None of the three attacking groups could see the entire town, but there was hardly anywhere in the town that one of them could not cover. The French were under fire, seemingly from all sides. Many rushed to get inside the houses, but most just threw away their muskets and screamed for quarter, their hands raised high. Then the redcoats from the fort burst in among them and started bayoneting anyone too slow to surrender.
The first volley from MacKay’s party had killed Colonel Girard. Nobody gave any orders and nobody surrendered officially. All the men in the open were made to lie face down with arms stretched out, while MacKay bellowed out his ultimatum to those who had sought shelter in the houses.
Twenty minutes after the last shot was fired the French and Italians were all disarmed and set to work collecting wounded and digging graves. Half the enemy force was dead or wounded. There were rather more wounded than usual, but many of them would die within a few days from the more serious wounds. The marines had performed many times better than they could have expected, but their muskets could not give the deadly accuracy that the Hornets took for granted. Nevertheless, it would be many days before their level of elation came back to normal.
In the afternoon, Titan dropped anchor outside the harbour and Cockburn came ashore with Doctor Andretti who set up a temporary hospital to treat the badly wounded. Prisoners and less seriously wounded were ferried out to the squadron for transport to Gibraltar and captivity.
Andretti, from Genoa, had been conscripted into the French army as a surgeon and captured by the Turks in Syrian Palestine. He had been serving as doctor and surgeon with Cockburn ever since Welbeloved had rescued him and his sister, eleven years ago.
Speaking good french and the same italian dialect as the line infantry, his services were highly appreciated by the unfortunates on whom he had to operate.
The marines had only three casualties and those were from the initial attack of the voltigeurs. One died and the other two would be out of action for some time after Andretti removed lead shot and uniform cloth from their bodies. All three had been standing targets in the third rank; a fact that MacKay emphasised to Jameson in case he should have had any doubts about the tactics of the Hornets. It was unnecessary. Jameson by this time was fully converted, but listened attentively and politely.
Captain Addenbrooke returned to report that Sebastiani had abandoned his pursuit of the Spanish army, most of whom had got safely away. The next fort along was being invested, but holding out with no difficulty. No doubt someone would be along shortly to find out why Girard had not reported back after dealing with the marines holding this one.
B Company was returned to him and he went off to make life difficult for any reconnaissance party coming to sniff around. MacKay grinned cheerfully. “There’s nae much more we can dae tae make the fort stronger, Major, but we’ll show your lads one or two nasty tricks that we can play on incautious Frogs, when they come looking for loot in the town.”
CHAPTER 17
General Gardanne had been given his orders and had tried doggedly to carry them out. He was not a senior general, although the force he commanded was approaching divisional strength. It had carried him and his convoy through those damned mountains in the most atrocious conditions in spite of the Portuguese irregulars and those thrice damned Frelons.
The threats made against him personally through that young dragoon that they had captured were, of course, laughable. How could they dare to suggest that they could get close enough to put him in any danger? Nevertheless, he thought it prudent to issue orders that no more captured Ordenança were to be executed. Masséna had ruled that they should be shot, so the simplest solution was not to take prisoners. Nobody was going to ask a dead man if he had tried to surrender.
Nor was he concerned at the pinpricks that they had inflicted on his force. It was the diabolical roads, the atrocious weather and the icy conditions in the mountains that had more than doubled his journey time, not the pathetic attempts they had made to delay him.
He had done as ordered, when many would have given up. Now he was sitting in some god-forsaken town on the other side of the mountains, trying to keep dry and he had only the haziest idea where Masséna might be. He had great swollen rivers to his west and south and no means of crossing them.
Worst of all he was blind. The cavalry patrols he sent out on reconnaissance were being savaged by the unspeakable Frelons. He could only move if he took his entire force and he didn’t know which way to move.
Captain Fernando Gonçalves on the other hand was a much happier man. It had taken two full days for the French to construct a replacement bridge across the gorge, sturdy enough to take the weight of the heavy wagons. Even then it was unsafe for a full load and each wagon had to be lightened and reloaded after it had crossed.
The best news of all was that the few days’ delay had enabled a squadron of the new German cavalry Hornets to join him. Major Hagen and Sergeant Major Grau had come with them; as they explained; to continue their training under active service conditions.
Hagen was the senior officer, but had insisted that, as it was Gonçalves’s operation, he should continue to direct their efforts and the squadron, as a unit would carry out his orders.
He had kept them simple. The French, very obviously, did not know which way to go to find Masséna. They could only find out by sending out cavalry patrols to the west and south. His own company could stop them going west and he would be most obliged to Hagen if he exercised his squadron to the south and barred the way to any curious chasseurs. He did add dragoons to that list, but there was not more than half a squadron of dragoons remaining.
Hagen was delighted to have the opportunity of trying out the new drills that A Squadron had been practising, specifically for use against cavalry.
Welbeloved’s original idea of a special raiding force of highly skilled warriors with deadly and rapid firing Ferguson Rifles had evolved in the last three years, almost out of recognition from the small unit he had started with. His first platoon had, indeed, been recruited from the Royal Marines and the Royal Navy, as a unit that could be landed from the sea, do a great deal of damage and re-embark relatively quickly.
