Swallowing Portugal Will Settle My Spanish Bellyache
Page 33
In both cases, the French were fighting an Anglo-Spanish army that was numerically superior to their own.
In each case, the French had twice as many troops as the British and chose to ignore the Spanish almost entirely.
At both battles, the outnumbered British fought the French to a standstill, inflicted many more casualties than they sustained, gave them a bloody nose and forced them to retire.
In neither battle did the Spanish forces make any significant contribution. They had negligible casualties and at Barrosa, scarcely fired a shot in anger before scuttling back over the pontoon bridge into Cadiz.
At Talavera, Wellington had lost about a quarter of his force. At Barrosa, Graham lost over a third.
It is hardly surprising that Welbeloved found Graham almost incandescent with rage. He had collected the French and British wounded; set the prisoners to work digging graves for all the dead; started the wagons with the wounded back to the pontoon bridge into Cadiz and found it blocked by La Peña’s army, withdrawing onto Leon Island without bothering to occupy the siege lines left unattended by the French.
The Hornets had buried their three dead and Welbeloved had extracted various pieces of lead from nine others. MacKay was in no mood to put up with such obstruction and had led A Company, escorting the ambulance wagons and his ‘harem’ of nurses. The arrival of the famed Avispónes; villainous looking horsemen with drawn sabres; very quickly cleared a way through to the naval hospital, or in the case of the wounded Hornets, to the Titan whose surgeon, Doctor Andretti, the brother of Welbeloved’s first wife, was waiting for them.
MacKay’s loudest voice; speaking spanish and enquiring of any officer close to the bridge why the British allies were running back to Cadiz instead of taking over the empty siege lines; did nothing for Anglo-Spanish relations. Neither did it change the determination of the Spaniards to seek the sanctuary of the island.
With his badly mauled army, Graham had little option but to follow his allies into Cadiz. He could claim a well-deserved, if unexpected victory, if La Peña had not already done so himself. (Why else was he so keen to get his army back to Cadiz?) Welbeloved was sure that the animosity created would endure and that Wellington would think long and hard before entrusting any more British troops to the mercies of Spanish generals.
The Hornets were totally disenchanted with their allies. More so in that all their leaders and generals persisted in blaming everybody but themselves for the long catalogue of disasters.
Welbeloved and MacKay decided that everyone needed a break. They would abandon the war and their incompetent and squabbling allies. They would go and spend a week or two at Santiago del Valle. It was not an entirely disinterested decision for either of them. The last time they had seen their wives, there had been children on the way.
It was time for them to become family men for a short time. Lord Wellington would know where to find them if he wanted them, but he already had Lord George Vere and the German Hornets to keep him sweet.
Both men knew it would only be a short break. Masséna was certain to start retreating soon and MacKay knew Welbeloved too well, not to know that he would be involved, up to his colonial neck, in any serious action.