Run Them Ashore

by Adrian Goldsworthy

  The French skirmishers had pulled back and a half squadron was formed in line low down on the slope. Another was over on the other flank, and more were moving up in support. They were waiting for the infantry to make a mistake, when they could spur their mounts forward, long swords ready to jab down with all the momentum of a galloping horse behind them. Williams could see the Frenchmen’s faces, the ones nearest to him wearing tall bearskin caps rather than the usual helmets. They had red plumes and red epaulettes which marked them out as the elite company, grenadiers just as he was – not that it was any consolation to think that he was about to be killed by the best soldiers in a regiment.

  ‘Keep pace, lads,’ he told his men. They could not afford to be left behind. ‘Rear rank men, back!’ Five of the men ran back twenty yards and then knelt, muskets raised. ‘Front rank men!’ he called, and sent the others running past them. Williams went with them, but stopped when he came abreast of the kneeling soldiers. The front rank men kept going another twenty yards before they stopped to cover the others.

  Williams was surprised that the French were not pressing more closely, and then he heard the brass notes of a trumpet, and the drumming of hoofs. He saw movement over the heads of the column as some thirty hussars of the King’s German Legion charged past, curved sabres held high, with the tips pointing forward. More of the cavalry in their round fur caps and gold-braided blue jackets appeared on his side of the column, led by an officer on a magnificent black horse.

  The French gave way – not far, but they did not wait for the charge and simply turned about and cantered back a short distance. There were too many of them waiting in support for the hussars to chase, and so they in turn halted and came back. Five times the Germans charged by half-squadrons. Williams had seen other KGL hussars in action in Spain and Portugal and knew he was not alone in thinking them the best cavalry in the army. It was like watching an expert fencer, probing his opponent, feinting, forcing him back, but never dropping his own guard. The French knew the game too, and so the horsemen chased each other back and forth as the infantry marched steadily on towards the trees.

  A few French voltigeurs were now arriving to aid the dragoons, and soon there was a popping of musketry. As one half-squadron of the KGL pulled back from another charge, one of the horses slumped down, the tendon in its right hind leg smashed by a ball.

  ‘Come on, Kelly,’ Williams called to the nearest Light Company man, and sprinted to help the dazed rider up just in case the French chose this moment to mount their own charge. The nearest line of dragoons were walking their horses forward. The German hussar had tears in his eyes as he unclipped his carbine and cocked it.

  Williams flinched as the shot rang out and the ball drove deep into the animal’s skull. He wondered why seeing an animal killed was often more upsetting than seeing a man fall, but then he saw one of the dragoons spurring towards them.

  ‘Kelly!’ He shouted the warning, and the Irish soldier swung his musket up to aim at the Frenchman. Williams unslung his own firelock, happy to be carrying the familiar Brown Bess rather than the foreign weapon, and the threat of two loaded muskets was enough to deter the dragoon from his bid for glory. The man brought his sword up in salute and then wheeled back the way he had come. Two hussars reined in beside them, one reaching down to pull his dismounted comrade up behind him. With grunted thanks to the infantry, they trotted away, and Williams and Kelly ran back to the other skirmishers.

  The head of the column reached the woods, and Bramwell shouted the order for them to turn about and form into line on the edge of the trees. It was enough to deter the dragoons, who soon pulled back and headed towards the coast road. The KGL shadowed them, trying to keep them from pressing too close. Barrosa Hill, the Pig’s Hill, was dark with French infantry. The enemy had the high ground which dominated this wide, wooded plain, and the rest of the army was strung out on the march. Williams did not know where they were, or how many more French regiments were waiting to appear. MacAndrews had sent a German hussar with orders to find General Graham, and hopefully the general could bring order to this mess before it turned into a disaster. The French were not generous to enemies who made mistakes.

