‘Bastards. They hit me!’ He sounded surprised and angry more than anything else.
‘Lie down, lads, once you’re loaded. Only fire when you can see a mark clearly.’ Dobson patted a man on the shoulder. ‘You. Drag him back five paces and then come back here. We’ll look after you when it’s over, son,’ he said to the wounded man.
Hanley rubbed his throbbing head as Dobson gave the orders. The officer did not understand this, or see how men like Dobson – or Williams or Pringle for that matter – saw a shape to it all and a form which they could control. He was more comfortable with the cleverness and deceit of men like Baynes and Espinosa.
The firing grew heavier around the peak above them.
‘Who are you, lads?’ asked Dobson.
‘Second Battalion of Detachments.’ That explained much of the chaos. It was always confusing to fight at night, but all the harder with unfamiliar officers and sergeants in charge.
A heavy company volley lashed at the French column nearest to them. Then there was a distinctly British cheer and a line of men, clear and stark shapes in the growing starlight, ran straight at the enemy, bayonets reaching out and glinting dully. The French mass quivered and then broke up as men fled. Another cheer came from the far side of the crest and then the higher French column collapsed into rout.
‘Up, lads,’ said Dobson. ‘With your permission, Mr Hanley, I think we should go forward. Steady, boys. Don’t want to rush and have some damn fool take us for Frogs. We’ll just clear up any of these light bobs who hang around.’
The French had gone, save for the dead and wounded. There were plenty of these, both British and French, dotted all over the slopes of the hill. Some moaned, or sobbed, or cried out for their mothers. The less badly hurt yelled for help or for their friends to come and fetch them.
More redcoats joined them, and Hanley set them to work collecting the wounded.
‘Where shall we take them, sir?’
An officer was always expected to know, but Hanley had no idea. Thankfully a corporal from one of the light infantry regiments had the answer.
‘A hospital has been set up in a farm on the back of the hill,’ he said.
‘Good, take them there.’
A surly officer from the 95th passed them, smelling of fresh blood.
‘Hard fight,’ said Hanley.
The only response was a grunt.
‘Hanley,’ a voice called. ‘Help me, Hanley. Oh God, please help me!’
It was Wickham, his jacket and boots stolen along with his purse, and the right sleeve of his shirt dark with blood.
‘Carry the major to the surgeons.’
‘Thank you, Hanley, thank you. You are a true friend. They robbed me, Hanley. The rogues robbed me.’ The voice faded as four men carried Wickham away in a blanket taken from the top of an abandoned French pack.
‘You stay with us, Ramón,’ said Hanley without looking at the Spaniard.
There was a cry of pain. ‘Oh my God, keep steady, you damned rascals, or I’ll have you all flogged!’ Wickham’s shout carried back to them. Hanley thought he saw Ramón grin wickedly.
General Hill passed, mounted on a new horse, and doing his best to bring order. The French had gone, and the high ground was now heavily occupied by the British, but that did not mean the enemy would not try again. Their surprise attack had so very nearly worked.
Officers appeared from the 2nd Battalion of Detachments and began to rally their men.
Hanley and Dobson with Ramón by their side walked back to the sheep pen where they had left Velarde and the wounded messenger.
‘He is dead,’ said the Spanish colonel. ‘I bound him up as best I could, but he had bled so much. It is a pity.’
‘A pity?’
‘Yes, does that surprise you? Why would I want the man dead? But it does mean I have no means of sending a message to Espinosa. Here is the packet. I have left the seal on it in case you still do not trust me.’
Hanley slipped the packet into his pocket. ‘We cannot read it up here.’
They followed the parties of men carrying wounded down to the farm on the western slopes of the hill. There was light there, but Hanley wished somewhere else was nearer.
‘Keep an eye on Ramón,’ he said quietly to Dobson as they arrived. ‘Make sure he goes nowhere near Major Wickham.’
‘Aye, sir.’
The two officers found a spot under a lantern and tried their best to ignore the smell of blood, the soft noises of the hurt men and the buzzing of flies.
