An Act Of Courage h-7

by Allan Mallinson

  ‘Bring forward the brigades, sir?’ suggested the AQMG.

  ‘No, George, not yet. I want to see the colour of their facings before I stand ours up. The smoke’s to our advantage now.’

  Anything that hampered the gunners’ aim was to their advantage, thought Hervey. He wondered again if he ought not to be seeking his leave: the Sixth would surely not be foraging long, now that action was joined?

  The guns did not remain silent for long, however. They commanded more than just the forward slope of the Cerro de Medellin: they could as easily enfilade the Portiña. But they were not yet ready to switch from the Second Division entirely. The right flank of Colonel Stewart’s brigade, extending partway down the southern slope of the cerro, stood exposed, the only troops of the division not concealed on the reverse slope or masked by smoke. Two guns on the left of the French battery had direct line of sight, and these now opened an unnervingly accurate fire on the first battalion of the 48th (Northamptonshire) Regiment, followed by others firing blind – and lucky.

  ‘They shall have to bear it,’ said Hill resolutely, but sadly. ‘Either that or lie down. The French will be upon them soon.’

  Hervey watched, appalled, as shot tore into the Forty-eighth’s ranks, the men dragging their fallen comrades rear and then closing the gaps, so that with each minute the line moved a little further to the left. ‘Why do they close up? Why do they not lie down, or stand open so the shot has less effect?’

  ‘Because they might not stand at all unless in close order,’ replied Lieutenant Gartside, grimly.

  Hervey could scarce believe the steadiness. These men would rather stand shoulder-to-shoulder and suffer the consequences than disperse and suffer less! He began praying the cannonade would cease; the Forty-eighth had already borne more than a regiment ought to endure.

  General Hill judged it the moment. ‘Now, George!’

  Hervey saw the French helmets cresting the ridge as Major-General Tilson’s brigade rose to its feet, followed by Stewart’s and Donkin’s. The French had suffered not at all as they ascended the slope; now the ranks of redcoats would exact their revenge.

  Hervey heard the first command – ‘Fire!’ – and then all hell itself seemed let loose.

  Five minutes, ten, fifteen . . . he had no idea how long it was. The French tried to answer, but in close column of divisions they could not bring enough muskets to bear against battalions in line only two ranks deep. And even as the columns tried to deploy, riflemen of the German Legion came doubling up the south slope to pour well-aimed fire into their flank – General Mackenzie and his promised ‘best support’.

  ‘Bayonets!’ shouted Hill.

  In an instant, four thousand muskets were turned into pikes. The lines of red surged forward, the columns of blue wavered, the British charged – and the French broke. They ran back down the slope to the Portiña, but not fast enough. Hundreds of them fell to the points of steel which pursued, half crazed.

  General Hill and his staff followed as far as the crest of the cerro. Smoke hung about, if patchy, but Hervey could see redcoats at the Portiña, and some even across it, hunting their quarry right back to the reserve line. He had seen nothing its like before, but his instinct told him what must happen next: the whole of the British line would advance, and the whole of the French line would break.

  He was wrong. As suddenly as the French had broken at the crest, the reserve line sprang to life, and the fleeing bluecoats turned on the hunting bayonets, as a wildcat turns on its pursuer.

  General Hill saw but the one outcome. ‘Curse their ardour, George! What do the officers do there? Sound “recall”!’

  In the relative peace of the olive groves, Hervey, now returned to duty with the Sixth, sought to recount what had happened. ‘They were horribly pounded by the artillery as they made their way back up the hill, Colonel.’

  ‘And there was no opening for cavalry?’ Lord George Irvine wanted to know every detail.

  Hervey shook his head. ‘I do not think two horses could have crossed the Portiña together at that point, Colonel. Where they might have served, perhaps, is in the valley north of the ridge. There was a whole regiment of chasseurs there, and able to withdraw in perfect order.’

  Lord George frowned. ‘Anson’s supposed to be there. He’s still foraging, I suppose. There’s nothing for us here the while. I believe I shall go to Cotton and propose taking the regiment instead. Has Hill applied to Wellesley, do you know?’