  The Flank Battalion stood in line with the branches of the trees above them and waited. From the plain they could no longer see the Mediterranean, but Williams could still smell the salt in the air. His leg was sore and the wounds he had taken at Fuengirola had shattered the naive belief that somehow he could not be hurt. He did not want to believe in luck, but an insidious idea came that he was bound to die near the sea because he had grown up beside it. Hamish Williams did his best to push the thought away by reason and then sheer stubborn determination, but it would not go away, and he felt vulnerable. A breeze picked up, and the branches sighed softly as they stirred.

  28

  Sinclair offered a silent prayer that he be right. Ashamed of himself, he tried to turn it into a secret jest by ostentatiously making the sign of the cross. Everyone knew he was Irish, and everyone assumed that meant he was a Catholic. Yet although he was raised as a Presbyterian, he had rejected both denominations when he read of the intoxicating atheism of the revolutionaries in France. He had shouted and fought for the emancipation of his Roman neighbours at home purely because it was fair, and because a united Ireland led as a republic was a golden dream worth a man’s life.

  It was a distant dream these days, and he thought of it less and less. Revolution had become empire, but France had welcomed him, and there was still much that was new and good about the rule of the Emperor. Best of all, the Emperor gave him enemies to outwit and beat, and it was all the more precious because these enemies were English and that would make winning all the more joyous.

  He just hoped that he was right. Marshal Victor was like a man fighting for his life in a pitch-dark cellar. He did not know how many enemies he faced, or where they were. Sinclair was sure that the British had been deceiving him in the last weeks and that they had more men than they claimed. The marshal had asked him how many men the enemy had and so he had taken what he had been told and guessed at the truth.

  ‘Six thousand British and nine or ten thousand Spanish, Your Grace. Perhaps a thousand of that total are cavalry. But they are all spread out over ten miles of country and not ready to fight.’

  Marshal Victor, the Duc of Belluno, had hesitated for just a moment. He had one weak division holding the Spanish advance guard with barely three thousand men. That left him with two divisions, Ruffin’s and Leval’s, who between them mustered around seven thousand bayonets. The regiments were all French, for he had left all his foreign regiments in garrisons scattered around the south. What mattered even more was that they were all veterans. So was their commander.

  ‘Sinclair, where the hell are the enemy going?’

  Over the last few days what he had seen and heard from other patrols had left the Irishman baffled. The Allies kept changing direction and doubling back on themselves.

  ‘Back to Cadiz?’ Sinclair suggested. It was hard to reach any other conclusion, but equally hard to understand why they would go to all this trouble simply to march their army back to where it had started. They had driven the French away from a small section of the siege lines and that was little more than a nuisance. No vital position had been lost and the damage could be repaired in a few days.

  ‘Why?’

  All Sinclair could do was shrug, prompting a snort of laughter from the duke.

  ‘Well, it does not matter.’ Marshal Victor had served before the Revolution as a private soldier. He was proud of what he had done, enjoyed the wealth and lifestyle of power, and yet in his heart he had not changed. ‘Gentlemen, we attack. General Leval, strike north-west towards the main track through the woods.’ Leval had six battalions, one of them an elite force of grenadier companies gathered from their parent regiments. ‘Ruffin, come with me and we will take Barrosa Hill and then see what we see.’ The other division also had six battalions, two of them composed of gre
nadiers, but all of the units were a little weaker than their counterparts serving with Leval.

  ‘Have them play “La Victoire est à nous”,’ the marshal told one of his staff officers. This was to be an occasion and the duke was determined that it would look and sound like one. Safely camped in one place for the last few months, he had ordered all regiments to parade in their finest uniforms. Gone were the loose coats and cloth covers for helmets and shakos and instead men marched off with polished buttons and plumes nodding.

  At Talavera the Rosbifs had held off his men and eventually driven them back. This time it would be different, and the Emperor back in Paris would chuckle with delight when he read the dispatch.

