An Act Of Courage h-7

by Allan Mallinson

  Hervey was intrigued, but not sure such a scheme would find favour, least of all with dragoons, though he recognized the method’s merit well enough. ‘I shall commend it to my captain, sir.’

  At length, Colonel Shaw lowered his telescope. ‘Well, well, well: a black-winged kite, the first I ever saw. I shall take it as a propitious omen. Well, well!’

  Hervey gathered up his reins. ‘Walk on, Colonel?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Hervey. We may now go about the King’s business once more, but with a blither spirit for certain!’ Colonel Shaw smiled contentedly, the gap in his teeth most pronounced.

  Hervey smiled to himself. Was it in the nature of observing officers to appear . . . abstracted, or was it the nature of the work that made Colonel Shaw appear so? Whatever it may be, and despite the colonel’s manifest seniority and experience, he resolved to have a special care if they did close with the French – even if only the width of the Douro.

  The few hundred inhabitants of Villa Nova, caught in the fearladen interval between the withdrawal of an occupying army and the arrival of the liberators, had done as generations before them, seeking refuge behind doors and shutters, and begging protection of the Almighty through the intercessions of the Blessed Virgin and numerous patron saints. They feared the fire of enemy and friend alike, and knew how rapacious a liberator could be in the heated blood of battle. The French had been proper enough occupiers, for the most part paying for rather than taking, and so sudden had been their departure early that morning that they had left without the customary depredations. That was fortunate indeed, but soon would follow their fellow countrymen, and allies; and those citizens of this quiet and unfashionable suburb on the wrong side of the Douro who had not already hidden their valuables now did so. Wives and daughters sought further refuge in cellars or eaves, smearing their clothes, hair and faces with anything that smelled foul – even with excrement – so as to render themselves repulsive to the most determined raptor (it could be a heavy price that a husband or father paid for the ejection of the invader – ironic that liberation bore its cost). Now, the narrow, cobbled streets, running steep and straight to the wide Douro, were peopled only by cats, and scabbed dogs which dug among the refuse of the fleeing army, scavengers which might have found meatier fare had the army decided to contest the streets rather than give them up to a few cavalry patrols.

  Hervey’s men dismounted and advanced warily nevertheless, two dragoons at point with carbines ready. Hervey himself scanned the buildings on either side of the street for an open window, to hail someone with his few words of Portuguese and Spanish; but he saw none.

  Colonel Shaw glanced about even more, like an owl, surprising Hervey by the sudden change from languor. His eyes kept returning to a large building on a promontory to the right. ‘The convent of Serra, Mr Hervey. It should afford us a clear prospect of the far bank.’ He did not consult his map. The country was imprinted on his mind.

  ‘Do we take a look there, sir?’

  Colonel Shaw shook his head the merest fraction, enough to convey that he was most decided on it. ‘It is very evidently apt for its purpose: the artillery shall have it. I want to get to the water’s edge.’

  Hervey was puzzled. If Colonel Shaw wished to slip undetected across the Douro in broad daylight then he could scarcely be choosing a less promising place, for the heights on the southern side of the river were matched by those on the north; what could be seen from the Serra convent could as easily be seen from the other side.

  Or so it seemed. But when they came to the water’s edge, they found a wild place of reeds and rushes, unlike the wharves of the far bank. Five minutes’ searching with their telescopes found no sign of the French on the heights opposite.

  ‘They conceal themselves skilfully, sir,’ said Hervey, sounding surprised.

  ‘It is curious indeed,’ replied Shaw, in a lowered voice, so that the Douro’s gentle lapping made Hervey strain to hear him.

  It was not the colonel’s voice he heard next but Armstrong’s. ‘Boat, sir,’ he whispered almost, gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb. ‘Hidden, I mean. Not very big, mind. Two or three men at most. But it’d serve.’

  Colonel Shaw’s ears pricked. ‘Has it oars?’

  ‘Ay, sir, a pair on ’em.’

  ‘Careless of Soult, that; very,’ he declared, standing tall now among the reeds, hat off, telescope to his eye once more. ‘Tut, tut; even more careless to leave boats on his own side in such a place. See, Hervey: by that place with the red and white flag yonder.’

