I Think I Really Do Have an Ulcer

by Geoffrey Watson

  Having resolved the conundrum to his own satisfaction, MacKay discovered that the division that had gone north was coming back again and that Montbrun was now coming north from Almaraz with his detachment.

  Montbrun’s move seemed to rule out any succour for Soult at Badajoz. The only logical way for Marmont to go now was west towards Ciudad Rodrigo and he had over twenty thousand men free to march.

  MacKay sent a courier back to Rodrigo. They would warn Wellington at Badajoz while MacKay took the First Battalion back to join Welbeloved and to await the French.

  * * *

  When Ciudad Rodrigo was taken back from the French, it was discovered that they had stored a veritable arsenal within the walls. In addition to large quantities of muskets, carbines, pistols and powder, there were hundreds of thousands of cartridges and ample supplies of shot and shell to service the cannon, mortars and the entire siege train that had been used by Masséna to capture both Rodrigo and Almeida.

  Large numbers of all types of weapons were those captured from the Spanish garrison when they surrendered. Hundreds of these sword blades and bayonets had been used to make the chevaux de frise that had been so effective against the storming parties, but there were enough Spanish muskets and bayonets to equip fully the entire garrison of three thousand men.

  The heavy guns of the siege train were added to those that Wellington already had and went south with the army to be used against Badajoz.

  Other cannon of various calibres were pressed into service to increase the fire power all around the battlements and a dozen six-inch mortars were appropriated by the Condesa. She was still elated by the success of her demonstration in front of Lord Wellington and had ideas of forming mortar units from the reserve of wasps in the wagon trains.

  Inevitably, she became involved in a running argument with her husband; pointing out that the mortars only needed a crew of four men and were light enough to count as only one extra wagon for each company of Hornets.

  The argument was successfully concluded, as far as she was concerned, by the enthusiastic endorsement of Colonel Jackman, who demanded to know how soon she could supply him with hundreds of shells.

  There was, of course, no possibility that Roberto could supply the quantity that Jackman would need. In any case, they could never be paid for until the Board of Ordnance had spent several years in exhaustive tests.

  The Hornets, on the other hand, could have as many shells made as they were likely to be able to use and at one mortar to each company, they would hardly notice they were there until they came to be used.

  As Welbeloved was only too aware, women, and his in particular, can be quite unscrupulous in getting what they want. The Condesa’s choice of the Spanish battalion to try out the first four mortars was not accidental. The Condesa was their honorary colonel and Welbeloved would have had near mutiny to contend with if he had attempted to go against her wishes.

  He was far too experienced to fight a battle he could not win. Instead he gave his approval and support, only insisting that they made themselves familiar with the ranging techniques by practising with standard, but uncharged shells. The trajectories would not be quite the same, but they could perfect the drill and integrate their movements in accordance with the needs of their companies. It would also give the company commanders the feel for a new weapon in their armoury.

  Watching their efforts and considering the implications, it did occur to him that the Hornets were becoming more and more an army in miniature. They had infantry and cavalry that could deal with far greater numbers than their own. Their support and supply system was superior to anything the army could offer.

  Naval roots as marines, gave many of them the ability to build almost anything that could be put together with rope and timber. Explosive devices, mines and petards were meat and drink to Thuner and his pupils; mostly trained initially by the Condesa.

  Now they were getting their own artillery and a capability, in many ways greater than that of any of Wellington’s divisions. He thought of Admiral Lord Keith and the many army/navy combined operations that he had overseen.

  The landing at Aboukir, for example, where Welbeloved had led a small detachment of marines with only half-a-dozen Fergusons. If he had had the naval division with him then, even without their horses, they would have had the ability to beat the abandoned and demoralised French army without help and in a fraction of the time it then took.

  It was a development that he would have to discuss with Lord Wellington when next he saw him. So far, the Hornets had specialised in the gathering of intelligence and the harassment of the enemy, but always when detached from the army. Because they were then almost always outnumbered by the French, their role had to be mostly defensive: the tactics of the ambush, where they defeated a surprised but advancing force.

  Wellington was only too aware that he was in command of the only army that Britain had available. Unlike the French, he could not afford to fight and lose. One major defeat and Spain and Portugal would become French overnight.

  That strategy now seemed likely to change. Rodrigo had fallen and Badajoz was under siege. If it were captured, the gateways to Portugal were closed to the French and with so many of the French soldiers leaving for the coming war with Russia, the opportunity for aggressive action was getting closer.

  The French still had many more men in the Peninsular, but they were over-extended in garrisons all over Spain. Wellington’s reinforced army now had the luxury of being able to choose where and with whom he was to fight. If he made the right choice, he could be fighting for the first time, a French army that was smaller than his own and unable to call for support on neighbouring occupying armies. They would be unwilling or unable to help because of guerrilla activity or even because of harassment by remnants of the regular Spanish armies, still fighting for their homeland.

  In such a situation, perhaps it was time for the Hornets to come together and fight as one division in Lord Wellington’s army? He must talk to his battalion commanders and be ready for when Wellington returned.

