A Mild Case of Indigestion

by Geoffrey Watson

  Welbeloved’s French was only just adequate, but he was certain he understood. He was not impressed. “If you are stupid enough to want to be shot, Monsieur, it can be arranged. If you want to surrender, it is without conditions. Otherwise pick up your sword and go and negotiate with the scum you were trying to stop defending their own country.”

  Vaux certainly understood his polyglot Italian/Spanish/French. His eyes bulged and his face became purple. “These people are not soldiers, Monsieur. They are Spanish peasants fighting against their lawful King. It was my duty to attack them.”

  Welbeloved was losing patience. He wanted information from this man and he wanted to be able to frighten him if necessary by threats that he would hand him over to the guerrilleros. He shrugged; a Gallic movement of his shoulders that seemed appropriate; “If you were attacking them, Capitaine Vaux, you lost! Therefore you are now their prisoner. I bid you goodday, Monsieur.”

  He turned away and immediately felt Vaux’s hand clutching his sleeve. “They would torture me to death, Monsieur. I beg you to accept my surrender. I make no conditions at all.”

  He shook off his hand and turned to Sergeant Atkins. “Take his tunic, shako and swordbelt. Search him for weapons and papers then tie his hands and escort him up to the horses.” He looked at MacKay. “I think it’s about time we had a talk with the head man here. If I were a Frog officer I’d be getting some serious ideas about sorting this place out, round about the time those running soldiers get back to the bottom of the hill.”

  Those of the partisans who had fled up the escape route past the Hornets were now streaming back down. The rest were being organised [shouted at] by a large, black-haired, florid ruffian and were busy collecting their casualties; the men who had been on guard by the entry road and the few who had been shot by the attackers climbing up by the stream.

  Another party was finishing stripping the French corpses of all clothing, arms, equipment and boots and casually tossing the naked bodies over the ledge and down the slope by the stream. The muskets and ammunition in the cartridge pouches ought to make them into a much more effective fighting force. The spare clothing, even if it was the hated French uniforms, was always going to be desirable, if only for patching the collection of rags that most of them seemed to be wearing.

  Luis Lopez introduced the big man as El Martillo. Welbeloved and MacKay had to submit to hearty embraces and profuse thanks mingled with strong flavours of garlic. He was effusive in his gratitude for their rescue of his camp, but was obviously of exactly the same opinion as Welbeloved regarding French intentions and quickly resumed his chivvying of everyone to pack up quickly and abandon this base for another, some miles away.

  Once there, in comparative safety, he would throw a party in honour of his famous guests. He had heard all the stories told about the fabulous Avispónes Morenos and hadn’t entirely believed them until now. Now, he was only too happy they were true.

  MacKay rounded up all the men and followed Welbeloved back to the small meadow where the Condesa and Isabella had been guarding the horses and baggage. A good fire had been started and as the men trickled back, they were able to eat a delayed breakfast and settle down to clean their weapons thoroughly, carefully removing any powder residues, checking the threads of the breech mechanism and replacing worn flints.

  The Ferguson was a precision instrument, still many years ahead of its time. As such it had to be meticulously and lovingly maintained, if it was to continue giving such an accurate and rapid rate of fire.

  The breech mechanism was simplicity itself. The breechblock was a screw-threaded plug, which moved down when the trigger guard finial was turned three-quarters of a circle. A 0.68-inch ball with a measured charge was fed into the chamber thus revealed and the plug was re-seated. The frizzen was primed, the lock fully cocked and the rifle fired.

  All of these men could repeat this operation and fire an aimed round four times in a minute. Rifleman Evans, their best marksman, could destroy five small melons at two hundred yards in the same time.

  The Condesa and her maid Isabella had inherited a rifle each when two of the men had been killed. With great determination and very bruised shoulders they had practised until they were nearly as quick and just as accurate as the men.

  Welbeloved and MacKay sat with the rest of them to tend their rifles. Every man, officers included, was entirely responsible for his own arms. Welbeloved himself had been going through this routine for thirty years, ever since his father had been killed in the American war.

  As soon as the rifles were cleaned and oiled, the men and animals fed and watered, MacKay set sentries to guard both ways in and out of the camp. The others took the opportunity of grabbing a few hours of sleep after their night ride and strenuous exercise.

  Capitaine Vaux had been carrying written orders detailing how his company was to make the attack on the camp. The planning had been meticulous and indicated a knowledge of the defences and approaches to the site that ought to cause grave concern to El Martillo. There was no doubt that but for the most opportune arrival of Welbeloved’s men, this particular band would have ceased to exist.

  The captain now had his hands free, having given his parole not to attempt to escape. The murderous looks given him by all the passing partisans, who were still packing and leaving, was no doubt a better guarantee of his good behaviour than his word of honour. Welbeloved nevertheless decided that he would treat him as a gentleman, if only to restore some measure of self-esteem after the terrible slaughter of the men under his command.

  Since Napoleon had made himself Emperor, noble titles were once more treated with the reverence they had enjoyed before so many of them had been cut short by the blade of the guillotine during the Terror.