  Hervey picked up the reference point with his spyglass, searching left and right until he realized that what he had first taken for a wharf was in fact several barges of the type that, until war interrupted the trade, brought barrels of the region’s wine down the Douro to English merchantmen anchored in the estuary. This morning they lay empty, and the possibilities were at once apparent.

  Colonel Shaw shook his head as he tutted, taking a second look with his telescope. ‘Why in the name of heaven did he not have them towed to the river mouth if he hadn’t the stomach to fire them?’

  Hervey assumed the question was rhetorical. He certainly had no opinion to offer. He was more occupied with what the colonel intended next. Would he take the boat, and cross? He himself thought they should send word to the engineers that there were strong and ready pontoons with which to improvise a bridge: the one stone bridge, from what he could make of it, was now a work of many days’ restoration, even weeks. Perhaps first, though, the infantry might be able to use the boats to get across? Except that the boats were on the wrong side.

  Colonel Shaw snapped shut his telescope and reached inside his coat. He took out an oilskin package no bigger than a fist, unwrapped a vellum notebook, squatted with his left leg under him to rest the book on a foreleg, and began writing in a small, neat hand.To Colonel George Murray for immediate attn Sir AW. Convent of Serra affords commanding battery. Opportunity presents for immediate crossing under cover of guns. Company of light troops may be ferried as one. French not at all active.

  He tore out the page, folded it and slipped it inside a waxed envelope. ‘Mr Hervey, may I rely on one of your men to take this with all speed to Sir Arthur Wellesley’s headquarters? Do you know how it is to be found?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Hervey checked the impulse to add ‘of course’. It was every cavalry officer’s duty to know how may be found the superior headquarters. ‘I shall take it myself.’

  ‘No, Mr Hervey. I would have you stay with me. Your corporal here, perhaps.’

  But Hervey preferred that Armstrong remained with him, not least for Sir Edward Lankester’s purpose: some opportunity for distinction. There was none to be had galloping, unless with the victory despatch (and that, he knew, was a privilege that would never fall to any of them). ‘I have a lance-corporal who will do it capitally, sir.’

  ‘A lance-corporal? Great heavens, Mr Hervey, but you have a very high opinion of your men! Yours is the decision, however. I would speak with him, though.’

  ‘Of course.’ Hervey turned to Armstrong. ‘Collins, please, Corporal.’

  Armstrong and two dragoons steadied the skiff as Hervey and then Colonel Shaw clambered in.

  ‘There’s room for me an’ all, sir.’

  Hervey saw there was, just. He glanced at the colonel, taking up the oars as if he were back once more on the river at Shrewsbury.

  ‘No, Mr Hervey. Two are sufficient to my purpose. There will soon be enough for all your men to do, please God.’

  Armstrong pulled a face. He had found the skiff after all.

  But another voice intruded, agitated, pleading. ‘Senhor, senhor, se faz favor! ’

  Armstrong swung his carbine round.

  The voice became frantic. ‘Plees, long leef king!’

  Armstrong grabbed hold of a dapper little man with oiled hair and mustachios.

  ‘Plees, my sheep, my sheep!’

  Colonel Shaw turned and gabbled so fast that Hervey could
make out but two or three words.

  The dapper little man replied, less frightened now, though Hervey could still catch barely a word. There were a few more exchanges, and then Colonel Shaw turned back to him.

  ‘Mr Hervey, give this fellow five dollars. I have promised him ten more if we don’t return his boat in good fettle. Have your corporal mark that, if you will.’

  Hervey looked at Armstrong.

  ‘I’ve five dollars, sir, but it’ll have to be a chitty for the ten!’

  Hervey grimaced: the conditional tense would have been more agreeable to hear at that moment. Then he smiled wryly. ‘Be sure not to sell Jessye too quickly, Corporal!’

  Colonel Shaw turned again and nodded, obliged, to the owner of the skiff, then back to Hervey. ‘Interesting fellow: a barber. He was supposed to leave his boat on the other side, where his shop is, but he lives here and so hid it instead. Our good fortune indeed. Oh, and he says there’s a snatching current a quarter of the way across. To make yon barges we need to strike fifty yards upstream to begin with. Rather longer exposed, but there’s nought to do about it.’ He slapped the sides of the skiff. ‘Pull away then, Mr Hervey!’

