‘No mention of Malaga, I notice,’ Williams said to him.
So much had happened that it was hard to remember that they had come to this place only to distract the enemy. Hanley shrugged. ‘Well, it does sound as if we have drawn the French here. Perhaps we could still sail there faster than they could walk.’
Williams straightened his back to stand to attention. ‘As Sergeant Dobson would say, “Yes, sir. Certainly, sir.”’ He thought for a moment. ‘Dob would have killed them. Well, it is too late and we had better both be off. Good luck to you.’
Hanley watched his friend jogging away, unsure whether to envy or pity him for having such a serious nature.
There were corpses piled up in one of the storerooms of the castle. Corporal Brandt helped to carry yet another dead man to join the stack, laying him out like a piece of lumber. The soldier who was carrying the body with him had powder stains all over his face and a bandage around his forehead. He looked wild eyed and his jacket was dirty and torn, but he did not look beaten. The British were chipping away at the fort’s garrison as they chipped away at its walls, men ripped in two by the heavy shot or more often cut by splinters of the walls and fragments of shells. The howitzer took a steady toll, and its small-calibre balls wounded many even if they rarely killed. Others fell to the riflemen, some by ill luck and others when a marksman spotted them moving past one of the gaps torn in the battlements. He noticed that two of the men near the bottom of the pile had neat holes in the forehead, and forced himself not to smile because he was sure he had claimed them on the first day.
The Poles of the 4th Regiment of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw were suffering and dying one by one, but there were still a good one hundred and sixty men able to carry a musket and on balance Brandt was happier inside than outside the walls. He was alive and that was the main thing, and even if he had lost his pack with most of his possessions, he did have half a dozen gold napoleons he had found on a corpse during the night. He and his comrade, the Dane Jorgesen, had slipped away in the darkness after the failed night attack at Mijas and gone to see what could be found. There were always pickings on a battlefield, if you knew where to look and took care. Seeing the woman had seemed a rare piece of luck, especially as it was not until she called out for someone that they realised it was a woman. He should have listened to Jorgesen and taken her then, out in the open, but it had been so long he wanted to enjoy it, and so they had dragged her to the house. He had scared one of the chasseurs there with his threats and easily persuaded the other to join in the fun. Then that bastard British officer Williams – the one his own lieutenant hated so much – had burst in before they had started, killed Jorgesen, and cut the other man through the arm.
There was no point fighting. Roll with the punches and ride your luck – that was the way to live, and it had steered Brandt through thirteen years as a soldier in the Austrian, Prussian, Russian, French and now British armies. These were good times for a soldier quick in his wits and who knew how to kill and take care of himself. The luck was still with him, for they stumbled across the enemy and they were countrymen of his and did not want to make noise, so they had not shot at him when he saw his chance and made a break for it. They might not have taken someone who could not speak Polish, but they took him, marching him between two guards, and so he crept with them as they reached the castle, waited through that farce when the garrison did not believe that they were Poles, until they were finally let in.
‘Deserter, eh?’ a big whiskered captain had said, peering at him by torchlight. The officer wore a square-topped czapka, that uniquely Polish headgear, instead of the French-style shakos sported by his men.
‘Been waiting my chance, sir,’ Brandt replied, playing the part of the good and patriotic soldier. ‘I was ordered to surrender at Bailén, then given the choice of rotting in a prison hulk or enlisting with the British. Thought it was the best chance to get away. This is the first time they have brought us back to Spain. I could not believe my good fortune when I heard there was a Polish regiment here.’
‘Yes, it is surely better to be shot by a firing squad from your homeland than by foreigners.’ The captain looked him in the eyes, trying to judge his truthfulness.
‘I’ll admit I signed on with the enemy, but many a good Pole has been forced to do that before now. It wasn’t the first time for me, but that was before we had a country of our own. I won’t blame you if you don’t believe me, but I’ll willingly fight and die for that uniform,’ he gestured at the captain’s coat, ‘and for the Grand Duchy.’