Hanley broke the seal and read, passing each page to Velarde when he had finished.
‘This changes everything,’ he said softly at the end.
Velarde simply nodded, and finished going through the last page. ‘We must tell General Wellesley.’
‘Yes. He will probably be on the hill somewhere trying to sort things out. You go and find him or Colonel Murray. I shall go back to the town and find Baynes.’
The Spanish officer looked at him. ‘Is this a test?’
‘Should it be?’
Velarde spread his hands. ‘As you wish. I’d be glad of your sergeant as escort. The sentries may be jumpy at the moment and better not to sound too foreign.’
‘Certainly.’ They walked over to Dobson and the Spanish coachman. The veteran was feeling the heft of a short axe.
‘Nasty brute, sir. Ramón tells me the savages use them in America.’
‘The Comanches,’ confirmed the coachman, who had once been an hussar, taking back his tomahawk.
‘Sergeant Dobson.’ Hanley did not bother to use the full rank.
‘Sir!’ Dobson stiffened to attention, sensing that the officer wanted to be formal.
‘I need you to take Colonel Velarde to find General Wellesley. He carries important dispatches. My guess is that the general will be somewhere on this hill, making sure that everything is in order. Once you have taken him to the general and his staff you may return to the battalion.’
‘Sir?’
‘I need to go back to the town and Ramón will be able to guide me there. I assure you that I shall be fine on my own.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Hanley wondered how two words still managed to convey the lance sergeant’s opinion that while the lieutenant was no doubt a splendid fellow, he was incapable of putting his own breeches on without assistance. ‘Are you sure, sir?’
‘I am, Lance Sergeant Dobson. I think at last I am.’
Hanley and Ramón went down the slope and then followed one of the main roads into town.
‘I need to speak with your mistress,’ he told the coachman. After that they exchanged no more words.
It was eleven o’clock by the time they reached the house. The doorman let them in without question. The housekeeper was a good deal less helpful. ‘The lady has retired and is asleep.’ She repeated the phrase over and over again. Hanley doubted it was true. The town was still noisy and full of stragglers; many of whom were now drunk.
Ramón supported him, and finally the old woman gave in.
La Doña Margarita appeared, in one of her fine widow’s dresses. She appeared so rapidly that it was clear she had not yet gone to bed.
‘Lieutenant Hanley, to what do I owe this unexpected visit?’ Her voice was calm. Her face seemed a little drawn as if from fatigue. She sat in one smooth motion, hands adjusting her skirts to the shape of the carved wooden chair with its high arms. ‘Please sit.’
‘I regret disturbing you at this hour, and indeed calling unannounced and uninvited.’
‘And yet you do so. Perhaps that rather weakens any apology.’ She smiled and turned to her coachman. ‘You may leave us.’
Ramón looked uncertain. ‘I am not accustomed to repeating instructions,’ said the lady. The coachman glanced at Hanley, then back at his mistress. La Doña Margarita inclined her head slightly, and Ramón left.
‘He is a good man,’ said Hanley, narrowly avoiding calling him a lad.
‘That is true, but paying that co
mpliment appears inadequate cause for disturbing me at such an hour.’
Hanley looked at the lady. Her olive skin seemed darker in the lamplight, her curves fuller and her lips even more inviting.
She raised an eyebrow.
‘Forgive me.’ Hanley was sure he knew the answers, but needed to ask the questions. ‘I spoke to Major Wickham earlier this evening.’
The poise cracked for a moment and there was a flash of anger. ‘If he thinks he can simply send his friends to seek my company!’ Then the dignified façade reasserted itself. ‘It is late, and I do not believe I can offer what you want.’ She rose.
‘Sit, madam!’ Hanley had not meant to shout. He saw a flicker of fear in her eyes, but she stopped. Hanley had not moved from his seat. ‘You misunderstand. I do assure you that I am no great friend to Major Wickham. Please, please sit down.’ She did so reluctantly, and her glance remained filled with anger.