  ‘I do not know, Colonel. The general was obliged by a wound in the head to leave the field. That is when his colonel ordered me to return here. General Tilson has taken the command.’

  Lord George nodded. ‘Very well, Hervey: you may rejoin your troop. Doubtless you were of use to Hill, but I can ill afford any more detachments.’

  Hervey took his leave a shade disconsolately. Lord George seemed peeved that he had been absent on duty – why else complain of detachments? – and appeared to imagine he had been but an observer. With General Hill hors de combat, perhaps invalided home even, what chance was there of any recognition now?

  Half an hour later, with no move by the enemy except the continued pounding of the Cerro de Medellin, Lord George Irvine received the nod from Major-General Stapleton Cotton. He summoned his troop-leaders and gave his orders in the space of but a minute. The squadrons were well drilled, and the skirmishing of the day before had put a confident address into them, too.

  ‘To the left, form, in column of threes!’

  Hervey thought it a pity there was no one to observe how regular the line turned to the north. These things spoke of capability, especially when so much of what they otherwise did went unremarked.

  ‘Walk-march!’

  The bugles sounded as if on parade.

  ‘Trot!’

  The jingling-jangling began – the music of a regiment of light cavalry on the move. It could lift the dullest spirits. Hervey was happy to be back, even where there was not ‘the opportunity to display’.

  Lord George Irvine led his regiment along a track which ascended the Cerro de Medellin about a mile west of the Portiña, close enough to see the Second Division’s brigades on the reverse slope – riding through their baggage-lines indeed. At a distance, the battalions looked regular enough, but the dressing-stations nearer to were prodigiously busy. Hervey had recoiled the first time he heard the phrase ‘the butcher’s bill’; seeing the surgeons at work, now, the words seemed cruelly apt.

  The Sixth broached the ridge and began descending the northern slope, and still there was no sign of Anson’s brigade. Hervey, at least, was glad: they would have a good gallop here – he was sure of it.

  In five more minutes, as the track levelled, they began forming right into line, four squadrons abreast, the left with its flank resting on a muddy stream. The valley bottom was perhaps half a mile wide, but the stream divided it neatly in two, and it was plain to all that north of it the French could have little opportunity to manoeuvre, even cavalry, since the ground was broken by ditches and dry watercourses, and the pasture was very rough. South of the stream was more promising: the going looked better for two furlongs and more, but beyond it was impossible to make out because of the scattered trees.

  ‘Sit easy!’

  The officers reached for their telescopes.

  Hervey searched right to left: fore-ground, middle-, and distant-, as Daniel Coates had taught him on Salisbury Plain. But this morning there was moisture in his telescope, the lens part-misted, so that he took longer than the others with his surveillance. He could see nothing except where the ground began to rise at the head of the valley a mile and a half away – what he took to be the French flank-guard squadron. ‘Do you see ought other than the cavalry yonder, Laming?’

  ‘Not a thing,’ drawled his fellow cornet, telescope still raised. ‘You would have thought the place would be alive with voltigeurs.’

  ‘The cerro’s deceptive,’ said Hervey, trying to find where the moisture had got into his
spyglass. ‘We’re too much under it, here. Atop they command the valley. If the French try to envelop the flank, all the Second Division has to do is incline its left brigade to meet them. But it is strange that the French do not probe. Do you suppose they don’t have so many men after all?’

  Lord George Irvine rode up to the troop, arresting speculation. ‘Sir Edward, we’ll watch for another quarter of an hour, and then I would have you send patrols to discover the lie of the land.’ He nodded front, giving Number One Squadron leader his freedom of manoeuvre.

  ‘Very good, Colonel,’ replied Sir Edward, touching the peak of his Tarleton again. ‘Do you happen to know where is the closest of our artillery?’

  ‘I do not, but I intend discovering.’

  ‘It would be a decidedly fine thing if the Chestnuts would accompany.’

  ‘A very fine thing. I expect they’ll show. Meanwhile I imagine we’ll have to content ourselves with what the Second Division is able to dispose. But it ain’t easy firing down into a valley like this.’

