The Fields of Death

by Scarrow, Simon

  The lieutenant nodded, and then pushed through the throng of men, holding his borrowed musket at the slope. ‘After me, men!’ he shouted, a slight edge of hysteria to his cry. ‘Forward! For the King! For England!’

  ‘For England!’ echoed the sergeant who had urged Arthur to keep his head down. ‘Let’s gut those bloody Frogs, lads! Forward!’

  The men let out a cheer and surged back up the trench. Arthur watched them go for a moment and then hurried back down the approach trench, slithering here and there in the mud. When he reached the flat stretch he splashed along until he came to the first of the assembly areas, where he saw Somers-Cocks and his volunteers.

  ‘What’s happening, my lord?’ asked the major.

  Arthur did not answer, but thrust his arm towards the breach. ‘Take your men up there at the double. Clear the breach and hold your ground. Go!’

  ‘Follow me!’ Somers-Cocks bellowed, drawing his sword. He plunged into the opening of the trench, and his men ran after him, splashing through the muddy water that filled the bottom. Arthur turned and hurried on, making for the command post. There he found Somerset and gave orders for a brigade to be sent to support Somers-Cocks. Then, snatching up a telescope, he leaned against the sandbag parapet of the command post and braced his elbows to squint through the eyepiece. The French were hurriedly smashing down the makeshift walls on either side of the breach. Others were busy finishing off the allied wounded with their bayonets. An officer in a gold-braided uniform was directing some of his men to gather up the engineers’ tools and carry them back into the fortress. Arthur’s heart sank at the sight. The French defenders were as intelligent as they were brave, he thought bitterly. The capture of the tools would set Arthur back far more than the deaths of his men.

  The French officer took a last look round the breach and then down the slope towards Somers-Cocks and his men, charging forward to join the survivors of the attack battling their way back up the final stretch of trench before the breach. With a wave of his sword the Frenchman ordered his men towards the gap and they withdrew in good order and disappeared from view.

  ‘We lost ninety-four killed and thirty-two wounded, most of the tools that Perkins had brought forward, and twenty yards of the approach trench have been pushed in,’ Somerset reported that night. ‘The breach is back in our hands, and Major Somers-Cocks has established a permanent force of two companies of the Coldstream Guards to protect our foothold inside the fortress. Captain Morris has taken over the mining operation, my lord.’

  ‘Very well.’ Arthur nodded wearily. ‘We’ll proceed with the siege, for now. Did you read the latest report from our Spanish friends?’

  The news was bad. The Spanish general charged with holding up any French advance fromValencia towards Madrid had taken umbrage at the appointment of Arthur to supreme commander and mutinied. Meanwhile Soult was marching to join Joseph Bonaparte. To the north of Burgos, General Souham had been confirmed in his appointment as Marmont’s replacement and had gathered nearly fifty thousand men on the far bank of the Ebro. Any day now, Arthur expected to hear that Souham had crossed the river and was making for Burgos. The final slice of misery was an intercepted message from the French Emperor to his brother announcing that he had won a great victory over the Russians at Borodino and was on the verge of capturing Moscow.

  Somerset sat back in his chair despondently. ‘Unless our luck changes, it may well be prudent to cut our losses and retreat.’

  ‘From Burgos, perhaps,’ Arthur agreed. ‘But I fear that we may also have to abandon Madrid as well. What else can we do if this news is accurate? If I had the whole army here I could take on Souham and defeat him, at the price of leaving Madrid open to Soult. If I return to Madrid and combine Hill’s army with mine that would give us sixty-five thousand men with which to face Soult with as many as a hundred thousand, while Souham closes on us from the north. We would be caught in a vice.’ Arthur shut his eyes and forced his exhausted mind to think as clearly as possible. ‘The best we can hope for now is to take Burgos and put in a strong, well-provisioned, garrison. That will hold Souham up while we return to Madrid. Then? All I can do is pray that Soult is delayed.’

