Swallowing Portugal Will Settle My Spanish Bellyache

by Geoffrey Watson

  Fischer cantered back to his men, highly amused that both squadrons were trying to outwit each other. It was rather like a game of chess, with each player trying to catch the other at a disadvantage and concentrate the battle at a particular point on the board.

  Both had chosen the same point and the confrontation would take place in the gap between the two woods that he had originally noted from the rim of the basin. The trees on the left should be where Bruch and his men were waiting to spring the second part of the original trap.

  The original plan should have to be modified now that the opposing commander was using his brain and seeking to pull off an ambush of his own. This was developing all the trappings of a much greater combat and he let his mind put him into the shoes of a general making his moves and ordering his forces on a much larger chessboard.

  In fact, he continued along the road at the same steady pace, but sent a messenger spurring off toward the woods to find out what Bruch could tell him about the French dispositions.

  At this gentle pace, his men would be at the likely ambush area in twenty minutes. He rode to the head of the column and made sure that every carbine was loaded and could be drawn, primed, cocked and fired within two seconds. He cast a jaundiced eye on a large black cloud blowing in from the right and prayed that any rain would hold off for half an hour.

  His last task was to make sure that his two lieutenants and the sergeant major knew everything that he had found out and were prepared for an attack from either flank.

  Two hundred yards to go and they would then be entering the area of the trap between the two woods. It was a relief when the messenger came galloping back to report. The French had half their strength ready to attack from behind the woods on each flank. Bruch had men concealed within twenty yards of the ones on the left and would engage them as soon as they prepared to spring the trap.

  Fischer gave a few quiet directions and fifty men formed a double line, walking their horses down the outside of the road with the five wagons and the other ten men on their left, preparing to receive any dragoons that eluded Bruch’s close attention.

  The Hornets were doing their best to appear unconcerned. It was not easy when they knew that they must be under observation and that at any moment the charge would sound on a French bugle and a mass of dragoons would come screaming at them from both flanks.

  It was startling, even though expected, when it finally happened, just as the head of their double file should have discovered them merely by glancing sideways.

  The bugle rang out loudly and clearly enough to be heard back in the village. A large, ordered body of dragoons swept into sight from behind the right-hand wood and set themselves at the centre of the line of brown-clad horsemen some two hundred yards in front of them.

  The onset should have come earlier from the left as they had less than half the distance to cover, but it sounded as if they were having a battle of their own.

  The double line of Hornets came to a halt. Riding side by side, they were almost exactly in echelon to the direction of the assault. They leaned forward as one man to pat the neck of their mount and give a gentle command. As they had been trained, the horses stood as still and steady as they were able, while their riders drew and primed their carbines and delivered a single volley into the charging dragoons at only twenty five yards.

  The ten Hornets and ten wagoners had halted at the same time and delivered their own volley into the dozen men that had escaped Bruch’s attentions, then all that remained was to round up the riderless horses and the dismounted and unwounded dragoons. About a dozen riders were untouched and they turned to flee, only to find a line of Bruch’s men had run from the trees to intercept them. Four riders, who were close together, assumed that they could charge, as they always had, through the thin line of infantry. They were wrong and when they were stretched on the ground, the rest surrendered.

  For the French it really was a sorry business. Three quarters of them were dead or fatally wounded. Only nine were untouched and they were left to tend the wounded survivors. They were given enough food and water for a couple of days; long enough to be found by other foragers, or if they were very unlucky, by Portuguese partisans or ordenança.

  However still the horses had stood, it was still an unstable platform for a marksman and most of the shots had been directed at the area occupied by the horses’ head and the torso of the rider. It was almost a lottery that decided which of the two the ball would hit. The casualties among the dragoons showed that Dame Fortune had favoured the horses and the Hornets had an extra hundred to add to their collection.

  It took another two days to get back to the lines. They had no dragoons as prisoners, but had managed to round up over a hundred infantry foragers and that had delayed them for the extra day.

  Vere and Roffhack had not been able to catch any cavalry but had five hundred infantrymen between them. Vere’s report delighted Lord Wellington, especially when he learned that the French were cut off from Spain once more.

  What did concern him was that it was almost February and he could not believe that there was enough food in the country to have kept the French alive beyond December.

  CHAPTER 22

  Sergeant Major Dai Evans carefully checked the direction and strength of the wind. The high clouds were still advancing steadily from the southwest and that meant that it was blowing across his front from right to left, almost square-on to the road to Seville that was pointing southeast from his present position.

  So far this day there had been no rain and conditions were almost perfect for the original Hornets of Number One Platoon of D Company, spread out on the rising ground around him.

  Perfect would have been a good light and a flat calm. They had good light but not a flat calm. A steady wind would have been most acceptable, but the gusty wind blowing at these lower levels introduced a variable factor into this test of their marksmanship skills.

  After the British battalion of the Hornets had created such a panic in Seville, Welbeloved had thought to move back to Ronda as he was sure that his scheme to divert a few thousand of Marshal Soult’s army had been successful.