  The French attacked, and Sinclair hoped that the march the band played was prophetic and the enemy was as vulnerable as he had claimed. As they rode off through the trees, the Duke of Belluno was pom-pomming along to the hearty beat of the band.

  Major MacAndrews heard the horses coming along the track and felt a momentary fear that the French had got behind them. It was a great relief to see a rider in scarlet weave his way through the trees, and an even greater pleasure to see that it was Captain Hanley.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ his former subaltern shouted back the way he had come, ‘it is the Flank Battalion.’

  The rest of the general’s staff came along the track, Graham streaking along at their head, a good two lengths ahead of his young ADCs. His face was angrier than MacAndrews had ever seen, and he pulled hard on the reins and leaned back to stop his horse abruptly, flinging up mud from a puddle.

  ‘Major, did I not give you orders to defend Barrosa Hill?’ The Highland accent was stronger than usual, a clear sign that his countryman was barely restraining his annoyance.

  ‘Yes, sir, but you would not have me fight the entire French army with just four hundred and seventy men?’ Officers made the total nearer to five hundred, but the convention was to count only the rank and file.

  ‘Had you not five Spanish battalions, together with artillery and cavalry?’

  ‘Oh, they all ran away long before the enemy came within cannon shot.’ MacAndrews knew that he was being unfair. The soldiers had marched off under orders, and if he felt bitter it was at Whittingham for retreating so quickly.

  General Graham remained angry, but at least it was no longer at him. ‘It is a bad business, MacAndrews,’ he said. ‘The French have wrong-footed us, and I do not know how quickly the Spanish can be turned around, so for the moment it is up to us. There is at least a division ahead of you, and another over there to the left. Perhaps fifteen thousand of them all told, so we are outnumbered, but at least the woods mean that they probably do not appreciate their advantage.

  ‘The entire division has turned about and is coming back as fast as they may, but for the moment you are all that I have and so you must instantly attack.’

  ‘Very well, sir.’ MacAndrews made an effort to keep his voice steady and hoped that he succeeded. He and his men were being flung at the enemy to buy time, their lives offered up to the gods for the common good. ‘Am I to attack in extended order as flankers or as close battalion?’

  General Graham looked across the open field up at the French lining the hill. ‘In open order.’ The general took off back down the track to hasten the rest of the army.

  MacAndrews took a deep breath. ‘Lieutenant Bramwell, be kind enough to order the battalion to attention.’ The closest men had already heard the order and were waiting expectantly. He saw Williams behind the Light Company, and the man’s straight back and large frame, even after his wounds and months spent in the wild, were reassuring. The Welshman must have heard and would understand what they were about to do, but he did not show it.

  ‘By the right, forward march!’ Bramwell gave the order at his signal, and the acting adjutant had a good voice on him. The six companies marched out of the trees and into the open, two hundred and twenty-four men in each of the two ranks, with sergeants, drummers and officers forming a sparser third rank. Their uniforms were in better condition than was usual for men marching into battle, for all had come only recently from garrison, but the rigours of the march had left their white trousers spattered with mud.

  MacAndrews halted them once they were properly clear of the trees.

  Bugles sounded the call, and Bramwell repeated it as an order. ‘Half-companies deploy as skirmishers!’

  The drills were familiar ones, and alternate platoons split out of the line and doubled forward to form a chain of skirmishers about eighty yards ahead of them. He watched as Williams took half of the Light Company out, the men moving in pairs, and he thought back to the time when the Welshman had not long joined the battalion and he had insisted that his Grenadier Company drill in extended order as well as shock troops. Pringle, as was proper, stayed with the supports of his own company, and MacAndrews looked at the men he had trained and wondered how many would be left standing or even alive in half an hour’s time. He did not know the officers and men of the 9th and 82nd as well as those of his own battalion, but a few weeks’ acquaintance had made him fond of them all. The Flank Battalion responded readily to his orders and he was proud of them.