  Somerset watched his general closely for a moment, noting how sunken his eyes looked and how exhausted he appeared. The cold, miserable weather of the past weeks and the mud and depressing landscape of Burgos had added to his burden and for the first time Somerset began to wonder how one man could endure the strain of command for so long. The campaign had begun at the start of the year and now, ten months on, the officers and men were clearly exhausted and their morale was low. If they were close to the end of their tether, then by what greater order of magnitude was Wellington close to the end of his? Only one man could have led the army to achieve all it had in the Peninsula, and looking on that man now, Somerset feared for himself, and for the whole army, far from a home some had not seen for years.

  ‘Sir?’ he asked quietly. ‘Shall I order you something to eat? Sir?’

  There was no reply, just a deep, even breathing. Somerset smiled fondly, then rose to his feet and fed a few more logs into the campaign stove. After a moment’s hesitation he picked up the mud-stained cloak lying across one of the chests in the tent and carefully draped it over Wellington’s body.

  ‘Good night, sir,’ he said softly, and left the tent.

  Four days later, the French attacked the sappers again, bursting into their works between the walls in the early hours. They killed the engineers who were cutting a small tunnel through the rock beneath the second wall; the men charged with protecting them had put up a short fight before fleeing back towards the breach. There they had encountered Major Somers-Cocks, barring their path. He was attempting to rally them and counter-attack the enemy’s raiding party when he was shot through the heart. His men’s spirit broke and they fled back down the trenches, leaving the enemy to seize yet more tools before they set a small charge in the mouth of the mine and blew it up, burying the entrance under tons of rock.

  Later, when the first report of the attack reached headquarters, Arthur read through the details and then lowered the document, his face ashen as he turned to address Somerset. ‘Somers-Cocks is dead.’ Then he walked slowly outside to stare at the fortress where the tricolour flag was flying defiantly above the keep.

  Major Somers-Cocks was buried that afternoon, in an icy downpour. As his body, wrapped in a length of canvas, was lowered into the ground the chaplain of the Coldstream Guards read out the service in the usual blank monotone. Arthur did not listen to a word of it. He had heard all the words before, read out in the same dry manner over the bodies of many such young men. Some had shown similar promise to Somers-Cocks, most had not. Some had been cheerful spirits, gamely entering the field of war, while a few had been nervous, fearful even, eaten up by the prospect of death yet forcing themselves on until death had claimed them by shell, bullet, blade or disease.

  The chaplain closed his prayer book and bowed his head for a moment, and most of the officers and men followed suit. Arthur did not. He glared at the fortress for a long time, the rain running down the sides of his face in glassy rivulets. Then at last he turned to Somerset, cleared his throat and spoke harshly. ‘I’m lifting the siege. The army is leaving Burgos and will march back to Madrid. Issue the orders, if you please. I’ll be in my tent if I am needed.’

  He turned and splashed away through the puddles, rippled by the heavy rain.

  ‘Needed?’ Somerset repeated quietly.‘Now more than ever, my lord.’

  Chapter 33

  Tordesillas, 31 October 1812

  ‘So, he’s done it then?’ Arthur shook his head in frank admiration of the achievement.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Somerset replied, glancing down at the captured bulletin. ‘Bonaparte entered Moscow on the nineteenth of last month.’

  ‘And does it say anything about the Tsar coming to terms?’

  Somerset scanned the rest of the item and tilted his head to one side. ‘N
ot exactly. It just says the Emperor is waiting for the Tsar to admit defeat.’

  ‘Hmph,’ Arthur snorted. ‘If the Russians make peace then Bonaparte will be free to switch the balance of his power away from the east and towards us. At which point our goose will be thoroughly cooked. Well, we shall just have to hope that the Tsar continues to defy him. Now then, what is the latest intelligence on the enemy’s movements?’

  Somerset shuffled through his reports. ‘It seems the French have seized a crossing over the river Douro at Toro.’

  ‘Toro, eh?’ Arthur frowned. ‘That’s bad news. They threaten to cut us off from Portugal. I had feared that they might be attempting to get between us and Madrid. Now it looks as if they might have designs on catching us between the Army of Portugal and Soult’s force marching on Hill.’ He paused and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘It seems that I am now in a worse position than ever, Somerset.’

