed. Wellington knew he could not stay long. And so at the beginning of January 1812, although the ground was hard as iron, and sleeting snow did his army more ill than could the French, he had opened the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo. The fortress fell to a fierce assault ten days later, and Wellington – the whole army – had then turned with confident but brutal determination to the third siege of Badajoz.
‘Who the devil are you, sir?’ barked a voice from the smoky blackness. ‘Get out of my way!’
Sir Edward Lankester had had enough. General Cotton had ordered his squadron forward, dismounted, to the support of the Third Division, but they had stumbled about for an hour in the pitch dark, the guide useless. The walls of Badajoz looked but a stone’s throw away, and the noise was infernal – the sudden shots, the numbing explosions, the terrified screams of the wounded, the terrifying screams of the assault troops, the jeering-cheering of the French who threw them back. And yet the detachment of dragoons could find no part in it because they could not find the provost marshal’s men. ‘Do not address me in that way, sir! I have not been informed that it is a ticket affair!’
‘Damn your eyes, sir! I am General Picton!’
Sir Edward was not in the slightest discomposed. ‘Then I am very glad of it, General, for we are damnably lost and have no idea of our purpose. Perhaps you will permit us to join you?’
‘Is that you, Sir Edward?’
‘It is, General.’
‘Where are your horses?’
‘The other side of the river. Do you have need of them?’
‘Don’t be a damned fool! What are you doing here?’
‘We are wanted by the provost marshal, it seems.’
‘Well, God alone knows where he is. Or cares. These walls are the death of us. Colville’s division and the Light can make no headway in the breaches. And God knows how Leith’s fares on the other side. You can come with me. I need officers to take charge. How many have you?’
‘Three.’ He would not ask ‘to take charge of what?’
‘Well, keep your dragoons where they are and keep as close to me as you’re able.’
That soon proved harder than it sounded. General Picton wore a black coat and a forage cap, and there were more men crowded into the ditch at the foot of the castle walls than Hervey would have imagined possible. A powder keg fell on a man a dozen yards away, killing him instantly. His comrades stamped at the burning fuse like frantic Spanish dancers. A grenade exploded beyond, and there were another ten men screaming.
This was not Hervey’s idea of fighting; it was nobody’s idea of fighting. What was it about Badajoz? Three sieges in twelve months, days of battering away at the walls, and still not a man through its breaches! And here were the Third Division now trying to scale the walls, for the breaches were mined, barred with chevaux de frise, and swept by cannon – swept all the easier for not having to fire through embrasures. It was madness, yet still they were trying. The ladders did not even reach the top of the walls! Hervey saw a man climbing onto the shoulders of another, and then another onto his, as if his life depended on it. What could propel a man so, only to be met with a musket-butt in the face and a thirty-foot plunge onto the bayonets of his comrades below?
But life did not depend on it. On the contrary – the piles of dead below the walls showed that. Hervey knew that something else drove them forward. Threats? Perhaps. Pride? Possibly. Promise of reward? Maybe. A dreadful blood-lust, concocted of revenge and filthy living in the trenches? Undoubtedly. It was a volatile mixture, one that could be boiled up only occasionally and under the severest regulation. Hervey’s blood did not yet boil, neither did pride nor promise of reward overwhelm him yet. No one threatened him, for sure. What in the name of God was he going to do here?
‘Where is General Picton?’ came a voice from behind, and with it a hand grasping hold of his cross-belt, a welcome point of recognition in an otherwise black and hellish stew of uniforms.
Hervey got to his feet again. ‘He’s here about somewhere,’ he replied, trying to make out where his troop-leader had gone. He saw no occasion for asking who the enquirer was: if an officer wanted the divisional commander then he must have reason. ‘Keep touch; I’ll try to find him.’
He began edging forward, stepping over a man lying face down, and onto another lying face up, who let out a cry so agonized that Hervey jumped back before striding over him.
‘Sir Edward!’ he called, but muted.
What was the good of calling for one man in all this? But what alternative did he have? It was confusion as he had never seen it.
‘Sir Edward!’
‘Here!’
Hervey fell as he turned towards the voice, jarring his knee so hard as to make his head swim.
‘What the devil are you doing?’
Hervey, clutching his knee, struggled to catch his breath. ‘An officer, Sir Edward, for the general.’
‘From Lord Wellington,’ added the voice.
‘I’ve no idea where he is. Neither has his colonel. He told me to wait here. What is it?’
The officer was perfectly composed, if alarmed nevertheless by the chaos into which he had quite literally stumbled. ‘Lord Wellington wishes the Third Division to make a further attempt at an escalade. The Fourth and Light Divisions can’t pass the breaches.’
Sir Edward pushed back the peak of his Tarleton. ‘Hamilton, is that you?’
‘It is. Sir Edward Lankester?’
‘What is happening?’
‘I don’t rightly know, but I never saw Wellington look so ill. Nothing but reports of failure for two hours!’