  Soult had marched north in an attempt to offer some form of assistance to Masséna. No one knew exactly what he intended, but it was accepted that nothing should be effective unless he captured the fortress town of Badajoz, currently held by many thousand Spanish troops.

  He had certainly taken enough men to put it under siege, which is why Welbeloved had been threatening Seville. It had worked. Soult couldn’t afford to lose Seville and a sizeable part of his army had come hurrying back.

  Welbeloved’s action had been very much an interim measure, as the Regency Council in Cadiz was organising a major break-out in a week or so that ought to bring the whole of the French army scuttling back.

  It was MacKay who had pointed out that until then, if the troops rushing back to Seville found that the threat had gone away, they would lose no time in returning to Soult. Captain Tonks, Sergeant Major Evans and D Company had therefore been left behind with instructions to ‘entertain’ the French for a couple of weeks and convince them that their reinforcements could not be spared to return to Soult.

  Percy Tonks had been an officer in the Greenjackets who had been wounded at Talavera and then saved from capture by Welbeloved’s men. That was the time when the Hornets had only the strength of two platoons, but were being encouraged to grow by Wellington himself.

  When he was given his company, he also got the legendary marksman, Dai Evans as his sergeant major. Evans was reportedly a better shot with the Ferguson than even Welbeloved himself and was one of the original platoon of Hornets.

  Tonks had taken his latest instructions very seriously and for three weeks had been running the French ragged around Seville.

  His men worked by simply closing a road well out of the town, capturing all traffic going in or out. The French naturally sent cavalry to investigate; usually at least a couple of squadrons in view of previ
ous bad experience.

  On each occasion the road had been closed at an acceptably good defensive position and the investigating squadrons were comprehensively savaged and driven off. Retribution in strength then arrived to find the Hornets gone and another road on the other side of town was found to be closed.

  The important question that Captain Percival Tonks had to ask himself was, how long could this continue? This was the fifth confrontation and one of the great lessons he had learned in his career was that repetition should be avoided if at all possible.

  You could get away with something twice on the theory that the enemy would not think you could be foolish enough to try again. He had succeeded three times and that was probably because the French refused to believe he was mentally deficient.

  On the fourth occasion, he had not quite repeated himself. When he judged that they were aware that he had blocked the road, he moved the blockage two miles farther back and left only observers at the original site. They were able to warn him of the battalion of light infantry that appeared suspiciously quickly and started a full-scale attack on the position that they had vacated only minutes before. Then the supporting cavalry appeared and chased them for two miles before getting another savage reception at the new position.

  He entertained considerable doubts about the wisdom of this fifth defiant gesture and he had already decided that it would be his last. His faith and confidence in his Hornets was absolute, but enough was enough.

  Very deliberately he blocked this last road ten miles away from the town. If any infantry was sent from Seville he wanted them to be a long time on the march and be tired out.

  Apart from the two men watching the town, he had patrols out to the flanks and rear in case they had thought to have troops camped out in the hope of surrounding him.

  Finally, he placed the roadblock on the same road as his last blockage, hoping that they would guess wrongly if they had thought to do so.

  His paranoia was justified, his precautions vindicated. The French had certainly been expecting him, though maybe not here and the only troops coming out of Seville were two squadrons of chasseurs and one squadron of dragoons.

  Infantry had been placed round the town within easy reach of all the roads except this one. Not too much of an oversight maybe, as his scouts told him that there were a thousand men on both flanks, rushing towards him and likely to be in sight within two hours.

  Then, of course, the cavalry arrived. He was very pleased that the position he had chosen was difficult for horses to outflank. They could have done so if they had thought to travel an extra ten miles, but they were not here for that. They did not fancy being savaged again by those fearsomely accurate rifles and all they wanted to do was stand off and keep him from going anywhere until their infantry could get here and engulf him.

  The dragoons and chasseurs would be delighted to chase him once he was trying to escape, but not if he was entrenched or even in a simple ambush. From bitter experience their philosophy was – let the infantry muskets deal with them!

  This was the situation that Dai Evans and his men had been waiting for. His own platoon had twenty Fergusons and there were now forty converted Baker rifles among the rest of the company. All of those marksmen were concealed on the forward slope of this wide col, waiting for the signal to open fire.

  It was a waiting game and it was deadly. Each time the company had savaged the cavalry before, it had been from two hundred yards at the most. The marksmen had all been hidden at the time and the powder smoke was the only clue to the range that the French could judge by.

  Now, all they could see was a potentially dangerous col where the enemy was reported to be. Naturally, the senior officer halted at a safe distance and sent forward a squadron with a troop in advance, to probe for danger.

  This was why Evans and his ten forward Hornets were so interested in the state of the wind. In still conditions, the Ferguson could almost guarantee a killing shot at four hundred yards and the Bakers were nearly as accurate.

