Flashman in the Peninsula

by Robert Brightwell

  ‘Well I am glad you came sor, right glad, or that big bugger would have done for me.’ The Irishman, still grinning, held out his hand and after a moment’s hesitation I shook it. There was no point making an enemy now, not when the fighting was done, especially one that knows how to fight dirty. And anyway what could I have done, have him court martialled for stopping me from shirking?

  Before I could say anymore, Campbell was pushing his way through the surrounding soldiers and he stopped in astonishment when he saw the giant corpse lying at our feet with my distinctive gold hilted sword sticking out of his side.

  ‘Hell’s teeth Flash, don’t tell me you killed this brute?’

  Before I could say anything the sergeant spoke up. ‘Oh he did your honour, right enough. Tore into him like a wild thing he did.’

  ‘Oh, he just backed into my sword,’ I tried dismissively.

  ‘Repeatedly,’ said Campbell, grinning and looking down at the multiple wounds. Then his eyes were distracted over my shoulder and he muttered, ‘Oh, would you look at that.’

  We turned, and the first thing I saw were the still fleeing French, bounding uncontrolled down the second part of the hill. This time there were few Irish amongst them as the mist was now clearing. Only the most foolhardy lunatic would chase the French now, for two more huge columns of infantry waited at the bottom of the hill. As I watched I saw some French lancers were riding forward to dispatch any Irishman that made it to the bottom.

  ‘No, not down there,’ called Campbell impatiently, ‘look along the slope.’

  I raised my eyes and there, through the skeins, of mist were two more columns, several hundred yards away but climbing steadily up the incline.

  Others had seen them too and in moments the call went out for everyone to get back to the crest of the hill. Campbell was already bounding up the slope, but I simply did not have the strength any more. My nerves were shot and I was exhausted. The sergeant was about to go after his men when he turned and grinned as I sat down on a rock amongst the dead and a few whimpering wounded that still lay on the level ground.

  ‘Here,’ he held out a flask to me. ‘You look like you need it.’

  I took a swig thinking it was brandy, and realised my mistake when it hit the back of my throat. In ancient times they had something called Greek fire, which was a liquid that burned everything it touched, it even burned on the surface of water. I felt as if I had taken a swig of the damned stuff, for my breath was taken away by the incendiary sensation down my gullet and into my stomach.

  ‘What in the name of holy hell was that?’ I croaked at the sergeant when I could get my breath.

  Through watering eyes I watched as he came up and patted me on the shoulder with one hand and took the flask away with the other. ‘That,’ he replied, ‘is poitin, a proper drop of the Oirish.’

  God knows what was in the spirit, but by the time I could see clearly again I found my strength coming back. A glance down the slope showed that no French were coming back in my direction although I guessed they would do so presently to collect their wounded. My thoughts were interrupted by renewed volley firing further along the ridge, and I saw the first of the two columns we had seen make contact with the British line. The last of the mist was going now and I could see clearly the wings of the column trying to deploy and the curving line of the British preventing them. I tried to remember what regiments were along the line. Interspersed with the British redcoats were the unproven green and brown coated cacadores of the Portuguese army. Many of the British viewed them as inferior troops, but from what I had seen at Alcantara, I thought that they would take some beating.

  Having retrieved my sword I staggered slowly up the slope. There was no point in rushing to get dragged into another desperate defence, even if I did have the energy. I was surrounded by the walking wounded and those helping them. It seemed strange, going for a stroll while a furious battle raged not far away, but I felt that I had more than played my part already. The noise of firing intensified as the second column engaged, with British cannon now also blasting through the tightly packed ranks.

  I had fallen in with a rotund moustached corporal who staggered up the hill, puffing like an asthmatic walrus. Now, though, he stopped and pointed. ‘Look sir, they are falling back.’

  He was right. The first column we had seen was falling back and this was already having an effect on the second column. From our vantage point we could see the rear ranks of it start to move back down the hill. While we had not seen it, a third column further around the ridge had also advanced, straight into the weakest point in the line manned entirely by the inexperienced Portuguese. But the hours of drilling had paid off and they put up a rate of fire just as good as they rest of the line, sending that column packing too. I looked down the hill and saw the other two columns that had been waiting in the valley floor start to disperse. The French had decided to give up on the assault and find another way around our position.

  I regained the crest of the hill just in time to see Wellington congratulate the Connaught colonel.

  ‘Upon my honour Wallace,’ he cried, ‘I have never witnessed a more gallant charge than that made by your regiment.’ Then he caught a glimpse of my battered frame climbing onto the plateau and grinned. ‘Flashman, I might have known you would have been in the thick of it.’

  The colonel was calling for three huzzahs for the general now, and as the men crowded round raising their shakoes and bellowing themselves hoarse, I stood back a bit. I was not part of this regiment and I still had no idea how we were ultimately going to beat the French. They had received a bloody nose with an ambitious plan of attack up a steep slope, but they would not make that error again. From now on they would treat us with more respect. I knew that they would not stop until we were back in our ships or in our graves. But before I could get too disconsolate something wet touched my hand. I looked down and saw two brown eyes looking back, and a tongue licking my blood-stained knuckles. Boney was back.