‘How does he expect Picton to get into this place over the wall if two divisions can’t force the breaches?’
‘I don’t know how he expects it, but there’s nothing else to hope for.’
‘Good God! Brave men’s breasts! It’s not enough, Hamilton; it’s not decent.’
‘I know, Sir Edward, and doubtless does Wellington. But, I tell you, there’s nothing else but to withdraw.’
A voice barked from the ink darkness: ‘Who goes there?’
‘General?’
Picton had come barging through the crouching mass of infantry, cursing left and right, threatening with his sword, frustrated as no other that he could not thrust it into a Frenchman atop the walls.
An ADC’s lantern threw just enough light for a measure of recognition.
‘General, Captain Hamilton is come from Lord Wellington,’ said Sir Edward, almost as if making an introduction in Hyde Park.
‘Well,’ growled Picton, ‘what has the commander-in-chief to say? Astonish me!’
‘The Fourth and Light Divisions ar
e utterly stalled, sir. He does not believe they will be able to make their way through until daylight. And General Leith’s division has made no progress on the far side, either. He wishes you to press a further assault, for he believes that were the castle to be taken now the whole fortress would be ours.’
Picton heard him in silence – or rather, he said nothing, for the bedlam continued. At length he spoke, and softer than any had heard him in a month. ‘Very well.’ He turned to his ADCs. ‘Go fetch the brigadiers.’
Picton lapsed into silence again when they had gone.
For the first time, Sir Edward saw the dressing on his shoulder. Picton clutched at it and swayed.
‘General?’
He seemed reluctant to part with his thoughts.
‘General, are you well?’
Picton snapped-to. ‘Nothing, Sir Edward. It is nothing at all!’
‘What would you have me do? Should we not seek a little cover – what’s left of the palisade there?’
‘No. If once we retire a yard we’ll never recover it. Now hear: this will be a desperate business, but I shall forfeit my life if we don’t carry it, and the brigadiers the same. Once we gain the castle the sole object shall be to assault the breaches from the rear. By then we’ll have lost a good many, the officers especially. You will therefore act as my staff, you and your officers – and drive them to the breaches. I want no heroics from you until then. That is the most imperative order.’
‘I understand, General.’
‘Well then, let us see what Kempt and Campbell can do with their brigades, damn them!’
*
It was nigh impossible to see anything in the Stygian ditch. Hervey stumbled and cursed as they edged their way back to make room for the 5th (Northumberland) bringing up more ladders. Every powder flash blinded him for a minute and more, and even with night eyes it was too dark to see the top of the walls. How could these men scale them, not knowing what was up there?
‘Hold hard,’ said Sir Edward suddenly. ‘I won’t push past any more of them. It’s bad enough wearing blue in a place like this.’
Hervey was surprised, for besides not being able to make out one colour from another on a night like this, Sir Edward as a rule displayed supreme indifference to such things. But then, this was Badajoz. Two assaults had failed already; if they failed again, the army would stop believing in itself. There could be no failure this time, whatever it took. That was what Picton had meant. It no longer mattered how many men died scaling these walls. If the bodies piled up in a mound, then their comrades could climb on them to reach the top – a ramp of redcoats, doing more in death than they had managed to do alive. And if that was to be, then it were better to go at it quickly, to take one’s death early, with the blood coursing, rather than waiting till it ran cold – easier by far to storm the walls with a hundred men following than to follow and see the bodies of the fallen. Hervey smiled grimly: there was always the chance of being first in Badajoz. Someone must earn that accolade!
‘Sir Edward, I wish to go with the Fifth.’
‘Hervey, we have work to do,’ replied his troop-leader, a shade impatient. ‘And besides, they would never let you.’
‘Surely, sir, they—’
‘Hervey, listen with close attention to what I say. Those brave fellows in red are legion. If the Fifth don’t scale the walls, the Seventy-seventh will, and if not them then the Eighty-third behind them, or the Ninety-fourth behind them. That is the purpose of the infantry of the line, and there will be many a fine officer dying to remind them of it. Our purpose is precise and limited. We will face our turn for oblivion when the walls are stormed.’
Hervey was abashed. ‘Sir.’
‘Very well,’ said Sir Edward, but more encouragingly. ‘Now, where are the covermen?’
Eight officers and NCOs of the 6th Light Dragoons crouched in the bottom of the ditch as cheering redcoats sprang forward. Ladders slammed against the walls; men even began climbing the stonework with their bare hands, getting nowhere but keeping up the momentum of the surge of red. In the torchlight, Hervey saw the Fifth’s commanding officer climbing the nearest ladder, his men close behind shielding his head with bayonets. Soon there were so many redcoats clinging to the ladder that even if the French had been able to get a hand to the top rung they would not have been able to tip it back. Did the ladder even reach the top? Hervey could not tell. But there was no check in the movement upwards, and for a moment he thought the French must have abandoned the walls. Then came a very deliberate fusillade. Men at the bottom fell clutching wounds, but none from the ladders. The Fifth’s light company answered, the musket flashes atop the walls showing them where to aim. Hervey realized the light company’s marksmen had been waiting for this: now they could sweep the walls and keep the defenders back while the grenadiers climbed.
