‘Oh my good God!’ Pringle spoke over him, and his knuckles were white as he gripped the rail.
Hanley caught the movement first, and Williams followed his gaze and saw the shape moving through the waves. It was small and dark brown and he did not know what it was, until it was lifted on a swell. A horse was swimming towards them, its head held above the water. It was Bobbie. She was close enough for them to make out her empty eye socket. She was swimming fast, but as the wind caught the sails the Corbridge was moving still faster.
Pringle broke down, tears coming in floods, and for once it was not seasickness which forced him below deck to seek refuge in his cot.
The French guns opened fire ten minutes later. With the British withdrawal, the enemy’s gunners had flogged their teams to drag the cannon up to high ground overlooking the harbour. Williams and Hanley watched as the first shots provoked a flurry of movement on board the ships nearer the shore. Within minutes, several were moving.
‘Cut their cables,’ muttered the captain. ‘Daft buggers,’ he added.
They were too far away to see the details. Williams had a sense of panicked movement on masts and rigging. White sails dropped from spars as ships set every stitch of canvas in their rush to escape. He could see two ships moving fast at such an angle that they must surely hit each other. Then one seemed to gain, and he was willing to credit their captains with unusual skill, until he watched the ships shudder and knew that they had bumped. Behind them another pair of ships were hopelessly locked together.
‘Daft buggers,’ repeated the master.
Hanley pointed to another ship, its masts at unnatural angles, and its deck canted up to one side. ‘I think it’s run aground,’ he said.
‘’Course it’s bloody run aground,’ came the gruff comment from behind them.
Soon there were boats in the water, rowing hard, away from the foundered ships, carrying their crews and passengers. The French artillery were still firing, but perhaps because of the distance neither Hanley nor Williams saw any sign that their shot was actually hitting any of the ships.
‘Biggest balls-up since Yorktown.’ The expression had come into Williams’ mind from nowhere, and Hanley was surprised to hear his pious friend employ even such a mild vulgarity. The master of the Corbridge gave a brief snort of laughter.
The Corbridge was running ahead of the wind now, and the captain took them near an old ship of the line with its guns removed to serve as a transport. An officer on deck screamed vitriolic abuse at the master for cutting across them so recklessly. The Corbridge continued blithely on its way, rushing between a pair of sluggish old merchantmen whose hulls were long overdue to be cleaned.
Hanley tapped Williams on the shoulder. He said nothing, and simply pointed. Two ladies stood at the rail of the ship to starboard. One was tall and dark haired and held a bundle in her arms. The other was smaller, her red curls flowing in the wind, and she was waving.
Miss MacAndrews shouted something, but the words were lost and she looked equally uncomprehending when he called back greetings. He wished that he had his telescope, so that he could watch her for longer as the ships grew apart, but he would not run below and fetch it for that would mean losing sight of her now.
Williams was happy. Hanley sensed it, and could not help smiling as well.
‘Well, I suppose that we are going home,’ he said, even though he did not really have one.
Williams did not appear to be listening, intent only on the diminishing figure of the girl as they rapidly left the other ship behind.
‘I love you!’ he bellowed as loudly as he could.
‘I’m sure you do, lad,’ said the master gruffly. ‘Now you can both damned well get off my deck.’
HISTORICAL NOTE
Beat the Drums Slowly is a novel, but like its predecessor, True Soldier Gentlemen, it is fiction firmly grounded in fact. The 106th is a fictional regiment, and so are all the characters associated with it, but I have tried to make the details of regimental life accurate, and the speech and behaviour of the characters reflect the reality of the period. All of the senior officers in the army are real, and I have done my best to portray them as faithfully as possible, at times in their own words.
