A Polish officer was leading the charge, swinging his sword around his head, and he found the energy to run even faster up the hill as the blue-coated defenders fled and his own men cheered again. The sergeant in charge of the left-hand twelve-pounder nervously jerked the lanyard too soon and the heavy cannonball slammed through the air several yards over the lieutenant’s head and he roared in fear and relief, amazed to be still alive.
Mueller was level with the battery, three men still with him, and they turned, dropped to one knee and then fired. A Polish infantryman was flung back, tripping another man as he rolled down the slope. The sergeant in charge of the second twelve-pounder jerked the lanyard on his gun, but the flint failed to spark.
‘Get back!’ Williams yelled at the artillerymen. ‘Get back!’ Their own officer was staring blankly at the onrushing men and so the Welshman grabbed him and pulled him away. The crews dropped rammers, sponges and all the other heavy equipment and most started to run. One sergeant cut with a short sword at the Polish lieutenant as he sprang up on to the rampart. The officer parried the blow, but before he could cut down one of his soldiers was beside him and fired his musket, not bothering to bring it up to his shoulder. With a gasp the sergeant reeled backwards, dropping the sword and staring down at the blood spreading out over his stomach. Another Pole followed the lieutenant over the rampart and dodged the clumsy blow of a gunner wielding a trail-spike. The infantryman swung the butt of his musket into the man’s jaw, knocking him to his knees, and then reversed the weapon, driving his long slim bayonet into the gunner’s chest.
The Poles surged over the breastwork and into the battery and the remaining artillerymen fled. Williams went with them, but tried to break away in the direction in which Hanley had gone to fetch the Toledo Regiment. Behind him the Poles were cheering wildly at a triumph which had seemed so impossible and yet proved so easy. Williams went down into a little gully, using his hands to pull himself up the other side, and bounded over the little crest.
Ahead of him, the Toledo Regiment streamed down towards the beach, mingling with the fugitives from the foreign regiment. A small party of officers and NCOs had not fled and were clustered around the colours, but there were no more than a dozen of them.
‘The chasseurs ran into them and they panicked!’ Hanley shouted, as if he could not quite believe what he was saying. In just a few minutes the entire Allied defence had collapsed under the attack of a force a tenth of its size.
‘Back to the beach,’ Williams said, and the two men ran over the sandy slopes. The 89th were there, and if they were steady they still outnumbered the Poles by a large margin and should be able to take the battery back. Out to sea, boats were clustering around El Vencedor and before long their own 106th would begin landing, but that would take time and for the moment the four companies of the 2/89th were the only troops left.
The two hundred and eighty remaining men of the 2/89th were forming line on the mound of shingle at the top of the beach. Most of them had dark stains on their hands and faces, and Williams realised that the black dye of the facings must have run when their wool jackets were soaked in last night’s storm. Sergeants shouted and pushed men into place with their half-pikes. The movements were slow and clumsy, and some of that was because these companies had spent little time drilling together, but more was the same sense of shock he had seen up on the hill. This should not be happening, and officers and men alike still struggled to accept that it was.
Then Lord Turney ran up from the beach. His horse was waiting for him, and he put a boot in the stirrup and almost bounded into the saddle, setting the animal in motion, and riding to the front of the 89th.
‘Right, lads, those bloody foreigners have run like rabbits and it’s up to you to save the day. You’re the Eighty-ninth, you’re Irish and English, and you’re the stoutest fellows in the world, so we are going to go up that hill and we’ll drive those rogues off with the bayonet.’ He drew his curved sword from its heavily decorated scabbard and waved it high. The blade, heavy with gold inlay, flashed in the bright afternoon sunlight.
‘Fix bayonets!’ The senior captain bellowed the order. The long blades scraped out and then clicked into place as they slotted and locked around the muzzle of each firelock.
Up the hill one of the twelve-pounders blossomed smoke and a cannonball tore through the air over the line to land on the beach.
Lord Turney stood high in his stirrups. ‘Eighty-ninth, follow me!’ he shouted, and walked his horse up the hill.
‘Forward march!’ The senior captain of the 89th gave the order and stepped off behind the general. The drummers beat the rhythm and the line marched off, the dressing still a little ragged, but on ground like this that would soon have happened even if they had begun in immaculate order. Soldiers marched with the butt of their musket in their left hand, the weapon resting against their shoulder, the tips of the bayonets a line of steel higher than the plumes on their tall shakos. There were one hundred and twenty men in each of the two ranks, and behind them a thinner line of subalterns, sergeants and drummers.
Williams went to join the other staff officers marching on the right flank of the line nearest to the castle, although thankfully out of range of musket or the swivel guns on the wall. Another gun fired from the battery, aimed better this time, and the ball bounced a few feet in front of the line and then rose to rip off a man’s leg beneath the knee and shatter the hip of the rear rank man behind him.
‘Close up!’ shouted a young sergeant who had felt the wind of the ball as it passed and gone pale. ‘Quiet, my boy, remember you’re Irish,’ he said to the soldier who was screaming because he had lost his foot.
