Blood and Famine (Man of Conflict Series, Book 4)

by Andrew Wareham

  It was one of the very rare occasions when a regiment of cavalry would have been of great value, Septimus thought. Three hundred sabres could have converted a planned retreat into a rout. There was nothing to be done, however. The cavalry had their horses stabled in the lowland; they could not have survived a winter in the hills.

  Taft saluted and ran. Septimus was within reason sure that he would carry out his orders with some efficiency; the major had grown in their months in the Castle.

  “Mr Perceval, your three companies to strike up the valley to the east, to the edge of the hills. Then scour the valley all the way to the sea – there may be deserters or parties of sick and wounded left behind. I want to be entirely certain that the valley is safe before we allow the Portuguese to return. How are things at home, sir?”

  There had been mail on the previous day and Perceval had retired with his letters immediately after dinner. His wife had produced their longed-for daughter soon after they had settled into the Castle – though Perceval had not received the news for nearly two months afterwards. The babe had been frail and had fed poorly at first and they had feared for her and Perceval had fretted that he was so far from home.

  “All well, sir! Charlotte is putting on weight and thriving, sir! Despite the hard winter the family are all well, sir, could not be better! What of your lady, sir?”

  “She tells me she is massive, has not seen her feet for a month! She must be due any day, I would think.”

  With the best of winds and an early sailing date, and provided the Post Office in Lisbon was awake and that there was a courier due at the right time, he might receive the letter within three weeks of the event, but six was more likely.

  “I shall make the arrangements here for the Castle, then I shall join Major Taft. Follow us as soon as you are happy that the valley is clear.”

  Septimus consulted with the Marchioness, told her that the French were in retreat and that her people would be at liberty to return to their homes within the day. He mentioned then that the French had set their cottages alight before leaving and that the villagers would have very little to go back to.

  “Their fields will still be there, ma’am, and most have kept their seeds, hopefully. Things are bad for them, but they could have been worse – they are still alive. A year to rebuild – difficult but not impossible with their lord’s aid – and they will be on their way to a normal life again.”

  “I will not be able to aid them, Sir Septimus. I shall need their labour to rebuild the stables and my farms in fact. They will survive, I doubt not. That is what peasants do.”

  Septimus shrugged; it was not his country and they were not his people.

  “Mr Collier, I would wish you to remain in the Castle for a few days, with your people. Keep up an office here; I expect there will be orders in from Headquarters within a very short while. Be ready to move and inform Mr Black of all that is happening. Use the Portuguese horsemen to keep in contact with me.”

  Collier was perfectly happy to stay in his warm rooms; he much preferred being adjutant to roughing it in the field.

  Septimus rode out in mid-morning, Cooper and Peter the interpreter at his heel, Dinesh remaining to pack up his room and ready all of his baggage to follow when there was an escort available.

  The villages had been thoroughly burned and the wells fouled; unnecessary destruction that served no military purpose, seemed only to be to express the contempt and hatred the French had for the lesser mortals about them. Even the dry stone walls had been kicked down along the tracks and for a few yards to either side.

  Septimus met up with Major Taft at the foot of the track leading up into the hills.

  “I have sent the Light Company up in skirmish order, sir, just in case.”

  The pathway wound up through a shallow valley between two hills, as tall as the Downs behind Winchester, Septimus thought, and steeper and rockier. The Downs were smoother, somehow, turf covered and sweeping in gentle curves across the horizon. These hills were bolder, rougher, more challenging. They also offered many places of concealment; it would be none too difficult to mount ambushes in this terrain. He remembered that the tops were easier walking, that they had been able to make march pace when advancing to the Count’s valley.

  Half an hour and a runner came trotting down the track to them.

  “Beg pardon, sir. Captain says it’s clear all the way up, sir, apart from a few of stragglers what we took up. Captain says as ‘ow ‘e’s goin’ to send they down in a while, sir, but they ain’t much for walkin’ sir, that bein’ why they’s stragglers, out of course!”

  “Tell the captain that he is to advance until he has good sight of the next valley. We shall be at his heels.”

  Septimus was pleased that Taft gave his own orders, did not turn to him for confirmation. It was not a difficult task, but he had the confidence now to perform for himself.

  The runners trotted off and Taft led the column into the hills. They took half an hour to make the tops, moving intentionally slowly – there was no gain to tiring the men early in the day – then they picked up the pace on the flatter plateau. Most of the men relished the outing in the fresh air, having been cooped up all winter.

  “Runner, sir!”

  Taft and Septimus eased forward towards the messenger from the Light Company.

  “Rearguard, sir, in the valley, where the trail comes off the ‘ill, sir. Same place we cut them dragoons up when we was ‘ere, sir.”

  It was the logical place to hold against pursuit from either direction.

  “Captain says ‘e counts eighty men, sir, with a bit of a barricade, sir, to give ‘em cover. Stone, mostly, sir, like they pulled a couple of they walls down and blocked the way into the valley with ‘em. Done it over winter, sir, not in a big ‘urry, like.”

