Arthur raised his telescope and examined the section of river Waters had indicated. It was perhaps as much as four hundred yards wide, and any attempt to cross it in full view of the French would have been suicidal. However, that part of the river was not in full view of the enemy, Arthur realised. It was very likely that it was obscured by the tall cliffs on the far side. As he scanned the bank by the empty convent, he did not see any sign of French soldiers.
Snapping the telescope shut Arthur turned to Waters with a faint smile. ‘Fine work. Well then, let the men cross.’
He turned to call Somerset to him and quickly explained the situation. ‘Get the third regiment of foot down there as quickly as you can, but find a route where they won’t be spotted by the French. They are to use the barges to cross and occupy that convent. As soon as that is done, we’ll start feeding more troops across. With luck we’ll be there in strength before Soult is aware of it.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Somerset hurried off.
Arthur turned back to Waters.‘I should imagine you will want to be involved in this?’
‘Indeed, sir.Yes.’
‘Very well, you may join the assault party. Good luck to you.’
Once Waters had made off Arthur turned to examine the far bank again through his telescope. There was still no sign of any life near the convent. None at all. It was something of a surprise that Soult had neglected to guard this stretch of river. But then perhaps Soult was the kind of officer who neglected to do a full reconnaissance of his position. Or perhaps he was so imbued with the contempt with which French commanders seemed to view their enemies that he was blind to the danger. Arthur smiled. If that was the case then Marshal Soult was about to receive a very rude shock indeed.
The wine barges could each hold up to thirty men, and as soon as they had crept down into the reeds on the near bank of the Douro the first company of redcoats clambered aboard. There were over six hundred men in the battalion, and the men of the following companies crouched low in the reeds to wait their turn to cross. The barges were propelled by two sweeps, long oars manned by two men, on each side, and once the barges had been punted free of the reeds and out into the river the men began to pull on the oars. Since they were soldiers and not sailors, the progress was slow and graceless, but within a quarter of an hour the first barge had grounded on the far bank.There was still no sign of the enemy as the soldiers of the Third Foot splashed into the shallows and surged ashore. Colonel Waters thrust his arm out towards the silent convent as the other barges grounded.
‘Follow me, boys!’
He ran across the stony ground, which was broken by spiky clumps of aloe, and burst through the gates into the courtyard that surrounded the convent.The walls were solid masonry, covered in plaster, and stood eight feet high. To one side of the courtyard stood piles of timber and other building materials and Waters guessed that the structure must be undergoing some kind of renovation work.
‘We need firing steps,’ Waters decided, and turned to the nearest officer, a burly lieutenant. ‘Get your men to work. I want firing steps around the perimeter wall. Fast as you can.’
Leaving the soldiers to set to work,Waters climbed the convent’s bell tower and noted with satisfaction that the men who had been left to work the barges were already rowing back to the far bank to fetch the next company. It was going to be slow work, he realised. If the French spotted the danger and reacted quickly enough they could still hold the north bank, provided they could capture the convent that covered the landing point. He turned and looked down into the courtyard.The first company across looked like a pitifully small number to do the job. If only there was time to land an entire battalion before the French realised what was happening, they could hold the convent long enough to cover the landing of a force strong enough to assault the main French army in Oporto.
As the morning dragged on, the barges rowed steadily to and fro, bringing in more and more troops until over five hundred men were lining the walls of the convent, warily watching for the first sign of a French attack.
On the far bank Arthur watched their progress in a state of tense excitement. Incredibly, the crossing had not yet been detected, but even as he watched a sudden movement on the cliffs opposite drew his attention. Tiny figures in blue coats were picking their way along the rocks at the top. Sunlight glittered off gold braid, and raising his telescope Arthur saw that it was a party of officers. If they continued any further they must surely see the barges crossing the river away to their left. For a few more minutes he observed the French officers, until he saw one of them halt, stare for a moment and then thrust his arm down towards the river. The other officers hurried over, and their leader, whose uniform was gaudy with gold lace, gesticulated towards the convent.A moment later the party began to retrace its steps, leaving two of their number on watch.
Arthur snapped his telescope shut and swiftly gave orders for one of his orderlies to get down to the river and warn Colonel Waters that the enemy was now wise to the crossing. Then, quitting the terrace, Arthur hurried through the convent and mounted the horse waiting outside. He spurred it up the track leading to the heights on which he had positioned his heaviest guns the day before. The batteries were commanded by Major Harris, a thin officer in his forties, and he rose from the shade of an olive grove as his general came galloping up.
‘Harris, do you see that track there?’ Arthur pointed across the river. ‘Leading down from the cliff to the convent. ‘See it?’
Harris squinted a moment before he made out the route indicated. ‘I see it, sir.’
‘Good. Those men in the convent are ours. I expect the enemy to make an attempt to drive them out at any moment. But they will have to descend the cliff in order to reach the convent. Can your guns use case shot effectively at that range?’
Harris pursed his lips and squinted a moment before he nodded. ‘The range is long, but it’s possible, sir.’