  Hervey dug in the oars carefully, wanting to see how his boat handled, before rowing with any strength. The skiff was wide enough to be stable without needing the oars to balance it, but he might still pitch them out if he ‘caught a crab’ in the barber’s snatching current.

  Only now, as they left the cover of the reeds, did he wonder if he exceeded his orders. He frowned: what did it matter? There was probably a tirailleur drawing a bead on them this very moment! And even if they weren’t sniped off the water, why did the colonel not imagine they would be helped ashore by French hands? He frowned again: happy alternatives indeed – shot, captured or cashiered! But he hoped nevertheless that he himself would have seized the opportunity even if Colonel Shaw had not been there. Could a man be faulted very greatly for advancing on the enemy, even if by unconventional means? ‘A cavalry soldier if properly mounted should never fall into the hands of the enemy’ – that was what Joseph Edmonds said. But he wasn’t mounted, properly or improperly. He wondered ruefully if he might plead history in mitigation, that a dragoon had first been a foot soldier whose horse took him from place to place . . .

  He felt the snatch mid-stroke. The bow swung downstream before he could correct with the right oar, and he struggled for a few seconds to use it as a rudder so that he could push back with the left and then take up the stroke again across the current.

  Colonel Shaw sat impassive, telescope to his eye. ‘You may let us down a hundred yards, Hervey,’ he said by and by.

  Hervey was glad of it. The water was slackening but it taxed him hard enough. He expected shots at any moment, yet Colonel Shaw looked for all the world as if he were taking a pleasant turn about an ornamental lake.

  ‘Fifty yards to run, Hervey, no more.’ Colonel Shaw lowered his telescope: they were under the heights now, and at this range the naked eye was better to detect movement at the water’s edge.

  Hervey glanced over his shoulder to look for his landing. He saw the four barges, high in the water, a useful gap between the middle two, just wide enough if he boated the oars. He kept glancing every two or three strokes, the current now so weak that he was barely having to correct. Five yards out, he swung the oars inboard and turned to fend off the barges as the skiff ran in. When they touched the staithe he realized he would have done better to turn and run the skiff in stern first, but it was too late now. He would have to inch forward himself and try to get a hand to what might pass for a mooring.

  A face appeared above them, then another, and then two more. ‘Boa tarde, senhores.’

  To Hervey, the Portuguese sounded ominously laconic. He could not catch what followed.

  ‘You were left behind, eh, senhores?’

  A pistol appeared, then another three, the faces now gleeful.

  Hervey, balancing precariously, with one hand grasping a piece of rope just above the waterline, reached for his own pistol.

  But Colonel Shaw had more than the measure of the situation. ‘Good morning to you too, gentlemen. But we are not the last of the French; we are the first of the English!’

  The glee turned at once to delight. ‘Sim, senhores? You are very welcome to our city!’

  Helping hands stretched out to the skiff.

  Colonel Shaw began the instant his foot touched the top of the wharf: ‘Where are the French? In what strength? What do they do? How many cannon? Where is Soult?’

  His interlocutors were uncertain on all points. There were many French, they explained, but for some days now they had not been able to speak as freely with them as before. A week ago there had been ten thousand; that much was known because of the requisitions of food and fuel. Of guns they knew nothing. One of them, who supplied the headquarters with wine, said the French were afraid of being caught between the English and General Silveira’s Portuguese marching from the south-east, cutting off their withdrawal into Spain. There was even talk, he said, of a landing by the English north of the city, for they knew the Royal Navy commanded the entire coast; most of the French cavalry had been sent there to watch.

  Colonel Shaw translated it all for Hervey’s benefit (at any moment a French bullet could strike him dead, in which case it would fall to a cornet of light dragoons to take this valuable intelligence to Sir Arthur Wellesley). ‘You see, Hervey, Soult’s in all likelihood so panical, a rousing assault here would bolt him!’ He turned again and fired off more questions.

