A Mild Case of Indigestion

by Geoffrey Watson

  The outriders; to give them credit; reacted very quickly, leaping off their horses, clutching pistols and carbines and sheltering behind the guns and caissons while trying to return fire. To no avail. Anyone who looked like an officer or sergeant had been a primary target and the only officer left was the one who had been first over the bridge. He came storming back, dismounted and at the head of his vanguard.

  MacKay had anticipated that this would happen and he and Lopez shot the first two men as soon as they appeared. The other Hornets in the streambed were distracted briefly from the general slaughter to help despatch the others.

  All the surviving gunners were now dismounted and crouching behind guns, caissons, limbers or wagons and firing back hopefully with their pistols and carbines. To do so they had to expose some part of their body. If they were making any pretence of aiming their weapon, this was usually the head and at this short range, the Hornets could guarantee to split an apple.

  Firing slackened and ceased after half-a-dozen more bodies sprawled on the ground. MacKay called to Thuner to use his French to demand surrender and to emphasise that they were British and not Spanish partisans.

  This last information was the deciding argument for all but one. Hands were raised and weapons thrown down. One of the horses was still close by and a gunner thought the risk worth while. He actually managed to get into the saddle before two shots took him violently out of it again. The rest responded with alacrity to Thuner’s bellowed instructions to gather together, shed their tunics and accoutrements and lie face down on the ground.

  MacKay stepped down onto the road, followed by the rest of the men from the stream bed, leaving the others to cover proceedings. He explained to Thuner what he wanted and left him to drive the prisoners to seek out all the dead and injured and carry those still alive; three only; back to the rear wagon.

  The dead horses were cut from the traces, the wagon unloaded onto the side of the road, then pointed back the way they had come, drawn by the remaining two horses and loaded with all the surviving gunners, minus their breeches and boots. Once they were on their way, the other Hornets came down to have a look at whatever it was they had captured.

  The first surprise was the guns. All of them were six-inch howitzers, similar to those that MacKay remembered from ten years ago, when Captain Cockburn had captured a French convoy on its way to Alexandria.

  They had handed those over to the Turks at Acre and had experimented with them for some time before giving up in frustration, when they were quite unable to get the shells to explode with any degree of precision. He did remember lighting them and rolling them down onto the French who were storming a breach in the walls. The thought that they could use these for the same purpose in the defence of the climb up to the camp, caused him to have a pile of them placed ready to occupy any vacant space in the bundles they were lashing onto the horses they had captured.

  The wagons, limbers and caissons provided a cornucopia of desirable stores and equipment. Lots of linen bags of gunpowder, plenty of spare harness and enough rations to have lasted the gunners for a week or more. There was even a mobile forge that would enable El Martillo to demonstrate the arts of the blacksmith and deal with some of the suspect shoes on their mounts.

  It was strenuous work, but eventually everything useful that could be carried was lashed onto the captured horses and started back up the track to the village. MacKay, with half-a-dozen of his men stood among the abandoned howitzers and considered what could be done with them.

  There was no problem with the limbers, caissons and the remaining wagon. There was enough gunpowder and spare shells left over to blow them all to pieces. The howitzers were a different matter. They were solid lumps of cast metal designed to withstand explosions. Nevertheless, it went against the grain to leave them here for the French to recover and use again.

  Then the matter became academic when a cloud of dust appeared on the road to the west. MacKay’s glass identified it as a troop of cavalry and all seven Hornets went back under cover to await developments.

  This couldn’t be treated as a normal ambush. The bridge was still blocked and there were guns and bodies lying about over a hundred yards of road. There was a way through for a man or horse if they left the road before the bridge and crossed the little stream where it joined the river. They would then have to clamber up the bank back onto the road and pick their way through the accumulated debris until they reached the empty road again.

  It all depended on how aggressive they were feeling when faced with the evidence of the disaster confronting them. The site would appear deserted. If they had urgent business and made to ride on, MacKay was disposed to leave them unmolested. He and his men were well concealed and any extra horses and equipment they might capture would, frankly, be an embarrassment at this time.

  His men were spread out along the slope above the road. He was the only one in the stream bed, crouched behind a boulder that the torrent had not yet succeeded in tearing from the hillside. He watched the riders as they approached cautiously and halted fifty yards away.

  They were chasseurs in their green tunics faced with red. Their leather patched overalls were well worn, faded green or dirty grey. In their midst was a much more colourful specimen in a braided dolman and pelisse of the hussars, coloured bright sky blue topped with a fur cap sporting an enormous imperial eagle.

  He was gesticulating impatiently, as if he were the senior officer and anxious that he should not be delayed. It was unusual for one of Napoleon’s prima donna, rainbow-coloured exotic hussars to be surrounded by drab chasseurs. Perhaps they were an escort intended to protect him from ruffians like MacKay and his men.

  It raised the question of why he was important enough to rate an escort of thirty light cavalrymen; and if he wasn’t personally important, what was he carrying in that impressive white sabretache?

