The Confrontation at Salamanca

by Geoffrey Watson

  Wagons and drays surrounded the grazing area, acting more as a fence to keep the animals in than an intentionally protective screen. Outside the line of wagons was a camp of a regiment of line infantry. Again, it was not easy to say whether they were an official guard for the wagon train or just a barrier between it and the traffic, such as it was, on the road.

  Whatever the excuse, they were between Quintana and his prey and spread out in a manner that showed that they did not have a deal of regard for the ‘contact with the enemy’ alert.

  Before dawn, Quintana’s favourite squadron dismounted and crept forward to within a hundred yards of the French pickets. They were the most proficient marksmen and one of the troops jealously guarded the thirty breech-loading carbines that Welbeloved had handed over a few weeks ago.

  The French were awake and about their business. Reveille had sounded and the extended camps of infantry units were going about their normal morning activities. The last thing on their collective mind was the hail of aimed shot that caught them all by surprise.

  Surprise or not, they were veteran soldiers and their drummers had them running to fall in and to present lines of loaded muskets and advance on their assailants once bayonets had been fixed.

  Quintana chose his moment well. It was just at the point when the lines had formed and the orders were being given to load all their muskets, that two squadrons of Spanish cavalry streamed down each flank of his marksmen and smashed into the newly formed formation before they had quite completed their drill.

  They were totally unprepared for cavalry and scattered in terror in all directions. Two of the four Spanish squadrons veered left and right, attacking the flank companies that had also been reacting to the sudden threat.

  The other two squadrons smashed straight through any opposition and made directly for the parked wagons. They were under orders to ignore the terrified drivers and do as much damage as possible to the freight animals themselves and to selected targets such as possible powder wagons. These were usually parked well away from the rest and would be destroyed by prepared fuses, courtesy of Hornet instructors.

  Other wagons were raided for reserves of cartridges that could be scattered in other wagons and ignited easily with the help of brands from the many campfires scattered about.

  After thirty minutes the whole camp was ablaze, with several satisfying, enormous explosions and the twitching corpses of most of the freight animals. Warning bugles told of approaching retribution from both directions and all five squadrons rode away north.

  The surprise and planning had been such that hardly any shots had been fired at them. Other than the sentries, there had been no time to think of organised resistance. Their single casualty had been the victim of one of those sentries and for once the shot had proved fatal, being fired from only a few paces.

  Welbeloved and his combined force retired to higher ground, from where they could watch almost the entire French division. Quintana and his men were naturally jubilant and were hoping that French cavalry units might come looking for them, vainly seeking revenge.

  It was a happy thought, but was not to be. The French concentrated on defensive measures and contracted their extended formation. After two days they went back to join Marmont, leaving a substantial force to guard the bridge at Toro.

  Welbeloved crossed the river farther west and went looking for Lord Wellington. His Avispónes had no clear successes to report, but they had ensured that one division would not escape from sieges to join Marmont and that Bonnet was delayed for several weeks and had his cavalry severely depleted.

  Quintana travelled with him, bringing his six hundred excellent cavalrymen along to swell Wellington’s ranks. He had sent a report to Santocildes telling of his intention. Welbeloved sent a despatch, supporting his decision and advising the general of the sterling work done on his behalf in stopping any confrontation with Foy’s probing column.

  CHAPTER 12

  The Royal Navy, as Lord Wellington had requested, was now officially committed to waging war along the northern coast of Spain. Rear Admiral Popham sailed from El Ferrol with his squadron a week after Wellington’s army entered Salamanca.

  His naval force was intended primarily to protect the transports that carried up to eleven thousand British and Spanish marines. Their task was to harass the seaports along the northern coast, capturing any that were defended inadequately and generally making life so difficult for General Caffarelli and the Army of the North, that he would be unable to send any help to Marmont in his struggle against Wellington.

