A Despite of Hornets

by Geoffrey Watson

  Welbeloved signalled MacKay to come down and together they searched the scrub for the sabretache that the hussar had been so anxious to save. They found it eventually behind the large bush where it had fallen and brought it back to the road to examine its contents.

  There were several official documents bearing the imperial seal. Welbeloved pursed his lips in a silent whistle as he quickly scanned the pages. One was a despatch under Napoleon’s seal from Madrid, addressed to Marshal Soult on the Carrion. He finished reading it and passed it to Anstruthers without comment, waiting until he had read and digested it.

  As a despatch it was quite chatty, written by Napoleon’s chief of staff, Marshal Berthier and relating how the French army had taken Madrid on the fifth of December and going on to tell how the Capital was now returning to normal under their control. It stressed that all resistance had been broken and that the pitiful little English army was now running towards Lisbon to escape the victorious and vengeful armies of the Emperor.

  It informed Soult that there was no organised enemy within hundreds of miles and instructed him that he could now start to move westwards to secure Leon and other towns, in order to subjugate completely, all Spanish resistance in the north of the country. He could do this safely in the knowledge that there was no-one to oppose him.

  Anstruthers looked up from reading, an exited gleam in his eyes. “You realise what this means, m’dear feller, don’t you? Boney don’t know that Sir John and the army are at Salamanca, he thinks that they’ve already gone back to Lisbon. Soult is sittin’ here with less than twenty thousand men and no-one in a position to reinforce him in less than a week. You can see where it says that Lefebre is still in Talavera, Napoleon is in Madrid on the other side of the mountains, and Mortier is in the east, movin’ towards Zaragoza.

  Sir John is in the unexpected position of being able to march up from Salamanca, if he moves immediately, to catch Soult unsupported and whip him quickly before retiring to Portugal. We also now know that Boney has four or five times as many men as we do, so there would be no disgrace in running for Lisbon, once we’ve beaten Soult. We came to assist the Spanish armies and there ain’t a Spanish army left to support. I’ve got to get this back to Sir John without delay.”

  Welbeloved agreed. “Seems a good idea Major, only don’t go and get yorself captured again. We ought to be able to persuade our new scarfaced friend to give yew one of the horses that the Frogs left behind. Won’t be as good as yor last one, but yew ain’t got much choice.”

  Anstruthers looked pained. “I doubt I’ll ever get another horse as good as that. Bred him myself and was very attached to him. He could show his heels to anything. Blasted Frogs shot him from under me or they’d never have caught me in the first place. Let’s go and talk to Alvarez, that’s our Spanish friend’s name.”

  He stopped, because from the expression on Welbeloved’s face, he wasn’t listening. He was reading through the last of the despatches with rigid concentration. At last he looked up, his face now composed but stony. Anstruthers had never seen such a bleak look in anyone’s eyes before. He handed the despatch to the Major.

  “French chasseurs burnt the monastery and killed all the brothers while we were away. They tortured them first and then locked them in and set fire to the place.” He was reciting in a dead monotone. “That despatch makes it clear that they were searching for us and were under the command of Colonel Jean-Jaques Roussillon.” He paused with his eyes far distant, remembering his personal outrage and horror. Anstruthers and MacKay kept silent. He came back to them with an effort. “Roussillon and his dragoons murdered my wife and daughter a few years ago. I have some unfinished business with that man!”

  CHAPTER 13

  Never a man of many words, Welbeloved was unusually quiet as they rode back to the monastery. The Spaniards had been very co-operative and had picked out the best of the beasts available for Anstruthers to use on his dash to find the British commander. Diego Alvarez had also given them fresh information about the dragoon colonel who was sweeping through the countryside in his search for Welbeloved and his men. The horror at the monastery was not the only story on the trail of terror he was unleashing in his efforts to locate them.

