Flashman's Escape

by Robert Brightwell

  “Well, you are not going to see a damn thing back here. Follow me.” With that he pressed past us and, like the red sea parting before Moses, the red ranks parted before Picton. We hurriedly followed in his wake.

  “Aren’t you commanding the diversionary attack on the castle, sir?” asked Campbell as we splashed along behind the general.

  At first I thought Picton would ignore him, but at length he muttered over his shoulder, “Yes, but a diversion must be co-ordinated with the main attack.”

  In no time at all we were at the forward trenches, with men hissing at us to keep quiet until they saw who we were with. Picton left us then while he went to talk to the commanders of the main assault. Campbell and I found a good position at the edge of an earthwork from where we could see what was happening. We were still some five hundred yards away from the city walls, and while the French must have known that an attack was coming, things were now quiet. All cannon fire from both sides had stopped. The only sign of any activity was the throwing of burning balls of straw into the breaches every few minutes by the French. This was to light the area and check that no one was approaching.

  Picton was soon making his way back to his own men and the rest of us stood quietly, waiting for the appointed hour to pass. Even though I was not taking part in the attack, I could feel the tension from those about us. There was a quiet murmur of prayers and the occasional chuckle as people tried to ease the strain with humour. Every so often a man would step out of line to vomit in some corner. The forlorn hope were gathered in the next trench and I guessed that most were now regretting whatever had possessed them to volunteer in the first place. They had seen the breaches before dark and must have known that chances for their survival were slight.

  Eventually a church bell clanged the hour of ten, which was the signal to start the attack. With whispered good wishes the forlorn hope started to move forward. There was the odd clatter and oath as the men hoisted scaling ladders onto their shoulders and then they were off into the darkness. More soldiers moved into the now vacant trench to wait and we all listened for sounds that the attack had started. My mouth was dry and I winced as someone in a rear trench screamed and then was reprimanded by some sergeant. It seemed loud enough to be heard in Ciudad Rodrigo, never mind Badajoz, but the garrison showed no sign of alarm. A few minutes later they tossed more burning balls of straw onto the breaches. While they saw nothing of concern, against the light we could make out the silhouettes of soldiers lowering ladders down the glacis into the ditch beyond. Once through that ditch our soldiers would have a hundred yard dash over exposed ground to reach the breaches.

  The attack was going better than I had dared hope, but then I heard a crackle of musket fire in the distance. It was the diversionary attack by Picton’s men on the castle built further along the wall. There were no breaches there and the poor devils were planning an escalade: running forward with ladders and hoping to get to the top of the walls on them before they were shot or pushed off. There was shouting then from the French covering the gaps in the wall. They were experienced defenders; they knew that the main attack was likely to come in their direction and that we might try a diversion to distract them. More burning bales of straw were thrown down the slopes and this time they illuminated the first few of the forlorn hope climbing up the rubble. All hell seemed to break loose then.

  From the breaches there was the sound of musket fire, cannon which must have been packed with canister shot and the individual small explosions of grenades. All we could see in the darkness was a series of flashes and smoke. The onslaught that the forlorn hope had triggered was deafening. I could not imagine anyone surviving, but into this maelstrom was ordered the next wave of the attack. Hundreds of men swarmed past us, resolutely running or marching to what they could see and hear was the hottest of receptions. They had some three hundred yards of open ground to cover, the glacis to climb, a ditch to cross and only then would they be able to climb the rubble slopes towards the breaches in the wall. While most of the French fire was concentrated on those attempting the final incline, other cannon, which had previously been firing at the lantern light, once again belched fire and iron blindly towards the darkened trenches. From the screams, these now also used canister shot and when by chance they found moving groups of men they did untold damage.

  Never have I been more grateful to stand safely behind earthworks. A second wave of the attack was launched and then a third, with the poor devils marching resolutely on despite the carnage happening to their front. More burning straw bundles had been thrown down from the battlements but now they just showed that the area in front of the breaches was full of smoke and the flash of charges going off.

  “I can’t see a damn thing,” cried Campbell. “What about you?”

  “Just smoke, but we will hear a cheer when they take one of the breaches.”

  “What if they don’t take them?” Campbell asked. “We need to report to Wellington on progress and we have to know how close they are getting and what is stopping them.”

  I did not reply as I knew what Campbell was thinking. He wanted to get closer to the action; he always did. I stood beside him for a few more minutes and prayed for the sound of men celebrating their victory, because if it did not come, I knew my friend was right: we would have to go further forward.

  If anything the sound of firing became fiercer over the next few minutes, and instead of cheering all we heard from our troops was screams and shouts.

  “Come on, Flash,” called Campbell at last as he got up and started to climb over the rampart.

  “How far do you think we should go?” I asked nervously. “We need to be able to get back again with our message.”

  “Just to the top of the glacis. We will be able to see into the ditch then and the bottom part of the wall. We should be able to make out from muzzle flashes how far up it our men are getting.”

  I felt a surge of relief as I jumped up to follow him. The massive stonework of the glacis would protect us while we were on it from French fire. Only our heads would be fleetingly exposed as we peered over the edge and I was planning the briefest of glances.