  Vaux was made aware that the lady questioning him was a condesa. The fact that she was vastly better educated and even spoke better French than he did, might make him realise that the peasants he had held in such contempt were not the only ones fighting the upstart King Joseph, Bonaparte’s brother.

  Mercedes was indeed a gifted linguist, being fluent in Spanish, French, German and English. She was also quite capable of using the wiles of her sex to encourage him to boast a little while trying to impress a beautiful young woman.

  It helped that he was also under no illusions by now, that Welbeloved would hand him over to the partisans if the answers he got were not satisfactory. In a very short time, information came flooding out. He explained that a new commander was now responsible for fighting the partisans throughout the Northwest of Spain and Portugal and that this had been one of the first of such operations. Apparently, one of El Martillo’s men had been discovered or betrayed to the French and tortured to give detailed information about the way into the camp.

  He had not yet himself seen this new commander, but had been told that he was an officer of the Imperial Guard, recovering from a wound recently received in battle. He knew no more than that.

  Welbeloved’s Dame Fortune had obviously presented him with information beyond price when she had stayed his hand and kept Vaux alive. They learned that Marshal Soult and his army had been attacked and soundly beaten at Oporto by the newly appointed British General Sir Arthur Wellesley. Soult and the remains of his army had escaped on foot over the mountains into Galicia, leaving all their guns, horses, baggage and wagon trains, together with nearly six thousand dead and wounded.

  Soult had got his men out of Portugal, but in rags and with only the weapons they could carry by hand. No French remained in Portugal at all, and the great activity Welbeloved had seen, had been equipment and supplies coming from Madrid and even France, sent to replace that which had been lost.

  The beaten army was recovering north of the Portuguese border and Marshal Ney had also withdrawn about twelve thousand of his own men from the northwest provinces to reinforce Soult’s army and help them prepare to face the British should they come this way.

  The news of Soult’s defeat was marvellous but was also almost unbel
ievable. Apparently he had been sitting in Oporto knowing that a small British army was approaching but on the other side of the Douro gorge. The Douro was a wide, swiftly flowing river with all the bridges destroyed. Knowing that he had more men than Wellesley and in an impregnable position, he went to bed and was awakened to discover that the British were not only miraculously across the river but that they were already attacking his headquarters. He fled precipitously with his staff, leaving the British to eat the hot dinner just prepared for him.

  Even Vaux seemed to derive a certain malicious satisfaction at the humbling of one of Napoleon’s most successful marshals. Brilliant soldier though he was, Marshal Soult, the Duc of Dalmatia, was known to have regal ambitions, with a keen eye on the throne of Portugal and northern Spain. Not all his officers were happy about this and there had been disaffection and even talk of mutiny among his troops.

  It was the arithmetic that bothered Welbeloved. The evidence of his eyes told him that the French were swarming around Galicia. He had to believe Vaux and his claim that an army of twenty-four thousand men had been driven out of Portugal, losing six thousand men and all their equipment.

  He also knew that Wellesley had only landed at Lisbon three or four weeks before this battle and that the total British force available to him was considerably less than the French army sitting in an impregnable position across a bridgeless gorge. There may have been some help from the remains of the Portuguese army, but the sheer improbability of a small, defensive, British army suddenly getting to its feet and marching several hundred miles to rout a bigger, supposedly invincible French army, was something he found difficult to digest.

  When one also considered that this was Soult and the army that had pushed Sir John Moore into the sea at La Coruña, less than six months ago, one could savour the distinct feeling of retribution.

  If there was anything more that Vaux could tell them, it was likely to be informed guesswork. He knew that his own commander, Marshal Ney, was concentrating his army, but not with any sense of urgency. He thought that there would eventually be over ten thousand men to add to the ill-equipped army of Marshal Soult, numbering over fifteen thousand but unlikely to be fully fighting fit for a few weeks yet.

  He was only a junior officer and they had probably milked him dry of everything useful that he knew. It was now time to dispose of him and there were only three alternatives. Kill him, hand him to the partisans or send him back to his friends. The first two were unimaginable and as the British army was now back in the field he could be considered a prisoner of war.

  The last of the partisans had now left and Welbeloved faced him. “Capitaine Vaux, as you have informed me that our two countries are now fighting each other again in the peninsular, I have to consider you a prisoner of war. This would make you eligible to be exchanged for an English prisoner of your own rank. Do you understand?”

  Vaux didn’t wait for the Condesa to amplify. “Mais oui, Monsieur le Comte. I understand and thank you.”

  Welbeloved blinked. Nobody had actually used his courtesy title before and it caught him flatfooted. Vaux must have made the connection himself, knowing that they were married. He recovered quickly. “Obviously Monsieur, we have no means of keeping you under restraint and I intend to let you return to your regiment if you will undertake not to serve actively against my country until a formal exchange can be arranged.”

  Vaux nodded. “I understand the convention, Monsieur and for myself I agree to your terms. Please understand however that some of my superior officers do not agree with the old ways and may order me to ignore my promise. Perhaps you may decide to reconsider your offer?”

  Welbeloved struggled to grasp this rapid French and Mercedes stepped in. “My husband is only too aware that some of your senior officers have no concept of honour. If you accept this commitment it is your personal honour that is at stake. How you come to terms with that is for you alone.”