‘I know you are not with child. I know that you are not scarred from the flames after your heroism at Saragossa.’ Hanley spoke evenly. He was sure of all of this, and only the last piece of the puzzle would be a guess. ‘I also know that you are not the lady you claim to be, although I believe you were once her maid.’
He let the words hang in the air.
She was breathing deeply, her chest surging and falling. The silence was heavy, and in the far distance Hanley could hear a voice singing drunkenly.
‘Wickham did not tell you all that,’ she said at last.
‘No.’
‘He realised I was not having a baby when the carriage fell into the ditch all those months ago. His arm pushed aside the padding I wear.’ She gently slapped her enlarged belly.
‘Captain Pringle saw you shot in the same place.’
‘And he said nothing? A different man to your major.’
‘Yes.’
‘Wickham knew that a baby was important and could be the heir to a title and great fortune. My own place in society depends on the child. He threatened to reveal my secret and unmask the deception unless I let him take his pleasure with me. He wanted money as well, and then joked that he might solve my problem for me and give me a baby.’ Her voice was bitter. ‘What was I to do?’
‘I believe Ramón tried to kill him this evening.’
La Doña Margarita smiled thinly. ‘Only tried?’ She stared at the Englishman and read no threat there. ‘That was a great risk,’ she said.
‘I doubt even Wickham suspects anyone apart from the French.’
‘He is my father.’ Hanley’s face must have betrayed his surprise. ‘There, for the first time I reveal something you did not know. My mother died of fever in Mexico. When I was old enough the captain took me on and trained me to be his wife’s maid. Will you betray him?’
‘No. I cannot let him complete the task, but I do not feel Wickham or anyone else needs to know. The major will not bother you again.’
‘Your doing? Then I thank you on both counts.
‘The real widow died of fever just like her husband. Neither survived to reach the shores of Spain. I was at Saragossa, and this,’ she pointed at the wreath on her sleeve, ‘is mine by right. The story of the burns helps to keep men at a distance, even those not deterred by the baby.’
‘Why the deception?’
‘I have lived most of my life in the New World, and yet my heart is Castilian.’ Her voice was strong and proud. ‘As a maid without an employer what could I do? She hated the French, and she would approve. As a noblewoman I can be useful.’
Hanley stared at her for a long time. Neither said anything.
‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘Indeed you can. I shall tell no one what I know.’
‘And the price?’
He thought for a moment of Wickham’s bargain. The temptation was strong.
‘Punish the French,’ he said. ‘In your own way keep hurting them.’
La Doña Margarita watched him as he stood, bowed politely and walked to the door.
‘I like you, Mr Hanley,’ she said softly as he left the room. Hanley caught the words and could not help smiling.
It was cold when he stood out in the street. The moon was rising and the night was bright. Hanley shivered and wished he had his cloak. Part of him felt noble, and that was a novel sense for him to have. More importantly he was pleased with his cleverness and revelling in the joy of gambles that paid off. It was a feeling he had always enjoyed.
‘Good evening, William.’ Baynes sat on horseback beside him, leading a saddled mule. It did not surprise him. ‘Best I could do, I am afraid. We should be able to find your horse when we reach the general’s staff.’
Hanley hauled himself up on to the mule. ‘Where is he?’
‘Up on the Medellín hill, sorting things out. One of the German brigades broke. They thought that they were in the second line so had not set pickets. I strongly suspect that Sir Arthur will spend the night there. Therefore so must we.’
‘Has the general received the dispatches?’
‘He has, and as you may guess has plenty to think about. Soult is closer than we think – at most a week away. It is worrying that he was expected to be behind us at Plasencia even earlier and that we knew nothing about it. At least the report that Venegas is finally threatening Madrid is something.’
‘What will happen?’
‘My dear Hanley, you are the military man, so you tell me.’
They rode through the streets in silence after that, until they left through one of the gateways and began to climb the hill.
Finally Hanley asked, ‘You knew who she was, didn’t you?’
‘I did.’
‘Then why did you say nothing?’