  The supports remained in two ranks to act as a more solid reserve and, when required, feed fresh men forward to replace losses and add weight to the line. The new deployment made the battalion less of a target, although the formed men were still vulnerable to the enemy guns, but less so than in a continuous line.

  He was about to order the advance when General Graham came galloping up again.

  ‘Major MacAndrews, I must show them something more serious than skirmishing,’ he said, and it was evidently the sort of order he preferred to give in person, for he looked him straight in the eyes. ‘Close the men into compact battalion.’

  ‘That I will, and with pleasure.’ MacAndrews met his commander’s gaze. ‘As a former grenadier, it is more to my way than light bobbing.’

  ‘Good, I knew I could rely on a fellow Scot.’

  MacAndrews nodded to the bugler from the 9th who was tasked with standing beside him at all times, and the nineteen-year-old sounded the call to re-form.

  ‘Do you wish me to manoeuvre and move on the hill from further to the right?’ The slope was steeper there, and it would be harder for the French to fire down at them as they climbed it.

  ‘There is no time.’ General Graham understood, but his order was clear. ‘Attack to your front, and immediately.’

  ‘Sir,’ MacAndrews said, and then allowed himself a smile. ‘Though I do wish I had a piper to play us off.’ The sound of French band drifted down from the ridge, thumping out a brassy and confident tune.

  ‘Aye,’ the general replied. ‘Good luck to you,’ and with that he was gone, his horse flinging up earth as it went off in a canter.

  MacAndrews walked his own horse around the flank of his battalion to the front and kept going until he was at the centre of their line.

  He raised his hat to them, scanning the faces beneath the black stovepipe shakos. They were good men, whether they had the green plume of a light bob or the white of a grenadier.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he announced, his white hair stirring a little in the gentle breeze. ‘I am happy to be the bearer of good news – General Graham has done you the honour of being the first to attack those fellows.’ He let that sink in, while he sought for words fitting for the moment and knew that there were none. Better to keep it short. ‘You are the finest companies in this division and now you will prove it. Now follow me, you rascals!’

  There was no cheer, but he had not expected one. There would be a time for that if they ever got close enough to charge, and for the moment there was no need to puff up their courage. There were veterans in the ranks, especially in the companies from the 9th and his own 106th, and those men would know what they were doing. The others would guess, unless so stupid as to lack all imagination. MacAndrews could not help envying anyone who was still in such a blissful state of ignorance.


  ‘Bayonets,’ he said to Bramwell.

  ‘Fix bayonets!’ All along the line men reached back to draw the slim triangular blades from their scabbards. They pulled them free, eased each one around the muzzle of their muskets, twisting it until the ring locked on the lug designed to hold it in place. Then the men brought the firelocks back to their shoulder. Eighteen inches of steel spike made the weapons feel different, and the knowledge of the blades’ purpose always brought home the seriousness of what was about to happen. Yet they also made men confident.

  The Scotsman nudged his horse around and let her walk off.

  ‘Forward march!’ He shouted the order himself, not bothering to ask Bramwell, even though the adjutant and the bugler were there by his side. The Flank Battalion stepped out behind him, the sound of the French music still in his ears, and he wished for some of their own not to let the enemy have it all his own way. It was an insult to have an enemy tune to accompany the slaughter of his command. An idea came unbidden, and if it was a foolish one then that was fitting enough as fewer than five hundred men advanced to attack five or even ten times their numbers of steady veteran soldiers. Major Alastair MacAndrews began to sing.

  ‘Come cheer up, my lads, ’tis to glory we steer, to add something more to this wonderful year.’

  Every letter from Esther and Jane reminded him to practise the song, and usually urged him to learn others as well. His family’s new-found obsession with music was admirable in its way, and it was always good to know that they were passing the time pleasantly, but it had proved a greater burden to him than he had expected, for he must become musical as well. MacAndrews liked a tune as well as the next man, but doubted that his thin tenor voice would give pleasure to anyone else.