  Before all the units that were to make up Popham’s force could be collected together to start his campaign, Wellington had arranged an interim measure. Commodore Sir Charles Cockburn and his small squadron had been sent from the Mediterranean to co-operate with his friend Sir Joshua Welbeloved, the 1st Battalion of the Hornets and two large groups of guerrilleros.

  Their purpose was also to harass the Army of the North before Popham arrived. The Hornets had the additional duty of helping the guerrilla bands of Longa and Porlier to move east and join with the guerrilleros of Espoz y Mina to reinforce the Spanish Seventh Army under General Mendizábal. It was they who would be working with Popham to cause chaos in the northeast.

  In the interim, Colonel MacKay and Major Cholmondeley of the 1st Battalion of Hornets had cleared the French from the western Asturias with the assistance of Cockburn’s marines and the two bands of guerrilleros. They had completed the capture of the three towns of Avilés, Oviedo and Gijón and were tidying up, ready to move on, when Admiral Popham and his squadron arrived.

  The admiral was an active and ambitious officer who had only recently hoisted his flag as Rear Admiral. It had to have been a great relief to move up from the temporary rank of commodore, that lasted only as long as the squadron for which it had been created. Once that command was redistributed or returned to the main fleet, the commodore generally resumed his rank as senior captain.

  Here then was a very new rear admiral who was anxious to make his mark as a successful and energetic commander in his first independent command. His orders from the admiralty made him the senior naval officer along the Biscay coast of Spain, but because he had been unable to complete his squadron before the campaign started, he now found a junior commodore standing in for him and co-operating with a British battalion and two separate groups of guerrilla forces.

  Perhaps he would have been reconciled to the situation immediately if the Hornets had not been so startlingly successful in what they had achieved. Certainly it simplified the task he had been given. It would enable him to concentrate all his energy farther east, in the heart of the territory controlled by the French Army of the North.

  That was not the point. He had been given a responsibility and found that the first part of it had been completed by others even before he had arrived. He was not best pleased. That damned fellow Cockburn was his junior and should have been brought under his command, but he was working independently under admiralty orders and would have to revert to captain if he allowed his squadron to be absorbed into Popham’s command.

  All he could do was tell him that his presence was no longer needed or perhaps tell him that his squadron was very welcome in purely a support role. That was an interesting thought, as it would enable Popham to claim most of the credit for what had already been achieved.

  If he couldn’t do much else about Cockburn, at least his orders gave him command of all the marines in his expeditionary force. He had been told that the British battalion already involved, belonged to the Naval Division. That made them marines. He would insist that they accepted his command. He summoned their commander on board his flagship.

  MacKay was mildly amused. He had joined the marines as a boy, before they could call themselves royal. He had been fighting alongside Welbeloved since shortly after Nelson’s victory at the Nile, over thirteen years ago. The preoccupation of naval officers with matters of rank and precedence was very familiar to him and he had
been expecting a call from the admiral, having a very good idea about what was on his mind.

  He took along the incredibly boyish-looking Major Cholmondeley and his hulking ex-pugilist servant and was picked up by Cockburn’s barge and his coxswain, the half-Irish, half-Greek, ex-Turkish janissary, Abdulla Mustapha Dimitri Spiros Seamus O’Toole.

  “Seamus, old friend, it is good tae see ye again. The years hae dealt kindly with ye. No extra inches tae your height, but I swear your shoulders are even more massive than when I saw ye last. I am sure ye find no challengers tae wrestle with ye.”

  “Greetings also to you, Colonel Hamish. The inches you speak of are called fat, but nobody says so in my hearing. You also have extra inches and they, to be sure, are not fat. Perhaps the tales I hear are true? I am told that you have taken a wife who keeps you too busy to permit you to gain weight. May she give you many sons.”

  Hamish laughed. “She hae already gi’en me one, Seamus, but these wars hae also made her a warrior and she hae killed many Frenchmen. I dae my best tae keep her wi’ child in case we run out o’ enemies.”

