I Think I Really Do Have an Ulcer

by Geoffrey Watson

  He did not really consider that his concern was reasonable. The ox-drawn wagons would need six or seven hours without stopping to clear both places and the only rest they had had since leaving Salamanca had been the two or three hours they had spent waiting to pass the first ambush point.

  A small patrol was left to give warning in case he was wrong and after having made sure that everyone knew what they had to do on the following day, he encouraged them to get a meal and whatever sleep they could.

  In the event, the French cleared the ambush area before midnight and, not wishing to risk accidents in the dark on a ‘good’ Spanish road that could be dangerous even in daylight after a wet winter, they stopped almost immediately and only moved on at dawn.

  Perhaps they experienced a certain déjà vu when they arrived at the slope leading to the road across the side of the next hill. They certainly did not question why the Hornets should act in exactly the same way, when they had been forced to abandon a similar position last night. Maybe they thought they were acting out a ritual; an act of war where nobody got hurt and the heroes triumphed by bringing relief to their comrades?

  Whatever the reason, the chasseurs approached as before and searched just as diligently, until they found a number of small boulders with unfriendly eyes glaring from them. They could also see that pathetic platoon of horsemen across the road. It could be that they wondered why they were bothering when they would be forced to go away after dark.

  As before, the chasseurs retired and the light infantry massed across the track, before settling down for a few hours of rest until dark.

  The waiting Hornets of Hickson’s company relaxed. There had always been the chance that the French might have thought to catch them out with the same mass attack that they had expected yesterday.

  The French also relaxed. Two battalions of infantry close together, waiting for their kettles to boil. Two dismounted squadrons of chasseurs next to them and two or three companies of infantry at the rear with the wagon and mule train scattered about in front of them and behind the chasseurs.

  That was where and when Dai Evans and a hundred and twenty Avispónes of D Company moved through a thicket of trees and shrubs some way off the road and started to slaughter every draft animal and mule that they could see.

  The slope down to the wagon park was gentle, but there was no animal that was completely hidden from their carbines. Everything was well within range.

  It was over in under five minutes. The men did not like it, but as their officers had pointed out, the object was to stop supplies getting through to Rodrigo and without draft and pack animals, those supplies were not going anywhere other than in minute quantities in the knapsacks of the soldiers.

  Nor could they ensure a clean kill in each case. Oxen, mules and draft horses were large animals and did not die easily. Dead or merely wounded though, they would not be carrying packs or drawing wagons for the rest of the way.

  The French were left in complete disarray. The Hornets left before any of them could organise any counter measures or even think of pursuit. By the time the first of the infantry came through the powder smoke into the wood, the men were already mounting their horses half a mile away uphill.

  The only ones that could catch them now were the chasseur squadrons and although they mounted up and made a show of seeking revenge, it was more to play to the feelings of the infantry than with any serious intent. The word had finally got about that cavalry action against the Hornets was not to be recommended to anyone with an ambition to be alive at the end of these long wars.

  MacKay had found a viewpoint for himself, quite high up on the hill that the road cut across. It was probably half a mile in a direct line from the area of slaughter, but his excellent Dolland field telescope made it seem like a couple of hundred yards.

  The Dolland glass was expensive and an indulgence. It was something that he needed and since he had become quite wealthy as a result of prize money for ships that he had captured, he had decided that he would afford the best that was available.

  Now, it showed him a scene that resembled a disturbed nest of ants, with soldiers dashing about in all directions. He had pangs of regret that many animals were still writhing about and bellowing with pain, but their suffering did not seem to concern the French overmuch. He could imagine the furious indignation that would be shown if it happened to the strangely sentimental British soldiers.

  He watched the activity for a couple of hours, before going back to the Hornets and arranging for a watch to be kept while both companies rested. The French were clearly not going to be going anywhere before the next morning and even then it was difficult to think of any effective action they could take.

  The morning came and he realised that improvisation was not exclusive to the Hornets. The French had lost all their draft animals and most of their mules. They still had over two hundred cavalry horses that could take the place of the mules and fifteen hundred men who could pull or push a wagon or carry any surplus food for which space could not be found in carts, ruthlessly lightened of much of their load.

  Of course, all of the troops could not be used merely as beasts of burden. The cavalrymen were useless without their horses, but could carry a burden and lead their mounts carrying rather more than the weight of their original riders.

  The battalion of light infantry could not be allowed to carry much more than they usually did. Someone had to be able to clear a way through, hopefully for the rest of them. That left about eight hundred men to carry as much as they could for another twenty miles and at the same time pull or push those wagons that had not been abandoned. The walking rations; goats, sheep and pigs; could continue to use their legs to carry themselves to their fate.

  MacKay ran back to the Hornets to arrange a suitable reception. He could deploy his men as before, but he now had to concentrate on his first objective. That was to stop the convoy going any farther. If he could do that without having to kill Frenchmen, then that also was acceptable.