  * * *

  It was all very well to plan ahead and decide what the Hornets would do later in the year. He accepted that it was not at all unusual in such circumstances for Hamish MacKay to come back with the First Battalion and announce that twenty thousand Frenchmen were on their way west instead of rushing down to Badajoz to help Soult raise the siege.

  It was hardly what he had expected. If they had come three or four weeks ago, they may well have been able to recapture the town. Wellington had taken his army south and the breaches were unrepaired. The three thousand Spanish troops left as garrison were not to be described as first rate fighting soldiers, but they had been driven to work relentlessly in rebuilding the damage to the walls and had made a reasonable job in the time the French had allowed them.

  Unless Marmont had found some more siege guns, the walls were now sound enough to withstand a long siege and there were enough guns, grenades and muskets available to repel a mass escalade attempt similar to the Hornet-assisted attack that had helped to take Rodrigo, six weeks ago.

  Having listened to Hamish describing the erratic and uncertain behaviour of the French at Salamanca, Welbeloved was inclined to agree that Marmont really wanted to march south to help Soult. Something had happened to stop him doing so. Possibly orders from Paris, but there was little point speculating.

  He was now marching west towards Rodrigo with four divisions and it was impossible to guess why, or more importantly, what he hoped to achieve. Any food for the army or forage for the horses had to be brought with them. They couldn’t carry very much. Spain, together with up to four hundred thousand French soldiers, was existing on the fruits of last year’s harvest. That was six months ago and certainly nothing was available in this depleted region or west into the stripped mountain countryside of Portugal.

  Twenty thousand men and their horses; particularly their horses; would be starving in two weeks, even if every wagon with the army was s
tuffed full of rations and fodder when it started.

  Welbeloved went to see the newly appointed Spanish Governor, General de España and shared with him, his intelligence, his analysis of the amount of time that the French could remain and his mystification about Marmont’s ultimate objective.

  Carlos de España was under no illusions about the quality of the soldiers in his garrison, but he had been diligent in getting the walls repaired and the town into a defensible state once more.

  He had his full share of hauteur and arrogance, but held Welbeloved, as the Conde de Alba, in awe. He held the Condesa in even greater awe and that was coupled with reverence for what the Hornets represented.

  His relief was palpable when he learned that Welbeloved proposed to leave the Second Battalion, the Avispónes, in the town; nominally to assist with the defence; actually to direct the garrison in dealing with it effectively, under the command of Hamish MacKay. Conveniently, he held the rank of brigadier general in the Spanish army.

  Honour dictated that de España should be seen to be in command, but the relief of having someone to accept the responsibility, and naturally the blame for any failure, was overwhelming.

  MacKay and his men effectively took over and Welbeloved took the British First Battalion to make themselves as much of a nuisance to the French as they could until they went away again, or Wellington returned with his army.

  * * *

  Four divisions of the Army of Portugal arrived in the vicinity of Ciudad Rodrigo at the end of March.

  MacKay and the Avispónes, the Second Battalion of the Hornets, retired behind the walls and set up a programme to train selected members of the garrison as marksmen.

  It was difficult. The garrison; all three thousand of them; had not had a good war. Mostly peasant conscripts into what should have been the regular Spanish army, they had been taken from one defeat to another against professional French forces. The French may have been conscripted peasants themselves, but they had joined a system that worked and was led by experienced and dedicated officers who had been promoted almost entirely on merit.

  The Hornets were quite accustomed to showing soldiers how to make their muskets more efficient, selecting them for straightness of bore and polishing the bore to ensure a smooth passage to a ball that had been passed through a fabricated gauge, to ensure a good fit.

  Conscripts who had hardly enough training to enable them to load, cock, point and pull the trigger, suddenly found that if they did as they were shown, they could actually hit what they were aiming at, provided it was not too far away. Given that encouragement, they began to compete with one another.

  Captain Dai Evans, who had taken charge of the programme, quickly found that he had over a hundred enthusiastic marksmen who were to be feared at a hundred yards. With the agreement of the governor, they were formed into a special company for duty as lookouts and marksmen during the day, alongside platoons of expert snipers from the Avispónes.

  Before the French arrived, Evans had taken a party entirely around the walls, placing inconspicuous markers, indicating ranges up to four hundred yards. The nearer ones were for the benefit of the Spanish recruits and the carbine carriers in the Second Battalion and the farther ones as a guide for the few riflemen available.

  They also became a useful guide for the enthusiastic crews of the new mortars. Roberto’s second consignment of shells had not yet arrived, but the mortarmen were quite happy to sharpen their skills using the standard shells that were in plentiful supply.

  It was almost an anticlimax when Marmont’s divisions finally arrived. Naturally, they wished to know whether there was the slightest chance of breaking in. They surrounded the town, but kept a distance of about half a mile from the walls. Quickly they occupied the ruins of the various fortified convents; also the suburb of La Marina, across the River Agueda to the south of the town.

  MacKay was pleased that he had remembered to get Thuner to remove all the spikes that he had set in the south wall. Nobody had thought about them when the breaches were being repaired.