  Chapter 26

  Thanks to Campbell, by the time I returned to the mess tent I shared with other officers on Wellington’s staff, everyone seemed to have heard of ‘Flying Flash’ and his leap from the rock. It cheered me up and I knew that it was the kind of story that would stick to my reputation. We celebrated our victory that night and heard that the casualties amongst the Portuguese and British were exactly the same, six hundred and twenty-six each, while the French were thought to have lost nearly five thousand men.

  In the morning, the bulk of the French army was still camped on the plain before us but, as expected, we heard that French advance parties were scouting a route to our north. Both armies, though, rested during the day to allow time to recover from the battle. That night, with camp fires lit all along the ridge to fool the French into thinking we were still there, the British and Portuguese slipped away west. The next day we reached the city of Coimbra, and gave the citizens a rude awakening.

  Wellington had been employing a ‘scorched earth’ policy, taking away all supplies and goods that could be of use to the enemy; the same tactic that the Russians would so successfully employ two years later against Napoleon when he marched on Moscow. The citizens of the frontier towns had cooperated, most were keen to get themselves and their possessions away before the French arrived. But the wealthy inhabitants of Coimbra had evidently expected Wellington stop the French at Busaco or for the whole of Portugal to be occupied by the French. Consequently they had made no preparations to leave.

  It was a big city with its own university and other civic buildings. Two days were spent driving the citizens from their homes which were then torched behind them. A long procession of refugees, with every wheeled vehicle they possessed, struggled over the Mondego Bridge, mingling with the army and its own guns and supplies. It was a scene of chaos, with provosts desperately trying to maintain order and stop the soldiers looting. There was a large prison and an asylum in the town and their inhabitants were screaming as they watched the town b
urn, fearing that they would be burned alive. Eventually on the second day they were let out, so murderers and lunatics joined the throng. Some of the mad from the asylum seemed to prefer to stay in the burning town or take their chances with the French. I well remember seeing several of them, still dressed in nightshirts, shrieking in delight as they danced in the light of the flames.

  The citizens could only carry so much with them and so, despite the best endeavours of the provosts, soldiers looted much of what was left. A blind eye was turned by many officers to the raiding of wine cellars in the larger houses before they were torched. Many a travelling officer’s mess was restocked in that manner, and from the state of drunkenness in the army as it crossed the bridge, much more was drunk on the march. Some, though, tested the limits of the provost’s tolerance. As we left the town on the other side of the river I remember seeing a sight that has stayed clearly in my memory all these years. A soldier, presumably drunk, had tried to loot from the city a full length gilt mirror. The provosts had hung him by the side of the road as a warning to others. But they had not hung him alone. They had strung up the mirror alongside him so that his last sight on this earth was his own slowly strangled face.

  With the coast less than twenty miles away the army turned south towards Lisbon. Another evacuation seemed the best we could hope for now. I remembered standing in that church tower with Campbell so long ago and looking at the surrounding hills. Once the French got a foothold on those then the city would be indefensible. If Wellington really did have a plan then the time to use it was long overdue. Robert Wilson was back in London now and I could easily imagine the capital he would make of this. For all of Wellington’s caution he had ended up where he started. Doubtless Wilson would also point out how close he had come to liberating Madrid with his tiny force before he was stopped, claiming it would have triggered a second rebellion.

  Two days later and we were within thirty miles of Lisbon. I was considering how to get on one of the first boats to leave the city when a very young ensign rode up with a message for me.

  ‘General Wellington sends his compliments,’ squeaked the ensign whose voice had not yet broken, ‘and he would be obliged if Captain Flashman would join him on a reconnaissance ride.’

  I spurred my horse up to the front of the column and instead of finding Wellington worried and crestfallen I found him happy and jubilant.

  ‘Ah, Flashman. You will recollect that I promised to show you my plan. Would you care to see it now?’

  ‘So it is not too late?’ I asked, astounded. ‘I mean, sir,’ I added hastily, ‘that as we are so close to Lisbon I thought that the opportunity for this plan had passed.’

  ‘No, not at all, now is the perfect time,’ beamed Wellington, who did not seem the least offended by my lack of confidence.

  ‘Could we come too sir?’ asked Grant. It was then that I took in the faces of the other staff officers behind Wellington. Around half had a knowing smile on their faces but the other half were clearly bursting with curiosity like me.

  ‘Of course,’ agreed Wellington, who despite having a French army on the verge of trapping him against the coast, seemed in the best of spirits. ‘But Thomas, ride with me, as you gave me the idea.’

  We set off at a gallop and for once Wellington’s habitual icy demeanour let him down. He was looking extremely pleased with himself and bursting to show off his plan. But he would not answer any questions as we rode, he just kept repeating that I would have to wait and see. When I did finally get to set eyes on his plan, I venture that my initial reaction was not what he was expecting.

  ‘There, what do you think of that?’ he asked as we breasted a rise and looked down on the valley ahead. I reined in and looked about. The most immediate thing to see was that the forward slope we had just reached had been cleared of trees. Various stumps could be seen protruding from the earth and judging from drag marks in the ground, the timber had been hauled off towards the hills in front. I stared about, confused, and looking at the other officers who were as bemused as me.