Lord Paget commanded the British cavalry with considerable skill, both in the dramatic moments of the charges at Sahagun and Benevente, and also in the even more demanding business of forming the rearguard and skirmishing with the French. He may well have been the ablest cavalry general the British produced in this period. Soon afterwards, however, he eloped with the wife of one of Wellesley’s brothers, and this was the main reason why he did not serve again in the Peninsular War. By the time of Waterloo, Wellington and Paget – who had by now become the Earl of Uxbridge – had become more reconciled, and the latter received command of the cavalry in Belgium and led them with the same skill he had shown in Spain.
‘Black Jack’ Slade received much criticism and little praise for his part in leading Moore’s cavalry. On one occasion he was ordered to lead a charge, but stopped twice to adjust his stirrups and in the end the attack was led with great success by the colonel of the regiment involved. Unlike Lord Paget, and in spite of his limited ability, Slade would hold farther commands during the Peninsular War. Seniority and personal connections counted for a great deal in the British Army of that era.
Sir Edward Paget led the Reserve Division with both skill and hot-tempered determination. His conduct commanded wide respect and the contrast between the behaviour of the regiments in his division and most of the remainder of the army was striking. He returned to Portugal later in 1809, but was badly wounded and lost an arm during Wellesley’s victory at Oporto. When he eventually went back to command a division in Spain in 1812, he had the bad luck to be captured by a French cavalry patrol.
Thomas Graham is one of the most remarkable and appealing characters of the period, and the story of how he raised his own regiment and became a soldier at the advanced age of forty-three reads like a romance. His wife’s fragile beauty was captured in a portrait by Gainsborough. She died of consumption, while they were touring the Mediterranean on a yacht in 1793, and the mistreatment of her corpse prompted him to join the forces besieging Toulouse as a volunteer. It was there he met the young Lieutenant Colonel Moore, beginning a deep friendship, ended only by Moore’s death. Graham subsequently commanded the British forces in Cadiz, and won the Battle of Barossa in 1811. In the last years of the Peninsular War he was one of only a handful of men Wellington was willing to trust with independent commands.
Several of Sir John Moore’s staff, including the Honourable James Stanhope, who was the nephew of Pitt the Younger, and Colborne and Napier, went on to have distinguished military careers. All were devoted to his memory, as indeed were many other army officers. Stanhope’s sister, Lady Hester, was if anything an even more fervent admirer of the general. They did not become engaged, in spite of rumours to the contrary. In the years after his death Lady Hester travelled widely in the Middle East, defying most of the conventions restricting the activities of noblewomen. She died in Lebanon in 1839. A second brother, the Honourable Charles, was a major in the 50th Foot and was killed at Corunna.
Sir John Moore is still venerated by the British Army, especially by the regiments inheriting the traditions of the light infantry and rifle regiments – today principally The Rifles. In the popular consciousness, now that Charles Wolfe’s poem ‘The Burial of Sir John Moore’ is no longer a staple of the schoolroom, he tends to be overshadowed by the Duke of Wellington. Probably Moore’s greatest importance was as a trainer, most especially when he commanded a brigade of light infantry at Shorncliffe camp on the South Coast from 1803. A new system of drill was introduced, treating the individual soldier as more than an automaton, encouraging individual initiative, accuracy in shooting, and a reliance on personal pride and honour. This was a remarkably modern concept and in many basic principles is still reflected in the army today. Moore did not devise the system, b
ut he was a serious and conscientious soldier, and did much to foster its success.
In 1808 many considered Moore to be the ablest British general – Wellesley certainly had a high opinion of him. Moore had served as a subordinate commander in Egypt, and in smaller operations in the Mediterranean. He assumed command in Portugal when Sir Hew Dalrymple, and his second-in-command Sir Harry Burrard, were recalled following the outrage at the Convention of Cintra. Wellesley, who although a lieutenant general had held the rank only for a matter of months and so was junior to Moore, had also signed this agreement and so also returned to London to answer charges. Cintra allowed the French army in Portugal to be evacuated to France in British ships, taking their weapons and loot with them. It did mean that the invaders were ejected from Portugal without farther bloodshed, but was generally seen as a poor outcome after the victory at Vimeiro. (I have taken one liberty by having Hanley quote Byron’s condemnation of the treaty several years before the publication of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.)