The captain stared at him for a long time. ‘Lock him up,’ he said in the end. ‘Put him in the old barracks.’ Brandt was taken to a small room and locked in. There were no windows, but a strip of light appeared under the door to show that it was daylight and almost immediately came the dull crumps of the bombardment. An hour later the door was wrenched open and a sergeant appeared.
‘Put this on,’ he growled, holding out a blue jacket with the red collar, cuffs and a yellow front. ‘Captain Mlokosiewicz says you can do some work.’
Brandt took the jacket, noticing a hole and a dark stain on the back.
The sergeant grinned. ‘Don’t worry, that makes it lucky. No one gets shot in the same place twice.’
Brandt put it on and found that the work was carrying the wounded to the surgeon and taking the dead to the pile. He did it willingly and well, carrying wounded men as gently as he could, talking softly to soothe them, and never hesitating to go out to where a man lay sprawled and moaning behind a demolished section of battlements. When the bastion collapsed, it was Brandt who led the rescue party, working with their hands as they pulled out seven mangled corpses – the other two had fallen outside. He did it to win trust, because he intended to survive, and because there was genuinely something good about being with Poles, hearing their accents and laughing at their jokes. His cheek was grazed when one of the balls from a shrapnel shell scythed across it.
Then a lieutenant recognised him as from their home town, and he could feel the others accepting him. ‘I remember, you’re Dr Brandt’s son. The little bugger who had to run off when there was that trouble with the maids.’ The memory amused him. ‘Heard you went off abroad. Ever been in the artillery?’
‘Yes, sir, Austrian.’
‘Good, take him to help Sergeant Zakrewski.’
Brandt found himself with the crews serving the two big guns on the eastern wall. They were old, very old, and clumsy pieces.
‘I heard they dredged the bloody things out of the sea,’ the sergeant said, as Brandt joined the men at the ropes pulling a gun back to the embrasure, ‘but Kaminski there reckons they’re from a museum. He and that ugly one used to be gunners in the Russian army, so they can’t hit a damned thing.’
Kaminski was the captain in charge of the other gun, and was busy sliding a reed with fine powder down into the touch-hole. ‘Don’t listen to that bollocks. He’s only jealous because I sank one of their boats yesterday.’
‘Luck, just luck!’
An eighteen-pound ball struck the parapet, spraying them with dust and the other crew with heavy fragments of stone. They all dived for cover, but one had his jaw smashed by a lump of the wall, and was spitting flesh, blood and some of his teeth. He was led to the rear and bandaged, but returned within fifteen minutes. Sergeant Zakrewski clapped him on the back.
Brandt took over the job of ramming down charge and ball, and sponging out the barrel after each discharge. They had only five men at each of the clumsy sixteen-pounders and so he helped pull on the ropes as well to run the gun up. In the Austrian service he had been a driver, looking after the horses rather than serving the guns, but he had seen it done often enough and it was all fairly simple, much like loading a great musket or rifle. He knew enough to make damned sure that a man had his thumb over the touch-hole when he rammed or swabbed so that the rush of air did not set off any remaining powder and blow the ramrod back through him. He had seen that happen and it was n
ot pretty.
They loaded and fired, loaded and fired, again and again. Only the sergeant and Kaminski laid the guns and saw whether or not they hit anything. The British shot kept coming, although sometimes they fired at other parts of the wall. Brandt did not think they were near to making a breach, but now and again a shot struck the mouth of an embrasure or skimmed over the parapet. One gunner’s head vanished in a spray of blood and bone, but otherwise there were only wounds, and most of those were light. Another shot came lower and with a high-pitched screech left a groove in the thick barrel of one of the guns before it slammed past and drove into the back of the western wall of the castle.
‘Do you reckon it’s safe to fire it?’ Brandt asked, his finger running along the scar in the metal.
‘Probably not,’ the sergeant said happily, ‘so get out of the way.’ Brandt quickly pulled his hand back and got clear of the wheel and then Zakrewski lowered the portfire and the cannon roared, slamming back on its trails for two yards. In a modern battery there would be a slope behind the guns, so that each time they fired they would roll back down, but this was a makeshift position and so it all had to be done by brute force.
