I Think I Really Do Have an Ulcer

by Geoffrey Watson

  Patience was now needed. The Hornet scout was hidden on this side of the ridge, but could still see what was happening in the next valley. He was making no signal yet, so the rest of the squadron had not yet joined the advance guard. If they took much longer, the fodder bags for the whole company would have a plentiful reserve.

  Twenty minutes passed and the scout was signalling again. The chasseur squadron had arrived at the ridge and there were over a hundred men there. Dodds called out clearly to warn everyone to be ready.

  The scout was signalling once more? His signals had not been acknowledged, as that would have alerted the enemy. He must have known that his waving had been seen, so why bother to repeat them? They were quite primitive hand and arm movements, giving basic, previously agreed information.

  At the end, he held both arms high and then gave the numerical for more than two hundred. The man was using his head. It could only mean that another squadron had come along to play and it explained the delay before any decision was made. It looked like time to forget Vere’s strategic plan. Two hundred plus chasseurs were not going to run away from fifty or sixty enemy horsemen, no matter what rumours had been circulating. Never mind! There were plenty more opportunities in the future.

  Dodds walked his horse among the harvesters. “We have two squadrons over that ridge by the look of it, men. There shall be no change of plan, but be ready to form echelon when they come at us. Wait for my whistle!”

  The skyline on the ridge between the two valleys suddenly filled with horsemen moving at the trot. What looked like four lines: possibly four troops in line; one behind the other. They were less than a mile away when their bugles sounded for a canter and Dodds blew his whistle.

  Two platoons of Vespãos moved without excessive haste, mounted their horses, formed up by platoon and spread themselves over nearly a hundred yards in two lines in echelon, facing the threat.

  Only one squadron could be seen in this attack and Dodds watched the skyline with interest. The attackers were still at the canter and about half way towards him when their friends moved into view and stopped to watch.

  The first squadron commander must have been loth to share any glory that was going and decided not to wait for support. Dodds licked his lips in anticipation. It looked as though Vere’s proposed strategy might work after all. The second squadron was not going to like what it saw. Would they also charge or would discretion reign after seeing their friends destroyed?

  First, of course, he had to destroy them! He blew a long blast on his whistle and powder smoke blossomed two hundred yards ahead, destroying the first line of attackers before their bugles could send them into the full charge.

  The split volley brought down horses and riders and impeded the rest of the squadron, giving time for the Vespãos to reload and directing the rest of the attackers through the wide gap in the smoke left by the flanking positions that Two Platoon had taken up.

  Not that they got through the gap. Half the squadron was down before they could get that far and the volleys coming in from the sides were merging into a continuous thunder of shots.

  Dodds blew two more blasts on his whistle and the firing ceased. His two lieutenants ordered their platoons to holster their rifles and draw their swords before leading their men at a gentle canter towards the shattered remains of a squadron of chasseurs.

  Dodds could have got his mounted men to complete the massacre with their own rifles, but he really wanted there to be survivors who would have no doubt that they had been routed by the dreaded Hornets.

  The thirty or forty men left, who had not been killed or wounded, saw the mounted Vespãos approaching at a leisurely canter and they turned and fled, leaving two out of three of their number in the killing field.

  Dodds also wanted the second squadron to have to make a decision whether or not to sacrifice themselves in the same way as their comrades. Indeed, they did start out, only to be confronted by the fleeing remnants of the first squadron. Two groups of French cavalry, in effect, charging towards one another and meeting in a confused mass almost exactly where One Platoon had been waiting in ambush, having originally allowed the first squadron to charge past them.

  They contented themselves with picking off anyone who looked like an officer or sergeant and the sorry remnants of two squadrons disappeared at the best speed they could manage.

  Dodds halted the Vespãos and came level with his lieutenants. “I am not at all sure that this is entirely what Colonel Vere had in mind, Gentlemen, but I am quite prepared to do it all again if it frightens the Crapauds like that.”

  They cheered him to the echo and set the men to claiming riderless horses and equipment. The few unhorsed and unwounded men were disarmed but not made prisoner. Instead they were given the task of burying their dead and tending the wounded. Theirs would be the problem of getting help and getting those who might live back to their own surgeons.

  The support wagons of the chasseurs had been taken in the rout and these were handed over to them to help with this task.

  Vere’s comment later that evening was succinct. “Well done, Dodds and A Company. You acted splendidly and at least followed the spirit of my suggestion. You have heard me say it before, but hear me again. No battle plan ever entirely survives the first two minutes of action. Your’s didn’t, but the outcome could hardly have been better.

  D’Erlon’s chasseurs, at least, shall think long and hard before they charge recklessly again at horsemen wearing earth-coloured coats.”

  He looked across at Gonçalves. “The temporary prisoners gave useful information, Fernando. If it is true what they told us, d’Erlon is not doing more than sniff in this direction, but beginning to edge south towards Llerena. That is the logical place to meet up with Soult, if he is able to bring an army to try and thwart Lord Wellington.”