  It would need a gun if they were not to take the casualties of a charge on a fortification. They had no field guns, and no prospect of bringing a battery up within days as far as Septimus knew.

  “What about a gate, soldier? They had to take three batteries of twelve pound guns along that track. They must have passed through that wall.”

  “Captain didn’t tell I about no gate, sir.”

  “Forward with your telescope, Major Taft.”

  They saw ruts in the track in the softer ground at the bottom of the hill and Taft picked up markings on the wider roadway into the first village. Guns and wagons had passed through, probably on the previous day, pulled out in advance of the infantry.

  They followed the ruts with their eyes, saw a stretch of the wall that seemed to contain more of timber, less of stonework, and guessed that there had been a gap, hastily filled in overnight.

  “Wait till nightfall and then make a show against the gateway, Major Taft. That wall is a good hundred yards long. Put men over at either end a couple of minutes after you start firing volleys at the gate. It is no more than head high, should not be too difficult to scramble over. Close up and threaten for now.”

  It was not a difficult task, Septimus thought; Taft should be capable of performing it. If he was not, then he would learn from his mistakes.

  The half-battalion pressed forward at Taft’s command, down the hillside and fanning out left and right alternately, making a show of their numbers. Eighty men should feel nervous faced by more than four hundred, even with a wall to protect them.

  Taft made a show of bringing three companies together opposite to the gate; they fired regular volleys to keep the French heads down and make them even more twitchy.

  When it was fully dark they roared and shouted their huzzahs and made a show of marching forward in three lines, visible only when they halted in turn to fire. The officers and sergeants shouted their commands. There was a thin scattering of fire from the wall as if the bulk of the defenders had pulled back or were keeping well down in safety.

  The Grenadiers and B Company ran forward silently, the men in pairs to boost each other over the wall. They had gone forward unloaded, to gua
rantee no accidental discharge of a musket, and used their bayonets on the very few men they found on the firing step. They made their way to the track and pushed down it to the edge of the first village where they spotted the cook fires of two or three hundred men. Their captains whispered the order to load and the sergeants pointed the platoons to specific fires. They loosed a single volley at the shout and then charged, screaming.

  Resistance at the wall behind them ended instantly while the men in the village fled or surrendered. They had been sat eating the little food they had, content that the wall would be held to protect them. The sudden attack was too much for most to fight.

  “Very efficient, Mr Taft!”

  There was no response.

  Septimus had made his way along the track and had reached the fires that had been lit behind the wall, expecting to find Taft’s headquarters there.

  Captain Mellish stood and called across.

  “Here, sir!”

  Taft was stretched out on the ground, two of the bandsmen busily bandaging.

  “Left arm, sir. Musket ball. Bone’s broken below the elbow. Sticking out, sir.”

  That meant amputation of the forearm at minimum. A compound fracture could not be reduced and splinted.

  “Where is the surgeon?”

  “At the wall, sir.”

  “Bring him into the village here. Find him a roof to work under. Set a line south of the village, Captain Mellish, along the stone walls, if they still are there. Full platoon pickets.”

  Mellish and Lieutenant Melksham had fought this ground before and set the line quickly into place.

  The Regimental Surgeon reported just before dawn, finding Septimus at his fire breakfasting on slices off the loaf Cooper was toasting. He accepted the offer of a slice and fastidiously pulled back the sleeves of his blood-soaked frockcoat so that they would not drip on his food.

  “Mr Taft had lacerations above the break, sir, and I amputated half-way to the shoulder for safety. He survived the operation. Besides the Major there were eight other amputations and three belly wounds. Another fifteen had various other lacerations and bruises, sir, mostly from flying fragments of stone where balls hit into the wall; all should, with luck, return to duty within days. Of the eleven – well, the bellies are dead, of course; four of the amputations are high thigh and perhaps one may live, on average. One lower leg and two arms and a hand at the wrist may survive, provided they do not succumb to the wound fever. It is not tetany soil, that is one thing to be thankful for; the tetanus – lockjaw, that is – will be found far more on clay soils, sir, especially in the presence of horses.”

  “Six dead, then.”

  “At least, sir, besides the nine killed outright.”

  “All private soldiers?”

  “Yes, sir. The sergeants and other officers were lucky, sir.”

  Fifteen dead and as many more off duty and five who might or might not be seen in their homes again. It was an expensive skirmish.

  “Captain Mellish! Take command as we march out this morning. As early as possible, if you please.”

  Their attack had preserved the houses of the village; that was something, Septimus supposed.

  Perceval brought his three companies in soon after full light; he had made camp on the hilltops overnight, preferring not to take the track downhill in darkness.

  “Wise decision, sir. You would have lost men for sure. Taft is wounded and is to be taken back to the Castle. Amputated arm. If he lives the week then we will be able to put him on a horse to Lisbon and a ship back to England. Then we have the question of who is to take over as acting in Taft’s absence.”

  “Captain Paisley is one week senior in the rank to Mellish, sir.”

  The senior man must be given the promotion, the brevet; appointment of another officer over his head must be a statement of a lack of confidence in him, would be seen as an intimation that he should send his papers in.