  ‘You have cleared the bank sir?’ I pointed out hesitantly, lost at how he could think this would stop the French.

  ‘Never mind that,’ Wellington almost exploded with impatience. ‘Your glass man, on the hills opposite!’

  We all reached for our field glasses and scanned the hills on the opposite side of the valley. They were the start of the hills of Torres Vedras, stretching from the lagoon at the mouth of the Tagus to the Atlantic coast. I followed the line of the road we were travelling on and saw that there was a new fort guarding the gap in the hills that it passed through, and then I saw hill forts on either side.

  ‘You have fortified the pass,’ I said.

  ‘What else?’ demanded Wellington, as though waiting for a dull child to understand a simple problem.

  ‘There are more forts to the left,’ called one of the staff officers.

  ‘And to the right,’ announced another.

  I put my glass back to my eye and this time scanned the whole range of hills from the left to the right and for the first time I started to appreciate the immensity of what I was seeing. Nearly every hill top and every pass had been fortified. ‘Good grief,’ I breathed.

  ‘Now do you see it?’ asked Wellington. ‘It was when you told me of Alcantara and how you fooled the French by using the hill as a wall. I needed a safe redoubt and here I have turned hills into the strongest possible walls.’

  ‘But there must be dozens of forts along the line,’ I exclaimed, astonished.

  ‘One hundred and twenty-six, currently,’ said Wellington, beaming with pride, ‘and we are still building. Behind the line you can see here, there is a second line of forts. If the French manage to break through at any point we can trap them and destroy them.’

  ‘But that many forts would take years to build,’ protested one of the staff officers, who like me was struggling to take it all in.

  ‘A single year,’ replied Wellington. ‘We have been using the Lisbon militia and conscripts but those that knew of the lines were not then permitted to join the army. It had to stay secret or the French would have tried to cut us off. Even Parliament does not know of their existence.’ We rode forward, and the closer you got to the lines, the more impressive they were. Wellington explained how rivers had been dammed to create bogs, miles of walls had been built, tree tops had been dragged to block ravines and roads had been built along the lines so that troops could be moved quickly to meet any threat. Fields of fire had been cleared so that the French would be spotted the instant that they approached. ‘Why,’ continued Wellington, ‘the Navy has even installed a telegraph system with signal towers that can send a message from one end to the other in just a few minutes. The army has been allocated places all along the line. Wherever the French appear, we will have the time and the means to have men ready to face them when they reach the lines.’

  ‘But after the bloody nose we have just given them at Busaco, do you think they will attack us here?’ I asked.

  ‘I would be pleasantly surprised if they tried it,’ replied Wellington. ‘But no, I don’t think Massena will be stupid enough to attack.’

  ‘So we are set for a long siege,’ I said. I was disappointed; I had been expecting a plan that involved destruction to the French, not just survival for the British forces. I remembered Cousin Maria had told me that Wellington’s plan would use the advantages of the French against them, but this plan seemed wholly defensive.

  The disappointment must have shown in my voice as Wellington looked at me and said quietly, ‘Ride with me, Thomas.’ He rarely used my first name, and normally only when we were alone. I had known him when he was desperate for his first victory, when he had shared his fears. But despite those intimacies I would have hesitated to call him a friend. He was notoriously remote to his officers, but now he seemed prepared to take me into his confidence again.

  ‘You don’t understand yet do you?’ he asked, once we were alone.

&nb
sp; ‘Oh, I understand that we can hold out behind those lines until hell freezes over, provided we are well supplied by sea, and the Navy can manage that easily.’ I hesitated before adding a note of criticism of a plan he was evidently very proud of. ‘It is just that I had expected a plan that would do more harm to the French.’

  Wellington smiled. ‘What do you think the French will do when they see these lines then?’

  ‘Well, they will besiege us of course; keep us bottled up in Lisbon while they rampage all over the rest of the country.’

  ‘Think about it, Thomas. How long do you think the French can keep an army in front of the lines? We have cleared the ground for miles of any food. If they try to get supplies from the rest of the country the supply columns will be raided by the partisans all the way here. And it will soon be winter, when the roads over the mountains will become impassable for wagons.’

  ‘So do you think they will just turn around and go back to Spain?’ I asked, puzzled.

  ‘No, Massena has promised Bonaparte he will drive the British into the sea and destroy us. He would face disgrace if he simply turned around.’

  ‘But if they cannot stay and they cannot go back to Spain, what do you think the French will do?’

  ‘I expect quite a lot of them to die,’ explained Wellington simply. He paused, grinning at my bewilderment before continuing. ‘Massena will think he is besieging me, but in reality he will be the one besieged. He can stay in front of the lines for no more than six weeks with whatever supplies he has or we have missed. Then he will have to disperse his force across the countryside to stand any chance of them finding enough food to survive the winter. The cold, starvation and the partisans will then take their toll. While our army enjoys the shelter of Lisbon and plentiful supplies, the French will struggle to survive at all. Do you see now the harm these lines will do to the French?’