  The answers sounded very certain.

  ‘I asked why there are no sentries. They say there are, but downstream, nearer the bridge. And we would have been taken for French: there’ve been officers crossing by boat since the bridge was destroyed.’

  Colonel Shaw turned once more, this time with less of an enquiry in his voice.

  Suddenly agitated, the men began gabbling among themselves, until the supplier of wine spoke up for them, and stern-faced. ‘Sim, senhor. We will take the boats across. We will gather twenty men more – half an hour, that is all – and then we will take the boats to Senhor Sir Wellesley!’

  Colonel Shaw merely smiled, and nodded.

  The men smiled too as their confidence swelled.

  It was an anxious half-hour for the two of them, crouched waiting in one of the barges. Colonel Shaw explained what he intended. He wanted the barges to cross to the south side as soon as the men returned, for although the French would see, and stand-to-arms, and they would lose surprise, he couldn’t wait on this side until the infantry were ready to cross, risking discovery by a French patrol. He told Hervey he wanted him to take charge of the boats, while he slipped into the city to discover Soult’s intentions. ‘And, Mr Hervey, I shall commend you in very decided terms to Sir Arthur Wellesley. You and your dragoons.’

  It was as much as any cornet could wish to hear, and with Sir Edward Lankester’s words of but a few hours before, it promised certain advancement. This, indeed, was the fortune of war; and he had never expected to be favoured by it, let alone so soon. Daniel Coates used to speak of the bullet’s brute chance: was there such a thing as a lucky soldier, a man whom fortune naturally favoured? Was that why they had found the boat hidden in the reeds? Perhaps that was Colonel Shaw’s luck, though, not theirs. Such a man, who devilled behind the enemy’s lines, needed it in the largest measure. But lucky they had been, as well, to be his escort. Hervey smiled: such notions were absurd – but they were agreeable. ‘We are honoured, Colonel.’

  When the men returned, it was with nearer fifty than twenty, and all of them armed.

  ‘Well, Mr Hervey,’ said Colonel Shaw, allowing himself to look gratified. ‘Here is your command. You will never have another like it!’

  Hervey could not know it, but his luck was greater than he supposed. As the Porto boatmen and the other willing hands began paddling the barges across the still-silent Douro, the commander-in-chief himself stood watching fro
m the terrace-heights of the Serra convent. He said not a word, while about him artillerymen manhandled four six-pounders and a howitzer into position, and below and a little further upstream, taking the greatest care to conceal themselves from any sharp-eyed sentry on the heights opposite, men of the 3rd (East Kent) Regiment – the Buffs – were assembling in the narrow streets. It had been the work of but an hour; the work and good fortune, for Corporal Collins had ridden straight into Sir Arthur Wellesley and his staff not a mile from Villa Nova. Later, Collins would recount how the commander-in-chief had at once seen the possibilities in Colonel Shaw’s despatch, sending gallopers to the advance guard, and how the horse artillery had come careering past them not twenty minutes later, gunners hanging on to the limbers for dear life; and then the Buffs, doublemarching, sweating like pigs but grinning ear to ear, knowing they would be first at the enemy.

  Corporal Armstrong stood at attention before the Buffs’ commanding officer. The colonel was red in the face and short of breath, as every one of his men, but he was concerned for one thing only. ‘Four boats, you say, Corporal?’

  ‘Yes, sir. They’re coming across now.’

  ‘Very well. Is there any view of the far bank to be had from this side?’

  ‘There are no houses near where the barges’ll come, sir, and it’s very reedy. I think it would be better to take a look from upstairs here, sir.’

  But the houses were strongly barred, and in any case the colonel was certain of his instructions: Sir Arthur Wellesley wanted him to cross the river straight away and establish a strongpoint so that they could ferry the entire army over as they arrived. The French would be sure to launch the most ferocious counter-attacks as soon as they realized what was happening, and everything would depend on how strongly the Buffs could lodge themselves.

  The colonel turned to his leading company commander. ‘You shall just have to choose your ground when you’re over. Make sure you mark your positions for the gunners. And take off your jackets: it’s just possible the French’ll be confused if they don’t see red.’