‘It’s not your bloody leg,’ the man shouted angrily, but the rage seemed to drive away the pain, because he stopped screaming.
The line marched on, the men closing to the centre to fill the gap left by the wounded men. It was a gentle slope on this side of the hill, less sheltered than the one the Poles had assaulted, and the infantrymen turned gunners managed to fire each gun once more before they were masked. A discharge of canister mostly went high, making a weird rattling, ringing sound as the balls struck the row of bayonets. Three men had their shakos knocked off by balls going low, but the one in the middle was also hit by a bullet which punched through his forehead. He dropped like a sack of old clothes and his rear rank man stepped faster to take his place. The other gun fired a ball on almost the same line as before. One moment the two men of the next file to the right were marching forward with the rest. Then the front rank man was cut in two, his legs standing for a few seconds after his mangled torso was ripped off and flung against the soldier behind, whose ribs were splayed open and right arm torn off as the same shot gouged a bloody path through his side. The young sergeant was drenched in their blood and stared at the ruin of the two men, stopping as the line marched on.
‘Cat got your tongue, Sergeant?’ shouted the man who had lost his leg. The NCO recovered from his horror.
‘Close up, lads, close up,’ he managed to croak through a mouth which seemed drier than he could ever remember.
The 2/89th pressed on, keeping in step as well as men could on the sandy slope. Muskets began to fire as enemy skirmishers sniped at the line. Williams could see blue-coated voltigeurs bobbing up to fire from among the hummocks and waving long grass on either side of the battery.
Lord Turney’s horse whinnied in pain and turned to the side, arching its long neck. Williams could see blood on its chest. Something was odd, but he could not place it. One of the staff officers beside him grunted as a musket ball struck his thigh.
‘Go on, I am fine,’ he said, pulling his sash loose to bind the wound.
The battery was less than a hundred yards away, and Williams began to wonder when the general would order the charge. It was still too far, for over that distance men would straggle and it would be so easy to stop and begin firing, but it was hard to walk in silence as the enemy fired into the line. Not far from him one
of the redcoats was flung back, blood jetting in a great fountain from his neck.
The 89th marched on, faster now as they closed the distance, and none of their officers tried to keep them in check. Drummers pounded the skins on their drums, but no one was listening to the rhythm any more, and it was more a question of fighting back by making noise.
A second bullet struck the general’s horse in the head, and Williams knew what had bothered him, for he was sure the sound was the sharper one of a rifle rather than the dull boom of a musket. The animal fell, but Lord Turney was already free of the stirrups and sprang off, landing on his feet. He staggered, then regained his balance, and walked on, sword resting against his shoulder as if nothing had happened and he did not have a care in the world. Another ball flicked the long grass beside his feet, but he did not acknowledge it and simply walked on.
Williams glanced back over his shoulder. Some two hundred of the chasseurs had re-formed and were advancing to the right and some way behind the 89th. There was a red-coated officer at their head and he realised that it was Mullins. Over on the left, but much further back, the Spanish officers and NCOs were restoring order to their own regiment. Down on the shore redcoats were splashing into the surf from two big longboats with more rowing behind them. It was too far to see any detail, but he could not help wondering who from among his battalion was here. It would not surprise him if Pringle, Dobson and the rest of the Grenadier Company were in the lead.
A familiar rattling sound brought his thoughts back to the task in hand, and he saw that some sixty or seventy Polish infantry were formed in a line three ranks deep and had just brought their muskets up to their shoulders. A third of the men were behind the flanking rampart of the battery, the rest standing in the grass. Standing tall on the rampart itself was an officer, and Williams heard him shout out the order and saw the sword sweep down before the line vanished behind smoke. A captain of the 89th walking on the extreme flank of the line let out a piercing shriek as a ball drove into his groin. Two men next to each other in the same company were pitched back at the same instant, one hit in the chest and the other with a gaping hole where his left eye had been. A dozen men dropped all along the line and the formation seemed to quiver.
‘On, Eighty-ninth, charge, charge!’ Lord Turney pointed his sword up the hill and ran at the enemy, drawing out the word into a cry of rage.
The redcoats cheered, and Williams found that he was shouting as well, and so were the other staff officers. He sprinted forward, realised that he had not drawn his sword and fumbled with the hilt as he ran. The Polish skirmishers were going back, and the line was wavering, for they were being charged by three times their own numbers, but the lieutenant yelled at them and they steadied, lowering their muskets to the charge.
Barely three yards away the redcoats hesitated, halting and staring at the men in their blue jackets with yellow fronts. Polish and British soldiers eyed each other nervously, not knowing what was going to happen, teetering between surging forward and running away. The redcoats were in a line much wider than the men in blue, and on the flanks it slowed to a walk, but kept going forward.
‘On, lads!’ Lord Turney shouted, his voice mingling with that of the Polish officer as he urged his men onwards, and then he rushed up the slope of the rampart.