They weren’t even mounted until well into their first mission in Spain, when the great distances involved, together with the unwilling co-operation of half a squadron of French dragoons, had put them on horseback for the first time.
It had since become a Hornet tradition to capture the majority of their mounts from the enemy.
While the basic emphasis of the Hornets, as mounted light infantry marksmen with deadly accurate weapons, had not changed, the Hanoverian battalion had joined them en masse as two separate groups at different times. Many of them were already cavalrymen who had to be taught the special skills of the Hornets, rather than infantry who were taught to be Hornets and also how to ride.
Lord Wellington had been most supportive of Welbeloved and his ideas, ever since Talavera, but neither could think of any way of incorporating the Hornets into the hidebound and drill-obsessed hierarchy of the army. Senior officers with limited skills and experience could simply not be allowed to interfere with the superb brigade that had been created.
When the second group of Hanoverians had been rescued from French service and had rejoined their true sovereign King George, His Lordship had remarked on the fact that over half of the German Hornets were ex-cavalrymen. He thought that a regiment of trained cavalry would be an invaluable addition to his army, particularly a regiment that could turn itself into four companies of trained killers, merely by dismounting.
Hagen now had the chance of putting some of those ideas to the test. The Hornets had never engaged French cavalry man to man. That infringed Welbeloved’s dictum of never giving the enemy a sporting chance. Instead, they had always caught them unawares or lured them into ambushes and used their highly accurate weapons to massacre them, as had Gonçalves’s Portuguese recently, to all accounts.
Always against cavalry
, the Hornets had been defensive, letting the French attack and put themselves into harm’s way. Now, Gonçalves was begging him to seek out and discourage French cavalry. Hagen was most content with the idea.
Lieutenant Hans Weiss was now senior lieutenant in A Squadron. He assumed command of 1 and 2 Troops, while Hagen went off with 3 and 4 Troops, getting Sergeant Major Grau to keep a fatherly eye on the still relatively new Wasp lieutenants commanding them.
There were two main routes south from the French camp and both seemed the most likely avenues of exploration for the chasseurs. Weiss covered the one leading to Mação and Hagen stalked his potential prey along the road to the fortress town of Abrantes.
He wasn’t too certain about what he expected to meet. Gonçalves had related how his company had mauled the French dragoons on their journey through the mountains. To judge by his success, Hagen would expect the chasseurs to be extra cautious and travel in at least squadron strength. He was confident that his two half-squadrons could deal with such, but there was no reason why the enemy shouldn’t play safe and send out two squadrons together. Hagen and Weiss in such conditions would themselves do well to be cautious.
As it happened, it was Hagen. He and his sixty men had made an early start and made a lot of miles to the south. Now they were on their way back, with half a dozen men in the vanguard. They had the long ridge of hills that separated them from the valley of the River Zézere, going off into the distance on their left and the minor range north of the Tagus on their right. It was still hilly country though the hills were generally quite gentle. If the interminable rain would moderate just a little, it was a beautiful land to dwell in; not quite so attractive if you were fighting through it.
It was something of a relief to be able to turn off onto a minor road that led in the direction of the French camp. The major road continued north and his two troops had been rather swamped by the wide-open areas around it. The minor road wound through the hills with the land on either side ranging from two hundred yards wide to little more than the width of the track, although the slopes were gentle enough almost everywhere to allow the men to spread out.
Hagen’s small vanguard was well ahead and they were few enough to avoid notice when they saw the French. One of them came galloping back with the news that what looked like a couple of squadrons of chasseurs was on a collision course, moving at a walk and should be in sight within ten minutes.
It quite spoilt Hagen’s plan. If it had been a single squadron, he would have tried the cavalry to cavalry tactics that they had been practising. Odds of four to one struck him as somewhat unreasonable of the French, but he had to pay tribute to Gonçalves and the uncompromising lessons he had given to the enemy cavalry.
He decided to compromise on his own behalf and went back to the tried and trusted defensive formation. The chasseurs came into sight; a vanguard troop, as expected; and halted abruptly when they saw 4 Troop, thirty helmeted, cloaked, dusty brown horsemen in a line across the narrowest part of the shallow valley. Sergeant Major Grau had joined 3 Troop, now bonneted and in skirmish order, spread out in cover to their front.
A bugle call rang out and Hagen waited with interest for the main body to flood into sight. He was disappointed, perhaps astounded, when senior officers joined the watching troop, studied the watching line of brown horsemen and abruptly withdrew.
Twenty minutes later, his two scouts, approaching the bend cautiously, suspecting a trap, reported that the enemy had vanished back the way they had come, without stopping to offer the courtesy of exchanging greetings.
Comparing notes that night, he discovered that Weiss had had an almost identical experience on the road that he had been patrolling. It was eye opening. Never in his experience had the French been so shy. His respect for Gonçalves and his men grew in proportion. They must have scared the French cavalry so much that they were avoiding the slightest sign of a trap.