  The cox’s great shoulders shook with mirth. He enjoyed nothing so much as exchanges such as that, but by now the barge was alongside Titan and Cockburn was ready to join them for the row across to Popham’s flagship.

  Cockburn cast his eyes over his three drab passengers and they watched them crinkle with amusement. “Admiral Popham asked me to bring you and I do hope that the invitation was extended to me and he shall do me the honour of welcoming me on board at the same time. I do so wish to observe his expression when you come through the entry port.

  I note that you carry your rifles and not your swords, Hamish. I am curious, but shall refrain from enquiring if this is intentional.”

  “Then I shall satisfy your curiosity wi’out being asked, Sir Charles. Few o’ us use our swords other than for chopping firewood and maybe the occasional Frenchman. On the other hand, our rifles are the weapon that make us what we are and I hae faint hopes that Sir Home shall take the point. I am, of course, prepared tae be disappointed. Algy’s man shall wait outside the great cabin tae hold them sae that sacrilege may not be committed.”

  There was a scarcely muffled snort from O’Toole and Cockburn raised an eyebrow at him. “Did you wish to say something, Seamus?”

  “Never in the world, your honour, God bless us all.” He looked up and bellowed. “Keep your eyes to the front and watch your stroke, you idle buggers!” Even that did not entirely remove the grins from the faces of the boat’s crew.

  The Admiral met them, with honours accorded to Cockburn as visiting commodore. His greeting was somewhat perfunctory as his bulging eyes saw the three drab, armed figures following him onto the deck, smartly removing their bonnets in salute. Two of them handed their rifles to the battered, hulking figure, who slung them nonchalantly to join his own across his shoulders.

  Both men replaced their bonnets and stepped forward as Cockburn introduced them. “Sir Home, may I name my good friend Colonel MacKay and the commander of the 1st Battalion of Hornets, Major Cholmondeley. Both are on detachment from Lord Wellington’s Naval Division and both were involved in the cutting out of the Gloire frigate and out own captured brig Proserpine in the year ten.”

  It was quite deliberate of Cockburn, mentioning the daring capture of three vessels from this very harbour. It established in Popham’s mind that the two drab people that were visiting, were notable in naval terms that he could relate to. Undoubtedly, he would recall the event, even if he had never heard of the Hornets or any of their other successes.

  Indeed, it stirred up more than a few memories by the time they were all seated in the great cabin of Venerable 74.

  “I do seem to recall, Sir Charles, that when your old senior was posted, the Admiralty encouraged him to get involved with some special force of marines. Was not Admiral Lord Keith acting as godparent to its formation?”

  “Quite so, Sir Home. Now, as Major General of Marines in command of a division, my old senior is my senior in fact. Not only that, but his sponsor is Lord Wellington, who helped to build the Naval Division and convinced the Admiralty to give full support to Sir Joshua Welbeloved as its commander.”

  “Welbeloved!” Popham scratched his head. “Was there not talk about him eloping with the King’s cousin without a by-your-leave or something?”

  The three visitors laughed and MacKay took up the story. “His wife is the Condesa de Alba y Hachenburg, Sir Home. She is said tae be descended frae the king’s grandfather, George II and she did not elope. He maintains that she married him when he was recovering frae a wound and was unable tae resist. Strangely, she does nae deny the allegation, but then, naebody is brave enough tae question her about it.

  Let me, however tell ye a little about the Hornets; the Naval Division. Three years ago we were thirty men. Now we are a small division o’ more than twa and a half thousand, wi’ four battalions, a British, a German, a Portuguese and a Spanish. We are armed wi’ rapid, breech-loading firearms that can kill wi’ accuracy, up tae twa hundred paces and in many cases up tae four hundred paces. We are infantry; although, because Iberia is a large, mountainous peninsular, we ride horses tae get tae where we fight.”