  No-one had been spared if it was thought that they might have information on their whereabouts. Isolated farms and tiny villages that might have been visited by them had been burned to the ground and the inhabitants tortured. It was even possible that the raid on the monastery had been as a result of someone being forced to reveal that the English soldiers had bought food or fodder from them. It was pure good fortune that had led them away from the place at the critical time, or the Brown Hornets might now be only a legend. Perhaps it had been a stroke of inspiration on someone’s part, to give the dragoon colonel command of a company of chasseurs. They had already suffered at Welbeloved’s hands and would be that much keener to have their revenge.

  The existence of the guerrilla band had given Welbeloved an idea. Badly equipped and ill-disciplined as they were, they were nevertheless a thorn in the side of the occupying force. Until such time as he judged it safe to travel, Welbeloved was determined to cause as much disruption to Soult’s army as he could. Alvarez had been delighted to accept his offer of a squad to help capture weapons and horses and generally make life unpleasant for the French in the south, while Welbeloved led another squad against them farther north.

  The following morning, Vere, MacKay and six men were sent to aid Alvarez, while Welbeloved and another six commenced waging war on Soult’s army, and the chasseurs in particular. Corporal Atkins and the rest of the men remained to guard the monastery, or rather Don Pedro, the Condesa and her maid. This could well be the most difficult job of all, Welbeloved thought. The Condesa had used the full range of feminine wiles, from flattery, flirting, to tantrums and a hint of tears to persuade him to include her in the party. He had been immune to all her blandishments, but seeing the look in her eye as they rode out, he did not envy Atkins his role during the next ten days, which was the limit he had placed on the undertaking.

  Duplicates of the orders that they had intercepted would undoubtedly have reached Soult by now. Welbeloved judged that most of the activity to be expected from the French troops would be in a westerly direction, in accordance with his orders. Logically therefore, the rear of his army to the east, would have fewer first quality men; those mainly concerned with his lines of communication and supply perhaps? In any case, attacks and ambushes in this area would force Soult to divert men from his advance in order to protect his rear. They crossed the river and set out to explore the countryside.

  There had been rain and sleet for the past few days and it was a thoroughly damp and inhospitable country through which they travelled. Trees had become scarcer and those that still remained offered little shelter. Roads that threw up clouds of choking dust in the summer were now ankle deep and sometimes axle deep in mud. Very little moved. It was almost as if all forms of life had decided to find a hole and hibernate until spring.

  Welbeloved and his men moved unhurriedly, keeping to the high ground whenever possible, pausing frequently to study the road or a distant village through a small field telescope, and swearing just as frequently when the rain or sleet obscured their view. They were stopped now, watching a scattering of dwellings about a mile away. From a vantage point farther back, Rifleman Evans had thought he had seen a wagon entering the village on the far side. Now they waited to see if it had stopped there, if it was coming on through, or if it was merely a figment of Evans’s imagination. They hoped it was moving, even if it was only a peasant carrying firewood. Anything to break the monotony. There had been no sign of human activity for many hours now.

  Patience was a discipline that they had all developed and the men rested uncomplainingly while Welbeloved studied the distant village and the road leading down past their position and onwards for another ten miles to the main body of the army. After half-an-hour he was ready to admit that Evans had been mi
staken, when there was a sudden flash of movement and four horsemen rode into sight, followed by two teams of mules drawing laden wagons, with a further four horsemen bringing up the rear.

  As the cavalcade drew nearer, Welbeloved grunted with satisfaction. The mounted men wore the green uniform of the chasseurs. He swung his glass and studied the wagons. They appeared to be standard army wagons and well loaded, with five or six men in addition perched on each one. Not chasseurs these. He could make out large black and yellow shakos and fawn-coloured greatcoats with white crossbelts. More he could not yet distinguish, but that was enough to place them as infantry soldiers, possibly light infantry, armed with sabres and carbine muskets.