  The army had slipped away from Burgos a few days earlier, under cover of darkness. With the wheels of the guns and the wagons muffled by straw, they passed over the bridge at Burgos and then marched south-west towards Valladolid and the river Douro. It was Arthur’s intention to put as much distance as possible between his men and the French Army of Portugal. Any hope that the enemy was still too demoralised to fight after the defeat they had endured at Salamanca was soon dashed. They pursued the allied army with all the speed they could muster and pressed forward with the sturdy confidence of those who had the bigger battalions on their side. As the month had drawn to a close it had become clear that the French were too strong for Arthur to risk battle and he would be forced to give up any hope of keeping his forces in central Spain ready to renew the campaign the following year. Now, it seemed that he was in danger of being trapped here.

  He looked up at Somerset. ‘There is no question over what we must do. Hill is to quit Madrid at once. I had hoped that we might join forces north of there, but it’s too late for that now. Send an order to him to meet me at Salamanca. Meanwhile he is not to engage the enemy.’

  Somerset looked surprised. ‘It is your intention to allow the French to retake the capital, my lord?’

  ‘What would you have me do? Hill cannot stand against Soult alone.’

  ‘I agree, sir, but what will our Spanish allies make of this? They will say that we have betrayed them.’

  ‘By God, they can say what they damn well like!’ Arthur thumped his fist down on the table. At once he relented, furious with himself for having succumbed to the foul temper that had been brewing within him ever since the army had failed to take Burgos. He drew a deep breath and opened his fist, forcing himself to continue in a calmer tone. ‘I am sure that our Spanish allies will pour scorn on us for this. However, that is the cross we must bear. After all, we owe them little. I have learned never to expect much from the efforts of the Spanish grandees, even after all that we have done for them. They may cry viva, and they are friendly towards us, and hate the French, but in general they are the most incapable of useful exertion of all people I have known, and the most vain. So in balancing the good of my army against the goodwill of the Spanish, there is no question about which side my sympathies lie, Somerset.’ He looked at his aide, his eyes dry and sore from lack of sleep, and his head aching for the same reason. ‘Now, will you please be so kind as to send the order to Hill?’

  ‘Yes, sir, of course,’ Somerset replied guiltily. ‘I apologise.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ Arthur forced himself to smile. ‘It is I who must apologise. The faults that provoke me into my present melancholy are not yours, Somerset. Be comforted by that at least. Now get that message off to Hill, quick as you can.’

  Although the skies cleared early in November, the winter had begun to settle across the heart of Spain. The roasting landscape that the army had marched through the last time they had cause to make for Salamanca was now gripped by cold dawns and blustery days with a chilly wind that sought out every rip in a man’s uniform and cut through to his skin.

  ‘An army in retreat is never a happy thing,’ Arthur said ruefully as he watched a regiment from General Campbell’s division trudge along the muddy road to Salamanca. The men were in a sorry state. Unshaven, some in patched uniforms that barely justified the term, others, having discarded the remnants of the grey worsted trousers they had been issued nearly eleven months earlier, wearing an assortment of replacements. Their muskets, however, were well cared for and not a speck of rust disfigured the long, dark grey barrels.

  Some of the men glanced at Arthur with surly expressions as they passed by, and there were none of the cheers that usually greeted him when the men recognised their commander. Their bitter mood had not been helped by the incompetence of Arthur’s new quartermaster-general, Colonel Gordon, who had managed to send the supply wagons to Salamanca by a different road and so denied the army its rations for the last three days. The men had taken to eating acorns and chestnuts gathered along the way.

  Arthur’s own mood soured as he reflected on Somerset’s recent discovery that Gordon had been sending back defeatist despatches to the newspapers in London. Arthur had long since grown accustomed to such ‘croaking’ from some of his subordinates. It was an inevitable consequence of a long conflict. But what he would not tolerate was incompetence, and he resolved to have Gordon dismissed, regardless of the man’s political connections.

  General Campbell helped himself to a pinch of snuff as his men marched past. When Arthur commented on their demeanour, he said casually,‘Oh, they’re miserable beggars at the best of times, sir. Especially the veterans. But they’ll be happy enough with a tot of gin in them and the prospect of a fight.’

  ‘Then let us hope that the French don’t disappoint us when we reach Salamanca.’

