Keane's Company (2013)

by Gale, Iain

  ‘Where to, sir?’

  Keane pointed. Above them, half a mile higher than the city’s lowest levels as it sprawled up the hillside, stood the seminary.

  ‘Up there, sarn’t. We’re going to take that building there and we’re going to hold it until the army crosses over to take back the city.’

  A zigzag road, fringed with strong-smelling plants, had been cut into the hillside, and it was up this road that Keane now led his men. Sanchez had been right. The monastery was indeed unfinished. A great brick-built building, only partly limewashed, it stood on the brink of a cliff. Reaching the garden wall they found it pierced by a great wrought-iron gate decorated with the bishop’s coat of arms.

  Keane led the small party round the wall, constantly alert, looking in all directions to find a French presence. But there was none. They came round the north side of the building and found the gates standing wide open. Keane was hardly able to believe his luck. The French, it seemed, had neglected to occupy the place. More than that, they had not even destroyed it, or made it indefensible. He called behind him.

  ‘We’re in luck. Quick as you can. Get in, and don’t stop looking for them. They might be inside.’

  The men threw themselves through the gates and once they were all safely inside, Keane himself, joined by Heredia, pushed the gates shut and dropped the wooden crossbars into their brackets.

  ‘Sarn’t Ross, secure this side and the courtyard. I’ll take Martin inside. Silver, you and Heredia search the balconies and the rooms up there.’

  They fanned out and began to make their way through the silent buildings. There was some evidence of recent habitation. A table with a half-empty bottle of wine and two plates littered with crumbs testified to the speed with which the clergy had taken their leave. Keane thought of Sanchez’s contempt for the bishop and his entourage. Ross had ordered Gilpin and Heredia upstairs and he could hear them above now as they pushed open every door and the muffled shouts of ‘clear’ that rang through the buildings. It took them and the others barely twenty minutes to check the entire place and it occurred to Keane that they were turning into a good team, working well together here, as they had before in the brawl at the camp and in the fight with the French.

  Ross reported to him. ‘All clear, sir. Not a soul. Just what the monks left behind. We snaffled a few bottles, sir. No food, though. We’ll go hungry.’

  ‘Well, that’s too bad, sarn’t. We have rations enough in our packs for one night. We’ll barricade the doors, every one of them. As before, sarn’t, same drill but this time find whatever you can in every room. Tables, chairs, beds, anything. And stack them all against the doors.’ He had noticed as they entered the place that there were a great many windows. ‘I want only every tenth window left open; others to be shuttered and barred. We’re going to turn this place into a fortress.’

  For the next two hours they worked without stopping, dragging whatever they could find into place. Apart from the main gates there were three other access points that Keane spotted as being vulnerable. These they concentrated on, wedging settles and tables under door handles and double banking other pieces of furniture. The windows were next. Those on the ground floor they blocked completely, in the same manner as they had the doors. On the upper storeys they closed and barred most, but made sure that just enough were kept open to enable the six of them to have a clear field of fire from all sides of the buildings.

  Keane walked from room to room, watching them and helping out with moving the heavier pieces of furniture. A huge ornate four-poster bed they dismantled and used as a barricade across the courtyard.

  ‘Second line of defence,’ he told them. ‘If they break in we’ll fall back behind here. It’s not much but it’s better than nothing. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, though.’

  As they manoeuvred the great oak limbs of the bed into position, pushing them so that they locked into the wheels of an overturned wagon, Keane spotted half a dozen sacks of grain lying in a corner of a storeroom on the west side. He called to Heredia and together they heaved the sacks into the courtyard to create a stronger structure around the bed where they could absorb the impact of enemy musket balls. At last he nodded his head. ‘That’ll do. Well done. We’ve done all we can. Sarn’t Ross, check the ammunition. All of you, make sure you tear off ten and have them ready.’

  He walked over to one of two staircases that ran along the wall and up to the overhanging balconies, and climbed again to the first floor. They had left open one of the big windows in the front facade of the monastery, and Keane leant his arms on the ledge and gazed out in the direction of Oporto.