Brandt had been there an hour, maybe more, when he was sent for and led to the southern wall. ‘We need someone to work that swivel gun,’ Captain Mlokosiewicz told him. ‘I’ve got two volunteers and you to tell them how it works.’ A body lay behind the gun, one arm hanging down from the wall, and two wounded men were being carried away, all struck by casing or shot from the British shell.
As with the bullet hole in the back of his tunic, Brandt had to hope that lightning did not strike in the same place twice. The two-pounder swivel gun was easy to load, but a clumsy weapon, spraying canister or the larger balls of grape in a wide area. He doubted that they hit any of the elusive chasseurs as they dodged from cover to cover and sniped at the wall, but he certainly made a few of them duck. There were one or two former comrades that it would be a shame to hit, and once he did deliberately fire a fraction high – not that it made much difference with the crude gun. The rest of his company, let alone the rest of the battalion, could live or die without his caring one way or another.
When the British stopped firing the captain shouted at them to cease fire as well, and he watched as the flag of truce came up to demand surrender. One of the officers was Williams and it was so tempting to point the loaded swivel gun at the man and empty the charge of grape into that swine. It would not do, for he must be the obedient, dutiful soldier at last back with his own people, and so he obeyed the captain. Instead he turned so that his back was to the British, on the off-chance that they won and he had to assure them that he had never been more than a prisoner.
Captain Mlokosiewicz sent the British away. Brandt was not surprised that the envoys were not allowed too close, and certainly not permitted to come in and see the charnel house the castle had become. The garrison were brave soldiers, but no one really wants to die in a lost cause and some were bound to urge surrender.
Soon the firing resumed, and he went back to blasting at impossible targets with the swivel gun. A ricocheting rifle bullet spat up from the parapet and drove into the shoulder of one of his assistants, sending the man reeling back so that he nearly fell off the wall. Brandt kept firing the gun, and only stopped when he saw a group of officers creeping around down in the valley. One was Williams, and so he plucked up a musket dropped by one of the dead men, checked that it was loaded and primed, and then leaned forward beside one of the crenellations to take careful aim. A rifle bullet slapped into the wall inches from his head, but he ignored it, letting his breath half out and waiting for the right moment before he squeezed the trigger. The musket banged, smoke blotting out his view, and when he moved to the side all he could see was the British general bowing and sweeping with his hat, while Williams crouched near by. If only he still had his English rifle it would have been different.
‘Well done. Nearly got that old bugger!’ Captain Mlokosiewicz said, patting him on the shoulder. A few yards along a shell exploded, peppering a man with dozens of the little carbine balls so that he shook like a puppet and then dropped to land with a dreadful thump on the earth of the courtyard.
Brandt noticed the captain’s shoulders sagging. He was staring out to sea, and when he followed the gaze he saw two big warships, one towing the other, and a number of smaller vessels coming around the headland. ‘More of the sods,’ the officer said wearily. ‘Well then, now or never.’
Ten minutes later Brandt was loading the musket again and waiting with ninety of the fittest remaining men behind the gate in the north wall. They were led by the lieutenant who had brought the reinforcements in last night and all were volunteers. In his case this was a generous description.
‘You’ll go, won’t you?’ Captain Mlokosiewicz had said, a wicked grin under his great whiskers. ‘It’s probably for the best, you know,’ he added.
‘Happy to help,’ Brandt said, and tried to look brave and noble. There was nowhere else to go, and given that the alternative was probably prison or a firing squad, he had to ride his luck again and hope for the best.
The captain led the reserve of forty men, quite a few of whom were bandaged. The wounded unable to run were up on the walls to keep up some fire on the enemy.
‘Men, we are going to attack and take that damned battery on the hill,’ the captain announced. ‘There are ten times as many of them as there are of us, so we know one thing – the enemy will certainly be surprised.’
Laughter echoed round the courtyard. ‘Let only half of us go and surprise them even more,’ a voice said.