  She quickly explained the exchange and Welbeloved looked quizzically at the captain. Vaux spread his hands in a typically Gallic gesture. “As Madame la Comtesse says. It is my responsibility. I accept and you have my parole, Monsieur.”

  They took him back to the top of the track from the camp, gave him back his uniform, less his weapons and sent him on his way. He had little useful information about them to tell his superiors. The attack on the partisans had very nearly succeeded, but any future aggression would need to be conducted with far greater numbers to have any chance of success.

  For now, they would relax for the rest of the day and join El Martillo in the morning. Training the guerrilleros and harassing the French would take up the next week or so. They had no idea what Wellesley would be doing after his success at Oporto, but the most sensible thing for them to do at the moment was to interfere with the re-supply of the beaten French army. If they could delay the time when it was ready to fight again, it had to be helpful to whatever plans Sir Arthur was contemplating.

  In another month, his trained recruits should be on their way. After that he could move farther into Spain and try and set the whole country aflame against the invader.

  CHAPTER 4

  Mercedes, Condesa de Alba y Hachenburg, Mistress Welbeloved, had developed a fascination for explosives and demolition work ever since the previous autumn when; trying to prove that she was a valuable member of the Hornets; she had worked with Rifleman Trelawney to destroy a series of bridges in the path of a small French army.

  The Hornets were doing their best to harass and delay these troops, who had been sent north of the Cantabrian Mountains to try and outflank Sir John Moore in the race to La Coruña.

  Since Trelawney had been killed during these actions, she had become the acknowledged expert among men who were themselves highly trained in the arcane mysteries of fuses, quick and slow matches, weak points in bridges and fault lines in rock strata that could be exploited to achieve the utmost effect.

  Her new husband, on the other hand, was basically a predator. He was never happier than when he was stalking or ambushing his prey. Nonetheless, he had himself used explosives innumerable times. MacKay had told her of all the occasions in the last ten years when he had trained local partisans from all around the Mediterranean on how to use a well placed keg of gunpowder in order to destroy French installations or military convoys.

  It was never his primary thought however. He always seemed to lean towards direct action based on the formidable firepower of the Fergusons, whether attacking, ambushing or defending.

  After they had released their prisoner, she was strolling, arm in arm with her well beloved, while he speculated aloud about the French reaction to the stinging reverse they had just suffered. “The problem I have always had in these last few years is to try to put myself into the shoes of my enemy and imagine what I would do in his place. It was easier in the beginning because the French always attacked. Napoleon only ever knew how to go forward and his army inevitably behaves badly in retreat.”

  They gazed down the winding track where Vaux was now lost to sight and Welbeloved waved casually towards the valley floor. “Yew would hardly believe they were the same people. Five years ago and that road would already be swarming with soldiers coming to wreak revenge on the partisans and us. Now, although I confide they will come, it would likely only be a reconnaissance to confirm that their bird has flown. They’ll also be a lot more wary until they find the place deserted. Then they’ll relax and set fire to everything before they leave.

  That would be a good time to ambush them and rout them again. It would make them realise that they have a source of trouble right in their midst. No army can tolerate that. They would more or less have to mount a major operation to get rid of us and we could then sneak out of the back door and leave them to their frustration.”

  They were strolling where the track came over the spur from the next valley, when he realised that he had been so absorbed in his subject that he had been talking to himself and ignoring his bride, who had nevertheles
s been hanging on every word. He stopped aghast. “Mercy, my love, yew must forgive me for wittering on so. I’ve been completely ignoring the most precious person in my life, while I followed my obsession for creating mayhem with the Frogs.”

  She turned and planted a swift kiss on his lips. “Dearest Joshua, creating mayhem is also my obsession but it has to be my second one. The first is you and will ever remain so, but you must occasionally allow me to share yours, even if I do have to take second place in your thoughts.”

  He spluttered incoherently as she knew he would. She hugged him impulsively. “Don’t ever let me change that in you, my love, but do occasionally allow me to think about things in ways that are not necessarily the same as a man would.”

  His eyes twinkled as he caught the exquisite sarcasm. “Yew wish, Madame, to expand on my faulty musings and add some wonderfully devious schemes of yor own?”

  Her smile of triumph was one of the most demure expressions that he could ever recall seeing. “It did occur to me, husband mine, that the ruthlessness which has been such an attractive feature in your character, might be mellowing under the softening influence of marriage, convalescence from your wounds and of course, the inevitability of advancing years.”

  She gasped as he swept her off her feet, crouched on one knee and laid her across the other. “Shall I show yew how ruthless I can be, Minx? In English law, to which yew are now subject, I am permitted to beat my wife with a cane as thick as my little finger, every time she offends me.”

  Squirming round, she wrapped both arms round his neck and kissed him thoroughly, murmuring, “not when you are so easy to subdue when I do this!” She opened her eyes, looking over his shoulder and saw an embarrassed MacKay just about to turn and flee.

  “Don’t go Hamish, I’m sure my husband is not as preoccupied as it would appear. He was merely demonstrating how ruthless it is necessary to be to the French.”