  Although they were all sitting together after a meal, Gonçalves could not bring himself to be informal in the presence of all his subordinates. “I had considered, Colonel, that tomorrow we should perhaps move southward ourselves and perhaps link up with our Fourth Battalion.

  A sweep to the west and south ought to confirm d’Erlon’s intentions and perhaps enable us to practice our latest tactics on his rearguard? When one considers that Dodds only showed them sixty men and about a hundred and fifty of them fled the field, rumours about our dirt-coloured uniforms must be spreading with amazing speed.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Until the time of the French revolution, warfare on land had largely been conducted by gentry and nobility. They had led their followers into battles that were conducted according to rules that were understood, if not always adhered to in the strictest manner.

  In the good old days, it was something that one undertook in the period after the harvest was safely gathered and the onset of winter, when the weather turned nasty and took most of the fun out of it.

  This timing was important for any army, now that the numbers engaged had grown enormously from the few thousand on each side that contested the field only two hundred years ago.

  An army had to have food and fodder, or it could not fight for more than a few days. A pack animal could only carry enough fodder to feed itself for a week, if nothing else was available along the way. Draught animals could pull greater weights of supplies, but at least half the wagons would be carrying fodder and the time restriction was the same. It did not leave much room for military supplies and rations for the soldiers.

  Armies, therefore, tried to invade when the harvests were in and they could flourish on the food and fodder that their victims had accumulated for themselves. It was hard on the conquered, but no army was too concerned about that as long as its troops could continue to fight with full bellies.

  It would seem eminently sensible then, that any army that could not feed itself from its own accumulated stores for more than seven days, should not invade any country that always found it difficult to feed itself adequately. Add lots of mountains and truly terrible roads to the eq
uation and all the problems multiplied.

  Wellington had been aware of this difficulty in Spain, before he had taken his own army to help the Spanish at Talavera. He had relied on Spanish promises and assumed that food would be provided. Unfortunately, they had insufficient food for themselves and would gladly have promised anything at all, if it would keep him there with his army.

  He won his victory with troops that had been on less than half rations for days. The victory was real enough, but was tarnished by an immediate retreat to the Portuguese frontier, abandoning all his wounded.

  The reason for this precipitous retreat was said to be the army of Marshal Soult, coming down from the north onto his rear. Soult was indeed on his way, but not close. The most pressing reason was that he had run out of food and would have starved if the army had not dashed back a hundred or so miles to a depot that he had set up beforehand. The wounded were left because no wagons were available from his Spanish allies to carry them.

  He absorbed that most important lesson and introduced a victualling train to his army. As with all other aspects of his command, it remained under his personal supervision thereafter. He would never again risk letting the army get too far ahead of his supplies, even if it meant letting a beaten army escape, as had happened when Masséna had fled from Portugal.

  Colonel Lord Vere had learned the lesson as well and at about the same time after Talavera, when he had become an aide to the then Sir Arthur Wellesley for a few months.

  Mostly due to his efforts, the Hornets now had a wagon train for each battalion, operating out of Oporto. No matter where the battalions moved, their wagons had never yet failed to find them. They were also used to move between the training and supply base in Oporto and the hidden mountain base and childhood home of the Condesa de Alba; Santiago del Valle, north of Talavera.

  A continuing supply of modified carbines and Baker rifles, together with grenades and mortar shells came out of Santiago each month, keeping the Hornets supplied and everybody in communication.

  Lieutenant Colonel Günther Roffhack was musing about all these matters as he gazed out from the walls of an old Moorish castle, some sixty miles south of Badajoz.

  He was grateful for the news and the supplies that his wagon train was bringing, at least once a week. He was, though, a little rueful about a decision he had made more than a year ago, that was effecting the efficiency of his Fourth Battalion; the German or Hanoverian Hornissen.

  At that time, perhaps half the men he had recruited had been dragoons in the service of Napoleon’s Légion Hanovrienne, forced into service with the French after their conquest of Hanover.

  Roffhack had been able to select enough men to bring his battalion of Germans up to full strength, but had decided that the Hornissen should lean towards the cavalry arm and become dragoon skirmishers rather than skirmisher dragoons, as were the other battalions.

  It was more a matter of emphasis; they all trained in the same way, but the Hornissen thought of themselves as being better horse soldiers than their other comrades. They even wore a brass helmet when in the saddle, though heaven help any of them that did not keep it swathed in a dull canvas cover.

  They were certainly better horse soldiers than their friends, though not to any great degree. They were better cavalrymen in their own opinion, than any of their enemies. Therein lay their problem. If they used cavalry tactics against cavalry, they would probably win against equal numbers. If they used Hornet tactics against infantry or cavalry, they would certainly win, with far less likelihood of casualties.

  Putting it bluntly, their flintlock, breach-loading carbines were so superior that their swords were more useful as skewers for cooking their meat over the campfire.

  That was Roffhack’s dilemma. He had volunteered to equip his men with Roberto’s breach-loading carbine until the other battalions were fully equipped with the modified Baker rifle. At the time he had made this gesture, the Portuguese and Spaniards had little more than a platoon apiece.