Moore had not arrived in time to be implicated in the negotiations at Cintra. He was the most senior officer left in Portugal – as well as the most prestigious – and therefore automatically took charge. There is considerable doubt that the government wanted this. He was seen as a Whig and they were Tories, and he was also an extremely vocal critic of corruption and incompetence in the army and in government in general.
From the very start, the government’s instructions to Moore were vague and confused. There was widespread enthusiasm for the Spanish patriots who had rebelled against the French invaders, and a complacent belief that the war was won. There was a sense that Moore would find something useful to do in support of the Spanish armies, but little idea of how he might achieve this. Naively, no one seems to have considered that Napoleon might not meekly accept the reverses in Spain. Instead the Emperor led over a quarter of a million of his best troops across the Pyrenees. The Allies were convinced for many months that the French had no more than eighty thousand men in all of Spain. The government of Spain and the administration of its army had been thoroughly dislocated by the removal of the royal family and the French occupation. It would have taken far more time than they had to organise an effective defence against the second, and far larger, French invasion. It would also have taken money and resources which simply did not exist. Napoleon and his marshals routed each of the Spanish field armies in quick succession. It was no mean achievement that many of these managed to salvage a nucleus of a new army from the survivors, but the desperate state of La Romana’s Army of Galicia at the end of 1808 is not exaggerated. The soldiers were lacking basic equipment, were seldom fed and almost never paid, and diseases such as typhus were rampant.
Moore and his army of 35,000 could not hope to fight the French on their own, and had not been in a position to take part in the early struggles. He was on the brink of withdrawing to Portugal on at least one occasion. The decision to advance was a bold one, encouraged by the captured dispatch which revealed that Marshal Soult’s corps was isolated and vulnerable. Moore failed to inflict serious loss on Soult, but he did draw Napoleon and the bulk of the French forces northwards. This prevented a rapid advance into the south of Spain and then into Portugal. Had this occurred so early in the war, it is possible that all serious resistance would have been permanently crushed. Instead the French effort shifted against Moore, and this gave time for the Spanish armies to reform and prepare defences in the rest of the peninsula.
The British had to retreat, and retreating in the face of the enemy has always been a difficult thing to do. Advancing farther into Spain meant that this would be an especially dangerous operation. It was also winter, a time of the year when armies rarely took the field, and the route led through extremely rugged terrain. The distances were smaller, and the weather less extreme, than in Napoleon’s more famous retreat from Moscow, but that should not make us underestimate the genuine hardship endured by Moore’s men.
Yet the speed with which discipline collapsed in many regiments remains surprising. Moore was clearly dismayed. Given his own approach to training and discipline, the readiness with which so many redcoats abandoned their sense of honour and duty was especially shocking. His orders to the army, and especially the officers, were clearly intended to shame them into greater efforts. Whenever there was the prospect of fighting, he and other observers were amazed by the rapid change in the redcoats’ attitudes and behaviour. Orders to withdraw quickly plunged them back into despair and indiscipline.
Drunkenness was a common problem in the army of the period – and indeed in wider society. Throughout the Peninsular War, large numbers of redcoats would drink themselves insensible at any opportunity. Looting was also hard to prevent – and when provisions were short was often quietly ignored. In the retreat to Corunna both were made worse by a sense that the Spanish villagers were unwilling to fight for their own country, or welcome the allies who were risking their lives on their behalf. The British soldiers felt humiliated and angry at having to retreat, and readily vented this on the property – and occasionally the persons – of the Spanish in their path. It was unfair, but is surely understandable.