  Campbell winced as he sniffed, blinked his eyes, and then turned to Arthur. ‘It’s your intention to offer battle then, sir?’

  ‘Why not? It will be as good an opportunity as any, once we add Hill’s strength to our own.’

  ‘What will that give us?’ Campbell paused to calculate the numbers. ‘Sixty-five thousand men to set against perhaps a hundred thousand Frogs?’

  ‘Fewer than that, I should say,’ Arthur replied, ‘if my intelligence is correct. There were reports that several of Souham’s formations have been diverted to other commands. It is likely that we will be faced by no more than eighty thousand men.’

  ‘They still outnumber us, especially in cavalry and guns, sir.’

  ‘True, but I suspect that they will be unnerved by the prospect of fighting over the same ground where they were so soundly beaten last time. I dare say it will raise our fellows’ spirits for exactly the same reason.’

  Campbell looked at him with a grin.‘Why, you’re a wily one, sir, that you are.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Arthur frowned. ‘I just hope I have not overplayed my reputation. It would be a bad business if Soult and Joseph refused to take the bait for want of confidence.’ His attention returned to the soldiers marching past.‘I would be sorry to spare your men the chance to amuse themselves.’

  Campbell laughed, and offered Arthur his snuff box. ‘Like some, sir? Clears the head wonderfully.’

  Arthur looked at the box with disdain. He had never liked snuff, nor could he understand the pleasure that could be derived from the sneezing it induced. He shook his head. ‘I thank you, but no. With my nose, you would be sure to lose half your supply.’

  Campbell stared at him wide-eyed, and then barked out a laugh as he tucked his snuff box away.

  ‘Now, keep your men moving, Campbell. I’ll need every one of them when we turn and fight at Salamanca.’ He touched the brim of his hat and turned his mount to ride on to the next division in the line of march that snaked west across the bare landscape.

  Hill and his force joined the army at Salamanca two days after Arthur arrived. A day’s march behind Hill came the combined forces of Soult, Joseph and Souham. Arthur promptly had his army make camp, as before, on the reverse slopes of the Less
er Arapil. Just beyond the opposite ridge the French halted to make camp, posting a string of cavalry vedettes along the ridge to keep watch on the allied position. Arthur used the farmhouse where he had first spotted Marmont’s outflanking move as his headquarters. As the men scoured the surrounding countryside for firewood and made the best meal they could out of their remaining rations, Arthur summoned his senior officers to the farm to brief them on his plans.

  He was pleased to see General Alava again. Alava had joined Hill’s column on the retreat from Madrid and smiled faintly in response to Arthur’s greeting.

  ‘My lord, you have no idea how much animosity your quitting Madrid has stirred up. I had a difficult time of it persuading the Cortes to let me re-join you.’

  ‘I apologise for your discomfort. However, I would hope that those who govern Spanish affairs would rather I had my army intact than have it remain in Madrid and be destroyed.’

  Alava winced. ‘I only wish they were so foresighted, my lord. There are some who are all for declaring war on England.’

  Somerset was scandalised. ‘You’re not serious?’

  ‘It was in the heat of the moment. It will pass,’ Alava waved his hand. ‘Fortunately, I was able to persuade cooler heads that this was a temporary expedient and that our allies would return to liberate Madrid, permanently.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Arthur waved Alava towards a seat around the tables the farmer had set up in his barn, the only space large enough to accommodate such a number of officers. Arthur rapped his knuckles on the board to silence them and get their attention. ‘Gentlemen, it is my hope to confront the enemy tomorrow. Though we are outnumbered, we have a fine defensive position which will negate whatever advantage they may have in guns and cavalry. It also leaves us with a clear route to Portugal, should we need it. We have been in a similar situation before and if the French come on in the same old way, why then we shall beat them in the same old way. As we did at Vimeiro and Busaco.’ He paused, preparing his officers for a change in tone. ‘The truth is, this battle, if there is one, will be the last opportunity we have to squeeze some advantage out of this year’s campaign. If we can defeat, or drive off, the French, then our retreat stops here. If they beat us, then at least we can retire to Portugal to lick our wounds and come back at them in the spring.’