  Soon the French will come, he thought. All we have to do is sit and wait for our boys to get over here and pray that the enemy don’t get to us before they do.

  Soon the French will take a look over here and one of them will remember about the abandoned monastery on the hill. And then someone will notice that the gates have been shut. And then they’ll come. And we’ll be ready for them.

  7

  Keane stood at the window and looked down at the river passing below. In the past hour he had paced the floor of the monastery restlessly, hoping that at any moment their infantry might be seen climbing up the cliff towards the city. He had placed all five men around the place at different vantage points. Silver, keen-eyed as ever, he had put up in the bell tower as befitted a man who had once climbed the top mizzen of one of His Majesty’s men-o’-war. But as yet no sighting had been reported.

  Keane himself had at first remained at the front of the monastery, on the west side, still watching the town lest the French should sally out to the attack. But latterly he had moved back to the south and to the window they had left open overlooking the cliff. Now he scanned the landscape. Where was the vanguard of the army? What the devil was taking Wellesley so long to cover the remaining distance from Coimbra?

  Keane tried to recall which units would arrive in the van. The light cavalry would be first. Blackwood’s mob. Then the light infantry, at running pace, the Rifles to the fore.

  He stared again and half fancied that he could see dust in the distance on the road leading into Villa Nova. Hoping against hope, he reached into his pocket, withdrawing the glass. Then putting it to his eye he focused the lens and his heart leapt. It was dust. A great cloud that could mean only one thing. They were here. The army was here and not a shot fired yet. Well, near as dammit here, some of them at least. He twisted the glass again trying to get a clearer view, and saw blue coats, and for an instant his stomach felt hollow. Were they French? Had one of the other enemy armies beaten their intelligence and marched across the mountains to intercept Wellesley before he could them? He twisted the glass again and saw more dust and more blue coats. Or were they black? Running out of the room he found the entrance to the bell tower and leapt up the stairs in search of Silver.

  ‘Can you see them? There. Over there.’ He pointed across the river at the dust cloud. ‘There, man, what’s that? Tell me. Here, use this.’

  Keane thrust the eyeglass at Silver who looked at it appreciatively and held it up to his eye. ‘Oh my, that is good, sir. Admiral Nelson had one of these just like that, he did, sir. Wonderful thing, ain’t it?’

  ‘Yes, man, but what can you see? Tell me. Are they our redcoats or the French in blue?’

  Silver squinted into the glass and after a short pause lowered it.

  Keane was impatient. ‘Well, who are they? Are they ours?’

  ‘Oh, they’re ours, sir. I’m sure of it. Dead sure. That’s our column, come to take the town.’

  Keane rattled down the staircase and ran back into the room at the front of the monastery. Oporto lay bathed in sunshine. He scanned the rampart that overlooked the river and saw no sign of French interest. Whatever the dust cloud was, the enemy hadn’t seen it yet. But as he looked back to the north, what Keane now spotted made his heart go cold. A column of blue-coated soldiers was making its way on the road that led from the city towards the monas
tery. He tried to count them. Saw the officer in front on his horse. That would mean company strength at least. They must have noticed the closed gates and be coming to investigate. He ran down into the courtyard and found Ross peering through one of the two windows they had left open on that level, facing west.

  ‘I can see them, sir. The buggers.’

  ‘We almost made it. Silver’s spotted the army. They’re here.’

  ‘Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but they’re not here, are they? I mean, they’re on the other bank. They’ve still got to get their-selves across.’

  ‘Yes, sarn’t. You’re quite right. We must hold here until they cross.’