  Hickson’s B Company was deployed in concealment above the road that cut across the hill. They were not where the French had discovered them before, but two hundred yards farther up the hill. The distance was at maximum range, but they would be shooting downhill and their target would be laden cavalry mounts as well as the two-legged draft animals.

  The light infantry appeared well before there was any movement from the load carriers. They approached as cautiously as before; found that the mounted platoon were no longer in place and began to study the lower slope meticulously for up to a hundred yards above the road. The whole of this area was covered minutely and at great length. Every rock and tussock that just might be the head of a skirmisher was examined in detail. Nothing was seen. Were the Hornets not there? Was it possible that they had all gone away, thinking that the convoy could no longer proceed?

  In spite of the most recent evidence (the draft and pack animals had been slaughtered at well over a hundred yards) the French still did not consider anything much over the range of their own muskets as dangerously threatening. The upper slope received only cursory inspection. Their telescopes might have spotted anything resembling the angular shape of a shako at that distance, but a head with a close fitting bonnet fitted in with protruding rocks and irregular folds in the ground.

  Satisfied that the enemy had left, the voltigeurs moved slowly in a sweeping movement across the lower slope and along the road, signalling to the laden men and horses behind them to start the traverse, following in their footsteps along the road.

  They had been quite sensible in their reorganisation of the convoy. A dozen wagons were on the move, but they had been forced to use half the available horses to pull them. Young, skittish, cavalry horses were quite unused to harness and were doing their best to show their dislike of the whole process.

  Harnessed, eight to each heavy wagon, many of them were being beaten quite savagely to quell any rebellion and keep their minds on the business of pulling.

 
Wagons were in groups of three, with laden packhorses and laden infantrymen forming blocs between them. Only about a third of the convoy would be passing through the killing zone at any one time. There was no possibility of catching all the convoy at the same time. MacKay cursed. It was going to be a long drawn-out business, even now.

  By now, the voltigeurs were out of range and he let a couple of companies of laden infantry follow them without challenge, only permitting the Avispónes to open fire on the first three wagons when they were within yards of safety. Two or three horses down in each wagon was enough to block the road completely and Hickson’s men turned their fire onto another bloc of laden infantry, followed by a group of twenty five pack horses and then more infantry. At this time, the second group of three wagons was just coming into range.

  Evans and his company abandoned their position and ran down the far side of the hill to get at the rear units in the long line.

  MacKay’s intention was to kill all the animals capable of being used as draft animals or packhorses. When he opened fire, there were only about fifty within range and they all went down to the opening shots.

  It appeared as though Evans’s Company, scampering back alongside the road, might have accounted for another fifty, before having to retire. There had been two squadrons of chasseurs, thus half of their horses were still alive.

  Otherwise, the Avispónes had stirred up a very angry swarm of French infantry that was converging on their powder smoke from three sides of the hill. MacKay thought of them for a fleeting instant as a swarm of hornets, before realising that such a comparison would never do.

  The light infantry had turned about as soon as they heard the shooting start and were racing toward the foot of the hill from the southwest. The first two companies of laden infantry had cast off their packs and were coming back along the road.

  The two companies on the road directly below had also thrown away their loads and they tried to charge straight uphill. That gambit was doomed from the start. The animals had gone down very quickly and left the soldiers as the only available target. Within five minutes, the few survivors were fleeing or playing dead and praying.

  Evans and his men had taken a similar toll back along the road to the northeast and were now rejoining B Company in quite a leisurely way, with almost all the rearguard of the now-unladen infantry converging on their heels.

  It was time to reassess the options. No trouble was likely from the road below them, unless the infantry elected to come back through the disaster area. Evans dropped down beside MacKay and reported that his men had killed another fifty horses and made a terrible mess of another two companies of infantry.

  MacKay was not a mathematician capable of navigating a ship, but this was basic, simple arithmetic. The French had left Salamanca with about fifteen hundred men. Two hundred or more were cavalrymen and they were now dismounted and could be ignored. Five hundred light infantry and two hundred infantry were on the southwest side of the blockage and approaching rapidly from that direction. Two hundred infantry had been on the road below them and had been routed. Evans had probably accounted for another hundred in his attack,

  That meant that seven hundred well-equipped men were about to assault the Hornets from the southwest, while scattered units amounting to about four hundred were following Evans and his men from the northeast.

  Waiting for them all on the hill was not an attractive option. B Company joined together with D Company and changed a controlled withdrawal into an aggressive assault in skirmish order on the lesser front.

  Their opponents were mostly line infantry and were advancing more like a mob than a disciplined line or column. Nobody had taken command other than to point at the hill and tell them to go for it.

  The Avispónes were shooting in pairs as usual. Each shot was aimed and all the targets were well within range and making little attempt to seek cover. The first man of each pair fired his opening shot and even hardened veterans like MacKay, Evans and Hickson were affected by the wholesale slaughter that ensued. Fortunately the action was short, if the carnage was terrible. The French broke and fled back along the road and MacKay called a halt, sending the men up into the hills to circle back to where they had left the horses.