  The Second Division’s gunners would have no occasion to test their skill in support of First Squadron, however, for as soon as Lord George had finished speaking, a cloud of dust a mile west down the valley signalled that the Sixth’s prospects had changed. ‘I think Colonel Anson’s brigade approaches, Colonel,’ said the adjutant, standing in the stirrups to observe.

  All heads turned rear.

  Hervey cursed to himself. Now they would not get their gallop.

  ‘I trust they have breakfasted well,’ said Lord George, dryly. ‘Well, Sir Edward, I think we may resume our former station.’

  It made little difference to Sir Edward Lankester where the regiment took post, as long as they were not supports. He disliked contemplating the hindquarters of another regiment: much better a clear view of what to be about – and if they stayed here, Anson was sure to post them behind his own. ‘You do not want me to take a look at the ground, then, Colonel?’

  Lord George shook his head. ‘No; our duty’s to get back to Cotton. I shall tell Anson he must see the ground for himself.’

  ‘Dismount!’

  Troop-leaders repeated the order left and right, the length of the Sixth’s double rank, and five hundred horses, as one, felt their backs ease.

  General Cotton, standing close by with his staff, raised his hat by way of ‘welcome back’.

  Hervey looked at his watch. He wanted to be able to make a very exact entry in his journal this day. It was approaching eleven o’clock, and still, by the sound of it (he could not actually see, for the olive groves), the French had made no move against the centre of the allied line. The gunners on the Cerro de Cascajal continued to pound away at the Second Division, although the regiments had long withdrawn behind the crest of the ridge again, save for the outposts. Why did Marshal Victor not attack?

  ‘Deuced odd,’ said Cornet Laming, while discovering that his brandy flask was empty. ‘If Joseph Bonaparte really is in the field, you’d think Victor would want to put on a show after being thrown off yon ridge.’

  Lieutenant Martyn thought otherwise. ‘I don’t believe the French are in earnest,’ he said, the little knot of First Squadron subalterns all eager for his superior opinion. ‘I had it from one of Wellesley’s ADCs last night: Bonaparte frère will stand on the defensive and wait for Soult to come up in rear of us. So Wellesley will have to attack, which he’s scarce strong enough to do, even if the Dons could be relied on. That, or else he’ll have to withdraw. And it would be a deuced difficult business since there’s only one bridge across the Tagus.’

  ‘How many French are there, do you suppose?’ asked Laming.

  ‘Wellesley believes in excess of fifty thousand.’

  ‘Whereas we have twenty!’

  ‘Just so.’

  ‘And the Dons thirty.’

  Rather fewer now, reckoned Hervey, thinking of last night’s dismal affair.

  ‘Then why do the French attack ’gainst such odds?’ asked Laming, even more incredulous.

  Martyn looked at him as if the answer were obvious. ‘Because they can fright the Dons into staying behind their walls in Talavera, and throw their whole weight against us. But numbers alone won’t carry the day. They have to do it with determination.’

  Hervey thought he had seen plenty of that at first light. He wondered what were the implications of his lieutenant’s appreciation. ‘Does that mean the cavalry will reinforce the flank, Martyn? Or shall we stay here?’

  The speculation occupied them for a good ten minutes, but what Lieutenant Martyn could not know, because Wellesley himself did not, was that Joseph Bonaparte was not without his own concerns for his lines of communication – for his own capital, indeed. Much as the Sixth might scoff at their allies, and old General Cuesta in particular, there was one Spanish general at least who showed an appetite for the offensive: intelligence had reached Joseph Bonaparte that very morning that General Francisco Venegas and the army of La Mancha was before Toledo, and would not be long in marching on Madrid. ‘King’ Joseph had but a day or so before he must send fifty thousand men to defend his royal seat. And true though Martyn’s intelligence from Wellesley’s staff had been, it was already out of date, for soon after sunrise, the commander-in-chief had received word from his observing officers that Soult was still a week’s march away, perhaps more.