Wellington’s army would suffer a major breakdown in discipline in many regiments during the retreat from Spain in 1812. Moore’s army was less experienced, and certainly far less hardened to campaigning. The British Army was still in the process of learning how to wage war on the continent of Europe. It was especially inexperienced at the higher levels of command. Generals and their staffs were having to learn how to lead and control large formations. Mistakes were made. The story of the dragoon who got drunk and failed to deliver a dispatch is true. Sir David Baird was blamed for this, since Moore’s ADC, who delivered the message to him, had offered to carry it himself if given a fresh mount. Instead Sir David followed the normal routine, and in this case the order was not delivered and several brigades underwent an unnecessary and especially arduous march at a time when the men were already fatigued. There were many failings in the supply and intelligence-gathering system. In time, such things would improve, and if mistakes were never eradicated altogether they became fewer. Later in the Peninsular War, Wellington’s army did all of these things better, but his system was a gradual creation taking much time and effort.
Moore commanded the army at a much earlier stage in its development, and in a strategic situation of extreme peril. The redcoats suffered severely from weather, hunger, disease and inadequate clothing. Many men ended up barefoot, their often poor-quality boots completely worn out. They had already marched a long way before the retreat began, and too many of the supplies stockpiled for the army’s use were destroyed rather than distributed. Once the retreat began, Moore drove his army on at a fast pace, determined to get ahead of the French pursuit. The marches were long by the standards of the day.
In spite of Moore’s best efforts, all of the regiments were accompanied by many of the soldiers’ wives and children. Some officers’ wives also shared in the hardships of the campaign. Two battalion commanders – both of whom were killed – had their wives with them. It is unlikely, however, that any officers brought with them an adult, unmarried daughter. As in True Soldier Gentlemen, Jane MacAndrews’ presence makes for a good story, but is not based on any real incident.
Soldiers’ wives were a tough breed. They helped to look after their own men, and also were paid to clean and mend the regiment’s clothing. Some were as prone to drunkenness as their menfolk, and the episodes of unconscious women lying in the snow, and in some cases freezing to death, are firmly based on reality. Others were said to be highly enthusiastic looters. Some were more respectable. The very proper Annie Rawson is based on a real sergeant’s wife, who carried her dog in a basket throughout the retreat. Speedy remarriage was very common for the women of the regiments.
Readers may struggle to believe that Jenny could have given birth and then fled so soon afterwards, but this is also firmly based on fact. With so many women following the
regiments, it was inevitable that some were in more or less advanced stages of pregnancy. A significant number of women gave birth during the campaign in conditions that can only have been appalling. Some did so in the open air, and without any medical assistance, and it is unsurprising that sometimes the mother or the child or both perished. Several memoirs mention such terrible sights. Another remembered finding a six-or seven-month-old boy trying to suckle from the breast of his dead mother. In this case there was a happier outcome. A staff officer took the child, wrapping him in his cloak, and announced, ‘Unfortunate infant, you shall be my future care.’
One memoir tells of a Highlander whose wife went into labour near the end of the retreat. Comparatively fortunate in having the shelter of an outhouse and the attentions of the regimental surgeon, they dropped behind the column and the baby was born during the night. The surgeon left them, telling the soldier that he should surrender. The following morning, however, his wife refused to let him do this, and they both set off on foot to catch up with the army. The woman was barefoot, carrying her baby wrapped in an apron, and they had little or no food. Somehow they reached the British outposts.
The Corunna campaign was a grim business, and episodes from it clearly haunted many of the survivors for the rest of their lives. Yet many also took great pride in the conduct of their own regiments.
The British hussar regiments did well during the campaign, in spite of the unsatisfactory condition of their mounts and a woeful lack of horseshoes, and especially the nails required to fit them. At Sahagun, the 15th Hussars charged and broke two French regiments. At Benevente, the 10th Hussars drove the chasseurs of the Imperial Guard back across the River Esla. General Lefebre-Desnouettes was captured – probably by a German hussar, although the credit went to a private from the 10th Hussars. He spent much of his captivity in Cheltenham, where he was subsequently joined by his wife. Eventually he broke his parole – the promised word of an officer not to escape. Napoleon evidently approved and he was given a command in the attack on Russia in 1812.
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