  We swiftly crossed the exposed open ground with Campbell laughing at my apparent enthusiasm as I ran past him. “You are keen, Flash. I thought you did not want to come.” As he shouted this another cannon fired and we heard the canister balls splatter into the mud a few yards to our right.

  “I just want to get the first report back,” I called over my shoulder. “Wellington must be beside himself to know what is happening.”

  There was another big explosion in one of the breaches which sent a bright flash across the area. I caught a glimpse of Campbell coming up alongside me but when I faced my front again I could hardly see a damn thing. My night vision had gone with the flash and within a moment I had sprawled over a cluster of bodies that had caught an earlier canister blast. Two were still moaning in agony as I pulled myself to my feet and heard Campbell run past me.

  “Come on, Flash,” he yelled while sprinting towards the bottom of the glacis slope as surefooted as one of his Highland deer. I raced after him, not for the sport, but because once I was on the glacis the French cannon could not reach me.

  A few moments later I saw the dark mass loom ahead. Campbell was a few yards further on to my right and I sprinted the final yards across the mud to get a good run up the steep stone surface of the glacis. Soon I was puffing after Campbell as I ran up the incline. I thought we must be nearing the top but Campbell was still ahead and to my right; I could hear his boots thumping against the stone. I gave a final push to catch up with him and then my left foot landed in mid-air.

  I did not understand what had happened: one moment I had been on very solid stone with a man ahead of me also on stone and now I was falling through a void. It was too dark to see how far I had to fall and my body tensed for the inevitable impact. I had a momentary fear of being impaled on a stake but then I landed on something soft… but deadly.

>   It was a wet, seething, desperate mass of humanity, struggling to live in the flooded ditch. The water, I discovered later, was only around five feet deep, but most of those that found the ditch floor that night were at the bottom of the pile and almost certainly dead. While the forlorn hope may have descended into the ditch with ladders, many more of the following troops had either fallen into it like me or been pushed by those coming on behind. When the lip of the glacis had been packed with men, the soldiers had been desperate to achieve the shelter of the ditch which gave some respite from enemy fire.

  No sooner had I landed with a wet, smacking sound on the bodies of others than the hands grabbed me. They were pulling me down so that they could rise up in my place. There were screams, yells, awful gurgling sounds, but the thing I remember most was the grasping, scratching, clawing hands.

  It was pitch dark down there and the stuff of nightmares. The only way to survive was to stay on the surface. I remember punching out blindly at someone below me who was trying to pull my head under, probably so that he could come up and breathe. I was kicked and punched in my turn. Twice I was pulled under the water, but each time I managed to wrench myself free. After the run and just a few minutes of this constant wrestling and fighting for survival I was exhausted. Eventually I made it to the edge of the ditch and could stand with one foot on the mud beneath, while the other boot found no room amongst the bodies. The side of the ditch was wet and slimy, impossible to climb. But by then my eyes had adjusted to the gloom and I saw that a few yards along men had got one of the ladders against the side. A furious fight surrounded it with men so desperate to get near it and on it that no one climbed more than a few rungs before they were pulled off.

  Next to me some tall grenadiers were making another attempt to scale the mud wall. Two had got their backs to the bank and hoisted a third up on their shoulders. A stout corporal stood in front of them and managed to keep the crowd back so that only one person climbed at a time. Two quickly swarmed up the human ladder and then the corporal turned to me. “You next, sir; you are light enough.” I slipped twice on the way up and thank Christ I did, for I was just reaching the top when the mine blew.

  The French must have packed a huge amount of gunpowder under the breach for it was a thunderous explosion that made the ground shake. The grenadiers collapsed under me and I was pitched once more into the human quagmire below. No sooner had I hit those bodies than we were rained down on by mud, stones and pieces of human flesh. The mine had swept the ground in front of the breach clear and left a massive crater. But it had also blown in the side of the ditch. While some poor souls had been buried under the mudfall, as the dust cleared we saw that there was now a ramp out of the ditch. Soldiers swarmed up the slope towards the breaches and there was a renewed barrage of gunfire from the defenders. Slowly the pressure of bodies around me eased as men made their way towards the new means of escape. There was more yelling and screaming from the breach and the volume of fire showed that the French were still fighting hard.

  There was no way I was going closer to the city walls. From being a place of death, the ditch was now the one place that the French could not reach with shot and shell. I could hear the voices of others who were cowering in its dark depths, some muttering prayers, others crying like babies. But most of those that I touched as I moved in the water were floating corpses. As the way cleared I went to the edge of the ramp and peered up at the nearest breach. It was a scene from hell itself, lit by more bales of burning straw. I was just in time to see a determined assault up that final slope by at least a hundred men. Cannon blasted canister shot at them which flattened swathes of men, while grenades and musket fire rained down on them from both sides. If they made it to the top of the pile of rubble in the breach then a horizontal beam studded with blades awaited them. None made it that far and a few moments later all I could see was dead and dying men. I climbed back down into the ditch. I could not escape even if I wanted to. A few had tried the ladders left on the glacis side of the ditch but they were shot down as soon as the defenders had a clear shot. Wellington would have to get his reports on progress from someone else.