  The French column was still a fair distance away. Keane urgently reviewed his situation with the eye of an old hand. Six of them against perhaps eighty men. The odds looked grim. But he had been up against worse. On a burning Egyptian afternoon eight years ago in Alexandria, with the sun hot enough to boil your brains. One company of the 27th had stood in square against three thousand bloody Mamelukes. Firepower had won the day then. Firepower, bravery and good British grit had done for the Arab horsemen. And it would be the same today. The only answer was to channel all their fire into an enfilade that would rake the head of the column as it came into range and then to keep the fire up and force the French back. A second attack might be too much for them. But surprise could kill perhaps twenty of the enemy before they reached the gates. That would shorten the odds. And by that time, who knew, the redcoats might be scaling the cliff.

  He turned to Ross and the others. ‘Take off these bloody rags. Put your own coats back on. If we’re going to die, we die in red coats. Sorry, Heredia, I was forgetting your uniform. We’ll fight them in our own uniforms. And we’ll show them how we bloody well fight.’

  Quickly, they unrolled the blankets tied to the tops of the French packs and retrieved their coats. Then, throwing off the hated French tunics, they replaced them with their own.

  Gilpin sighed and grinned. ‘That’s better, sir. I feel myself again. Fits proper. Well, it’s never fitted proper, but it’s better than them rags.’

  Keane brushed off his own scarlet tunic and adjusted the fringe of gold bullion, his badge of rank, that hung on the left shoulder. ‘You’re right, Gilpin, that does feel better.’

  His coat was of course a better fit than those of the men, having been handmade for him some years before by a regimental tailor in London. It was patched now and more than a little worn. But ten years of campaigning had kept him fit and it still fitted Keane like a glove. Some of the cleverly replaced squares of cloth of a slightly different shade of red were proud mementoes of wounds received, which brought with them brought vivid memories of other desperate moments such as this. He prayed that this would not be his last.

  He watched as Gilpin began to fasten about his neck the thick black leather stock worn by the other ranks of infantry, and had a thought. ‘Gilpin, there’s no need to wear a stock any more. We have no need of that here and it’s hot enough without making it any worse. And that goes for the rest of you.’

  Gilpin smiled. ‘Thank you, sir. Much appreciated.’ He threw the hated stock into a corner, where it was soon joined by those of the other men.

  Keane turned to Ross. ‘Sarn’t, we’re going to shut all the windows here on the ground floor and place ourselves only at the front face of the upper storey. D’you understand?’

  They all nodded. ‘Sir.’

  ‘Let’s get to it, all of you. And keep it quiet.’

  Ross ordered Heredia up to the tower with orders to tell Silver their plan of action and to bring him down. And then he began to count, for a third time, the rounds still remaining in his cartridge bag.

  With the utmost care, Keane gently pushed the remaining shutter into place on the left-hand window of the ground floor and dropped the crossbar to secure it, trying, lest the French might see it, to make it look to all the world as if the shutter were somehow swinging in the breeze. He repeated the process on the other window, as the others closed the shutters on those sides unobserved by the French.

  ‘Right, that’s the whole place all secure. We’ll go up and then, if they breach the gate, we come down these stairs and fall in behind the barricade.’

  The men nodded their understanding and then all six of them, with Keane in the lead, raced up the two staircases to the first floor. There were three of them to a window, he thought. That should be sufficient to keep up a constant fire. So while one of them fired, the second would be reloading. The third, ready loaded, would step in immediately after the first firing, and then the third and so on. He looked out of the opening, careful not to be seen, and saw that the French were closing. They were at about five hundred yards now and he could see the men at the front. Two moustachioed sergeants with long-service stripes strode out in front on either side of the commander, a lean youth who looked as if he might at any moment fall from the saddle and whose tall black shako sported an even taller white plume.

  Keane whispered to Martin. ‘See if you can take the officer. You’re as good as any of those smart boys in green jackets. Here, use this.’

  Keane picked up the rifle and handed it to him.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Martin took the gun and ran his hand over the polished walnut stock and up the length of the barrel. It was a beautiful gun. Elegant and well balanced. Keane saw the light in the boy’s eyes.

  ‘Remind you of home?’

  ‘Funny, it does a bit, sir. All those days on the farm – shooting partridge. Pigeon too.’