  MacKay changed his mind. He felt sure that Welbeloved would be fascinated to see the contents of the satchel and perhaps even talk to the man himself. He passed his orders down the line and concentrated on the small party that had been sent forward to investigate the blockage, all carrying their carbines at the ready.

  A sergeant and four troopers walked their horses forward cautiously as far as the bridge. They had seen much service if the state of their uniforms was anything to judge by. The original dark green had been faded by the sun and rain until it was a dirty grey/green. Indeed, some of the overalls were muddy grey, held together by the leather protective patches.

  They reined in, looking over the dead horses at the abandoned guns and limbers, strewn around with the bodies of the gunners. They stared up at the rising ground for a long time and saw nothing. The neutral colours of the Hornets’ uniform gave no point of reference against the faded earth background of a Spanish summer.

  The sergeant gave an irritable gesture, following an impatient yell from the main body of the troop. He growled an order and three of his men rode off the road and forded the stream, following each other up the slope, back onto the road among the chaos left by the Fergusons.

  Their horses picked their way delicately among the various obstacles, the men looking for any sign of danger and positioning themselves at intervals, studying the slope which seemed the obvious place from which to expect trouble.

  None of them seeing anything, the sergeant signalled the troop forward and led the way, following in the tracks of his first three men until the five of them were spread out along the whole stretch of debris-littered road. Dismounted, they watched for any sign of trouble, while the rest of the troop followed their lead. The glittering peacock of a hussar was in the middle of the troop. He had just followed the officer in charge up the bank onto the road again when MacKay clinically shot his horse through the head and stretched it dead and quivering on the road, with the rider’s leg trapped beneath it.

  The dismounted sergeant and his four men immediately turned towards the sound of the shot, raising their carbines to aim at the cloud of powder
smoke. All five collapsed before they could pull the trigger and the last shot from the seventh Hornet swept the officer in charge from his saddle.

  MacKay couldn’t see any other officer and with the sergeant dead as well, the troop split into two parts. Those on the road spurred away past the deserted guns. Those at the rear scrambled back across the stream and down the road they had only just ridden.

  Only one had the presence of mind to think about the man they were escorting and that was because the hussar was holding up his sabretache and yelling at him to take it. It did him no good. MacKay had reloaded quickly and was expecting something like this. He shot him as he leaned down to snatch it and he fell out of his saddle on top of the dead horse. The hussar screamed in pain as the extra weight squashed his trapped leg.

  The chasseurs had now split into two roughly equal squads of about a dozen men each. They had stopped running and were milling about at a hundred yards distance in both directions, with a great deal of shouting as junior corporals tried to assert themselves and rally their comrades for an attempt to rescue the hussar.

  They were out of effective range of standard muskets and didn’t realise that they were still in mortal danger from the Fergusons. MacKay ordered the men to stay in cover and discourage the eastern group if they started to return. He called to Thuner and they stepped down onto the road and approached the trapped hussar.

  The unfortunate fellow had managed to pull out a large pistol from somewhere and was struggling to prime it. MacKay wondered at the pathetic gesture until he suddenly realised that the man probably thought that they were guerrilleros and was trying to use it on himself.

  Hastily, he told Thuner to explain who they were and tell him that he could consider himself a prisoner of war or shoot himself with his pistol, whatever his preference should be, but they would relieve him of the contents of his sabretache, will he nil he.

  The man made no effort to prevent them taking his pistol and sabretache and lay back on the road as a succession of shots showed that the chasseurs to the east were being discouraged. Both men ran to the bridge and peered round the limber of the howitzer in the other direction. The western section had now regrouped and was approaching at a trot.

  “Tak’ the first shot, Thuner. Aim for the man and nae the horse and I’ll hae the next in line. Keep it up until they retreat again or there are none o’ them left.”

  Aiming carefully, the shots were two seconds apart and two leading saddles were emptied. The troop broke into a canter and was just leaving the road when two more saddles were emptied.

  From their position on the bridge, the two Hornets could follow their targets all the way round, over the stream and up onto the road again. They only had time for one more shot each, then the French were up the bank onto the road and into the concentrated fire of the other five Fergusons.

  The sole bewildered survivor jumped off his horse and threw himself under a caisson, throwing his carbine away and screaming that he was surrendering. The men under cover on the slope reported that the survivors to the east, seven or eight of them had given up and were departing at speed to fetch help. It was time to lift the horse off the hussar and finish their business on this miniature battlefield.

  Speed was desirable if they were to leave before the whole French army came looking for retribution. They sent the solitary gunner on his way, put a splint on the released and swollen leg of the hussar and carried him out of the way. The limbers, caissons and wagon were destroyed by gunpowder charges. For want of a better idea, they fitted one of the shells inside the short barrel of each gun and lit the fuse. The result was quite spectacular but the damage if any was difficult to assess. They rolled them all into the river and left.

  The damage to the hussar’s leg was also difficult to assess. It was certainly badly bruised and swollen but possibly not broken. They strapped a splint from thigh to ankle as a precaution, then blindfolded him and tied him to one of the gunners’ horses.