‘Come on!’ Williams yelled, and other officers took up the shout and went with him to join the general, and then the whole line surged into a fresh charge. The line of men in blue wavered and some of them began to go back. The general was hacking at the Polish lieutenant, and his parry unbalanced the young officer so that he fell back into the battery. Williams was ahead of the others, and one of the enemy skirmishers suddenly stood up from behind a boulder and thrust with his bayonet at the officer, ripping his breeches as it broke the skin on his left leg. The Welshman jabbed at the man, forcing him back. His leg was painful even though it was little more than a scratch, and he followed up with a lunge which flicked over the man’s musket and bayonet and drove into his side. He wrenched the weapon free, drawing back to make a fresh attack, but the man had dropped his firelock and was clutching at the blood welling from the wound.
Williams ran on. The Poles ahead of him were all in flight and so he headed left towards the battery where some of the enemy fought on. He could hear shouts, grunts of effort and the dull impact of blows with butt and bayonet as he ran towards the low rampart, and then flame ballooned up from inside and he was knocked over, the wind taken from him.
He stared at the sky for a moment, but did not think himself hurt and pushed himself back up. The remaining Poles were streaming back from the battery, leaving half a dozen wounded or dead from the fighting and another three moaning and badly burnt because the fuse which they had lit to blow up half the reserve powder proved shorter than expected.
‘Well done, lads, well done,’ Lord Turney called out to the men. ‘That’s the stuff to serve ’em! Captain, form the companies in line ahead of the battery.’ The general pointed with his sword to where he wanted them to rally, at an angle so that they looked towards any French reinforcements coming down the main road towards these hills. Down the slope, the Polish company was reforming out of musket range, rallying on their supports.
‘Ah, Williams, good man.’ Lord Turney appeared genuinely pleased to see the Welshman. ‘Go to the Spanish and ask the colonel to bring his regiment up on our left. They should occupy that hilltop.’ He gestured at a height about a quarter of a mile to their flank. The ground in between was mostly lost in the folds of the rolling line of hills. ‘It is the one with the two olive trees. They will see it clearly as they approach.’
As he set off, Williams heard another man being sent to bring the chasseurs up on the right, and yet another dispatched to fetch the artillerymen back, for the attackers had left some ammunition unscathed, though the neat piles of canister rounds and shot were strewn about where they had been kicked over. The Poles had either not carried spikes or preferred to keep the guns for their own use.
Hanley was with the Toledo Regiment, talking to the colonel and a couple of mounted guerrilleros. It made it easier to pass on the general’s orders, and the Spanish officer readily agreed, and said he knew the spot the English lord wanted him to hold.
‘You should tell the general of this, Bills,’ Hanley said. ‘These partisans report seeing a patrol of French dragoons on the outskirts of Fuengirola village, and a column of infantry on the main track crossing the hills.’
‘Sebastiani?’
‘They think not, and say they are the garrison of Alhaurin. A few hundred at most.’
‘You had better come back with me,’ Williams said, and started on yet another run up the steep little hills. As they got closer they saw that Lord Turney was on the right of the re-formed 2/89th, staring through his glass at the castle.
‘Infantry, coming over the hills!’ One of his staff pointed to the left, but Hanley and Williams were still a short way down the slope and could not see what he was looking at.
‘They must be Spanish,’ they heard the general say as they ran up. ‘Ah, is the Toledo Regiment moving to cover our flank?’ he asked as he saw them.
‘Yes, my lord, but …’
The general did not let Hanley finish. ‘Yes, that is right, then, they will be Spanish. Were they in blue?’
‘Yes, my lord,’ the ADC replied.
‘Then they are the Toledo Regiment.’
‘Excuse me, my lord,’ Hanley said, ‘but reports from the partisans say that several hundred French infantry and cavalry are advancing on our left. They have seen dragoons in the village.’
Lord Turney frowned and appeared puzzled. ‘No, it is too early for Sebastiani to be here even if he has made the fastest of marches. They must be mistaken.’ The general started walking along the front of the line of redcoats. ‘Come, we had better make sure that our allies go to the right place and stay there.’
‘The partisans believe that the men are the garrison of Alhaurin, my l
ord,’ Hanley said as they followed.
‘Nonsense, Sinclair’s reports placed barely a company there. They must be seeing things. At most it is a patrol and nothing to concern us for the moment until their main force arrives in a few hours.’
‘Look, there they are!’ Williams had spotted a little column in dark blue jackets and trousers moving along the top of the hill with the two olive trees. The officers stopped, just a few yards beyond the left of the 89th’s line.
‘Yes, they are the Spanish, just where they should be – and a damned sight faster than I expected.’ Lord Turney sounded pleased that the day was at last going as planned. He stared at the distant infantrymen, squinting in an effort to focus. ‘Yes, blue and yellow, that is the Toledo Regiment. And the damned fellows aren’t staying where they should be so they must be Spanish!’ The general snorted with laughter as the little column kept marching off the top of the hill and down out of sight.
‘They’re Poles,’ Williams said, with more certainty than he felt and forgetting the proper courtesies.
‘Damn your impudence.’ Lord Turney’s tanned face went a darker shade. ‘And damn your presumption.’
‘My apologies, my lord, but I am sure that those men wear the same uniform as the ones who sallied out to take the battery. It is like that of the Toledo regiment, but not the same.’
Run Them Ashore Page 24