  Some messages must have got back, though, as twice more assaults were launched by the British. Each time hundreds of men came down the glacis with more ladders and crossed the ditch. Each time there would be a storm of fire and shot and a few dozen wounded stragglers would make their way back to the relative safety of the half-flooded gully. No one got through and jubilant French started to mock us. They knew men were cowering in the darkness and they yelled that we should come to Badajoz, if we had the balls. Meanwhile the impotent survivors around me fumed in shame or anger.

  Then, just as suddenly as it had started, the battle was over. Unbeknownst to us, Picton’s diversionary attack on the castle had by some miracle succeeded. Those brave fellows had swarmed up ladders, under fire from the garrison, and somehow managed to capture the walls. From there the redcoats had moved to attack from behind the soldiers defending the breaches. The first we knew of this was when we heard shouts and screams coming from behind the city walls and then there were English voices shouting from the breach. “They are running, lads, come on,” shouted a soldier who had appeared from the other side at the top of the breach. Any lingering doubt about a trap was dismissed a moment later when the blade-covered beam was torn down, clearing our path to the city.

  Chapter 15

  As one, the occupants of that ditch came swarming up the recently formed mud ramp. I had been in the water longer than most and my muscles were cramped with the cold and my teeth were chattering. As I finally stood on dry land again I saw survivors coming from everywhere out of the shadows. There had been hundreds hiding in the huge mine crater and every large rock or dip in the ground seemed to exude more dark shadows that quickly climbed up the slope in front of me. There was an angry roar of rage as they ran up that rock into the city and even then I could sense the pent-up savagery in them. These men had seen dozens of their friends and comrades shot down before their eyes. They had been reduced to hiding from the enemy in ditches and crevices while the French had ridiculed them. I think many felt ashamed for hiding and surviving when so many others had died. That partly explains what followed. They wanted to kill and dominate others to reassert their manhood somehow. For my part I just wanted to find somewhere warm and safe.

  The slope up to the breach was covered in British dead and dying, sometimes several deep, and you could not help but tread on some as you climbed up. Most were long past caring, but twice I mumbled apologies to the wounded. I could not stop: an icy wind was cutting through my soaking garments and my hands looked blue with the cold. Never was a hearth with a warming fire more needed and the city would be full of them. By the time I was staggering down the other side of the rubble into the city, I could already hear the screams of the first women our men had found together with the noise of smashing doors and windows.

  It was nothing out of the ordinary for the time. It was a soldier’s right to sack and loot a city taken by siege and I knew enough not to interrupt their plundering. As I walked down the first street all the doors had been smashed open and I could hear the pleading and groans of the occupants as the redcoats took whatever they wanted. A man and a woman broke free from a house further down the street and started to run into the city, screaming for help. They did not get far. Two soldiers stepped out of the house, levelled their muskets and shot them both dead. There was nothing I could do. I had looked enviously in a couple of houses which had fires burning but the soldiers were feral in their savagery now. They would kill anyone, including their officers, who stopped them getting what they wanted.

  I reached a small square. There was a church to my right; the lock had been blasted away and the door was left, half hanging from its hinge. I could see from the candlelight inside that our men were smashing reliquaries and searching for gems and gold. Next to the church was a plainer building and I could hear screams from women inside. I could not go mu
ch further; my scarred leg was agony now. But then I heard someone shout something about brandy. A cheer came from the plain building by the church and I turned towards it. Brandy would warm me up handsomely, I thought, and surely if they had found some barrels in there, they would spare me a cup. I staggered into the courtyard of the building and turned to my left. Through an open door I saw some kind of refectory with long benches and tables and crowds of our soldiers. A corporal lurched out of the door with a cup in each fist. I held up my hand to him and gasped, “Brandy.”

  “Here you are, governor,” he cried, holding out one of his cups. “There is plenty more where that came from.”

  As I reached for it I glanced over his shoulder to the men inside the refectory. Several of those standing around the nearest table moved and between them I saw a nun being held down on the planks. While I could not see for sure, I was certain she was being raped.

  One of the men who had moved turned and saw me staring through the door. I have never forced a woman in my life and the disgust must have shown on my face, for he snatched up a musket and aimed at me. “You keep away, you bastard. They are our women, see.”

  With that he fired the musket, but it was a wild shot and I heard the ball hit the wall behind me. I had barely any chance to react and was still staring in shock when the corporal whirled round on the soldier.

  “Christ, Parker,” the corporal yelled. “You nearly got me with that. The officer only wants a drink. Look at him – he is soaking wet. He must have been in the ditch with us.” Then he turned to me. “Take no notice of ’im, sir, and have this cup. But it would be best if you did not go inside, sir.”

  My shaking hands grasped the cup and I drank deeply, feeling the raw spirit burn down my throat. The corporal grinned again and topped up my cup with the other one he held in his hand. “That’s right. Now best you go, sir, and forget what you saw here.”