  Wind and weather continued somewhat variable and the enemy commanders had halted rather farther away than was ideal. Those nearest could hear Dai muttering to himself. “Duw! Don’t stop there my pretty boyos! Come you just a few more yards!”

  They ignored his pleas, but fate was on his side. The troop in the van had reached the foot of the slope and the rest of the squadron moved to close the gap. It opened up a wider gap back to the officers and they moved forward together to close it and get a better view of the col.

  There was a soft, exultant cry. “Come you over by yere, my darlings! Fire after me, lads!”

  He aimed a yard to the right of the most glittering uniform, allowing for the wind and his ten friends followed with a short, ragged volley.

  It was the signal for the rest of the rifles to take on the leading squadron, now that they were within easy killing range. They were firing in pairs as a matter of standard practice and two shots from each man took less than twenty seconds in total.

  Most of the men in the squadron were down and all four of the commanders had been hit. The riflemen walked slowly back over the col and James Cox’s 4 Platoon swept down the slope, rounded up as many riderless horses as they could and drove them back out of sight.

  On the crest, the rifles waited for any reaction from the other two squadrons, who had been helpless spectators of the massacre. They were stationary, too stunned to react immediately and by then it was too late. Realisation came and they found that they had no stomach for what looked like certain suicide.

  D Company trotted north. They would have to circle south and cross the river to get back to the battalion, but they had made their point and hopefully convinced the enemy that they couldn’t afford to let Soult have his men back.

  ***

  In Gibraltar, Welbeloved and MacKay were once more relaxing with Commodore Cockburn in the great cabin of Titan 74. MacKay was relating the events of the last few weeks, while Welbeloved read a long despatch from Lord Wellington and another from Vere. Both had been brought by the Hornets’ own courier vessel, the pretty schooner Calliope that was the joint property of Cockburn and Welbeloved, having been gifted to them by the grateful Pasha of Acre more than ten years ago.

  Vere’s report detailed all the events in which the Hanoverian and the Portuguese Hornets had had a role in since Welbeloved had moved south. He passed it over with much satisfaction for MacKay and Cockburn to read.

  The despatch from Wellington also referred to it in glowing terms but was more concerned with giving him the latest strategic assessment of the situation in the south of Spain.

  “I have had confirmed the report that Marshal Soult, as predicted, has taken his army north in an attempt to give support to Masséna. Badajoz has to be reduced before he can start to be effective and your actions around Seville have caused the detachment of an entire division and so weakened his army that he turned aside, spending two weeks capturing the weakened fortress at Olivenza.

  This delay enabled La Romana and three Spanish divisions to march across the Alentejo to reinforce Badajoz. Soult got there first because Romana died on the way.

  General Mendizabal nevertheless, has reinforced the garrison and is on the San Cristobal Heights, across the river. I wish I could have more confidence in the man, but he has more soldiers than Soult and the ten thousand defenders alone ought to be able to resist until I can send Beresford or Hill to relieve them, which I shall do as soon as Masséna starts his retreat.

  I should suggest that your useful role against Soult is successfully concluded. Feel free to move north at your discretion, unless you consider that you can render assistance before you depart, to General Graham.

  He shall command a division of our troops from Cadiz to land at Gibraltar and Tarifa and march, with two Spanish divisions to attack Victor in the rear at Cadiz and lift the siege.

  The Regency Council in Cadiz, doubtless shall wish to appoint their own overall commander. I have lived with a similar situ
ation before and pray that Graham can do the same. I am sure that he shall value your experience and advice, whatever course you decide upon.”

  He passed this over as well and waited until both his friends had read it. Cockburn put it gently on the table. “Lord Wellington appears to trust you more than any of our admirals were ever willing to, Joshua. It is almost as if he is telling you to do what you fancy, because he knows it shall be the proper course.”

  “It does look a little like that, Charles, but remember he was the one who recognised that we were different and helped us through all the hazards until we grew into what we are now.

  I feel sure we have an understanding, but do remember, if he doesn’t actually give us orders, he can never be held responsible if we fail. On the other hand, if we succeed – and we have had good fortune so far – nobody is going to deny that his is the overall responsibility. Even the Admiralty gets a share of the credit, so bless us all, everyone is happy.

  Now, tell me what you know about General Graham. He has to be better than anyone the Dons have got, now that Romana is dead, but can he stand up for himself if they appoint a complete nincompoop over him?”

  “The only answer I can give, Joshua, is that Wellington must regard him as more competent than most, if he has agreed to him having an independent command.”

  “That answer shall have to suffice then, my friend, until we can meet him and make up our own minds. I do recall forcing my views on yew on the last occasion we were here. Do yew know when he shall be coming?”

  Cockburn grinned. “Titan shall sail with my squadron today, to assist in bringing the army here. When we get back depends entirely on the winds, as you know only too well. I do anticipate that General Graham shall accept my hospitality for the short voyage from Cadiz. Dare I suggest that you come with me if you can bear the thought of going to sea once more? You shall be able to get to know him on the way back.”