‘Good.You might want to try your howitzers on the enemy at the same time.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Harris rubbed his hands together. ‘Scared them out of their wits at Vimeiro. Should do the same again here, sir.’
‘That’s what I’m counting on.’
Arthur remained with the artillery as Harris ordered his crews to train their weapons on the track leading down the cliff from Oporto. Harris went from gun to gun to ensure that they were well laid, and then the crews carefully loaded the first round and waited.
The French did not keep them long. Shortly after eleven thirty, by Arthur’s watch, a dense column of infantry began to issue forth from one of the city’s gateways and quick-march to the head of the track leading down the cliff. Arthur turned to Harris.
‘In your own time, Harris. Make every shot tell.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Harris saluted and strode across to his guns. He stood behind the first six-pounder and squinted down the crude sights towards the head of the column. He stepped away from the gun. ‘Open fire.’
The sergeant carrying the linstock lowered the glowing fuse to the small charge in the paper cone that poked up from the barrel. The gun bellowed as a jet of fire and smoke ripped into the morning air.There was a steady breeze blowing in from the ocean and the dense cloud of powder smoke swiftly dispersed. From his vantage point on the back of his horse Arthur was the first to gauge the effect of the cannon. Most of the cone of lead shot had smashed into the rocks above the track, dislodging stones and shredding the stunted plants that clung to the slope. Little puffs of dust marked the point of impact. One Frenchman was down, slumped over a boulder beside the track, and another was writhing on the ground as his companions marched on. Arthur could make out the white spots of their faces as they glanced nervously towards the guns on the far bank. As well they might, Arthur thought grimly as the other guns boomed out, raking the enemy column with their deadly scatter of small lead shot. Entire files of the leading French battalion were swept away and the track was soon littered with blue-coated bodies. But still they hurried on,
down the track towards the convent, where the leading troops fanned out into a skirmishing line and began firing on the defenders lining the walls.
The wine barges were still ferrying troops across the river and these fed into the convent through a small side gate, out of sight of the enemy skirmishers. While it was an infantry only engagement Arthur was satisfied that Colonel Waters and his men would hold their position.The French commander must had reached the same conclusion because, as Arthur watched, a battery of horse guns emerged from Oporto and began to canter down the track.
‘Harris!’ Arthur called out, drawing the artillery officer’s attention to the enemy battery. ‘Stop those fellows before they can do any damage to the convent, or the barges.’
‘Yes, sir!’ Harris trotted over to his howitzers and gave orders to prepare to fire.The squat barrels were charged and the fuses cut to the appropriate length. Meanwhile the French battery had halted on a patch of level ground, protected from the British six-pounders by some large boulders beside the track, and was hurriedly unlimbering. Within moments they had begun to fire on the convent to support the troops now swarming about the courtyard walls.
Colonel Waters could not help flinching as the first of the enemy’s cannonballs struck the bell tower, causing a shower of masonry and dust to cascade down into the courtyard. Looking up the track, beyond over a thousand Frenchmen who were gathering to attack the convent, he could clearly make out the battery of light guns that had begun to fire on his position. Bright flashes and puffs of smoke followed by sharp cracks announced the arrival of more shot, and Waters saw a section of the convent’s wall explode into fragments, cutting down one of the redcoats sheltering behind it. The wall had been designed to keep prying eyes out, not to withstand the damage that could be inflicted by modern artillery. Unless something was done, the French guns would soon batter the walls down enough to provide a breach through which the waiting infantry could assault the convent. As Waters stared up at the French battery, he could see that they were sheltered from the British guns across the river by a rocky outcrop. It seemed that the French gunners would be able to continue their bombardment in safety.
With a sick feeling of inevitability in his stomach he climbed down from the tower and hurried across the courtyard to join the men defending the wall.
‘Keep your heads down, lads, or the frogs will blow them off !’
Some of the men chuckled nervously. Others, who had never faced enemy fire before, hunched down with terrified expressions and waited for the end.
There was a jarring crash close by and another section of the wall collapsed in a cloud of dust. Mercifully, none of the defenders were injured, but as the dust settled it revealed a large gap just three feet from the ground.The rubble either side of the wall provided an easy ramp up into the breach. With a sudden deep roll of drums and a rising cheer that echoed back from the towering cliffs, the French surged towards the wall.
‘Here they come, boys!’ Waters yelled. ‘Don’t let them get inside or we’re done for! Fire at will!’
Flame darted from the muzzles of the muskets along the wall, sending Frenchmen sprawling on to the stony ground, but the charge came on in a wave of blue uniforms and glinting bayonets. Waters jumped back into the courtyard as he saw a fresh wave of British troops enter the side gate.
‘Over here, lads!’ he called to them, waving desperately towards the breach. ‘At the double, damn you!’
The men came running. Outside, the Frenchmen rushed on, boots scrabbling over the ruined masonry as they surged into the breach. Waters wrenched his sword out and turned to meet them, as the first of the new arrivals reached his side. Along the wall, the other men were firing and loading their muskets as fast as possible as they cut down the attackers. The enemy fire was just as deadly and all around men were dropping back from the wall, dead and wounded.