  At that moment, a darker cloud moved across and heavy rain obscured their view. Welbeloved rose and they all mounted and rode back towards the Carrion, getting well ahead of the convoy and making for a ford across one of the smaller rivers, running here on a parallel course before joining the main stream farther south. The country around offered few possibilities for a successful ambush, but they had noted that the road wound down to the ford, between banks that had been eroded by centuries of traffic and were now high enough to hide a mounted man.

  It was quite a shallow little valley through which the river tumbled, and the ford, though swollen, was still easily passable for horses and wagons. On the far side, in order to find a gentler slope, the road turned quite sharply and this is where he positioned his men, after hobbling the horses in a convenient gully a few hundred yards downstream. They left their cloaks with the horses and their greatcoats strapped behind the saddles, where they had been since they had captured their mounts. Oiled rags kept the locks of their rifles protected from the fine drizzle that was still falling.

  Finding positions on either side of the track leading up from the ford, they merged into the background and waited. Every rifleman had found some form of cover, if only a tussock of long grass, and to a casual eye the bleak open area of rock and weeds was completely deserted.

  Deserted that is except for Welbeloved, who stood in plain sight on a mound rising slightly above the bank, where the road reached level ground once more. From his elevated position he could see the ford and most of the road leading up out of it. He leaned on his rifle and waited.

  On the flattest and smoothest of ground, a mule-drawn wagon was not the fastest of transport. On the potholes and gullies of this primitive road they were unable to maintain even a fast walking pace. It was nearly an hour before the shakos of the chasseurs could be seen approaching the top of the decline to the river. Welbeloved thoughtfully stepped down from his vantage point, keeping out of sight until they had committed themselves to the crossing.

  The mules were not keen on the rushing expanse of river in front of them and had to be urged across with lurid oaths and cracking whips. Welbeloved stepped onto his mound again and waited until the four chasseurs of the vanguard came together round the angle of the slope and found themselves suddenly confronted by this lone figure standing above them. He summoned up his best French.

  “Halt! Throw down your weapons and surrender. You are surrounded!”

  The corporal in charge was an old campaigner. He paused long enough to glance quickly around. Nowhere on the flat plateau above the river could he see any close danger, just this one impertinent figure standing alone and relaxed. With a yell to his companions, he dragged his sabre from its sheath, set spurs to his mount, and followed closely by the other three, thundered up the slope and over the bank, charging directly at Welbeloved, who watched calmly as they all cleared the bank and then casually, in one easy movement raised his rifle, cocked his lock and shot the corporal from the saddle.

  As if on cue, clouds of powder smoke rose from concealed positions and there were four riderless horses trotting about aimlessly. The wagons meanwhile, had halted on the slope, one on the final rise, the other behind it just beyond the bend and both blocking the road to the chasseur rearguard. The men on the wagons; wearing the fawn greatcoats, black and yellow shakos and blue trousers of the voltigeurs, Napoleon’s light infantry; piled off and sought cover behind the wagons and beneath the lip of the road’s banks, searching for targets for their muskets.

  Welbeloved tried again, cupping his hands to his mouth and bellowing in a voice trained to make itself heard above an Atlantic storm. “Rendez-vous! Throw down your arms! We don’t want to kill you. You are surrounded.” This merely provoked a volley of shots, which hummed round his ears, making him step down from his mound more briskly than he had mounted it.

  The soldiers who had sought cover under the banks now realised that their attackers were on all sides as three more of them in quick succession were picked off and the survivors made a rush for the more substantial shelter of the wagons. From there, shortly afterwards, a cloth was waved on the end of a musket and on a further command from Welbeloved carbines and muskets were thrown down and they all filed out to stand in front of the wagons with their hands raised. One of the dismounted chasseurs tried to sneak back to his horse and was shot neatly through the head. Chasseurs were not the favourite troops of the newly named Hornets, who were praying that the other three would give them similar excuses to shoot them.