  Martin went silent for a moment and Keane could sense his thoughts drifting.

  ‘Well, see if you can shoot that bloody French partridge for me’ – he pointed to the officer – ‘when he comes into range.’

  He handed Martin a box of cartridges, ready made, and turned to Garland, their third man. ‘You know the drill, Gilpin.’

  ‘Think so, sir. It’s just so as we can keep up a regular fire at them, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s it. Rake them with fire so they don’t know what’s hit them. They’ll never guess how many of us there are in here. That’s the trick.’

  They could hear the chatter of the men in the column now and the steady tramp of their feet. There were fewer than he had reckoned. Barely sixty of them.

  Gilpin spoke in a whisper. ‘They’re not doing anything, sir. They’ve posted no skirmishers. They can’t know we’re here.’

  He was right. The French seemed utterly unaware of their presence. They would have just one chance and they had to make the most of it. ‘And that’s just how I want it. Make ready, first man. That’s you, Martin.’

  Keane watched as Martin knelt at the window embrasure, resting the rifle firmly on the sill, careful not to let too much protrude lest it should be spotted. The boy pushed his cheek hard into the stock of the gun and felt the balance as the foot-plate nestled into his shoulder. Keane admired the ease he had with a gun, how it became a part of him, an extension of his hand. He counted himself lucky to have plucked Martin from the ranks of the Inniskillens before the Rifles had a chance to spot his talent. The French were closer to them now. Two hundred yards. Too far for a musket to shoot with any accuracy, but not too far for a Baker rifle, in the right hands.

  He whispered to Martin. ‘Not yet. Hold your fire until you’re close enough for all of us.’

  The boy waited, the rifle steady in his hands against the wood of the sill. Their breathing was slow and shallow now as they watched the French walk towards the waiting guns. At a hundred and fifty yards Martin cast a glance with one eye. Keane shook his head. A few moments later, though, he whispered, ‘Now.’

  He looked out at the French and saw the officer turn in his saddle and call out something to his men. And at that instant, as his mouth opened in command, Martin squeezed the trigger. In an instant the captain on the horse froze in the saddle and then, as the dark red-black stain spread over his chest, he crumpled like a doll over the back of the animal,
legs and arms splayed wildly in the puppetry of death. The noise of the shot echoed round the room, and through the dense white smoke Keane was aware of the French column coming to a halt. There was no panic. Just shock, and the noise of the sergeants and lieutenants giving commands. And then it began.

  Gilpin was at the window as Martin reloaded. A shot. A cry. Gilpin ducking back inside and then Keane. He pointed Martin’s carbine into the densely packed column. No point in aiming with these things, he thought, and pulled the trigger. More shouts, and as he pulled back and let Martin go forward he was aware of more men falling, killed from the window to their right. Good, thus far it was going as he had planned. Here was commotion on the ground before them and, he was pleased to see, bodies lying in the dust. They took their turns at the window a second time, a third and a fourth, pouring a relentless fire down on the French. Through the drifting smoke Keane tried to count the dead and wounded. He saw five, eight, a dozen or more bodies, some still, some writhing. Two men were limping back towards the city and the dead officer’s horse galloped ahead of them, maddened by the gunfire.

  But there were still men standing down there, firing up now at the windows, blindly. A shot ricocheted off one of the walls and struck Gilpin on the forearm.

  He yelled and swore.

  Keane turned and saw the blood pouring down his arm. ‘You’re hit.’

  Gilpin bit his lip and tore a strip from his shirt to bind the wound.

  ‘Nothing, sir. Had worse. Just a graze.’

  They carried on firing, but the French were running now.

  Martin, still kneeling, cheered. ‘They’ve had enough, sir, look at them go.’

  Keane yelled so that the others could hear. ‘Cease firing. Hold your fire.’

  There were two more shots from the other window and then silence. He heard Silver give a cheer and then he was out of the room and across the corridor.

  ‘Well done, all of you. How many did we get?’

  ‘I shot one of the sergeants, sir. Clean through the head.’