Such timidity did not help much with his training programme for the men, but it did mean that General Gardanne and his convoy remained ‘lost’. His cavalrymen, on whom he relied for reconnaissance, were effectively blind.
***
Gonçalves was busy guarding the roads towards the southward flowing River Zézere, some fifteen to twenty miles to the west of the convoy. There were rumours that the French had built some kind of pontoon bridge over the river and Gonçalves was very keen that General Gardanne did not learn of this.
He had no idea himself where such a bridge might be, but he was sure that it would not be easy to find without directions. The river ran south for thirty or forty miles from the mountains to its confluence with the Tagus. It flowed through a high plain; almost a plateau; and his company was trying to cover all the tracks and roads from the area of the camp leading up onto the plateau. He had to split his company into its constituent five platoons and devise a means of communication by fast courier to enable him to bring two or more of them together to meet any challenge.
As his platoons, of necessity, were four or more miles apart, each one had to spread itself over a fairly large area to be sure of spotting any intrusions by Gardanne’s horsemen. Fortunately, the Hornets could pick their position and wait for the chasseurs to show themselves anywhere on the lower slopes.
Two double squadrons duly appeared, exploring the two better quality roads out of the several available. It brought home to Gonçalves that the chasseurs were not only looking for Masséna, they were also looking for roads that could support the heavy wagons of the convoy. He could have concentrated his men to cover the only two half-decent roads leading west. He grimaced. As a Portuguese, half-decent was a term only his countrymen would use. Wellington had been particularly scathing about the condition of ‘good’ roads in this poor country.
From their position on the higher ground his men concentrated into two groups to match up with the approaching French. They took no trouble to conceal themselves, moving unhurriedly along the slopes and waiting; almost goading; while the enemy made up its collective mind which road to try.
The chasseurs, apparently, did not much mind which road they took, provided it wasn’t one where the Hornets were. They turned south and the Hornets moved with them, across country along the gentle slope of the ridge.
An hour later, both sides had joined their other halves. A full company of Hornets gazed down on four squadrons, probably a regiment, of chasseurs. Nearly five hundred green clad cavalrymen gazed back at them but made no attempt to move in their direction. The stand-off lasted an hour. It was almost possible to see the tension building up in the chasseurs. All their experience and training urged them to sweep through the thin line of horsemen on the slopes above.
All that their officers had learned in the last two weeks was that tackling those brown devils was a disaster waiting to happen. Gonçalves quite expected the whole regiment to move south, but it was now mid afternoon and would be dark in three hours. They all turned and rode off back towards their camp.
Back at their own camp, Gonçalves and Hagen held a council of war, inviting Dodds and Weiss to sit in. All expressed surprise at the new shyness displayed by the enemy, but Gonçalves at least was certain it could not last. He argued that what Gardanne needed more than anything else was reliable information about the whereabouts of Masséna’s army.
Either he had to move his entire convoy west or south until he ran into one of the rivers or he had to insist that his cavalry did its job and brought him desperately needed intelligence.
They all agreed that if pressure was put on the cavalry, the likely result would be a mass exodus in the morning, either in one or two massed squadrons or twenty or thirty independent troops breaking out all together and spreading out to the west and south.
The first option would mean that the chasseurs would accept combat and the Hornets would welcome that. The second option would mean that all the separate troops would try and avoid combat and that some of them would inevitably escape and be free to reconnoitre.
What t
hey all agreed upon was that the French camp had to be invested more closely and preferably clandestinely to avoid bringing a swarm of light infantry round their ears. The chasseurs had to be checked before they could disperse too far from the town. There were only three roads leaving the town that branched off towards the south and west within two miles of the place and the Hornets would have to be in ambush on all three before dawn.
And so they were, though, greatly to Acting Lieutenant Pom Bal’s disgust, he and his platoon were detached and sent off, searching for the supposed pontoon bridge over the Zézere. If there was a way across, other than by ferry, Gonçalves wanted to know where it was.
The French were in the saddle at dawn, flooding out of the town on all three roads to the south and west. Gonçalves and Hagen watched from a vantage point, ready to direct their mounted troops as necessary.
Only two of Hagen’s troops were mounted. The other two had joined the Portuguese to allow for sixty Hornets to be placed in whatever concealment they could find around each of the three roads. It didn’t allow Hagen to try out his cavalry tactics, but he realised that there were far too many of the enemy for that to be an option.
Concealment wasn’t easy. It was open country with few obstacles to hide behind. Those that had scraped away the soil to make a shallow trench were now regretting it. Water seeped in quite rapidly to make an icy bath for them to lie in.
It was not easy to see what the French intended. They were certainly walking their horses in troops, but no other division was evident, other than that each of the three columns followed its own road. Once past where the Hornets waited, they could form up in groups of two, three or thirty, but they would have to get past first.
The Portuguese, with their converted Baker rifles, started to pick their targets at three hundred yards. The carbines of Hagen’s men would likely have caused casualties at that range, but at two hundred yards they too would be lethal.
Swallowing Portugal Will Settle My Spanish Bellyache Page 21