Brandt thought that they were mad, and all drunk on courage, but he guessed he was still being judged so he laughed with the rest.
The gates swung open. They were in the north wall, overlooking the river and out of sight of the British, so the lieutenant led his party quietly round along the western wall, and still no one seemed to have noticed them. At the corner of the south and west walls he raised his sword and began to run. The men of the 4th Regiment cheered and followed him down into the valley.
18
There were skirmishers dotted along the slope ahead of the Poles, but when the chasseurs finally saw the oncoming infantry they ran. There were too few of them to fight, their rifles were slow to load, and it would take more than a few shots to stop the mass of infantry surging down the slope, so their officers and sergeants yelled at them to retreat. One man’s foot caught in a loop of long grass and he fell forward. Before he could rise, a Polish infantryman jabbed down with his bayonet and the man screamed, arching his back away from the pain, until the soldier kicked him to free the blade and ran on. Two more chasseurs dropped their weapons and surrendered, to be pushed roughly to the rear by Poles who were not inclined to stop.
Williams saw the rifle company of the Chasseurs running back up the far side of the valley to the shelter of the rest of their battalion. Hatch was among them, as was the capable Mueller. The formed companies numbered some four hundred men, in line two ranks deep, running along the crest of the hill beside the battery position. At the moment they were at ease, muskets grounded, and he waited for their commander to take charge.
The skirmishers were coming up the hill, not retreating but running as fast as they could with no thought of glancing behind or stopping to fire and slow the enemy. They had outstripped the Poles by a good hundred yards, but the loose column of infantry with their blue coats and yellow fronts was already at the bottom of the valley. He guessed there were about a hundred of them. A smaller group was now following behind in support.
Someone bellowed an order and the line of chasseurs came to attention. The first of the riflemen reached them, but instead of running to the flank the man barrelled straight into the line, pushing his way through. His face was blank, his mouth open, and he had dropped his rifle and his pack to run as fast as he could.
Hanley appeared beside Williams.
‘What is happening?’ he b
egan, and then stared in shock at the little body of enemy surging up the hill towards them.
The fleeing skirmisher pushed his way through the formation, the nearest files spreading out like startled sheep. A sergeant standing in his place behind the company tried to grab the man by the collar, but he pulled free. More skirmishers ran up to the battalion, and the whole line shook as if it was in the wind.
‘Canister,’ Williams yelled at the Royal Artillery lieutenant. ‘Load with canister!’
‘We’re already loaded,’ the man replied.
‘Then fire what you have got.’ He turned to Hanley. ‘Bring the Toledo Regiment. Tell them to come quickly or the battery is lost.’ A lieutenant had given a captain an order, but Hanley cared little for military discipline and trusted his friend’s instincts when it came to battle.
The crews of the twelve-pounders hauled on ropes to shift the aim of the guns, but these were naval carriages not designed for such big adjustments. Then the gun captains adjusted the turnscrews to point the muzzles down.
‘Can’t see ’em, sir,’ a sergeant in charge of one of the crews shouted to his officer. The Poles were on the hillside beneath them, and no gun could shoot down at such a steep angle.
The chasseurs broke. They had not been formed long and did not know their officers well. If they had had time to prepare themselves, time to shoot at the enemy or to march forward steadily against them, then they may well have stood, but this was too sudden. The Poles should not have attacked, there were too few of them and no one expected such folly, and too many of the chasseurs and their officers could not accept that it was happening. Something must be wrong, and with their own riflemen pelting up the hill towards them they simply became more nervous. Another skirmisher forced his way into the ranks, and then two more. Sergeant Mueller was screaming at them to halt and to rally, but then the Poles cheered again, a great deep-throated cheer so different from the normal French chants. Men turned all along the line and began to run. It was like a pail filling with rainwater and suddenly pouring over the brim. The battalion collapsed, officers and sergeants resisting for only a moment before they too joined the flight. No one wanted to be last and to be caught by the dreadful enemy and so nearly all of them ran, and those who stayed raised the butts of their muskets in the air to surrender.
Run Them Ashore Page 23