‘This is Buera country,’ one of the men explained. ‘El Blanco and Don Juan fell out a few months ago. He wanted the chief to come under his command and the chief said no.’
‘Good thing too,’ said the other man. ‘Too many damned foreigners fight with Buera, and I don’t trust the buggers.’
Williams did not see any point in commenting, and soon afterwards Carlos waved for them to come on. The man was grinning broadly, and when they came over a low rise they saw why, for he was not alone. Guadalupe pulled free and ran to embrace her sister. El Blanco patted her on the back and welcomed them all. There were eleven men with him, and most of them still had muskets or carbines.
‘We are being watched,’ he added more quietly, ‘but I do not think it is the French.’
He was right on both counts, for a quarter of an hour later a circle of men surrounded them, coming out from behind bushes or boulders. They were stocky mountaineers, all in broad-brimmed hats and with cloaks slung from their shoulders, and heavily armed. They did not look any different from El Blanco’s men, and did not show any signs of hostility.
That night Don Juan Buera entertained them around a fire lit in the mouth of a great cave opening out on to a hidden ravine. The red light cast tall flickering shadows on the rock and Williams could not help thinking that things would not have looked so very different when ancient man lived in such places thousands of years ago. The mountain chieftain was friendly from the start, but as the evening wore on his manner became even warmer. Williams guessed that El Blanco had agreed to serve in his band, at least until he could rebuild his own numbers. In a way this was the very thing that Hanley and other officers were urging, wanting the separate bands to merge and act together.
The thought had hardly crossed his mind when Don Antonio beckoned for him to come over.
‘We are to see your friend tomorrow,’ he said.
‘So Sinclair sends word.’ Don Juan Buera was an older man, balding on the top of his head. He was broad shouldered, wide chested and short like many of his men, but had a quick glance and bright eyes which spoke of considerable intelligence. ‘More importantly, this Hanley is bringing us ten mules carrying powder and muskets. I would like to know more of this man, for these days it is hard to know who to trust.’
‘He is a good man,’ Williams said. ‘I have fought beside him for three years and trust him with my life.’
‘But should I trust him with my life and the lives of my men just so I can arm those who come to me without the means to fight?’ Don Antonio ignored the jibe. Paula and her sister had withdrawn for the night to a little alcove shielded by a curtain, and the partisan leader seemed to have relaxed. It might hurt his pride, but he needed Buera’s protection.
‘Then trust, but not blindly.’ He could not remember where he had heard the expression and wondered whether it was something another guerrilla leader, the famous El Charro, had said back in Ciudad Rodrigo.
Don Juan Buera was pleased with that. ‘Spoken like a man of the mountains. So I will speak to you like one. If your friend Hanley plays us false, then I will have you shot.’
‘As I said, I trust him with my life.’ Williams admitted to himself that there were some qualifications to that, for if he trusted his friend he did have doubts about his judgement. Something else was nagging him, something about the officer who had led the attack. ‘Festina lente,’ he added.
One of Buera’s lieutenants chuckled. He was a thin man with a sallow complexion and the scars of disease on his face.
Don Juan glared at him. ‘One does not need to be a priest to have a little education, Xavier,’ he said. The lieutenant hung his head. He was dressed as the others, but Williams had heard that there were many monks and priests with the partisans, fighting the war until they could go back to their calling.
‘A saying of Caesar Augustus, I believe,’ Buera continued. ‘From Suetonius, perhaps, but the sense is an apt one for an emperor or a man who fights the little war. Yes, we shall “hurry slowly”.’
They left before dawn. ‘Better to be there first, and better still not to let them see your own country too closely,’ Don Juan told them as they set out. Williams and Carlos Velasco went off with the young priest and five partisans. ‘Take a look at the place before we arrive,’ they were told. ‘If anything is wrong fire three shots and run fast because you will not catch us.’
The meeting place was a cluster of five little houses and a small church set on the crest of one of the foothills. They rode on mules and the priest took them on a long route to approach from the far side. Williams was fortunate to find his mount sure footed and compliant by the standards of its race, but even so the jogging motion hour after hour was an ordeal. Carlos noticed, but could do nothing.
‘Don’t die on me, Englishman. I have so few patients who are still alive.’
An hour before noon they were in an olive grove looking up at the houses. Three horses were tethered outside the church, and a guerrilla stood beside them.
‘There’s someone in the tower,’ the young priest said. There were no other signs of life. ‘People tend to be nervous when they see soldiers – any soldiers,’ he added.
They waited for half an hour, Williams very glad to be off the mule and able to massage his leg. ‘Is Don Juan here?’ he asked.
‘Of course, that is why you cannot see him,’ the priest replied. Carlos rolled his eyes.
Ten minutes later a partisan on a donkey rode up the track towards the little village. He stopped, staring up the gentle slope, and waited. A man came from the church, dressed in a cocked hat and grey jacket.
‘Sinclair,’ the priest grunted.
The Irishman swung himself up on to a grey horse and put her into a walk. He rode with one hand folded back and resting on his hip in the proper posture for a gentleman on horseback.