‘Secrets are better kept than broadcast. Would it have changed anything if you had known? Besides, it never does any harm to see how hard it is for anyone else to find something out.’ Baynes’ voice sounded full of contentment. ‘I am fully reassured.’
‘I might have made a mistake, have revealed her as a fraud or proclaimed her a spy.’
‘But you did not. You really should have more faith in yourself, my dear boy, more faith.’
Hanley could not think of anything more to say.
25
The French tried again in daylight. The same division launched its three regiments up the slopes of the Medellín. There was an early morning mist down in the valley. On the lower hill held by the enemy there were also French guns, some sixty of them placed in a long line each one ten yards apart so that the battery stretched all along the top of the hill and down on to the plain. Their smoke fed the mist and made one great drifting cloud, so for a long time Hanley could not see the columns advancing.
Roundshot scarred the earth, flinging up dirt and stones and sometimes bloody fragments of the men caught in their path. Shells exploded in a circle of jagged metal shards. The British infantry were ordered to lie down, and this and the slope itself made them difficult targets for the French gunners. Yet France’s emperor was himself a gunner, and so was Marshal Victor, and the French artillery boasted that they were the finest in the world. Difficult did not mean impossible. Battery commanders ordered the crews to reduce the powder in each charge and so the balls no longer sank deep into the soil or bounced high overhead, but skidded lightly up the slope, grazing past it. The redcoats died or were maimed by ones and twos and many shots were fired before one struck home, but the enemy kept firing and none of the men on the hill had ever seen or heard so many French guns pounding away. This was the Emperor’s way of war, deluging one stretch of the enemy line with fire, pulverising it so that the stunned survivors cracked when his infantry struck like a hammer at the weakened spot.
Every now and again there was a slight pause in the appalling crashing and destruction of the guns, and it seemed so unreal that Hanley wondered whether his ears were too beaten to hear anything until he caught the faint sound of drums and cheering. He knew the sound of French infantry advancing from Vimeiro and he had seen them beaten there, but t
hen there had not been so many guns. The barrage resumed and the redcoats on the hill suffered.
The sixty guns pounded the Medellín. Hanley saw a shell explode squarely on a line of prone figures. The man in the front rank had the back of his skull sheared off by a whirling fragment of the casing. To the right another man’s back was ripped open, while on the left a redcoat screamed because one leg had gone beneath the knee and the other was a mangled mess of broken bone and flesh. The sergeant in his place behind the double rank lay dead without a mark on him. In the middle of it all a soldier sat up, and could not believe that he was unharmed. The man shook as they dragged the dead and wounded back and closed up the formation, but took his place lying down again in line.
The guns ceased fire as they were blocked by their own infantry pushing up the slope. Skirmishers from each side fought their own private battle amid the mist and smoke. The British held back the French voltigeurs, but had to give way as the main columns came close. Bugles called, whistles blew, and officers and sergeants shouted for the light bobs to fall back on to the main line. They went reluctantly, stopping to fire down the slope. Men dropped in the front ranks of the columns, but they were far too few to hold them up.
‘Damn their filing, let them come in anyhow,’ shouted General Hill, impatient because the light companies were retreating so slowly that they were in the way of his main line.
Colonel Murray laughed out loud. Hanley did not understand.
‘That’s the first time I have ever heard Daddy Hill swear,’ Murray explained. ‘Damned good work by the way, getting those dispatches.’ It was not the first time the colonel had congratulated him on getting the package from Espinosa. ‘Puts us in a tight spot, but at least we know what is happening and can try to figure a way out. First thing is to beat Victor, of course!’
Orders were shouted and the battalions stood up, dressed ranks and prepared to meet the enemy. Hanley saw more than one soldier cross himself. Others knocked the embers out of pipes they had somehow managed to smoke as they lay under the pounding of the guns.
The French drums were clear now that the noise had slackened, every pause in the rhythm filled by chanting. Men from the light companies and German riflemen from the 60th jogged back through the gaps between the battalions to reform.
Send Me Safely Back Again Page 28