With a ragged cheer the first of the Frenchmen charged through the breach, straight on to the bayonets of the waiting redcoats. The man next to Waters gritted his teeth as he thrust his bayonet into the stomach of the leading Frenchman, the impact bending him double. Waters scrambled up the rubble and hacked at the face of another man, his savage blow only just blocked in time as the desperate enemy threw his musket up, taking Waters’s blade on the stock, which splintered with a loud crack. Cursing, the Frenchman kicked Waters in the chest, sending him reeling back. Then, grasping the barrel of the musket like a short spear, the Frenchman tried to stab him. A musket crashed out close beside the British officer and his attacker spun round and fell on to the rubble. Waters did not have time to even nod his thanks as he rushed forward again to join the red-coated bodies struggling to hold the breach. On either side musket fire rippled up and down the convent walls.Then a voice cried out, ‘They’re running for it!’
Someone cheered and the cry was taken up.
The fight in the breach lasted a moment longer, and then the last of the Frenchmen turned and backed off a few paces behind his bloodied bayonet. Then he too turned and fled, joining the bluecoats as they retreated to cover. Waters joined in the cheers of the other men, until he recalled the enemy guns. Glancing up towards them, he saw that they were making ready to fire again, the moment their fleeing comrades had cleared the line of fire.
‘How much longer is this going to take, Harris?’ Arthur struggled to keep his voice calm.The first few rounds had either fallen short or gone too far and struck the cliff beyond the enemy battery before exploding.
The artillery major had just finished his latest adjustment to the howitzer’s trajectory angle and nodded to the loader standing by with the next shell. As it was heaved into the stubby barrel, Harris turned towards his general.
‘I think we have the range now, sir. It is usual to have to fire bracketing shots first in order to determine the range,’ he explained patiently. ‘But now we have the right charge, and the right angle, and the fuse length is good.’
‘Kindly spare me the lecture.’
‘Sorry, sir.’ Harris turned back to the howitzer and ordered the crew to open fire.
With a deep thumping explosion the howitzer launched its shell. The muzzle velocity of the weapon was lower than that of a standard artillery piece and Arthur could see the faint dark smudge that marked the passage of the shell as it arced across the river towards the enemy battery sheltering behind the rocks. There was a sudden puff of smoke in the air just above the enemy guns and Arthur saw an entire gun crew topple to the ground, directly beneath the point where the shell had burst and scattered its lethal fragments of iron.
‘Right on target!’ Harris cried out. ‘Range is good. Fire at will.’
Two of the next four rounds killed more of the men working the French guns, and then, as Arthur watched, their officer began to shout and gesticulate and the survivors hurriedly began to limber their guns and withdraw back up the track, though not before one shell struck down two horses in their traces, causing the whole team to veer sharply to one side so that horses, riders, limber and gun toppled over the edge of the track and tumbled down the slope in a shower of small rocks and dust before splashing into the river.
Arthur saw that the men in the convent were now out of danger, and the barges were safely and steadily feeding fresh troops into the fight. By contrast the French battalions joining the melee at the foot of the cliff were forced to undergo a steady hail of grapeshot fired at them from across the river before they even faced the muskets of the men of the Third Foot. It was no wonder that their attacks on the convent were half-hearted, Arthur reflected.
A fresh column of French troops had left the city and were making for the track to reinforce the assault on the convent. Three battalions of them, Arthur calculated. He turned to take a quick glance at the rest of Oporto and noticed that a small crowd of people had emerged on to the quays to the left of the remains of the demolished bridge. He examined them through his telescope and saw that they were civilians. More and more of them appeared, rushing out from side streets and rac
ing towards the boats that Soult had ordered to be moved to the north bank. There was no sign of any French soldiers along the quay and Arthur guessed at once that Soult had been forced to strip men from that part of the city to send them against Waters and the men in the convent. The Portuguese swarmed aboard the boats and the first of them began to row across towards the south bank.
‘Poor devils,’ Harris muttered as he stood beside Arthur. ‘Taking their chance to escape from the French, I imagine.’
‘Escape be damned,’ Arthur replied. ‘They’re coming to help us get across.’
He was back in his saddle in an instant and spurring his horse back to headquarters. As soon as he arrived he had orders sent to the nearest units to get down to the river as swiftly as possible and use the flotilla of small craft to get across to the far bank.When the orders were given Arthur rode down to the shore and watched in delight as the Portuguese hauled the waiting redcoats into their boats and desperately rowed them across to the north bank before returning for the next load. Soon the broad expanse of the Douro was dotted with craft of all sizes criss-crossing its glassy surface. A handful of French guns downriver of the city fired at long range, sending up spouts of water, but none of their shots struck home, and only one overloaded craft foundered as it was swamped by a wave from a near miss.Those on board panicked and the craft capsized, spilling them into the river.There were several soldiers on board, and only two of them managed to cling on to the upturned hulk with the Portuguese who had been at the oars. The others, weighed down by their kit, sank without trace.
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