‘It looks fine.’ Carlos sounded satisfied, and clearly he was not alone, for the partisan swept his hat in a great circle. A little column emerged behind him, with three more irregulars leading a string of ten mules. Ahead rode an officer with his drab cloak thrown back to reveal his red coat. Williams smiled; it was the first time he had seen Hanley or anyone else from the battalion or the army for three long months.
Sinclair kept his grey at a slow pace, and lifted his arm to wave. Something about the gesture sparked a memory, and then it seemed so very artificial, not a casual greeting but a signal. Williams was thinking of a horseman in a green jacket watching from the shore at Las Arenas and riding through the valley past the burning farm. He could not understand why he had taken so long to see it.
‘Fire the shots,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Sinclair is false,’ he insisted. ‘He is with the enemy. Fire the shots now!’
‘Are you sure?’ Carlos asked, but he had unslung his carbine. Williams had wanted a musket, but feared that it was too awkward to carry and so instead drew the pistol from the belt and ran back towards the mules at the back gate to the olive grove. Cocking the gun, he pointed it in the air and fired. Carlos let off another shot and then one of the partisans raised his own musket and pulled the trigger.
Williams dragged the reins free and jumped on to the mule, kicking it forward. He was too far away to shout and needed to warn his friend. Reaching back, he slapped the beast on the rump so that it trotted along the wall of the grove. When he came out into the open he saw that everything seemed to have frozen in place. Sinclair was some thirty yards from the scout and as far again from Hanley and the mules. Everyone was looking around, trying to understand what was happening, and then Sinclair gave a shout and spurred his horse forward. Men came rushing out of the church and houses, men with tall yellow and green plumes in their shakos and yellow fronts to their blue jackets.
‘Run!’ Williams shouted as loud as he could. ‘Run, you fool!’
The scout had his musketoon resting across the neck of the donkey, and now he aimed and fired at the Polish voltigeurs. The bullet went high and fr
ightened his mount, which bayed in alarm and began to buck. Two voltigeurs stopped to fire, and a ball slapped into the panicking beast’s neck. The rider fell to the ground.
‘Run! Get away!’ Williams yelled as he urged his mule on.
‘Bills?’ Hanley saw him and forgot everything else in his shock. The voltigeurs were spilling down the slope, at least half a company with more coming from the houses furthest away. Sinclair spurred past the dying donkey and its fallen rider, heading towards Hanley and the mules.
‘Bills, is that you?’ His friend was waving, and a great smile spread across his face.
‘Who do you think it is, Lord Wellington? Run, you damned fool! Run!’
More Poles stopped, dropped down on to one knee and raised their muskets. A ball flicked through the long grass just ahead of Williams. Another took the partisan scout in the shoulder, flinging him back down as he tried to rise. Sinclair’s grey reared up and the officer sprang from the stirrups and fell rolling on to the ground.
Williams saw Hanley head towards the fallen major. ‘Leave him! Run!’ he shouted. Shots flicked past his friend and one struck the leading mule in the head, so that it sank down on its haunches and died, the bell around its collar tinkling.
Hanley turned and fled. Williams longed to follow him, but there was the rocky path of a fast-flowing stream at the bottom of the fold in the ground between them and he doubted that his mule would make it. Another bullet plucked at his long hair, and the Poles were getting close now. He turned the beast around and slapped it again to make it go. There were shouts and more shots, but the mule kept running and streaked back to the stone wall surrounding the grove. The priest was there, with one of the partisans, and both had raised muskets aimed at him. Williams wondered whether they would think he had played them false and fulfil Don Juan’s threat, but the priest was calling him on.
‘They have got Sinclair,’ he said. Four or five voltigeurs clustered around the Irishman, lifting him. Two more held the scout down on his knees. About twenty more formed a skirmish line, while the rest doubled back towards the houses.
‘They have always had Sinclair,’ Williams said, wondering whether they still did not believe him. His mule, so sure footed up until now, stumbled and dropped its shoulder, making him lose his balance and fall. Something whizzed through the air where he had just been and slapped into the chest of the priest. There was a sharp report.
‘The tower,’ the partisan said, as the priest staggered, blood pumping out over his body. He was choking, but could say no words as he fell. Williams saw a wisp of smoke drifting from the window of the church tower, which must have been almost three hundred yards away. It was an incredible shot, and both the sound and the accuracy made him sure that the man had a rifle. The dying man slid down, leaving him wet with his blood.
‘Come on, English,’ the partisan called, and hit his mule hard to drive the beast on. Williams’ animal began to follow and he managed to grab the saddle and haul himself up on to its back. Carlos and the others met them on the far side of the olive groves.
The sun was setting red beneath the mountains before they reached the rest of Buera’s band. Don Juan questioned two of his men for some time before he called Williams to him. El Blanco was beside him, and with him were Paula and her sister, clad once again in breeches and boots. That is a shame, thought Williams, although he was pleased neither had yet cut her hair short again. His own was longer than he had ever had it in his life, and it would be good to be rid of much of it when there was an opportunity. Barbers seemed rare in the mountains.