  Forward of the olive groves, in the centre of the British line, Sir Arthur Wellesley was even now pondering the consequences of this most welcome intelligence. At length he turned to his quartermaster-general. ‘Murray, have someone go to Tilson and tell him to keep a sharp watch for voltigeurs. I am certain Victor must try to turn our flank. He has no other way. All else here in the centre will be humbug!’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  A BATTLE FOR A PEERAGE

  Later

  At the turn of a creaking wheel, the 6th Light Dragoons were transformed into the most contented regiment at Talavera. A bullock-cart had come up, and with it a smiling Serjeant Bentley. That he had not been there after muster at first light, the hour at which breakfast would have been most welcome, did not now matter. If Bentley was smiling it meant that his ‘progging’ had been successful, for they all knew there were no commissary rations to be had until the evening (the Spanish had only just agreed to let Wellesley have what he had asked for a week ago). The Sixth, as other regiments, had been reconciled to making do with what they carried at ‘first line’ – which was no more than biscuit. But Lord George Irvine had judged it the moment to use his gold, and Serjeant Bentley had been despatched to the rear with more coin than he would see in three years of being paid regularly. Now he was returning with nothing left of it – but with bread, red wine and brandied peaches; enough for the entire regiment.

  Lord George did not need to buy the admiration or affection of his men. Their discipline was well regulated, they were keen for the fight, and, given what had happened so far, they could trust their officers. But they were sore hungry, and in any case, it did no harm for a man to think himself in a regiment well provided for. If Hervey felt any guilt at eating peaches and drinking passable wine, when the poor, wretched infantry on the Cerro de Medellin had only stirabout made with maggoty biscuit and brackish water, the pleasure of his exceptional feast overcame it. Besides, the infantry were always the first to get at the spoils after a battle, were they not?

  ‘By, sir, but I feel the better for that!’ declared Corporal Armstrong, stowing a piece of bread the size of his fist into a mess tin – ‘for a rainy day, sir’.

  ‘So do I, Corporal; so do I,’ said Hervey, reaching for his own mess tin to stow the little of his that remained, grateful for the example of prudence. He looked round to see how many others were reserving any portion of the issue. He saw few. He fancied it was telling – the difference between the private-man, whose actions were regulated by orders, and the canny NCO, expected to think for himself. Canny NCOs were not found everywhere, he knew: Joseph Edmonds had said there were a couple
of dozen ‘wise virgins’ in the regiment, as he called the seasoned campaigners, and the rest would never have their lamps filled.

  Not only was it a feast, it was a breakfast of real repose. The guns had been silent for a quarter of an hour, the odd report in the direction of the Cerro de Medellin sounding like nothing but the random shots of a shooting party. The entire field, indeed, was quiet – peaceful, even, like the middle of the night. Lord George Irvine, having fed his regiment, could now give them the order to rest.

  Hervey lay down, altogether mindless of the ache in his shoulder now that that in his stomach was gone, and at once fell asleep.

  * * *

  A marrow-chilling roar of cannon woke them, horses and men alike. Shot tore through the olive groves, flat and low. Hervey sat bolt upright, though barely awake. A man from B Troop had his head taken clean off not twenty yards away; what remained of him seemed to stand an age before toppling backwards. Two dragoons next to him threw up noisily. A ball hit a trooper square in the chest: the mare back-somersaulted twice before coming to rest stone dead with her legs rigid in the air. Another struck a gelding withers-high, carrying off the saddle but leaving the horse with its mane standing on end but otherwise unharmed. One ball touched the outstretched arm of Cornet Burt in D Troop, neatly amputating the lower part at the elbow. The French might not be able to see them, but raking the cover this way was sure to wreak havoc.

  ‘Down! Get down!’ shouted Sir Edward Lankester.

  Hervey sprang up, seized Jessye’s left-fore and began pulling on her neck. He had done it once before, but no horse liked lying down except on its own terms. He had to start pulling at the offfore as well. Somehow he managed. Others would not shift, rooted, terrified, or else oblivious. Two more tumbled like skittles in the time it took to get Jessye’s shoulder to the ground.