  An hour later they were on their way back up the track to the village. They would have to find a place to camp once they reached a suitable location on more level ground.

  They ought to be back in their fortress by late the following morning, having proved that the enemy could be hurt. Next time they went out to harry the French they would take some of the partisans with them. The Spaniards wouldn’t have Fergusons, but with the training in marksmanship they had been getting, a large group of them ought to be able to make life very difficult for the French on all their lines of supply.

  CHAPTER 9

  Chef de Bataillon Jean Rabuteau of the Hussars of the Imperial Guard, forced himself to make another circuit of the mountain meadow. He was walking now with the aid of only one stick. His leg, although still painful, was becoming stronger every day.

  From the moment when his horse was shot, there was never a chance of kicking his foot free of the stirrup before he was on the ground with a still quivering but dead weight pinning his leg beneath it.

  He didn’t know whether to be grateful for, or aghast at, the precision of the shot that had killed his mount. He had actually seen the bullet hole appear in the head of the beast, straight into the brain. He had to believe that it was exactly where it was intended to be. Two inches either way and the horse would have been thrashing about in its death throes and his leg would have been a mangled ruin that no surgeon could have saved.

  Not that that would have mattered in the slightest if that strange, brown-clad Swiss hadn’t spoken to him in the most atrocious accent he had ever heard and convinced him that they weren’t Spanish guerrilla fighters attacking his escort. He would have blown his brains out with his pistol rather than submit to their fiendish tortures.

  As an Aide to King Joseph Bonaparte, he had heard rumours of a band of irregulars known as the Frelons Bruns. He had never entirely credited such stories, even though one of Soult’s generals had been sent back to France in disgrace because of them, after the English Leopards had been thrown out of Spain at La Coruña.

  If this General Tasselot had come up against large numbers of these Hornets, Rabuteau would have had much sympathy for him. He had lain under his horse and watched while seven of them had destroyed his escort of veteran chasseurs, killing two-thirds of them. Judging by the bodies lying about, they had done the same to an equal number of gunners shortly before.

  It looked very much as though Marshal Soult might be telling the truth or at least some part of it, in trying to justify his reluctance to obey the orders from King Joseph that Rabuteau had carried to him.

  Nearly everyone knew that Soult wanted to be a king like Napoleon’s brothers and his brother-in-law Marshal Murat, who was now King of Naples. Joseph wanted Soult to take his army south to attack the Spanish Army of the Estremadura before it could be reinforced by the British from Portugal. Soult wanted to stay and build up his power in the northwest and was fabricating stories of armed rebellion by large bands of partisans.

  In Orense, Rabuteau had heard tales of recent battles against guerrilleros who had been assisted by these mythical Hornets. He had only half believed them until now. Now he had seen the havoc created by only ten men and there were thirty that he had counted in this fortress in the mountains. It seemed as though Soult had more reasons than had been imagined to keep his soldiers in the northwest and pursue his regal ambitions.

  He couldn’t complain of his treatment since he had been captured. These strange brown-clad British soldiers had been courteous and attentive and their leader; the naval captain or marine colonel or whatever; had examined his damaged leg personally and given instructions to his wife; a Spanish Countess no less; on how to strap it and exercise it once he had satisfied himself that there were no broken bones.

  They had warned him to stay away from the Spanish guerrilleros, who would enjoy killing him as painfully as they could devise if ever they got the chance. He believed them but was surprised to learn that the warning also included the six or seven women camped alongside the Horne
ts and spending their time practicing loading and firing the carbines that had obviously been captured from French soldiers.

  It was the Condesa who had explained what had happened to the village and to the women. He was almost as distressed to learn about it as she was. He knew that such things happened when the French army was fighting other armies, but those practices should not continue once the enemy was defeated. Spain now even had a French king for God’s sake!

  He had tried to speak to the girl with the badly bruised face who appeared to be the leader of the women. He attempted an apology; as if there was anything he could say that could improve matters. She listened coldly but politely, but her response was chilling, even for a hardened soldier like Rabuteau. “I hear you expressing regrets for the barbaric behaviour of your compatriots, Señor. That is, of course meaningless as I know that all Frenchmen are savage barbarians and many times worse than the heathen Moors ever were.

  When my friends and I are well practiced with these weapons, we will go down from the mountains and kill as many Frenchmen as we can, as painfully as possible. If we are lucky enough to find you away from the protection of our rescuers, we will kill you too. However, for you we will try and be mercifully quick in view of the sentiments you have just expressed.”

  Slowly and disdainfully, she then walked away to practice with her carbine, leaving him chilled and thoughtful at the dispassionate, unfeeling tone of her declaration and the quiet conviction of her purpose. If he managed to get back to Madrid, he would attempt to convince King Joseph to forbid acts of violence and pillage against the civil population. On a purely pragmatic basis, if outrages like this caused even young girls to take up weapons to fight his countrymen, then the Emperor was going to need many thousands more troops just to hold the country down.