  “Paisley is not, shall we say, a natural soldier.”

  “I agree, sir. Mellish most definitely is. Mellish has the cash to purchase as well, should Major Taft sell out. I do not believe that Paisley has, sir. He will probably wish to distinguish himself sufficiently to be promoted in the field.”

  “A glory boy, in fact, Major Perceval! The men hate them. So do I. No choice, however, for I cannot refer to him as inadequate. He is a good enough officer. He is not brilliant, but few are. I must make him, I think.”

  “I agree, sir. There is no fair alternative.”

  “Cooper! Captain Paisley to me, please.”

  They marched cautiously down the valley, watching the hills to either side and comforting themselves that the French did not have riflemen. Their light troops, the voltigeurs, were well trained but carried smoothbores no better than the British musket; at any range greater than one hundred yards they could be ignored and they were individually dangerous only at fifty yards or less.

  There was no delaying party at the lower village and the bridge over the stream was undamaged; presumably the rearguard had been expected to deal with both.

  Septimus had left the prisoners under light guard where they had been captured, expecting another fight and additional numbers that morning. He now had the problem of dealing with them.

  They would have to go back, to the Castle initially and then to the rear area where the provosts could take them over. There were the better part of three hundreds of them, which meant a full company on guard; he did not want to waste so many men.

  “Lieutenant Duvivier – could you ask the prisoners for their parole? Will they give it?”

  “We fed them this morning, sir. They had ration beef and biscuit, cold. It was more for breakfast than they have eaten in a whole day for this last month, sir. The ration convoys have not come through for weeks, sir. They will be very willing to let us feed them, sir, would not dream of escaping!”

  “Major Paisley – walking wounded to go back to the Castle, acting as guard to the French prisoners. Arrange for them to give their parole. Lieutenant Duvivier will assist. The French can carry the stretchers for the other wounded. It will be warmer for them in the Castle. The wounded can take over as garrison; send a message with them for Major Perceval’s people to join us.”

  Septimus watched and listened to Paisley’s performance. He was competent, performed the simple task quickly and effectively. He should have done, of course, it was not a difficult set of orders to carry out.

  The valley broadened to the south east, seemed to debouch into a wide plain, possibly an extension of the valley of the Tagus. If it was, then the bulk of the French army should be there and a single battalion had no business to be poking its nose in. There was no map, and there was no point to calling on the Count’s people back at the Castle, for the great bulk of them would never have travelled as far as five miles in all of their lives and the few who had ever left the village would have gone as seamen.

  “Have you observed any tracks due east over the hills, gentlemen?”

  Lieutenant Hughes believed that he had seen a well-travelled path just behind the more southerly village; it might be worthy of investigation.

  “High hills, sir, that are cold in winter but grow fine grass in spring and summer. The villagers would take their flocks of sheep and goats up in spring and bring them back before the snows fall, or so we do in Wales, sir.”

  “Thank you, Mr Hughes. You think, therefore, that the track will lead up to pastures rather than connect to another village in a different valley?”

  “I believe it to be likely, sir.”

  “Good enough. We shall follow the road south and east, very cautiously, and see if any more valleys open to us. It is a damnable nuisance to have no map and not to know whether these hills extend for ten miles or a hundred!”

  They moved slowly forward but were brought to an abrupt halt in less than an hour.

  Two of the Portuguese horsemen appeared, pushing their horses faster than their normal economical trot. They stopped at
Septimus’ side and made use of the English they had picked up over winter.

  “Is order, sir. More soldiers come. Little man general give us letter for you, sir.”

  Septimus unfolded the sheet of paper and discovered that the brigade had joined him. Colonel Dudley sent his compliments and instructed him to hold at a sensible, defensible point and wait; the brigade would march on the morrow.

  Septimus pulled out the travelling standish and wrote his reply, explaining his current location, which he gave as the lower village. He attached a brief report on the events of the past week and a list of casualties. He sent a separate instruction to the adjutant to join him once he had made arrangements for the care of the wounded and there was a good track opened for the horses.

  “How many soldiers? Are there guns?”

  “Is twelve of guns. More little than in the Castle. Is two flags in front of soldiers.”

  Two batteries of field artillery and both battalions; the whole brigade had arrived. Colonel Walters of the New Foresters was certainly his senior; he did not know who had the Wiltshires, but there was a probability that he would be longer in the rank as there were few men junior to him. It was the end of his independence, but had the advantage that the brigadier could now take the difficult decisions; he would be just as lost as Septimus but would now have the privilege of telling them all where to march.

  The Portuguese rode back with their message, very happy in their work, earning their day’s pay for doing nothing in particular, which seemed a good idea to them. They very much hoped the English would stay forever.

  The battalion backtracked to the village, settling in for the day.

  “I think we should examine that track of Mr Melksham’s, Major Perceval. A pair of platoons will be sufficient, I think, under a lieutenant… Mr Meek, I think, Major. He has had no opportunity to show what he is made of; give him the command.”

  Perceval smiled, commented that he did not believe the young man was made of anything out of the ordinary.