‘Clever Fifth!’ he heard himself say. (And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven!) ‘Clever, brave Fifth!’
But these were no angels ascending. Neither did they descend: there was no check in the ascent of the lieutenant-colonel’s ladder.
Suddenly there was shouting from the top: ‘Old Ridge’s in! He’s in!’
Grenadiers were all but running up the ladder now.
Hervey was as humbled as he was thrilled: the first man into Badajoz was not a thrusting ensign or a raging corporal, but the Fifth’s own commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Ridge, leading his regiment sword-drawn as if on parade. And he, Cornet Matthew Hervey, crouched in the ditch below!
The light company stopped firing, and there were no shots from the top. Had the French left the ramparts? When would it be their turn?
‘Leu-in, leu-in the Fifth!’ shouted the brigadier, waving his sword and grasping the rung of a ladder. ‘Follow-up, Seventy-seventh!’
Hervey rose on one knee: a brigadier in – now was the time, surely?
‘Hold hard,’ said Sir Edward, calmly. ‘Let the Fifth fight the French out of the castle. We go after the Seventy-seventh.’
Hervey chafed as hundreds more redcoats surged to the walls. He was certain it would be over by the time their turn came, for Picton had said the French could not hold once the castle had fallen. He could hear firing again: the last desperate attempt to throw back the Fifth? What a thing it was to be waiting so close!
General Picton came, pushing, shoving, cursing worse than before. Everywhere there were torches, no need of the dark now that the walls were his. Yet he was a man angry with everything and everybody.
‘Get in there, Campbell!’ he barked at his brigadier. ‘Get every man you have in there!’
He pulled a grenadier from the bottom of a ladder and lashed at another two with the flat of his sword. ‘Laggards, laggards! Make way there!’
He cursed every rung to the top. He was still cursing as he jumped over the parapet and ran along the walls to the castle, checking only when he came upon Colonel Ridge lying dead at the gates.
General Phillipon was a defeated man. He had calculated (and disposed his troops accordingly) that even if the fortress walls were overcome he could still hold the castle until Marshal Soult came to his relief. But he knew that if the castle fell, the rest of the fortress would. Kempt’s brigade as well as Campbell’s had scaled the walls and fought the defenders out of this last redoubt with bloody loss, and they had held it against ferocious counter-attacks. The bugles that had been blowing since the first drummer gained the ramparts were now being answered by Leith’s on the other side of the city, and they told Phillipon that the game was up. An hour after midnight, unseen, he gathered about him his staff and escort, rode north from the centre of the city through Las Palmas gate, and crossed the old Roman bridge over the Guadiana to take refuge in Fort San Cristobal, which guarded the right bank.
Sir Edward Lankester and his party had followed close after General Picton, waiting occasion for their services, but hoping it would not come. Hervey thought the general was tiri
ng, for he did not curse and swear as before, neither did he drive the brigades to the breaches. The escalade had been exhausting and the butcher’s bill large. Once his men had forced the castle gates, the French had fled or laid down their arms, and those at the breaches would know to do likewise soon. The impulsion of the assault was gone, the bullet spent. He, General Thomas Picton, fifty-four years old, his wound now telling, had done everything Wellington had asked of him, and more than could have been expected. That he was still alive was a surprise to him, as it was to others. His staff wanted him to rest: it was now up to the regimental officers to rally their companies, round up the prisoners, deal with the wounded, collect the dead. What else was there for a divisional commander to do but rest?
But his division, which he had in large measure driven over the walls by the sheer strength of his will, now had a prodigious thirst. Men who had laboured in the trenches for weeks, wet through, perishing cold, their comrades blown apart by howitzer shells even as they worked; men who this night had waded knee-deep in the dark across the mill dam, whose comrades had fallen into the swollen Rivellas stream and drowned, or had jumped into ditches thought dry, only to discover their error too late; men who had been shot at from two sides at once as they filed between bastions, who had been spattered with the ordure of comrades as bombs were tossed among them, who had been stoned or speared from the ramparts like beasts in a primitive hunt, whose messingmates had fallen from ladders thirty feet onto bayonets, or been butted and stabbed in the face as they gained the top – and all of them fearing oblivion at any moment by the touch of a quickmatch to a mine: men whose impulsion was not diminished but turned in another direction. And not against the French. For all that the defenders had made them pay well over the odds for every yard of the assault, the men in red coats did not exact any special revenge. What they wanted – and what many were determined to have – was reward, not revenge. There was money in Badajoz – French and Spanish. They had not been paid in months; why should they not take their arrears now? There would be drink, too. They had had nought for weeks but a warming measure of rum each morning, and fighting was a thirsty affair. There would be plenty of drink in Badajoz, and whether it was French or Spanish, they would have it. There were women, too.
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