  The French were left in possession of the hill that had cost them so much. They were welcome to it. The Avispónes had fought their first major engagement and emerged hardened and with only two casualties.

  Technically, the French had been left in possession of the field and could claim it as a victory, but the Spanish Hornets would gladly let them have many more such victories.

  They had to avenge the many years when their armies had been thrashed by the French and were in no way as sickened by the slaughter as their commanders were.

  On their road back to Ciudad Rodrigo on the following day, it was a touch ironic that the Avispónes had to take to the hills in order to avoid a clash with the retiring, starving division that Marmont had left to contain the town.

  The sense of euphoria among the men was still strong after their recent unbroken string of successes and there were murmurings of reluctance from some of the more hot-headed of them, who would gladly have outfaced five thousand men to justify their recently acquired pride. MacKay was amused. At least these two companies had something of which to be proud, unlike some of his Spanish acquaintances, whose pride seemed only to stem from a fortunate accident in the choice of parents.

  Rodrigo was in a festive mood after the lifting of the blockade. Welbeloved had returned with the First Battalion of Hornets. Marmont was still lost, somewhere in Portugal and news had come in of the fall of Badajoz.

  Lord Wellington himself was expected at any time and speculation; among the Spaniards at any rate; was about strikes into Andalucia, a sweep through Castile and the complete expulsion of the French from Spanish soil.

  The news of the exploits of the Avispónes only strengthened the imagination of the citizens, to the extent that it would be the Spanish forces, under the command of the unbeatable Lord Wellington; with a little help from their other glorious allies; who would be instrumental in bringing such a victory to Spain.

  CHAPTER 20

  The citizens of Ciudad Rodrigo greeted Lord Wellington on his return from Badajoz with a fiesta to overshadow all fiestas. A naturally reserved man, he accepted all the plaudits with grave dignity, acknowledging the devotion that was his due, with an aloofness that outdid all the local Spanish nobility who had been practising the art for centuries.

  It was no more than the citizens expected and they appeared to love him for it. Without being discourteous to the point of rudeness, it was a week before he could get away from the round of tempestuous celebrations laid on in his honour.

  He had, of course, exchanged greetings with his commanders and even managed to issue his usual string of written orders by working late into the night after escaping from the festivities. It was over a week before Welbeloved received an invitation, which could more properly be described as an order, to have dinner and stay behind afterwards for a discussion.

  The wine was excellent as it always was. The food was indifferent, reflecting his lordship’s disinterest in it other than as fuel for his body. Nevertheless, it was filling and nutritious and they settled down afterwards to bring each other up to date on events since they had last met.

  “I do hope that my recent actions have not given you the impression, Sir Joshua, that I have taken no account of all the excellent intelligence contained in your constant flow of despatches.

  The information you gave was so obviously correct. What I could not tally was the quite irrational behaviour of an otherwise entirely sane and capable Marshal of France.

  Soult was finally at Badajoz and certainly was expecting Marmont. I could not take the risk that somehow he had managed to trick you and would appear before me like an evil genie, as he did last time.

  I had to attack before the breaches were quite demolished, such was my concern that he would come and
join Soult, and we paid a dreadful price in dead and wounded. At one stage I ordered a withdrawal, but then Picton got over the castle walls and Pom captured one of the eastern bastions with a dozen of your Hornets and let our Fifth Division loose in the town.

  If anyone deserves a step in rank, he does, but I am certain he is yet only sixteen and nobody would wear it. The young devil actually disobeyed instructions in order to force me into an escalade at that point, knowing that I intended to hold the Fifth in reserve.”

  Welbeloved frowned. “I find it difficult to accept that Pom would disobey a given order, My Lord. Did yew actually forbid him to do what he did?”

  Wellington looked at him sideways. “Not in so many words, I admit, Sir Joshua. He was allowed to take his men and prepare the wall for an assault by the Fifth. In fact, he climbed up on to it and on the night of the assault, when the Fifth were delayed, he collected all his extra wagoners and gunners and stormed the San José Bastion by himself.”

  Welbeloved grinned. “I have to tell yew, My Lord, it is I who must accept blame. It is a habit that Cockburn and I developed at the time of the siege of Acre. It is quite impossible for admirals to anticipate everything that is likely to happen and the better ones do not try.

  Most of them are not so understanding or just do not trust their juniors. We always read our orders most carefully, not only to know what they ordered us to do, but also to discover everything that we had not been forbidden to do.

  It is a system that can get yew into trouble when yew are not successful. We sailed, close hauled, into the wind on several occasions, but Dame Fortune seemed to smile on us most of the time.

  We have selected and trained all our officers to use their initiative. We trust them to react as we would ourselves to any unexpected eventualities. Generally it works very well, in large part because yew have kept us away from those who are too hidebound to wish to understand how we work.