‘The warning saved us, and I hear it was you who gave it. For that you have my thanks.’ Don Juan spoke very formally.
‘Major Sinclair is a traitor or a French spy pretending to be a British officer.’ Williams could see no other explanation. ‘Either way he fights for them. It would explain a good deal,’ he added, stating the obvious.
‘Never did care for the man,’ El Blanco said.
‘I think he has a rifleman with him, perhaps a deserter from one of our foreign corps. The man is an excellent shot, and it was not chance that the bullet struck Xavier.’ He did not add that he was sure it was Brandt, plying his trade for yet another army. It would do no good to mention Paula’s attacker – her first attacker, he reminded himself, and promised once again that he would see Hatch brought to account.
‘Sinclair can do less harm now that we know his true colours,’ Don Juan said. ‘But anything he saw and anywhere he went is not safe. We must look for new campsites and places to hide stores.’
‘I must tell my commanders,’ Williams said.
‘Won’t your friend Hanley do that? He should have got away.’
‘He does not know. French soldiers appeared and Sinclair fell from his horse as he tried to escape. There was nothing to see that showed his guilt if he was not looking out for the signs. Sinclair can still do us harm, so I must make sure that they know about him in Gibraltar and Cadiz.’
‘Write a letter, and we will see that it gets through,’ El Blanco said, and the other leader nodded his approval.
‘They might not believe a letter. I must report in person.’ Williams also thought of Lieutenant Hatch. He could not put that in a letter.
‘Are you up to the journey?’
‘I shall have to be.’ In truth he had forgotten all about his wound when he had smoked Sinclair and gone to warn his friend. On the journey back the pain had returned, but in spite of all the rigours of the last few days it was getting better.
‘Gibraltar is closest,’ Don Juan said, glancing at El Blanco. ‘We will get you there.’
24
Near the end of January Marshal Soult, the Duke of Dalmatia, gathered his twenty thousand men and led them northwest towards the border with Portugal. Dalmas went with him, and took Brandt.
‘I think he might be useful,’ the cuirassier had said to Sinclair, ‘that is if you can spare him.’
The Irishman was happy to agree, since with many battalions stripped away from the divisions left behind there was little chance of any more drives through the mountains or ambushes set to catch the partisan bands. He was also well satisfied with the havoc he and Dalmas had wrought. Bribery and threats had produced a good few informers from among the prisoners, and with Sinclair’s knowledge of the guerrilleros they had dealt a succession of savage blows against the irregulars. The Frenchman was the better soldier, the Irishman had a more naturally devious mind, and the two of them proved a very effective team. Some of the raids into the mountains had marched far and fast to no result, wearing out boot leather and spirits without ever seeing the enemy. Yet more than half had worked, and they had inflicted heavy losses, dispersing those bands they did not destroy. For the moment the survivors were too scattered and wary to cause much trouble.
The marshal was pleased. ‘Now, Dalmas, find me a way into Badajoz,’ he commanded when the pair were summoned to Seville. ‘And you, Sinclair, make sure that Andalusia stays ours while I am away. Do the British still think that you are one of their own?’
‘For the moment.’ He was sure that was true, and was pleased with his performance, pretending to flee from the Poles, then making his horse rear and taking an artful dive. It was a shame Brandt had missed the red-coated officer who was with the partisans. If it was Williams then he must have seen through the charade. ‘In a few weeks they will probably find out.’
‘Then use those weeks to fool them, and make sure they do not fool you.’
Dalmas had an idea for that, a bold idea, and the more Sinclair thought about it the more he enjoyed its impudence.
‘They want to come out from Cadiz.’ The cuirassier major had just heard the Irishman’s latest instructions from Admiral Keats. ‘Good. With the sea and ramparts to protect them we cannot get at them in Cadiz, so we want them to come out. Then we can fight them in the open and crush them.’
‘What about the risk? Marshal Victor’s corps is weaker than it was.’
‘Not
by that much. The duke has only taken a few of his regiments and he still has the bulk of three divisions. At best the English and Spanish will match him in numbers, and there is no Milord Wellington here. The rest of the English generals are children without him, and from all you say La Peña is an old woman. I’d back Victor and his veterans against any of them.’
‘It’s still a risk,’ Sinclair said, but without conviction.
‘It’s war,’ Dalmas replied and shrugged – an odd movement since as always when on duty he was wearing his cuirass. ‘Draw them out. Tell them how weak Victor is and how afraid we are of being raided. Then make sure he knows where to find them and can meet them on ground of his own choosing. Smash them in the open, and the city itself might fall.’
‘Is that your key into Badajoz?’
‘Maybe. If I’m lucky.’
‘You should have been born Irish,’ Sinclair told him, and knew that he would miss the big man and his reassuring competence. That night he went south, already planning the messages he would write to Cadiz. The key was to convince, and that was best done by subtle modifications to the truth. He had a list of the regiments in Victor’s corps and their current strengths. Reduce them by a fifth, and add to the numbers given for those in hospital or on detached service, and it would give the English and Spanish exactly what they wanted to see. An enemy still strong enough to blockade, but one bluffing them to look stronger than he was.
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