  Welbeloved lined them up, thirteen of them, looking apprehensive, under the rifles of half his men now standing on the bank above them. He pointed at the Sergeant of Voltigeurs and gestured him forward. “Next time any of my men tell a French soldier to surrender, pass the word around that we mean it. There are a lot of dead men there,” he swept his hand around, “and it was all quite unnecessary. They would be alive now, if they hadn’t tried to be heroes.”

  The Sergeant said nothing, just contrived to look scared and angry at the same time. Welbeloved continued. “I’m going to let you go. It’s only five miles to your billets and if you walk quickly you’ll not get too cold, because you are leaving your uniforms and boots behind. Now, get them off and put them on the wagons.”

  That did raise a storm of protest. The weather was still bitter. The suggestive clicks of cocked locks quickly quietened them and they reluctantly started to strip. The uniforms and boots were piled on the wagons and he made them line up again in their shirts, clutching a few personal possessions each, before pointing them down the road and waving them away, watching cold-eyed as they staggered off into the distance.

  Their departure was a signal for a frenzy of activity. Welbeloved had other plans, which had been taking shape during the ambush. He drove the men to open up the loads and check the contents, at the same time he sent two of them off to round up all the stray horses. The first wagon was laden with military stores which were of little value, other than to an army in the field. Spare harness, horseshoe nails and much else of the paraphernalia essential to keep soldiers on the move. He had it driven into the middle of the ford and the contents thrown into the river.

  The other wagon was far more interesting. Cases of cartridges and dozens of kegs of gunpowder, fuses and other stores intended for the Corps of Engineers in Soult’s army. As many of these as possible were roped to the mules and spare horses and the rest hastily wrapped in the tarpaulin covers and buried nearby, together with the uniforms, boots and muskets taken from the escort. A word to Alvarez would ensure that his guerrilla band was more warmly dressed, better shod, and with enough arms and powder to carry their little war more and more to the French.

  They pushed the empty wagons into a gully. The French would probably find them and recover them, but they had no more time to spare. They secured all their animals and booty and set off after the escort.

  His watch showed him that there had been two hours of frantic activity since the shivering men had been started off down the road. Without their uniforms, they would have to move briskly or risk freezing, but without their boots it would take them a good three hours to get back to their base at Saldaña. Welbeloved and his men clattered after them, to take advantage of any confusion created by their arrival.

  After half-an-hour they
left the road and picked their way as closely parallel to it as they could, keeping a sharp watch for the French escort. They heard it before they saw it. The sergeant had taken charge and by shouting, swearing and cajoling, had kept them all together and moving along as best they could.

  Most of them were limping and splashed up to their thighs with mud, but were still moving doggedly, soaked to the skin with freezing water, their shirts plastered to their bodies.

  They passed them unseen and concealed the horses and mules close to the town but well away from the road. They moved in on foot carrying a couple of kegs of powder from the wagons, together with fuses to ignite it. Rifleman Trelawney was carrying those under his uniform in the driest place he could find, next to his body. Trelawney was a dark, square, middle-sized man from Cornwall. He was slow and deliberate in most of his movements, but had shown a fascination for explosives ever since he had started training with Welbeloved’s force.

  Soult must have been feeling secure in his position. As they filtered steadily towards the centre of the town, Welbeloved would have expected to have had to avoid one or two patrols, but now that daylight had disappeared the streets were deserted. No-one who had no urgent reason, would want to be out of doors in the mire and slush of a thoroughly unpleasant, bitingly cold, raining and sleeting, December night.

  They were able to find vantage points from where they could observe the approaches to the monastery and other buildings that the army had requisitioned. These at least could be seen to be guarded. Sentries and pickets were posted to cover essential entrances and exits. They picked them out one by one, mostly huddled in whatever shelter they could find and regularly stamping their feet and swinging their arms to keep their circulation going. Feeling secure in the middle of an army, they were far more concerned with counting the minutes until they were relieved, than making other than token gestures to show that they were diligent soldiers, performing an unpleasant and uncomfortable duty, which their more fortunate comrades had managed to dodge.