  Now they had a thousand men between them and the queue for Bakers was getting longer, not shorter. At least he had thirty modified Bakers to go between his five hundred men, but that was only because he had led the platoon of King’s German Legion riflemen that had been the beginning of the Hornissen. It was only right and proper that their original rifles were among the first to be modified and had all been restored to their original owners.

  Most of that first platoon had become sergeants and corporals and were now scattered throughout the battalion. It meant that no single troop in his command could boast more than two or three rifles; many only one.

  He turned as Major Heinz Hagen climbed to his viewing point. They had been cadets together in military college in Hanover and Heinz was one of the first recruits from the Légion Hanovrienne. His second-in-command touched his bonnet in salute and grinned.

  “Ten to a dozen of our wagons are in view to the north, Günther. At least when Fischer leaves with B Squadron in the morning, he can take supplies for a full week with him. I imagine the Müller is having no more luck than we are in finding local supplies that he can buy. He shall be relieved in every sense to get back here.”

  That was stating the obvious. The Hornissen were acting as the eyes and ears for General Sir Rowland Hill. They were waiting for Marshal Soult to react to the news that Badajoz was under siege and to bring whatever army he could scrape together to contest the issue.

  Waiting was what soldiers did more than anything else. Even an elite unit like the Hornets had to endure long periods when the enemy was engaged elsewhere. That was something that seemed to be happening more and more, now that rumours were flying about concerning the large number of troops said to have left Spain for some Russian adventure.

  As many of the troops that were supposed to have been withdrawn were the étrangers; soldiers from conquered countries forced to serve in the Grande Armée. Roffhack reflected that the Hornissen were now less likely to be embarrassed by having to fight their own countrymen, who were still having to serve the French.

  This period of waiting, however, was beginning to become tedious. The Hornets were highly trained and the last thing Roffhack needed was for them to become overtrained and bored.

  He had sent one of his squadrons south into what was effectively enemy territory. It was spending a week based in the ruin of a smaller fort, making contacts with the guerrilleros and watching for any reaction from the French. As Hagen had mentioned, B Squadron would be going south in the morning to relieve Captain Müller and the men of C Squadron.

  The other two squadrons took turns to make a three day sweep to the west and south, in case the French took it into their heads to drive up the River Guadiana, as the Spanish divisions had before the battle of Albuera.

  Their wagon train brought news from Captain Pom, one of Wellington’s aides, a talented linguist and recent Hornet in the Second Battalion. Pom was charged by the commander-in-chief to keep all the Hornet battalions fully aware of events everywhere. He also correlated all the despatches from the Hornets for presentation to his master.

  This time, the news was mixed. The long-awaited siege had started, but after three days the skies had opened and flooded the area around the town, sweeping away the pontoon bridge over the Guadiana and halting operations completely up to the time that the wagons had left.

  That was a setback, but the good news was, wonder of wonders, just after Roffhack had been worrying about it; a consignment of thirty modified Baker rifles, effectively a full month’s production, had arrived for the Hornissen.

  There were no second thoughts about who should receive one of them. There was an ongoing marksmanship competition and Hagen could almost name from memory the current thirty best shots in the whole battalion.

  “So there it is, Heinz.” Roffhack passed the despatches back to Hagen. “It is six or seven days since the siege started. We have only just heard, but I am willing to wager that the French governor, Phillipon, got the news out when, or before,
it began. We have to assume that Soult is already gathering whatever forces he can and maybe on the march as we speak.

  Make sure that Otto Fischer has all this information and is told to expect trouble from the moment he relieves Müller. It would be a good idea if Weiss took his squadron out a day early. He can make his sweep in reverse order and catch Werther on his way back here. Then we shall all be alert for any eventuality.”

  Hagen agreed. “Jawohl, Günther! But have you noted that Sir Joshua has not reported any movement from Marshal Marmont? The last time we besieged Badajoz, he came running to join Soult and d’Erlon and the siege had to be abandoned. I cannot conceive that they shall not try to get together again. They have too much to lose if they do not.”

  “Expect it to happen, Heinz. Just hope that they cannot all get here for three weeks more and that this weather relents. Don’t forget that Lord Wellington has his own siege train as well as the one that the French left at Ciudad Rodrigo. Anything that we can do to delay Soult shall help us get into Badajoz before they can unite their armies.

  * * *

  In the morning, George Vere arrived with the advance scouts of Gonçalves’ Vespãos. The latest news had not yet caught up with him, but he did alert them to the fact that d’Erlon was marching south towards Llerena and sending a spearhead directly west, presumably on the same assumption as Roffhack’s; that Soult might well march up the Guadiana.

  Roffhack’s eyebrows twitched. “This spearhead that you mention, George! Where exactly do you imagine its vanguard may be now?”

  Vere was intrigued. He made a mental calculation. “They were in no great haste yesterday, Günther. If they shall continue at the same rate, they could be about twenty miles to your south by this time. Have you scouts in that area presently?”