  The anticlimax continued. After a couple of days, Marmont appeared to have satisfied himself that without a siege train, all he could do was to blockade the town while he went off looking for trouble elsewhere. He left one of his divisions to continue the blockade and took the others to investigate the fortress of Almeida, over the frontier in Portugal.

  The move brought a certain relaxation to Welbeloved outside the walls and MacKay inside them. Both men came to the same conclusion about French intentions, that had been remarkably obscure until now.

  Without siege guns, Almeida was even more secure than Ciudad Rodrigo. It had been repaired extensively and was garrisoned by Portuguese troops and militia. Nothing the French could do was going to discomfort the present garrison.

  Suddenly, it seemed clear that this seemingly futile incursion was intended to cause Wellington to panic and abandon the siege of Badajoz. They expected him to come rushing back to save all the gains that he had made on the frontier here.

  Welbeloved and the First Battalion followed their progress, hanging on to their coat tails like unwelcome burrs. A warning had already been delivered that the French army was not welcome. Two scout squadrons of chasseurs had been ambushed and mauled severely before they even reached Rodrigo. The survivors had fled and the Hornets had retired with a few rather underfed horses, leaving the debris of the skirmish for the main body to find.

  On the walkway around the walls of Ciudad Rodrigo, General de España was making an informal inspection, accompanied by MacKay, his wife Juanita and Major Addenbrooke

  The little party gave the impression of nothing so much as small family of birds, with de España as the brightly coloured cock bird and three of his drab hens. Then it could be seen that the fighting birds in this party were the drab hens, festooned about with cartridge pouches and weapons, while the cock bird was content with a rather delicate dress sword.

  The Spanish battalion of Hornets; the Avispónes; had one of its companies on duty at this time. Sixty pairs of sharpshooters were spread all around the walls, one man on watch at selected embrasures, while his partner relaxed, two of the apprentice Spanish marksmen were with each pair of Hornets, again with one man watching while the other rested; both under instruction.

  It was a warm, clear, spring day and there was an air of relaxation evident, even among the men taking their turn on watch. An occasional comment could be heard, usually from the Hornet, asking questions about the range to specific marks and commenting on the occasional movements of the French behind the ruined convents and similarly damaged buildings of the suburb of San Francisco, both some three hundred yards from the walls.

  Since Marmont had moved on, a couple of days ago, leaving just one division to contain Rodrigo, there had been an air of mutual indifference between the two sides, neither of which seemed to be in a position to harm the other. It seemed unlikely that this state of affairs would last.

  MacKay had been anticipating some degree of artillery fire. He knew that the French had several batteries of twelve pounders belonging to their foot artillery. They were likely to have little effect on the walls, but could prove an irritant if they were to fire over the walls into the town, as could the various mortars that they had.

  Counter batteries were in place around the battlements, together with the four mortars that the Third Battalion had been testing. Two of these had been emplaced on the south wall to shoot across the river at the bridgehead of La Marina and the road to the Portuguese frontier.

  Two more were on the north-east wall, close by where MacKay’s party was standing and ready to take issue with any French activity in the San Francisco suburb and convent ruins.

  General de España was not best pleased. He may have been impressed by the quiet watchfulness of the marksmen at the crenellations, but he was the Governor and a general in the Spanish army. His soldiers who were not on watch, were sitting about and chatting about he knew not what, and they were
studiously ignoring him: showing no respect at all.

  Perhaps Juanita MacKay was just more perceptive than her husband and Major Addenbrooke, or had a shrewd idea about what was bothering him.

  “Is something not as it should be, Don Carlos? You do appear to have observed something that is causing you concern.”

  The general was nothing if not a Spanish gentleman. He concealed his distaste over her abandonment of any pretence of female modesty in her military dress. He treated her with the same courtesy as he would have given to any woman of his own class. After all, the Condesa had been wearing exactly the same uniform when he had last seen her.

  “It is nothing for you to be concerned about, Doña Juanita. I am merely wondering about the lack of activity shown by our enemies and at the same time surprised at the seeming lack of respect shown to their commander by the Avispónes. They know that we are here, but are ignoring us completely.”

  So that is what his sulk is all about! Juanita did not voice the thought, but sought for an explanation that would convince him that he was not being insulted. She smiled sweetly at him.

  “I think it is possible, Señor General, that no one has informed you of the true nature of the Avispónes. Every man you see has been selected from volunteers, of whom four out of five are rejected. Sometimes it is nine out of ten.

  You will, of course, remember that the Romans were given to killing every tenth man in a legion that had proved cowardly. They decimated them.

  We keep the one man in ten that meets our standards. It is a kind of decimation in reverse and General Welbeloved has said that every man we have is as good or better than a lieutenant in any army in the world.

  They very rarely need to be given direct orders. They know what to do at all times and their commander merely puts it into words.

  This, I think, is D Company that is on duty today. Until they are relieved, they shall pay no attention to anything that distracts from the duty they have been given. Only their commander, Major Addenbrooke, shall normally change that duty and is not a happy man if they are not entirely attentive. Their sergeants devote themselves to keeping him happy.”