  Popham scrutinized the two drab figures, focusing repeatedly on the boyish major wearing the impossibly pristine, but still drab uniform. It was becoming increasingly obvious that his thoughts of bringing them under his command were not going to happen. He made one last effort.

  “I understand that, even though this Naval Division has grown to nearly three thousand men, it remains under the auspices of the Navy; they pay and provision you. Is that not so?

  That being the case and this being primarily a naval expedition, should not your force be transferred under my orders as the commander of the squadron involved in the action?”

  ‘He really is anxious to get us under his control,’ thought MacKay, ‘but then, so many generals have had the same ambition, without success.’ He glanced at Algy and nodded.

  Cholmondeley smiled seraphically at Popham and practiced a little of the tact that he had learned as one of Wellington’s aides. “Although we have not been working under your actual orders, Sir Home, we have understood that Lord Wellington has requested that the Navy, in effect, shall set the north coast ablaze.

  It has been our primary concern to support your effort by using our battalion, together with the marines in Sir Charles’s squadron and two brigades of guerrilleros. We have had the good fortune to be able to clear western Asturias and the three main towns.

  When you arrived, we had been planning further advances eastwards, in order to occupy the attention of General Caffarelli and the Army of the North. We are informed that he has approaching one hundred thousand troops at his disposal.

  The two brigades of guerrilleros have been of valuable assistance to us so far, but we are charged with helping them to join General Mendizábal and the Seventh Spanish Army in Cantabria. We understand that this is the Spanish force with which you shall be collaborating.

  Lord Wellington has requested that we all do what we can to distract Caffarelli and deter him from sending assistance to Marshal Marmont. At the moment and for the first time we have a numerical advantage. His Lordship is anxious to maintain this.

  Our object has been to keep the French busy between here and Santander, so that they shall be unprepared for your assault from the sea farther east. We have been guessing, of course, but remain hopeful that we are helping and not harming your planned strategy.”

  Popham was not always quick to realize when he could get no more from a situation, but his arrival had already been delayed and this had steered him into a decision to restrict his attacks to the coast from Santander eastwards.

  Now he was told that the region he was ignoring was going to be a magnet, attracting the attention of French forces that otherwise would be free to make trouble for his seaborne landings. This decision that he was now making was easier than navigation;
he had always had to work hard at that.

  Lying effortlessly: “You put such a good case, young man, that I am prepared to alter my strategy and concentrate all my attentions east of Santander.”

  He addressed himself to MacKay. “I shall let you have my written request that you do your utmost to draw away as many French troops as possible from my area of operations and that you expedite the joining together of your partidas and Mendizábal.

  Finally,” he was almost pleading, “it would be invaluable if one of you two gentlemen could sail with me and act in the capacity of intermediary with General Mendizábal. I have little faith that he shall understand what I am about, or that I shall guess what he intends.”

  Very briefly, MacKay looked startled. He was becoming quite an accomplished actor, he felt. “That is a maest sensible suggestion, Sir Home. I should be happy tae come with ye myself, but Mistress MacKay should not wish tae leave her beloved mortars.”

  He looked at Cholmondeley. “A wee furlough should suit ye, Algy. I’ll try not tae be too easy on the men ’til ye get back.”

  He looked thoughtful for a while. “Who is your senior marine officer, Sir Home?”

  “Major MacKenzie, Colonel. He is with me in Venerable. There is a Spanish colonel in charge of their contingent.”

  MacKay smiled. “There ye are, Algy. All the other battalions hae a lieutenant colonel commanding them. The time hae come for ye tae join them. Gae on board as Brevet Lieutenant Colonel. Sir Joshua asked me tae find a suitable opportunity and this is it. Ye shall be senior marine officer in the squadron. Nae doubt it shall be convenient tae pass on some useful suggestions.”

  Popham was looking slightly aghast. “I had hoped that we could have tempted you, Colonel MacKay, but you say that your wife is serving with you? Surely she cannot be fighting alongside you, that would be unthinkable?”